Thy Fate Shall Overtake

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum 

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

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

Part 2 : Conspicious By Their Absence

     Kasumi wiped a cloth absently across the countertop as she got ready
to start dinner.  It was nearly six, and Ranma and Akane still weren't home
from school yet.

     "And she's usually so good about calling," Kasumi said softly to
herself.  She gave a last wipe to the countertop and headed out into the
living room.  Soun and Genma were playing shogi on the floor, as Nodoka sat
in a chair nearby with her knitting in her lap.

     "Father, did Akane say she was going somewhere after school?" Kasumi
asked.  Soun looked back at his daughter, a thoughtful expression on his
face.  Behind him, Genma grabbed several of Soun's pieces and stuck them
into his pockets.

     "I don't think she did," Soun said.  "She really should be home now,
shouldn't she?"

     "She hasn't called," Kasumi said.  Soun turned back and looked at
Genma.

     "Saotome, did your son say he was going anywhere with Akane?" he
asked.

     "I don't think so, Tendo," Genma said, cupping his chin in his hands.

     "He didn't say anything to me either," Nodoka said, her sewing
needles clicking together.  Genma looked back at his wife.  Soun pulled
several shogi pieces from his pockets and laid them on the board in
positions advantageous to him.

     "You know what this could mean, don't you Tendo?" Genma said as he
turned back to his friend.

     "What, Saotome?" Soun said, studying the board.  Somehow, the pieces
he'd put down didn't seem to have changed his chances of winning much.

     "Ranma and Akane have eloped together," Genma concluded.  Soun beamed.

     "Of course, Saotome.  We've both seen how their affections have grown
these past few months," Soun said.

     "Really, father.  Is Akane the kind of girl to do something like that
without telling us?" Kasumi said.

     "Kasumi is right," Nodoka said, laying her knitting down on the floor.
"It's strange they aren't home yet.  They would have called home if they
had known they were going to be late; something may have happened to them.
Is there anywhere they might have gone?"

     "I'll call around," Kasumi said, trying to keep worry from creeping
into her voice.  It wasn't like Ranma and Akane couldn't handle themselves.

     There was no answer at Ukyou's; Kasumi knew that by now Ukyou should
have been hard at work at the dinner hour.  She hung up the phone and
called the Nekohanten.

     "Hello, Nekohanten.  How can I help you?" Mousse's voice said from the
other end of the line.

     "Mousse, have you seen Akane or Ranma today?" she said.

     "No, Kasumi.  I haven't," Mousse said.  "Is something wrong?  I can
check if Shampoo or Cologne's heard from them..."

     "Could you do that please?" Kasumi said anxiously.  The phone was laid
down on the other end; Kasumi could hear the din of the customers in the
restaurant in the background.

     "They haven't seen them either," Mousse said as he picked up the
phone.  "Is there something wrong?"

     "I hope not.  They're not home yet, and they haven't called.  I'm
going to try some other places," Kasumi said.  "Thank you for your help,
Mousse."

     "If there's anything we can do..." Mousse said.

     "I know.  I'm sure it's nothing," Kasumi said quickly.  "Goodbye."

     She put the phone back in the cradle and leaned back against the wall,
trying to think where else they might be.  She wished that she knew the
numbers of some of Akane's school friends; they might know where she was.
There was only one place left to try.

     Sasuke answered before the first ring had ended.  "Mistress Kodachi?
Where are you?"

     "Sasuke, it's Kasumi Tendo," Kasumi said.

     "I was just about to call your house," Sasuke said.  "Can I talk to
Ranma?  I need to ask him if he's seen Mistress Kodachi.  She didn't come
home after school."

     "Ranma isn't back either," Kasumi said.  "I think something may have
happened.  There's no answer at Ukyou's restaurant as well."

     "Oh my god!" Sasuke wailed on the other end.  "Master Kuno is going to
force me to commit seppuku if I've let anything happen to his sister!  Oh,
why is my life so hard?"

     "Sasuke, please calm down.  It's important that we all keep a level
head at times like this," Kasumi said.

     "Yes.  Of course, you're right Kasumi.  I'll simply mobilize the
entire mechanized infantry division and have them scour the city until they
find her!" Sasuke said, laughing with relief.

     "Oh my.  I didn't know you had a mechanized infantry division," Kasumi
said, giggling slightly in spite of herself.

     "Oh wait.  We don't.  Scratch that," Sasuke said.  "What am I going to
do?  What am I going to do?"

     "Is it possible she just stayed out late?" Kasumi said.

     "She would have called," Sasuke says.  "I think."

     "Listen, Sasuke.  I'll call you back if I hear anything, alright?  I
have to talk to my father and Mr. and Mrs. Saotome," Kasumi said.

     "Alright.  Goodbye, Kasumi," Sasuke said, hanging up.  Kasumi wiped
her hands nervously on the front of her apron and walked back into the
living room.

     "I can't seem to find them anywhere," she said, looking around the
room at the three adults.  "There's no answer at Ukyou's, and Sasuke says
Kodachi hasn't come home from school either."

     "Oh dear," Nodoka said.  "Do you think we should call the police?"

     Genma shook his head.  "They won't do anything.  They haven't been
gone long enough.  But I feel something is wrong."

     "Father, why don't you and Mr. Saotome walk down to Ukyou's restaurant
and see if she's there?" Kasumi said.  "She may have been too busy to
answer the phone.  If she is there, she may know where Ranma and Akane are.
If she's not, we'll know something's wrong."

     "But..." Genma said.

     "What is it, Saotome?" Soun said, glancing at his friend concernedly.

     "But we haven't had dinner yet," Genma said mournfully.

     "Saotome!  How can you think of your stomach at a time like this?"
Soun said.  "Our children may be in danger!"

     He paused and patted his stomach slightly.  "Actually, I am feeling a
mite bit peckish myself..."

     "I'll have dinner ready by the time you come back," Kasumi said
firmly.  "The faster you go, the faster you can have dinner."

     "Oh, alright," Genma said, standing up.  "Coming, Tendo?"

     "Of course.  I can't trust you to do this on your own, Saotome," Soun
said as he rose to his feet.  "Let us get our coats."

     The two men walked to the front door, putting on shoes and coats there
before stepping out into the darkening evening.  Kasumi sat down on the
couch and put her hand on her forehead.

     "Don't worry, Kasumi dear," Nodoka said.  "My son would never let
anything happen to your sister."

     "I know," Kasumi said.  "But I can't help worrying anyway.  If they
haven't called home, something must have happened."

     "Is there anyone from their school you could call?  A friend or
someone else who might know?" Nodoka asked.  Kasumi shook her head, then
put her hand over her mouth.

     "Oh my.  It completely slipped my mind," she said.  "We have the
number of their homeroom teacher."

     Memories of Hinako-sensei's behaviour with her father came back,
causing a momentary twinge of annoyance.  This was more important, though.
But as much as she knew she was being unreasonable, she didn't want to
bring Hinako Ninomiya into this unless she absolutely had to.

     "Let's wait till father and Mr. Saotome get back," she said.  "If they
haven't found anything at Ukyou's, we can call her."

     "Do you not like her?" Nodoka said.

     "What?  Oh, of course not.  It's just that she's a bit..."

     Kasumi fiddled with her hands in her lap, trying to come up with a
reason.  "Strange," she finally said.  It sounded false even to her.  She
got up from the seat and smoothed out the apron she was still wearing.

     "I promised I'd have dinner ready for father and Mr. Saotome," she
said quickly.  "Excuse me."

     Kasumi walked quickly back to the kitchen, leaving the slightly
confused Nodoka to stare after her in silence.

**********

     Soun tugged his trenchcoat tighter around him, and pulled the slouch
hat further down over his eyes.  Genma followed his example, going a bit
further and pulling the hat completely over his eyes.  He banged into a
lightpost and fell over.

     "Really, Tendo," he muttered.  "I don't see why we needed to dress
like this."

     "When one is doing an investigation, one has to adopt the proper
outfit," Soun said, flicking the butt of his expended cigarette into the
gutter.  Nearby, people walking the streets made a wide detour around the
two men.

     "I hope Ukyou's there," Genma said.  "She might give us dinner."

     "I hope Akane and Ranma are there," Soun said.  "Ukyou too, of
course.  Just because she's one of the rivals for Ranma's hand in marriage
is no reason not to be concerned for her."

     "I don't think we have too worry much about that anymore," Genma said.
"You've seen how Ranma and Akane are getting along these days."

     "I know, I know," Soun said.  "It just seems strange for them to be
getting along so well."

     "They've started to grow up," Genma said.  "My son is finally
accepting his responsibilities as a man.  Your daughter seems to be
maturing as well."

     "We made the right choice, Saotome," Soun said.  "After all this time,
they've finally started to get it together."

     Genma looked around at the leaves blowing through the streets.  "Aye,
Tendo.  They finally have."

     Their good cheer rapidly began to diminish when they spotted the crowd
gathering outside the front door of Ukyou's restaurant.  The restaurant was
dark and closed; the sign that would have indicated it was open for
business was nowhere to be found.

     "The girl who runs this restaurant," Genma said, coming up behind a
young man in his twenties.  "Does anyone know where she is?"

     The young man shook his head.  "Nobody's seen her today.  She's always
got the restaurant open for the dinner hour by now."

     "Damn," Genma said softly under his breath.  He turned to Soun, and
found that his friend was not there.

     "AKANE!  AKANE!  Where are you, Akane?" he heard someone shouting.
Groaning, he turned to see Soun rushing down the street back towards the
house.

     "Always so good at dealing with every little crisis, Tendo," Genma
muttered, running after his friend.

**********

     Mousse was laying down orders in front of a table when the phone on
the counter rang again.

     "Shampoo, get that, will you?  I'm busy," he said to a potted plant
nearby as he put a bowl of noodles intended for another customer on
someone's head.  Being a long time patron of the Nekohanten, and being
firmly set in the belief that the quality of the food and occasional
bonuses such as this outweighed the strange behaviour of the service, the
man took it off his head and set it down in front of him.

     "Shampoo?" Mousse asked.  With a practiced shift of his head, he slid
his glasses from their position on his forehead to over his eyes.  The room
swam into focus, along with the potted plant he'd been talking to.  Shampoo
was in another corner of the room serving another table.  The phone rang
again.

     Mousse ran to the phone and picked up.  "Hello, Nekohanten."

     "Mousse, it's Kasumi again," Kasumi said.  "We can't find Ranma and
Akane.  Ukyou and Kodachi Kuno seem to be missing as well.  If you see any
sign of them, or can think of anything that might help us, can you call me
back?"

     "I'll do that, Kasumi," Mousse said, slightly worried.  As much as he
knew that Ranma was capable of taking care of nearly anything that came
along, there were a lot of things in this world that he wouldn't want
anyone to have to face.  He glanced at his left hand where it lay flat on
the counter; he'd never be able to grip a weapon as well with that hand
again because of one of those things.  On that hand, the little and ring
fingers were stumps, bitten off by the gaki all those months ago.  They'd
healed, but there were times when he found himself reaching for something
with that hand, then being unable to pick it up as he'd expected, and the
memories of that night would come rushing back to him in a flash.

     "Thank you, Mousse," Kasumi said on the other end of the line,
startling him from his thoughts.

     "I have a break coming up soon," Mousse said.  "The dinner rush will
slow down by then anyway.  What if I come over and see what I can do to
help?"

     "That would be wonderful," Kasumi said.

     "All right," Mousse said.  "I've got to get back to work.  Goodbye,
Kasumi."

     "Goodbye, Mousse," Kasumi said.  Mousse hung up the phone and threw up
his hands, barely catching the half-dozen orders that flew from the kitchen
at him.

     "What's going on, Mousse?" Shampoo asked as he passed by her.  "Ranma
and Akane okay?"

     "No, they're not," Mousse replied.  "Kasumi still can't find them."

     "Aiya..." Shampoo murmured as she headed back towards the counter.

**********

     Kasumi hung up the phone and put a hand on her forehead.  She knew she
was trying to avoid it; calling the Nekohanten had just been another
diversion away from what she didn't want to do.  She hated acting this way;
it was so stupid.  There was no way that father would ever have anything to
do with her, and they needed her help to find Ranma and Akane.

     He and Mr. Saotome were currently eating the red beans and rice she'd
made up for them quickly while they were gone.  It wasn't much, but this
was more important than dinner.

     She still had to call Sasuke, of course.  She'd do that first.  But
only because she had to.  The phone rang four times when she dialed the
number, then there was a click and a mechanical voice kicked in.

     "You have reached the Kuno residence.  No one is here to take the
call; you are being transferred through to the cellular unit."

     Confused, Kasumi stayed on the line as several buzzes and clicks
emanated from the phone.  Then it rang again, a different tone this time.

     "Hello?" Sasuke said.  His voice sounded distorted and distant.

     "Sasuke?  It's Kasumi again," Kasumi said.

     "..ello, Kasum...... going on?" was all she could make out.

