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 Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Hi.  This is not my first fanfic, but it is my first attempt at
posting something to the FFML... due to the limitations of
Hotmail, I am unable to subscribe to the FFML, so if any C&C
could please be directed to me privately at my e-mail address,
I'd be grateful.  I'm posting this fic in the hope that I can have
comments on it to help me make it as good as possible before
posting it to RAAC, so any comments are not only encouraged but
very much appreciated.  

Chapter 3 : Divided Duties (2/3)

     Then he slid the door open and was gone before she had a
chance to say any words of farewell herself.

     She picked up the broom from where it was propped against
the table and cradled it against the crook of her elbow before
she turned to address the silent listener she'd only noticed a
few seconds ago.

     "What you want, Mousse?"

     Mousse glided out silently from the kitchen, hands tucked
into the sleeves of his robe, coloured a blue so pale it was
almost white.  There was a slight whisper of the hem of his robe
against the cloth of his pants, but his slippered feet were
silent on the floor.  The bruise she'd given him over his eye
yesterday was already fading.

     "So, it's Ryoga as well now, is it Shampoo?" he asked in a
tired tone of voice.  A hand emerged from inside the sleeves of
his robe, slender fingers holding his glasses.  He put them on,
and the combination of where he stood and the light made one
lense opaque and the other clear; the effect was rather
disconcerting.

     "What you talking about?" Shampoo asked.

     Mousse shook his head, dark hair following his motion a
moment later before it fell back into place.  "When will you
realize the only one who cares for you is me, Shampoo?  I've
always loved you; I'll always love you."

     "I just talking to him," Shampoo said, not sure why she felt
the need to defend her actions.

     He took a few steps forward, and he was in front of her,
both his hands holding one of hers.  "Please, say you'll be mine
forever.  We can go back to the village together, and..."

     "Let go of hand."

     When he didn't, and opened his mouth to say more, Shampoo
brought the broom up and knocked his glasses off into the corner
of the room.  The blow wasn't hard, but Mousse released her hand
and touched his fingers to the cheek on the side she'd struck him
on.

     "Shampoo, I'm sorry, I only want to show you how much I love
you," he said slowly.  "I love you more than..."

     "I know you love me," Shampoo said, momentary anger draining
from her.

     "You do?" Mousse said.  "Then you understand?"

     "I always understand," she said quietly.  "Is just I not
love you.  That what you no understand."

     She watched his face fall, as it did every time she said
something like this.  Before she could see anymore, she swept 
past him, not wanting to face whatever words he might have.
She'd heard them all before anyway.

**********

     Breakfast was extremely uncomfortable for Ranma that
morning.  Everyone, from his father and mother to Akane, seemed
to be staring at him.  The gazes ranged from inquiring to
expectant, but he was definitely the centre of attention this
morning.

     "How come you spent the night on the roof, anyway?" Akane
asked.

     "Too hot inside," Ranma muttered into his rice bowl.

     "I guess the rain must've cooled you down then," Nabiki
quipped as she took delicate mouthfuls of her food.  "It must be
interesting, not knowing what gender you're going to wake up as,
huh Ranma?"

     "Nabiki," Kasumi said.  The tone was only gently chiding,
but it made Nabiki go silent and look away from her older sister.

     "I think it was Ranma's choice to sleep outside," Nodoka
said cheerfully.  "He has to make choices sometimes."

     Ranma winced and tilted his head down to examine intently
the pattern of wood grain in the table he was currently sitting
at.  He rapidly shovelled the last of his food into his mouth and
stood up.  "Well, that was great.  I've gotta go to school now."

     "But it's not time to leave yet," Akane said, pointing to
the hall clock.  "So why are you in such a rush?"

     "Hey, I don't wanna be late or nothin'," Ranma said,
grabbing up his bag from the floor.  "If you're not finished
breakfast, that's okay.  I'll see you there."

     "Hold on, I'll come with you," Akane said, putting her rice
bowl down.  "Nabiki, you wanna come too?"

     Nabiki shook her head and smiled slightly.  "No.  I wouldn't
want to cut in on your quality time with Ranma."

     Akane gave her sister a scowl no one else saw, and hurried
into the kitchen after Ranma.  He was already grabbing his bento
from the counter, and he tossed her the one Kasumi had made for
her as she entered.

