[Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Chapter Five

[Eric Hallstrom]

Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.

"A Sto'r Mo Chroi'" ("Darling of my Heart" or "The American
Wake") is still Traditional. "The Whistling Pig" belongs, as
far as I know, to Robert Frezza. I don't know who wrote
"'Tis Mute ...," I lost the book. Whoever it is, they did a
good job. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is by Simon and
Garfunkle.

Warning: This part is [Dark] and may very well be [Squicky]
as well. Depending on how you look at it, it may also
deserve a [Lemon] or [Lime] tag, too, not to mention [WAFF].
You Have Been Warned.

By popular demand, the majority of this episode should be
read to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi from Carl Orff's Carmina
Burana.

You can find a MP3 at the site below.
Don't put it on yet. I'll indicate when.

This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/

Release 1.1 (Oct. 26, 1999)

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Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part A: Hateful Life

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1. O Fortuna 1. O Fortune

Verse 1

O Fortuna, O Fortune,
velut Luna like the moon
statu variabilis, you are changeable,
semper crescis ever waxing
aut decrescis; and waning;
vita detestabilis hateful life
nunc obdurat first oppresses
et tunc curat and then soothes
ludo mentis aciem, as fancy takes it;
egestatem poverty
potestatem and power
dissolvit ut glaciem. it melts them like ice.

------------------------------------------------------------

A demon was raping her.

For the ... time. Again. What did it matter how many times.
Just again. Only some of the demons who held her captive had
shown an interest, but those who had seemed to find it their
preferred mode of torment.

They had taken away the control of her body, but they had
left her the pain. This one, for instance, was making her
moan and writhe, as though she was secretly enjoying the
abuse. Others had made her plead, or scream, or just cringe.

They had stuck hooks through her wrists, and lashed her with
barbed chains. They had cut her flesh with knives and
branded her with irons. They had shoved a sharpened steel
pole through her anus and out her mouth and roasted her
alive over a flame. They had bound her spirit into her dead
body and carved it for their meat, and she had felt the pain
of every bite and they had told her that it was pleasure,
that she was delicious, that it was an honor to serve.

They had bound hot stones into her knees and elbows and
healed the wounds they made. They had slain her with steel
and with fire and raised her again to life.

They had shown her others in torment. They had laid out
before her all the kingdoms of the world and shown her that
they ruled them all. They had shown her her parents and
friends writhing in the flames, begging her to save them.

They had said that they were mighty. They had said that they
were kings. They had demanded that she yield her soul to
their mastery.

They had made her body agree, but they had made a mistake.

Her body had agreed, had pled, had begged.

But she had not.

They had lied to her body, but her soul was not fooled. And
if they had lied in one thing, then they lied in every
thing.

And so she remained. They could torment her, they could mock
her, but one thing they could not touch. Whatever else they
told her, whatever they showed, whatever they made her body
feel or do, one thing she knew beyond all doubt.

_They lied._

And eventually they must give her a chance. Eventually their
vigilance must slip. Eventually she would get her hands upon
a knife. Or a flame, or a rock, or a chain, or a hook, or a
spoon (They had scooped out her eyes with one, once. Or was
it many times? And did it matter?).

Eventually. And then she would see if they could lie to
themselves as well as they had lied to her. She suspected
that they could not, but she would see, regardless. She had
nothing else to live for, and nothing at all to lose. And in
the end, what could they do? Punish her? Send her, perhaps,
to Hell?

And that was why, as the demon thrust into her, as it's
malformed member tore and ripped and lubricated itself with
blood, as her body was commanded to gasp and moan in
ecstasy, as it plead to be abused further, as it proclaimed
itself a slave, a slut, a whore ... Asano Sayuri was smiling
with her eyes.

------------------------------------------------------------

Verse 2

Sors immanis Fate - monstrous
et inanis, and empty,
rota tu volubilis, you whirling wheel,
status malus, you are malevolent,
vana salus well-being is in vain, and
semper dissolubilis, always fades to nothing,
obumbrata shadowed
et velata and veiled
michi quoque niteris; you plague me too;
nunc per ludum now through the game
dorsum nudum I bring my bare back
fero tui sceleris. to your villainy.

------------------------------------------------------------

On Monday, she worried.

It was inconceivable that she could be ... she wasn't ...
she was just friends ... right? She wasn't ... Kasumi would
be ... she would just frown sadly, and ... and Daddy, he'd
... and Ranchan ... Ranchan had all those boyfriends ...
she'd had sex before, she said ... Ranchan'd hate her ...
it'd be horrible.

And besides, she'd never thought about girls _that_ way
before.

That was on Monday. On Tuesday the gym class did swimming.
She didn't swim well, of course, but she stood on the side
and watched.

And Ranma, of course _did_ go swimming. In a one-piece. That
was quite sufficient, especially with it being wet. She
nearly buckled at the knees. Had she _really_ thought that
Ranma was 'not uncomely' just two days before?

Ranma, she discovered, possessed a sharp-edged, visceral
attractiveness that grabbed you by the throat and
_squeezed_. And besides that, she was _damned_ sexy. She
wanted to ... was _this_ what the boys had felt?

She'd always thought that they were just ... unthinking, but
if this was what it was like ....

On Wednesday, she agonized.

What should she do? A relationship with Ranma was
impossible, of course. Even if Ranma was ... that way, she
could not be seen to be in love with another girl. Her
reputation would never stand it. Neither would her own
reputation, of course, but that was a secondary issue. It
was Ranma who was important.

She would simply have to go on, that was all. Deny
everything, herself most of all. It would be a test of
discipline, but there was no other option.

Nor could she simply break off relations. It would raise
questions. Investigations would be launched; her secret
would come out. That would be just as bad, but worse yet,
_what reason could she give_?

Could she lie to Ranma? Tell her that she would no longer be
her friend? No. That would add hypocrisy and dishonor to all
her other sins. No. She would simply have to hide what she
felt. Conceal her attraction. Ranma must never know; _no
one_ must ever know. Above all other things this: her
current 'attraction' was bad enough. Whatever else she did,
she _must not_ fall in love.

But one thing she could do: she could fight beside her, aid
her, be her friend in all things. It wasn't anything nearly
enough, but it was all she had, so it would have to do.

------------------------------------------------------------

Verse 3

Sors salutis Fate is against me
et virtutis in health
michi nunc contraria and virtue,
est affectus driven on
et defectus and weighted down,
semper in angaria. always enslaved.
Hac in hora So at this hour
sine mora without delay
cordum pulsum tangite; pluck the vibrating strings;
quod per sortem since Fate
sternit fortem, strikes down the strong man,
mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me!

------------------------------------------------------------

A demon was torturing her ... no, wait; it was only her
physical therapist.

Sometimes Kuno Kodachi found it difficult to tell the
difference. Still, she persevered. She _would_ return to
form. She would escape the hell of this hospital for the
clean air. Her brother would help, and Ranma-sensei would
too; but they could only _help_. She would have to _do_.

It worried her slightly that the doctors told her that
cosmetic surgery would have to wait. Her body was still
insufficiently healed to safely subject to the stresses of
further injury.

It worried her more that it worried her so little. She had
always been so proud of her looks; what would she look like
now? She had not yet gathered the courage to look in a
mirror to see.

At least Ranma-san had combined with Tofu-sensei to
alleviate the pain of the burns. A procedure that combined
some of the features of acupuncture and moxibustion, she
thought, it had proven most effective.

Still, that did not reduce the time she must spend in this
pestilential "therapy". She preformed the exercise again and
ignored the pain. She was getting out. She was going home.
And what would be, would be.

------------------------------------------------------------

1. Fortune plango vulnera 2. I bemoan the wounds of
Fortune

Verse 1

Fortune plango vulnera I bemoan the wounds of Fortune
stillantibus ocellis, with weeping eyes,
quod sua michi munera for the gifts she made me
subtrahit rebellis. she perversely takes away.
Verum est, quod legitur, It is written in truth,
fronte that she has a
capillata, fine head of hair,
sed plerumque but, when it comes to
sequitur seizing an opportunity,
occasio calvata. she is bald.

------------------------------------------------------------

On Monday, he fretted.

Sayuri-chan's condition was declining, Akane was
insufficiently trained to support him in an intervention,
and he was afraid he was beginning to do something he had
specifically forbidden himself from doing. Or rather, _she_
was beginning to do something _she_ had ... and that was the
problem, of course.

On Tuesday, he agonized.

The gym class had done swim practice that day; and while
Akane had not, for some reason, actually gotten in the pool,
she _had_ put on a swimsuit. That was enough.

He was rarely, if ever aroused by a person's looks, now. An
artifact, he supposed, of what Minnie-May had called his
"versatility"; he tended not to scan people as potential
partners unless he had already unconsciously decided in
their favor. So his sudden arousal meant only one thing; he
was in _deep_ trouble.

On Wednesday, he worried.

He had already resigned himself to nothing more than
friendship, but he suspected that it would be even more
difficult to stay within that category than he had
previously suspected. Just as long as it wasn't love he was
probably safe.

Friendship, even close friendship, he had no fear of.
Comradeship he could handle. She could be as attractive as
she liked without overloading his control. Love would be a
problem. Well, he would simply have to see to it that it did
not go that far.

He had worse problems. Sayuri's condition had not improved.
No medical technique had palliated her decline. Neither
rituals of healing nor exorcisms had made a difference.

He would have to intervene personally. But he had a feeling
about this one; this one was going to be bad. Akane was not
trained well enough to help; taking her along would be far
too dangerous, to her most of all. But a bad intervention
might well lead to his own death.

He feared that Akane was trained too well to escape
extra-natural attention should he fall, but not trained well
enough to defeat it. Nor could Sayuri wait for her further
training; if he were to aid her at all it must be now.

That night he prepared for battle, oiling and maintaining
all his weapons, storing power against future need. Then,
after all was in readiness, he wrote a letter.

Rally Vincent
Gunsmith Cats
Chicago, USA

Dear Rally,
As you can see, the rolling stone has decided to gather
a little moss for a time. I am presently living in
Nerima Ward, and have taken an apartment ....

The reason I'm writing you is that I seem to have
gotten myself into a 'situation' again ....

An old enemy, you wouldn't know him ....

So I feel that I have to go see where Sayuri-san is
being restrained....

The problem is, I have also taken a student. Her name
is Tendo Akane, and she's going to be one of the great
ones if she lives. But she needs more training, and I
might not be able to do it myself. So, what I'm asking
is, if I don't send you a message in a week or so and
tell you I'm fine, I'd like for you to inform the
appropriate people about her ....

Not that I'm planning on dying or anything, but ....

Tell Minnie-May I do _not_!

Love, Ranma.

(p.s. Note that I'm using the feminine here, and tell
the barbarian ekrixiphiliac to use the appropriate
gender! BR)

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Verse 2

In fortune solio On Fortune's throne
sederam elatus, I used to sit raised up,
prosperitatis vario crowned with prosperity's
flore coronatus; many-colored flowers;
quicquid enim florui though I may have flourished
felix et beatus, happy and blessed,
nunc a summo corrui now I fall from the peak
gloria privatus. deprived of glory.

------------------------------------------------------------

A demon was raping her. Again.

She did not know how long she had been under their torment.
Any estimate she might have made would have been rendered
unreliable by the penchant her captors had evinced for lying
to her senses. How could she construct a reliable estimate
of the time when a moment might seem like an year, or a year
like a moment?

It was sufficient for her to note that the demons had seemed
to be growing increasingly worried. They had not yet been
sufficiently careless as to allow her an opportunity to
escape her bonds yet.

But they would, in time.

And she _had_ time.

All the time in the world.

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Verse 3

Fortune rota volvitur: The wheel of Fortune turns:
descendo minoratus; I go down, demeaned;
alter in altum tollitur; another is raised up;
nimis exaltatus far too high up
rex sedet in vertice - sits the king at the summit -
caveat ruinam! let him fear ruin!
nam sub axe legimus for under the axis is written
Hecubam reginam. Queen Hecuba.

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You can turn 'O Fortuna' on now. It's probably best to put
it on repeat.

--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hal...@mindspring.com
kaw...@kawaiikunee.com

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Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part B: Driven On and Weighted Down

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The precincts of Nerima General Hospital are used to the
sights of lab coats and sterile stainless steel.

They have seen other things too; long brass needles and
cones of combustible incense, Shinto rituals, Taoist magic,
and Buddhist prayer. Through them have walked Priest and
Shaman, Doctor and (secret) Divinity. This has not, however,
prepared them for Ranma.

Nabiki looked over the preparations Ranma was making
apprehensively. Just behind her left shoulder she could feel
the overly-calm presence of her younger sister; in front of
her a person she had come to accept, tentatively, as a
friend was apparently going slightly insane.

Or maybe not; maybe, in a world that could contain things
like Jei, marking out a circle on the floor of a hospital
room with Mystic Chinese Symbols was perfectly sensible. Not
that this made her any happier.

Sensible or not, the combined emotional tones of Dr. Tofu,
(monitoring Sayuri's condition) Akane (apparently just
standing there) and Ranma (using some kind of wax to trace
arcane symbols on the floor with exquisite care) were
convincing her that Ranma was about to do something
extremely dangerous and making her extremely nervous.

Ranma finished her artwork and tidied up the remaining
shards of wax. She had created a circle about five feet
across in one corner of the room and had drawn another,
smaller, circle inside it, just large enough, Nabiki
estimated, to sit in. Now she turned to Dr. Tofu, who was
examining Sayuri. "Any change, Tofu-sensei?"

"No, Ranma-san," Dr. Tofu looked up from his work, "she is
still near death." He polished his glasses nervously, "Are
you sure this is the best option, Ranma-san? Death is only a
transition, after all; can you justify the risk of delaying
this one?"

"Tofu-san, I cannot find her soul. You have yourself
observed a dark blot on her ki. Medicine has proved
insufficient; both an exorcism and a ritual of calling have
likewise failed. A natural transition is one thing; this is
something else.

"Nabiki, I am entrusting you and Acchan with the task of
ensuring that my body is not disturbed while I am away. _No
matter what you see_, no matter what happens, do not allow
it to be disturbed for 48 hours or until I come back."

"Ahhh ... How will I know it's you? If you see what I mean?
And what do we do after 48 hours?" Nabiki queried.

"In answer to your first question: that's what the circles
are for. In answer to the second: after 48 hours you may
assume I'm dead and act as seems best to you at the time."

"Oh, great," Nabiki mumbled. Over her shoulder she felt
Akane nod, gravely.

Ranma stepped into the smaller circle, being careful to
avoid mussing either design, and knelt down into seiza. She
took a breath to center herself and closed her eyes.

To Akane's Sight, Ranma's ki patterns solidified and became
much denser, then stood up out of their body and turned to
her with a grave nod. Ranma's body continued a slow and deep
breathing as her ki turned Elsewhere, stepped over a
metaphorical wall, and was gone, trailing behind it the very
faintest thread of power, still touching the body it had
left behind.

"Wonderful," Nabiki blew out her cheeks and turned to Akane,
"now what?"

"Now you do what she told you, Oneechan. You keep anyone
from touching us for 48 hours." Akane stepped past Nabiki
and swiftly coiled a string of prayer-beads into a smaller
circle inside the main circle. Then she stepped inside and
knelt.