     "Sasuke, I can't hear you," Kasumi said.  "What are you talking to me
on?"

     There was a burst of static on the other end of the line, and then
Sasuke's voice came clearly through.  "Is that better?"

     "Much," Kasumi said.  "Where are you?"

     "Currently, I'm walking the route Mistress Kodachi takes home from
school," Sasuke said.  "I haven't found any sign of her."

     "Oh my," Kasumi said.  "Father and Mr. Saotome say there's no one at
Ukyou's restaurant either."

     "Wait a minute..." Sasuke said.  "There's something going on up
ahead."

     There was silence on the end of the line for a few moments, and then
he spoke again.  "I can't get too close because of the crowds, but there's
a bunch of police cars parked near the entrance to an alleyway here.  It
looks like something happened..."

     There was worry in his voice, and even more so when he spoke again.
"I've found something, Kasumi.  Near the edge of the crowd; I don't know
how it ended up here."

     "What is it?" Kasumi asked anxiously.

     "One of Ukyou's spatulas," Sasuke said.  "The small ones."

     Kasumi felt her heart sink.  It looked as if all the disappearances
might be connected now.  "Anything else?"

     "Not that I can see," Sasuke said.  "I'm going to look around some
more."

     "Alright," Kasumi said.  "Be careful, Sasuke.  I... I'm going to make
some more calls."

     "Don't worry about me," Sasuke said.  "I am one with the night."

     There was a click, and the dial-tone.  Kasumi looked at the somewhat
ragged note, scrawled in bright yellow crayon in a childish hand.  She
wished Nabiki was here; she'd know how to deal with this.  If she weren't
away at college, it could have been her making all these phone calls and
trying to find out what was going on.  She wasn't a detective; she was a
homemaker.  Not even that; was this really her home to care for?

     Was that why she didn't want to call Hinako-sensei? She'd seen the
attraction the teacher had for her father.  Maybe, just a little, he'd
returned it.  She was very beautiful when she was grown, and he wasn't so
old that he'd lost his eyes.  Kasumi had always been sure that no one would
ever take her mother's place for her father; had that really been fair of
her?

     She was twenty years old; she'd gone through high school with top
marks in everything, and instead of going on to college she'd stayed here
to take care of her father and her sisters.  Someone had to do it; if she
didn't, who would?  Father had been so fragile since mother's death; Nabiki
handled the finances well enough, but she balked at lifting a finger in
housework or cooking.  And while Akane was an ethusiastic helper, and as
much as Kasumi loved her, she was... she was... less than competent
domestically, Kasumi had to admit.  When was the last time she'd gone to
visit Dr. Tofu? It seemed like years.  The only man who'd ever really shown
interest in her, and he'd only been able to act like an pre-adolescent
schoolboy.

     It wasn't too late to change, she knew that.  She could still give up
on the house, take the college exams, start a career.  But what would
happen to her family then?  She couldn't abandon them like that; they'd
come to rely on her so much.

     Things had become easier with Auntie Saotome around; she helped out a
lot.  Kasumi had much more free time these days.  But in that free time,
she didn't know what to do.  She'd considered going to visit Dr. Tofu, but
she'd seen the looks his patients gave her when she went.  They were looks
filled with fear; Kasumi didn't want to be feared by people.

     Dr. Tofu always seemed nice to her, but did she really want to know a
man who turned into a danger to everyone else except her whenever she was
around him?

     Kasumi slapped the paper with Hinako-sensei's number down on the table
that held the phone.  The force of her movement surprised her; she realized
that she was shaking.

     She hung her head; it was so selfish of her, to think only of her own
problems when Akane and Ranma could be in so much more trouble.  Kodachi
and Ukyou were in danger as well, and all she could do was feel sorry for
herself.  She had made her choices, and she didn't regret them.

     Kasumi swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to dial the
number.  When the phone rang on the other end of the line, she resisted the
urge to hang up.

**********

     He could almost smell the blood he saw before his eyes; it was
delicious.  The snapping of the bones felt and sounded so real, it was only
the vague memory of the study and the dark liquor that kept him from losing
himself completely.  

     Then, as abruptly as they came, the visions vanished, and he was
lying on his back in on the floor of the study.  His shirt lay on the
floor beside him; his bare chest was slicked with sweat.  Slim fingers
trailed over it, tracing the path of the new red scar that flared there
amongst the white of the others.

     "I trust you had pleasant dreams?" the woman said softly.

     "Delightful," Stalford said.  He raised his head and glanced around
the room; the body lay against the wall of the study, torn open from crotch
to neck, but completely bloodless.  The ceremony had been a success,
obviously.  

     "I have assembled twenty of the seishin-shi," she said.  "All of those
you had remaining."

     "That will be enough," Stalford said.  "Did they make any attempt to
contact their families?"

     "They did not," she said.  "Not even a phone call.  And they have gone
beyond the range of even my senses."

     "Too bad," Stalford said.  "I was hoping if they returned, they would
return to find all they cared for in bloody ruin."

     Pale lips curved in a humourless smile.  "I have left certain objects
that should lead any who are searching for them to me.  I can deal with
them then."

     "Aren't you worried the police may find us then?  Unless they cleaned
up, there's two dead men in that alley," Stalford said.

     "I have made sure," she said.

     "Very well," Stalford said, rising up.  He picked up the swordcane
where it lay and glanced about the room.  "Remove the body and get the
seishin-shi ready.  I need to go change."

     The woman watched his retreating back as he closed the door.  Her
mouth curled into a smile of genuine amusement when he was gone.  "Foolish
little man," she hissed.  "You would seek to be a mortal with the power of
a god.  In the end, you shall learn your lesson, I am sure."

     She knelt down beside the gutted corpse and licked her lips.  Yes, it
was time to remove the body.

**********

     The desk was piled with papers, stuffed animals and empty ice cream
containers.  Together, they formed a rickety, unstable wall about a foot
high.  Behind it, Hinako Ninomiya alternately graded papers and ate
spoonfuls of ice cream from the prodigously-sized container of Haagen-Daaz
in front of her.

     "No, Mr. Dokemono, Shakespeare was not an American," she said crossly,
making an x on the paper.  "Does anyone listen in class or am I just
wasting my time?"

     There was a strange buzzing sound.  Hinako cocked her head; what was
it, anyway?  A terrified expression passed across her face.  "A bee!
There's a bee in here!"

     She hopped out of the seat and looked around frantically.  That
strange buzzing sound echoed throughout the room again; it was coming from
one of the stacks of papers.

     "YAAH!" she yelled, smacking her hand into the papers, which scattered
across the floor to reveal the source of the buzzing had been her phone,
buried under the papers for the past several hours.  It was ringing now,
the sound no longer muffled by the paper.

     "Hello?" she said, nearly fumbling the handset off the desk in her
eagerness to pick it up.

     The voice on the other end was vaguely familiar; it was soft and
gentle, the kind of voice she'd always wanted to have.  But she was stuck
with either her child's warble or the husky voice of her adult form.

     "Hinako-sensei?  This is Kasumi Tendo," the woman on the other end of
the line said.  The name, like the voice, sounded familiar, but she
couldn't quite place them.  Then she remembered; this was Akane Tendo's
sister.  She'd met her when she'd gone on that house visit to the Tendo's.

     And ended up staying for a week, and making a total fool of herself
over the Tendo girls father.  The memory made her face go red.

     "Hinako-sensei?  Are you there?" Kasumi said.

     "Y... yes, Kasumi.  What is it?" Hinako said.  She'd almost been able
to see the hostility from the three girls when she'd been there; not that
she could blame them.  Whatever was going on, she didn't relish having to
deal with Kasumi Tendo.

     "I'm sorry to disturb you, but do you know if Ranma, Akane or Ukyou
went anywhere after school?" Kasumi said.  "They haven't come home for
dinner, and we're worried something may have happened."

     Hinako stiffened; she remembered that funny man who'd said he was a
police officer talking to her three students during lunch.  Come to think
of it, she'd never seen a badge or anything.  But he'd seemed so nice, and
he'd even given her a lollipop.  So of course she'd believed him.

     "I... I think I might be able to help you, Kasumi," Hinako said.
"I'll be over as soon as I can."

     "Oh, really, there's no need for you to..." Kasumi said, but Hinako
had already hung up the phone.

     There was a crash of thunder outside; rain began to fall past the
window.  The storm that had been gathering as she'd left the school had
finally arrived.  Hinako went to find her raincoat.

**********

     Sasuke examined the spatula carefully in the cover of a phone booth;
rain poured down from the sky in huge sheets of water.  When the storm had
broken, most of the crowd had dispersed and he'd been able to get a closer
look from behind the police barriers.  Hopping up and down, he'd seen only
glimpses, but it had been enough to ascertain that a fight had gone on in
the alley.  The man tied to the fire escape with the ribbon meant that
Kodachi had been there; the fact that he was obviously deceased made the
situation much more disturbing.

     Mistress Kodachi had always been a little unstable, but he'd never
thought her capable of killing anyone.  She might be devious, sneaky,
conniving and given to putting exotic toxins into her cooking, but she
wasn't a killer.  And there had been a definite improvement since her stay
in the hospital four months ago, after she was nearly killed that night by
that... thing.  She had been more even-tempered, less prone to the sudden
mood swings that had characterized her personality over the past few years.
It reminded him of her behaviour when she'd been a young girl, before her
father had taken such a turn for the worse, and his children had taken one
with him.  Ever since their mother's abandonment, the two Kuno children had
always been a little strange, but when their father had left as well, going
to Hawaii and leaving them as their mother had, the two of them had changed
drastically.  Tatewaki had gradually adjusted and become a bit more stable,
but he still had difficulty dealing with certain things.  Hopefully,
college might change him for the better.  Kodachi, on the other hand, had
only grown worse over the years, until recently.  He'd thought she was
improving; had he been wrong?

     No; whatever was going on, he was fairly sure that she had either
become involved by accident, or because Ranma and the others had also been
involved.  That seemed to him the most likely explanation for her
disappearance.  He didn't want to consider what might be hapenning if he
was wrong.

     He studied the spatula carefully again; it had looked so out of place,
and he was surprised the police hadn't spotted it.  And if the fight had
taken place in the alley, why had it been near the edge instead of the
outside?

     Something drew his eyes to the flat blade of the small throwing
weapon, razor-sharp on one edge.  The flat side appeared odd for some
reason; Sasuke put it closer to his face and examined it.

     That was it; there were two characters scraped into the flat side:
"Fuko".  Misfortune; what the hell did that mean?

     He idly turned the spatula in his hand; there was something on the
other side as well.  The kanji characters for "Importers."

     "Misfortune Importers..." Sasuke murmured.  "What does that mean...
or could it be Importers Misfortune..."

     Someone banged on the outside of the phone booth.  "HEY!  Either make
a call, or get out!"

     Sasuke ignored them and pulled out the phone directory, thumbing
through it.  There it was; Fuko Importers.  It was very close to where he
was now; he'd better go and check it out.

     "Are you gonna stay in there all night?" the man outside said,
pounding the phone booth again.  Sasuke repeated the address to himself in
his head as he walked out of the phone booth into the driving rain.  He
tugged the hood of his ninja suit down over his face a little more and
found temporary shelter under the entrance to a closed bookstore as he
pulled out his cellular phone and dialed the number of the Tendo house.
Remembering the last time, he flicked the switch into high-transmit mode;
it was a big strain on the battery, but everything needed to be absolutely
clear at times like this.

     "Hello?" Kasumi answered after two rings.

     "Kasumi, it's Sasuke," he said quickly.  "I've got what I think may be
a lead on where everyone's gone to."

     "That's a relief," Kasumi said.  "What is it?"

     "Ukyou managed to leave behind a spatula with the name of a store
scratched into it," Sasuke said.

     "Why didn't she just write a note?" Kasumi mused on the other end of
the line.

     "Maybe this was all she had on her hands at the time," Sasuke said.
"Anyway, the place is near here.  I'm going to check it out."

     "Oh, not by yourself," Kasumi said.  "Who knows what might be there?"

     "I've got to get there as quickly as possible," Sasuke said.  "They
might be in trouble.  Listen, I'll call you as soon as I get there.  If you
don't hear from me after that in fifteen minutes, you'll know something's
happened to me.  But I'm the only one who's close enough to check it out;
I'm not going to try anything stupid, don't worry."

     "Alright," Kasumi said.  "Just be careful, okay?"

     "I will," Sasuke said.  He glowed with pleasure at the concern he
heard in Kasumi's voice; it was genuine, he knew that.  "Goodbye."

     He closed the phone and looked out from the shelter of the doorway
into the rain.

     "Wish I'd brought an umbrella," he said, trudging resolutely out into
the rain.  He wasn't a brave person by nature; he was a ninja, used to
shadow and trickery.  But he had a duty to serve the Kuno family, and that
meant protecting them.  If Mistress Kodachi was in trouble, he had to try
his best to help her, even if he was forced to go it alone.

