Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum 

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

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

Chapter 5 : Best-Laid Plans

     Her wings hurt.

     The rocky floor of the cave had not been kind to the
sweeping, white-feathered appendages that marked Kima, along with
her taloned hands and feet, as one of the fading population of
Phoenix Mountain.  She was far from her home now, though,
returned to the country from which the outsiders had come, the
ones who'd ruined Lord Saffron's transformation.  Ten years of
careful preparation, of seeking the proper time to again attempt
to raise Saffron to his full power.  Ruined.  Utterly and
completely.  

     Kima shifted her position on the flat-topped rock she was
sitting on and outstretched one wing to examine it with a frown.
The feathers were dirty and dishevelled from the few hours of
sleep she'd managed to snatch on the floor of the cave.  Nearly
half-a-dozen times she'd been awakened by the heavy crashes of
thunder, to lie awake for what seemed like hours, listening to
the driving rain outside the cave and her own soft breathing,
before sleep again overtook her.

     Shiso had been gone from the cave when she'd awakened a few
minutes ago; she had no idea of where the raven might have gone
to.  With a sigh, she began to clean the feathers of her wings 
with her hands as well as she could.  She did not have the means 
to heat water to truly clean them, and would have to do the best 
she could with her fingers.

     She wanted a bath.  And a hot meal.  And to be back in
Phoenix Mountain in her quarters, where all those things and a
soft bed were available.

     Instead, though, she had this low-ceilinged cave and the
dried travel rations she'd brought with her.  That and lack of
sleep had not put her in the best of moods.

     "Feeling sorry for myself," she chided sleepily.  "I am a
warrior, not some fragile noblewoman.  I can endure what hardship
I must."

     Finished with one wing, she switched to the other.  An
errant breeze blew through the cave opening, and the air tasted
still of the rain that had fallen last night.  At least the cave
had been dry, and had extended far enough back into the 
mountainside that no rain had been blown in.

     She realized someone else was here, watching her, with a
kind of shock.  Her hand went for where her sword would have been
strapped to her hip automatically, and then she was realized it
was lying a few feet away on the floor, out of reach.

     "Don't worry, Kima," a female voice said as a woman stepped
into view from around the cave opening.  "I mean you no harm."

     "You know my name?" Kima said, relaxing only slightly at the
unfamiliar woman's presence.  She was short and slender, with
long dark hair down past her waist and delicate features.  There
was nothing delicate about the way she carried herself, though;
any experienced eye recognized this woman as warrior.

     "We've met before," the woman said with a humourless smile,
taking a few steps closer with the green silk of her robe
whispering about her legs.  There was a grey cloak bundled under
one arm.  "At the Nekohanten.  Samofere sent you to meet me."

     "Cologne," Kima said, her face hardening slightly.  "You
look... different."

     "Really?" Cologne said sarcastically.  "I hadn't noticed
it."

     Kima rose up, fluttering her wings slightly as she stood.
She was taller than Cologne by several inches, but still felt as
if she were the one being looked down upon.  "Do not speak to me
in that way, human.  I do not take disrespect from groundlings,
no matter-"

     Cologne had stepped forward and thrown out her fist almost
before Kima realized what was happening.  The speed was too
great; only time for an instinctive closing of the eyes.

     She opened her eyes a moment later to see the fist had
stopped a hair's breadth from her nose.

     "And you will not speak to me in that way, child," Cologne
said in a voice with ice in it.  "We are together in this, and
while I suspect I have as much liking for you as you do for me
after what has recently occurred between your people and those I
know, one thing I will ask of you is respect.  In return, I will 
give the same to you."

     Kima slowly stepped back, keeping herself from shaking by
force of will alone.  "Forgive me," she said flatly.  "I... am
not used to dealing with humans."

     "You'll find, I think, that we are much like you," Cologne
said sardonically.  "The same things drive us.  You have been
beneath Jusendo, have you not?"

     Kima closed her eyes and nodded.  "Yes."

     When she opened them again, she saw Cologne's face had
softened slightly.  "Then you saw?"

     "I saw," Kima said.

     "That is why we do this thing," Cologne said.  "And for our
people, and the land we live in, because they are the same
thing."

     "Little more than a thousand of us remain," Kima said
softly.  "And more than half of the women are past child-bearing
years.  A little more die each year in Phoenix Mountain then are
born, and the Hall of Speaking echoes a little more with each
passing decade.  We had hoped that if Saffron were..."

     Trailing off, she bent down and retrieved her sword from the
ground, strapping it to her hip with a sigh.  "The histories say
that we once had colonies all over China, secret enclaves in the
mountains from which we watched the human world, and went among
it with the aid of our cursed forms.  Some books say we even
ranged as far as Japan and Korea.  But one by one they were
abandoned as you humans expanded your territories.  Now my people
are dying, the flames of our civilization fading.  I have been
told that somehow he can help us."

     "I would weep for joy if a thousand Joketsuzoku still lived
in the village," Cologne said.  "More and more, the children
choose to leave for the cities rather than remain in the village
when they come of age.  My people die as surely as yours do."

     "It is not the same," Kima said vehemently.  "Our extinction
is because there is no place safe for us but the mountain home.
Do you have any idea what they would do to us in the world
outside Jusenkyou?  Do you-"

     "Perhaps that is the problem," Cologne said with a soft
sigh.  "Perhaps because we do not see each other as the same is
why we are dying.  Petty divisions of race or culture have split
the valley apart as surely as the rest of the world is divided
amongst a hundred different countries, each believing themselves
to be somehow better than every other one.  The Joketsuzoku,
Phoenix Mountain, the Musk Dynasty..."

     Kima looked uncomfortable.  "Perhaps.  May I ask you a
question, Cologne?"

     "You may.  I may even answer it," Cologne said.

     "How are you bringing him here?"

     "I have his mother."

     Kima nodded.  "Where is she?"

     "She'll sleep for a long time yet," Cologne said.  "Shiso is
watching her."

     "I was wondering where he went," Kima said.  "I... must it
be done like this?"

     Cologne smiled a little bitterly.  "Strange for the woman
who willingly enslaved my great-grandaughter to be bothered by
this."

     Kima frowned at her and said nothing for a few moments.  "I
did what I thought was best for my people.  That has always been
my foremost concern."

     "I understand," Cologne said.  "The brightest path is not
always the one that will lead to the best results."

     "The ends justify the means," Kima said with a slow nod.

     Cologne shook her head.  "Not always.  At a certain point,
striving towards good at all costs becomes a service in the name
of evil."

     "But not this?" Kima said.  "Not even this?"

     Cologne sighed.  "You cannot even begin to imagine the force
that drives what we must do.  Even I cannot.  What watches him is
more ruthless than any foe you have ever faced.  It is only by
this that we can ensure the safety of those who shall remain
behind."

     "What is it?" Kima said.

     "I have glimpsed only shadows," Cologne said.  "Tangled
threads obscuring the truth.  I know that it has many hands in
many places.  Perhaps some even among those he counts as friends,
or thinks only to be foes by another circumstance.  It must be 
diverted.  We must break the hold of its hands upon him, remove
him from its eyes."

     She bowed her head and looked at the rough stone wall of the
cave.  "They will come before sunset.  There is much we must do
before then."

     "For our people," Kima said slowly.  "And for our land."

     "So be it," Cologne said.  She extended her hand, and Kima
took it.  Sharp, flexible talons held the soft flesh of Cologne's
wrist for a moment, and slim fingers closed over the bird-like
wrist of Kima's arm.

     "Perhaps we are not so different," Kima said after a
moment's hesitation, making, perhaps, an offering of peace.

     "Perhaps we are not," Cologne replied indifferently, not
really caring one way or the other.     

**********

     Kasumi had risen early that morning, as she always did.
Rising early meant she could get things done before everyone else
was up.

