Prelude 1.

	Pain and numbing fear. These were the first sensations that told her
she was waking once more, rising yet again from the soothing, gentle oblivion
she had prayed at the end would take her at last, carrying her far from the
ruin that was her nearly shattered heart and the terror that she alone of them
seemed still able to endure.
	Another scream, and mingled with it the terrifying, screaming laughter
of their captor.
	`Mousse.' She thought with a numb helpless detachment. Shampoo would
follow, Mousse so drained and broken that he could do nothing save to watch and
whimper as she was tormented yet again. Then would come Ukyou. Ryoga was
already dead, an all too easy task once he had been trapped in his cursed form,
and she was lost, her madness divided between pleading for forgiveness from his
soul and the near witless screaming for her Ran-chan somehow to find her.
	Then would come Tofu. Kasumi, mercifully, had died during the
beginning, incredibly, admirably stoic and silent in the face of pain and
terror that had had the man once destined to be her husband screaming and
nearly witless for release, although not, at least then, pleading for his own
life and soul. Perhaps, with the last vestige of what had once been a mind
capable of humanity or compassion, with the last tiny flicker of a soul once
able to understand warmth and laughter and emotion other than the twisted,
sickening perversion of demonic amusement and appetite, their captor had spared
her the agony that seemed to stretch back in her own mind into nightmare eons
beyond imagination or recall. She prayed still that it might somehow be so. Who
next? Tatawaki. He would rave again, his mind already shattered and broken,
ranting in imbecilic madness of the glory of his sacrifice for his two loves
and the splendour of the celebrations upon the day when they should understand
at last the fullness of his triumph, when they would be freed from the accursed
Saotome and be his own until the uttermost end of time.
	She would cry then, listening to his madness, then to the screams and
her maniacal laughter as the pain tore at last and temporarily through the
protective insanity that held him as ferociously as any chain or bond, her
heart breaking again and yet again as she understood too late how impossibly,
desperately brave and faithful he had proved at the very last, before the final
shattering of his pride and with it, his soul and mind.
	"Oh my Ranma," She would whimper, almost silently, not ashamed to cry
whilst alone, pain more than any terror their tormenter could give tearing at
the very fabric of her being. "oh Ranma forgive him. He understood, if only a
little and for a moment. Oh my love, my life, forgive us all."
	Of the others she could not bare to think. Genma, bound now as had been
Ryoga in his cursed form, a shattered mindless ruin of the man he had been,
having long lost all power of thought and reason, would roar and howl in
witless agony for the little time their captor still troubled to spend in his
torment, after all, he gave her little sport now, less even than his life-long
friend whilst he had yet lived. At Genma's breaking, Soun had retreated
swiftly, his last hope lost, into memories of his wife and the three daughters
he had once had, when such an end as this was beyond all save the darkest
madness of nightmare. His end too, mercifully, had been swift.
	Nabiki would be last, before herself of course, her own torture
exquisite and prolonged, the screams and pleading in the cell next to her own
and the laughing wild words of her tormenter seeming to freeze her very soul
and heart while she fought desperately to hold only to the rage and the hatred,
praying to whatever gods still might hear her that her Ranma might somehow
still escape the crystal into which Cologne, desperate for a last trump to play
against the darkness, had sealed him ere her own and Happosai's death during
the final assault, for his protection and their own.
	The dungeon was bitterly cold. She shivered, trying even in her bonds
to curl about herself, desperate for what little warmth she might still gain.
She could not stand much more, she knew this. The others were already all but
broken, pale quivering shadows of what they had been. Only Ryoga through sheer
physical endurance and the love for Ukyou he had found in the last bitter days
before his end, and herself, her faith in Ranma a bright, shining thing that no
pain or torment could break, had shown any real resistance, and now, so utterly
alone, only she was still aware and rational enough to fight with what little
remained to her. If she broke her, if she shattered at last the last of the
souls by which Cologne had bound the crystal, then Ranma was her's, mind and
soul, her's in absolution and forever, and with his taking would end all hope
for what remained of the physical world and the broken fragments of humanity
that yet fought against the horror of the things from the darkness that had
come to claim them, world and souls. With that, her power, her triumph would be
complete.
	She shivered again. Mousse's screams had ceased, dying to pitiful
whimpers before he fell at last into sounds beyond the reach of her ears. For a
long moment there was silence, then suddenly there came the echoing boom of the
sealing of his cell. She waited, knowing that Shampoo's savage, maniacal
screaming would soon begin, but instead she heard the sudden wild peel of
malicious, demonic laughter and a moment later the sound of approaching
footfalls.
	Terror leapt in her. She *never* changed her routine. Not once since
their capture had it altered. Each was tormented, the torment at first for
their benefit, then, as each broke, for that of those remaining as much as for
her own pleasure, but now the footfalls drew nearer until at last they halted
at the cell beside her own. The door opened, then the voice purred, soft and
silkily warm:
	"Awake my precious. A little play, for a while, and for her benefit
until I tire of you. A little pleading, just a little at first that she might
understand what will happen to her this time should she not choose to submit,
to bind her soul to mine."
	Then the screams began. She did not listen. She had learned to shut out
the worst of the horror. She waited, curiously astounded that she could pick
the moment the torture would end with such precision, counting down the seconds
with a numb, frigid detachment until the last screams had died to tiny
whimpers, then at last to silence.
	"Still just a little fire I see." The voice purred again. "A fine
struggle. What price for your release I wonder? After all, you are already
mine. Shall we bargain Nabiki? Shall I name a price, a payment in pain perhaps,
or in blood and soul? Come, you were always more than willing. Perhaps a dream,
a fantasy of the wealth and power you shall never have? A moment with your
poor, mad Kuno-chan perhaps?"
	Abruptly there came another scream of wild depraved laughter. Nabiki
did not answer. She would be passed responding for the moment, she knew that.
	For seconds that seemed to stretch to eternity, the laughter continued.
Then abruptly there was a crack, another tiny whimper, then the door crashed
closed once more and the footfalls drew near. It was time. Fighting down the
fear with a strength born of rage and desperation, she dragged herself erect,
facing the door that would be in a moment flung aside, gathering what will and
courage remained to her to face the pain and horror that would soon begin once
more. Then the door crashed open and the thing that had once been a girl stood
before her. For what seemed a timeless moment both appeared frozen, she staring
at the creature of nightmare, the blazing blue-black hair wild and lifted as
though with some inner power, the red blood-covered lips parted in a vicious
smile of demonic triumph and anticipation. Then the thing that had once been
Akane Tendo moved towards her and Kodachi Kuno began to scream.

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Notes:
	Ok, I know this needs a deal of work, however I hope at least that its
ending was a little startling?  The demon should have been recognised overtly
as Kodachi and the girl in the dungeon as Akane until that point, although I
would like some subtle indications as to each's identity from the beginning
without giving anything away but to those really on their toes.  Also, should I
have included akari's fate?  There seems to be little known about her and she
really does seem to be something of a strange character, but I'm really sick of
seeing Ryoga paired with Ukyou simply because it's convenient to get them
paired (and therefore out of the way).