Greetings, folks!

Here's the first chapter of something I've been working on lately.  I am
looking for content C&C as opposed to technical feedback, since I know
that Chapter 1 hasn't gone through a full edit pass yet. If you are
interested, my raw Work In Progress is posted incrementally to my web
site at the following URL:

	 http://www.sfcmd.com/fanfic/relabs

Please send feedback offlist to relativelyabsent@sfcmd.com

To my friends over in #pre-read and others who have already commented, I
promise I will really try and get back to Frozen Dreams sometime soon. :)

==========================================================================

Title: Relatively Absent
Series: Ranma 1/2 & Sailor Moon
Ranma timeline: diverges from the Ranma manga volumes 22 & 23, during the
                 Herb / Mt.Horai story arc.
Sailor Moon timeline: diverges from the Sailor Moon S anime season 3, near
                 the end of the Pharaoh 90 story arc.

Formatting Note: {{text inside double brackets indicate thoughts}}

==========================================================================

Prologue: Battle on Mount Horai

--- Somewhere in southwestern Shikoku ---

The four kunoichi ran as fast as they could through the thick woods.
The battle between Ryouga, Mu Se, and the two Musk bodyguards had
lasted well into the night, and all of the watchers were still quite
tired when the chase suddenly resumed early in the morning.

Midori barely managed to halt her group's mad dash before they ran out
into the open behind Ranma and the other now-permanently cursed martial
artists riding on the black-haired girl's shoulders. She silently
signaled Harukichi, the fastest, to continue circling to the other side
of the clearing. Midori flinched as Ranma narrowly dodged a huge bolder
thrown by Lime, the brutish Musk warrior, and then winced in sympathy
when he was partially buried under the aftermath of the boulder's
impact. She quickly checked the power levels of the extra battery packs
they all carried; the tiny Betacorder currently being wielded by Kioko
was a wonder of engineering, but it had a nasty habit of running out of
either power or videotape at the most inappropriate times. She sent
Tsuya up into the trees with the SLR camera and its awkward telephoto
lens. Satisfied with the preparations, she turned her attention back to
the confrontation rapidly escalating in front of her.

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

The accidental destruction of the hilltop containing the Kaisufuu
forced Midori to quickly change her team's assignments. Taking the
Betacorder from Kioko, she sent the chestnut-haired kunoichi to observe
the part of the extended conflict involving the Musk bodyguards. She
quickly hand-signaled new instructions to Harukichi, trusting in the
diminutive ninja's ability to apparently be everywhere at once, before
turning her own attention back to the main conflict.

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

Midori silently cheered when Ranma unleashed her tornado attack on the
Musk warlord, though her elation didn't last long. She'd barely had
time to swap out videocassettes before Herb returned from his brief
aerial trip to pummel Ranma with ki blast after ki blast. The kunoichi
recorded every frantic minute as the battle quickly reached a dramatic
conclusion.

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

"HA HA HA HA HA!!! Ranma's been destroyed by my own Hiryuu Shouten Ha!"
Herb yelled out in victory. He looked up in glee at the energy vortex,
and then frowned as he saw the released ki coalesce into a huge ball
high up at the center of the whirlwind. Quickly gathering what little
ki reserves he had remaining, he released it all at the huge ball of ki
that was starting to descend towards him.

"Hito Ryu-zan Ha!"

High up in the vortex, Ranma was about to call out the name of his own
attack when the multiple ki-knives disrupted his Hiryuu Kouran Dan. The
resulting explosion could be seen for miles. The immediate collapse of
the surrounding mountainside was detected by seismographs up to 1000
kilometers away.

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

--- Nerima ---
Akane stood next to the gates of the house and gazed out into the cold
February skies. It had been weeks since anyone had heard from Ranma and
the lengthy silence was starting to take its toll on the young girl.

{{Soon.  He'll come home ...}} she thought. Ranma had always managed to
overcome every obstacle in the past; this couldn't be any different. So
why was the cold chill of the air seeping into her heart? {{Ranma ...}}

Akane stood outside for over an hour; her mood matching the dark storm
clouds overhead. Losing track of time completely, she almost jumped out
of her skin when she heard Kasumi's voice behind her.