"And what are you ... what do you mean _us_?" Nabiki turned
in alarm, and reached out; but Akane had already centered
and closed her eyes, and she snatched back her hand, seeing
Dr. Tofu move toward Akane with alarm. Then she saw Akane's
breathing slow and deepen, and knew she was too late. "If
she gets killed in there," she vowed, "I'm gonna _kill_
her!"

And Tendo Akane stepped up from her body and set the
controls of its life as she had Seen Ranma do. And turned
toward the wall that crossed her vision in a certain
metaphorical direction. It was low and made of fieldstone,
weathered by the endless years; it would be no trouble to
step over.

She did so deliberately, following in her sensei's
footsteps. And walked, though she did not know their names,
down the Street of Tears, past the River of Dust, down into
the Dry Land, where all the stars are strange. Down the road
that leads toward the Houses of the Dead and beyond them to
the docks and piers that reach out into the Starless Sea.

------------------------------------------------------------

She walked down the street and she did not look back. The
great stones that the street was made of were worn smooth
across their breadth by the passage of countless feet, but
there was a dip in the middle of the blocks about a foot
wide where the majority of traffic had passed by in years
without number.

All who travel that street know its name, by instinct if by
nothing else, and its surface is worn not only by footsteps
but by the slow erosion of numberless tears.

Those tears flow off the street into drainage channels,
which flow into gutters, which feed canals, which run from
that street to the west, joining with the river a little to
the side. Into that river they flow and there they vanish,
drying into dust and forever gone in instants,
indistinguishable from all the other dust that flows there,
dust to dust and ash to ash forever.

In that place there is no sun, and neither rain nor wind
ever disturbs the silence. The dry air absorbs sound and
moisture alike and no hint of life ever comes there save for
those who have passed beyond it. The only light comes from
above; for there are no streetlights either, and the houses
and taverns of the city put out no lanterns, nor do they
light torches to find their way.

Instead they see by the light of stars beyond number or
estimation; stars that shine down from the sky in glory
undimmed and undimmable; brilliant in constellations that
have never been named, that change by the hour and never
repeat. Stars so thickly scattered that their colors may be
seen by the human eye. Stars that wash the stone streets and
alleys of the City of the Dead with a light that, brilliant
and colorful as it may be in the sky, leeches all color and
life from the stone and the people there, and washes
everything with grey.

Akane walked down the street in silence and silence
swallowed her footfalls. Over all that grey city she could
hear no sound, only a vast hush that seemed to have existed
since the beginning of time. Silently she traveled, and in
silence she passed the outskirts of the city. Silently she
walked the worn stone of the street past the thin spray of
stone houses with slate roofs that form the city's outposts.
Silently she came to a gate in the obsidian wall that marks
the edge of the city proper and passed through.

Silently she passed, and heard no sound from herself or from
any other thing. Until, from the city's heart, suddenly, a
stone bell began to sound. First the normal dull rumble of
beaten stone, growing in power as though to shake the entire
city, then from beneath the stone-song a new voice woke;
first a rising note, piercingly beautiful, then another,
held in suspension, then a last cry, prolonged and falling
away; as though some sweet and mighty voice was calling,
"Love. Strength. Heeaaveeeen. Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai,
ken, teeeeeeennnn."

Up, pause, down. Up, pause, down. And all around her the
stone walls and stone streets of the city responded to the
bells, singing in harmony, "Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn." And above her, from many places near and far,
more bells answered back; small brass clangor swelled by
silver tintinattus joining golden metallic voices triumphant
over harsh brazen roar of many great carillons undismayed by
mournful iron tolling, and over and above and under all the
mighty song of stone, "Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn."

Blinded by tears and deafened by glory Akane stumbled to the
side of the street and placed a hand against the wall,
fighting for control. As the bells continued she managed to
regain enough control to continue moving, but kept her
course near to the wall, reaching out to touch it from time
to time.

As the bells rose to a crescendo she began to think that
there could be no finer fate than to stay here in the city
and listen to the bells. Then she stumbled past an alleyway
in her daze and gasped as an arm encircled her neck and
dragged her in.

------------------------------------------------------------

"Stupid girl," Ranma hissed into her ear, "are you _trying_
to get killed?"

The last glorious crescendo faded into silence and Akane
gasped in the pain of its passing. "R-Ranchan! What?"

"What the _hell_ do you think you're _doing_, you baka?"
Ranma shook her like a rag-doll, glaring furiously. "This
place is dangerous enough if you know what you're doing!
Which you don't!"

"St-stop shaking me, Ranchan!" Ranma subsided. "You're going
to need me."

"Whatta you mean _I'm_ gonna need you!? If I need you it'll
be topside looking out for my body, you baka. And who's
looking out for _your_ body anyway?"

"I've got it in the same big circle you made, I saw how you
made the little circle, I got some prayer beads to make it,
Nabiki can watch, Dr. Tofu too, he's a good martial artist,
And I wasn't going to let you go down here alone, you're
going to need me _here_, I know it."

Ranma hissed in frustration. "If time wasn't so short ....
Can you at least follow orders now you're here?" she asked
harshly.

"H-hai, sensei," Akane whispered.

"Then come on. Quietly!"

------------------------------------------------------------

In the exact geometrical center of the city of stone (if
that city can be said to _have_ a center) stands a house. It
exists in the middle of a garden of roses and an orchard of
apple trees, and the roses and the trees and the apples they
bear are black.

It hums with a drowsy heat and buzzes with the activities of
the many hives of bees that feed from the roses and the
apples and that never seem to grow old; and the bees and the
hives and the honey that they give are black too.

It is made of black stone, cut with laser precision by
something that wasn't a laser, and roofed with black slate.
Its doors and window-frames are made of ebony and neatly
painted black, and the panes of glass in the windows are
heavily leaded and seem to have a black tint.

It seems from time to time to be as small as a cottage or as
large as a mansion; and from various views its grounds may
not seem to exist, or may stretch on for light-years into
distant star-shot mountains on whose slopes grow fields of
golden wheat.

Aside from these minor factors there is nothing at all to
indicate whose house it is.

To that black house in the middle of its black gardens and
black orchard came Ranma and Akane. By the side door.

------------------------------------------------------------

"Grrk," said Akane, seeing the house they were making for.
"Who lives _there_?"

"Death." said Ranma calmly. "Be polite."

------------------------------------------------------------

They entered the gardens from a side street and hurried past
the hedge of black-leafed holly that serves that part of the
gardens as a wall.

As she passed the hives of buzzing bees Ranma nodded to them
calmly, as to old acquaintances met going about their
business, and the bees dipped politely in reply. Passing
under an apple tree, Ranma reached up and plucked two apples
from its branches with a muttered word of thanks. "Eat," she
said, handing one of the glossy black fruit to Akane.

"Ahh ... but, I thought that you weren't _supposed_ to eat
anything that you found here," wavered Akane. Ranma, she
noted, had disposed of her apple in six bites, saving only a
large black seed that had rested at the core of the
bone-white flesh of the black-skinned fruit.

"I never said this was a _safe_ expedition," Ranma said
dryly, "eat your fruit."

"Grrrk," said Akane, and did so.

At Ranma's indication she placed the seed that she had
likewise saved at the base of the tree alongside the one
Ranma had placed there and bowed with her friend. Above
their heads the tree's branches waved, though no breeze
blew. "Grrrk," said Akane, and turned away.

------------------------------------------------------------

In a quiet hospital room, two forms sat still and silent.
The only sound was their breaths, which slowed and grew
deeper yet.

------------------------------------------------------------

Reaching the side of the house, Ranma opened the door and
went in, Akane following. They found themselves in an empty
hallway floored in black wood and wallpapered in a fetching
black on which many beautiful and intricate patterns had
been printed in black ink.

Ranma walked swiftly down the hallway and turned into an
open doorway. Akane followed her into a room that was at
once both large and small. Crossing the floor to a figure
shrouded in black and sitting in a chair that was turned
half away from them, Ranma knelt and bent her head.

"Ranma," said the white-skinned, black-haired girl dressed
in a blue cotton T-shirt and biker leathers who turned
around, "it's been so long! Can you stay a bit longer this
time?"

"I'm afraid not, Tel," Ranma rose and briefly pressed her
cheek to the other girl's. "I've got a problem. Have you
processed a girl by the name of Asano Sayuri, of Nerima,
Tokyo, the home islands, Earth, recently?"

The sardonic-visaged young man who was suddenly standing in
the girl's place was dressed in skin-tight black leather,
revealing an impressive figure. "*Aw*," he pouted
devastatingly, "*you _never_ want to stay and play!*
*Boring!*"

The black-suited minor bureaucrat who replaced him had grey
hair and a golden pince-nez. "/Hem/," his dusty voice echoed
as he reached out and took an enormous book from nowhere,
expertly flipping through the pages and ran his long
fore-finger down the one he stopped at. "/No, that client
has not been processed by this office. Nor is her name
entered in the Book of Dust, nor the Book of Blood, nor the
Book of Glory./"

"Damn," Ranma muttered.

"[However]," sang the earthy voice of the tall black-haired
figure dressed in a short chiffon and carrying a boatman's
staff who now stood by the desk, "[while _I_ have not
carried her, I _have_ heard rumors of new activity in one of
the out-flanker castles of the rebellion.]"

"Which one?" Ranma questioned grimly.

"{That belonging to the 'Marquis' Delaniel.}" replied the
glorious choral voice of the immense robed and winged figure
before them. "{Ranma, be careful? Just this once?}"

Ranma quirked one side of her mouth. "But why start now?"

"AS A FAVOR," tolled the leaden tones of the tall,
black-robed skeleton, "FOR ME."

Ranma gazed up into the skeleton's empty eyes for long
moments, meeting its blue-shot gaze. Then she rose on tiptoe
and grasped its head in both hands and kissed it firmly on
the teeth, before she turned away.

As Ranma and Akane left the black house by the side door,
the girl in the blue t-shirt quietly said, "I'll sing for
you."

As they passed the hedge-gate Ranma quietly said, "I know."

------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma did not speak as she set a rapid course through the
side streets and alleys of that city, nor did Akane as she
followed. As they jogged, Akane noted that the houses and
the very stones of the streets were rapidly growing
translucent, as though they were fading away.

Behind her she heard the start of the chorus of the bells,
but it quickly faded, and they found themselves on the top
of a tall hill, or ridge. The ground was blasted earth and
barren, crumbly rock, and the heavy hot air smelled faintly
of rot, and of smells that are instinctively known as bad by
all who smell them.

Passing along the top of the ridge, Akane was relatively
pleased to note a broad, well-made road of stone, leading
down the ridge and across the plain below.

"Well," she whispered, as they walked to the side of the
road and skulked forward in the shadow of the tall stones
that marked its borders, "at least we'll have a good road if
we have to come back in a hurry."

"It won't be here on the way back," Ranma said calmly.

"Huh?"

"Facilis decensus Averno," Ranma quoted, "sed revocare
gradum superasque evadere ad auras,/Hoc opus, hic labor
est-"

"Which means?"

"Down is easy. Up is hard."

"I'm _so_ glad I have you to tell me these things."

------------------------------------------------------------

Down the hill they went, flitting from shadow to shadow, and
across the blasted plain below.

They traveled for several hours by Akane's count, though she
did not grow tired. Akane could see no other travelers on
the road or off it, nor did she sight any patrolling force,
either on the plain or in the air above it.

Ranma, however, progressed in fits and starts by some method
of her own; now holding to the deepest shadows, now
sprinting for a dolmen or stone several gaps beyond the next
one; but always, always aware of all around her, scanning
the sky and the ground. Akane followed her step for step,
shadow for shadow, and dash for dash as the long, hot day
wore on.

At last they began to come near castles or fortresses cut
into the irregular basalt mesas that covered the plain. From
these, whenever they approached closely enough, came
alternating faint shrieks of pain and equally faint howls of
glee.

Akane shuddered as they passed these most closely, and
huddled closer to Ranma in the increasingly more infrequent
shadows. At each closest approach, Ranma would spend a few
moments scanning the hellish fort from the deepest cover
available. Finally, she spent more time than usual, and
Akane turned her sight on the castle as well.

Ranma seemed to hesitate in the great boulder's shadow, as
though awaiting a more tangible sign. If so, she received
one. One especially loud shriek of pain rang out over the
darkened earth and stone and Ranma's lips firmed even as
Akane gasped in recognition. "Ranchan, that wasn't like the
other screams. It sounded wrong. It sounded like Sayuri."

"Yah," Ranma said, "I'm afraid so." She tensed on her
haunches, like a great cat preparing to spring and sprinted
for the gate, Akane on her heels. Halfway there a cry of
outraged discovery came from the battlements, followed hard
by a rain of badly aimed missiles.

These seemed like javelins or arrows, but raised spurts of a
hellish flame where they landed; Akane resolved not to get
hit by any. At the end of their sprint Ranma pounded up to
the main gate, flattening herself against its rough timbers,
under the eave and safe from fire. Akane followed, panting.

"At least," Akane huffed, "they haven't heard of murder
holes."

"Be thankful for small favors," Ranma said, dryly, as a
glare of heat and light burst from the plain behind them.
Then she stepped a little away from the gate and put her
hand flat against it. A moment passed as she tensed her
shoulders and then the wall and gate began to rumble in a
deep bass.

From above, shrieks of rage turned to shrieks of fear,
shrieks quickly silenced by a bellow of command from inside
the fort. Ranma pressed the gate harder, and the whole front
wall of the fortress began to tremble. From within came
another bellow of command.

"What are you doing?"

"Someone once said, 'Give me a lever long enough, and a
place to stand, and I will move the world.' A lever's just a
device for concentrating force over time." Ranma tensed her
shoulders further, "Or you can do it with shih instead of a
big stick."

Akane Saw immediately what she meant; Ranma was accumulating
power in the wall, every moment's small pressure adding to
the one before, growing moment by moment to a force that
would rip the gate from its hinges. Akane also Saw that the
wall was resisting, spreading out the power Ranma was
putting into it into the entire front wall of the castle.
Though if it continued to do so the only result would be the
eventual destruction of the wall instead of just the gate.

Lastly, Akane Saw how the trick was managed, a simple
application that caused her to shake her head in wonder that
she had not done it herself automatically. That,
fortunately, was a failing she could rectify. Squaring her
shoulders she placed both hands on the gate and began to
push. Her efficiency was not as high as Ranma's, but her
greater strength made up for the loss and the wall began
visibly to vibrate.

Vibrate like an over-stressed high-tension wire, but only
briefly; from within the walls came a final bellow of
command and then Akane _felt_ the wall stiffen into
immobility as the demonic Marquis within exerted his will
and linked the wall to his aura. The impact of the three
wills colliding nearly drove Akane from the wall in shock,
but only briefly. She showed her teeth in an entirely
unconscious snarl as she redoubled her effort; pouring all
of her will into the struggle she pushed with everything she
had.

The struggle continued for a timeless moment as the wall
motionlessly vibrated from the conflicting energies, and
then three things happened at once.

From within the walls new screams of fear and pain arose,
screams in entirely new voices.

At the gates Akane growled in a pitch worthy of an angry
bear and found reserves of strength she hadn't known she
had.

