Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

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

Commentary welcomed, send it privately please, as I'm not 
subscribed to the list.  

Homepage at:  http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758

Chapter 20 : Day Departing (1 of 2)

     Soun Tendo was watching the sun rise.
     
     He stood in the backyard of his house, on the dew-damp grass
near the edge of the still pond, and watched it rising slowly
upon the ashen canvas of the sky, the greyness of the banks of
clouds cycling slowly through the colours of fire, as the sun 
crept into the sky with a steady pace.  

     There was a sense of anticipation in the early times of the
morning, in any city, and the greater the city, the greater the
sense.  In a city like Tokyo, of which Nerima was but a part, the
dawning felt like the slow rousing of some great beast from
slumber.

     His youngest daughter was leaving today, and his oldest
friend.  Perhaps that was what had given him this bout of
insomnia, though in truth, such a thing as sleeplessness had
never been an unfamiliar companion to him, not since the day his
wife had died.

     This was different, though.  The other nights that he could
not sleep were spent in his room, looking at the photo of himself
and his wife, the one from before his wedding day, before the
birth of his first daughter.  The other nights he could not sleep
were spent in the own privacy of his grief, and that grief, that
grief was silent and for none to know but him.

     Less than a year ago, it had been only him and his three
daughters.  Then Genma had come, and brought Ranma with him, and
that had brought so much else, so much chaos, the return of he
and Genma's reviled master not even the greatest of the chaos.

     Now Ranma was gone, and before the sun rose over the city
again, one of his daughters, and his friend, and his master, 
would all be gone as well.  

     Nothing ever lasts, Soun realized, and the state of life is
loss.  What little we gain is gone soon, and we have taken from
us far more than what we are ever given.
     
     His glance fell to the spreading limbs of a cherry tree near
the wall, the blossoms shed in the spring, long gone before the
summer that was even now fading had come.  Beauty was 
transcendent, and death was eternal.

     After today, it would just be him and Nabiki and Kasumi.     
He loved all his daughters dearly, but Akane, Akane had always
been the one that he had felt was truly his, ever since she'd
been born.  Nabiki and Kasumi both took after their mother in
different ways, but Akane, Akane took after him.  The fact that
she was growing a little further apart from him each day pained
him so much that he could not possibly express it to her, even if
he had known how.

     He remembered her, a tiny child, in the gi her mother had
made specially for her, small hands clenched into fists, 
mimicking his motions beside him, their feet shuffling 
together almost in time across the polished wood of the dojo 
floor, and felt a twinge in his heart.

     So long ago.  Back when he'd still had the inclination to
practice the Art that had once been his great pride.  He wiped a
hand across his eyes; he really did not feel like crying right
now, but his emotions seemed to have other ideas, as they often
did.

     He could never understand any of his daughters, but he had
always come closest, he thought to Akane, because the two of them
were both so driven by the inclinations of their own heart, to
the extent that their emotions often overpowered them.  In his
daughter, it showed itself in her quick temper; in him, it was
the wild swings of mood from joy to sorrow.  

     Nabiki was driven by her reason, and the coupling of that
reason with her desires for wealth, and he had no idea what 
drove Kasumi, content as she seemed to keep house for him and not 
think at all of herself.  

     His thoughts turning to his eldest daughter, an even more
troubled expression settled itself across Soun's face.  Now that
he considered it, Kasumi had changed greatly since Ranma had 
first come.  Before then, she did have a life outside the house,
an occasional visit to old friends from school, and, of course,
the more common visits to Doctor Tofu.  Somewhere along the way,
she had seemed to withdraw further and further into the keeping
of the house, away from the outside world.

     It bothered him that he had never noticed that, for his
focus had always been upon Ranma and Akane.  He had, he realized
now with regret, neglected his older daughters in favour of 
trying to advance the engagement of his youngest.  

     Turning his gaze away from the rising sun to the grass at
his feet, Soun softly sighed and began to walk back towards the
house.  As much as he was worried for his future son-in-law's
whereabouts, he was surprised to find his worry for his own
daughters was somehow almost as great.

**********

     Ukyou poured a circle of batter across the grill, and the
heady, familiar scent of sizzling okonomiyaki began to fill the
confines of the restaurant.  This wasn't for a customer; it was
hers, her breakfast for the morning.