     Like sweeping the passageway that led from the house to the
dojo.  It didn't really need to be done.  It was just something
to do.  Something to take the mind away from things.

     She hadn't really seen anything of what had gone on
yesterday, when Ranma's mother had been taken.  She'd been
outside trimming some of the shrubs that grew along the path to
the front door.  Ranma and Akane had come home and gone inside.

     A few minutes later, there'd been a flash of dark hair,
green clothing and sad eyes.  And an odd, through extremely sharp
weapon.

     *"If you scream loud enough, I might let you live,"* the
strange woman had said.  Something in her tone had broken through
any urge Kasumi might have had to question what was going on.
She didn't often scream, but she'd put quite a lot of effort into
it that time.

     After that, things were pretty much blank.  Akane had told
her that Cologne, because that was who the woman was, had knocked
her unconscious with a pressure point and then made it look as if
she'd thrown her through the door.  She'd proceeded to take down
her father and Genma, and then kidnap Nodoka.

     Things like this seemed to happen all the time around here,
though, ever since Ranma had shown up.  Although it was usually
Akane who was the target.

     She still wasn't very clear on how Cologne had gone from
being an old woman to one about her age suddenly, but it didn't
really concern her.  These things usually didn't; Ranma and his
friends would deal with them.  She would make dinner for them
when they got back, and try to keep them from destroying the
house.

     She hoped this wouldn't hurt Ranma and Akane's marriage,
though.  They really seemed to be doing better ever since she'd
had that talk with him.  Ranma was such a nice boy, although a
little rough around the edges.

     Reaching the end of the hallway, she was about to turn
around when something made her stop and slide the door to the
dojo open.

     "Oh my," she said.

     Ranma and Akane lay on the floor together, Akane's head
resting on his chest.  One of his arms was around her waist,
the other around her neck.  Both appeared to be sleeping quite
peacefully.

     "At least they still have all their clothing on," Kasumi
surprised herself by saying, perhaps a little too loudly.  There
was a click behind her.

     Ranma's eyes blinked open, and he sat up abruptly, which had
the effect of dumping Akane off onto the floor, although not hard
enough to wake her up.

     "To this I will make reply," he said, in a cold, angry 
voice.  "Although he be..."

     He trailed away and looked around.  "Uh..."

     His eyes fastened on Kasumi, and then on Akane.  "This isn't
what it looks like."

     "Well, I'd be interested to know it really is, then," Nabiki
said from behind Kasumi.  She sighed and put her camera away, the
source of the click Kasumi had heard.  "Those shots are going to
be priceless to the right people.  You'll have lots of explaining
to do pretty soon, I think."

     Kasumi took a step back and put a hand on her younger
sister's arm.  "Nabiki, can I talk to you for a moment?"

     Nabiki was silent, but let Kasumi lead her into the hallway
and close the door with a smooth sound of sliding wood.  "What is
it, sis?"

     "Film, Nabiki," Kasumi said, holding out her hand.

     Nabiki blinked.  "What?"

     "Film."

     Kasumi demonstrated by taking the camera from Nabiki,
popping open the back, and pulling out the film canister.  She
dropped it into the pocket of her apron and handed the empty
camera back to her surprised sister.

     "Kasumi, give that back," Nabiki said.  She smiled.
"Please?  C'mon, sis."

     Kasumi turned and began to walk away.  Nabiki stopped her by
grabbing her shoulder.  "Kasumi!"

     "I'm just going to hold onto this for a while," Kasumi said.

     Nabiki's smile faded into a neutral look, and her hand
tightened almost imperceptibly.  "Sometimes I think you forget
you're not my mother, sis."

     Kasumi looked back at her sadly.  "I don't ever forget that,
Nabiki.  But if you want to continue to eat my cooking and live
in the house that I keep, you'll forget about that film right
now."

     Nabiki frowned.  "Sis, I'm sorry, maybe that was a
little..."

     Kasumi slipped away from Nabiki's hand and left without
another word.  Behind Nabiki, the door to the dojo slid open and
Ranma and a sleepy-eyed Akane stepped out.

     "Film, Nabiki," they said together.

     "Hey guys, I was just kidding," she said, holding up the
camera and showing them the open back.  "Check it out, no film.
Good joke, huh?"

     It took her a fair bit of time to convince them she was
telling the truth, and they really in the end only stopped
questioning her because Kasumi called them for breakfast.

**********

     Ukyou prodded the large form in the sleeping bag in the
middle of her storeroom with one slippered foot.  "Wake up, you
big dope."

     The sleeping bag groaned something unintelligible and moved
slightly.  Ukyou prodded it again, then sighed and knelt down
beside it.

     "Hey Ryoga," she said, pulling down the edge of the sleeping
bag and looking at the sleeping face.  Ryoga looked extremely
peaceful when he slept, she realized, the hard lines of his face
dissolving slightly into softness.

     He ruined the pleasant effect by letting out a loud snore
and rolling so his back was to her again.  Ukyou stood up, and
went from prodding to kicking.

     After a good minute, Ryoga turned his head and blinked at
her.  "Good morning."

     He promptly closed his eyes again.

     "Hey Ryoga.  Lemme remind you of a few things.  Ranma's
mother?  Cologne's gone crazy and is gonna fight Ranma?  The two
of us are gonna be there, for some reason?" Ukyou said.

     Ryoga's eyes opened, and he slowly sat up, rubbing his jaw
tiredly with one hand.  "Sorry, Ukyou.  I'm not too good in the
mornings."

     "I'll put on some breakfast for us," Ukyou said.  "Then
we've got to get over to the Tendo's."

     Ryoga nodded and started to stand up.  Ukyou turned to
leave, then heard him speak again.  "Hey Ukyou?"

     "Yeah?"

     "How are you feeling today?"

     "A little better," Ukyou said, not turning to look at him.
"All wounds heal in time, you know."

     "Thanks for letting me stay here last night," Ryoga said
after a moment.  "I would have asked Akane, but..."

     "I know," Ukyou said quietly.  "I know."

     She stepped out the door of the storeroom before Ryoga could
say anything else.

**********

     Shampoo stood before the mirror in her room, carefully
checking herself over.  The white outfit, the one she'd worn when
she first came to Japan, was immaculate and shining, washed last
night by hand, as you were always supposed to do with your battle
uniform.

     She'd oiled and polished the hardened leather breastplate
that went with the uniform, and now strapped it carefully on,
tracing her fingers over the familiar designs upon it.  It had
been her mother's.

     Finished with the mirror, she walked over to the weapons
rack underneath the silk wall-hanging.  The mountain rose in the
background, with the lake before it.  It reminded her of home.
Too many things did these days.

     She took the bonbori first, tucked them into the belt of her
uniform.  She glanced, for just a moment, at the naked sword also
on the rack, curved edge gleaming, then turned away from it.

     There were three quick knocks on the door outside, and then
Mousse's voice.  "Shampoo, I made us breakfast.  It's not much,
but..."

     "Thank you, Mousse," she said, stepping closer to the door
but not opening it.  "I be down in minute."

     She could almost see him nod his head, and then there was
the soft slide of his footsteps down the hallway.  She sighed and
a moment later stepped out into the hallway and walked towards
the stairs, bowing her head as she stepped by her
great-grandmother's room.  The door was closed now, but she
hadn't been able to bring herself to touch the pile of clothing
and the discarded staff on the floor.

     This was not going to be a good day, she decided as she went
down the stairs.  This was not going to be a good day at all.

     Mousse had laid out breakfast on one of the dining room
tables, a simple meal, rice and vegetables.  He was a fairly
competent cook, when he needed to be.  All Joketsuzoku men were;
it was more an oddity for one to be a skilled fighter like Mousse
than it was for one to be a good cook.

     Shampoo sat down across from him without a word and picked
up her chopsticks.  Or tried to.  A soft clatter echoed as one
bounced off the wooden table top and fell under Mousse's chair.