     "You're in a hurry today," she said, tucking the bento into
her schoolbag as the two of them moved out to the front door and
left the house, heading down the path that led out and under the
large gate in the fence that separated the house and attached
dojo from the streets.  They passed under the gate, shaded for a
moment from the sun, and then they were out on the streets of
Nerima, which were rapidly filling with people.

     "Can't a guy want to be early for something for once?" Ranma
said irritably.

     "You want to be early for school?" Akane said.  "Give me a
break."

     She gave him a small, hesitant smile.  "I never got a chance
to thank you for hauling me out of the canal yesterday."

     "Shampoo did most of the hauling," Ranma said, looking away
at a flight of starlings wheeling in the air above his head.  "I
just kinda dived in after you."

     "Well, thanks," Akane said.  "I never even saw you after
that.  It was like you were avoiding me."

     "Had some stuff to think about," Ranma said guardedly.

     "Hmm?  What kind of stuff?" Akane asked.

     He mumbled something and trailed off.

     "I guess you just don't trust me," Akane sniffed, turning
her head away from him.

     "It's not that," Ranma said with a sigh.  "I've just got...
some decisions I have to make about things.  Stuff I should have
made up my mind about a long time ago."

     Akane's head swivelled back to him.  "What do you mean?"

     "Akane, are you happy?" Ranma asked suddenly.

     Akane blinked.  "Of course I'm happy.  I have my family, and
my friends, and I have..."

     She trailed off, cheeks flushing to a pale red.  "Why do you
care anyway?" she snapped after a moment.

     "I just wanted to know," Ranma said with a shrug.  "Are you
happy even with... all the other stuff?"

     "What other stuff?"

     "Ya know.  Monsters, princes, the other girls who want
me..." Ranma said.

     Akane snorted.  "Why should I care about other girls who
want you?"

     "Oh."

     A silence fell between them for a moment, before Akane spoke
again.  "Sometimes it bugs me.  All the weird stuff that started
happening ever since you came.  But I've got to say it makes life
more interesting..."

     She sighed.  "It scares me sometimes, though.  I..."

     She took a deep breath.  "When I had all the moisture
drained from me in China, you know, I don't remember anything.
Just my hands on the Kinjakan and then waking up in..."

     Again she trailed off, and again she blushed.

     "Waking up in what?" Ranma inquired.

     "Waking up in your arms," Akane said finally.  "And hearing
you say..."

     "Did I really say it?" Ranma wondered out loud before he
could stop himself.

     "I think you did," Akane said in a quiet voice.  "Maybe it
was just me hoping that-"

     She stopped speaking abruptly, and stepped away to one side,
realizing she'd been drifting gradually closer to him as they
talked.  The early-morning crowds were growing in volume, and
they'd be at school in a few minutes.

     "Hoping what?" Ranma asked softly.

     Akane swatted him lightly on the back with her schoolbag.
"Never mind," she growled.

     Ranma stepped in front of her and put his hands gently but
firmly on her shoulders, stopping the two of them in their
tracks in the middle of the streets.

     "Akane... if you could choose to get out of this engagement,
really get out of it, have our parents agree to it, would you?"
he asked, catching her dark eyes with his gaze and not letting
her look away.

     "What, do you mean you want to?" Akane snapped quickly,
though she could no more have torn her eyes from his than she
could have held back a tidal wave.

     "It doesn't matter what I want," Ranma said slowly.  "I've
got to know what you want."

     There was a long, drawn out silence between them, a tangled
moment that stretched into forever.  The crowds parted around
them, not paying any attention to the two of them.  The tang of
the early-morning rain still lingered vaguely in the air, an
aftertaste of sharp water carried on the gentle winds of dawn.

     "No," Akane said, and there was finality in it.  "No, no,
no, no, no."

     "Why?" Ranma said, and it was like a command.

     "Because... because..." Akane said.  "Because I don't know.
Because sometimes when I'm with you, just sometimes, when it's
just the two of us, I feel..."

     "You feel?"

     "I don't know how I feel," Akane said.  "I don't understand.
But I don't feel... I don't feel that way around anyone else.
And it feels so right."

     There was a shimmer in her eyes.  "Do you... would you break
it, Ranma?"

     Ranma looked into her eyes, and he smiled, and half-closed
his eyes because of a reason he did not know.  "Oh, Akane, never.
Never, never, never."