     A quick twist of her wrist and the cooking okonomiyaki
was flipped over to be grilled on the other side.  Ukyou hummed
softly to herself as she worked, a soft tune like a lullaby, and
began to spread the sauce across the finished okonomiyaki with 
careful strokes.

     The toppings were laid across, and the okonomiyaki was
proffered onto a plate.  Ukyou settled down at the counter, 
utensils in hand, and inhaled the pleasant scent.  She never got
tired of eating okonomiyaki; breakfast, lunch and dinner, there
were simply so many ways to make it.

     The door banged open, so suddenly it made her jump.  
     
     "By god that smells good," Happosai said, swaggering into
the restaurant and sniffing the air.  He licked his lips.  "Care
to make me one?"

     "You think you can just barge in here whenever you want?"
Ukyou said, rising up out of her seat with her hands on her hips
and an annoyed expression on her face.

     "Who's going to stop me?" Happosai said musingly.  "That's
one advantage of being as good as I am, you know.  I can pretty
much do what I want."

     "There's noble reasoning," Ukyou muttered sarcastically.
     
     "Just as noble as ten years spent studying for revenge, I 
can only hope," Happosai quipped lightly.

     The annoyed expression on Ukyou's face grew to a full-blown
scowl.  "Shut up."

     "Ukyou, dear, must we bicker like this?" Happosai said,
leaning his arms on the counter and gazing up at her with an
adoring expression.  "I'm a lover, not a fighter, though because
of necessity, I have been forced to..."

     "Oh, you're a lover, eh?" Ukyou said, clasping her hands
behind her back and leaning forward slightly with a cute smile.

     "Well, in my youth, I was quite the young rake," Happosai 
said with utter seriousness.  "Why, I had women chasing after me
constantly."

     "Well, I've got something for you, 'lover'," Ukyou said,
putting a slight purr in her voice.  "Close your eyes."

     Happosai eagerly did.
     
     Ukyou studied him for a moment.  There was an improvement in
his appearance, that was for certain.  But he was still short,
plain, and, even at the physical age of about twenty, slightly
balding.

     He licked his lips slightly, his eyes still closed.  Ukyou's
face blanched in distaste.  

     Then she drew her giant spatula from her back in one swift
motion and hit him over the head with it.  Happosai crumpled to
the ground, groaning and clutching his head.

     "Now I am not in any kind of mood for this," Ukyou said
coldly, hopping the counter and standing over him, battle 
spatula clasped threateningly in her hands.  "So tell me what 
the hell you want and then get out, okay?"

     "Owwww..." Happosai said, looking up at her with a wounded
expression.  "What was that for?"

     "General principle," Ukyou said.  "I'm sure you did or
thought something to deserve it at one time or another.  What do
you want, Happosai?"

     Standing up without any trouble, Happosai half-leaned 
against the counter and shrugged his shoulders.  "I wanted to
talk to you about your friend."

     Ukyou deflated slightly, the weapon in her grip lowering.
"What about him?"

     "Are you still going to look for him?" Happosai said.
     
     Ukyou nodded.  "Of course."
     
     Happosai sighed.  "Ukyou..." he said, seeming at a loss for
words.  "I wish that..."

     "That what?" Ukyou snapped.  "That I'd just leave him when I
know he's in trouble?"

     "No," Happosai said, shaking his head.  "You, you couldn't
do that.  It's not in your nature."

     He looked around, seeming unsure of what to say.  "We're
leaving tonight for China."

     Ukyou let out a soft breath, resting the head of her spatula
on the floor and leaning on it with her hands wrapped around the
handle.  "Yeah.  I should stop by and see Akane.  I haven't
booked a flight yet, but I'll probably do that tonight, head out
tomorrow morning sometime."

     "Let me give you this before you go," Happosai said.  "It
will help you if you are in need."     
     
     Ukyou slowly nodded, feeling a strangeness settling over 
her, like the charge of the air before a storm.  "What?"

     Happosai reached inside his tunic and pulled out a thin,
long shape, carefully handing it to her by gripping the far end.
It was a stick of bamboo, not even as wide as Ukyou's smallest
finger, perhaps as long as her outstretched hand and fingers.
The surface of the wood was polished until it shone, and every
inch was covered in complex Chinese characters that looped and
faded into each other.