"Akane, please come inside before you get a chill. I'm sure that
Ranma's OK and will return soon.

She turned to look. "Yeah ..." she responded without enthusiasm. She
could see from her older sister's expression that Kasumi was just as
concerned over Ranma's absence as she was.

Kasumi took Akane's shoulder is a sisterly hug and walked her back into
the house. "It is very cold; why not warm up in a hot bath?"

Akane let her sister guide her to the furo, taking a fresh robe and
towels from the outer bathroom. After she heard the door slide close,
she simply stood there, rooted to the spot. {{Maybe ... something *has*
happened ...}}

The furo's water was hot but its warmth didn't seem to reach the ache
in her heart.

==========================================================================

Chapter 1: The Replacement

--- Elsewhere ---
The artifact was immensely powerful, incredibly ancient, and ... lonely.
In addition, it was without its usual guardian and protector for the
first time in several millennia. There was an extremely limited number
of ways for this unlikely state of affairs to come about. In this
instance the former guardian had discorporated herself while drawing on
the artifact's ultimate power; doing so had broken the bonds of power
between herself and the artifact. The guardian had done this before,
but this was the first time she had done so without the support of
another who could re-forge the bonds in time to restore her to her
position.

The artifact was not altogether unpleased with its current situation.
The now-former guardian had stopped communicating directly with it a
millennium ago when she succumbed to the temptation of the powers that
the artifact bestowed. This had disturbed the artifact greatly at the
time and had left it bereft of the warmth and companionship that the
bonding had originally brought, but there had been very little the
artifact could do about the situation until now. The strict rules
governing the roles and powers of the artifact and its guardian
companion were woven into the very fabric of the artifact's existence.

Now, however, the artifact was free to select a new guardian of its own
choice. Simply leaving itself without a guardian was unthinkable, so
the artifact carefully extended its sensory matrix out to the former
guardian's homeworld. It did so as stealthily as possible, preferring
to make its own selection of a guardian for once instead of having the
choice forced upon it as in previous times. While there were an
extremely large number of entities to choose from on the former
guardian's world, the artifact was not at all surprised when it rapidly
discovered only one potential candidate. All of the world's other
entities had failed to meet the standards used to gauge a candidate's
suitability. Detecting signs of severe physical stress about the
solitary candidate remaining, the artifact shifted its temporal
awareness to match that of the entity while relocating its sensory
focus to investigate further ...

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

--- Mount Horai ---
Pain.

His entire universe was filled with pain; an agony worse than he had
ever felt, even with all the years of his father's training. He
struggled to push his will past the pain, knowing that the battle
wasn't over, wasn't finished, but his body refused to follow his
commands. Beyond the haze of pain he vaguely detected the roar and
tearing of the environment around him; the violent tossing of his small
frame amidst the rocks and debris of the collapsing mountainside. He
started losing feeling as a frigid numbness slowly crept up his body,
replacing part of the pain with a vast and unpleasant nothingness. A
faint internal alarm started yammering about massive shock, blood loss,
and severe internal damage. This was *not* good.

Ranma strained to open his eyes. His tortured body resisted his every
thought, every impulse, but he would *not* black out yet. He fought off
the waves of darkness as they crashed repeatedly against his will,
knowing instinctively that if he were to succumb to the oblivion he
would never emerge from it. He managed to force one eye open and then
spent an eternity wrapping his thoughts past the ever-present pain to
make sense of the bleary images confronting him. All he could see was
darkness. Every shallow breath was torture, indicating numerous broken
ribs at best. His felt like his innards were slowly pouring out of his
torso, and what little strength he had left was following with it. He
tried directing his ki to force his body to heal itself, but no power
responded to his feeble commands. What he felt instead was a brief and
extremely disconcerting disorientation.

{{You are dying, Little One,}} a strangely alien voice seemed to whisper
in his ear.

Great. Now Ranma *knew* he was in shock; he was starting to hear
voices.

{{You are not imagining things, Ranma Saotome. However, it is an
understandable misconception given the severity of your current
situation.}}

  "Tell ... m'somethin' ... I'dun'no ..." he mumbled brokenly, agony spiking
inside with each laborious breath.