     Hunching his shoulders and trying to ignore the cold rain soaking
through to his skin, he began to walk quickly, finding shelter where he
could as he glanced at streetsigns through the pouring rain and tried to
find his way.

**********

     Mousse glanced out the window of the Nekohanten at the pouring rain as
he put down his last set of orders before he headed out to the Tendo house.
He'd already talked to Cologne; she hadn't been particularly happy about
the situation, but when he'd explained what was going on, she'd grudgingly
agreed.  A few months ago, he would have gotten a smack in the head.
Cologne had seemed to mellow to him over the past few months; not that this
was saying much.  He hoped it was because she was finally beginning to see
him as a viable husband for Shampoo, now that Ranma was out of the running.

     Now if only he could feel that Shampoo felt the same way.  But there
had been little change in her attitudes towards him.  He remembered the
advice Ranma had given him:  "Be her friend."

     He'd tried; but it was so hard to resist the callings of his heart
whenever he was around her.  And he inevitably ended up making her angry
when he declared his love, true as it was.

     True, she hit him less nowadays, and was less likely to turn away when
he spoke to her.  But he didn't attribute that to any change in her
attitude to him, but to the profound depression she'd been experiencing
ever since Ranma told her in no uncertain terms that he would not marry
her.  The bubbly, vibrant girl he loved was still there, but some of the
time she was buried beneath a sad facade.  It broke his heart to see her
that way; he longed to make her smile appear again.  She had obviously
loved Ranma very much; probably, she still did.  He knew better than
anyone how your heart could still cling to one who seemed so obviously not
to want you.

     He wanted to help her let Ranma go from her heart, even if she could
not find room in it for him, but for all he tried, he could not seem to do
it.

     Mousse sighed and walked to the door, slipping an umbrella from his
sleeve and into his hand.  He opened it in front of him as stepped out,
blocking most of the rain.  The few drops that spattered his sleeves and
hands were not sufficient to induce a change.  He began to walk the route
towards the Tendo house as quickly as he could while still shielding
himself from the rain.

     "Mousse!  Wait!" someone shouted from behind him.  He turned to see
Shampoo rushing out of the Nekohanten with her own umbrella held overhead;
he was so surprised he wasn't able to find his voice until she was walking
next to him.

     "Shampoo!  I thought you had to help Cologne at the restaurant," he
said.  Shampoo shrugged and smiled.

     "Great-grandmother say she can handle it; not many customers on night
like this anyway," she said.  "Shampoo want so badly to help Ranma."

     Mousse gritted his teeth.  "Ranma's not the only one missing.  Akane,
Ukyou and Kodachi are gone as well."

     "Know that.  I worry about them too; even if they not friends, not
want anything bad to happen to them," Shampoo said.

     The rain beat down about them, thunder crashing occasionally like the
voice of an angry god.  Mousse huddled under his umbrella, barely able to
see through the driving rain.

     "I wish they could have gone missing on a better night to search for
them," he muttered.  Beside him, Shampoo giggled softly.

     "You right for once Mousse," she said.  "Is especially bad night for
us, no?"

     "That's for sure," Mousse said.

     "Shampoo hope they all okay," Shampoo said.  "Is bad night to be out."

     "I hope they're going to be alright as well," Mousse said.

     "Mousse, when we fighting monster in warehouse, you go off and leave
Shampoo when she unconscious," Shampoo said suddenly.  "Why you do that?"

     Mousse stiffened.  "I... I'm sorry, Shampoo.  You seemed alright, and
when I heard that thing threatening Ukyou's life, I knew I had to do
something."

     "No apologize, dummy," Shampoo said.  "Was right thing to do.  Even
silly man like you do some things right occasionally.  You can be brave
man, when you not busy telling Shampoo you love her."

     "Sh... Shampoo.  Thank you," Mousse said, blushing and looking away
into the curtains of rain beside him.  They continued to walk in silence
through the rain; the air was saturated with the scent of it.  It gathered
in the gutters and ran in streams through the streets, carrying fallen
leaves and stray bits of garbage with it.  It was lovely and depressing at
the same time, both creating new life and washing away the dregs of the old
life.

     "Mousse," Shampoo said after a while.

     "Yes, Shampoo?"

     "Shampoo say bad things to you sometimes... things she not really
mean.  Call you stupid, weak.  That not true.  Is wrong to say things that
hurt you."

     "Do.... do you really mean that?"

     "Don't get wrong idea.  Shampoo not want to marry you now or
something.  But in your own way, you are good man."

     Mousse kept his expression neutral, but inside he glowed.

     <She said she doesn't want to marry me now,> he thought.  <That means
there's still a chance!>

**********

     Nodoka opened the door to see a small figure in a massive yellow
raincoat, and an equally prodigous floppy yellow hat.  Few features could
be made out aside from huge brown eyes and a long wave of brown hair that
probably would have been much more attractive had it not been plastered to
the back of the girl's raincoat.

     "Hello," the girl said in a high voice.  "I'm Hinako Ninomiya."

     Nodoka started in surprise for a moment; this was her son's teacher?
She'd been expecting someone... older, to say the least.

     "Please, come in," she said.  The little girl did, dripping water from
the rain coat all over the floor of the front hall.  She shrugged out of
the coat and hat; Nodoka took them from her and hung it in the closet,
trying to keep them as far away as possible from the dry clothing.

     Out of the raincoat and hat, Hinako Ninomiya was revealed as a pretty
little girl who didn't look as if she could be much older than twelve.  Her
long hair was damp and tangled, dripping nearly as much water as her
raincoat had.

     "Kasumi," Nodoka called.  "Bring a towel, would you dear?"

     Around the corner, Kasumi said goodbye to Sasuke over the phone and
wished him luck as he got ready to go inside Fuko Importers.  She tried to
keep down the concern in her voice; she knew he would be careful.  Hearing
Nodoka call, she went quickly into the linen cupboard and brought in a
large, fresh towel.  Hinako took it gratefully and began drying her face
and hair as Kasumi fidgeted nervously in her presence.

     "I'll go make some tea," Nodoka said, heading out of the hallway
towards the kitchen.  Kasumi glanced up at the clock; in fifteen minutes it
would be a little past seven.  Had little more than an hour passed since
this all began?

     "Please, come into the living room, Hinako-sensei," Kasumi said,
bowing and starting towards the living room.

     "You don't have to call me sensei, Ms. Tendo," Hinako said as she
followed.  "After all, you're not one of my students."

     Kasumi glanced back at the girl; she looked older than the first time
she'd seen her.  That made sense, of course; Akane had explained that
Happosai had done something to her metabolism as a child.  Did her child's
body age at a normal rate?  Did her adult one?  It was intriguing.  She'd
noticed the change in the personality of the two versions of Hinako; was
there some basis for it biologically, or was it just something Hinako did
subconsciously?  After all, people expected a child to act one way, and an
adult to act another.

     Soun and Genma were seated across the shogi board.  Neither one of
them was making a move, and both appeared distracted.  Both were so
distracted that neither was making a move to cheat while the other was
distracted.

     "Hinako-sensei has arrived," Kasumi said.  The two men looked up as
the little girl stepped forward and bowed.

     "Hello.  It's good to see you again," she said sweetly.  There was a
blur, and Soun was on his knees in front of her, his hands clasped in a
gesture of supplication.

     "Oh please, please, you have to help us find my little Akane!" he said
pleadingly.  "She's out without her raincoat or an umbrella, and...  I
suppose you should help us find Ranma and Ukyou as well."

     "And Kodachi," Kasumi said.  "Sasuke thinks all of the disappearances
are connected."

     "Oh, her as well," Soun muttered grudgingly.  "Please, please, please
help us!"

     "M... Mr. Tendo, I swear by my teaching certificate I shall not rest
until your daughter is found!  Nothing shall distract me from this sacred
mission, which is my DUTY as an educator to..."

     "Tea's ready," Nodoka said, coming in with five cups, a kettle and a
plate of cookies on a tray.

     "WHEE!  Cookies!" Hinako said, the serious expression dropping from
her face.  She bounced from foot to foot eagerly as Nodoka set down the
tray on the table, then reached out and grabbed a handful, stuffing them
into her mouth and causing her cheeks to puff out comically like a
chipmunk.

     "My, what an appetite for such a small girl," Nodoka said, her eyes
wide.

     "Hinako, please, can you tell us anything about where Ranma and Akane
went after school?" Kasumi said.

     "Mmmhlfh?" Hinako said as she chewed.  Kasumi resisted the urge to
groan.

     There was knock at the door.  "That must be Mousse," Kasumi said.

     "I'll go get some more teacups," Nodoka said, heading back into the
kitchen with something that almost sounded like a sigh.

     "Perhaps you should get some more cookies as well," Soun said.
"Hinako appears to have had quite an appetite for them."

     Nodoka looked; the plate was bare.  Hinako was still chewing, at
least.

     Kasumi opened the door; Mousse stood there under a wide umbrella as
the rain fell around him.  Shampoo was behind him, looking unhappy at so
much water being around.  Kasumi was surprised the two of them hadn't
transformed by accident.

     "Please, come in," Kasumi said.  She was mildly surprised to see
Shampoo; Mousse hadn't said anything about her coming.  She stepped back to
let the two Amazons enter.

     "Thank you, Kasumi," Mousse said, absentmindedly lowering his umbrella
and folding it up to enter the house.  There was a moment between the time
that the rain drenched him and he changed that he had an expression of
total bewilderment on his face.

     Then there was a frantic quacking, and a large white duck emerged from
the tangled white robes that were rapidly becoming soaked on the doorstep.
It waddled into the the house, quacking miserably and flapping its wings
to shake off the water.  As it entered, the small pair of glasses it wore
perched on its bill immediately fogged up.  Unable to see, the duck crashed
into a wall and fell stunned to the floor.

     "Stupid Mousse," Shampoo muttered, shaking her head as she stepped
carefully inside, shielding herself with her umbrella until she was fully
into the house.  She folded it up and carefully used it to drag Mousse's
robes into the house.  "Better hang these up to dry, Kasumi, unless you
want him naked when he change back."

     Kasumi nodded and reached down to grab Mousse's robes; she almost
threw her back out lifting them.  What did he keep in his pockets, anyway?
The robes weren't that damp; Kasumi carried them into the living room and
spread them out on the floor of the wooden hallway that led to the dojo.

     In the front hallway, Shampoo looked down at the dizzy form of the
duck at her feet.  She sighed and knelt down to pick him up in her arms.

     "Stupid Mousse," she repeated.  He quacked and rubbed his bill against
her throat affectionately.  Shampoo sighed again and carried him into the
living room where the others waited.

**********

     Sasuke flipped the phone shut and tucked it away.  He ran a last
minute check over his supplies and glanced once again at the dusty, opaque
window of Fuko Importers, as if this time he'd be able to see inside.  Like
every other time, he wasn't.  The rain beat down overhead, but he was
already so thoroughly soaked and miserable he didn't care.  He slipped on a
pair of gloves, then gingerly turned the doorknob and stepped inside,
expecting the interior of the shop to be as dark and foreboding as the
outside.

     Instead, it was brightly lit, with a pleasant but unidentifiable smell
to the air.  The man behind the counter looked as pleasant as the rest of
the shop, round and jolly as any picture of the western Santa Claus he'd
ever seen.

     "Welcome," the man said pleasantly.  "How can I help you?"

     The unidentifiable but delightful smell seemed to encircle him as
lovingly as the arms of any woman; not that he had any knowledge of what
that felt like.  But in his dreams, he had known it would feel like this.
He no longer noticed the damp condition he was in, or how cold it was.

     "C... can you?" Sasuke murmured, trying to keep his head clear.  Just
what was that smell, anyway?

     "It depends on what you want," the man said.  Sasuke shook his head
and tried to breathe.  The scent was becoming almost overpowering now,
cloying instead of pleasant.  It pressed down upon him like a weight, and
it was all he could do to keep himself from falling to his knees.  It was
so hard to think; why had he come here anyway?

     "Have you seen Mistress Kodachi?" he blurted, knowing the man would
have no idea what he was talking about but unable to stop himself.  The man
smiled and nodded.

     "You came into the shop and found a man dead behind the counter," the
man said slowly.  "But on the counter was a book.  You took the book and
put it in your pocket."

     The man slid a book across the counter.  Sasuke walked numbly across
the floor, seemingly having to push through layer upon layer of the cloying
scent.  He picked up the book and put it in his pocket.

     "Then you went back outside.  You thought about calling the police,
but there'd be too many questions.  You'd leave it until tomorrow anyway;
once you'd rescued Mistress Kodachi and the others, you could call the
police and leave an anonymous tip."

     "How... how did I know where she was?" Sasuke said.  Everything seemed
to make so much sense.

     "It was all in the book.  You couldn't go back into the shop to look
for more clues; you knew somehow that it would be too great a risk."