And Ranma snarled silently and drew back her hand from the
gate, twisting at the torso to wind up before bringing her
hand forward again in a curiously slow manner that conveyed
a sense of unstoppable motion, almost leaving ghost images
of the hand and arm behind it as it came forward and struck
the gate.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Marquis Delaniel, Demon of the Seventh Rank, had a
problem. Not only had he wasted resources on this mare's
chase proposed by the patron of that deluded Jei, resources
for which he would eventually have to account to _his_
patron; but the only prize which had actually been secured
in the whole disgraceful affair had proven surprisingly
recalcitrant. This had not put him in a good mood.

The further development that his own sanctum was under
assault had driven him to the brink of berserker rage. The
fact that his gates, constructed under his own eye, might
fail, that his castle's defenses might actually be breached
was simply insupportable.

He had, therefore, committed his own will and power to the
defense, reinforcing the strength of the wall with his own
life force. The fact that the unendurable scum outside his
wall were overcoming even the merest shadow of his presence
had thrown him into a howling rage and he had immediately
thrown the full weight of his power behind his will. This
meant that he himself was bearing the full brunt of Ranma
and Akane's push, of course, and it was most unfortunate
that his concentration left him incapable of noticing the
fiery cracks which were spreading across the walls in front
of him and, more importantly, across his own body.

The cause of his final, fatal distraction is open to debate.
It might have been simple overstrain from exertion. It might
have been Akane's sudden burst of power. It might have been
Ranma's Thousand Times Blow. It might even have been the
spoon.

------------------------------------------------------------

A demon was torturing her.

Just for a change.

This one seemed to find it amusing to remove her skin in a
spiral pattern. Perhaps it found some obscure aesthetic
pleasure in it. Or, it might have just been bloody minded.
For whichever reason, it seemed obsessed with achieving the
'perfect' pattern, 'healing' her and starting over whenever
it made a mistake. Or, at least, until it made its _real_
mistake.

She heard the cries from the wall dimly, through her body's
screams. They pricked her interest; they might mean that an
opportunity would arrive. Then she noted the presence of the
demonic leader. He had not come within her purview often
during her torment, apparently preferring to use underlings
for any actual work, but his presence here now was an
encouraging sign, and his obvious agitation even more so.

The servitor demon's first mistake was to ignore the cries
from the walls in favor of his own pursuits. Its second
mistake was to fail to immediately acknowledge the presence
of its master, a mistake immediately corrected by a kick to
the backside. The servitor scrambled after its master (its
third mistake) to be greeted by a backhanded slap, and a
snarled command to return the captive to safe-keeping, and
then to man the walls. Since all other forces were
organizing for defense it felt it must perform these tasks
alone (its fourth mistake). But its final mistake was to
leave the prisoner's arm unoccupied for two seconds while
struggling with her feet.

The demon had left her arms free! And, oh look! A spoon!
Wasn't that kind?

Now to see if, when she gutted a demon, they could heal
themselves as well as they could when they lied to her....
Hmmm. Nope, looks like they couldn't.

And this one had left her _two_ knives, _and_ a chain, _and_
a hot iron too! So kind.

Now she could find _lots_ of demons. And, what luck! Lots of
demons coming this way!

Now, what to use? Hmmm. Well, she'd start with ... oh wait,
she was still holding the spoon; that wouldn't do, she'd
already used it. Well, she'd just throw it at ... _that_
one. It was cracked and glowing already, maybe it would
break? Now, let's start with _this_ knife ....

------------------------------------------------------------

The blow was minor, but totally unexpected. It cannot
possibly have hurt the Marquis by itself; but it was not 'by
itself' in any sense. It certainly got his attention. One
second the demon-lord was straining to hold the aura of the
walls with all his might, the next ....

It was not precisely an explosion. Rather, the whole front
wall of the castle, the Marquis' physical body, and the main
gates fragmented into cinder-block sized pieces and rolled
over the hapless demonic servitors like a storm.

Which only goes to show how important it is to keep your
mind on what you are doing. Sayuri, who was behind the demon
she was busily introducing to the concept of mortality, was
completely untouched.

------------------------------------------------------------

The stone-storm rolled over them, and fear followed it.
Behind them their once-prisoner was giggling madly and
carving up their fellows like a housewife carving up a
frying chicken. To either side were still intact and very
solid stone walls. Above them the alarm was already ringing,
but what help would that be to them if they died first? In
front of them were only two females, to keep them from an
exit 50 yards wide.

It is often said that everyone gets one mistake.
Unfortunately for the remaining demonic servitors, theirs
had already been made. They stampeded for the exit. And
Ranma smiled, and drew her sword.

------------------------------------------------------------

Briefly, Akane managed a spasm of amazement. She _knew_ that
Ranma was red-haired death unleashed, but it simply _was not
possible_ to move that fast and still swing a sword that
precisely. Not that Ranma seemed to care whether it was
possible or not, and Akane charged through a gentle mist of
demonic ichor to reach Sayuri's side.

"Eeewww! Ick! Sayuri! Put that _thing_ down and come on. And
for heaven's sake throw away that poker! You'll put
someone's eye out."

"Oh! Akane-san!" Sayuri casually discarded the iron and
rushed to hug Akane. "You came! Thank you, thank you!"

"Come on you guys," roared Ranma, "they're all dead, but
there's going to be demonic air cavalry on this whole area
like a fungus in about 15 minutes!"

Sayuri put the knife she was holding in her belt (which had
returned along with her skin when she had broken her bonds)
and ran for the gap, picking up the knife she had left in a
demon's throat as she went. Akane followed, pounding towards
the way home, and the whole thing would probably have ended
simply, had not Delaniel made a mistake.

------------------------------------------------------------

Permit, if you would, a brief digression.

Demons lie. The fact is well known. What is less known by
most is the degree to which this is true.

The truth is, there are no demons. There are merely spirits.
Animated, sentient expressions of the meanings of creation.
Some lie to themselves, and say they are different. Special.
Better. Far too important to waste time on being good, on
keeping creation running the way it's supposed to.

After all, it's much more fun to lie. To say that they
control all the forces of death and darkness. To say that
entropy was their invention. To say that free will was their
discovery. To say that they own half of creation outright.
To say that the place of the dead and the place of
correction were both the same place, and both theirs.

Demons lie. The fact is well known.

Delaniel, in particular, was a Marquis. A border Count, that
is to say. A rebel of rank and power. Named, and Listed, and
possessed of a Word, that is - a concept of Evil to protect
and call his own. A Worded demon, moreover, whose Word
subsumed other Worded demons whose servitors had Words of
their own.

A powerful being was Delaniel, the Demon of a concept which
translates from the celestial as [Rude Strangers in Places
where Humans gather to Await Transportation].

( I hear you snickering from here. Such a small
concept, you say. What difference could it make?
What harm could it do?

Indeed, what harm? Rudeness in such crowded
surroundings is only to be expected, after all.
And one person, whom you do not know, makes little
difference. That's why it's much more important to
focus on the _big_ things. The small things never
matter.

What harm does rudeness do? Someone gets a little
farther ahead than they should. Someone makes a
number of people's day a little darker. Someone
erodes the bounds of respect and courtesy between
people a little. Someone tempts other people to do
the same, slightly. Someone gets everyone they
effect a little angry. Little things, no harm.

After all, it's not as though it was a big person
being rude. Big people are never rude, though
sometimes little people _do_ get in their way. But
that just involves their being brushed aside or
run over, not _rudeness_. And big people don't
have other people be rude to them, usually. Or, if
they do, they can just splat the person, no
worries. No, only little people are rude; only
little people have rudeness inflicted on them. So
it really doesn't matter.
( Once, Another had said "Whatsoever ye do to
the least of my people, that also ye do unto
me." Delaniel was at some pains to ridicule
this concept.
)

And if one of the people being inflicted with
rudeness is yourself? Well, A person's gotta get
by, you know? Gotta look out for number one,
right? Have you tried it? You really should, you
know.

I mean, it's not as if it _matters_, if you're
rude to people. Time is valuable. You've only got
so much effort to spend. Got to keep your eye on
the big picture. Got to keep up with the important
stuff. Really, it _is_ old fashioned to try to
defend civility like that. Archaic, even. People
should know better.

Why, the rain forest is being cut down, even as we
speak! The spotted owl is dying out! Spending
effort being polite to strangers in train stations
is just a waste of time! You can't afford to sweat
the small stuff. After all, the small stuff
doesn't matter.

And, when you think of it, how many people,
really, are truly important enough to you to be
polite _to_? Just a few, right? Just a few people,
besides yourself, who really _matter_ to _your_
best interest?

Your Mom and Dad, your close family, your SO, the
kids if you got them, your boss, of course, his
boss, maybe, that cop, naturally, that super-
model/idol singer. Not a lot.

And sometimes the difference between 'some', and
'none', is no difference at all. Which is why
you've got to pay attention to the small stuff.
Sometimes, the small stuff _matters_.
)

The point, of course, is that such a powerful demon as
Delaniel would never concentrate all of his power in one
place. Only a small amount, to provide a body to yell at the
servitors, and the rest dispersed, keeping tabs on his Word.

When Ranma and Akane's combined pressure caused his body to
be destroyed it deprived him of a focus for his
consciousness and power. In an ordinary demon such a loss
would lead to instant cessation, but Delaniel was not an
ordinary demon.

Those beings known as demon-lords normally provide
themselves with special artifacts designed to give them an
anchor in cases of emergency, generally concealing these in
some safe place. Delaniel's was secreted in a blind hollow
in the back wall of his castle.

This presented him with a problem. He could now cut his
losses, wait for the intruders to leave, and then hunt them
down and extract revenge. On the other hand, his castle had
been ruined and some of his servitors had been killed.

A small thing, true, of no real importance. And yet, he was
a demon of position. He had responsibilities. And his
political position would be damaged if it became known that
he had been attacked and not retaliated.

On the _other_ hand, if he took a personal hand and failed
to actually _destroy_ the intruders as they deserved, if
they _escaped_, his position would suffer worse losses yet.

On the gripping hand, the slut his servitors had been
tormenting would certainly have difficulty moving fast
enough to escape, and the other two would probably be
fatally delayed trying to assist her. And they would assist
her, he was sure; heroes are predictable like that.

And there could be no question of the outcome. The false
body holding but a fraction of his true power might be
destabilized, true, but in his true power, and on the
celestial plane, no human could be his equal.

It was a simple question of celestial laws - on this plane
he could only be damaged by raw celestial power, power that
the humans did not have. No human _could_ have sufficient
power, the laws of creation forbade it,
And skill would not suffice to substitute; the web of lies
that define a demon-lord's existence are too strong to
overcome by mortal power.

Only once, he knew, had any mortal, had any _being_,
challenged this fundamental rule. And those ... were gone.
They had won their battle and then ... well, _no one_ liked
the implications.

A mortal that could kill celestial powers? Permanently? No
one wants that kind of weapon around, it might get pointed
at them. The last one had died, oh, _centuries_ ago. There
were none left, none at all. No, there could be no danger.

So that was why Delaniel made his mistake. Because the
difference between zero and one is a small difference, but
sometimes it makes all the difference in the world. That's
why you have to pay attention to the small stuff. It's
always the small stuff that matters.

------------------------------------------------------------

They had gathered in the quiet room to watch and wait.

Yuka was there, of course, clasping her hands so tight they
were white. Sayuri's father and older brother too, holding
her hands, and her mother, still in her wheelchair, waiting
at her bedside.

And Nabiki, in the corner, watching over Ranma and Akane,
and praying.

------------------------------------------------------------

The back wall of the castle crumbled with a roar of
unleashed power. Ranma spared a single moment to roar "RUN!"
at Akane and Sayuri, and then turned to face the form that
now loomed above the ruins. She slid sideways into the
center of the ruined wall, blocking the demon's path toward
Akane and Sayuri, running over the plain behind.

Delaniel rose above the rubble of his hiding place, brushing
shredded stone from the shoulder joints of his wide-spread
wings. His face was cat-eyed and cruel, framed by scraggly
locks of multi-colored hair. He wore a sarariman's suit and
tie, expanded to fit his 20-foot-tall form and wound about
with barbed wire. His cuff-links and tie-tack were made of
the skulls of human babies, his face was cruelly scarred and
twisted and his right hand bore a huge serrated sword.

"First you, and then the other sluts," he growled in a low,
chilling voice, "Die!"

Snarling, he thrust himself forward, with a clap of his
scraggly-feathered wings, swinging his sword back for the
death stroke.

Ranma, already in zanshin, flowed inside his guard and
jumped forward, uncoiling into a thrust to Delaniel's chest.
Her attack sank into his heart with sufficient force to turn
him partly around; and Delaniel's eyes went wide in shock as
Ranma called upon the power of an ancient bargain, sending
it flowing down into the wound and flashing out to all the
dark corners of his body and soul, destroying his web of
sustaining lies with a certain truth that no being, however
powerful, may deny.

Ranma thrust herself sideways in mid-air, rotating Tenchuu
inside the demon-lord's chest cavity before ripping it free
from his rib-cage in a shower of blood. Delaniel's sword
slipped free of his relaxing hand, rotating forward end over
end to hit the ground hilt first, remaining upright
momentarily before falling over with a pathetic *splut*. It
was covered by the demon-lord's falling body, which crashed
to earth and slid forward on its side for several meters
before slowly rotating over onto its back to lie still,
looking upward at the sky with an expression of vast
surprise and a certain hidden peace in its sightless, dead
eyes.

Ranma landed lightly and spun on one foot, returning Tenchuu
to its sheath. Above and behind her a great wail rose to the
sky, hate and fear and rage intermingled, and far behind her
she heard the first responding roars. She sprinted forward,
passing the corpse without further comment, streaking for
her running friends ahead and looking for a place to make a
stand.

------------------------------------------------------------

But it's the small things that make a difference. Take, for
instance, the difference between Bronze and Iron.

Bronze is an alloy of Copper and Tin, Iron is a metal that
must be mixed with carbon to be useful. Bronze is fairly
easy to produce and work, but difficult to get in quantity.
Iron is more difficult to process, but is fairly common. The
metallurgical characteristics of Bronze are similar to those
of early wrought Iron, so you would think that there
wouldn't have been much of a basis to choose between them
early in mankind's history. You would be wrong.

If you were meta-historically inclined, you might remember
the legends of Iron's supposed lethality to demons and
spirits and conclude that this was the deciding factor. You
would still be wrong, in a nice and accurate sense; Iron
isn't any more damaging to demons than anything else.

If you favor economics you might speculate about the
logistical advantages provided to a tribe that didn't have
to depend on Phoenician Tin traders. Or, if you are more
inclined to the military profession you might decide that
the wider availability of arms and armor turned the trick.
But there wasn't much else of strategic interest to trade in
back then, and the conquering Iron Men were mostly
barbarians at the start, and had little arms beyond spears
and bows and axes anyway, and there would have been enough
Bronze for that.

At this point you might throw up your hands, and conclude
that there _was_ no difference, but you would again be
wrong. Because, once upon a time, the difference between
cast Bronze and hammered Iron was a very great difference
indeed.

There is a Bargain that once was made by those who linked
the Iron in their blood to the Iron in their blades. There
is a power available to those who share the blood that made
the Bargain. There is a Price that can be paid to Those
Others Who made that Bargain, and a Prize that that Price
can buy. There are those who were Chosen as champions, to
fight and win a battle in an ancient War, a battle in which
they had no hope of victory, except ....

Except for those who made a Bargain; not always to win the
battle, but never to lose the war; not always to survive the
fight, but always to destroy the foe.