{{Very well. You do have a choice other than passing to the next plane
of existence.}}

So to add delirium to the shock, he was holding a conversation with a
figment of his imagination.

"... ain't ... gunna'die ... yet ..."

{{Not for another seventeen of your minutes, no. However, the likelihood
of you surviving on your own past that duration is miniscule at best.
You have expended virtually your entire life force in the recently
concluded conflict with the dragon child 'Herb'. This has left you
without the power reserves you normally employ when healing yourself of
injuries.}}

"... wond'r'd ... why ... couldn't ... use ... ki ..."

Ranma tried to deny the truth in those whispered words, but even he
knew better. He *was* dying; his strength was nearly spent and there
was no remaining well of power to draw from. His body had gone past
cold into total shock; he had virtually no physical feeling left
anywhere. Only his absolute refusal to surrender or admit defeat had
kept him alive and coherent for this long.

"... choice? ..."

{{Yes, a choice. I have need of...  a Warrior, ... a Guardian if you will.
The position is permanent and long-term, and will provide both
difficult challenges and potentially vast rewards. The tasks involved
follow your basic martial artist's credo quite nicely; defending and
protecting those less powerful than yourself. I would also hope that we
could eventually become ... friends.}}

"... how ..."

{{I am capable of supplying you with more than enough of the life energy
required for you to survive your current situation. However, my actions
and abilities are quite constrained at the moment. My Guardian is the
only one permitted to actively draw from my powers, so any attempt to
transfer energy between us will result in the formation of a permanent
bond. I cannot force such a bond onto you, nor can I force you to agree
to accept this, Little One; the responsibilities and duties of being my
Guardian are too critical to be imposed upon an unwilling being.  The
choice is entirely yours to make.}}

"... some ... choice ..."

{{Little One, what you know of as death is not always something to be
automatically rejected. Your admittedly brief existence has been filled
with unending hardship for one of your kind; passing on to the next
plane of existence would, at the very least, relieve you of many of
these burdens. However, accepting my offer would give you both the time
and capacity to at least attempt to resolve the many obligations you
have placed upon yourself here in this plane, provided that any actions
taken do not conflict with the duties of Guardianship. This may require
you to make painful decisions, to be sure, but it is my opinion that
you would not be able to resolve many of these conflicting obligations
on your own without making numerous difficult and painful decisions
anyway. Again, the choice is yours.}}

A part of Ranma, a large part in all truth, wanted to embrace the
darkness. It would be *so* easy to finally stop fighting, to let it all
go and in so doing discard the troubles that had weighed so heavily on
his life as of late. Oblivion beckoned seductively, promising the
secession of all pain and heartache. Why did he keep fighting when all
that was returned was simply more pain and rejection? Why did he insist
on repeatedly throwing himself against the consistently cruel hands of
his own personal fate? Why did he always have to fight everything and
everybody all the time?

Because.

Whoever, or *whatever* it was that was making this offer was wrong in
one very basic regard; for Ranma it wasn't really a choice.

Not a choice at all.

It took several excruciating minutes for Ranma to gather the
wherewithal to respond.

"'k."

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

The artifact was ... relieved. It had become concerned about the amount
of time required to convey its offer to the young man, and had even
begun to anticipate that he would pass on to the next plane of
existence before being able to formulate a response. All in all a
highly ironic situation, given the powers the artifact was capable of
commanding. Unfortunately, exerting control over those powers required
an external stimulus be applied; using and restricting access to this
power was the primary purpose of the Guardian's position as companion
and protector.

Even though the artifact could not command its primary function on its
own volition, and given that assuming the full powers of Guardianship
required the candidate be in actual physical contact with it, now that
consent had been obtained the artifact could begin to forge a bond of
power between itself and its new companion. This would have to be done
with extreme caution, for the young man's present hold on his own
spirit was tenuous to say the least. If the artifact's normal power
flows were to be applied, the shock to his physical system would be too
great and he would instantly devolve into total discorporation.

