This is going to RAAC at the end of this week, so please let me know if 
you have any more comments.  Thanks!

Ranma Monogatari
by Bridget Engman

based on characters created by Rumiko Takahashi
and on the Heian works "Genji Monogatari" and "Torikaebaya
Monogatari," plus whatever else I felt like using.

PART 4

     Koremitsu scurried down the hall after his lord.  This was
not good, not good at all.  Lord Ranma was simply not acting like
himself today.  Oh, he was not normally a tractable man, to be
sure.  His appetite was certainly healthy, and his anger at Aoi
was an everyday occurrence.  He spoke a bit strangely, asked a
few odd questions -- but even that was understandable, after a
night of his wife's attentions. (Koremitsu shuddered and muttered
a swift thanks to Kannon, goddess of mercy, that his own love-
life was relatively hammer-free.)  But now, Lord Ranma had done
something truly strange, almost unbelievable.
     He had gone out in public improperly attired.
     Well, to be truthful, his wife's house was not precisely
"public."  It would have been far, far worse to appear this way
at court.  But every time they passed a sliding door open to the
garden, or a maid on an errand, Koremitsu's face turned white in
mortification.  Lord Ranma's near-nudity not only shamed himself,
but also reflected badly on the judgment of his faithful
Koremitsu.  How could he?
     Perhaps Lord Ranma was possessed by a fox spirit.  Yes, that
must be it.  After all, no true man would ever exhibit himself
so.  Koremitsu had never before seen anyone possessed by a fox
spirit, but his mother's aunt's cousin, who served a lady on
Shijo street, claimed that a fox spirit had made her lady take
several of the caterpillars in the garden as pets.  Caterpillars! 
Could you believe it? (1)
     There had to be a way to exorcise the spirit.  Koremitsu
tried gasping out a prayer to Amida Buddha as he hurried down the
hall.  Hmmm... no good, it seemed.  Ranma didn't even slow down. 
He might have to call an expert...
     They were approaching the Lady Aoi's apartments now, and a
few of her ladies, warned by the commotion, came running out to
greet them.  Or at least that was likely their purpose until they
actually saw Ranma.  Some of them fainted in shock, and some ran
in the opposite direction, but one with a bit more presence of
mind fell right at Ranma's feet, clinging to his ankles and
begging him to take pity on the Lady Aoi.
     Koremitsu expected Ranma to continue on his way, dragging
the lady after him, but for some reason he stopped.  Koremitsu
was not one to pass up this opportunity, and he darted about in
front of Ranma and quickly fastened the robe, so at least Lord
Ranma was covered, if not by quite enough layers to be proper. 
Ranma, he noticed, was staring at the lady at his feet in
frustration.
     "What the heck are you doing?"  Ranma said in a voice that
made Koremitsu shiver.  The lady stared up at him with tearful
eyes.
     "Please, my lord.  Please don't strike the Lady Aoi!  Think
of the child."
     Koremitsu could have sworn the expression that crossed
Ranma's face was shock, though it faded quickly to an even
stronger anger.
     "Look, I DO NOT HIT GIRLS!"  Ranma snarled at the woman on
the floor.  "And you're not going to stop me from seeing Akane,
so just LEGGO!"  The lady let go of his ankles and Ranma
continued on his way.
     Akane?  What was he talking about?  Koremitsu shrugged and
returned the way he had come.  No matter.  Now that his lord was
clothed and ensconced with his wife, he wouldn't need his servant
again that night, and Koremitsu needed sleep.  A great deal of
sleep.