     "Let me get that," he said quietly, reaching down with a
soft rustle of cloth.  He didn't have his glasses on, but his
slim, agile fingers quickly found the errant chopstick and
plucked it up.  He wiped it off on the white sleeve of his robe
and handed it across to her.

     "Thank you," Shampoo said, taking it by the far end so she
wouldn't accidentally brush his fingers with hers.

     "Are you alright, Shampoo?" Mousse said.  There was nothing
but concern in his voice, but Shampoo glared at him all the same.

     "I fine," she said quickly, before beginning to eat.  She
looked down into her bowl so that she wouldn't have to look at
his eyes.

     "He doesn't blame you," Mousse said softly.  "He knows you
have nothing to do with it."

     "Shut up, Mousse," Shampoo said.  "You no know what you talk
about."

     "Shampoo, you're not responsible for what Cologne did,"
Mousse said.  "And it won't do any of us any good for you to tear
yourself up inside about something you had no control over."

     Shampoo slowly nodded.  "I know."

     "Good," Mousse said, rising quietly from the tables, his
chopsticks banging softly against the ceramic bowl as he lifted
it to carry it to the kitchen.  "We should leave in a few
minutes.  Take your time eating."

     His footsteps softly sounded on the floor as he walked out
of the dining room.  Shampoo stared into her bowl and sighed
deeply.  No, it was not going to be a good day at all.

**********

     Ryoga and Ukyou arrived after an uncomfortable breakfast at
the Tendo house.  Noticeably absent had been Nodoka, and Soun.
The Tendo father was still asleep, recovering from the injuries
Cologne had given him yesterday when she attacked the house.  And
Nodoka, of course, was gone.

     "Thank you for coming," Kasumi said quietly as she let the
two of them in at the front door.  "I hope it wasn't too much
trouble."

     "No trouble, Kasumi," Ryoga said quietly.  Ukyou said
nothing, and turned her head away when she saw Kasumi give her a
slight questioning look.

     Ranma and Akane were on the back porch, Genma sitting
between them.  Ranma's father stared out into the pond, where he
and his son had landed so many times.

     "Hey guys," Ukyou said, looking uncomfortable at the
prospect of sitting next to Ranma or Akane.  Ryoga finally saved
her by settling down next to Ranma and putting a hand on his
shoulder, and she promptly settled down next to him, keeping him
between her and Ranma.

     "You okay, Ranma?" Ryoga asked.

     Ranma looked surprised, then slowly nodded.  "Yeah.  Thanks
for coming, Ryoga."

     "You'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?" Ryoga said with a
quiet smile.

     Ranma looked at him, then slowly nodded.  "I hope so."

     "Now we've got to wait for Shampoo and Mousse to arrive,"
Akane said, picking at a splinter on the boards of the back porch
with quiet intensity.

     "I don't see why you're involving that crazy girl," Ukyou
said.  "It's her fault, after all."

     Ranma looked at Ukyou sadly.  "Ucchan... it's not her fault.
The only person responsible is Cologne."

     Ukyou looked away from him and didn't say anything.  Ranma
softly sighed and turned to his father.

     "Pop, you got anything to say?"

     Genma fixed his son with a square look.  "Ranma, it is your
responsibility to rescue your mother."

     "You're one to talk about responsibility," Ranma muttered as
he gazed out at the backyard pond.  Last night's storm had left
damp puddles all over the yard, and hung the trees with drops of
water shining in the sun.

     "It is every father's hope that his son will surpass him,"
Genma said, so quietly only Ranma heard it.  He turned his head
to look at his father, and was about to ask something, some
question, when the door to the back porch slid open again and
Shampoo and Mousse stepped out.

     "We're here," Mousse said.  Shampoo didn't say anything; she
was standing closer to Mousse than she usually did when they were
together.  With his hands tucked into his sleeves and folded in
front of him, and his eyes opaqued by his glasses, he looked like
some kind of motionless statue, a sentinel to stand guard over
something precious.

     "Then I guess we better get going," Ranma said, rising up
with a sigh.  "The sooner this is done, the better."

     "What are we doing, exactly?" Mousse inquired, the faintest
hint of a frown crossing his lips.

     "We're gonna go get my mother back," Ranma said.  "No matter
what I have to do."

**********

     From the window of her room on the second floor of the
house, Nabiki watched the group of seven people troop out the
front gate.  First came Ranma, with Akane beside him, his strides
quick and sure.  Behind him Ryoga and Ukyou, Ryoga moving more
heavily, though with the same grace.  Then Mousse and Shampoo,
the Chinese girl moving a bit unsteadily, with the tall, robed
form of the boy who loved her gliding beside her like a walking
shadow.  Genma brought up the rear, his posture seeming to
indicate his wish to be anywhere but with the others.

     As they passed under the gate, they stepped for a time into
the pool of shadow cast by it, and just for a moment, Ranma
appeared to vanish completely.  She blinked her eyes, and then
watched as the others stepped out as well, deciding it had just
been an optical illusion.

     She swivelled in the chair at her desk and looked at the
phone, beside a stack of notebooks.  She nervously licked her
lips, and then picked it up, glancing back out the window to see
them start down the street in the direction of the train station.

     She looked at the phone again, and back at the window.

     She picked up the handset, which felt very, very heavy.

     She began to dial.

**********

     Ranma settled back into the seat with a sigh, feeling as if
he could sink forever into the cushion.  Outside, the passengers
who'd disembarked from this train were involved with greeting
acquaintances, or, if they had no acquaintances to greet them,
leaving the train station as quickly as possible.  Train stations
bothered Ranma sometimes; places of arrival, places of departure.
Nodal points for separation.

     Akane glanced over at him, layed her hand over his on the
arm of the seat, and gave his hand a soft squeeze.  He looked at
her and smiled softly.  Behind him, he heard Ukyou make an almost
inaudible sigh from where she sat next to Ryoga.  Shampoo and
Mousse were in front of them, with the Chinese girl slumped
slightly in her seat in a posture utterly unlike her.  From the
angle of Mousse's head, he appeared to be looking at something
only he could see.

     He couldn't see his father.  The old man had gone to the
washroom as soon as they'd entered the train.  Hopefully he'd be
with them when they got off at their stop.  

     "How far out is this place?" Ukyou said from behind him, a
hesitant note in her voice.

     "About five hours," Ranma said quietly.  "The train drops us
off at a town about a mile from the village at the base of the
mountain.  We'll have to walk from there."

     "But we'll get there before sunset, won't we?" Akane asked
from beside him.

     Ranma slowly nodded.  "That's why we left early.  There's
plenty of time if there's a train delay or..."

     He trailed off, not wanting to think of what would happen if
they didn't get there before sunset.  

     "We'll get there," he said finally, trying to put as much 
conviction into the tone as he could.

     "Of course we'll get there," Akane said soothingly.  He
nodded and closed his eyes, hoping that would make everyone stop
talking to him.  He didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

     There was a soft hum, as the motors of the train began to
work below them, and great wheels began to drive the machine
along the rails.  The ride was smooth, with no jars or bumps to
distract him.  A soft murmur of voices lulled him slightly,
conversation from the people around him.  None of them seemed to
be the voices of his friends.

     He felt himself drifting off, that single stretched-out
second between waking and sleeping that you only sometimes
experience.  He shook his head and snapped himself awake.

     "Can't sleep now," he said, opening his eyes and focusing
his attention out the window.  The city rolled by underneath the
long bridge the train rode on, small houses and scattered people
in the streets giving way gradually to the towering skyscrapers
and early-morning crowds of rushing salarymen.  They looked like
ants from up here, long trails of dark-clothed people shuffling
off with some destination in mind that he couldn't see.

     The train seemed to have gone strangely silent around him,
or perhaps it was just that he was no longer paying attention to
anything beyond what lay beyond the window.  The city diminished,
shrank in volume and size, as they left the suburbs of Tokyo and
entered the country.