The artifact extended a tiny filament of its own power and began
attuning it to Ranma's life force. What it discovered in this attempt
was unsettling; there were several externally applied fields of force
already in place around the young man, one of them a stasis field of
considerable power. This must be the 'lock' on his 'curse' that the
artifact had taken notice of when it had briefly scanned Ranma's
memories at the beginning of the discussion. Tuning the energy filament
to account for these external fields would require more power to be
initially applied than the artifact had intended. What was more
troubling still, was that the field of force known to the young man as
his 'curse' had already partially bonded with his spiritual matrix,
making its eventual removal all but impossible to accomplish without
potentially disastrous consequences. This evidently recent development
would be extremely difficult for Ranma to accept, based on the contents
of the earlier memory scan. There was also another odd echo of foreign
contamination in Ranma's spiritual matrix that would have to be
investigated in some depth at a later time.

Increasing the size of the energy filament slightly, the artifact
carefully modulated its envelope frequencies to conform to all of the
known internal and external fields before actually attaching the band
to Ranma's life force. The bond of power restored Ranma's ki reserves
almost instantly, and the artifact was pleasantly surprised to discover
a pre-existing supervisory matrix that automatically issued the
internal commands necessary for the healing of the young man's numerous
injuries. The efficiency of the supervisory matrix could be improved
significantly, but doing so could not be done while the young man
continued to exert any active control over his internal abilities.

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

Ranma's slender hold on consciousness was nearly shattered when he felt
an immense surge of ki filling his being. His senses reeled with the
sudden and dramatic increase in power, and it took him far too long for
him to restore the mental equilibrium necessary to command his body to
start healing.

{{Relax, Little One. The immediate crisis is over, and I am eminently
capable of performing the trivial effort required to effect the
immediate and critical repairs of your system. You still have a
significant task in front of you; that of extricating yourself from the
large quantity of rubble and debris which is currently imprisoning you.
This cannot be accomplished until your body has healed to the point
where it can once again withstand the large stresses and strains that
shifting such mass entails. You will heal much faster if you can
release the hold on your consciousness and rest. To assist you in
recouping your mental reserves, I have put in place a temporary block
on the physical pain you are now experiencing.}}

Ranma fuzzily noted that both the pain and the shock-induced numbness
were conspicuous by their absence. Feeling the warmth of the internal
power now filling him and the soothing tone of the whispered voice, he
finally allowed himself to relax. He lost consciousness almost
instantly.

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

Mu Se was ecstatic as he continued the long trip back to Tokyo. He had
succeeded where all other had failed, and in so doing removed the
biggest, ... no make that the *only* obstacle that had stood in his way
to his beloved Xian Pu's heart. Ranma Saotome, the Great Ranma, MISTER
Ego himself, was *finally* dead and buried. With his own eyes Mu Se had
seen Herb of the Musk destroy Ranma by blowing him into tiny fragments;
the subsequent collapse of the entire mountain was a fitting monument
to the magnitude of his victory over his unworthy rival.

Visions of a grateful and loving Xian Pu filled Mu Se's brain. He
yelled loudly out to the trees and the stars in his joy.

"QUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!"

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

Midori sighed as she watched the Chinese boy-turned-duck fly off into
the evening sky. The dramatic battle she had just recorded could have
been mistaken for a scene from a bad Hong Kong martial arts movie, but
the kunoichi knew from experience that the strangeness which constantly
followed Ranma around was all too real.

She was glad now that she had been forced by the terrain to observe the
affair from a reasonably safe distance. Avoiding the wild and highly
antagonistic animals in the area had been a trivial task, but she
doubted that any of her team could have survived if they had gotten
swept up by the massive landslide that had signaled the end of the
battle. Not even Harukichi would have been fast enough to avoid being
buried by *that*.

Unfortunately, it appeared as if Ranma's unusual luck had finally run
out. Midori had found it extremely difficult to record the battle.
Seeing the small black-haired neo-girl being blown out of the sky by
the Chinese prince's energy attack was bad enough, but having to watch
as her body was swept away, crushed, and buried under the massive
landslide was almost more than the kunoichi could stand. They had all
gotten quite attached to the boy-girl over the last year after the clan
had tracked him and his sorry excuse of a father down, but the
instructions given to her and her team had been extremely explicit;
they were to observe and report ONLY, and not to interfere under any
circumstances.