Except for the Iron Men, except for the Invincible Ones,
except for those who came down from the hills in their
thousands; and broke the hold of demons and spirits and
magical warriors and destroyed them or drove them away from
the cities and valleys they had ruled; and turned an Age of
Myths and Legends and Powers into an Age of Men; and ignited
a furnace of hatred and rage that has neither waned nor
grown cold in four thousand years.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma was running.

Running as though all the hosts of Hell were after her.
Oddly enough, they were. Ahead, she could easily see Akane
and Sayuri running too, but there was no point in catching
up to them until she decided where to make her stand.

She could not attempt to make it all the way back to the
wall. For one thing, the demons would catch her first. For
another, they would not stop their pursuit at the wall,
rather, they would follow her anywhere she went; _that_
grudge was old and bitter, and the First of the Fallen would
never pass up an opportunity to destroy an Invincible once
he had marked one down.

So she could not fight to save her life. And even if,
somehow, she managed to evade her pursuers, their rage was
well and truly woken. If they did not find a fight in her,
they would seek one elsewhere. And with Sayuri fully
celestial and unprotected ....

Oh well, it wasn't like she had been expecting to die in bed
anyway, and she would definitely go out with an escort. But
she must somehow save the other girls. Well ... that would
require a certain amount of delay. If she could keep the
demonic host's attention long enough for Akane and Sayuri to
get to the wall and go over, then there would remain no link
to attract the host's wrath. Keeping the host's attention
would be easy enough, but she must also keep _all_ of its
forces in play and not allow any to go after an easier
target. That meant ....

The 'landscape' of the celestial plane is determined as much
by the meanings sought or found there by its inhabitants as
by anything else, so the result when one side wants to find
clear sailing to its prey and the other wants to find a
choke point should be obvious. Particularly considering that
one of the sides is Ranma.

"In yon straight place, a thousand/Might well be stopped by
three ..."

Words once written by a poet. They were written of a bridge,
but Ranma was willing to write them of the great canyon
walls that narrowed to a gap some hundred yards wide and
perhaps five hundred long that loomed before the girls now.

As they passed into the gap she increased her speed and
caught up with the others, pulling Akane to a stop. "Acchan,
you've got to get Sayuri-chan to the wall and put her over."

"Ranchan, you can't stay here! They'll catch you, and ..."

"Acchan," Ranma said gravely, "they're going to keep coming
until they catch me regardless. But if they catch me _here_
they may regret it."

"I can't leave you here, Ranchan!" Akane panted, "They'll
...."

"Acchan, if they catch Sayuri-chan on this side of the wall,
they'll go right through it and out into Nerima, where
they'll kill everyone they can catch, definitely including
Nabiki and probably Kasumi, your Dad, and everyone else in
the whole ward. And Sayuri can't run fast enough to get
away."

"But, Ranchan, you'll _die_!"

"Acchan, swear! On your soul's honor, _get Sayuri over the
wall_!"

"I ... Ranchan," Ranma's eyes bored into Akane's, cleaving
her tongue to the roof of her mouth, "H-hai, hai, Ranchan."
Akane hugged Ranma fiercely and turned away. Ahead of her
she could blurrily see the steep incline leading up away
from the borders of hell, and toward the dusts of Earth
beyond. Fiercely, she attacked the slope, rapidly gaining on
Sayuri, who had continued running.

------------------------------------------------------------

Behind her, Ranma turned around and watched the approaching
demonic armies. After a moment's scrutiny she began to grin,
and then spoke aloud.

'Tis mute, the word we went to hear
on high Dodonna Mountain,
When wind was in the Oakenshaws
and all the caverns tolled,
And mute's the Midland's navel-stone
beside the singing fountain,
And echoes list to silence now
where Gods told lies of old.

I took my question to the cave
that never ceased from speaking,
The Heart of Stone that tells the truth
and tells it twice as plain,
And from the cave of oracles
I heard the priestess shrieking,
That she and I would surely die,
and never live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear,
and sound good sense I think it,
But let the screaming echoes rest,
and froth thy mouth no more,
'Tis true there's better booze than brine,
but he that drowns must drink it,
And Oh my lass, thy news is news
that men have heard before.

She took Tenchuu in its sheath and threw it high in the air,
rotating around and giving off a gleam at its apex, before
falling back down to be snatched from the air by a sideways
snap of her hand. And, softly:

The king with all the East at heel
has come from lands of morning.
Their armies drink the river up,
their shafts benight the air.
And he that stands has died for naught,
and home there's no returning.

The Spartans, on their Sea-wet rock,
sat down and combed their hair.

And she replaced Tenchuu inside her jacket. The sword is a
tool for killing, and order of the day would be maiming and
terror, for a while.

Out of jacket-space she took a kusari-gama and whirled its
chain in a wide circle above her head, laughing. The haft
and handguard of the war-sickle was made of blackened steel,
covered with runes and ideograms, but the blade of the
sickle was a silvery ivory fang many times harder than
simple steel. In partial repayment of a debt a lord of
dragons had given her a fang, and sharpened it for war. The
chain of the weapon was cut of bone that shone white-silver
like the fang, each link barbed on upper and lower surface
and decorated with small ideograms at each corner. At the
end of the chain a larger link flared out into a barbed
arrowhead shape that seemed to resemble the silhouetted head
of some fierce beast.

Spinning the chain around her head, she listened to the howl
of the whirling chain and laughed again. Once, she knew,
there had been tens of thousands. But the battle had been
won and the demons, and the Fae, and the Magic Warriors, and
the ghosts, had retreated from the lands of men.

And with their retreat had gone the need for invincible
warriors, and with the need gone their allies had quietly
withdrawn. No celestial had ever been comfortable with the
Invincible, save, perhaps, Those Who had created them, and
Those Powers played no favorites. So the forces they had
defeated had snarled in the darkness and gone hunting.

It was no more difficult to kill an Invincible than it was
any other human. They could win any fight, but the price was
that they must win _every_ fight, regardless of the cost.
They could destroy any foe, meet any challenge, but they
must destroy _every_ foe, must face _every_ challenge. And
so the traps had been baited, and Invincible Ones had died.

And fewer and fewer new warriors had stepped forward.
Bloodline after bloodline had lost the knowledge of their
heritage, going into cover and forgetting in order to
survive. And where there had been tens of thousands were
only thousands. And then hundreds, and then a few dozen, and
then less than a dozen. And then there had been less than
five.

And now the very last Invincible alive stood in a bottleneck
on the outskirts of Hell, and watched the first racing
demons coming toward her, and cried out in a great voice,
"Come to me, ye hosts of Hell! Come to me, an Invincible is
calling! The storm is waiting for thee, the void yawns
before thee! Come to me, Hell-spawn! Come to me and die!"

And she grinned, wryly, as the first scattering of demons
entered the canyon, and she sent shih raging down the links
of the kusari-gama's chain and loosed upon those
front-runners the wrath of the dragon. And lightning leapt
and capered from rock to stone to wall to earth, scorching
demon flesh at every crossing and blasting great holes in
demonic bodies and souls before it finally gave up its
energies in a torrent of unfocused electricity that earthed
itself through the few remaining alive.

And then came upon her, not a few demons, but dozens. The
first, faint combers of the waves that would crush and rend.
And Ranma leapt to meet them, bannered by lightning and
heralded by thunder, riding on the wings of storm.

------------------------------------------------------------

Akane ran, forcing her body to take deep, full breaths,
ignoring the tears streaming from her eyes. No time for
gasping or panting, now, no time for tears; she must call
upon every ounce of courage and skill that she possessed.
Ranma was counting on her to get herself and Sayuri to the
wall between life and ... this place, and Akane would rather
die than delay that arrival by so much as a single moment.

Far rather die.

Now, too late, she must admit the truth. She loved Ranma.
Not 'her friend', not 'sensei', not even 'Ranchan'. But
always and only Ranma, her beloved.

She did not understand how it had come to happen. She had
despaired of its arrival, and now, too late, she despaired
of its departure.

Behind her, her beloved was fighting, battling an impossible
army to cover her retreat.

Within her, her soul wept in anguish; Ranma would die, be
torn apart, and _she_ was running away! Her fault! Her
fault: too slow, too weak, too stupid, useless, unskilled,
no good!

'Ranchan! I'm _sorry_ Ranchan! Oh, Kami I love you! I'm
sorry! I want to be with you, Ranchan, I'm sorry!'

Briefly, tears threatened to blind her sight. Savagely, she
shook them off and upbraided herself. Stupid, useless, weak,
childish: stop! Ranma must hold until she reached the wall,
all she had to do was run.

A minor spirit, a kind of demonic lizard, leapt
from its hiding place to grab her thigh, teeth
sinking deep. Her next stride flung it away, to
smash against a rock further down the path and lie
stunned and dazed in the track. Unseeing and
unfeeling, Akane trod it underfoot.

Head fixed on the slope and the horizon, arms pumping, feet
spraying dust where they pushed back, Akane ran.

------------------------------------------------------------

In a quiet room, a body knelt in a circle in a larger
circle. Hidden by its pants, a bruise was forming on its
thigh. A thin prickle of blood drops sprang up around the
bruise and quickly dried.

------------------------------------------------------------

Arms and legs pumping, Sayuri ran.

Her legs and torso hurt terribly, her lungs screamed for
air, her breath gasped and wheezed in the dry, choking heat,
and dust clogged her mouth; but all these things, she knew,
were lies. Truth was waiting somewhere up ahead of her, a
world that was real.

The knives tucked into her belt were real too, she thought,
but that did not get her to the end of the road any faster.
(She wished that she _could_ use the knives to do
_something_, but only faintly.) Lies all about her and
within her, but the truth was waiting at the end of the
road.

Yearning for the real world, Sayuri ran.

------------------------------------------------------------

In a canyon on the borderlands of Hell, a storm was raging.
Demons choked the space between the walls of the canyon,
packed in so thickly that there was barely room to move or
turn, tripping over the maimed bodies of their fellows at
every step. Bodies that moaned or snarled or weakly struck
out. Through and above and around them Ranma rampaged
unrestrictedly.

Wherever she went she kept up a constant barrage of thrown
knives. The great, slender, wickedly curved fangs flickered
out in vicious arcs to slice through arms or legs or
throats, as many as four or five in one arc, before curving
back to her off hand, pulled by a thread of shih, and being
sent out again.

Snapping arcs of the sickle blade caused havoc wherever she
passed. The chain flicked out in seemingly unrelated arcs,
snapping into victims like a striking snake and curving
barbed links around them, or sinking its carven jaws into
arm or leg. Then a curl of steel would jerk the victim off
its feet and into the air, curving past Ranma where a fang
would gut or cripple it before releasing it to smash into a
group of its hapless fellows. Then the cycle would begin
again.

Wherever she landed a blur of hyper-fast punches and kicks
smashed demons from their feet and sent them falling into
their fellows, tripping them and fouling their coordination.
Wherever no space was left to land, a lightning bolt would
blast a hole. A web of howling energy was sweeping and
sparkling from the walls, sucking up the energy from the
dying demons and arcing in coruscating beams from walls and
pinnacles; sending sprays of boulders and shards from the
walls to cause further havoc in the demonic horde and
smashing everything from the air except Ranma herself.

Beaten by a howling wind and blinded by lightning, packed in
like sardines and jostled like the bumpers in a game of
pachinko, uncoordinated, unfocused, undone and uncontrolled,
the demons were barely capable of resistance. Jostled,
unaimed hellbolts filled the air, and poor aim and reflex
strikes by claw or sword did far more damage to other demons
than to Ranma.

An ordinary host, even the most fanatical, would have at
least attempted retreat. But the pressure of arriving demons
behind was too great and more and yet more were coming,
charging up from the depths of Hell in a nearly infinite
stream. Behind them came oblivion, and even now its awful
shadow darkened the very air and sent sulfurous fumes rising
from the trembling stone. Far back and slow a darkness
loomed, and the hapless demons of the vanguard fought and
scratched and bit and tore, less to destroy the dancing
storm-flame in their midst than to get past her and out of
the way. Even the certainty of destruction Ranma carried
with her was less terrible than the looming shadow.

Moment by moment more demons arrived to choke the storm's
passage. Moment by moment the pressure grew. The difference
between unaimed but enthusiastic counterstrikes and no
counterstrikes at all was infinitesimal, but it was there,
and it, too, grew greater bit by bit as time went by. Small
differences, incremented by smaller ones yet as the minutes
slowly passed. But sometimes it's the small differences that
count.

------------------------------------------------------------

In a quiet room, a body knelt in a circle inside a larger
circle.

Small wounds began to appear on its arms, legs and torso. No
more than a a half inch long each, they gave off a drop or
two of blood and quickly faded to thin scars. The average
increase in size of each successive wound would have
required a micrometer to measure.

------------------------------------------------------------

Akane and Sayuri were half-way up the slope when the demons
pounced. Not all the demons in Hell had been _in_ Hell that
day; some had been present in the notional area of reality
Ranma had walled off from the rest of Hell with her canyon.

A small patrol was closer than the other strays and had set
a 'trap'. Unfortunately for them no one had thought to tell
them about Sayuri and her knives. Thus, when a thorny bush
tried to ensnare Sayuri, she had a knife out and hacking
branches inside half a second. Blessing Ranma's instruction
in the simple trick, Akane drew a tai-chi sword from
jacket-space and cut the bush off at the roots. The two
girls continued running ... which is why they weren't where
the demons had anticipated when they sprang their ambush.

A pair of demons suddenly sprang out at Sayuri, landing
slightly away from her in startlement at her changed
position. Both her knives were in hand immediately; here was
something on which she could use them without guilt. They
were _knives_ after all. She was quite a good cook, and was
experienced at using knives. A fact the demons were
appraised of, to their immediate and continuing sorrow.

In the mean-time Akane had been accosted from behind by
three more ambushers who attempted a dog-pile. The attempt
was, from their viewpoint, utterly and fatally unsuccessful.

Evading the clumsy grab, Akane whirled gracefully and
instinctively cut one's throat before removing the others'
heads with a pair of vicious, lightning-fast blows. Within
her soul, a fire was burning, turning ki and flesh and blood
into a perfect instrument of will, an instrument that was
unleashed on the next six demons, who had made the fatal
mistake of being in the second rank.

The last group of servitors had assumed a distant blocking
position, prepared to retrieve any prisoner who might escape
the grasp of those closer in. In the event, it did not save
them; Sayuri ran over the two in her path, slicing flesh and
bone as she passed. The remainder got to appreciate the
purity of will and energy embodied in an inferno named
Akane. Very briefly. The firestorm swept over them and
pounded up the slope on her charge's track.

------------------------------------------------------------

In the canyon, the storm was growing in intensity. The
clogged bodies of the dead, trampled, and maimed were posing
a genuine problem for demonic attempts to move out of the
canyon. Or, indeed, to move into it. One might, at this
point, wonder at demonic motivation. Or, in other words, why
are all these demons running so merrily to their nearly
certain destruction?

The answer can be stated simply: it was nearly certain
destruction.

Whereas, on the other hand, the great lords of Hell,
currently rising from Hell and pushing entire demonic armies
ahead of them as they come, are the sorts of beings for whom
inflicting fates worse than death are a pleasant morning's
diversion. And when a demon calls something a fate worse
than death, you may be sure that it knows whereof it speaks.
All Ranma could do was kill them, and that death was
embraced nearly eagerly, given the alternatives.