***

     Ranma stood in the center of the drapery-hung room without
any clear idea of how he had gotten there, or where exactly he
was.  He only knew that he was going to give Akane a piece of his
mind.  And she wasn't there, where he somehow knew she was darn
well supposed to be.  The room was empty except for a single
figure that sat at one edge of the room writing with a brush and
ink.  The woman looked up at Ranma, her eyes narrowed in
speculative amusement.
     "Where is she?"  Ranma growled in frustration.
     "Out in the garden," the woman replied calmly, setting her
brush down and watching him intently.  "She needed to relax a
bit."
     "Thanks, Nabiki," he muttered as he stalked out on to the
gravel path.  The woman frowned in thought as he left, then
returned to her writing, beginning a new sheet of paper and
glancing after Ranma now and then.
     Ranma stalked down the path, growing angrier with each step. 
Where was she?  Then he heard it.
     *hiss* >thwack!< "Baka!"
     *hiss* >thwack!< "Baka!"
     He followed the curving path around to the left, in the
direction of the sounds.  Rounding a huge gingko tree, he 
saw the target.  A small metal ring a few inches in diameter hung
from a tree branch; a young girl stood a few feet to one side
holding a handful of arrows, her wide eyes fixed on the shining
ring.  As Ranma watched, another arrow hissed through the air,
passed through the ring without moving it more than a hair, and
lodged in the trunk of the tree.  "Baka!"  The young girl pulled
the latest arrow out of the tree and scampered out of Ranma's
line of sight.
     Ranma followed the young girl, fists clenched at his side. 
A few steps further along the path, and there she was, the
setting sun glowing about her.  She was drawing back another
arrow, her body at an awkward angle.  Blue silk sleeves
embroidered with white cranes were bound up out of her way, and
the rich train of her robes flowed dramatically behind her.  Her
hair, reaching nearly to her ankles, was bound in a loose
ponytail by a strip of white paper about halfway down her back;
the sun's rays turned the glistening black to a fiery red.  As
Ranma watched, she knit her eyebrows in concentration and let her
arrow fly.  "Baka!"  She reached over to get another arrow from
the page.
     Then she saw Ranma.  For a moment he thought that she might
loose her next arrow at him, but with a jerk of her head she
handed her bow to the page, who turned and skipped away.  Aoi
whirled back and stomped awkwardly in Ranma's direction.
     He was frozen in place, watching her.  He had forgotten
about the hair.  And the clothes.  And above all the stomach. 
His fury churned around inside him in confusion, looking for an
outlet.  Then he remembered:  he was acting.  He was here in his
role as Aoi's husband to chastise her.  Fury was in character. 
That was a good thing; by now he was too worked up to let it go. 
So where to begin?
     As he pondered his opening move, Aoi treated him to a
preemptive slap.  That made the decision much easier.
     "How dare you show up here after insulting me so?" she
hissed, eyes blazing.  
     "_I_ insulted _you_?  All I did was write you a poem."  Good
opening sally, shifting the blame where it belonged.
     "Don't lie to me!  That was not your handwriting!  For all I
know, you had Koremitsu write it!"  Aoi brushed past Ranma and
started stomping up the path.  Ranma followed, grabbing her arm.
     "What, you want me to write you another poem right now?  If
you watch me write it, will you believe me?"  
     Aoi glared pointedly at his hand on her arm, then shook it
off.  "Don't bother!  I've had enough of your tricks.  Besides, I
wouldn't want to strain you too much, since it took you _all day_
to write just the one poem."  Her voice oozed skepticism.
     "What else would I have been doing?"   