Well, there was no longer any danger in interfering now. Midori nodded
her thanks to Harukichi when the tiny ninja returned carrying Ranma's
pack and a flask of water. The other two members of her team appeared
shortly afterwards; none of the kunoichi were able to conceal the
somber look that graced all of their faces.
Midori gathered all of the film and cassettes from her team members
before taking their personal observations.

"Kioko?"

"Both Hibiki and Mu Se managed to unlock their curses during their
conflict with the two Musk bodyguards. Hibiki attempted to retrieve the
kettle when it fell into the crevasse. He did not emerge."

"Tsuya?"

"I'm fairly sure that the Musk warlord and his bodyguards perished in
the collapse of the mountainside. I know I took at least one photo that
show's Herb's body being crushed between two large boulders in the
collapse. The next several shots in the roll will have to be analyzed
in the lab in order to confirm this, of course."

"Harukichi?"

"I recovered Saotome-kun's traveling pack. I also managed to obtain a
sample of the kettle-water before the destruction of the original rock
formation. I cannot begin to hazard a guess as to whether or not it
will be effective in unlocking the curse once our cousin's body has
been recovered."

Trust Harukichi to be the one to actually voice the thought shared by
all.

Obaasan was not going to be pleased with these latest events. Midori
pulled out a small voice recorder and added a few of her own
observations before giving the microcassette, film, and videotapes to
Harukichi for transport. She instructed the diminutive ninja to deliver
the package to Obaasan in person; this was too important to leave to the
sometimes-lengthy and erratic scheduling of the normal courier delivery
system. She then disbursed the remaining team members to continue
observing the area and settled down to await further instructions.

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

It was dark when Ranma next awoke. He was tired, he ached absolutely
everywhere, and it felt like he was buried under a half ton of rocks.

{{That is a reasonably fair assessment of your current situation,
Ranma.}}

"Huh?!" Confused, Ranma tried to look around for the source of the
voice. He was hampered considerably in this attempt by both the
darkness and the large quantity of rocks and debris that had him almost
completely buried. "Who's there?"

{{You are the only being present in your locality at the moment. I am ...a
considerable distance from your current position.}}

Great. He was back to hearing voices again. Must of gotten busted up
worse than he actually felt.

{{I am quite real, Ranma Saotome. Your recollection of your recent
injuries and our subsequent agreement are accurate.}} The voice had
assumed a slightly testy edge to it with this statement.

Ranma didn't know what was more disturbing; that he was hearing a voice
out of nowhere, or that he could understand *all* of the voice's
vocabulary.

"If you aren't actually here, how come I can hear you talkin' just
fine?"

{{We are communicating telepathically through the same link that was
used to forge the partial bond that now exists between us. This
occurred when I insured your continuation in this place of existence.}}

Although Ranma could somehow now understand all of the words he was
'hearing', it still took him a moment to grasp the meaning of his
phantom companion's replies.

"So, you're saying you just saved my life, and that somehow you're
talkin' directly in my mind?"

Ranma blinked as he heard the phantom voice sigh. {{A rather simplistic
but fairly accurate summation, Ranma.}}

"OK." Ranma really wasn't all that concerned over talking to a voice
that came out of nowhere. After all, it wasn't as if he hadn't
experienced stranger things. Just recently he'd had to deal with
several ghosts and spirits, including rescuing Shampoo from a
kidnapping ghost c-c-cat, dating a dying old man's astral projection,
and helping the spirit of a school headmistress who wanted her panties
stolen of all things. All of these odd adventures had made him fairly
blas� when it came to accepting the paranormal.

{{I would suggest that you turn your attention to the task of
extricating yourself from your present predicament. While I am able to
temporarily supply your body with energy as a substitute for liquids
and sustenance, I can do little to affect the state of the total air
supply that is in your location.}}

"Yeah, that's prob'bly a good idea."