     "Now this," he said.  "This is important.  If you are in
need, take it in both hands and snap it.  It will break in no
other way.  Do that, and I will know you need help."

     He sighed.  "I have a bad feeling about this, dear Ukyou.  
Please be careful."

     His eyes misted slightly.  "If the world were deprived of a
beauty like yours before it had a chance to reach its fullest
blooming, why, who could calculate the tragedy?"

     Ukyou slapped his hand away as it strayed out towards her 
chest and stepped back.  "Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Thanks, I 
guess."

     "You know how you could really thank me?" Happosai inquired.
     
     "I could refrain from pounding the hell out of you," Ukyou
said, raising up her spatula again.

     Happosai nodded and turned to walk towards the door.  "I
suppose that will have to do, won't it?"

     "It will," Ukyou said shortly.  "Goodbye, Happosai."
     
     She saw his shoulders slump slightly as his hand reached for
the door, and a sigh escaped him, sounding very tired.

     "Hey Happosai," she said, causing him to turn as he began to
slide the door open and prepare to leave.

     "Hmm?" he said, looking back.
     
     "Thanks," she said sincerely.  "I really mean it."
     
     He smiled, looking almost happy for a moment, and nodded.
"Be careful, child.  The way is hard, and not without its pain."     
     
     Then he was gone, before she had time to even think of the
cryptical words.  Ukyou shook her head, long hair waving with the
motion, and left her cooling breakfast forgotten on the counter
as she walked up the creaking wooden stairs to her room.  Once
she got there, she walked to the small wooden dresser in one
corner and opened the top drawer.  

     She placed the stick of carved bamboo between the box and
the ring, all three of them atop the water-marred note Konatsu 
had left, black ink blended with red lipstick into a whirlpool of
dark crimson near the bottom.

     She looked at the three objects, box, ring and rod, and
sighed gently before closing the drawer and going back 
downstairs to eat cold okonomiyaki and think.

     Once again, these things had been worked by threes.
     
**********     

     Nodoka finished filling the kettle at the sink, staring down
for a moment at the wavering reflection of her face in the 
polished metal of the basin.  

     Absently tucking a strand of hair pulled loose from her bun
behind one ear, she made her way over to the stove and turned on
a low flame, then put the kettle on to boil.  She sat down at the
kitchen table, smoothing out the folds of her kimono as she did;
it was light grey silk patterned with blue flowers, cool and
comfortable.  The weather report on the radio today had called 
for a hot day, with rain later on, and she could already feel the
heat rising.  

     She picked up the small book from the table, the delicate
rice paper pages thin and aged.  With slightly shaky hands, she
opened to the flyleaf, looked at the calligraphy there.  It was
not the most elegant in the world, but it looked as if it had
taken a great amount of time.  She knew it had; his writing was 
always poor, but he'd taken great care with this.  Even with the 
faded ink, she could see that.

     *The cold grey ocean*
     *If I lose your love, my love,*
     *I shall be like that:*
     *In lonely freedom lapping*
     *The shores of your memory*
     
     And there, below the poem, the signature.
     
     *All my love,*
     *-Genma.*
     
     
     She tried to remember how long ago he'd given the slim
volume of poetry to her.  Twenty years ago, it must have been.

     She realized, with a kind of dull disappointment in herself,
that she was crying again.  It didn't seem fair, that something
so simple as an old gift, given back before they even got 
married, was able to do this to her.  Over the past few days, she
had found tears in her eyes at moments she could neither predict
nor expect.  A glance at a tree in the backyard would bring back
memories of Genma pruning the trees at the old house, as she
watched from the porch, the tiny form of her infant son in her
arms.
     
     Sniffling slightly, she took a tissue from the box near the
edge of the table and wiped at her eyes.  She hadn't even heard
from Genma, or anyone else, since she'd left.  Perhaps her
departure had been to abrupt; perhaps she'd given the impression
to the Tendos that she didn't want to see them any more.

     She swallowed the lump in her throat, and thought of what a
pleasure it would be to work with Kasumi in the kitchen, or try
and show Akane how to cook.  She wondered if moving out of the
house had been a good idea; she had been hoping it would force
Genma to realize the seriousness of the situation, but now it
seemed as if she'd somehow rejected everyone.  

