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.

All commentary, public or private, is welcomed.

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

Chapter 30 : The Figure In the Shadows [2 of 4]

     He fell back.  His eyes closed.  Ryoga stepped forward and
grabbed his shoulders where he lay.  "Who?  What are you talking
about?"

     There was no response.  "Answer me, Mousse!"
     
     "Ryoga..."  Akane laid her hand on his shoulder.  "He's...
he's just talking in his sleep.  Nightmares, maybe..."  She
smiled, trying to convince him, to convince herself.

     He stepped back and stared in anguish at his hands.  Then,
slowly, he seemed to relax.  "You're right.  Just babbling.  I
wonder what happened to him?  How he got here?"

     Akane shook her head.  "What explanation can you come up
with?  He's here, that's all we know.  I hope he wakes up soon."

     "Yeah," Ryoga muttered.  "Me too."
     
     The door opened, and Lang Bei and Shampoo stepped through.
Lang Bei looked angry and sad at once, Shampoo was downcast.

     "There is a Council meeting to talk about what happened this
morning soon," the older woman said shortly.  "I need to prepare.
You can all visit him later."

     Shampoo opened her mouth, and then closed it without saying
anything.  She stared at Mousse's still form, and then turned and
walked out the door of the room.  Ryoga and Akane, a moment 
later, followed.  

     Lang Bei waited until she heard the front door close, and
then walked over to the bed.  Slowly, and with great care, she
ran her fingers over Mousse's closed eyes, lightly and gently.
     
     Then she walked to the small chest in the corner and opened
it, and stared in silence at object inside, carefully wrapped in
smooth black cloth.  
     
     "I had hoped greatly," she said softly, "that it would not 
fall to you, grandson."
     
**********

     "So I guess you're cured now as well?"
     
     Rouge looked up from where she sat in the chair, a page of
the book she was reading half-turned.  "Yes.  After Shampoo fell
into the pool, it seemed the right thing to do."  She looked up 
at the ceilng for a moment.  "I will have to get used to living
without Ashura's power, but the sacrifice, I believe, was worth
it.  Better free and weak than a powerful slave to something you
cannot control."

     Happosai nodded slowly, then settled down in a chair across
from her.  The sitting room was located near the rear of the
house, dominated by a large window that let in the sunlight to
spill across the carpeted floor, and the sight of the mountains 
that cradled the land on all sides.  "What are you going to do 
when this is over?"

     Rouge smiled softly.  "Will it ever be over?"
     
     Happosai rested his hands on his knees.  "I hope so.  We'll
go back home, Shampoo will stay here, and you'll..."

     She looked lost in thought for a moment.  Happosai studied
her; very beautiful, a passing resemblance to Cologne in her
youth.  Had he been what he had been, he could not have resisted
her.  A change, though; he was Rikuichi, not Happosai.  Happosai
had to be dead for now, lost to the world.  Once this was over,
perhaps he could go back to being what he had been.  There was
not room for that, though, not in the face of all else.

     "I suppose I will see if there is a place for me here,"
Rouge answered finally.  "It is not as if I can go back to my
parents."

     She looked troubled.  Happosai wondered about her past, but
did not enquire.  It was not his business.  "Akane told you why
we're here, didn't she?"
     
     Rouge nodded and said nothing.
     
     "It might get very dangerous," Happosai continued.  "In 
fact, I'm quite sure it's going to get very dangerous.  You don't
have your powers anymore, so you be careful."

     Rouge smiled.  "I will be.  Thank you for worrying about 
me."
     
     Against all his nature, Happosai was embarassed.  It had
been a long time since a woman had thanked him and meant it with
real sincerity.

     "It's nothing," he muttered, looking at his feet.  "I can't
let a lovely young thing like you be put in danger."

     Rouge laughed.  "Lovely, I shall take.  But you're not that
much older than me."

     Happosai blanched.  "Err..."
     
     "You are a strange man, Rikuichi," she stated, shaking her
head.  "But I like you all the same."

     The temptation rose in him almost instantly.  There was a
chance here, he realized.  He was young again, though not by any
means handsome.  And she was beautiful.

     He forced the temptation down.  No distractions.  No
temptations.  Control was key; let it be a further incentive to
finish this all.  If finished it would ever be.

     "You seem like a smart girl," he said at last.  "Can I ask
you something?"

     She finally closed the book, marking her page with one
finger.  "What?"