     "Too great a risk..." Sasuke murmured.  He turned and stumbled towards
the exit, his legs seeming to move of their own volition.  Behind him, the
pleasant scent was now one of blood and death.  He had to get out, get away
from that smell.

     Outside, he gasped great gulps of air and tried to banish the awful
sight from his memory.  The body of the man, ripped and torn and thrown
against the wall behind the counter hard enough to put a dent in it.
Trails of streaked blood from where his head had hit the wall and split
open to where he'd come to rest against the floor.  Grabbing the book from
the counter, feeling like a grave-robber, but knowing it was the only thing
that might lead him to Mistress Kodachi.  He knew he should go back inside,
take a look around some more, but what if whoever had done that came back?
It was too great a risk.  He should call the police, tell them there'd been
a murder, but there'd be too many questions.  Right now, the important
thing was keeping Mistress Kodachi safe; tomorrow he'd call and leave an
anonymous tip.

     He ran and took shelter under the entrance to another store.  There,
he fumbled the book from his pocket; it was a small diary, bound in plain
dark leather.  His trembling fingers opened it to the last page, where
written in dark ink was the answer he'd been looking for.  The words seemed
to shift and bend before his eyes, he was so nervous.

     "Brother Kiyokuro brought four who will serve as the sacrifices
tomorrow," the entry read.  "He found three as he did all the others;
recruited them by saying they could help him in his fight against darkness.
As they always do, they trusted him easily.  The fourth was a chance
acquirement; she is apparently infatuated with one of the three sacrifices
he had chosen and was following them when Brother Kiyokuro caught her.  We
will hold them in the house at..."

     Sasuke nearly dropped the book in surprise.  The address of the house
was within short walking distance of the Kuno mansion; he'd passed by it
many times himself.  Who could have known such horrible activities as human
sacrifice went on inside?

     "...shall be glorious to watch.  Perhaps these four will last more
than five hours; that's the record for hanging on to life so far.  All hail
to He That Sleeps."

     Sasuke nearly slipped the book away, but stopped.  On a hunch, he
thumbed back through the diary until he found a date about four months ago
that stood out in his memory.  He was pretty sure he'd heard the name
Kiyokuro before.

     There it was, plain as day.  Strange, he was shaking so much that it
had looked for a moment as if the words had changed as he flipped to the
page.  "Brother Kiyokuro had great success last night; nearly a dozen
people of good heart taken in by him.  On the down side, we lost the chance
to gain the loyalty of the gaki; these fools managed to kill it before
Brother Kiyokuro could contact it.  They will pay in the end, though.
We'll take some of them for the sacrifice in four months time, and save the
rest for later."

     He felt like being sick; how foolish they'd been to trust that man,
knowing nothing of him.  Now they were paying the price.

     But there was still time; he had the address.  Now he just needed to
bring the rest of them to rescue Mistress Kodachi and everyone else.

     Kasumi.  He still had to call Kasumi and tell her he was okay; right
now, he needed to get over to the Tendo house as fast as he coud, and get
some help.

     As he began to run again through the rain-soaked streets, the book
slipped from his hand and fell into a puddle in the road, making no splash.
A moment later, it was as if it had never been there at all.

**********

     Richard Stalford glanced at his watch as he stood at the docks.
The twenty silent, unmoving seishin-shi stood in a circle around him.  It
was nearly seven; if Shigeki and his comrades had left for the island as
soon as they could, they probably had a lead of nearly two hours.  No
matter; the inhabitants of the island would deal with them until he could
get there.  And if his father's notes had been correct, no vessel of this
world could hope to match the speed of his.

     Most likely, he'd have to take the effigy by force from those who
lived on the island; he'd have to do it quickly, or he'd be swamped by
sheer numbers.  Hopefully, when they took care of Shigeki and the others,
they would also take the figurine from the box that held it.  Shigeki had
done that for a moment, but not long enough for him to get a lock on the
position.

     He slipped a hand into the pocket of the overcoat he wore; the rain
beat down on top of his head, but he'd long ago learned to ignore such
trivial things.  The seishin-shi were rapidly growing soaked, but dead men
cared for damp even less than he did.  His fingers ran idly across the
carved shape that lay within the pocket; this item had taken him the course
of many years to make.  Sleepless nights carving it to perfect form from a
single chunk of basalt; even longer time spent weaving the necessary
enchantments around it.  Now, this one use would forever destroy all that
effort; but it wouldn't matter once he had the effigy in his hand.  He
might have to sacrifice a lot of his own personal power to gain it, but
once he had it, power undreamed of even by his father would be his.

     First, though, he would have to make sure they would not be disturbed.
He'd been lucky enough to get into the docks without attracting too much
attention.  With the rain coming down this hard, few people were moving
around this unused section of the docks.  The crews of the large freighters
and cargo ships sat inside, most likely, none of them wanting to work in
the storm.  It would even be dangerous to launch a ship right now, given
how hard the waves slapped against the docks.  What he was about to do
would have certainly grabbed the attention of anyone watching, though.

     He raised his hands to the sky as the rain fell around him and began
to speak slowly in a language seldom heard.  From the air around him, white
mist began to condense and spread out.  It thinned as it spread, becoming
translucent and visible only to him.  Eventually, it covered an area large
enough that he could do what he needed without fear of interruption; the
eye tended to ignore what it saw within the confines of the mist.  If
someone were to come close enough, they would be able to see what he was
doing, but to do so they would be so close that he would have no trouble
dealing with them.

     Slipping his hand back into his pocket, he drew forth the carved model
and looked at it one last time.  He'd followed the directions exactly, and
although the squat ship looked as if it would float about as well as a
brick, he trusted his father's notes about as much as he trusted anything.
He knew that within it was completely hollow, each section carefully cut
and precisely detailed.  The oars were perfect in their shape, as were the
seats where rowers would sit.  There were no sails; a vessel such as this
had no need of them.

     He took the vial from his other pocket and poured the stinking
contents across the model.  Then, he drew back his hand and cast it forth
into the dark, rolling depths of Tokyo Bay.  The model ship spun slowly
through the air, turning over a few times before it landed with a splash,
sinking below the water in an instant.

     Then he took out a handkerchief and began to wipe the liquid from the
vial that had gotten onto his hand off, as the water began to bubble and
boil like a pot on the stove.

     At first, the bubbles were white, like great explosive gulps of sea
foam on the waves.  Then they took on a greenish cast, and as they burst,
thin streamers of yellow-green smoke spilled into the air.  Stalford took
in a great breath of sea breeze; on it was carried the scent of things left
rotting in dark holes, of decay and inestimable age.  The bubbles grew
larger; beneath the surface of the water, some great dark shape began to
rise like Leviathan from the depths.

     The prow of the huge ship broke the water first, trailing noxious
drops of green water and smoke.  Sea-mud from the bottom of the harbour
sloughed off from the slick black surface like water from a duck's back,
dropping back into Tokyo Bay with great plops.  The prow was square and
blocky, made from black stone so ebony-smooth it looked as if it must have
been painted on.  It was a familiar prow to Stalford; he'd spent days
carving each individual detail, from the great fanged skull that adorned
the front to the part of the prow where it gradually sloped down onto the
wide deck of the ship.  An opening led down into the lower decks of the
ship, lower decks that he'd carved out himself, working with no sight of
the insides, with edges finer than the point of the tiniest pin.  Feeling
his way through the rock by instict, knowing where to cut.

     The decks were slick and black as the prow, with row upon row of flat
benches upon them for whatever rowers there might be.  All of the ship was
carved from a single block of the stone; there were no joints, no nails,
nothing.  It should not have ridden upon the surface of the water, yet it
did.  The oars were from the same black stone, huge and long as they swept
down into the water like talons of some dark beast.  They were attached to
the boat by some means unseeable; Stalford knew they would turn, swivel and
stroke the waves as surely as any other vessel's ever did.  The ship was
fully emerged now, huge and malevolent.  The sides did not curve down, but
continued straight until they were hidden by the water.  By any rights, it
should have sank back into the depths from which it had just emerged, but
it did not.  Rain and wind lashed the vessel, but it did not move an inch.

     With a hollow creaking like a hundred doors in need of oil, a
gangplank began to slowly extend from somewhere in the bow of the ship.
Gradually, it touched down on the dock lightly as a feather and stopped.

     Stalford turned to the score of seish-shi who stood on the dock behind
him.  It had taken years to assemble them; the ceremonies involved were
complex and draining.  He'd made them from the homeless, from drifters,
from country boys who'd come to the big city looking for a break, from
petty thugs and criminals.  The shadow people; the types that no one would
miss when they weren't seen ever again.

     Servants of unparalleled loyalty and great power; slow and mindless,
yes, but strong as bulls and persistent beyond all reason.  True, they were
not as useful as Hibino; even now, she was probably getting ready to
slaughter the fools who dared to follow the trail of their vanished
children.  But they were certainly easier to control than the woman; all
her power and alien nature made her more dangerous than he liked in a
servant.  He barked sharply at them in the only language they understood
now, and they began to file obediently aboard the ship in ranks of two.
Slow, but docile as chickens when needed, vicious as nightmares the next
moment.

     He knew they had already attracted attention; no spell could contain a
summoning of this magnitude for long.  As the last two headed up the
gangplank, Stafford stepped into line behind them.

     "Hey!  What the hell..."

     Stalford turned faster than the eye could follow and rushed the two
men in the uniforms of the Harbour Patrol, a blur coming at them through
the rain.  Even as one man raised his radio to his mouth, Stalford's sword
cane lashed out in a flicker of silver metal and severed the hand that held
the radio.  The man opened his mouth to scream as blood sprayed from the
stump of his wrist, and then the blade slashed across his throat and cut
the scream off forever.  His partner, too stunned to act, and too slow
anyway compared to Stalford's inhuman quickness, died nearly as fast with
his windpipe crushed by the point of Stalford's shoe.  The force of the
kick sent the man flying off the pier and into the water, where he sank out
of sight in an instant.  Stalford looked the first man, still standing as
blood spilled from his throat to mingle with the rainwater on the pier.
Then he grabbed him by the front of the heavy green rainslicker and threw
him into the bay after his partner.  The severed hand he kicked
disdainfully in after him.  Pounding rain would wash the pier clean of
blood in a few minutes; the men would float below for a few days.  Until
then, it would be as if they had never been here.

     Their friends and family would wonder, but no one would really know
that two men had died upon the pier this night until the bloated bodies
were discovered.  In time, even the memory of them would fade.  They would
be forgotten; in the end, it wouldn't matter whether they had died today or
tomorrow or thirty years from now.  That was the continual futility of
being mortal; in the end, it wouldn't matter.  His father had sought
immortality through servitude, but he had not found it; he'd died mumbling
his devotions to the end.  For all his wisdom and power, he had not
realized that true immortality could not be found in service to greater
powers, but in becoming one of those greater powers.

     That was what he had strove to do all his life; what all humans
strived to do, though so little of them realized it.  He would overcome the
curse of humanity that he had been born with; he would overcome the
weakness of his flesh.  The apotheosis as he left this frame behind would
be the birth of a new god; the power he wielded now would be the match to
the bonfire compared to what he would be capable of.  He would not be bound
by eldritch ruins and ancient seals; he would scour the world with
cleansing flame as divine as Noah's Flood had been.  From the ashes the
strong would emerge, while the weak would burn, their cries to their gods
unanswered.  True power did not require mercy; true power did not even
require rationale for its use.  The purpose of power was the exercise of
power; it was a self-fulfilling state.

     Those he found strong enough, perhaps they would be his servants in
the new age to come; or perhaps he would burn them with the rest.  Burn
them all within the bright flame of a new god who had once been a man.

     He shook his head, breaking free from the pleasant reverie.  There was
no time for dreams now; now was the time to bring about those dreams.
With a final glance at Tokyo, a glance that saw the tall skyscrapers
twisted and melting like candles, Stalford walked the long gangplank up to
the black ship.  The seishin-shi gathered in the centre, heedless of the
rain that beat down upon them.

     With the master aboard the vessel now, the gangplank began to retract
back into the ship.  The same yellow-green smoke that had emerged from the
water began to pour from the opening into the lower decks in great
quantities; from the lower decks the clicking of feet marching precisely in
time on black stone floors could be heard.  His father's notes had said
much of the creation of the black ship, but he'd gone into few details
about its operation or crew.

     The footsteps began to move onto the deck, still clicking on the black
stone.  There was no sign of those who made the footsteps, but they grew in
volume.  A chill sensation passed over him as the footsteps began to move
past him, and he felt something icy-cold brush against his sleeve for a
moment, the chill passing all the way through the coat and shirt to his
arm.

     There was a slight creak as the oars were raised in hands that could
not be seen, in anticipation for the command of their captain.  The chill
seemed to spiral up around him, mixing with the driving rain and setting
his teeth chattering.  He forced back his urge to shiver; he was strong
enough to overcome this weakness of the flesh.