     He closed his eyes again, and opened them to see that the
train seemed to have slowed.  The countryside beyond the window 
was passing by no quicker than as if he had been walking.

     "Weird," he muttered.  "Hey Akane, do you..."

     He trailed off, because he could see two figures now,
impossibly keeping pace with the train and walking beside it,
slow and leisurely like a stroll in the country.  He now saw
that the scenery was still flying past in a blur, though, in the
background behind them, and yet they paced the train with ease.

     "What the hell..."

     There was a man, with a small boy on his shoulders, and he 
could not see their faces.  The boy pointed at everything in
sight, but never did he turn his head so Ranma could see his
face.  Occasionally, his father would glance up at him and make
some comment that would cause the boy's small shoulders to shake
with laughter, and though Ranma knew not why he knew these two
father and son, he knew that they were.

     And as they slowed and passed from his view, he saw they
both wore white.  But before he could think about that at all, he
saw two more figures ahead, keeping pace with the train as the
first two had.  A man walking, and in front of him a boy running,
occasionally ranging ahead before falling back beside the man.

     Never did he see their faces either, and he saw that they
too wore white.  Then again, they fell behind, and there were two
more figures, a boy and a girl, walking hand in hand and dressed
in red.  And they too fell behind, and so too did he never see
their faces.

     And then finally, a single figure, a man, walking alone, and
wearing black, his shoulders slumped, looking as if he bore the
world itself upon his back.  And this time, he saw that the man 
was turning his head as if to look at him, and he knew this time 
he would see his face.

     And he did not want to.  He turned his head back the other
way, to look to Akane, to speak to her, to ask if she had seen
what he saw.

     And the seat next to him was empty, and the train had become
a boat, and the river ran on...

     ...and he was flying backwards, and everything was blurring,
and whose hand was that on his shoulder, and it all went dark,
dark as the last man's clothes had been, dark that seemed to suck
the light from the air and twist it in upon itself and give birth
to some new light, something glowing darkly bright beyond...

     "Ranma?  Ranma?"

     "Hmm?"

     He opened his eyes.  Akane was looking at him, her hand on
his shoulder, concern in her eyes.  "You dozed off and started
mumbling.  Were you having a dream?"

     "Guess so," Ranma said, blinking and settling back into his
seat.  "I'm just stressed out.  I'm worried.  It's nothing."

     Akane squeezed his shoulder and took her hand away.  In
front of him, Mousse turned his head around and rested one elbow
on the back of his seat before speaking.

     "Don't worry, Saotome.  We'll get your mother back," he
said, and gave him what amounted to a friendly smile.  As he
didn't have his glasses on, he'd been talking to a passing
conductor, but it was really the thought that counted.

     Outside, the scenery rushed by the train in a dizzying swirl
of brown and green, and whatever other people Ranma saw were far
away, and gone so quickly that they hardly even registered upon
his mind.

**********

     In a dark place, a phone rings.

     A hand, wrinkled by age, traced with a crazed, branching map
of blue veins like an aerial view of a river system, reaches out
and picks it up.

     A few words are spoken, a few conjectures made from the
opinions of the two voices.  

     The phone clicks back down.  Long, spidery fingers steeple
themselves on the edge of a desk.  Long nails clack on marble.  
Behind black-lensed glasses, eyes stare into the darkness at
sights no one else shall ever see.

     A slow smile, terrible and humourless.

     A small thing for now.  An unimportant thing at this time.
Inconsequential to what is to occur soon.

     But not for long.  

**********
     
     The winding dirt road that led to the village at the base of
the mountain was exactly like Ranma remembered it from a few
months before.  Change didn't occur with the same speed in the
country as it did in the city; everything followed behind out
here, with a sense of calm serenity utterly unpresent in the
living entity of steel and glass that was modern Tokyo.

     Behind them, the town that the train stop was at was already
falling into the distance, as they trudged along the dusty road
towards the picturesque tree-lined slopes of the small mountain,
the one he and his father had precisely chosen all those months
ago because its isolation and small size made it a more private
spot than most.

     Now he glanced up at the rocky, forested slopes with a
growing sense of trepidation.  Somewhere up there was Cologne, in
a body a century younger, with all her skills honed by youth now
as well as by experience.

     Waiting.

     With his mother.

     With a mind finally given in to madness?

     His thoughts were turned away when he heard a rustling sound
from a nearby clump of bushes.  "What's that?"

     He glanced around, saw his father and everyone else casting
questioning looks to him.  "What's what?" Akane asked.

     "I heard something," he said, looking suspiciously over at
the bushes.

     "Well, no one else did," Genma said.  "Just an animal or
something, boy.  Don't worry about it."

     Ranma hunched his shoulders and glanced around again.
"Didn't any of you hear anything?"

     There was a general shaking of heads.  Ranma sighed and
hunched his shoulders a bit, thrusting his hands into his pockets
and staring up at the sky.

     He dropped a few steps behind abruptly, ignoring whatever
look Akane gave him, and began to walk next to Shampoo.  "Hey
Shampoo, I talk to you for a minute?"

     Shampoo, who'd been uncharacteristically silent the whole
morning, glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and nodded.

     Ranma glanced to the silent form of Mousse beside her and
coughed.  "Alone."

     He saw the robed boy's face go hard, but Shampoo cast a
fierce glare at him and he promptly dropped behind to stand next
to Ryoga.

     "What you want, Ranma?" the girl asked in a soft voice.

     "I never really got a chance to ask you last night," he
began.  "Did Cologne do anything strange before this?  Anything
that might indicate she was going a little..."

     He trailed off at Shampoo's sad eyes before picking up
again.  "Uh... crazy?"

     Shampoo shook her head and sighed.  "Nothing.  She fine
until..."

     Then she snapped her fingers.  "No.  That not right.
After... wedding, she go into room and not come out for nearly
three days."

     "And how long was that before she attacked the house?" Ranma
asked quietly.

     "She come out day before," Shampoo said.  "But..."

     She shook her head again.  "No.  She not seem very different
than from before."

     "Can you think of any reason she might be doing this?"

     Shampoo looked at him, and an almost bitter smile curved
onto her face.  "Other than get you to marry me?"

     Ranma sighed.  "Look, Shampoo, this marriage thing... I
don't want..."

     "It not matter what you want," Shampoo sighed.  "It not
matter what I want either.  Is law."

     "Would they really exile you?"

     Shampoo shrugged.  "Council choice.  Great-grandmother have
some friends on council, some enemies.  Friends not want to look
like they siding with lawbreaker, enemies look for chance to hurt
great-grandmother by hurting descendants.  Exile of chosen heir
hurt great-grandmother very much."

     Ranma closed his eyes.  "God, I'm so sorry."

     Shampoo clasped her right hand to her left arm and bowed her
head.  "I sorry too.  Never wanted it to be this way.  Supposed
to be so simple... come to Japan, kill girl, go home."

     "But you couldn't kill me," Ranma said pointedly.  "Even
when you thought I was a girl, even when you had me helpless."

     "Killing is easy thing to talk about," Shampoo said slowly.
"Harder thing to do."

     "I don't... feel the way about you that you do about me,"
Ranma said after a moment.  "You... you know that, don't you?"

     A slow nod of her head, a proud beauty that looked very
fragile in that moment to her face.  "Know that.  Not matter."

     "I'm sorry," he said again, because once did not seem to be
enough.

     Shampoo closed her eyes.  "Understand Mousse now.  Is
strange, you know.  Always so sure he realize I not love him;
never understand why he not go."

     "Shampoo..."

     He felt utterly helpless, because this went beyond him or
her, bound up in laws made centuries before either of them were
born.  It was not a thing he could fight or defeat; as much set
himself against the ocean tides and hope to conquer them.

     "Is alright," Shampoo said slowly, half-opening her eyes.
"It has been happy to know you, Ranma.  Little else happy, but
you... you never make me sad yourself.  You are good."