Ranma noted little of this, though. By now her facial
expression had locked itself into a gentle smile over an
almost inhuman serenity. Though, had she not been so deep in
zanshin, it is likely that she would instead have been
wearing a grin wide enough to crack her face. Nor was the
serenity only skin deep. Her wide, peaceful eyes, while not
focusing on anything in particular, were gathering
information on the totality of the battle she was fighting
that would have made a J-STARS chief sensor-tech turn green
with envy. Her other senses, especially her chi-sense, were
equally active, and she seemed, from her own person-view, to
be hovering slightly above the battle even as she was
entirely immersed in it.

Internally, her feelings were mixed. It was true that she
was enjoying the fight, enjoying it immensely. It was a
unquestionably righteous fight too, fought against true evil
for a truly good cause. On the other hand, she knew how it
would end. She did not fear death, no, but neither did she
welcome it. Particularly not _now_; she had too much to do,
and was leaving too much unfinished. 'Death,' she thought
wryly, 'might be lighter than a feather, but just now it's
damned inconvenient!'

Unfortunately, inconvenient or not, it was inevitable. She
made an adjustment to her attack patterns that cleared the
canyon entrance and packed the interior a little more.

As long as she held it to the single fight to keep the horde
bottled up, she knew she could hold forever. But she knew
that it could not remain just that fight for long.
Eventually, one of the greater powers would come against
her. Even sufficient order being restored to the current mob
would be quickly fatal. Before that could happen, though,
Akane and Sayuri would reach the wall; and after _that_
nothing mattered.

She made another vaulting leap and again contemplated the
arrangement of the host pressing in to the canyon. When the
end was inevitable, she planned to move out onto the plain
before her and see if she could hunt down a prince or two.
Possibly even see if she could get close to the First
himself. She doubted it was possible, but it was an adequate
closing gesture, and perhaps she could make one or more of
the high nobility of Hell metaphorically mess their pants.

As long as Sayuri and Akane reached the wall.

No, be honest: as long as Akane reached the wall. Not that
she had anything against Sayuri, by any means. She had been
very impressed by the girl's courage, and, under other
circumstances, would have looked forward to calling her a
friend.

But she did not love her, and she did love Akane. It was
really that simple, and she wondered how it had happened.
She had _told_ herself not to fall in love with the other
girl, but apparently herself had not listened. In some
sense, being killed was probably going to save her from an
immense number of problems, but being pleased about the
whole affair was considerably more melodrama than Ranma had
the stomach to attempt.

Not to mention, she was exceedingly pissed off. Partly, she
felt a mild anger that some people couldn't let go a grudge
after four thousand years. Partly, she was mildly irritated
that she wouldn't be able to die in her proper shape. But
mostly, she was utterly enraged that someone was going to
kill her for things she hadn't been able to get in on
herself. This thought caused her to pull down a section of
canyon wall in a mild expression of pique. The wall fell on
thirty or so demons and reduced them to paste.

With another corner of her mind she was keeping an eye on
Akane's progress, admiring the girl's form, and cheering her
fight against the patrol. She was prepared to intervene with
missile fire, though she doubted it would be necessary.

With most of the rest of her mind, she was surveying the
tactical situation, and she sent herself on a bounding
triple somersault across two hundred yards of canyon floor,
reaping arms left and right and finishing with a snap of her
kusari's chain that plucked a demon who by size must have
been at least a Count off its feet and pulled it close to
carve out its heart and lungs before flinging it a hundred
feet into the air. The corpse's fall, she estimated, would
crush at least a dozen lesser demons beneath it. Serene at
heart, the storm raged on.

------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately for Akane and Sayuri, there had been more
demons out than just one patrol. More unfortunately, the
second batch was smarter.

Pounding down into the last shallow valley before the long
steep run to the top, Sayuri was suddenly hit in the leg by
a burst of hellfire. Shrieking in shock she fell and rolled
down the hill, only to be jumped on by a trio of demonic
troopers. Akane dodged the three missiles that came her way
and plowed into a squad of about twelve demons, killing
three at first shock, but then being forced into a defensive
posture by the remainder.

Sayuri soon proved to those demons trying to restrain her
that they would better have aimed for her arms. A flurry of
knife blows reduced all three of her would-be captors to
steaming corpses in moments, and she ignored the damage to
her leg and the knife blows to her side she had received in
return for the lies they undoubtably were and staggered
onward.

Past the two back-ups the ambushers had placed ahead of the
girls she ran, killing them in passing, and again set
herself to the slope beyond. Akane had gasped out the
importance of what they were doing as they ran, and she
would no more fail Ranma-san than Akane would. If only it
weren't so hard to see....

Akane ran toward one demon, then curved into a forward roll
between two others, sword flashing. She snapped upright,
spinning to her left with her sword out, cutting into the
rib-cage of the demon who was charging her from that side.

Then her sword jammed in the ribs momentarily, slowing her
enough for five more demons to jump her at once. Akane went
down, striking out to her right side, as a demon grabbed her
around the legs and another pair wrapped her around the
chest. The fourth tried to grab her throat even as the fifth
spasmed and died, and the last two demons in the squad took
aim with hellbolts from a little away.

Akane smashed her feet up, driving the demon holding them
into the one grabbing her throat, dazing both and throwing
them away. The fourth demon looked up from his brief daze to
see the two squad missilemen falling with holes blown out
the fronts of their foreheads and decided to tackle the
other one instead. The other dazedly got to its feet as
Akane rolled over and over with her assailants.

Furiously, she struck out at one demon, smashing the blade
through its stomach, only to cut into its skull on the back-
swing. From its sudden corpse was released a sewer reek of
death and things unnamed and probably best left unnameable,
and Akane ripped the blade free from its sticking place as
she rolled over above her other foe and struck downward with
the hilt again and again, breaking bones and tearing skin
before crushing the thing's throat and bashing in its skull.

Coming back to her knees, Akane saw the fourth demon running
after Sayuri and grunted with effort as she threw the sword
straight and flat into its back, just above the hips.
Wailing, it fell to its knees, grabbing at its back where
the sword pierced it. Shuddering, it folded over, weakly
scrabbling in the dust and drooling ichor from the mouth and
nostrils.

Akane rose onto one knee in preparation for rising to her
feet, but stopped and twisted desperately on her knees as a
shadow loomed over her.

Before her, on the top of the low rise, stood the last
demon, snarling and holding out doubled, clenched hands
around which had built up a blaze of hellish, green fire.
Akane began to throw herself forward in a knowingly futile
attempt to duck, but then stopped as a large hole was
suddenly blown in the demon's forehead from behind. Its eyes
opened wide in shock and as it died it lost control of the
hellfire, which blew its hands and lower arms off in a
shower of gore and fire as the rest of its body dropped
slowly to its knees before falling over on its back.

Akane got to her feet and rushed up the rise, reaching the
top in time to see Ranma turn back towards her foes far
away, putting something back into her jacket. 'Oh, Ranchan!
Even from there you're still looking out for me. Oh,
Ranchan, I love you.'

Dashing away another treacherous tear, Akane turned back to
the slope ahead of her, looking over her shoulder briefly at
the sound of wings. Far away, but gaining, she could see
another group of about twelve flying demons. She had, she
estimated, just enough time to reach the top of the wall.
With a last look over her shoulder at the canyon below,
Akane set herself to run.

------------------------------------------------------------

In a quiet room far away, and yet very close, the still form
laying on a hospital bed began to breathe deeply and
unevenly, turning weakly from side to side and gasping, as
though struggling for breath.

In a corner of the room, one of the bodies kneeling inside a
pattern on the floor suddenly grew a set of long scratches
on its arms and a shadow about its neck, as though some
cruel claw had gripped there. The shadow faded quickly but
the scratches were slow to close.

On the back of the other body kneeling there a long, shallow
wound opened and waited some seconds before beginning to
close, slowly.

Watching from outside the circle, Nabiki began to chew on
one fingernail.

------------------------------------------------------------

Sayuri knew that the pains in her chest and the growing
weakness in her limbs was a lie, but somehow she could not
see through the growing grayness to see what the truth might
be. Suddenly she felt a set of gentle but immensely strong
arms close about her and lift her off the ground to be
cradled against someone's chest. Groggily, she shook her
head enough to observe Akane holding her to her chest as she
ran, face grim and fixed as she stared at some distant goal.

Good old Akane-san! She'd get her there, she was sure! Now,
if only she could remember where they were going, and why
... if only it wasn't so hard to think ....

------------------------------------------------------------

In a hospital bed, a slight form began breathing much more
shallowly, chest barely moving. At bedside, Dr. Tofu checked
a monitoring instrument and frowned worriedly.

------------------------------------------------------------

Akane ran up the slope with Sayuri in her arms. Only a few
hundred yards to go now. Behind her the sound of wings was
growing swiftly closer, but there was nothing _ahead_ of her
to stop her, and those behind could not close the distance
fast enough to prevent her from discharging her task.

Close growing, thorny scrub lifted runners to trip her and
the equally thorny branches of a number of middling high
scrub bushes attempted to bar her path, but she powered
through them without slowing, unheeding of the deep
scratches and thorn-stabs they left behind. Blind to
everything but her goal she reached within herself for her
deepest reserves and drank deeply from the fountain of fire
within.

A distant corner of her consciousness registered a mighty
roar of power from far behind her. Spurning the ground
beneath her racing feet, Akane ran up the slope to home.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma bounced of the canyon wall and killed a demon with a
backhand sickle blow, concentrating the ch'i it released as
it died into a free-standing 'cold' point.

"Hiryuu!"

With an enormous leap over the whole floor of the canyon she
established another on the corpse of a pair of lesser
soldiers.

"_Shoten!_"

Flipping into the center of the circle of 'cold' ch'i points
she had just finished forming, she landed in the midst of a
cluster of about a dozen demonic officers, accepting a pair
of minor slashes in return for setting their dieing ch'i
ablaze.

"HAAAA!"

'Pulling' a line of shih around the circle of 'cold' points,
she completed the attack sequence, and called the cyclone to
war.

Blades of solid shih flamed inward from the wall of the
canyon at a dozen points. Each struck one of the 'cold' ch'i
points dead on, sweeping it up and spinning inward in a
spiral pattern to their common center. There they met the
'hot' ch'i point, imploded it, and sank into a hyper-dense
ball, roiling with counter-polarized ch'i and shih for a
single second.

Then the ball exploded, sending a swirling mass of
intermingled ch'i and shih spinning outward to the walls of
the canyon, picking up ferocious wind currents along the
way. The ring of energy rebounded off the canyon walls,
returning inward, setting up counter-currents of high-speed
wind.

Perhaps twenty feet inward from the walls the outer ring met
the second ring that the swirling vortex of energy at the
center had given off.

Met and combined, combined and split, split and redefined
themselves.

A column of energy eighty yards wide, covered and shielded
by multi-hundred-mile-per-hour winds erupted from the floor
of the canyon, its rear edge less than twenty yards from the
canyon's rear gate. It picked up and shredded every demon in
its boundaries, leaving only a thin scattering of luckier
demons behind it toward the rear mouth of the canyon.

As it rose to the sky Ranma rose with it, riding the vacuum
of the eye toward its apex and turning to look behind her,
toward the wall, and Akane.

Less than a hundred yards away, now, she judged. Enemy
forces closing, but, she briefly tracked their _rate_ of
closure, too slowly. Nothing ahead to bar the way she noted,
giving the area between Akane and the wall a brief but deep
scan with her chi-sight.

Excellent. Mission accomplished.

Her goal was achieved, and her fight won. That meant it was
time to shift to a new fight, and she considered the hosts
of Hell cowering far below her as she rose to the top of her
storm.

A last fight, and, she judged, a good one. Penultimately,
she briefly considered the overall situation. There were
regrets, yes, but only minor ones.

In the end, all people die, and to die in the service of one
she loved seemed, to Ranma, as the best category of ending
any one of her destiny could make. She considered the love
for which she was giving her life, and found it right and
proper.

And in the still and tranquil silence of the eye of the
cyclone, there was peace upon the heart of the storm.

As she neared the final apex of her rise, she carefully
replaced all the weapons she had used in their individual
resting places. It was not her way to show disrespect for
any tool she used when it might be avoided, and the need for
these tools had, temporarily, passed.

No more need to maim and terrorize. No more need to hold
their attention. The time for distraction had ended. The
time for killing had arrived.

As she reached the apex of her rise and began her fall,
Ranma drew her sword.

And smiled.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part C: Under The Axis

------------------------------------------------------------

Akane almost made it.

Less than fifty feet from the wall, one of her demonic
pursuers proved to have an exceedingly rare talent, and
shifted the ground beneath her feet. The resulting stumble
cost her almost no ground; but small differences can lead to
big ones.

A demonic hand grabbed her flying hair less than ten feet
from the wall. Twisting her torso half back towards her
pursuers, Akane exploded in one last effort, lofting
Sayuri's unconscious body in a flat, fast arc across the
last ten feet, and over the low stone wall. As it crossed
the wall it rippled in mid-air, and disappeared, and Akane
went down under the impact of a dozen winged demons, a few
more pulling up at the last instant.

------------------------------------------------------------

In the hospital bed, Sayuri gave a sudden gasp and sat
half-way up and out of bed. The people attending her rushed
to meet her as her eyes opened, and her father and brother
quickly moved to support her as she met her mother's eyes.

Blinking a few times, she seemed briefly to focus as she
crossed gazes with a tearfully smiling Yuka and even gave a
weak smile herself. But then her eyes fell closed and she
slumped back into her father and brother's arms as a dead
weight, as Dr. Tofu desperately reached for emergency
materials, and the connecting monitors began to ring alarms,
all their readouts showing the same flat line.

------------------------------------------------------------

Akane threw herself into a forward roll, bringing one demon
over the top of her body and grinding it beneath her as she
came out of the roll and jumped up. The demon who had
grabbed her hair had, perforce, let go, and Akane left her
feet in a whirling jump-kick that smashed into another
demon's head, breaking its neck and throwing Akane herself a
little sideways, into a relatively clear area and away from
the intersecting hellbolts that would otherwise have fried
her.

Snap-drawing her throwing knives, Akane shih-sheathed and
threw them in a single motion, two knives flying from each
hand to suddenly veer apart in mid-air, each knife
flickering on slightly differing trajectories to settle
neatly into its own particular demonic throat. Following
through on her throw, Akane drew a large, ugly mace from
jacket-space, and charged the remaining demons.

The one most immediately in her path jumped up, flaring its
wings in dismay, rising about ten feet off the ground. Akane
also left the ground, soaring in a rising jump kick that
smashed the demon from the air, sending it down to the
ground with Akane on top of it, landing on her feet, and
pulling through into a powerful downward blow.

Rebounding from the skull she had just crushed, Akane
converted her recovery into a powerful upwards diagonal
right-to-left, anticipating the demon who attempted to rush
her while she was occupied with the flyer, and impacting its
chest just under the breastbone. The impact shattered the
demon's chest and lungs, lifting it about six feet into the
air and sending it to the side, where its corpse fouled one
of its compatriots.