     Stalford spoke to the seishin-shi again; they began to file below to
the decks the crew had emerged from.  Stalford strode to the prow of the
ship and hopped up onto the elevated part.  Where the wheel to guide the
ship should have been grew a circular pillar of black stone, coming up a
little past his waist.  It was topped by a sphere smaller than the rest of
the pillar; Stalford reached out and put his hands on it, closing his eyes
as he did so.  His body stiffened and went rigid; the sensation of the rain
beating down upon him was replaced by the feeling of water slapping at his
sides.  He had no vision; he did not need it.  Vision was a human concept;
his senses were far more complex than the mere observance of light rays.

     He pushed a little; behind him, the oars were pulled back in the hands
of rowers who could not be seen, and the stone ship began to glide through
the water as surely and smoothly as a hawk through the air.  It left no
wake behind it; the water in front of it did not break.  It was as if it
did not touch the water at all.  Dark oars raked the water; the traces they
left upon the waters were the only sign of the passage of the ship as it
rode off into the night, unheeding of the storm.

     Aboard the great ships nearby, their crew huddled below in their
quarters, none were aware of what manner of vessel left the harbour that
night; the two who knew other than Richard Stalford would not speak of
it ever again.  On the rolling waves of Tokyo Bay, a hand rose to the
surface, still spasmodically clutching the radio it had held.  The waves
made it seem it bob in macabre farewell to the dark ship as it drifted away
into the driving curtains of rain.

**********

     "Ooooh!  What a cute ducky!" Hinako squealed, hopping out of her seat
and running up to Shampoo.  She hopped up and down, reaching with her hands
for the man-turned-duck Shampoo held in her arms.

     Mousse quacked in alarm and struggled out of Shampoo's arm to perch on
her head out of the reach of Hinako.  Hinako pouted and folded her arms
across her chest.

     "Hinako-sensei, please.  We need you to help us find Akane and the
others," Kasumi said pleadingly as she came back into the living room from
laying Mousse's robes to dry.  There was a little less than ten minutes
until Sasuke had said he'd check in.  Right now, she had to deal with all
the guests, on top of worrying about him.

     "I wanted to pat the ducky," Hinako said sulkily.  Shampoo smiled and
reached up, placing her hands firmly around Mousse where he perched on her
head and taking him down.  He gave out a pleading quack and Shampoo leaned
in close and whispered beside his head.

     "Sooner we get her talk, sooner we help Ranma and others," she said.
"Besides, your clothes not dry yet."

     "Whee!" Hinako said, snatching the offered duck and hugging him
tightly.  Mousse's eyes bulged and he let out a wheezing quack.  Shampoo
smirked and folded her legs under her as she sat down on the floor.
Nodoka bent down and offered her a cup of tea; Shampoo accepted it and gave
her a nod of thanks before sipping from it slowly.

     "Can you tell us where Ranma and Akane went now?" Genma said, trying
to keep the annoyance out of his voice.  Hinako turned around and put a
hand to her mouth, keeping a firm grip on Mousse with one arm.

     "Let me think..." she said.  There was the sound of the front door
opening; everyone looked up in surprise.  Happosai trotted into the room,
dripping water across the floor from his clothes and the huge sack he
carried on his back.

     "I tell you, it's not a night for man or lech out there," he said,
shaking his head and spraying around water from his bag, his clothing and
the few bits of hair left on his head.  "At least all those sorority girls
were in their dorm.  Boy, did we have some..."

     He looked up at all the people in the room.  "Eh?  What's going on?
Is there a party or something I wasn't invited to?"

     His bulging eyes swept the room.  They locked on Shampoo, and a wide
grin split his face.  "Darling Shampoo!  It's so lovely to see you!"

     Happosai dropped the bag and leapt, in the tried and true technique of
the school of Anything-Goes Martial Arts Lechery.  Hinako pulled a coin
from her pocket and stepped in between Shampoo and the approaching
Happosai.

     "Senile delinquents are as bad as juvenile ones!" she recited, as
Mousse took the opportunity to break free from her grasp and flutter up
towards the ceiling.  "HAPPO GO-EN SATSU!"

     Tendrils of yellow energy flared from the round hole in the centre of
the five yen coin, wrapping around Happosai and stopping him in midleap.
The tendrils swirled back into the centre of the coin as he fell to the
floor in a quivering heap; Hinako grew to her full adult glory.

     Hinako-sensei stepped back and looked at her work.  With a dismissive
snort, she tossed her head and turned back to the rest of the room.  "I
think this should be a lot easier now."

     "G... girlies..." Happosai moaned, struggling towards Shampoo across
the floor.  She looked at him blankly.

     "You still alive?" she said, incredulity in her voice.  She stretched
out one slender leg towards Happosai from where she sat on the floor.
"Come on then.  Guess you deserve reward."

     Happosai crawled forward, hands reaching for Shampoo's leg.  She
lifted the proferred leg up into the air and brought her heel down onto
his head, mashing him firmly into the floor.

     "Stupid pervert-man," she said.  Mousse flapped down to the ground and
pecked Happosai on the head a few times before walking up to Shampoo and
quacking proudly.  She shook her head and held out her arms, gathering him
into her lap with a small smile as she smoothed out his feathers,
dishevelled when Hinako had clutched him earlier.

     Hinako sat down again and smoothed out her the hem of her dress, now
stretched tightly over her adult body.  Kasumi saw the look on her father's
face before he turned quickly away and absorbed himself in the shogi board,
and her teeth clenched almost imperceptibly.  Nodoka saw it as well, and
Kasumi's attitude towards the teacher began to make a lot more sense to
her.

     "Please forgive my behaviour," she said demurely, folding her hands in
her lap and bowing her head.  "I find it difficult to act maturely in the
body of a child.  I'll tell you all I know now."

     "Finally," Genma muttered under his breath.  Nodoka leaned over and
bapped him on the head with one of her sewing needles.

     "Dear, be quiet and let her talk," she whispered.  Genma, too stunned
at the fact that his wife had just acknowledged his existence as something
more than cursory to do anything, shut his mouth.

     "A man came to see Ranma, Akane and Ukyou at lunch this afternoon,"
Hinako said.  "I guess the office directed him to me, seeing as how I am
their homeroom teacher.  He told me he was a police officer, so I took him
to see the three of them in the cafeteria."

     "Did he show you a badge?" Kasumi asked.  It came out far more
harshly than she'd wanted it to.

     "I'm sorry," Hinako said, hanging her head lower.  "You... you don't
know what's it like when I'm a child.  Thoughts, emotions, my way of
looking at things... they're all different.  It's hard not to trust
someone who sounds sincere."

     "It's alright," Soun said.  "It wasn't your fault."

     Kasumi looked at her father.  He turned his head away.

     "What did this man look like?" Nodoka said.  "Was there anything
distinctive about him?"

     "To say the least," Hinako said, raising her head up and smiling
slightly.  "He was the tallest man I've ever seen in person.  Very thin as
well; he looked kind of like a walking scarecrow."

     "He sound very familiar," Shampoo said quickly, excitement in her
voice.  "You know his name?"

     "Now what was it again..." Hinako said.  "Kiyokuro, I think.  He said
his name was Kiyokuro."

     "That him," Shampoo said, leaping up excitedly.  Mousse fell out of
her lap and quacked in surprise.  "Ranma father, you there too!  He man from
restaurant!"

     "That's him, alright," Genma said, nodding slowly.  Mousse quacked
loudly and pointed with his wing at the teapot.

     "Do you want some tea, Mousse?  It may be hard to drink it with your
bill," Kasumi said.  Mousse shook his head.

     "He want change back," Shampoo said.  Mousse quacked and bobbed his
head up and down, heading off towards the hallway where Kasumi had laid
down his robes.  Shampoo stood up and went into the kitchen, returning with
a glass of hot water and heading into the hallway towards the dojo after
Mousse.  She came back into view a moment later, Mousse following behind
her, human again.

     "So they may not be in any trouble at all," Mousse said, looking at
the room behind the thickness of his glasses.

     "Of course they're in trouble," Soun said.  "Why haven't they called?"

     "Well, trouble being a comparative thing," Mousse admitted, shrugging
his shoulders.  "But he did ask for our help after we met him that night.
So, my guess is that he needed some help with something fast, didn't want
to risk a phone call, and got Ranma, Akane and Ukyou's help for whatever it
was."

     "Those are some big assumptions, boy," Genma said.  "And they still
don't explain why Kodachi's missing as well."

     "Have we got anything better to go with right now?" Mousse said.  "I
admit we should be concerned, but unless anyone has some lead on where we
can find them, running about in the rain without any sense of..."

     The phone rang.  Mousse stopped talking as Kasumi hurried and
answered it.  No one was close enough to hear the conversation, but they
could get the general gist of it from the shocked expression Kasumi had on
her face when she returned.

     "That was Sasuke," she said numbly.  "He's found something."

     "What?  What was it?" Soun said anxiously.

     "He couldn't say over the phone.  He said he'd be here as soon as he
could," Kasumi said, twining her hands nervously in front of her.  Sasuke
had sounded so strange on the phone; he'd said he was alright, but there
was something in his voice that made her worried.

     "Damn," Mousse muttered, clenching his fist.  He'd been hoping that
this would all be resolved without trouble; if his analysis had been
correct, something had gone wrong with whatever Ranma, Akane and Ukyou had
been asked to do.  And as much as what he'd proposed made sense, he still
couldn't think how Kodachi figured into it.  He dropped down to the floor
and cupped his chin in his hand, trying to think.  Shampoo sat down beside
him and put a hand on his shoulder.

     "They be okay, Mousse.  We find them," Shampoo said.

     "I know," Mousse said.  "I just hope we find them in time."

     Kasumi sat down in the first available seat, before she realized it
was next to Hinako.  The teacher looked at the stricken girl for a moment,
as if she wanted to say something, then turned away and looked into empty
space with a sigh.

     Happosai groaned and struggled weakly towards Mousse and Shampoo.
"What's going on?" he croaked, struggling to get the words out.

     "Ranma, Akane, Ukyou and Kodachi are missing," Mousse said sharply.
"The last thing we need right now is your foolishness."

     "What?" Happosai said, springing up and seeming to regain his
vitality.  "Missing?  I offer, NO, I insist that I be allowed to help!"

     "Master, really, you're an old man, and it might be very..." Genma
said, gulping as Happosai turned and glared at him.

     "I will be part of this," Happosai said in a low, dangerous voice.
"No student of mine will come to harm while I am able to stop it."

     "I am sure your help would be appreciated, Happosai," Nodoka said
quietly.  "But only if you are willing to behave yourself."

     "But my strength..." Happosai said.

     "Behave yourself," Nodoka said, "and you are welcome to come along."

     "I'm coming too," Hinako said.  "They are my students as well, and I'm
responsible for part of this mess."

     "We don't even know what's going on yet," Kasumi said.  "Until we do,
we should all just try to remain calm.  Hopefully Sasuke can give us more
details when he gets here."

**********

     The cab squealed to a stop outside the Tendo dojo, throwing up a
splash of water.  The driver looked at the strange little man in the black
outfit beside him.  It was bad night to be driving, but his shift wasn't
over for another hour yet.

     The man pressed a wad of bills into his hand; he counted them and his
eyes widened.  "You want some change?"

     "No, no.  Keep it.  And wait out here for a while; I'll probably be
coming out with some friends," the little man said as he opened the door.

     "You got it," the cab driver said, tucking the fare and the huge tip
away.  The black-suited man ran into the rain and banged on the door of the
house; it was opened moments later by someone the driver couldn't see
through the pouring rain.  Shrugging, he turned up the radio and tapped the
steering wheel in time to the song.  Whatever was going on, it looked like
he could probably make enough tonight to make whatever weirdness he was
getting involved in worth it.

**********

     "So that's it," Genma said with a growl as Sasuke finished.  "He lied
to us."

     "That's the way it seems to be," Sasuke said.  "Let me find the book."

     He searched through his uniform, then looked up frantically.  "It's
not here!  I'm sure I had it..."

     "It's alright," Kasumi said, trying to remain calm in the face of what
Sasuke had just told her.  "As long as you remember the address."

     "Yes, yes.  I know that," Sasuke said.

     "The important thing right now is to move as quickly as we can,"
Mousse said.  "Who knows what could be going on while we dally here?"

     "You're right, boy," Happosai said.  "But it doesn't mean we can't go
in prepared."

     "Huh?" Mousse said, looking at the old man flatly.  "What can we
prepare for?"

     "As I see it," Happosai said, puffing on his pipe and looking around
the room.  "The team currently consists of myself, Soun, Genma, Hinako,
Sasuke, you and Shampoo, right?  Kasumi and Nodoka should stay here; this
is going to be dangerous, and it's better if they're out of harm's way."

     "Right," Mousse said, nodding.

     "After myself, you, Shampoo and Genma are our strongest fighters.
It's raining right now, and frankly, these curses tend to attract water
like a magnet attracts iron," Happosai said.