     "I'm sure you had no trouble finding someone to pass the
time with."  She pulled her robe closer about her and whirled
away again.
     "Hey, Koremitsu was with me the whole time.  He can prove
it."
     Aoi stopped in her tracks, her back stiff and unyielding. 
"Koremitsu would lie a hundred times for you.  Who did you visit
today?  That hussy at the Reikeiden Court?"  Her voice was low
and bitter.
     "Look, I already told you I didn't visit anyone!"  
     Aoi sniffed, her head turning just enough for Ranma to see
the curve of her cheek past her sweep of hair.  "That's what you
always say.  But the entire court knows about your women.  You
lecher."
     "Like you're one to talk."  Ranma growled.
     Aoi spun and stomped back to glare into his face.  "And just
what is _that_ supposed to mean?"  Her eyes narrowed.
     "I'm talking about your good buddy Saisho."  He watched in
grim satisfaction as she drew herself up indignantly.  "What, is
that a sore point?  Has he been neglecting you lately?"
     Another slap on the cheek, this one hard enough to send him
spinning.  "Why are you bringing that up again?  I have told you
a hundred times that Saisho and I have nothing between us!  Why
won't you believe me?"
     Ranma stood up straight and stared meaningfully into her
tear-streaked face.  "Why don't you believe me?"  She had no
answer to that, and for a moment there was silence.  The sun
began to vanish beyond the garden wall, its light turing the
tears on Aoi's face to gold.  Then she lifted her head a notch
higher.
     "Why should I believe the words of a liar?"
     "Who's a liar?"
     "I'm looking at one right now."  She was shouting again.
     "What, you've got a mirror?"
     "Why, you... You jerk!"  Aoi was glowing blue.  Ranma knew
what that meant.  He braced himself for the hammerblow.
     He was more than a little bit surprised when she kissed him
instead.
     Ranma froze.  She was pressed tightly against him, her arms
wound around his neck; there was no escape, even if he
had had any strength to do so.  It occurred to him, in that small
part of his brain that wasn't paralyzed, that he had never been
kissed by Akane before -- at least, not a kiss that counted.  But
then, this one probably didn't count either.
     Because, of course, this wasn't really Akane.
     That's right, Akane would never kiss him.  She'd be more
likely to kick him for even thinking of it.  Right in the
stomach...
     As if on cue, he felt a tiny thump just under his ribcage. 
     Aoi stepped back, one hand caressing her rounded abdomen as
she smiled shyly up at Ranma.  "Your son wants to fight, too..."
she said quietly, looking up at him through her eyelashes.
     Ranma was aghast.  This was just not right.  He was supposed
to be crushed into the gravel by now.  Instead he was staring at
this woman so like Akane as she spoke of their son.  Their son.
     As he stood there in shock, Aoi reached out, took his hand,
and held it to her stomach.
     "There," she whispered.
     Beneath his hand, he felt the thump of another kick. Despite
himself, he smiled at the wonder of it.  Babies were another
thing he knew absolutely nothing about, but there was something
about that kick...
     "Hey, squirt," he said gruffly.  "Don't you know you're not
supposed to beat up on girls?"
     Aoi laughed.  "Listen to your father!  Always the idealist." 
She winced as another kick shook her.
     Somehow, "idealist" was not a word Ranma expected to hear
describing the man whose life he was leading.  He frowned in
thought.
     "Don't look so worried, my lord."  Aoi's voice was
reassuring.  "Weaker women than I survive childbirth every day." 
Ranma opened his mouth to tell her that wasn't what he was
concerned about, then closed it again.  It would take too much
explaining.
     Aoi turned to walk back towards her rooms.  A few feet away,
she paused and turned back.