     "Thank you," he said.  "Look... we'll see what happens,
okay?  And..."

     He sighed.  "I don't blame you for what she's doing."

     Shampoo nodded and said nothing else.  Ranma sighed again
and stepped away from her, almost able to feel the force of
Ukyou's glare on his back.  He was fairly sure it was at least as
fierce as the one Akane was giving him as he came next to her
again; Mousse silently moved next to Shampoo again, his face
neutral and his eyes unseeable in the opaque lenses of his
glasses.

     "What was that all about?" Akane snapped.

     "Just talkin' to her," Ranma said.  "About Cologne.  Other
stuff."

     Akane nodded reluctantly and kicked at a stone on the
ground.  "At least she didn't grab on to you this time."

     Ranma shook his head and said nothing.  Up ahead, a small
collection of houses that looked as if they'd come from a century
ago was coming into view.  They probably had come from a century
ago.  Everything went along slower out here.

     The dirt road widened as it passed into what was probably
thought of as the village square.  It was about the lunch hour
now; most people were probably inside.  The few on the streets
glanced appraisingly at the unusual newcomers for a few seconds,
then shrugged and went back to their business with a calm
acceptance of this new, temporary intrusion into their lifestyle.

     Except one.

     "YOU!"

     The old man who strode from the door of the small shop,
making his way past crowded bins of vegetables and fruit, looked
very, very angry.  One arm was stretched out, the finger pointed
directly at Genma.

     "Me?" Genma said, pointing to himself and smiling nervously.
"I'm sure you're mistaken.  Really, we're in a hurry..."

     "I don't forget a face," the old man said in a tight voice.
"Not the face of a man who ripped my store off."

     Everyone except Genma came to a slow halt.  The older man
continued walking, until he bumped into his son.  He turned
around, only to bump into Ryoga.

     "Anything you'd like to explain, pop?" Ranma said coldly
from behind him.     

     "Yes, Mr. Saotome, get it off your chest," Ryoga said.

     "Uhh..."

     "Your father said he'd pay me back the next time he came,
and then he never came back," the old man said.  "Now, I want my
money.  With interest."

     "I am falsely accused," Genma said with total sincerity.  "I
believe you have mistaken me for someone else."

     "You Genma Saotome?"

     Genma nodded.

     The old man hunted through his clothing and pulled out a
crumpled piece of paper, which he held out to Ranma.  Ranma
glanced over it and looked at his father.  "You know what this
is?"

     Genma was silent.

     "It's a bill, pop," Ranma said tiredly.  "For twenty-three
thousand yen.  Before interest.  Signed by you."

     "I am a little low on funds at this time," Genma said.
"Perhaps you could-"

     Genma's mouth snapped shut at the look on his son's face.

     "Hope you sort this out, pop," Ranma said, turning his back
on his father and walking away.  The others quickly followed him.
A large crowd of villagers had now begun to surround Genma.  None
looked happy.

     "Son, wait, how can you go to your mother without me?"

     Ranma looked back.  "I've had to do every other important
thing recently without your help, pop.  So I guess I can do this
one as well."

     So he left his father behind, and went with his friends down
the rough road to the mountain slopes rising in the distance.

**********

     Cologne tightened the last knot, not so tightly that it
would hurt, and then stepped back to look at the unconscious
woman bound to the tree.  It really was not a fair thing she did
to her; what Shampoo had said of her made her seem a good enough
woman, although she had her doubts about anyone who would have
been willing to give themselves in marriage to Genma Saotome.

     But sometimes you had to do things this way.  Cologne sighed
and walked away from the single tall tree rising in the middle of
bare, rocky ground until she was deep into the nearby forest,
with the trees rising above her in a canopy of leaves and dead
sticks breaking under her feet.  The past day or so had adjusted
her to the different feel of this youthful body, the different
ways in which it responded to things, the different sensations of
its existence.

     "Like riding a bicycle," she said softly with a slight
bitter smile.  "You don't ever forget."

     A flutter of black wings, and Shiso's heavy weight landed on
her shoulder.  His black eyes glittered in the afternoon sun
streaming down through the branches as he silently regarded her.

     She sighed and reached up to stroke his black-feathered head
in a tired gesture of affection.  "Soon, old friend."

     He rubbed his sharp beak against her palm as gently as the
touch of a feather and said nothing.

     "Second thoughts?" Kima asked as she stepped into view from
behind a tree.  Cologne frowned; for all her proud bearing and
distinctive appearance, the woman could move silently and quite
close to invisibly when she wanted to, wings or no wings.

     "Never," Cologne said.  "I've been prepared for this since
before you were born."

     Kima slowly nodded and touched the hilt of the long, curved
sword sheathed at her side.  "Do not think my devotion any less, 
Cologne.  That would be a mistake."

     Cologne shook her head.  "I wonder if you even understand
entirely what we do."

     Kima raised one eyebrow and looked at her.  "I wonder if you
do."

     Cologne laughed, softly.  "I suppose that is a point.  I
think perhaps only Samofere knows for sure, as much as any of us
do."

     Kima smiled and brushed taloned fingers through short white
hair.  "If I had been told a week ago I would be doing this, I
would have thought the teller mad."

     "What was it in the end that convinced you?" Cologne said.
"The books?  Samofere himself?"

     "Neither," Kima said after a moment.  "I trust Samofere, and
I know that there is more in that library than I can ever hope to
know, but in the end..."

     "The true source," Cologne said.

     Kima closed her eyes.  "Yes.  More than anything else."

     "That was it for me as well," Cologne said slowly.  "I
trusted him, and there was too much in common between what your
people have written and what mine have to be a pure coincidence,
but it was when we went beneath that I was truly part of the
cause."

     "There are more, then?" Kima asked.

     Cologne sighed.  "Undoubtedly.  He... I have known Samofere
many years.  He would not rely upon only one or two people.  I
know not the names of any who may be our allies in this cause,
however."

     "He speaks fondly of you," Kima said.  "Almost as if-"
     
     She stopped abruptly.  "But of course not."
     
     Cologne said nothing, only looked away, her face unreadable.
Then, finally, she spoke.     

     "A thing long past," Cologne softly said.  "Old regrets.
Nothing more.  Nothing less.  It does not matter anymore."

     Shiso called softly, a sound almost like a sigh, and hopped
off Cologne's shoulder, landing on the ground to stride
pridefully about at their feet, shuffling his feathers into place
with quick motions of his wings.

     "It was not forbidden," the raven said after a moment, with
an almost regretful note to his tone.  "No law of Mount Phoenix
or the Joketsuzoku forbade it."

     "It might as well have been forbidden," Cologne said softly.
"Speak no more of this, old friend.  I would not think of it now.
Too long has it been past."

     Shiso nodded and began to preen one wing without saying
anything further.

     "I think they may arrive soon," Cologne said after a few
long seconds of silence.  "Ranma would have left as soon as he
could have."

     Kima sighed.  "I will get hidden."

     "Let me say one thing before that," Cologne said.
"Something my grandmother told me, when she chose me as her
heir."

     Kima looked at her.  "Yes?"

     "Never think you are so smart than any plan will go off
exactly as expected."

     Kima slowly nodded.  "I know that well enough."

**********

     They'd stopped to rest at a clearing that Ranma judged was
roughly halfway to the spot where he and Ryoga had dueled months
ago.  They'd left the village, and his father, behind about an
hour ago.

     Now he rested with his back against a tree, hands behind his
head.  He hadn't wanted to stop; the need to put an end to this
was urgent within him.  But he acknowledged also that he was
going to want to be rested for what was to come.

     "Here."

     He accepted the canteen from Akane gratefully, and drank a
long swallow of water.  It wasn't very cold, but it still served
to refresh him.  "Thanks."

     "Do you really think we should have left your father
behind?" she asked when he passed it back to her.