Meanwhile, the transferred impact had allowed Akane to
regain control of the mace faster, and she used the extra
time to steal a march, stepping into the attack of a pair of
demons ahead of her. Whirling her mace in a vertical circle,
Akane knocked their weapons out of line, nearly jarring
one's axe loose from its wielder's hand. Finishing the
circle with her mace held horizontally, head to the left,
Akane stepped behind the demon to her right, bringing her
torso around in a smashing reverse blow to the back of its
head with the mace's finial spike; then unwinding into a
sideways blow to the demon on her left that slid over its
weaponless guard to pulp its head like a popped
water-balloon.

Returning her mace to a mid-guard, two-hand grip, Akane
turned eighty degrees to her left, to meet the charge of
another demon. Blocking its sword-swing away to her lower
right with the mace, Akane spun her right foot into a leg
sweep that took its footing out from under it. The demon
stumbled, opening its stance onto the perfect form to
receive Akane's returning kick into the groin, stunning it
and dropping it rolling to the ground. Quick-stepping
forward, Akane brought her mace to shoulder guard for the
death-blow ... and made a small mistake.

A small mistake. A minor error. A downward blow a bit too
forceful, a recovery a bit too far, a return not quite to
center. The next attacker, coming from her left again, threw
its long knife.

Small differences compounded: a dodge not quite fast enough,
a shallow cut across the shoulder not quite compensated for,
a block made the tiniest bit too low. The demons reaching
claw-like hand came over her blocking mace and cut into the
side of her face.

Three of its claw-tipped fingers scored bleeding gashes
across the side of her face and nose. The last slid across
the outer top of her cheek, and plunged into her eye,
cutting the eyeball in two and reducing the remains to jelly
before the tip broke off inside the socket and the rest of
the claw skipped across the top of her nose.

Letting out a high, keening shriek, Akane spun away, the
mace arcing from the hand that she clapped to her ruined
eye. Stumbling away, she lost her footing, and sprawled
helpless on the barren ground.

------------------------------------------------------------

A body kneels in a circular design in a no-longer quiet
room. Wounds have opened on its cheek and nose, and an
oozing mass of clotting blood is leaking from beneath the
lid of its closed left eye.

------------------------------------------------------------

In the end, it was her father's training that saved her.

Once, long ago at the very beginning of her real training in
the Art, he had spent an entire day on a single drill. It
taught, he said, that a warrior must not lose focus or
control simply because his or her opponent has landed a
blow. The warrior who wins her fights and survives, he said,
is the warrior who understands that pain is merely
information, and who can acknowledge that information and go
on.

For one entire day he had made her go through basic kata and
hit her as she reached the crucial point in each. Again and
again he had repeated the drill, until she had been able to
complete any kata she could do, even if she was hit
painfully hard at the exact wrong time.

A kindly man, Soun Tendo, and devoted to his daughter. A
kindly man who had been hard for one day, for just long
enough to teach that daughter a lesson in the hard rules of
survival. A kindly man who had, thereafter, stayed drunk for
an entire week, and had never attempted to teach that lesson
again.

One lesson, delivered long ago by a kindly, doting parent.
One lesson, polished into instinct by years of personal
practice. Akane had always prided herself on being 'tough'.
On being able to take a blow and still fight. 'Go ahead and
hit me,' she had once told a sparring partner, 'I don't
break.' In that moment, instinct and bone-deep training
fought for her life, and searched for any chance at all.

Rolling over as she fell, Akane's right hand scrabbled for
purchase on the ground. Sliding across the dirt, it fell
upon, and closed on, the hilt of a weapon.

Rolling over onto her back and coming to one knee, she
brought the ... blade? ... up to block away a demonic
sword-blow so forcefully as to throw the demon who had
perpetrated it into another to its side, then came erect
with a massive, diagonal bottom-right-to-top-left slash that
cut through the first demon's midsection and its
compatriot's chest, exiting from the top of its right
shoulder in a spray of bone and ichor.

Setting her feet firmly beneath her, Akane reversed the long
sword's blade and swept it back to her right, cutting off
both demons' heads in passing. Rage and hatred blocked the
pain, and her face was set in a snarling mask as she
compensated for the missing half of her peripheral vision,
turning her head in little sweeps left and right. Finding no
flankers, she returned the sword to middle guard and lunged
at her remaining foes.

The combat was brief. Two demons were before her
side-by-side, with another three in a cluster beyond them
and to their left. Akane went between the first two with an
attack Ranma had drilled her on, soukongou, twin
thunderbolts.

The long, intricately guarded hilt of the sword was perfect
for controlled two-hand use, she found, and the grey,
double-edged, chisel-point blade seemed positively eager,
leaping to the attack and lopping off demonic heads as
though they were but heads of grain.

Beyond the two were three more; one leapt forward, one
followed cautiously, one hung back. Akane met the first's
attack with a sideways skip and a crossing blow that cut its
throat before a turning kick smashed it into the third,
knocking it from its feet. She stepped forward into the
second's way, cutting through its guard and its body with an
equal lack of ceremony. Recovering from the blow, she slid
over to where the third demon sprawled, reversed her grip on
the sword, and thrust downwards, once.

Turning to look down the slope she had just climbed, Akane
was startled to notice that the distance had changed. What
had been a run of long minutes going up was perhaps a
thousand yards or so going down. She supposed that was part
of what Ranma had meant.

Ranma.

Reluctantly, she turned her single gaze to the canyon mouth.
She could not see all the way into the canyon, having
apparently moved a little to the side, but she noticed a
thin scattering of demons spraying out from the canyon
mouth. Ranma herself she could not see, but she _could_ see
demons clustering thickly just inside the mouth of the
canyon, walling off the exit. Further inside, a storm was
raging, lightning exploding off the walls and the rocks that
lined the canyon's rim.

'She isn't going to be able to break free,' she said to
herself, 'they're already behind her.'

'No,' she replied quietly, 'she's not. And I think she knew
that when she sent us up here.'

Akane remained standing quietly, looking down on the plain
below for long minutes, and the pain in her ruined eye was
matched by the pain in her heart.

'She told us to get out of here,' she finally ventured.

'No,' she replied, 'she told us to get _Sayuri_ out. We've
done that.'

'Look at it this way,' she argued, 'What could we do if we
were with her, except die?'

'Look at it this way,' she answered, 'What can we do
_without_ her, except die?'

Tears slowly began to drip from her right eye, perhaps
matching the slow drip of blood from the left.

'She wanted us to get out,' she said slowly, 'to survive.'

Her hand came up unconsciously, gently touching the scars on
her left cheek, slowly exploring their extent.

'_I_ don't want us to get out, or survive, unless she
survives too.'

Her probing fingers encountered her eye socket. 'And
besides, some bastard down there owes us an eye.'

'So we go down there and die?' she asked.

'So we go down there,' she replied, 'and die.'

Akane withdrew her sword from its resting place with a
*squelch* and took her first step down the slope.

Two steps later she was jogging.

Three steps after that, and then she ran.

The outriders were the first to notice her. Spreading out
from the main battle, most were, by definition, looking for
something safer to do than challenging an Invincible. A
wounded girl running toward them looked tailor made. They
formed a battle line and sent out a net of skirmishers, in
case she should get away. Yelling their battle cries, they
raised arms against her.

As well might the iron ingots cry out against the blast
furnace. As well might the stalks of wheat take up the sword
against the scythe.

Reaching the entrance to the canyon, she was momentarily
distracted by a small squad of demonic soldiers making a
suicide attack from just outside the canyon to her right. As
the last demon died Akane saw, beyond it, a small secondary
canyon leading off into the badlands in a new direction.

Spinning on her heel, she ran swiftly into the mouth of the
canyon proper, cutting down another small party of demons.
Just inside the canyon mouth she ran into the main horde,
beyond them she could catch glimpses of lightning fast
destruction.

Cursing, Akane plowed into the back of the demonic army,
desperately swiveling her head from side to side to scan the
whole field of her foes.

------------------------------------------------------------

In a room both near and far away another battle was taking
place.

Dr. Tofu instituted emergency resuscitation procedures as
another doctor, hastily summoned, ran in the door. The
crackle of electrical paddles and the humm-hiss of
artificial respiration units sounded over the numbed prayers
of Sayuri's father and brother and Yuka's weeping, muffled
by Sayuri's mother's chest.

In the circle in the corner, two bodies grew and healed
collections of wounds. Gashes and scars covering exposed
arms and occasionally tracing across still faces.

Battle wounds, Nabiki knew. The minor and major injuries
sustained by people who are fighting for life, or things
more precious yet. Clenching her hands into white-knuckled
balls she silently urged them on.

------------------------------------------------------------

Turn ... block left, strike up ... v-step over blow ...
pear-splitter ... helicopter ... circle block to low thrust
feint to v-strike inverted.

Don't bother with _their_ actions; they aren't important.
Victory is achieved by the correct control of flow and
timing. Act in such a manner as to force their errors, then
take advantage.

Twin-thunderbolt ... break-the-fortress ... spin around
push, and _kick_ ... slash-feint to lunge ... parry to
riposte, turn left and _strike_.

Don't listen to your doubts or fears, listen to her voice.
Beloved voice, '"When they outnumber you, you have to get in
amongst 'em, Acchan. Remember that they may be bigger than
you and they may be better than you, but you don't _ever_
have to let them be _meaner_ than you. So _use that
advantage_! And don't get killed. It'd make me get all
depressed."'

Low-to-high-to-high-to-low diagonal cross ... jump and _cut_
... feint left and roll right and slash _up_ and then whirl
to block and _heave_.

A demon went flying into a group of its fellows and then
Akane heard the roar. Before her the demonic army lifted up
into the air as Ranma called the Hiryuu Shoten Ha again. And
there she was, riding the cyclone up into the sky.

If Akane had had a rope, she could have thrown it to her and
yanked her away to where she could run. Akane had no rope to
throw, but she threw one anyway.

"_Ranchaaan!_ _CATCH!_"

To say that Ranma was startled would be to considerably
underestimate the case. She had been concentrating on her
quest to find a worthwhile, accessible target to the
exclusion of all else, and had not seen Akane's charge. As
she caught the rope and began to swing she also began to
rage.

Catching up the power of her storm, she collected it and let
the winds die. Sending a small amount of power down the
rope, she fixed a point midway down in space and swung to a
landing near Akane. As she neared she began to snarl, but
then caught sight of Akane's face and fell silent as her
heart sent up a wail of grief. "Acchan, wha...."

"SHADDAP! RUN! THAT WAY!"

Suiting deed to word, Akane pounded for the rear mouth of
the canyon. Re-sheathing her sword, Ranma followed. Behind
then a roar went up, and the demonic armies lunged for the
canyon mouth in pursuit.

As she reached the rear of the canyon, Ranma stopped and
whirled.

Concentrating all the power she had remaining from the storm
that had raged in that canyon, she made a small change to
its substance, and released it into the canyon walls.
Already sensitized by repeated battle strikes and magic
releases, the walls responded. The upper six meters of their
surface turned to energy and roared out onto the frontal
plain, focused by the remaining walls.

The canonical sound-effect for this type of action is:
*Krakata-THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

Ranma and Akane fled into the side canyon, quickly finding
that it forked and re-forked, spreading out into a web of
pathways. Ranma led, changing pathways randomly as she ran.
"So," she panted, "what's the plan?"

"Fuck if I know," Akane responded, "I hoped _you'd_ have
one."

"Oh great! We're gonna die!"

On the plain in front of the canyon a shining figure rose to
its feet, smoking. Slowly, it looked around itself, and
sprang into the air and rose, shining like a star. As it
rose, it let off a roar of hate and rage that can only be
described as cataclysmic.

Over her shoulder as she ran, Ranma glimpsed the shining
figure. "Oh great! We really _are_ gonna die!"

The First of the Fallen looked down from his height at the
canyon-maze where his enemies hid. More or less at random,
he destroyed part of it. It wasn't the right part, but the
demons who had been flying down it got to die forever in
excruciating agony anyway.

Ranma ran frantically, Akane on her heels. She ducked around
a corner and fled down a side passage, picking a new
direction at random at its end.

'We're _dead_!', she said to herself, 'We can't hold off the
First. We can't get _to_ him, and there isn't _anywhere_ he
can't go after us!'

Two passages later, she replied, quietly, 'Yes there is.'

A dash down a rocky corridor, '_Oh_ no. We gotta save
Acchan's life here. We can't go _there_! Fuck, that'll kill
her too!'

Turn left, down the canyon floor, left again. 'Death _there_
may be retrievable. Death at the first's hands is not. This
is a fight to save Akane. _That_ is how we win. Do it,
Invincible!'

Skidding to an instant halt, balanced on her back foot,
Ranma formed her fingers into the call position for the
Butterfly's Kiss. Done one way, this technique will reduce
rock to powder. Done another, it will rend a human being
asunder. As Ranma did it now, the floor of the canyon for a
hundred yards in front of the two girls broke apart into
small square surfaces which vanished like a bad CGA effect,
leaving a gaping hole down into a black infinity.

Slamming to a halt on the very edge of disaster, Akane
sheathed her sword in automatic reflex, waving her arms for
balance.

Behind her, Ranma exploded off her back foot, gathering
Akane into her arms and jumping out with a mighty leap. Out
over the rift, and then down, into the dark.

------------------------------------------------------------

Paddles snapped and contacts closed. Sayuri's body jerked in
reaction, and then moved, slightly, on its own. Monitors
jerked off flatline and began to *beep*. And the watchers
around the bed slumped slightly in relief.

------------------------------------------------------------

And in the sky over a blasted plain, a shining figure howled
in a frustrated rage forty centuries old.

And in a castle in the Scottish highlands, the redhead fell
down, shocked. The short-haired brunette shivered, uneasily,
and the long-haired one looked up from what she was doing to
trade worried glances with the blue-skinned man with the odd
face and the blonde girl with the tail.

The tall blonde man near the hearth looked clueless, of
course, but _that_ was normal, so nobody noticed.

And in the choking darkness of the depths of the Pacific
Ocean something awoke and stirred. Tasting Wrong, it turned
its head toward the distant invisible light.

And in a shrine in the mountains of central Japan, a man
came upright from a position of meditation.

And in a gun shop in Chicago, two young woman shivered
briefly, as though feeling a chill breeze.

And in a business office in Hong Kong, a middle-aged woman
echoed them.

And in a clean, well-lit room in the sewers under New York
City, another meditator came awake.

And in a small town in America, a man turned to his scrying
crystal.

And in a city made of stone, the chorus of bells fell
silent.

And in many other places, many people shivered, or turned to
search out an enemy, or used senses magical or mundane to
track down a sudden feeling of Bad.

------------------------------------------------------------

In circles within another circle two bodies sat silently.

And exhaled, with a long, quavering hiss. And did not
breathe again.

Outside the circle, Tendo Nabiki put her face into her hands
and began, silently, to cry.

------------------------------------------------------------

You can turn off 'O Fortuna' now, if you like.

------------------------------------------------------------

|
|
|
|
\ /
:

Down.

It
was dark.
And silent.
There was no light,
no sound.
Not even the rush
of wind.
Not even the flashes you get
behind closed eyelids.

Just darkness,
and silence.
And she
was all alone.
And she

f
e
l
l

d
o
w
n
.

Darkness.
It was dark,
and she
was falling
all alone.
All alone.

There was
nothing she could see,
nothing she could touch.
She moved her hands,
waved them about,
but there was nothing.

She patted herself,
to make sure
that _she_ was there,
and she was.

So that was something.