     There came a knocking at the door then, startling her.
Giving a last dab to her rapidly reddening eyes, Nodoka stood up
and walked slowly down the hallway, taking deep breaths to steady
herself.  

     She opened the door, trying to put a smile on her face.
     
     That effort collapsed upon itself when she saw Genma.
     
     "Hello, Nodoka," he said nervously, adjusting the wire arms
of his glasses.  

     "Oh, it's you," Nodoka said.
     
     Genma peered at her, a slight hint of confusion on his face.
"Were you expecting someone else?"

     "Of course not," Nodoka said quickly.  
     
     They stood there, Genma on the doorstep, Nodoka beyond the
threshold of the door, and looked at each other for a few long,
uncomfortable seconds.  Morning sunlight glinted off the lenses 
of Genma's glasses and hid his eyes.

     "I'm making some tea," Nodoka said finally, realizing they
could not stand like this forever.  "Would you like some?"

     Genma nodded.  "Yes."
     
     Nodoka took a step back from the door, and let him walk
inside.  The two of them made their way in silence down the
hallway to the kitchen, Genma glancing around from side to side
with a studying expression on his face as they walked.

     "It's a nice house," he said as they entered the kitchen.
     
     "It is, isn't it?" Nodoka said, going to the stove and
checking on the kettle.

     Genma settled himself down into a chair at the wooden 
kitchen table.  "Big, too."

     "Yes," Nodoka said, turning back from the stove to look at
him.

     He was holding the poetry book he'd given her two decades
ago in one hand, open to the flyleaf.  She knew, without any
doubt, that he was reading what he'd written long ago.

     As he closed the book and looked at her, she saw, in his
face, a flash of regret, a momentary glimpse of what she hoped
was his yearning for things to be as they had been when he'd
given her the book.

     Finally, he stood up, putting the book back down on the
table and letting out a long, heavy sigh.  "Nodoka..."

     "What?" Nodoka said, a little too sharply.
     
     "I'm leaving tonight," Genma blurted.  "For China.  With the
master, and Akane and Ryoga and Shampoo.  We're going to look for
Ranma; the master believes he may be around Jusenkyou."

     "What?" Nodoka said again, this time with shock.  "Why 
didn't anyone tell me about this earlier?"

     "The last few days have been hectic," Genma said wearily.  
"And I was not exactly sure how badly you wanted to hear from me,
Nodoka."

     "You could have had Soun or Akane tell me," Nodoka said.
"Why must you always keep things from me?"

     "I kept nothing from you," Genma said quietly.  "Perhaps
they simply thought that you had no desire to hear from them
either, considering your abrupt departure."

     Nodoka felt a stab at her heart, at how close the words had
come to echoing her own thoughts from earlier.  "You should have
told me earlier."

     Genma gave her a look that seemed almost hurt, and then took
a deep breath.  "Nodoka, have you any idea how difficult it was
for me to come here?  Have you any idea at all?"

     "No, Genma," Nodoka said.  "I'm not sure why a man should 
have difficulty seeing his wife."

     "The promise-"
     
     "The promise means nothing.  It is over.  I have accepted
Ranma's... our son's..."

     Her voice trembled slightly at the mention of her vanished
child, but she pressed on.  "I have accepted Ranma, and all that
he is.  And I would do anything to have him with me now, so don't
you dare throw that promise in my face, Genma, because it was
your fault to begin with."

     Genma's face went hard.  "You and I both know I had to take
him, Nodoka.  He would not have become as great as he is without
it."

     "No, I suppose he would not have," Nodoka said softly.
     
     "You would have made him weak," Genma said, sounding as if
he were talking to himself almost as much as to her.

     "I would have loved him," Nodoka said.
     
     Genma nodded.  "Yes."
     
     "I hardly had a chance to love him," Nodoka whispered.
"Hardly a chance to hold him in my arms, to know him, and then
you took him from me.  And then when I finally found him again,
he was taken.  I never had a chance to love him."

     "Nodoka," Genma said.  "I'm going to find him..."
     
     "And what if there's nothing to find?" Nodoka snapped, 
grief rising with the words, the doubt long-hidden finally
climbing shrieking and triumphant from the dark places of her
heart.  "What if he's already dead?"