     "A philosophical question," he explained.  "Just something
I've been thinking about.  Let us consider a situation where
someone is in a difficult position; they have to make a choice
between helping someone they know to be in trouble, or not
helping in the hope that they'll be able to do more good for more
people where they are."

     Rouge looked at him intently.  "I'd need to know more about
the situation.  Is it a friend?"

     He thought for a moment, and then nodded.  "Yes.  And they
asked for help."

     "Then how could you even think of refusing them?"
     
     An uncomfortable silence hung for a moment.  "Because 
helping them might possibly hurt a lot of other people in the
process."

     "Might, or would?"
     
     "Might," he said softly.  "Quite possibly might."
     
     "That's the key, then," Rouge said.  "If there's only a
possibility, no matter how great, that the sacrifice will do 
more good than harm, you cannot make the sacrifice."  She said
nothing for a moment, then continued.  "Perhaps not even if it
would definitely do more good than harm to make that sacrifice.
I don't think it's right to sacrifice those who are unwilling, no
matter how much good it may do in the end.  The ends may explain
the means, but they don't make them right."

     Happosai slowly nodded.  He smiled.  "I was right.  You are
smart."

     Rouge blushed faintly.  "I don't often get a chance to talk
like this.  I didn't have many friends when I was growing up, so
I read a lot."
     
     He pulled out his pipe, tapped a plug of tobacco into it,
and lit it with a match from his pocket.  "You're absolutely
correct, of course."  Inhaling, he blew out a succession of smoke
rings.  "I have to go.  No other way."

     Rouge gave a slight smile.  "I thought this was a purely
philosophical question."

     Happosai was silent for a moment.  "I've accomplished what I
came to do here.  I tried to make right the wrong my grandfather
did a century ago as best I could."  Another set of smoke rings
joined the first, bobbing in the air as their substance slowly
drifted apart.  "I can only do what I can."
     
     Rouge nodded.  Happosai waved his hand, and the smoke rings
floated down to circle around her head.  She coughed, and then
yawned.  Slowly, her eyes closed.

     He got out of his chair and walked over to stand in front of
her.  The book she'd been reading had slipped from her hand and
fallen to the floor.  Carefully, he picked it up and set in her
laps.  Stirring a finger through the gathered smoke, he watched
as it twined around his finger.

     "We had a nice conversation about nothing in particular," he
said slowly.  "Something forgettable and unimportant.  You 
choose."

     A gesture of his hand, and the smoke faded away into tiny
puffs that soon disappeared.  He walked to the door, then paused
and looked back at where Rouge dozed in the chair.

     "Sorry," he said quietly.  "But I can only be what I am."
     
     What was there left for him to do, really?  He was Happosai,
the old lech, the trickster.  He was Rikuichi, trying to cleanse
the stain upon his family's honour.

     He was a man very frightened of what he saw coming.  Perhaps
what he had to do now was a sort of escape, but he didn't want to
think of it that way.  He had promised, after all.

**********

     They stepped through the immense doors of the king's 
chambers together, only relaxing their stance when they at last
closed behind them.
     
     "They're going to drive me insane," Samofere murmured 
without a trace of humour.  "Constant demands.  Petty squabbles
over power."

     Cologne said nothing.  She felt as weary as he looked;
sighing, she took a seat on the edge of the immense bed, folding
her hands in her lap.  

     Samofere came to sit beside her, saying nothing.  After a
time, he put an arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head
against his shoulder, still in silence.  One wing came up and 
cradled her body against his with astonishing gentleness.

     Cologne felt small and safe like this, yet also incredibly
vulnerable.  A century of longing finally fulfilled, or as much 
as it ever would be.

     "They only want you to lead them," she said softly, finally
breaking the quiet.  "They are scared, Samofere.  Their entire
way of life, everything they had ever known, revolved around
Saffron.  Ask, and they will follow you to the ends of the
earth."
     
     She felt him stiffen slightly, and then slowly relax.  She
rubbed the small of his back with one hand through the fine black
silk of his robe.  A king's robe, ornamented with gold and 
jewels, newly-made only a few days ago.

     "I never wanted to be king again," he said.  "Truly, I
didn't.  I am not suited to it."

     Cologne smiled.  "You are more suited than many who desire
leadership with all their heart.  You speak as if you are unsure
of what to do, yet you have never wavered in these last few days.
You have given into none of the noble's demands for a guarantee
that the hierarchy will continue the way it is.  You have given
the common people a voice."