     The old man had undergone a real change since being told of the
disappearances.  His face had gone serious, and he'd listened intently to
Sasuke's explanation with only an occasional glance at Shampoo, Hinako,
Kasumi or Nodoka.  He continued:  "Genma is able to continue fighting as a
panda, but you and Shampoo are made nearly useless by cold water.  We're
going to need as many hot water thermoses as we can to change you back if
need be."

     "I'll go get those now," Kasumi said, getting up and heading into the
kitchen.

     "Now, you, Sasuke," Happosai said.  "You have a cab waiting outside?"

     "Yeah," Sasuke said.

     "It'll take a while to get another in this kind of weather," Happosai
said.  "I'd recommend we turn Mousse and Shampoo into their cursed forms
for the ride.  When we get into the house, we can change them back quickly
with the hot water."

     "Very well," Mousse said.  "I don't like being a duck much, and I
don't think Shampoo's much more keen on being a cat, but that seems like
the quickest way."

     Kasumi came back in with three thermoses of hot water.  "This is all
the thermoses we had," she said.

     "It's alright.  It only takes a small amount to change someone back,"
Happosai said.  "I'd recommend giving one to Soun, one to Sasuke and one to
Hinako.  Not to brag, but I'm our big gun; if we come down to a situation
where they get changed, I may be too busy fighting to change them back."

     Kasumi went around distributing the hot water as Happosai said.  The
old man finished up as she did so.

     "I think that's it," Happosai said.  "We have to be careful; we should
try to avoid getting into fights until we find Ranma and the others.  If we
alert them to our presence, who knows what they'll do to the prisoners?"

     "Perhaps we ought to split up when we go in," Mousse said.  "Cover
more ground that way."

     "That sounds like a good idea," Happosai said.  "But we shouldn't
unless we really need to.  If we have to fight, it's better we do it in a
group."

     "Alright," Happosai said, rising up.  "I guess we're ready to go.  But
first, I have to get as strong as I can before we go in!"

     Happosai leapt at Hinako.  The teacher's eyes widened in surprise for a
moment, and then Happosai was doing his best to burrow down the front of
her dress.  An eyebrow twitched with fury; then there was a small pop, and
all of a sudden, there was much less of Hinako for Happosai told hold on
to.

     "Where did they go?" Happosai said sorrowfully, right before the
little girl drove her elbow into the top of his head and kicked him across
the room.

     "Happosai..." Nodoka said.  "You promised to behave."

     "I'll behave, I'll behave..." Happosai muttered.  "But it's so hard to
resist..."

     "Well, I guess we'd better get moving," Mousse said.  He took a glass
of cold water from the table and poured half of it over Shampoo before
doing the same to himself.  Hinako was on the floor, scooping up the cat
and duck instantly.

     "They're so cute!" she squealed happily.  The cat meowed sadly; Mousse
quacked mournfully in reply.

     "I am confident we shall return," Genma said to Kasumi and Nodoka as
he gathered up Mousse and Shampoo's clothes.  "But if we do not, the best
thing for you to do would be to go to the Nekohanten and talk to Shampoo's
great-grandmother; explain to her what has happened.  Then try to contact
Tatewaki Kuno and Ryoga; they will be able to help."

     "I believe you'll return as well," Nodoka said gently, smiling at her
husband.  "Take care, dear one."

     "I swear if it is within me, I shall return," Genma said, avoiding
looking at his wife so that she would not see the deepening blush on his
face.  He walked to the door, where Sasuke, Happosai, Hinako and the two
animals waited.

     "Father, are you sure you should go?" Kasumi said.

     "I'm not going to sit back and leave my daughter," Soun said.
"Kasumi... I..."

     "I know, father," Kasumi said.  She stood and embraced her father
tightly, letting the tears that had been building in her loose now.  "Just
promise you'll come back safely.  With Akane and all the others."

     "I promise," Soun said.  "Oh, I'm so proud of you, Kasumi.  You've
done so much for this family, I don't know how we would have..."

     "Father, everyone's waiting," Kasumi said, letting go and giving him a
gentle push towards the door.  Soon, the door opened and the strange
rescue team was gone into the night.

     "Well," Kasumi said, dabbing at her eyes as she turned to Nodoka.
"What do we do now?"

     "We have some tea and wait for them to come home," Nodoka said firmly.

     Despite everything that had happened, despite the worry she had for
all the others, Kasumi smiled.  She knew in her heart that they would all
come home safely, and bring the others with them.

**********

     The driver looked up at the group coming out of the house; for a
moment, he almost forgot about the chance to make more money in one night
than he did in a month, and drove off.  Maybe it was the large panda
carrying several sets of clothing in its furry arms; maybe it was the
little old man less than two feet high, or the girl with the cat and the
duck.

     But he didn't drive off; instead, he sat there as the strange man
who'd first flagged him down got into the front seat and handed him a very
large amount of money.  He didn't say anything when the panda crammed into
the back seat, and the little girl settled into his lap holding the duck
and cat.  He didn't ask why the duck was wearing glasses.  He didn't speak
at all, not until the tiny, withered man, and the only normal looking
person in the whole bunch, a tall man with a mustache, were in the back
seat as well.

     And then all he said was "Where to?"

**********

     The taxi sped away into the night; the three men, one little girl, one
duck, one cat and one panda looked at the house they'd been dropped off in
front of.

     "Are you sure this is the right place?" Soun said to Sasuke.

     "Of course I'm sure," Sasuke said with a nod.

     "It doesn't look like the place you'd have an evil cult," Happosai
said.

     "Well, they're not going to advertise, are they?" Sasuke said with a
sigh.

     "I suppose you're right," Soun said.  The house was large, with two
stories and surrounded by a high wall.  Lights could be seen shining
through the upper windows, and perhaps the occasional hint of movement.
The lower windows were covered by thick curtains, blocking any attempt to
see through them.  A large iron gate at the front of the house was
apparently the only way in;  Sasuke approached it carefully and touched his
fingers to the lock.  The gates swung open soundlessly.

     "Okay, that was easier than I thought it would be," he said.  "Come
on."

     The others followed him through to the front door.  Sasuke reached out
and tried the handle; it swung open in the same way as the gate.  Before
them was a brightly lit hallway; down at the far end a tall spiral
staircase could be seen.  There was a closed doorway on either side of the
hallway.  Cautiously, they walked inside.  Except for the breathing of the
members of the group, no sound could be heard.

     "The first thing we do is change them back," Soun said as he closed
the door quietly behind him.  After a few moments, and repeated orders to
Happosai to look away from Shampoo as she changed back, Mousse and Shampoo
were human again, as was Genma.  Mousse stretched his arms over his head
and looked around from behind his glasses.

     "We should split up," Mousse said.  "Each group check out one of those
doors."

     "Right," Happosai said.  "Soun, Genma, you two are with me."

     "Master, really, we..." Soun and Genma said.  Happosai ignored them
and headed off towards the left hand room.  Gulping, the two men followed
their master.

     "Alright," Mousse said.  "We've got the right hand side.  Come on."

     The room the four of them walked into was a kitchen; there was no sign
of anyone beyond themselves, and for all purposes, it appeared to be a
normal, even particularly neatly kept, kitchen.  There was a closed door
across the room; after a cursory glance around the room, Mousse moved to it
and opened it up.  The room beyond was in darkness; in the light that
spilled in from the kitchen, Mousse saw that it appeared to be a large
dining room of some sort.  There was a click behind him, and Sasuke stepped
past him and into the room, a small flashlight in his hands.  The dining
room was as normal looking as the kitchen; like the kitchen, it appeared so
neat and unused as to be out of place.  Mousse swept a hand carefully
across the top of the long oak table; it came away covered in dust.

     "It's like no one's ever been in here," Mousse said.  They advanced
cautiously through the dining room, looking at the parts that were
illuminated in the powerful beam of the flashlight.  There was nothing out
of the ordinary; there was not even anything that caught the eye.

     Mousse sniffed the air; there was a strange scent... pleasant, almost.

     Sasuke's flashlight suddenly clicked off.  The door into the kitchen
slammed closed, leaving them in total darkness.  Something crashed into
Mousse's legs, and he nearly stabbed it before he realized it was Hinako.

     "I'm scared of the dark," she whimpered, clinging to his robes.

     "Sasuke?  What happened?" Mousse hissed.

     "I don't know," Sasuke said.  "It just went out.  I'll try to get it
back on."

     "Shampoo, do you smell that?" Mousse said, sniffing again.  It was
stronger now.

     "Smell what?" Shampoo said.  He felt someone touch his arm.  Shampoo
was beside him now.

     "Sasuke?" Mousse said.  "Any luck with the flashlight?"

     There was no answer; Mousse heard light footsteps.  Hinako was still
clutching his legs; Shampoo was next to him.

     "Sasuke?" Mousse said again.  What the hell was that smell?  It was
becoming hard to think.  Shampoo's touch on his arm seemed almost annoying;
it was getting in the way of him smelling that wonderful scent.  What the
hell was she doing it for anyway?  Just teasing him, like she always did?
Laughing inside at him... he ought to...

     Mousse shook his head.  What was he thinking?  The scent was doing
something to him; he could feel it in his head.

     His hands rustled in his robes; they found what they needed and came
out.  He jammed the noseplugs in and sucked in a breath of air from his
mouth.  He heard the footsteps behind them now; the clink of metal.

     Mousse threw himself to the ground, dragging Hinako and Shampoo with
him.  Something whistled by overhead; he heard the footsteps skittering
away again.

     "Sasuke, what the hell's going on?" Mousse said, fairly sure he
already knew the answer.

**********

     There was the smell again; the same one as in the shop.

     The same one?  How could that be?  The shop had smelled of death, and
blood.  Not this pleasant smell that seemed to enwrap him in numbing layers
of silk.

     He turned the flashlight off; the light was interfering with his other
senses.  With the light off, he could smell it even better.

     He heard Mousse speak up behind him; pushy bastard.  Who'd he think
he was, anyway?  He thought he was the one leading this group; it was he,
Sasuke, who'd found out where everyone had gone.  And yet they all listened
when Mousse said something.

     The little girl was speaking as well; the one who'd been that lovely
woman before changing back so strangely.  He'd seen her look at him as he
came in, then never look again.  Women never did; why would they want to?

     The voice of the Amazon, too.  Oh, she laughed at him behind his back;
all the pretty girls did, for as long as he could remember.  Laughed at him
for his height, his looks, like they were things he could help.  Damn them
all.  What right did they have to laugh at him?

     Why don't I just kill them?  Kill the Amazon bitch, and shut up the
whining of the little girl, and cut the head off that arrogant bastard
Mousse.  He was the one who got all the praise in the warehouse; he was the
one who Ukyou had looked at thankfully, as if he'd been the only one to do
anything to help her.

     Sasuke's head hurt; all the thoughts he'd had of saving Mistress
Kodachi were gone now.  The greater part of him, the part that was
horrified at these thoughts, seemed to be buried beneath that wondrous
smell.

     With a feral grin invisible in the darkness, he pulled out a handful
of shuriken.  Then he reached into another pocket of his uniform and
pulled out the goggles.  He strapped them on quickly, in a practiced
motion.  They began to work automatically; the room appeared, glowing green
as the night vision did its work.

     He looked back; the two girls were by Mousse, the little one burying
her face in his robes, as the Amazon held onto his arm and glanced around
the darkness of the room.  Of course they would go to him for help; don't
look to weak, useless Sasuke.

     He'd show them how weak and useless he was; with the grin still on
his face, he began to move around behind them as silently as he could.

**********

     "Shampoo, Hinako, get into the kitchen," Mousse hissed to the two of
them.  "Something's happened to Sasuke."

     Shampoo touched Mousse's arm in the darkness; his voice sounded
strange, like he were plugging his nose or something.  "Mousse..."

     "Shampoo, quick.  I'm used to fighting blind.  You don't have a
chance; hurry!"  Mousse said, tugging the two of them to their feet.  The
door was close by; Mousse hoped he remembered the direction right as he
shoved the two of them towards where he thought it was.  There was the
sound of the door opening; no light came in from the kitchen.  Someone had
turned it dark as well.  The door closed; Mousse hoped they'd be okay.

     He could have followed them; it would have made sense to.  But then
who knew what would happen to Sasuke?  He didn't know the ninja very well,
but he was part of the group.

     Mousse cocked his head, listening intently.  There was no sound.  He
reached up and quickly put his glasses away; it would be easier to fight
blind if he really was.  His eyes useless, his nose plugged.  Two of his
sense dead.  Take the resources you use for them; use them to hear.

     There; a slight scuffling in front of him.  Mousse ducked to the side
as more projectiles flew by where he had been standing.  He threw out his
arms, but the chains snagged nothing but empty air.

     "Sasuke," Mousse said.  "Why are you doing this?"

     There was no response; Mousse stepped forward hesitantly, trying to
remember the positioning of objects in the room.  The table should have
been right in front of him; there.  His hands touched the wooden edge.
Mousse hunched down and edged around, trying to hear Sasuke.