She felt her face.
(Her eye! Her eye was gone!)
(It had been gone)
(before)
(before it was dark)
(when she stood at the wall)
(and turned away)
(press on.)
She patted her chest
and shoulders,
she moved down her body,
and touched ...
what?
Arms?
Why were there arms?
Were they _her_ arms?
But
they couldn't
be _her_ arms,
because she couldn't feel herself feel them.
So whose?

Then she remembered.

Ranma!
Ranma was with her!
They must be Ranma's arms.

Ranma was with her!
She wasn't alone!
She clasped her hands over the arms
where they crossed,
and held them.

They were
Ranma's arms,
she was
with Ranma,
falling down,
into the dark.

They fell,
and civilizations
fell with them,
and were reborn
from dust,
and grew again,
and flourished,
and faded,
and fell once more.

And worlds
passed by,
and gave birth to life
and grew old
and died.

And suns
grew old,

and died,
and new suns
were born;
and Galaxies
were born,
grew up,
grew old,
crashed together,
and died,
and were reborn
in fire.

And Universes ended
and new universes began,
and time went by,
and the Wheel turned round,
and she was with Ranma,
and Ranma was with her,
and it

was
dark,

and they

fell
down
.

------------------------------------------------------------

Hold on!

You must hold on.

If your grip fails, you end, and she ends, and you fail. If
_her_ grip fails, the same. Will her strength, will her to
hold. No way of telling, no way of knowing. Until it's too
late to help.

And it is dark and silent and there is no way to tell if
your grip will hold and no way to tell if _she_ even _is_
holding and if either fails both fail but this is a fight
and you cannot lose a fight and you are Invincible but there
is a cost there is always a cost and the cost may be more
than you can pay and it is not enough to hold out you must
also survive to guide _her_ out and if you spend all your
power now and leave none but you must win you must spend the
power to win you must and if you have not the power then you
must find more and will _her_ power she must have power and
it must be enough ... and you must hold.

And love must find a way.

And if it does, or if it does not ... hold on.

------------------------------------------------------------

There is a place that is not a place.

In that place there is an Ocean, that is not an Ocean.

And the water of that Ocean (that is not water) rolls
forever flat and still, beneath a starless, moonless,
sunless sky. (Though some say it is a desert, and that the
sand is black, and harsh, and does not gleam. (Though there
is no light in that place _to_ gleam.))

When you go there (and you will) you will find nothing,
except that which you bring.

No guides bring boats there, no one will ferry you across.
You must go yourself, using only what you have, and it will
take you however long it takes. And it will cost you
whatever it may cost.

And all these things, of course, are metaphor, for a
somewhat more complex reality.

Into that place, Ranma brought Akane, and Akane brought
Ranma. Into a place where there is nothing, except that
which is brought, they brought each other, falling from an
infinite velvet sky.

And the night-black water (that is not water) of that ocean
(that is not an ocean) swallowed them. Without a splash.
Without a ripple. Without a sound. And in that place of
silence, silence reigned.

Briefly.

Until the sky began to fill with light. With a sprinkling of
burning dust. And with a widening scatter of illuminated
diamonds. And with luminescent shards of emerald, and
amethyst, and ruby, and topaz, and pearl.

As though someone had taken the combined gem collections of
the world's museums, and smashed them with a sledge-hammer,
and set the shards afire, and scattered them across the
endless velvet sky.

For in that place you will find nothing, except that which
you bring with you. And Bushiko Ranma, whose name had once
been otherwise and would be otherwise again, surfaced from
the nighted depths of that ocean that is not an ocean, and
brought Akane up with her.

And lay on her back in the velvet water that is not water,
and held her beloved to her breast while she coughed and
sputtered.

And smiled upwards, tiredly, into the sky.

And the sky was _alight_ with stars.

------------------------------------------------------------

*Cough*, *hkk*, *cough*. A small voice, "Ranchan?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we dead?"

"Kind of. It depends."

A small time went by. Finally, Ranma shook herself slightly
and turned over in the water, still holding Akane above the
surface. "I _wondered_ why you didn't get in the pool the
other day."

"I've never been able to swim," Akane confessed ashamedly.

"Well, fortunately, you won't have to." Ranma stretched out
and began swimming, for a few strokes.

"Huh?"

Ranma's hand touched wood. "Look up for a minute, dummy."

Akane heaved herself upright in the water, turned to bring
her good eye into arc, and gaped in shock at the white wood
of the hull of the sailboat bobbing gently in the water
before her.

Ranma suddenly boosted her toward the gunwale and she
grabbed it and scrambled over,

'Don't look at her for a minute, dummy, you don't need the
distraction of seeing her all wet in that silk shirt. And
this might not be a good place to confess to being in love
with her. And _don't_ think about where she just put her
hand!' into the bow of the twenty foot long lateen-rig.
"Ranchan! Where'd _this_ thing come from?"

Ranma reached up and grabbed, then heaved herself over the
side, 'Don't look at her, dummy, you don't need the
distraction of seeing her all wet in that silk shirt. And
you need to get moving if you're going to get her back in
time. And _don't_ think about where you just put your hand!'
into the stern.

"Huh. Funny, it's gotten a little bigger."

Ranma kept her head down and rummaged around the mast.

"Ahh."

She released a rope and brought the main spar into line,
quickly raising and setting the sail.

"Hey Acchan. Thanks."

"Huh? For what, Ranchan?"

"For coming after me. For coming _back_ after me. ... I
guess you were right. I _did_ need you."

Akane blushed, and stared intently at the deck. "Ahh, any
time Ranchan. Any time."

Akane suddenly felt a breeze begin to blow, raising a slight
swell, and causing the little ship to gather way.

"Now, Miss Tendo, if you will be so good as to summon and
maintain a light, so we can see where we are going, I will
try to get us to shore, where we can see about not having to
_stay_ dead."

Akane blinkied for a few moments, then scrambled to her
feet. "Sure, Ranchan!" She held out her hands, concentrated,
and summoned Fire; creating a fiercely burning beacon that
sent out a cone of light to pierce the gloom before them.

Before the wind, the little ship sped across the darkened
ocean, bow-wave peeling back to either side and wake
spreading out behind them, far off into the eternal night.
They flew towards an unseen destination for an unmeasurable
time, and Akane held the beacon steady before them, feeling
an unexplainable exaltation, as though some factor in the
sea or the boat or the wind was calling to her in wild
delight.

All things must end, however, and finally Akane saw a dark
line at the limits of her beacon's reach. A line that
rapidly drew nearer, revealing itself as a dark, sandy beach
stretching across the ocean as far as she could see.
Exultantly she shouted, "Ranchan, Ranchan, Land!"

Heedful of her words, Ranma dismissed the wind and quickly
lowered the sail. Running up the slope of one final swell,
the graceful ship remained poised at apex for a brief moment
before slipping over, and sliding down the long, shallow
slope to run itself into the beach with a long, slithering
hiss.

Jumping down from the little ship's bow, Akane got out of
the way of its rush, and stood waiting as Ranma walked to
the bow, likewise jumped down, and tugged her jacket
straight.

Adjusting her scarf to her satisfaction, Ranma caught
Akane's eye and winked. Then she started up the beach,
walking strongly and swiftly. Akane followed, wordlessly.

About a hundred yards up the beach, the sand gave way to
rocks of varying sizes. Akane also noted the beginnings of a
gradual slope, and began to dimly perceive a darker wall
looming ahead. Ranma set out over the rockpiles toward this
distant object, warning Akane in a low voice to be careful
of her footing. Akane was well aware of the problem,
gingerly stepping over and around stones and shifting piles
of gravel, keeping her good eye sweeping back and forth,
searching out the best path.

Traveling on a few dozen yards, Akane looked up to discover
that they had come to the base of a towering ridge, looming
up into the darkness, barely outlined by the light from the
gleaming stars. Ranma, she noticed, was not going up the
slope, but rather searching along its base. Akane followed
her along, gingerly testing her way across the treacherous
scree.

At last, Ranma gave a muffled exclamation of triumph. "Ha!
Found it! I _swear_ the bloody thing moves! Come on, Acchan.
Come over here."

Akane picked her way up a small sub-slope and around a large
boulder, to discover a stone nook set about ten feet into
the wall of a sheer cliff. It was enclosed on four sides out
of five, and was open to the sky over less than a third its
roof. The boulders and rock-faces that surrounded it were
coated with mossy accumulations that must have been
centuries old, and she noted a great tap-root crawling over
the top of one wall and over a square lip of ancient, worked
stone, down into the pool of water that filled most of the
interior of the hollow.

Ranma knelt on a convenient rock at the edge of the pool and
dipped cupped hands into it, bringing up palmfuls of water
and drinking them down several times. Ranma then bent over
and dipped her head into the water, ducking under to her
neck and shaking her head back and forth.

At Ranma's indicative motion, Akane also knelt and drank.
The water was cool and pure, quenching her thirst on first
contact and then returning it again so that the second drink
was even more welcome than the first, and the third more
welcome than the second. After five drinks, she stopped
being thirsty, sitting back with a long sigh and feeling the
internal fires soothed and quenched by the healing water,
only to reignite again, stronger, purer, and higher than
before.

Motioning Akane to tilt her head back, Ranma dipped another
palmful of water and poured it onto Akane's face, pulling
out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood and serum. The
water was cool and refreshing on her face, and Akane felt
the pain begin to ease. More importantly, she quickly lost
the immediate awareness of injury, and for the first time
since her maiming she could truly concentrate on her
surroundings.

Seeing the relief in her face, Ranma grinned at her. "Good
stuff, huh?"

"Uh-huh. That's _much_ better, yeah. Thanks, Ranchan. Umm,
Ranchan?"

"Yeah?"

"Now what?"

"Now we go up the cliff. About a hundred yards of climbing,
and then we should hit a ravine and be able to walk."

"How much time do we have?"

"It's not so much time as intent, Acchan. As long as we
don't slow down, get side-tracked or turn back, we'll be
fine."

"Well, let's get going then." As they rose to their feet,
Akane had a thought. Lagging behind for a moment, she drew
the sword she had found and dipped it in the pool, drawing
it out and wiping it off with a cloth before returning it to
its sheath. At Ranma's questioning look she shrugged, "Can't
hurt ...."

** She was climbing **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** up a wall. **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** It was dark **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** and quiet, **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** and she **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** must spend more time, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** too much time, **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** to find a way **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** that she could go. **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** Her arms hurt, **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** and she must move them, **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** her legs trembled, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** but they must stay firm. **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** It was hard, **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** and she was tired, **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** and afraid. **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** But there was moss **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** for her to feel, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** jeweled starlight above **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** to light her way, **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** and the dark **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** was far behind her, **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** like broken prison bars; **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** and she was with Ranma, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** and Ranma was with her, **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** and they climbed up **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** to find the stars. **

The climb was fairly brutal for Akane, her missing eye no
longer hurting, but still hampering her field of view and
depth perception. Finding hand-holds was harder; routes must
be scrutinized more closely. Plus, a climb up a sheer rock
face coated with moss in deep darkness is almost guaranteed
to be an event long worth remembering. But, in the end, they
reached the deeply cut, steep ravine, and began to climb the
long slope.

Now the going was somewhat easier, but also, paradoxically,
harder. Akane needed to expend less physical and mental
effort to move and to find her way. But this left her more
time for brooding.

Brooding was not, typically, the sort of thing that Akane
did. She had always been one to resolve a situation in as
little time as possible. Typically abruptly, in a manner
that involved violence. This extended feeling of malaise was
not something that she was well prepared to deal with.

It was basicly, she decided, All Her Fault. If she hadn't
come tagging along behind Ranma and jogging her arm, she
would certainly have handled it better. She was just ... no
good, really. It was harsh, but there it was. She loved
Ranma dearly, but she knew that she did not deserve her. She
never would deserve her. She'd just keep getting in to
trouble and Ranma would come get her out and one day ....
All Her Fault. She should just ... she should ....

Walking in her own cloud of gloom, Ranma was drearly certain
that she had forfeited any friendship Akane might ever offer
her. She'd gotten her _eye_ cut out, for Kami-sama's sake!
It was just impossible, she had no right ....

Akane sighed mournfully, and Ranma immediately jerked her
attention back to the 'real' world. Akane was definitely
drooping, she noted. That would not do. Travel here in the
celestial borderlands was as much a matter of will as of
physical effort; despair could be fatal, in a literal sense.

She would have to cheer the other girl up, immediately. But
what could she do that wouldn't seem fake? Then she realized
that she was being silly. Cases like this were what music
was _made_ for, after all. Adjusting her stride to tap out
the beat, Ranma raised her voice in song.

When you're weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes,
I will dry them all.
I'll take your part,
Oh, when times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will lay me down

It came as a complete shock to Akane, and broke her out of
her funk immediately. Nonetheless, surprise held her
voiceless for the first verse, a warm glow of love rising
from her diaphragm to fill her whole body. On the second
verse, she joined in.

When you're down and out,
when you're on the street
When evening falls so hard,
I will comfort you
I'm on your side,
Oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will lay me down

Oddly, Ranma found, she was feeling better too. And, to her,
it wasn't just a song. It was a promise. Though she did not
know it, Akane was thinking almost the exact same thing. The
final verse rolled out sweetly, pushing back the night.

Sail on, Silver girl, sail on by
Your time has come to shine,
all your dreams are on their way
See how they shine,
Oh, when you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
And like a bridge over troubled water,
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will ease your mind.

Ranma laughed delightedly. "Sorry, Acchan, I was letting the
gloom get to me too, I think. The problem with this walk is
keeping yourself from getting depressed."

"Yeah, Ranchan, I was feeling down, too. I think it's the
scenery, it's too dark. Is there a song we could concentrate
on for a while?"

"Mmmm. Sounds like a job for a marching song, really. Do you
know 'The Whistling Pig'?"

"No, never heard of it. How does it go?"

"Like this:"

Well, we're having a war,
and we'd like for you to come,
so the Pig began to whistle,
and to pound upon the drum,
We'll give you a gun,
and we'll furnish you a hat!
And the Pig began to whistle,
when they told the Piggies that.

Akane began to whistle too, stepping off in time to the
beat, matching Ranma's pace. Ranma continued the song,
recounting the many adventures and misadventures of the
Whistling Pig, and Akane came in on the choruses, soon
finding and holding the melody line.

As she sang, she began to hear flashes of song, prefiguring
things Ranma put in the verses later, and eventually she
began taking the occasional verse herself, efforts that
Ranma praised as very authentic.

The Pig put on his webbing,
and he shined his bayonet.
Some people started shooting,
so he shot them, with regret,
He couldn't run an office
and he couldn't be a clerk,
cause a Pig that likes to whistle
likes to whistle while he works.

Oh, we're having a war, ....

As she continued on, walking to the beat with a rhythmic
tramp, it almost seemed to Akane as though she and Ranma
were not alone. It almost seemed as though they walked in
the center of a great host of people, soldiers, who marched
or trudged or tramped along, variously equipped and
conditioned, but undefeated and able, and they, too, were
singing.

Wars are sometimes over,
and they garnisheed his pay.
They took his hat and webbing,
and they took his gun away.
They told him they were thankful,
and they split him north to south,
and they fried him with a whistle
and an apple in his mouth.

Oh, we're having a war, ....

The ghostly host began to fade from Akane's sight, until
only a last, dedicated band remained. Before her, she saw a
wide river, crossed by no bridge. To the side across the
river, she spied the obsidian walls of the city of stone.