     She was attending all the meetings between Samofere and his
people now.  She realized perfectly well that it made the others
uncomfortable, but it also kept the rather contentious nobles 
off-balance.  

     Kima's absence had been explained as a special mission for
the king.  It was close enough to the truth; it had been 
something of a gamble, what they had done, but their expectations
had been fulfilled.  She had gone with Ranma, of her own free
will.

     Cologne was broken from her thoughts as he shifted, and laid 
his head against hers.  "I would like to believe you are right,
Cologne.  I have always considered you the light to my darkness,
from the first day I met you."  The words disturbed her, though 
she could not say precisely why.  "These days, I sometimes think 
that you are all that keeps me going."

     "It's because I love you as much as I do," she explained
softly.  "I can tell you when you're absolutely and completely
wrong."

     He laughed.  It was good to hear him laugh these days.  "I
love you too, Cologne."

     Cologne was silent.  It was the first time he had said it to
her; she had hoped it was in him, ever since what had happened to
them in the caverns between Phoenix Mountain and Jusendo.  Now
the words were said, and she was glad.  It made things easier
between them, if only a little.

     "Were there others before me?" she asked suddenly.
     
     He said nothing.  "Samofere?"
     
     "Jealous, Cologne?"
     
     Stung by the tone of his voice, she pulled away and stood
up.  "Just tell me.  I know how old you are, I can understand."

     "One," he answered softly.  "Only one before you who I felt
the same for."

     "What was her name?"
     
     He looked pained.  "I would rather not speak of this now."
     
     "Later?" 
     
     He nodded.  "Later."
     
     Cologne took a few steps away, to stand by a tall, delicate
vase painted in gold and blue, birds on sky.  White flowers were
placed in it, dispersing their mild scent throughout the enormous
chambers of the king.

     She had no right to be jealous.  It was not as if there had
been no others for her; even a marriage within the Joketsuzoku, 
of convenience and politics rather than of love.  He had been a 
good man, and he had loved her, given her children, but she had 
never felt anything for him beyond an affection grown of time.

     It happened very suddenly.  There was a ringing in her head,
a roar like the ocean, and she was falling, crumpling bonelessly
to the floor.  She half-caught herself with one arm, skinning the
palm of her hand mildly on the polished stone of the floor.
Blinking, she tried to push back the darkness threatening to
engulf her vision.

     Hands on her shoulders.  Samofere's voice, from far, far
away.  Her name, once, twice, a third time, fear in his tone.

     "I'm fine," she managed to say at last.  "Just a dizzy
spell."

     He helped her rise.  She shook her head, and felt the last
of the ringing fade, as quickly as it had come.  A deep breath,
and she truly was fine.

     "You need to rest," he said gently.  
     
     "No more than you do," she retorted.  Raising an eyebrow,
she smirked at him.  "And I am in a good position most nights to
know how little sleep you get."  Still leaning against him for
support, she ran the fingers of one hand lightly down his chest,
tracing the firmness of his muscles.

     Samofere gaped at her for a moment, and then laughed.  "I 
don't need to sleep, Cologne.  It's pleasant enough at times, but 
I can go without it without any ill effects."

     There came a knocking at the door then, soft but repetitive.
     
     "Can't they leave us alone for even an hour?" Samofere
muttered sourly, letting her go and walking to the door.  
Cologne followed behind him, walking slowly and wondering despite
her own assertions about what had brought on the dizzy spell.

     He gripped the heavy handle of the immense door and pushed 
it open. Beyond was the view of the long covered bridge that led 
across the gap between the mountain peaks to another building, an 
entrance to the upper complex of Mount Phoenix.  

     Loame stood on the other side of the door, two of his
black-armoured men standing behind him.  And behind them stood a 
slumped, dishevelled, hollow-eyed and very tired Pantyhose Tarou.

     "Hi," he greeted flatly.  "I've got some news for you."

**********

     Akane lifted a tangle of noodles to her mouth with the
chopsticks and slurped them up.  The broth was warm and
flavourful, lightly spiced.  She put her bowl back down on the
low round table that sat in the centre of the spacious room that
served as living and dining room in Shampoo's house.

     "So," she began, glancing around the table at the other
eaters, "this is the first time we've all really had a chance to 
sit down and talk since we arrived."  Not entirely true; there 
had been the meal after Shampoo had returned this morning from
Jusenkyou, but no talk of Ranma then.  The mood had been too good
to talk of that.