     Behind him; a dive to the floor, hearing the missiles hit the wood of
the table or a chair.  Coming up in a roll, lashing out with the chain
again, in a wide arc this time.  Feeling the weighted end lash around
something for a moment, before it struggled free.  There was the sound of
quick movement, then nothing.

     He reached out, fingers seeking for whatever Sasuke had thrown at him;
the weapon he was using would reveal more about him.  Flat, disc-shaped,
several points.  Shuriken, ninja throwing stars.  They'd hurt, but they
wouldn't disable or kill.

     "Can you really afford to toy with me?" Mousse said.  He didn't
expect a response.

     "I can see you, but you can't see me," Sasuke's voice taunted from the
darkness to his left.  It sounded completely unlike his normal voice, with
none of the servility or humbleness he usually adopted, only the delighted
tones of a child doing something he'd always been forbidden.  Mousse
grinned and threw out the chains again; something rushed by and a red flash
of pain flared across his right hand.  Mousse bit back a scream; he
couldn't have Shampoo rushing in here.  Sasuke had changed his tactics; he
was hitting and running at close range now, slashing at Mousse with some
kind of bladed weapon.

     He clutched the hand to himself; the cut wasn't deep, but it hurt.
Sasuke could obviously see in the darkness somehow; that gave him a huge
advantage.

     He couldn't see, so it was time to remove Sasuke's advantage.

     Mousse rummaged in his robes, even as he heard the sound of footsteps
rushing again towards him.

**********

     The chains missed by several feet; Sasuke slashed open Mousse's hand,
revelling in the feel of flesh opening to the blade.  He ran by a few more
steps, turned and prepared to ram the sword through the boy's back.
Unaware of his impending doom, Mousse hunched over with his injured hand
clutched to himself.  Sasuke raised the sword; Mousse turned and threw up
his hands.

     A miniature sun flared through the green-tinged vision of the goggles.
The world was no longer green, but terrible, blinding white.  The sword bit
nothing but air.

**********

     Mousse heard Sasuke cry out as the flash bomb exploded.  He leaped at
the direction of the sound, outstretching his arms for where he hoped
Sasuke's wrists would be; he caught one, and grabbed the other as it swung
the sword at him.  The ninja seemed abnormally strong; Mousse wrenched
Sasuke's wrists outward, pulling the arms apart, and drove his knee forward
into Sasuke's stomach.  The ninja went down; Mousse wrapped him in chains
from head to foot as quickly as he could.  He fumbled a second pair of
noseplugs from his robes and stuck them into the stunned Sasuke's nostrils,
hoping that whatever the effects the scent had, they wore off when you
could no longer smell.

     Then he hefted up the chained Sasuke and carried him towards the door
to the kitchen.  

**********

     Shampoo stood in the darkness of the kitchen, conscious of the tiny
hand of Hinako clenched in her own; the lights in the hall were out as
well.  She could hear nothing from the dining room at all.  The lightswitch
she'd found on the kitchen wall in the dark hadn't worked no matter how
many times she'd flipped it.

     As far as she could tell, all the lights had gone out; there was no
sound to be heard from anywhere in the house.  She wanted to go back in and
try to help Mousse, but she recognized the truth in his words; he was used
to fighting in the dark, while she wasn't.  In there, she'd only get in his
way, and be another target for Sasuke.

     What had happened to the ninja, anyway, she wondered.  Mousse had
mentioned some kind of smell, but she'd noticed nothing.  Shampoo felt
helpless; it was not a feeling she liked.  But there wasn't anything else
to do right now but wait; wait in the darkness of the kitchen, aware only
of the presence of the rigid, frightened child next to her.  Wait and hope
that the door would open up again soon, and Mousse would come through
safely.

     She realized she was holding her breath; with a gasp, she let it out.

     "You okay?" Hinako asked concernedly.  When they'd stumbled into the
kitchen together, the child had grabbed onto Shampoo's hand tightly.
Usually, Shampoo would have pulled away, but right now it seemed the only
thing she could hold onto in this darkness.

     "Yes, I fine," Shampoo said.

     "What's going on in there?" Hinako said.  "I'm scared."

     "I not know," Shampoo said.

     "Is it going to be okay?" Hinako asked.

     "I hope so," Shampoo said.

     "Why are you a cat?" Hinako asked suddenly.

     "Why you ask so many questions?" Shampoo snapped.

     "Why are you getting mad at me?"

     Shampoo got ready to explain in detail, probably using several Chinese
words she didn't know the Japanese equivalent for, mainly because most
language texts wouldn't carry them because they were too obscene.  She was
stopped when the lights of the hall and kitchen suddenly clicked back on;
blinking her eyes as her vision adjusted from total darkness to sudden
light, Shampoo watched as the door to the dining room swung open.  Mousse
came through, carrying the bound and struggling Sasuke.  His white robe had
streaks of blood across the front, but he seemed okay.

     "Mousse!" Shampoo said, rushing up to him as he laid Sasuke down on
the floor.  The ninja struggled slightly, but was bound so tightly with
chain it didn't really matter.  Shampoo grabbed him by the shoulders and
looked at him; her gaze dropped to his bleeding hand.

     "It's nothing," he said.

     "I glad you okay," Shampoo said.  "What happen in there?"

     "There was some kind of smell," Mousse said.  "It... it made me think
terrible things.  I got these in before anything happened; Sasuke wasn't so
lucky."

     Mousse indicated the plugs in his nose.  Shampoo glanced down at
Sasuke, who had stopped struggling and appeared to be unconscious.  "He
going to be okay?"

     "I don't know," Mousse said.  "I hope the effects will wear off
soon...  EEEP!"

     Mousse yanked Shampoo and himself out of the path of the splash as
Hinako dumped a glass of cold water over Sasuke.  The ninja sputtered and
looked around the kitchen in bewilderment.  Then he looked at the chains.

     "What's going on?" he said weakly.

     "What's the last thing you remember?" Mousse said, kneeling down and
starting to unwrap the chains.

     "I'm not sure... let me think for a moment... there was the shop, and
that strange man...  oh no..." Sasuke said, his eyes going even wider than
usual.

     "What wrong?" Shampoo asked.

     "It's a trap," he said.  "This whole place is a trap.  That's why I
couldn't find the book; it didn't exist in the first place.  Something was
done to me in that shop, that same smell that made me try to kill you all
in the dining room.  It's some kind of hallucinogen, or a mind control or
something.  They've known we were coming all along."

     "Then what happen to Ranma and others?" Shampoo said nervously.

     Sasuke shook his head.  "I don't know.  They may be here, they may
not.  We can't trust anything I've said since I left that shop."

     "I didn't smell anything in there," Hinako said.

     "You didn't either, did you Shampoo?" Mousse asked.  "Maybe it only
works on men."

     "Well, we've got the solution to it now," Mousse said, indicating the
noseplugs.  He paused suddenly, a worried expression on his face.  "What
about the others?"

     "We have to go warn them," Sasuke said, struggling to his feet.  "I...
I'm sorry I led you all into this."

     "It could have happened to any of us," Mousse said, waving his hand
dismissively.  "Right now, the important thing is to find out just what's
going on.  And that means finding the others."

     The other three nodded; drawing their weapons, or, in Hinako's case,
spare change, they proceeded back towards the direction the others had
taken.

**********

     "I'll tell you boys, these evil cultists certainly know how to live in
style," Happosai said as they walked down the second hallway they'd
entered when they left the main one.  The walls of the hallway were hung
with a large array of impressive paintings, which all looked valuable.

     "M... master, this is no time for joking," Soun said as they proceeded
down the hallway.  "We need to find my Akane as soon as we can."

     "I agree, Tendo," Genma said.  "The sooner we're out of here, the
better.  With our children and their friends in tow."

     <And I intend to personally put my fist straight through Shigeki
Kiyokuro's head,> Genma added silently to himself.  He'd been the elder in
that situation; he should have seen through the man in an instant.  But
he'd been fooled like the rest, and his son was now paying the price.  He
remembered the look on his wife's face as they'd left the house; it was a
look he hadn't been expecting to see ever again.  One that told him that
all of her feelings for him weren't as dead as he'd thought.

     <I took him from you once, Nodoka,> he thought as they walked.  <I
won't allow him to be taken from you again.  I cannot redeem myself solely
by my actions tonight, but I can try to give you reason to look at me again
without the disappointment I can see behind your eyes every time you see
me.>

     Happosai looked at the door at the end of the hallway; he reached up
and rapped it with his pipe.  It swung open as smoothly as the gate and
front door had.  

     "Why do I get the idea these folks were expecting us," he muttered
under his breath, before raising his voice again.  "Now that's what I call
hospitality."

     "Master, please," Soun said pleadingly.  Happosai chuckled dryly and
strode into the room ahead of the two younger men.  He looked around.

     He looked around again.

     He looked around some more.

     Then he said "Whoah."

     It appeared that the three of them had stepped into the finest wing of
a very snooty art museum; the paintings on the walls of the hallway that
led here were nothing compared to what was hung on the clean, white painted
walls of the enormous room.  Whether huge tapestry-like canvasses, or
small, exquisite still-lifes, the paintings were all beautifully rendered,
and probably extremely pricey.

     The floor of the room was dotted with statues and pieces of sculpture,
ranging from traditional human representations to avant-garde modern art.
Happosai wandered in and looked up at a marble statue of an incredibly
beautiful woman draped in thin silky garments.

     "I don't know much about art," he said.  "But I know what I like."

     Soun and Genma glanced around the room in wonder; it didn't look as if
it could have possibly belonged in a house were the terrible activities of
the people who'd taken their children lived.

     Then one of the paintings on a nearby wall caught Genma's eye; he
walked forward and took a closer look.  He felt his stomach turn; the
painting depicted in hideous realism a cannibalistic feast around an open
grave.  Rotting limbs were passed back and forth among a group of dog-like
humanoids.  Most horrible of all, several small, obviously human children
dressed in little more than rags hunched with the group around the grave,
imitating with relish the actions of the dog-men.  The plaque below the
painting read "R. Pickman, 1917".  The name meant nothing to Genma; he
turned away in disgust, coming face to face with a piece of sculpture
consisting of a tangle of rods and spheres.  He couldn't say what it was,
but there was something about it that repulsed him as much as the painting
had; perhaps it was the way it seemed to shift before his eyes, as if
unwilling to stay in whatever configuration the artist had intended.  There
was no plaque for this piece.  Perhaps it was on the other side; Genma
walked around the sculpture, directing his eyes towards the base it rested
on, but finding them continually drawn back to the strange shape of the
sculpture.  He didn't even noticed when Soun joined him in walking in
circles around and around the sculpture.

     Happosai looked up at the statue again; it looked so lifelike he
almost felt as if he could reach out and touch her.  He stretched his hands
up towards the delicately sculpted feet; then he stopped.

     There was something wrong; he looked again.  The statue had six toes
on each foot.

     "Why would you do something like that?" he said quietly, addressing
whoever had carved the woman from the marble block.  "She's perfect in
every other way..."

     But she wasn't, he realized.  Trailing up from her feet, he saw that
her knees were attached the other way round, bending backwards like the
hind legs of an animal.  One hand, reaching out from her garment, had seven
fingers; the other, concealed within the folds, looked as if it had
tentacles instead of fingers.  The mouth of the statue was hideously
twisted and cruel, with a hint of a forked tongue protruding from between
the slender lips.  Looking at the eyes, he could see the pupils were not
round and human, but vertical slits like those of a serpent.

     "I don't like this place," he said loudly.  "Soun, Genma.  Let's move
on."

     "Soun?  Genma?" Happosai said, looking up.  His two students were
moving in circles around what looked like a heap of scrap from here.  "You
two gone deaf or something?"

     The two didn't answer; Happosai ground his teeth in annoyance and
walked up to them.  With a hop, he was on Soun's shoulders, bringing the
bowl of his pipe down across his student's head in a hard rap.

     "Oww!  Master, what did you do that for?" Soun said, rubbing his head
and looking down as Happosai hopped off.

     "Because you were acting like him," Happosai said, pointing to Genma,
who was still walking around the sculpture as if hypnotized.  Soun stepped
in front of Genma and shook him by the shoulders.

     "Saotome, old friend, are you alright?" he said.

     "Huh?" Genma replied intelligently, shaking his head to clear it.
"What happened?"

     "This place isn't as nice as I thought," Happosai said.  "Let's see if
there's any other way out of it; otherwise, we'll head back out into the
hallway."

     The other two men nodded in agreement and began to walk towards the
end of the room.  Happosai glanced around and sniffed the air.

     "Say, you two smell something?" he asked.

     "You know master, I do believe you're right?" Genma said as he sniffed
the air as well.  "I do smell something..."

     "Eh?  I thought I might be dreaming.  Smells kinda nice though, don't
it?" Happosai asked loudly, surreptitiously digging out his pipe and a
pouch of tobacco with warning labels printed on it in eight different
languages.