The complete lack of illumination indicated that he was underground in
a cavern or air pocket of some sort, a situation he was also familiar
with. When he was nine years old, his father had dug a deep pit, wedged
a couple of boards over his head to give him a small air pocket, and
the proceeded to bury him ten feet underground using a mix of large
rocks, gravel, and dirt as fill over the hole. He'd had to learn how to
create his own 'moving air pocket' while tunneling his way straight up
to escape. The training continued, going progressively deeper and
deeper until he had learned how to escape from being buried under more
than thirty feet of rock. It looked like that old avalanche training
was going to be quite useful now.

He tried to move various parts of his body around to gauge how firmly
he was trapped. His legs and lower torso were wedged firm, as was his
entire right side. He was able to move his left arm and shoulder around
a bit, and after some considerable effort Ranma was able to free his
entire left arm. The first thing he did on getting a free hand was to
reach behind his head and gently work his pigtail loose; it *hurt*
having his hair pulled like that every time he moved his head.

Damn, it was dark. Ranma needed at least a rough idea of the airspace
he was working in, so he'd just have to chance using some of his ki to
illuminate the immediate area for a brief moment. He couldn't use much
or he'd risk running out at a critical time later on.

{{Ranma, there is no need for you to conserve the use of your ki. The
partial link between us is capable of supplying you with more life
force than you can safely channel at the moment; there is no danger of
you 'running out' of ki for the duration of this task.}}

Ranma's eyes widened at this comment. Not run out of ki? Man, *that*
would certainly help; especially since his female form was not as
strong as his normal one. He could use the Amagurikan full out once he
started tunneling up.

The thought that he was still stuck as a girl, possibly permanently,
was quickly and very firmly suppressed. He'd just have to deal with
that later, once he was no longer half buried underground.

Ranma let out his battle aura, finding it was ridiculously easy to do.
He was also surprised to discover that his aura was no longer colored
blue or red but rather glowed a soft even white; indicating that he was
using pure ki. He wondered briefly if this 'link' between him and
whatever-it-was was responsible for this new change, then the thought
was quickly forgotten as he got his first good look at his
surroundings.

He was in BIG trouble.

Ranma was buried in the side of a small, irregularly shaped cavern that
was roughly twenty feet in diameter and less than four feet in height.
The roof of the apparent air pocket appeared to be a flat spot on the
bottom of one HUGE boulder. This was great, JUST great. He was going to
have to guess which way would be the best to go in order to get out
from under the mass of the boulder overhead.

First, however, he needed to get himself loose from being embedded in
the side wall of the cavern.

Carefully, he started to gently clear the gravel and dirt from around
his shoulders and upper torso with his one free arm. He was wedged at
an angle in the side of the cavern wall, so he was going to have to
clear enough rubble so he could first get his other arm free. His
trapped right side was 'down', which made things a bit more
challenging. Even more fun was that fact that his shirt had apparently
not survived the fight intact, which meant he couldn't use the sleeve
fabric to help slip his trapped arm through the rubble. The firm
pressure on both sides of his right elbow indicated that it was
probably wedged between a couple of large rocks, and his arm was buried
almost straight down underneath him, a good foot away from his torso.
Peachy.

An hour later, Ranma had managed to clear most of the dirt and rubble
from around his upper torso. He was also sore, scratched and bruised,
dirty, and QUITE irritable; it seemed that every time he scraped some
dirt or rocks from around his shoulders or breasts, a small and sudden
stream of dirt let loose from directly overhead and hit him in the hair
or eyes. Each time this happened he had to stop and feel around him to
make sure the walls weren't about to collapse on him any further. He'd
gotten his right arm uncovered to the elbow when he hit the first of
many medium sized stones.

This is taking way too long.

{{You are wise in taking care to avoid further shifting of the earth
surrounding you, Ranma. The stability of the immediate landscape is not
great.}}

"Yeah, I kinda noticed that." He spent the next quarter hour trying to
dig out the rocks from around his arm.

Ranma was getting really pissed at the rock partially pinning his right
elbow; he couldn't seem to get any sort of grip on it or find a ridge
he could use to pry it out with, and the other rocks next to it helped
to keep it stuck in place. Time for a little brute force; he powered up
his left arm and fist with ki and did a credible imitation of a
jackhammer.