     There was silence.  In the kitchen, she heard Shampoo's
father singing softly in Chinese; his voice was melodious, high 
for a man's.  

     She silently prompted Genma with her eyes.  After a moment,
he put his bowl down and coughed.  "Akane is correct.  The issue
at hand now is my son."
     
     "Most specifically," Happosai interjected, "where to begin
looking."

     Again, there was a long silence at the table.  They stared
at their food.  Akane glanced to the faces; Genma, Happosai,
Ryoga, Rouge, Shampoo.

     "He's close," Akane finally said.  "I know that."
     
     Shampoo snorted.  "How?"
     
     Mousse speaking, his eyes blank and blind.
     
     "I don't really know," Akane answered at last, unsatisfied
at the lack of conviction in her words.  "I just do."

     "Much as I dislike to raise the point," Rouge said quietly.
"Is there not the possibility that you are entirely wrong, Akane?  
That Ranma is nowhere near here?"

     Akane closed her eyes.  "I guess there is.  But I don't want
to think about that.  This is... our only hope."

     Ryoga's hand fell upon her shoulder.  She turned her head to
gaze into his dark eyes.  So much sadness there.  "I know we'll
find him, Akane."

     "He is close," Happosai said.  "I'm sure of it.  I can feel
it.  Sense it."  He shuddered.  "In every bone of my body."

     "Wherever Cologne is, that where Ranma is," Shampoo said
bluntly.  Her gaze smouldered as she spoke the name of her
great-grandmother.  "Blame falls on her for all this."

     Akane wasn't sure, but she thought she saw Happosai wince
slightly as he spoke.  "That may not be entirely fair, Shampoo.  
We still don't fully understand Cologne's..."

     "I understand just fine," Shampoo snapped.  "She lose her
mind.  That what happen."

     "Did you ever consider that it might be something else?"
Happosai queried.

     Shampoo's face twisted uglily.  "Cannot be anything else."
     
     "You are quick to cast aside your previous feelings for
her." There was a slight trace of anger in his voice, genuine,
unfamiliar.

     "You watch mouth, 'Rikuichi'," Shampoo snarled, pronouncing
Happosai's assumed name with a sarcastic edge.  Akane saw Rouge
look confused, and reminded herself to tell the other girl at
some point about who 'Rikuichi' really was.

     A fist crashed down on the table lightly.  Dishes jumped and
clattered.  "No fighting."

     Akane blinked.  "Ryoga?"
     
     Ryoga glared around the table.  "I know coming from me it
may sound a little hypocritical, but we don't need it right now.
No fighting.  Hasn't there been enough fighting already?"  He
paused.  "We need to think for once.  If Cologne's here, and
Ranma's here, where are they?  Why are they here?  What changed
that would have made Cologne need Ranma to come here, that would
make her do anything to bring him here?"

     "Getting him away from whoever or whatever those two women 
represented could have been her intention," Happosai said.  "But
why was it now?  Why not earlier?"

     Silence fell a third time.  Meals forgotten - except by
Genma, who was still picking at his distractedly as he thought -
they pondered.

     Shampoo was the first to speak.  "Saffron!"  It was said
suddenly, and with shock.  Akane almost thought she saw Happosai
give a small nod.
     
     "What about Saffron?" Ryoga asked.
     
     "When I was little, I used to hear stories," Shampoo said,
excitedly, speaking quickly as if struggling to get all her
thoughts out at once.  "Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
all used to tell.  Saffron... they say he very powerful demon--"

     "Not too much of a stretch," Akane said softly.
     
     "--who only be defeated by strongest warrior ever!"
     
     "What else?" Happosai said, subtly leaning forward.  "What 
else did they say?"
     
     Akane could see the struggle to remember on Shampoo's face.
When at last she seemed to do so, she went slightly paler.  "Only
hear once.  Very young.  Never even think of it till now."  She 
hesitated.  "When the Phoenix dies, so dies Jusenkyou, and all
her peoples."

     She shook her head as if in denial.  "But Saffron not die.
He come back.  Is not... cannot be that.  Is only story."

     Ryoga grinned ruefully.  "Don't you remember what you said
last night, Shampoo?  There is a truth behind all the stories,
somewhere."