     Ranma frowned.  "I don't really care.  Too much to deal with
on top of all this.  He got himself into the jam, he can get
himself out."

     Akane sighed and glanced around at the other members of the
party.  Mousse was standing next to Shampoo where she sat, legs
folded, under the spreading branches of a tree.  They didn't seem
to be together so much as that she was tolerating his presence.
He didn't seem to be saying anything, and neither was she.

     Ryoga was some distance off, looking up the slope of the
mountain with his head tilted slightly back.  He reached back
with his hand and idly tugged at one side of his bandanna, a
nervous gesture he sometimes made.

     Ukyou was sitting by herself at the edge of the clearing
they'd found to rest in, her back to all of them.  She appeared
to be involved in an intense study of the ground.

     "Do you think you should go talk to her?" Akane said,
indicating Ukyou with a slight gesture of her hand.

     Ranma shook his head.  "I don't know what to say, and if I
did, I dunno if she'd wanna listen.  I... I hurt her pretty bad.
More than Shampoo, I think."

     Akane nodded silently.  "Ranma, I have to tell..."

     "Please," he said, closing his eyes.  "Nothing more.
Nothing more, Akane.  Until we see how this day turns out,
nothing more."

     "But what if-"

     "What if what?  Maybe it's better we just don't say nothin'
more then."

     "That's not-"

     Ranma pushed himself to his feet.  "I gotta go talk to
Ryoga, Akane.  Then we should get on the move again."

     "Ranma, you wait!  You-"

     He was already striding away.  She stood up, as if to go
after him, then sank helplessly back down to the ground.  "Oh,
Ranma..."

     Ranma walked so silently to come behind Ryoga, the other boy
started when he placed a hand on his shoulder.  "Hey Ryoga?"

     He felt Ryoga slowly relax under his hand and turn his head
to look at him.  They hadn't spoken more than a few words to each
other since the fight yesterday; there had been too much between
them until now, too many things said and unsaid.

     "Yes?" Ryoga said, as Ranma withdrew his hand from his
shoulder.

     "Uh... about yesterday..." Ranma said.  They were not the
words he wanted, but he did not know what other ones to say.

     "What about it?"

     "I'm sorry."

     Ryoga laughed softly.  "I'd think I'd be the one to have
something to apologize for.  I almost broke your damn neck."

     "Isn't that what you've always wanted to do?"

     A long silence, Ryoga glancing back for a moment up the
slopes of the silent mountain as if for an answer.  Finally, he
said nothing at all beyond a sigh.

     "It wasn't fair of me to stop like that," Ranma said.  "You
weren't expecting me to do that."

     Ryoga shook his head.  "I guess I wasn't."

     "It was my fault."

     "Maybe it was both our faults."

     "Maybe it's always been."

     A look between the two of them, something read into the
depths of each other's eyes that plunged them into silence which
Ranma finally broke.  "You think... you think it's always gonna
be this way?"

     Ryoga smiled, a bit ruefully.  "It's like I said before.
Perhaps it's never really been about anything beyond you and I.
About seeing who's better."

     "Does it matter?"

     Pain there, in Ryoga's eyes, for just a second.  "Yes."

     Ranma slowly nodded, a part of him understanding.  "Ryoga,
there's more.  I gotta tell you this because I can't tell Akane
or Ucchan or anybody else.  You're the only one I can really..."

     Strange, how one word could be so awkward.  "Trust."

     A smile grew on Ryoga's face, a different one than before.
"What is it?"

     "This whole thing ain't right," Ranma said.  "Cologne... it
doesn't add up."

     Ryoga nodded.  "I know... that old woman's a lot of things,
but I never thought she'd go crazy."

     Ranma touched his fingers to his chin.  "Yeah.  And... she
didn't actually hurt anyone.  Mr. Tendo got a little bruised, but
Kasumi and my dad were basically untouched... it doesn't add up.
I... don't know what she's up to.  But I don't like it."

     Ryoga cocked his head and looked at him.  "Is that it?"

     Ranma shook his head.  "I've got a bad feeling about today,"
he said.

     "Hmm?"

     There was so much he could have said.  The half-remembered
fragments of his dreams; the cold fires inside him when he
fought; that last vision, upon the train, a waking dream, or
something more.  "Just a feeling," he said at last.  "But..."

     He sighed, trailing off, and Ryoga laid a hand on his
shoulder.  "Ranma..."

     "Look, whatever happens," Ranma said finally.  "Whatever
happens... If I... Look, just promise me you'll look out for
Akane, okay?  If I'm not..."

     He could say nothing more, for Ryoga's eyes said all that
was needed.  "I promise," Ryoga said after a long second.
"I'll..."

     "Don't get any ideas," Ranma growled, and flicked Ryoga's
hand from his shoulder, giving him a light punch in the arm.
"Come on.  Let's get everyone together.  We gotta get moving
again."

     Overhead, the sun had swung to its highest point in the sky,
and as the six rose and headed up the mountain again, it began
that slow descent across the horizon that leads, inevitably,
towards night and the dark.

**********

     A few minutes after the six young men and women had left the
clearing, there was a rustling in the bushes around them, and a
seventh figure, having watched with unusual patience, stepped out
and followed their trail as stealthily as a shadow, forcing
himself, for once, to delay indulgence in the hope of greater
rewards.

     A few minutes after that, two figures appeared in the
clearing.  One knelt and touched fingers to the ground, very
lightly.

     "Anything?" the standing one said.

     The kneeling one answered her in a voice like a drawn-out
death rattle, and though what she said was in no language beyond 
her own, the other knew what words she spoke.

     The standing one laughed.  It was not a pleasant sound.  She
toyed with the chain of what she held in her left hand.  The
right one was hidden from sight beneath the folds of her garment.

     The kneeling one asked something in that sepulchre voice.
Around her, the shadows cast by the trees seemed to gather
tighter and darker, children to a mother.

     "Soon," the standing one said with a smile.  "Oh, soon.  Let
us go, my sister.  There is work to be done."

     Then she laughed again, and, after a moment, the woman she
had called her sister joined her, and it was a hard thing to say
whose laughter was the more terrible.  They laughed together, and
then when their laughter was done, they left the clearing
together and walked also up the mountainside on the trail of
those come before them.

**********

     The first thing Ranma saw as he stepped from the surrounding
forest onto the rocky plain was his mother tied to the trunk of
the same tree Akane had been hanging from all those months ago.

     There was no sight of Cologne, though.  He looked around, at
the sloping cliff on one side of the plain, at the hilly forests
on all the others, and saw no sign of her.

     "Everyone keep an eye out," he said from his place in the
lead of the group.  "She's around here somewhere."

     He heard Shampoo make a long exhalation of breath from
behind him, a drawn-out sigh, but he ignored it.  The time was
come to end this.

     They walked across the rough ground towards the tree, and
Ranma saw with growing concern that his mother's head was slumped
down and she wasn't moving.  The ropes bound her to the tree, not
so tightly that it looked as if it were hurting, at least.  Her
face was smudged with dirt, and her hair dishevelled, although
still pinned back into a bun.  There were a few tears in the
fringe of her kimono.

     He broke into a run, leaving the others a few steps behind,
and only slowed when he got close enough to see that she was
breathing.

     "Mom?" he said from a few feet away.  He took a step
forward, raised his hand towards her...

     Yanked it back as Cologne seemed to come into being from the
air between him and his mother, dark eyes hard and flat, the rake
resting on one shoulder.  "No closer."

     "Cologne," he said, stepping back instinctively towards the
other five behind him.

     "Great-grandmother?" Shampoo said, a question in it.  He
could see Ryoga, Ukyou and even Mousse had expressions of
surprise nearly equal to Shampoo's, and remembered that they'd
all only heard of Cologne's new youth, never seen it themselves.

     "Yes, child?" Cologne said, looking at Ranma and not at
Shampoo.