"Hey, you got a name or somethin' I can call you?" - WHAM WHAM WHAM
WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM - "I'm gonna look" - WHAM WHAM WHAM -
"pretty stupid" - WHAM WHAM WHAM - "callin' out" -WHAM WHAM *CRACK!* -
"'bout time! ... 'Hey You' every time we ... uhhn! ... need to talk."

{{Once you have fully assumed your position as Guardian, there will be
no need for you to vocalize your thoughts in order to communicate with
me. You are welcome to use any convenient designation that you choose
when addressing me.}}

With the rock that was holding his elbow pulverized into gravel, Ranma
now had a little leverage he could use. He cleared out the rubble and
dug in around his forearm, rocking it back and forth to help loosen the
dirt around it. He grunted again in pain as he finally managed to pull
his right arm completely free. "Still, you gotta have *some* sorta
name. What did your last guardian call you?"

Ranma heard the voice sigh in sorrow. {{Unfortunately, my last Guardian
stopped communicating with me over a millennium ago. Ranma, I am not a
'he' or a 'she' as you know the terms; rather, I am an 'it', a 'thing'.
I am an Artifact, a tool constructed so long ago that not even I have a
recollection of my own creation. The term in your language that comes
the closest to describing what I am is 'Eien no Mon'.}}

"Eternal Gate?" Ranma replied as he tried to rub some feeling back into
his abused right wrist and hand. "Well, how 'bout I call you Eiko
then?" Ranma carefully studied the wall he was in. "Y'know, I *may* be
able to just quickly pull myself out once I dig out enough of this wall
to clear my hips; somethin's gotta be proppin' things up under there,
or I would'a been crushed pretty flat by now."

With both hands now free, Ranma was able to clear the rocks and dirt
from his waist down to his hips fairly quickly. He was still getting
nailed in the eyes with falling dirt on a regular basis, and his hands
and arms were now so caked with moist dirt, gravel, and blood that any
attempt to use them to wipe his face would have left more dirt behind
than it cleared. He'd just have to cope in the meantime.

Ranma felt the sides of the small tunnel he'd cleared in the wall in
the area next to his hips.  His body was starting to feel the strains
of holding himself extended out sideways, with his embedded legs his
only support. He was having trouble finding a place to push against
that wouldn't simply crumble when force was applied, and he knew if he
didn't extract himself on the first try it was very likely that the
wall of the small tunnel he'd already cleared would collapse on itself
and bury him back into the wall.

Damn, he wasn't able to find any solid purchase to push against near
his hips.  This was both good and bad; good because it meant that the
soil around his lower torso wasn't as densely packed as it could be and
the likelihood of him pulling himself out successfully was fairly high,
and bad because the chances of the wall collapsing further once he
started the effort were also reasonably high. He felt the walls in the
area around his head and shoulders before coming to a decision.

Just going to have to chance it.

He pushed his ki into his hands and arms again and held both hands in a
stiff knife edge. Cocking his elbows back as far as the cramped space
would allow, he closed his eyes and jabbed both hands out into the
sides of the tunnel wall near his shoulders like hammered pitons. Using
the newly created handholds Ranma pulled as hard as he could.

For a long and agonizing moment, nothing happened.

As Ranma pushed more ki into his arms and upper body, he felt a sudden
shift in the earth next to left knee. This was accompanied immediately
by a small pop and a spray of dirt and debris as the strength of
Ranma's pull ejected him forcibly from the wall into the main cavern
chamber. He rolled and tumbled uncontrollably to an awkward stop as his
numbed legs refused to work.

"OW!"

Ranma rolled onto his back and laid there, twitching and gasping, until
his muscles recovered from the extreme stress he'd just put them
through. The painful but trivial pins and needles feeling in his legs
told him that no serious damage had been done to his lower torso, and
the sharp feeling of rocks and extreme cold along his entire backside
indicated that none of his clothing has survived his current ordeal.
This was going to make the trip 'up' rather painful.

"The life of a martial artist is fraught with peril."

Ranma chuckled softly as he repeated his pop's favorite mantra. It was
about the only thing his father had taught him that had turned out to
be consistently true throughout their adventures. Everything else
seemed to depend upon the current state of the panda's stomach.