     "That's it," Happosai concluded.  "Somehow, because Ranma
defeated Saffron, Cologne had to do what she did."

     Shampoo shook her head.  "Can't be sure."
     
     "Ask yourself this truly, Shampoo," Happosai said.  "Which
is more likely?  That Cologne did what she did because of 
madness, or necessity?"

     "What necessity?" Akane snapped, feeling her anger rise.
"Taking him away from m-- from us, not telling us anything.  What
necessity?"

     "He was watched," Happosai said.  "Those two who followed us
up the mountain.  Would he not have been watched as well before
that?"

     "Then why she not tell us anything?" Shampoo whispered,
staring at the table.  Her hair, half its former length, hung
about her face and hid her expression.  "Why she just leave?"

     "I can think of a lot of reasons," Happosai said.  "First of
all..."

     There was the sound of footsteps; Happosai paused.  
Shampoo's father came into the room, followed by two old women in
robes.  Akane recognized them from last night - Council members.  
In the heat of their discussion, they hadn't even heard the front 
door opening.

     One of them spoke to Shampoo in Chinese, fixing her with a
dark, glittering gaze.  Shampoo blanched, and then answered back
in her native tongue.  The other Council member spoke harshly.  
Shampoo opened her mouth as if to protest, then slowly nodded.

     She rose and glanced around the table.  "I go.  Must see
Council.  Very urgent."  A moment later she was gone, with her
father and the Council members, before anyone else had a chance
to say anything.

     Akane closed her eyes for a few seconds, and drew deep
breaths.  When she opened them, Genma was busily inhaling the
bowl of ramen Shampoo had left behind, Happosai was smoking his
pipe in the corner and staring out the window, Rouge was humming
as she tied her hair back into a long ponytail, and Ryoga was
looking at her intently.
     
     "Damn it all," Akane muttered, closing her eyes again.
     
     "Don't worry about it," Ryoga said, touching her shoulder.
"We're closer than before."

     "Damn it all," she repeated.  "We better get to where we 
need to be in time."     
     
**********     
     
     As the man walked down the narrow trail, he glanced up at
the sun.  Nearly noon; he would have to hurry to accomplish this
by the set time.  Carefully adjusting the burden on his shoulder,
he followed the trail that led through the bottom of the ravine, 
a great cleft in the land that dead-ended at the base of a 
mountain.  Ivy and creepers ran in a tangle up the stony slopes 
of the mountain and the near-vertical sides of the ravine.  The 
place lay an hour from the village of the Joketsuzoku.  If he cut 
things close, he would be back in time to witness the beginning 
of the end of Jusenkyou.

     He paused, shifted his burden, and lit a cigarette.  The
flame sparked from the silver head of the dragon and the tobacco
began to burn.  A trail of smoke rose into the air from where he
clenched the cigarette in his teeth.

     It was cold down here in the ravine.  The sun was high in 
the sky, but the temperature was unnaturally cold, almost winter
chill.  The cold did not bother him, of course.

     Across his shoulder, his burden gave an involuntary shiver.
     
     "Peace now, young one," he said gently, and caressed the
unconscious girl's face.  "Soon, it will be over."

     He reached the end of the narrow trail, and stood before the
thick cover of vines that lay tangled about the mountain.  
Casually, he began to rip them away, exposing a tiny cave
entrance.  He spat the cigarette onto one of the piles of torn
vines, and knelt down.

     He was forced to push his burden ahead of him, wriggling
flat on his belly like his namesake.  He could change his form,
but only so much, and the tunnel was narrow and cramped.  Halfway 
through, the girl woke up, and screamed in the centre of the 
long, narrow, lightless tunnel of  dirt and rock.  He rendered 
her unconscious with a swift blow to the back of the head.  No 
one could hear them here anyway.

     After nearly a hundred feet of crawling, the tunnel began to
widen, and soon emerged in a small underground cave, dry and
without light, twice as tall as he was.  He did not need the 
light to see by, but all the same, he sparked the lighter and 
gazed around in the dim illumination of the flame.  Walls of 
solid black rock, smooth and hard.  In the centre of the dry 
cave, a single pillar of the black stone rose from floor to 
ceiling.

     He bound the girl to it with rope, gagged her with her 
shirt.  She was young, just coming into womanhood, with a face
that would have been strong and well-shaped if never truly
beautiful.  It had been her misfortune to be hunting alone a 
little too far from the village.

-Continued in section 3

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com