     "Don't say that!" Genma said fiercely, grabbing her by the
shoulders as if he might shake her.  "Don't even think that.  We
have to hope, Nodoka.  We have to hope."

     His voice was barely audible.  "We have to hope..."
     
     His hands dropped from her shoulders and he seemed to
crumple inwards upon himself, his face a mask, but a mask upon
the verge of cracking.

     "Oh my son," he whispered.  "What have I done to you?"
     
     He took off his glasses and pulled a hand fiercely across
his eyes.  "I'm sorry, Nodoka.  I have to go."

     Nodoka felt an aching in her heart, as she realized that
what she had thought was indifference on her husband's part to
their son's fate was only a hiding of his grief, a guilt that he
could not bury.

     "No," she said softly, reaching out and taking his glasses
from his limp fingers, putting them on the kitchen table.  "Don't
say you have to go.  Not yet."

     "What?" Genma said in a half-choked voice, looking up at 
her.  

     Behind them, the kettle began to whistle piercingly on the
stove.  Nodoka reached back and turned off the flame, and the
noise rolled away, like the tide receding from the shores.

     "Stay with me," she whispered, reaching out to trace the
hard lines of his rough face, the contours she had known in
youth changed by age, yet still familiar.  

     She reached a hand back, unbound her hair, let it flow down
past her shoulders.  "Just for a little while."

     Genma looked at her in disbelief.  Finally, he spoke.
     
     "I will," he said, his voice thick with emotion.  "But only
if it is what you wish."

     "It is," Nodoka said, as his hand came up to hesitantly cup
her cheek.  A tear rolled down her cheek and across his fingers, 
a diamond in the light.  "Right now, it is."

     As he moved closer to take her into his arms, the tear fell
from where it hung upon his hand, light twisting through it in
the colours of the rainbow, and it broke upon the floor at their
feet, a singular perfection as fleeting as time, and brief, oh,
so very brief.

**********

     Ryoga glanced nervously up at the sky, then shifted on his
feet slightly into another stance and lashed out with a kick.  It
looked like there would be rain later.  

     He moved forward, into the momentum of the kick, and made 
two quick thrusts with his hands.  Overhead, the thin branches of
a tree wavered slightly in the breeze, the same breeze that
stirred the grass at his feet into motion and dotted the pond
with small rises of water.  

     Another step, a sweeping blow of his foot that stopped
inches short of splitting the trunk of a tree, a knife-edged chop
that paused a hair from chopping it down.  He had been trying,
trying very hard in these last few days, to increase his control.

     Before, he had so often let his temper have free reign, let
the heat of rage drive him.  That had been before he'd come so 
close to killing Ranma, with the clear blue sky overhead and the 
scent of grass in the air.

     Ranma hadn't been supposed to stop like that.  Before, he
would have always dodged, perhaps not all of Ryoga's blows, but
certainly a killing blow like that one.

     Ranma had changed, though.  In the brief period between
their return from China and his disappearance, his friend had
gone through a strange transition that Ryoga had barely even
noticed until they'd gone up the mountain after Cologne.

     Ryoga paused in his motions and wiped a hand through his
bangs, tucking a few of them back beneath the sweat-soaked cloth
of his bandanna.  Breakfast had been an hour ago, and he'd been
practicing ever since then.  No one, not even Akane, had
interrupted him; he was glad of that.  Solitude had always been,
depending on his mood, both his greatest pleasure and his
greatest pain.

     They were leaving tonight.  Happosai had arranged it all,
for reasons that Ryoga still did not fully understand.  What
little contact he'd had with the rejuvenated master since they'd
returned had left him with the vague impression that Happosai was
nervous, maybe even scared.  His joking manner at meals, the few 
times he had shown up for them, seemed almost forced.

     Troubled, Ryoga resumed his practicing.  He was nervous of
what lay ahead for all of them.  It was more than a worry for
himself and his comrades, though.  He wondered at times if they
would find the answers they needed in the Joketsuzoku village to
find Ranma, and, even if they did, if it would be in time.

     "I really hope you're alright, Ranma," he said softly as he
went through the slow, powerful movements of the kata.  As he had
been for the last few days, he was surprised at the sincerity of
what he said, and how deep that feeling went in him.  