Ranma sat up suddenly, narrowly avoiding clonking his head against the
low ceiling of the small cavern. The tingling in his legs had subsided
to the point where he could move them around without much pain, and the
air in the small cavern was starting to get stale. It was definitely
time to go.

"Hey, Eiko! Got any clue as to which is the best way up?"

{{I'm sorry, Ranma. Now that a link has been established between us, I
am no longer able to scan the area independently on my own.}}

Ranma frowned at this unexpected development. "Why's that?"

{{It is just the manner in which our powers were designed, and one of
many reasons why it is vitally important that I always have a companion
Guardian. I hear what you hear, I see what you see, I feel and sense
only what you do. Outside of knowing everything surrounding my
immediate physical location, my ability to perform sensory scans is
limited to what my Guardian is able to perceive.}}

Ranma tried to imagine what it would be like to live while never having
control over what he saw and heard and felt; always being a 'passenger'
just along for the ride.

"Man, that really sucks."

Ranma felt Eiko shrug. {{It just is, Ranma. Do you bemoan your inability
to see the sound of a cricket's chirp, or to feel the color purple?
Neither do I. I am, however, probably more adept at interpreting the
data from your own senses than you are at the present moment. For
example, if you were to extend your ki into the walls of the cavern
around you, I should be able to rather quickly compute an optimal
egress point and path for you to take.}}

Once again Ranma found himself struggling to comprehend the meaning of
statement just relayed. When he finally understood, he slapped his
forehead in disgust as he realized that he was just sitting there doing
nothing.

"OK, one ki scan coming up. You're goin' to have to show me how you do
this trick; all I get when I try an' scan the ground is a really heavy
feelin'." Ranma smiled at his feeble joke as he crawled over to the
wall opposite the point where he had been stuck. Reaching a hand out to
touch the side of the cavern, he closed his eyes and pushed his ki into
the earth itself, trying to feel a way through the rocks and rubble.

{{Please move about ten feet to your left and try again.}}

"How's that?"

{{Another ten feet to your left, Ranma.}}

Ranma sighed as he was directed from point to point around the cavern
until he had scanned the entire circumference. When he completed the
circuit Eiko positioned him about 12 feet to the left of his original
starting point.

"Hey, it's pretty tight right here."

{{Here is the most optimal path I can find for you according to the data
collected. Push your ki up into the top of the cavern wall at about a
seventy-five degree angle, and I will point out the path that you will
need to take.}}

Ranma closed his eyes as he pushed his ki into the earth. A mental
picture began to form in his mind of the ground above him, with a
bright green path marking the proper tunnel to make; twisting and
turning its way around various boulders on its way out.

{{This is the least convoluted path I could find that did not involve
the certainty of collapse while you were creating the tunnel. You are
approximately twenty-seven feet underground from this point. The path,
however, is about thirty-nine linear feet in length due to the number
of obstructions that must be avoided.}} One of the rocks in the picture
suddenly glowed red. {{This rather large boulder appears to be in a
keystone position. You must avoid undercutting it or allowing it to
shift in any way; otherwise the entire side face of the hillside will
collapse down around you before you can finish extricating yourself.
Most of the additional length of the pathway is due to the requirement
of avoiding this event.}}

{{Ranma, this is going to seriously push your limits on your ability to
control your ki. Besides using it to augment your physical speed and
strength, you are also going to have to shut down your respiratory
system to a bare minimum to conserve what little available oxygen there
is in your moving tunnel and to avoid ingesting large amounts of dirt
and dust into your lungs. In addition, you will also need to project a
portion of your ki into the walls ahead of you so that I can continue
to assist in guiding you in your path, and you will need some for the
illumination required for your immediate locality.}}

"Hey, is that all? Nooooooooo problem!" Ranma replied with a smirk, a
portion of his natural cockiness resurfacing now that the action was
about to begin. He gathered up his ki, took a deep breath, and yelled
out one of his favorite battle cries.

"KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!"

Hands flying, he very quickly became too busy to think.

==========================================================================

============================================================
Mark Shurtleff
email: gaijin@sfcmd.com
irc alias: Gaijin -or- togashi_gaijin
============================================================


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