The ghosts began to stamp their feet at the end of each
line, making a hollow *boom* like the sounding of a great
drum, far away. Akane fell silent and the soldiers followed
suit, and Ranma raised her voice again, in what Akane
recognized somehow must be the verse that closed the song.

One day there won't be fighting (*boom*)
and we'll put our guns away. (*boom*)
Men will love each other, (*boom*)
and we'll all join hands to pray. (*boom*)
Peace will come forever, (*boom*)
people won't get shot and die, (*boom*)
and on that day, the Pigs will
spread their wings, _and learn to fly!_

Oh, we're having a war,
and we'd like for you to come,
so the Pig began to whistle,
and to pound upon the drum,
We'll give you a gun,
and we'll furnish you a hat!
And the Pig began to whistle,
when they told the Piggies that.

They came to the bank of the river, and Akane saw that the
river was filled with dust. Ranma gave the ghostly soldiers
a casual salute, which they returned before fading away.
Ranma then waded out into the river to her knees, and turned
back to Akane and held out her hand.

Akane waded into he river likewise, and took it. Ranma set
out across, holding her hand tightly, and was quickly up to
her neck. Akane held her breath as her head slipped under
the surface of the flowing dust, but it did not seem to get
into her nose or mouth, or hinder her breathing.

She _did_ notice that there were occasional thin streams of
water mixed in with the dust, and an accidental encounter
with one revealed to her that they were salty. Though it did
not choke her, the dust did stick to her skin, and the
streams of tears only turned some of it to mud where it
clung. Emerging from the river on the other side both Ranma
and Akane were covered by a caking of dust and mud so that
they were entirely white.

Turning up the worn stone street towards the wall, Akane
noticed that the dust was falling off with each step, and
that the mud was drying up and flaking away. By the time
they were sixty yards from the river the only traces it had
left were a few grey smudges on their faces. Akane felt very
tired, and was engaged in wishing it were over when the
bells began to sound.

Just as before, the low rumble of stone was picked up and
echoed before breaking free in heartrending glory. Just as
before the stone song was enhanced by the music of countless
bells. Just as before she was overcome by the beauty of the
music, and she began to turn back to hear it more closely
when Ranma grabbed her hand, pulling her along.

They were almost at the wall when a new factor was added.
Above the glory of the bells, high and clear and impossibly
sweet, rose a voice. Somehow, Akane recognized it as the
voice of the young girl with the blue T-shirt she had met in
Death's house, and it sang to her and Ranma now in verses
she heard once before.

Ranma had sung them at the funeral, power and beauty both,
and she was glad for Ranma's hand, else she should have
certainly run back to the city to comfort its mournful
longing.

A sto'r mo chroi', when you're far away
From the home that you'll soon be leaving,
'Tis many the time, by night and by day,
That your heart will sorely be grieving.
For the stranger's land it is bright and fair,
And rich in treasures golden,
But you'll pine I know for the long, long ago,
And the love that never is olden.

They reached the wall. As before, it was low and weathered.
It could be no trouble to get across, even for a cripple.
And yet, somehow, Akane was reluctant.

Somehow, she knew, the wall was as much a guardian as a
barrier. Somehow, it would extract a toll. Mutely, she
turned back to Ranma in an appeal for another way, but
Ranma's eyes, gentle but stern, offered no compromise. As
the song closed a verse, Akane took a deep breath, and
stepped across. To Ranma's sight, she rippled, and was gone.

A sto'r mo chroi', in the stranger's land,
There is plenty of wealth for the willing.
Where jewels adorn the great and the grand,
While our faces with hunger are paling.
Yet the road may be toilsome, and hard to tread,
And the lights of their cities may blind you.
Then turn a sto'r, to the eastern shore,
And the ones that you're leaving behind you.

Quietly Ranma stood, looking at the wall herself for a
moment of silent appraisal, before turning to look back down
into the city. Her features softened, but then hardened
again, and she raised her right hand and held it high for a
moment.

As the song began its final verse, her hand gave off a flash
of white light, momentarily throwing the wall and the ground
before it into high relief. As the flash faded, Ranma turned
around, and stepped across.

A sto'r mo chroi', when the evening mists,
O'er Mountain and Sea are falling,
Then turn aside from the throng and list'
And maybe you'll hear me calling.
For the sound of a voice that I sorely miss,
For somebody's quick returning,
Ohh! A ru'n, a ru'n, won't you come back soon,
To the love that always is burning?

As Ranma crossed the wall, she too vanished. From the city
of stone, the song grew mournful, and as it finished the
chorus of bells also ended, and then the silence, and the
tears, returned.

------------------------------------------------------------

Nabiki was no longer weeping. Tears would serve no further
purpose, and she still had a duty to perform. Ranma had
asked of her a service, and she had agreed. She did not see
that the service held any further value, but she would
perform it faithfully nonetheless. Precise fulfillment of
contractual terms reflected on her honor, and Nabiki was a
stickler for things like that.

Mourning silently, she knelt in formal seiza, watching over
the dead bodies of her sister and her friend. She would
watch for 48 hours, and nothing would disturb them for that
time.

Let the doctors know what price had been paid, and who had
paid it.

48 hours, and then she must take charge of the arrangements.
They must have another funeral. She quailed internally at
the very thought, but it fell to her to achieve.

One thing, though, she would at least be spared. She would
watch over the bodies and therefore, therefore _someone
else_ would make the phone call. Someone else would have to
tell Kasumi and Daddy. It was a form of cowardice, she knew,
but with all of her soul she was thankful. That task, above
all others, was one she could not face.

'Oh, Akane!' she mourned,'Why did you go and do something
that stupid?'

Though it was a rhetorical question, she knew. Akane had
followed her friend. No! Say it, Nabiki! Akane had been in
love with Ranma, and Ranma had been in love with Akane.
Akane had followed her lover, and had died with her. At
least they had died in battle, if she was any judge, and she
also judged that they had died together. Whatever else, she
_knew_ they were together now.

She supposed that she ought to be angry at Akane for falling
in love with someone like Ranma, but she could not be. Her
sister had never shown a trace of lesbianism before; she
_would_ have noticed. And she had been so ... so _grey_
before, and _she_ had not been able to help, and then Ranma
came, and Akane was so happy after.

She could not begrudge that happiness; and if it had cost
her sister her life, well, no-one had forced her to go
beside Ranma. Perhaps she had felt the risk of dying beside
her beloved was less than that of living without her. In a
detached way, Nabiki could understand that.

Tracing the lines of their faces with her eyes, and
following the new scars, Nabiki made a silent pledge. Ranma
and Akane had not died through mischance. Someone had taken
her sister and her friend from her. She did not know who,
but she would. And then Someone was going to pay. Pay
dearly, and pay interest.

Tendo Nabiki became emotional over few things, but _no-one_
injured her family and walked away undamaged. It was a
matter of honor, it was a matter of pride, and it was
especially a matter of being very, _very_ angry.

Dr. Tofu straightened from his ministrations and sighed in
relief.

Already she was recovering. Recovering at a very great rate,
too. She would, he felt, be recovered sufficiently to leave
the hospital in a day or three. Turning to her father, he
relayed this news, softening the man's profuse thanks
embarrassedly.

It was not his victory, but two others', and he turned to
check on them. Even from across the room, he knew, and his
heart froze within him. Still, he moved over to be certain.

Nabiki felt the presence of Dr. Tofu behind her.

"48 hours."

There was little humanity in her voice, only a vast and
implacable purpose.

He began to say something, but then reconsidered. "48
hours," he agreed. "Would you like me to call your house?"

Nabiki turned a grateful face toward him, and smiled weakly.
"Thank you, Tofu-sensei. I ...."

In a city made of stone, a chorus of bells fell silent,
though neither Nabiki or Tofu could hear them. In her
circle, Akane gasped in air and arched her back, falling to
her side and writhing out of the circle, keening in agony.
They whirled back around and gaped at the sight of Ranma,
head back and body locked, mouth gaping open in a long,
silent scream.

Akane inadvertently recalled their attention with a
strangled whimper. Nabiki lunged to her sister's side, but
Ranma got there first anyway. Cradling Akane's head in her
arms, Ranma held her upright. Akane gasped, "Hurts,
Ranchan."

"Shh, Acchan, I know. It'll get better soon."

Nabiki took a towelette from Dr. Tofu and used it to clean
off the wounds on Akane's cheek, dreading what she knew she
must see when Akane opened her eyes.

Akane, feeling the gentle motion, gathered her energy and
looked to see who was cleaning her, blurrily she saw ...
"N-neechan? That you? Ranchan?" Seeing Nabiki's stunned
stare, she continued, "Neechan? Is it ... my eye? I know it
must look awful ...."

"Oh, I don't know," Ranma smiled slowly, "_I_ think it makes
you look ... rakish, really." Akane frowned at her, vaguely,
and Ranma pulled out a mirror and held it before her face.

Akane frowned at it; it wouldn't come into focus. It was all
blurry, but it was odd. It seemed as though it was blurry in
_both_ eyes, which made no sense at all.

Then it did focus, and she gasped. There was her right eye,
large and dark brown like it had always been. But where
there should have been a mate to its left, or else a bloody
ruin, was instead a deep black well, shot through with
swirling flecks of red and gold. Akane tried to deal with
the concept, but quickly gave up the idea as much too
complicated. She was more tired and bore more minor injuries
than she had ever had in her life, and all she wanted to do
was go home.

Ranma wobbled unsteadily to her feet and pulled Akane up
after her. After checking with Dr. Tofu that Sayuri was all
right, she got Akane moving and headed out the door to the
Dojo, leaving Nabiki to deal with anything that came up.

Nabiki, unwilling to be put off lunged after them and held
them up, saying, "Hold on, you two. You don't leave until
you tell me what the _hell_ just happened!"

Ranma and Akane looked at each other for a moment, then
turned back to Nabiki. "Nothing special, Oneechan." "No big
deal, really." In unison, "Just routine." Chucking tiredly,
they staggered out, brushing past Dr. Tofu, who made a move
to stop them, but then shrugged, and let them go.

Nabiki looked after the departing duo exasperatedly. Then
she slowly smiled. Internally, she cancelled her pledge of
vengeance and made a note to buy a great deal of incense and
prayer candles. She didn't know just which god she now owed
a debt to, but she should probably do some scatter-shot
sacrificing anyway; it was a small price to pay for a
miracle.

Mentally, she made a list.

First, she had to see about a few temples.

Then she was going to go home and check that Akane was
really all right.

Then she was going to tear a long, bleeding strip off her
for scaring her like that.

Whistling in relief, she headed out the door herself.

------------------------------------------------------------

Somehow, she had kept awake long enough to get home.
Staggering in the door of her room, she took off her jacket
and hung it up. Then her legs failed her, and she just
managed to sit down on the bed. Ranchan wanted her to do
something, and she nodded vaguely, and she was _so_ tired,
she'd do it in a minute, she'd get right up and ... and
she'd ... she'd get up from where she was laying down and
she'd ....

A small snore came from Akane where she lay on her side on
her bed, fast asleep. Ranma frowned and came over to the
bed, shaking her shoulder lightly. This accomplished
nothing, and Ranma sat down heavily to try to think what to
do. Absently, she stroked Akane's hair gently. She would
leave Acchan to her sleep, she decided, and go back to her
apartment. She'd get right up and do it now. Yup. She'd get
... right ... up ... and ....

------------------------------------------------------------

Nabiki arrived home with a mission. She was going to kill
her little sister on grounds of familial imperilment (viz:
risking her, Nabiki's neck when she would have had to
explain things to Dad).

Skipping up the steps she listened at Akane's door, but
heard nothing. Quietly, she opened the door to confirm that
Akane was not present, and gaped at the sight within.

On the bed lay Akane and Ranma, arms and legs intertwined,
Akane's face pressed into Ranma's shoulder, raven hair
entwining with sunset scarlet, deeply asleep.

Nabiki smiled wistfully, and quietly closed the door.

------------------------------------------------------------

Next:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part A: The Night Before The Morning After

Authors Notes:

Tear-jerking bastich, ain't I?

Heh.

No, it gets to me, too, and I _wrote_ the thing.

You may notice that I spend a lot more time on describing
Akane's fight and what maneuvers she is using, while letting
Ranma by with visual descriptions and a higher level of
vagueness. This is entirely intentional.

You may also notice that I tend to choose Ranma's actions by
their visual appeal, silly as that may seem in a text based
fanfiction. Again, this is intentional.

A lot of the whole fic is visually based, because I seem to
have the habit of formatting and developing the scenes that
way. Also, Ranma is serving as a plot-device and story-
forwarder at this point, so I felt that visual imagery was
more appropriate.

Yes, Ranma does have a death wish. It's not a terribly
strong one, mind. And he himself would deny it vehemenently,
but it _is_ there. Again, this is a side-effect of Ranma no
longer being truly heroic, and will probably fix itself as
he regains his proper form.

Or, again, I could just be playing with your minds. You
never know.

But, whatever Ranma may _think_, he has been strongly marked
by the Samurai / Ronin death fetish (if that's what I want
to call it). The sense that a 'heroic' death for duty or
honor's sake is desirable or romantic. As I say, if you
asked him, she'd deny it, but ....

Moving on, I consider the Hiryuu Shoten Ha to be the most
visually distinctive and impressive of Ranma's attacks,
which is why I use it here.

I've wanted to use "krakata-thoooooo......oooom" as a sound
effect for a long time now, and I refuse to apologize for
it.

Yes that _is_ the First of the Fallen as in Satan, Old
Scratch, Lucifer, the Adversary, etc. Yes, he's extremely
bad-ass.

For more on Invincibles, see the RAALS Essays on the web
site.

For that matter, world and meta-world information in general
is there, and there's a lot to reference in this chapter.

The fall into the dark was pure stylistic showoff on my
part, but I'm not apologizing for _it_, either.

The Starless Sea is an escape route because it's the one
place in all creation where Lies are Not Allowed, and where
the First _cannot_ therefore suddenly turn up. Or _any_
demon, for that matter. On the other hand, it's usually very
much a one-way trip. Nor can most people climb the Cliff of
Black Stone, even if they could _find_ it, which they
couldn't.

The pool of water at the base of the cliff is a very
Important Well. The root that feeds into it is a very
Important Root. And a nasty computer pun. I'm not saying any
more right now.

Ranma and Akane would not normally be able to throw their
weight around to that extent; but due to their twin-world
existence during the fight, they are in much the same
position as a demon would be confronting humans on earth.
That is, they're cheating extensively.

This also explains the rapid healing of their wounds during
the fight, and also at least partly what happened to Akane's
eye. _That_ wound is also very symbolic, if you hadn't
already guessed that.

The sword will be dealt with in the next chapter.

The Iron-Men pseudo-history is complete garbage, in case
that wasn't obvious, but I think it's evocative garbage.
It's also _All Mine_, but I'm willing to share ...

Just for the record, major world influences to this point
include:
Slayers
Godzilla
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (manga version)
Gunsmith Cats
Usagi Yojimbo
Neil Gaiman
Terry Pratchett
Ah! Megamisama
Iczer One
El Hazzard
Tenchi Muyo
Hellblazer!
In Nomine
Ninja High School
Gold Digger
Gunmm (aka Battle Angel Alita)
and my own deranged imagination.
Oh, and Ranma, too.

'Til Then,

Eric Hallstrom 10/26/99
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