     A long, gentle sigh broke from Akane's lips, and as if it
were the most natural thing in the world, Ranma's hands drew her
closer with a gentle pressure on her shoulders, and her arms went
around his waist and held him, and his arms held her, one hand
stroking soft hair, holding her head against his shoulder, and he
felt, just a little through the fabric of his shirt, her hot
tears on his shoulder.  "Never, never, never, never, never."

     Around the embracing couple, the crowd parted like a single
river breaking into two different streams, to wind on two
different paths after being together for so long.

**********

     In a form that was not hers, Kima of Mount Phoenix took the
last step and stood again in the Heart of Jusendo, open to the
air after thousands of years of being within a mountain.  The
mountain was shattered now, by the hands of he who was her king
and the outsider.

     It was the afternoon now; it had been early morning when
she'd descended into the underground caverns through which the
groundwater vein that sourced both the Phoenix Mountain spring
and the springs at Jusenkyou flowed.  In the sky, the
high-swinging sun cast light among patches of shadow where it
shone through the holes in the shattered mountainside.

     The shuffle of his feet accompanied by the click of his
walking stick, Samofere came up behind her.  The blue flame in
the glass sphere on the end of the walking stick chose that
moment to sputter and die.

     Kima reached up with a human hand, with fingers softer than
the ones she was used to, and brushed at the dried tracks of
tears there on one cheek.  "Oh..." she said, as she stood in the
light of the sun again after hours underground.  "Oh, why,
why..."

     "Because it had to be done," Samofere said.  "Do you
understand now, Kima?"

     "Yes," Kima said slowly, wanting more than anything to pour
hot water on herself and feel the wind forced beneath her wings
again, wanting to fly again above the mountains and forget what
had been down there in the caverns, wanting not to understand
anything beyond the pure, beauteous simplicity of flight.  "Yes,
I understand."

     There was a racous beat of wings, and a black shape
fluttered down from where it had been perching on a rock spire a
hundred feet above.  Samofere held up his arm, and the bird
perched upon it for a moment before dropping a piece of
tightly-rolled parchment tied with string into Samofere's
outstretched hand.

     "Thank you, Shiso," Samofere said to the bird.  "Go and
visit with your brother now.  I will send for you shortly."

     The raven gave a bird's approximation of a nod, and flew
away through the huge hole in the ceiling of the chamber, a shape
so black as to seem almost a shadow against the bright blue sky.

     "What is that?" Kima asked, stepping up behind Samofere and
looking over his shoulder as he untied the string and unrolled
the parchment.

     "A message from an old friend," he said softly.  "I think
you met her when you were in Japan.  Her name is Khu Lon."

     "An old woman?  One of the Joketsuzoku?" Kima asked with a
frown.

     "Yes," Samofere said.

     "She was an enemy there," Kima said.  "She interfered with
our business."

     "As did Ranma," Samofere said quietly.  

     "The outsider is a different matter," Kima said stiffly.

     "You must stop thinking of him as that, Kima," Samofere
said.  "Or it may prove our undoing."

     Kima turned and headed away a few steps.  "I will heat water
to change back."

     Samofere sighed quietly and tucked the parchment away.  "I
will return the stone to the shape it held before."

     She heard him begin to sing softly as she began to build a
fire to heat the kettle on.  As before, when he'd made the steps
appear, there was no sound beyond him singing, as thousands of
tons of solid stone silently reshaped themselves in answer to
Samofere's song.

     The fire lit, she put the small kettle on top of it.
Finally, unable to contain it any longer, she put her face in the
unfamiliar, soft human hands, and quietly let herself weep, as
she had done in the caverns down below.  As she expected she
would do again before all this was done.

**********
     
     Later on, Ranma would reflect that it all really began to go
downhill at lunchtime.

     It started when he tried to talk to Ukyou.  She hadn't even
glanced at him throughout the two morning classes, and when the
lunch bell rang, she'd got up out of her seat quickly and exited
the classroom.  Akane had stuck around to talk to some of her
friends, and Ranma had darted out of class, giving her a small
smile that he didn't think she saw.

     He weaved his way through the crowds of students in the
halls until he found Ukyou taking a drink from a water fountain
near one of the side doors.  The tie on her ponytail was slightly
loose, spreading chestnut hair across her back in a small cape as
she bent over and drank.