     He stopped suddenly, not sure why he did, and glanced down
at his feet.  Lost in his thoughts, he'd almost stepped into the
pond.  Shaking his head, he backed away and looked up again at
the sky.  It had looked like rain yesterday as well, but the
clouds had not given forth their essence, only gathered tighter 
and thicker throughout the night, until it seemed a solid wall of 
grey lay across the sky.  

     "Ho there, boy."
     
     Ryoga turned and nodded in greeting.  "Hello, Mr. Tendo."
     
     Soun sat down on one of the large, flat rocks that bordered
the pond.  "Got a minute to talk?"

     "Sure," Ryoga said, somewhat confused as he sat down, 
crossing his legs and looking at Soun questioningly.

     "You're leaving tonight," Soun said.  "I..."
     
     He sighed and stroked a hand across his thick moustache.  
"I need to ask some things of you before you go, Ryoga."

     "Go ahead," Ryoga said, shifting nervously.  
     
     "I see no point in mincing words," Soun said, looking nearly
as uncomfortable as Ryoga was beginning to feel.  "Given the
changes recently, what are your intentions towards my daughter?"

     Ryoga blinked, and began to stammer.  "Akane?  I don't know,
what do you... exactly what are you... what does that mean?"

     "Remember when you first showed up here and Akane was trying
to train for that gymnastics tournament?" Soun said.

     "Yeah," Ryoga said, glancing down intently at the grass
around his feet.

     "Remember when you walked into the bathroom to change back
while I was in the bath?" Soun said, looking straight into 
Ryoga's eyes.

     Ryoga gulped and nodded.  "Yeah.  Do you mean you've known
all this time... about..."

     "Yes," Soun said.  "I know about P-chan."
     
     "Oh god," Ryoga said, closing his eyes.  "Mr. Tendo, you
have to believe me, I never intended for it to..."

     "Ryoga."
     
     "...I always turned my back when she was changing, I always,
I didn't want to..."

     "Ryoga."
     
     Ryoga paused, opening his eyes and looking up at Soun.  
     
     "It's alright," the older man said gently.  "I... will admit
I was angry at first.  But for once, I spent some time thinking
about it.  You were an honourable young man, and I knew you would
never do anything to hurt my daughter."

     He chuckled, a sighing in the sound.  "Besides, I thought it
would do Ranma good to have a rival around for her.  Make him 
work a little harder."

     Ryoga realized he was flushing to the tips of his ears.
Humiliation was busily coursing a path through his body.

     "Was it that obvious?" he whispered softly.
     
     "Not to Akane," Soun said.  "But... I know what it is like
to be so in love with someone that you can't even speak to them
properly.  I know the signs."

     He settled himself into a slightly more relaxed position on
the rock.  "What I want to say, Ryoga, is that my daughter needs
a friend right now much more than she needs a lover."

     "I know that," Ryoga said softly.  "Akane... I..."
     
     Strange, how much pain he felt at this, despite having
realized it long ago.  Perhaps it was only now, that in admitting
it to someone else, he truly managed to admit it to himself.  "I
don't think Akane will ever think of me as anything more than a
friend."

     With a long, low exhalation of breath, he closed his eyes.
"And I have someone else now.  Someone who really does love me."

     "And how do you feel about her?" Soun asked.
     
     "I guess I love her too," Ryoga said.  "A lot."
     
     Soun's face broke into a smile, and he leaned forward from
his seat to lay a hand on the young man's shoulder.  "Then you
have the finest thing in the world, boy."

     "Thanks, Mr. Tendo," Ryoga said, knowing that Akane's father 
was right.  There was nothing better than that, to love, to know
that you are loved in return.

     "I have another thing to ask you, now," Soun said.
     
     Ryoga nodded.
     
     "Will you watch over my daughter when you go to China?" 
Soun asked.

     "You don't even need to ask," Ryoga responded, silently
remembering that long earlier, he had already promised that to
Ranma. 

     "I'm glad to hear that," Soun said.  "Because it is going to
be dangerous for her.  Akane can be reckless.  Please..."

     He drew a long breath, and gulped, his voice trembling
slightly.  "Please keep her safe, because I won't be there to do
it."

     "I will lay down my life for her, if I have to," Ryoga said
softly.  "If my suffering shall spare her harm, than no suffering
shall be too great."

-Continued in section 2


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