     "I no want you to do this, great-grandmother," Shampoo said
softly.  "Give Ranma mother back.  We go back to China together.
What council do to me not be worse than what you do to him."

     Cologne giggled softly.  It was not a good sound.  "Oh,
child, child, you have no idea what the council can do to you."

     "Exile not worse," Shampoo said in a strained voice.  "Not
worse than this.  Ranma mother..."

     She bowed her head, unable to meet the familiar eyes in the
unfamiliar face.  "Is wrong, great-grandmother."

     "A far lesser wrong than that which he has done against
you," Cologne said.  "I will not have it, Shampoo.  Exile is the
least of what they shall do to you."

     "Great-grandmother, you say-"

     "What I said was one thing.  What they will do is another.
They may execute you.  Or they may take you back to Jusenkyou and
throw you in the pools, meld your cat form with something else,
make your cursed form some awful hybrid.  Perhaps they will even
use some of the water we've saved from the Musk dynasty to lock
your permanently in your cursed form."

     Shampoo was unable to say anything to that.  Her eyes
closed, and a long shudder wracked her body before she buried her
face in her hands.  Mousse took a step towards her, but she held
up a hand and for once he stayed away.

     "Cologne," Ranma said.  "I didn't-"

     "You never bothered to find out, did you?" Cologne snapped.
"If the penalty for the first failure is a trip to Jusenkyou, how
could the penalty of a second failure not be worse?  I will not
have this, son-in-law."

     Ranma sighed.  He glanced to Akane.  "Akane, I'm sorry."

     "Ranma, what-"

     "This is my fault.  I can't allow her to be killed, or
exiled, or anything.  I'm not gonna do it.  Maybe... maybe..."

     Not knowing why, he knelt before Cologne, one knee on the
ground.  "Cologne, you win.  I'll go back with you to China.
I'll... I'll marry Shampoo.  For now.  We'll... maybe we'll try
to work something out.  I... I can't fight you for it, Cologne.
Not with her life on my hands if I win.  I won't have it."

     He looked up, afraid to meet Cologne's eyes but knowing he
had to all the same, terrified as he was by his own words.
Behind him, he heard Akane make a long sound that tore at his
heart, heard Mousse make a low growl of rage from deep in his
throat.

     He met Cologne's eyes.  Her head was tilted down to look at
him, so that only he saw them.  They were so old, and so sad, so
out of place amongst that smooth young beauty and the silky dark
hair that fell about her shoulders.

     "Oh, child," he saw her lips say, and there was no doubt in
his mind that it was him she addressed.  "Oh, forgive me this
thing I do."

     Mousse was still growling behind him, and he heard that
Akane had begun to cry, very softly.  Ukyou and Ryoga's utter
silence filled the air just as much.

     And then Shampoo's voice was there as well, flat and drained
of anything at all.  "No."

     He turned his head back to look at her.  "Huh?"

     Her head was raised now, streaked with tears and with a
proud, defiant look.  "No.  I not want husband out of pity.  I...
I set you free, Ranma.  Maybe should have done long time ago.
Better by my hand than by council's."

     Something glinted in her hands.

     There was no fire this time, no burning interval between him
and the ice.  It engulfed him, rushed upon, glacial fury and
power speeded up a thousandfold.

     There was no time.  There could be no time.  The knife was
in her hands, and she was driving it at her heart, and there was
no time.

     He found it.  Somewhere, somehow, he found it.

     A flicker, his hands were, even in the slowed time.  A
flicker, one hand coming up to intercept the blade, deflect it on
the back of his hand, the other grabbing her wrist.

     There was a hot pain across his hand, and a cold one in his
heart.  A single drop of blood, like a glitter of rain on a leaf,
blossomed on the back of his hand, near his knuckles, where the
point of the knife had touched him before his hand on her wrist
had stopped the thrust.

     Shampoo didn't even struggle.  Cologne was forward a second
later, pressing a point on her neck, and the girl slumped
bonelessly.  Ranma caught her, handed her to Mousse, who'd stood
by in a kind of shocked silence, and turned back to Cologne.  He
only vaguely realized the presence of the others now; it seemed
only to be him and the Joketsuzoku matriarch.

     "Don't you see, Ranma?" Cologne said only to him, the first
time Ranma could recall in that moment her calling him by name.
"It has to be this way.  We've come too far to turn back.  A
husband gained by obligation is better, at least, than one gained
by pity.  And if her freedom must be bought, what price is too
great for the freedom of my great-grandchild?"

     There was such sorrow in her eyes, and they were so very,
very old.  She stepped back towards the tree upon which his
mother was bound; her hands blurred, and the ropes were gone, and
she was handing his mother's unconscious form to him.

     "She is only sleeping," she said soothingly.

     Ranma turned, his mother cradled in his arms, and looked at
the five behind him.  Mousse was looking at Shampoo.  Akane had
her back to him, her arms tightly around herself.  Ukyou was
staring off into nothing.

     Only Ryoga was looking at him.

     "Watch my mother, friend," he said, the first words he'd
spoken since he'd told Cologne he'd marry Shampoo.  His voice
sounded somehow different, even to himself.  "And her as well."

     No need to say who the second one was.  Never any need at
all.  He passed his mother to Ryoga, who held the kin of his
rival gently as if she were a child.

     "Watch over them," Ranma said, the sorrow in his heart
mirrored in Ryoga's eyes.

     "Always," Ryoga said.

     He looked to them again, his five companions.  "You'd best
move away.  We shall need space."

     "Ranma-" Ukyou began, before she saw his eyes and cut
herself off, impossibly deep hurt showing on her face at last,
long-hidden and finally rising to the surface now.  She whirled,
long hair swirling around her back, and strode away to stand by
the sloping face of bare rock that led further up the mountain.

     Mousse lifted Shampoo in his arms, brushed back her hair
from her face, and looked at Ranma once, letting his eyes fall to
the scratch, the long but shallow scratch, on the back of Ranma's
hand.  He inclined his head in the barest of nods, and began to
glide in the direction Ukyou had gone.

     Ryoga put his hand on Akane's shoulder.  "Come on, Akane."

     His voice was so tender, so sad.  Akane shook her head,
still not speaking, still not turning to look at either Ranma or
Ryoga.

     "Please," Ryoga said.  "I need some help carrying Ranma's
mother."

     A lie, for Ryoga had the strength to move mountains in him.
But it seemed to let Akane turn and glance once at Ranma, let him
catch her eyes with his, and say nothing.  It was as it had been
last night; nothing more that could be said, at this moment, at
this time, at this place.

     Then Ryoga gently guided her towards the others, cradling
Nodoka's limp form in the crook of one arm with astonishing ease.
Akane had her hand on the woman's elbow as they walked, as if she
too were helping to support her.

     And then it was only Ranma and Cologne, facing each other,
beneath a broad-branched tree spreading up from the barren land.
Those who had come with him were a hundred feet away, silently
watching the two who remained.

     This place was a natural battlefield, Ranma realized.
Bordered by the forest and the cliff face, the rocky plain with
the single tree rising from it in defiance of the unfertile
ground was like some ancient arena from a time long past.

     He looked at Cologne.  Her eyes held many things.  But no
madness.  No madness there.  She was less than a dozen feet from
him.

     "That's why, isn't it?" he said so softly that only she
might hear him.  "Because of Shampoo.  Cologne, I-"

     "It goes deeper," the youthful girl in front of him said.
"All things go deeper.  Deeper than you or I or her."

     "What's going on, Cologne?"

     A subtle shift in her body, visible to his trained eye.
"Boy, it is time to begin."

     And then something exploded from the branches of the tree, a
long, plaintive cry on its lips.

     "Sweet Cologne!"

     Happosai moved faster than Ranma had ever seen him as he
leapt from the branches.  His movements seemed more graceful and
agile than they had ever been before.