     "I feel..." Soun said.  Happosai struck a match to the filled bowl of
the pipe and began to puff vigorously; smoke rose up in a cloud around the
three men.  It smelled incredibly foul, and now the only thing the three of
them could smell was that noxious tobacco.  Genma and Soun gasped and
choked and tried to move away; Happosai snagged them and pulled them back
within the rapidly growing cloud of smoke.

     "Master... ack..." Soun said, coughing.  His eyes watered as he
blinked them half-closed.

     "Better this than the alternative," Happosai said.  "Get a bit of this
in your lungs and you won't be smelling or tasting anything else for days.
This is my own special stock of tobacco, boys.  You should feel honoured;
few people get to smell this particular brand."

     "Probably because they're running too fast to get upwind from it,"
Genma muttered.  Happosai hopped up and perched on his head, still smoking
as he glanced about the room.

     "Where are you?" he called.  "Come on out.  I'm on to your tricks."

     "Master, the statue," Soun said, reaching up to tug at Happosai's
sleeve.  Happosai glanced back at the deformed statue he'd been so taken
with at first; it was glowing with black light that seemed to illuminate
each hideous aspect of it.

     "Well, is it you?" Happosai said.  "We'll soon take care of that."

     He rummaged in his clothing and pulled out a large, comical-looking
round firecracker with a long fuse attached.  Genma and Soun blanched.

     "M... master... you know it's dangerous to use those indoors," Genma
said.

     "Ha!  Have I ever screwed up with my Happodaikarin before?" Happosai
said, dipping the fuse into the bowl of his pipe and then rolling the
sputtering incendiary across the floor towards the statue.  It hit the
base, stopped, then exploded in a bright flash of light, forcing them to
look away.  The statue toppled backwards and smashed on the floor, the dark
glow around it flowing off onto the floor and zipping past them to the
other end of the room like a sapient oil slick.

     "Follow that patch of living darkness!" Happosai cried, striking Genma
on the head for emphasis.  Genma and Soun complied, rushing after the
speeding darkness with Happosai riding on Genma's shoulders.

     The door they'd come in from swung open; Genma stopped and looked
back.  Soun didn't, which meant he crashed into Genma's back and fell over
onto the floor.

     The other members of their group came quickly through the room towards
them.  "Are you all okay?" Genma asked as Soun regained his feet.

     "We were more worried about you three," Mousse said.  "This whole
thing is a set up."

     Mousse's hands rustled through his robe, and he came up with another
three pairs of noseplugs.  "Better put these in."

     "How many of those do you have, anyway?" Sasuke asked quietly, but
without getting a response.

     "Eh?  No need for those, anymore.  We already dealt with the problem,"
Happosai said, gesturing with his pipe at the broken statue on the floor.

     "No, old man," said a soft voice from the other end of the room.  "I'd
say the problem has just begun."

     Everyone looked in surprise; a woman of astonishing beauty stepped
into view, sweeping gracefully towards them.  Long dark hair framed a face
completely without blemish or imperfection, but without emotion as well.
She wore a white silk kimono unadorned by designs which rustled around her
as she walked.  The room seemed to go even more silent in her presence, as
if none of them dared to move for fear of disturbing her.

     Excepting, of course, Happosai.

     "VERY Pretty lady!" he said delightedly, rushing across the room with
his arms open.  "I shall rescue you!"

     "Oh, but you have already set me free," the woman said.  "My name is
Hibino Kyofu, and I thank you, old man."

     Happosai skidded to a stop a few feet from the woman and backed off;
he realized why she looked familiar.  She was a living, breathing duplicate
of the statue that had seemd flawless at first, but at close examination
was revealed to be horrific.  Happosai looked at Hibino Kyofu through eyes
that had seen centuries pass, and he gasped, retreating further back
towards the others.

     "Your aura..." he said, backing away further as Hibino swept slowly
towards him, a smile thin as a razor blade on her face.  "You're not
human."

     Soun stepped forward.  "Where is my daughter?  What have you done with
her?"

     "I don't know," Hibino said as she came slowly closer.  "By now, she
is halfway across the ocean, my former master in close pursuit.  He had
some ideas for her in particular, though I doubt if she would have survived
past the first half-dozen or so."

     "Liar," Genma snarled.  "We know they're here."

     "Stupid fool," Hibino said.  "Like the boy said, this whole thing has
been a setup.  Your children are not here."

     "Perhaps you all stop staring at evil lady and fight her now?" Shampoo
said, rushing past Soun and Genma with her bonbori lifted high.  Hibino
paused in her slow movements and watched disinterestedly as Shampoo came at
her.

     Then her face began to melt and run like candle wax, flowing down and
disappearing into the depths of her kimono.  The face below was something
out of nightmare; hairless, smooth-scaled and reptilian, the head of a
serpent given human form.  She moved out of the way as Shampoo swung and
pulled her hands from the folds of her kimono, giving an almost gentle
looking tap to Shampoo's side.  The Amazon stiffened; one of her arms
dropped limply, losing the grip on the bonbori.  Shampoo dodged back as
another gentle blow nearly tapped her throat, and then the rest of them
were coming at the serpent-women.  Sinous and impossibly quick she ducked
under fists and feet and blades, weaving among them as if in a complicated
dance, scaled fingers darting out to give gentle taps that caused arms and
legs to go numb and stop working.  Sasuke dropped to the floor in an
instant, his entire body rigid and unmoving.  Genma's right leg collapsed
under him as Hibino tagged him lightly on the hip.

     And then she was gone, like the wind, ducking behind a large
sculpture and not re-emerging, disappearing from view.  

     "What the hell is she?" Mousse said, gripping the sword he'd pulled
from his robes in one hand as he scanned the room.  He stooped and checked
Sasuke; the ninja was breathing, but seemed incapable of other movement.

     "I don't know," Happosai said, clutching his pipe.  "Everyone okay?"

     "I can't move my leg," Genma said.  "Other than that, fine."

     "Shampoo's arm not working," Shampoo said.  She glanced around.
"Where snake-woman go?"

     "I don't see her," Soun said.  "It's like she vanished into thin air."

     "No, she's here," Happosai said.  "I can feel her aura.   It's like
nothing else I've ever felt, on a human or otherwise."

     "Well, she'd better watch out," Hinako said from her position hiding
behind Soun's legs.  "If she shows her scaly face again, I'll suck the
energy out of her faster than she can hiss."

     "Do you think she's telling the truth?" Genma said.  "About Ranma,
and the others?"

     "I owe you a small debt," Hibino's voice said from somewhere they
could not place.  "So I will tell you the truth.  I have my honour; much
more so than he who pursues your children and their friends.  They are not
here.  I laid this trap that I might find my freedom; in his haste, my
former master did not check closely enough to see what I was doing.  Ask my
little pawn when he awakens."

     "Come out and fight!" Shampoo called.  "Coward snake!"

     "I am going now," Hibino said, echoing throughout the room.  "This
city is far too full of those who would either control me or take my life
for my tastes.  Do not try to track me down; you would not enjoy what I
would have to do to you."

     "Just try it," Genma said, clenching his fist and struggling up on one
leg.  "If my son has been harmed, I swear that I'll..."

     "She's gone, Genma," Happosai said, examining his student's paralyzed
leg.  "I felt her aura leave.  She... she was telling the truth.  I could
tell that much.  Wherever they are, they aren't in this place."

     He reached out and tapped Genma behind the knee; the feeling came back
into his leg and he straightened up with a sigh.

     "We can't leave without checking," Soun said, as Happosai moved over
to Sasuke and knelt down beside him.  Withered fingers tapped along the
ninja's body, and he stiffened and relaxed from the paralysis.

     "Soun, we cannot stay in this place," Happosai said, rare seriousness
in his voice.  "There... there is something else here.  I can feel it.  It
frightens even me.  I've felt it on the edge of my senses since we got
here, but now that I really concentrate on it, it is..."

     "And you only decided to mention this now because of what?" Genma
interrupted.

     "I didn't want to make the rest of you nervous," Happosai said.  "I
thought that dear Akane and the others might be in danger, and my only
thoughts were of them..."

     "They could still be in danger, master," Soun said.  "We can't trust
her words.  They may be here."

     "They are not," Happosai said insistently.  "They are in danger, I
believe that.  But right now, there is nothing we can do to help them.
They are on their own."

     "I don't think they're here either," Sasuke said, raising himself to a
sitting position on the floor.  "Ever since I found that spatula, something
has had a hold on me.  I think it was her, that serpent-woman.  She's been
manipulating us all along, using me as her puppet to lead us all into
freeing her.  I think she wanted the rest of you to have to kill me when I
went berserk in the dining room so there'd be no evidence of what she'd
done."

     He proceeded to explain for Soun, Genma and Happosai about what had
taken place when he'd entered the shop, his mind now clear of whatever
manipulations had taken place.  When he finished, Genma sighed and glanced
at his feet.

     "So that's it," he said.  "We've been led around by the nose this
whole time.  My son is not here, and never was."

     "That's what I've been trying to tell you all," Happosai said.  "Now,
the only thing we can do is go home and wait for them.  We can't help them
now; whatever happens to them will be determined by them only."

     "I don't like it," Mousse said.  "I hate feeling helpless like this.
There has to be something we can do."

     "Sometimes, boy, the only thing you can do is wait," Happosai said.
"Try to get used to it."

     "This house evil," Shampoo said, her arm still swinging limply at her
side.  "We no can leave it alone like this."

     "I agree, dear Shampoo," Happosai said, moving towards Shampoo.  She
darted back and glared at him.  "I only wish to fix your arm..."

     "Alright," Shampoo said, glaring suspiciously at him.  She stepped
forward and held up one finger.  "But if you touch anything other than arm,
they going to need mop to clean you up."

     "But the point to undo paralysis often isn't on the..."

     "Just do it, Happosai," Mousse said.  "We all want to get out of
here."

     "Very well," Happosai said, stepping forward with a sigh and hitting a
point on Shampoo's elbow.  Her arm straightened and punched him away just
as he made a grab for her chest.

     "What are we going to do about this house, though?" Mousse said.  "If
it's as full of evil as it seems, then Shampoo's right.  We can't leave it
like this."

     "That's true," Genma said.  "But right now we're tired and confused as
to just what's going on.  We came here to rescue Ranma and the others, not
anything else.  In another few days, when we know exactly what's happened
to them, we can do something about this house, and whatever is within in
it.  We need to rest now, and wait for them to return."

     "I suppose you're right," Mousse said with a sigh.  "It's not like the
house is going anywhere, after all."

     "I'm hungry," Hinako said petulantly.  "Can we go home now?  I don't
like this place."

     "Very well," Genma said, starting back towards the door that would
lead them out.  "Let's go home, and wait for our children."

     Tired and weary, the seven of them made their way to the front door
and stepped out into the yard, turning their backs to the disturbing house
behind them.  The door swung shut without any of them touching it; glancing
up, they could see that lights no longer shone from the upstairs windows.
It now seemed as dark and empty as if none had lived there for years.

     The rain had stopped; the streets were still soaked with water, but
for now the storm had passed them by.  Grey clouds hung against the night
sky, still choked with rain, but no longer pouring it forth.  They drifted
out towards the Pacific ocean; the storm was moving out to sea now.

     "Come on," Soun said wearily.  "We can all wait in the same place, at
least."

     Still with a vague sense that in some way they had failed, they all
began to head back towards the Tendo dojo.

     <Wherever you are, my son,> Genma thought to himself.  <Protect
yourself, and Akane as well.>

**********

     On the second floor of the house, eyes that had no need of light
watched from the darkened windows of the library as the group walked away.

     "So," a voice said from the darkness.  "You are free now, little one.
Go forth into the world and do what you will."

     The eyes turned away from the window and looked around at the darkened
shelves, stretching from floor to ceiling and stacked with thousands of
books in cracked leather bindings, bound parchments, scrolls.  A hundred
lifetimes worth of esoteric knowledge.

     "A pity," the voice said mildly.  "There's so much here that could be
put to use by the right person.  Unfortunately, you weren't the right
person, were you Richard?  And your father had such high hopes for you; I'm
sure he's rolling around in his grave right now."

     "Like they say, though, you can destroy the book, but you can't
destroy the idea," the voice continued.  Shoulders shrugged in the
darkness.  "The penalties have been assessed."

     A hand appeared, held palm upward with the fingers curving in, as if
in supplication or the begging of alms.  A flame grew from the centre of
the palm, leaping and dancing a half-foot into the air.  Fire reflected
red-orange, sparkling and dancing in dark eyes, and then the flame was
touched to one of the books.

     It leapt from shelf to shelf like a hungry animal, devouring far
faster than the hottest fire should have been capable of.  Amidst the
inferno of the library, something grinned.  The work here was done.

     But there was still quite a lot of work to do this night.  There was a
small pop as air rushed to fill the space that something had occupied, and
then the fire rushed to consume that air.

     Quite a lot of work to do this night indeed.