          "Soaked in misery,
          I thought to forget my love
          No matter the cost.
          And yet the hint of a dream
          Revives my old hopes anew." (2)
     
     She recited it in a low voice that barely reached Ranma's
ears, then smiled abashedly.  "You wanted a reply to your poem. 
Very well, I have given you one."
     She closed the distance between them, took his hands, and
led him down the path, as gentle now as she had been violent a
moment before.  "Come, my lord.  By now my ladies will have
prepared our dinner."  She smiled wryly.  "I assume they saw you
coming?"
     Ranma nodded absently and followed her back to her rooms. 
Food.  Yes, food was something he could depend on.  He would
think about food.  Everything else was just too confusing.
     

***


     Ranma lay in the darkness, Aoi's head pillowed on his
shoulder.  The moon shone in through the open shutters, the scene
eerily echoing his experience of the night before; the only other
light came from a small incense burner in the corner, which Aoi
had lit before bed.  She had smiled shyly and thanked him for the
gift of incense.  He couldn't say that he didn't remember giving
it to her, that he wasn't really her husband.  So he had nodded
in acknowledgment and allowed her to light it, even though he
hated incense.  The burner glowed intensely, giving off a scent
of sandalwood and cedar and something else he could not identify.
     He couldn't sleep.  Not just because of the incense, either. 
The day's events whirled around in his head like scraps of paper
that he had to tape together into some sort of clue.  
     He knew approximately where he was, who he was, and what
sort of situation he was in.  At least, he knew enough to get by. 
He prided himself on his ability to adapt quickly to anything
life threw at him -- a side-effect of a life on the road with his
father, he supposed.  His reflexes had to be quick, his instincts
honed to razor-sharpness if he was going to get his fair share of
food.  No, getting by would not be a problem.
     But the questions he could not answer were eating away at
him.  How had he gotten where he was?  Certainly he hadn't eaten
anything that could possibly be magical.  No spells or mystic
jewelry either.  No, he had just been bashed on the head and
ended up here.  And he was convinced by now that this was no
dream.  He had never had a dream like this before.
     The worst thing, the thing which nagged at him so that he
could not sleep, was the question of why.  Why was he here?  He
couldn't get it out of his head that there was some purpose for
his presence.  Maybe he was just imagining things because the
situation was so strange, but his instincts, when it came to
danger at least, were never wrong.  And he sensed danger.  Danger
seemed to curl around him like smoke, and his nerves were on
edge.
     He tried to remember his dream, the one with the cherry
blossoms.  The Akane in that dream had been wrong, too.  The hair
again.  In his dream, Akane's hair had swept her shoulders. 
Aoi's hair was incredibly long -- she had probably never cut it;
the real Akane had a short, boyish cut.  Why had he dreamed of
shoulder-length hair?  And what had she said?  "In a way, it is
already too late for me....  You are the only hope I have."  Hope
for what?
     There had been something about him too.  Ranma knit his
eyebrows, staring at the dark ceiling.  "...In a way, you and he
are one.  But he cannot help me now, and perhaps you can."  He? 
Could that be Lord Ranma, the person whose life he was leading? 
How could they be one?  And why would Aoi need his help?  It had
to be Aoi, he decided, or he would not be in the past.
     He closed his eyes and must have dozed off, for the next
thing he remembered was looking up at Aoi as she stood above him. 
Her hair was shoulder-length again, and she glowed faintly;
glowing white flower petals seemed to wink into existence to fall
about her.  She gazed at him with a somber look in her eyes.
     <A dream again...> he thought wildly.  He looked to his side
and saw Aoi still curled there, one arm wrapped protectively
about her stomach.  The apparition leaned down and shook him
roughly.
     "Be alert!" she commanded, her voice hard with fear.  "She
comes tonight!"
     "Who comes?"  Ranma said.  The apparition opened her mouth
to answer, then turned her head to look out the window.  The
shower of flower petals turned into a torrent, and then the
vision was gone.  Ranma stood up and ran to the shutters, looking
out.   He saw nothing.  No movement, other than the slight
shifting of trees in the breeze.
     <Just a dream.> he assured himself.  <A dream brought on by
stress. I thought of her before I fell asleep, and so I dreamed
of her.  That makes sense.>  He turned away from the window with
a relieved sigh.
     There was a figure kneeling beside Aoi.
     He ran over and reached for the figure's shoulder.  "Hey,
what do you think you're doing?  Get away from her!"  But Ranma's
hand passed through the figure with only a slight sensation of
cold.  As he watched in shock, the figure grasped Aoi's shoulders
and shook her, violently.  Aoi moaned faintly, her face contorted
in pain.
     He tried to grab the figure again, to pull it away from Aoi,
but again his hands passed through.  If he couldn't touch it, how
could he stop it?  He threw a punch, then a kick.  All
ineffective.
     Mind racing, he began to focus his energy.  If blows didn't
work, maybe his Mouko Takabisha would.  The glowing ball of
energy that formed between his hands illuminated the figure
somewhat, revealing it to be... a woman?  
     He paused, and in that moment the figure stood and turned to
look at him.  The woman's black hair whirled across her face,
flowing endlessly into the darkness with her black robe, and he 
couldn't see enough of her face to recognize her.  As the figure 
vanished, he was left with nothing but an impression of two things.  
     One was a crest, which shone white against the darkness. 
Six butterflies, their wings interlocked in a circle, with a
diamond in the center.
     The other was the expression on that obscured face.
     An expression of utter anguish. 
     Ranma sank to the floor beside Aoi, staring into the space
where the figure had last been.

END PART 4

NOTES

(1) Apparently someone could.  There is a Heian tale about a girl
like this, which appears in Donald Keene's Anthology of Japanese
Literature as "The Girl Who Loved Vermin."  I like the recent
children's book version "The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars" better,
but it's a modern interpretation.

(2) From Kokinshu 569, a poem by Fujiwara Okikaze.


bengman           *"Nanika kuwasero, tonikaku kuwasero, zenbu kuwasero! 
Bridget E. Engman * Demae mo ii ze! Henshin shichau to yubi ga futosugite,
b-engma@students. * Pizza no chuumon sae mo denwa dekinai!"
   uiuc.edu       *   ---Wan Dabada, "Can't Stop Eatin'"