     But Cologne was still faster.  The rake came up, a blurred
circle of wood and steel, and Happosai was tumbling away, past
him and into the area between Ranma and Cologne, and the others.

     To rise to his feet, brushing himself off, standing still
this time so that Ranma could get a better look at him.

     "It's so strange, Cologne," Happosai said.  "I feel so very
young."

     And he looked young as well, Ranma slowly realized.  Not in
the way Cologne did, not the bloom of youth renewed, but no
longer the twisted dwarf shape he'd held before.  He looked like
an old, old man, an old man who'd never been tall even when he
was young, stooped greatly by age, but his hair was thick and
full, although still white, and there was a look to him, a look
of power that he had not held before, powerful as he had been.

     "By all that lives, what has happened to you, Happosai?"
Cologne said.

     The old man smiled.  "A funny question from you, Cologne."

     "The water," Cologne said softly.  "You drank it at the
wedding, didn't you?"

     "Eh?  I thought it was sake," Happosai said.  "What's a
little water going to..."

     He slowly trailed off.  He was lecherous, but not stupid.
"Oh.  Uh..."

     "Internal ingestion of Jusenkyou waters," Cologne said
softly.  "How could you think it wouldn't affect you?"

     Ranma glanced, from the old man who'd been older to the
young woman who had been old, feeling as if Happosai's presence
had just ruined something very important.

     He saw Cologne begin to open her mouth to speak.

     And then something exploded in the sky.  A sourceless crack
of thunder, no rain, no accompanying lightning.  Again it
sounded, so loud it seemed to hurt the air, though the sky was 
clear and blue, and he almost fell to his knees at the sheer 
force of that sound, because it was so loud it became a physical 
thing.

     And then there was lightning, blue-white and blinding, but
it was coming not from the sky but from the ground, a single
stroke a dozen, two dozen feet high in an instant, arcing upwards
from the very stone, sizzling and scorching the air with a smell
of ozone, blackening the ground where it had surged from.

    When it faded, a woman stood there, silk robes the same
blue-white as the lightning stroke hugging tightly to her body.
She was very tall, and very slender, with an elegant, swanlike
curve to her neck.  She had a young face, a beautiful young face
framed by short dark hair, but it was a hard face, without
kindness to it. Her right hand was tucked inside her robes; her
left held a rod of thick black wood a little over two feet long.
At the end of the rod in her hand a small silver chain led to a
silver bracelet upon her wrist; at the end pointing towards the
ground, two small blades about three inches long sprouted,
curving outwards at first, but then in towards each other like
the mandibles of a beetle.  Her left hand, the one that was
visible and held the rod, was covered by a black leather
gauntlet that left only the tips of her fingers bare and
disappeared up into the sleeve of her robe.

     Behind him, Ranma heard Cologne say something in Chinese
that sounded by the tone like it was a curse, and by the length
that it was quite a complex one.

     "Foolish," the woman said.  Her voice had a harsh, rasping
sound to it which did not fit her appearance.  It grated on the
ears like a blade on stone.  "Old woman, such a foolish ploy.
Did you think that you yourself were not watched?  We see your
threads woven in this web, old one, and we know what it is you
do."

     Ranma felt very cold suddenly, although the day was warm.
It was dark as well, where he was.  He glanced back to Cologne,
where she stood in the shadow of the tree, a shadow that was now
across him as well.

     A shadow falling across him though he stood between the tree
and the sun, not behind the tree where the shadow should have
been.  A shadow far, far larger than it should have been, the
dark limbs of the tree too many, too twisted, too moving.

     "COLOGNE, MOVE!" he heard himself shout as he threw himself
out of the swelling shadow.  Cologne was nearly fast enough, but
his warning had come at the same time as his movement, and the
two seconds less she had than him were enough of a delay that she
was caught.  She was on the edge of the shadow when it rose up
from the ground, a solid thing like a serpent made of night and
lashed at her like a whip.

     The blow looked weak, gentle even, but Cologne screamed in
agony and was knocked flying a dozen feet away to lie unmoving on
the ground, arms and legs spasming convulsively.  The shadow
flowed again, coalesced and gathered upon itself until it was
only a single circle of dark upon the rock, a shadow blacker than
black like a pit into forever, and then it threw itself upward
into a towering pillar of solidified night and vanished just as
quickly into nothing.

     The shadow of the tree was where it should have been, and a
second woman stood where the pillar of darkness had been.  
Shorter than the first, not so slender, though still very 
beautiful, with long dark hair in a braid to her waist and darker 
eyes.  Eyes were all he could see of her face; the rest was 
hidden by a black mask that covered nose and mouth.  She wore a 
robe as well, of a similar cut to the other woman's, although 
this one was black as midnight without stars or moon where the 
others had been the blue-white of lightning in a dark sky.  Her 
hands were both visible, ungloved, and empty.  Her fingernails 
were long, and lacquered a deep ebony.

     "Forgive my companion if she does not speak," the other
woman said.  He whipped his head back to look at her; she was no
closer than she had been.  Happosai and the others stood as if
frozen behind her.  "But what passes for her tongue has forgotten 
the shape of any language you might understand."

     Then Happosai moved.  "COLOGNE!"

     The woman in the blue-white robes was fast, though not so
fast he could not have avoided her had his eyes been on anything
but Cologne's crumpled form.  Her arm drew back, and as he rushed
past her, she rammed her rod into his side.

     The blades were blunt, not sharp.  They did not need to be
sharp, for the thing she wielded held its own powers.

     She spoke a word, softly, under her breath in her rasping
voice.  Her eyes flared for a moment with blue fire dancing along
the edges of black pupils, and then a surge of power exploded
from the blades of the rod, bathing Happosai in a crackling cage
of lightning for a few seconds that dropped him writhing to the
ground with smoke rising from him.

     The air smelt of ozone, and scorched hair and flesh.

     The others were moving now, coming forward with their
weapons drawn.  The woman in the blue-white robes spoke one word
to the woman in the dark robes.  "Yamiko."

     The woman raised her head slightly to look past Ranma to the
other woman, a sound rising from behind her black leather mask
like a wet thing sliding in a dark place.

     "Kill them all but the boy next to you," the first woman
said as if it were a routine thing to kill.  "I shall handle
him."

     Another sound from the woman, a gurgling purr of damp
pleasure.  The shadows gathered around her, moths to a flame, and
she vanished.  Ranma turned all his attention to the woman in the
blue-white robes.

     "Who are you?" he asked, and there was fire pounding in his
head in steady waves, rising and falling one after the other,
breaking upon the shores of his mind, washing away everything,
washing away everything but themselves in a pain so terrible it
was almost a pleasure.

     "Denkoko," the woman said, and she bowed slightly,
mockingly, and raised up her strange rod.  Ranma heard Mousse
yell a cry of challenge, heard a mewling hiss a second later, but
that was very far away.

     He glanced to the fallen Cologne.  To Happosai, from whose
still body smoke rose in thin plumes, twining around each other
like serpents.  To the woman before him, very beautiful and very,
very terrible.

     "I don't usually go all out when I fight girls," he said to 
Denkoko from very far away, somewhere back behind himself as he 
danced with the edge of the fire.  "But I'll make an exception 
for you."

     And he reached out past those curtains of fire for the ice
he knew lurked behind.

**********

     Kima was half a mile away, hidden carefully in a forest up
the slope of the mountain, but she too heard the two cracks of
thunder, and a moment later, the sound of Shiso's wings, nearly
as loud, as the raven took to the air.

     "COME!" he said, as if it were a command.  In a way, it was.

     Cursing the fact that the trees here were just a little too
dense in number for wings of her size to take to the air, she
began to run after him, Cologne's words echoing in her head.
Never think you are so smart that any plan will go off exactly
as expected.

     "Some plans, though," she added as she ran, sword bumping
against her hip.  "Go off a lot more unexpectedly than others."