     "Hey," he said quietly as he stepped up beside her.  She
glanced up and finished her drink quickly before standing upright
and looking evenly back at him.

     "Hey," she said hesitantly.  "How's Akane?"

     "She's fine," Ranma said.

     "Good," Ukyou said.  "Uhh... Are you still mad at me?"

     Ranma shook his head.  "Nahh.  You helped Akane out
yesterday.  I... I kinda overreacted, ya know.  Maybe I was a
little harsh with you."

     "No, it's okay," Ukyou said.  "I..."

     She trailed off slowly, bowing her head slightly and looking
up at him, eyes veiled behind dark bangs and long lashes.

     "Look, can we talk somewhere?" Ranma said, trying to keep
any discomfort from his voice.  "I've got some stuff I gotta say
to you."

     Ukyou raised her head, and her smile turned her face from
cute to beautiful.  "Great!  Let's go."

     She stepped past him, ponytail swinging, and took his elbow
in one hand, guiding him along beside her through the halls.  "I
didn't think you were gonna stay mad at me forever.  Not at your
cute fiancee."

     Ranma smiled uncomfortably as they walked.  "Nahh."

     They stepped out the side doors, into the sunshine and fresh
air.  The grass of the athletic field had been freshly-cut this
morning, and the distinctive smell of it filled the air as they
stepped out onto the field and started towards a small grove of
trees partially screened by bushes.

     Ranma winced inside; the spot was notorious around the
school as a place where couples met to be alone.  He glanced to
Ukyou, and she smiled back at him.

     "This is private enough that no one should interrupt us,"
she said, sitting down under the shaded, leafy awning of one
broad-trunked tree and patting the ground beside her.  Ranma
folded his legs under him as he sat, while Ukyou stretched hers
out and crossed them at the ankles, supporting herself with her
hands on the ground near her hips.

     "So, what do you want to talk to me about?" Ukyou asked,
eyes brightly reflecting the smile on her face.

     Ranma inhaled, and explained as simply as he could.
"Ucchan, last night my parents and Akane's dad talked to me about
the engagement with Akane.  I have to talk to them again tonight,
and that's going to decide whether or not Akane and I continue to
be engaged."

     Ukyou's smile didn't falter.  She reached out and touched
his hand.  "Ranchan, that's wonderful!"

     "Uhh... it is?" Ranma said noncomprehendingly.

     "Of course!  You can just tell them you don't want to be
engaged to her anymore!" Ukyou said.  "Then they'll be nothing in
our way.  That Shampoo didn't know what she was talking about!"

     Ranma looked at her, and realized that there was a small
pounding sensation in his head.  "Ucchan," he said as gently as
he could.  "You don't understand."

     Her smile trembled slightly.  "Of course I understand.
My... my dream's finally come true.  I..."

     "No," Ranma said slowly.  "No, that's not it Ucchan, that's
not it at..."

     It happened so suddenly, he could have done nothing to
prevent it.  Her hand was behind his neck, a gentle but firm
pressure, warm, slim fingers tickling the hairs at the base of
his pigtail.  And his head was drawn down to hers, and her warm
lips were on his, and what he saw before he closed his eyes
instinctively was Ukyou's eyes, blurred by tears.

     It was only a second, and at first he did not know what to
do, because it felt good, and her lips were soft.  But then he
realized just what it was they were doing, and he pulled himself
away from her, put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her
away.

     "What are you doing?" he said in a shocked voice.

     "I love you," she said.  "Ranchan, I love you.  You said
you'd take care of me forever, your father said you'd marry me,
you said I was cute..."

     She grabbed him by the shoulders.  "Was it all a lie?" she
asked, so quietly it was almost only the movement of her lips.

     "The first were the words of a child," Ranma said gently,
his heart agonized and his head throbbing.  "The second were the
words of a man without honour."

     He smiled, sadly, looking at her shocked face and
tear-filled eyes.  "The third was true.  You are cute.  But... I
don't love you."

     The sound of her slap was thunderous, and there was another
sound overlaying it, a crack of wood breaking as one of the trees
was snapped in half and fell.  Neither one of them noticed it.

     "YOU LIED TO ME!" Ukyou shouted.  "You said you'd take care
of me, you led me on, you let me... you let me... you let me fall
in love with you all over again, and then you..."

     She pulled back a hand again, and Ranma sat there, one side
of his face stinging, and was ready to take it again, because he
knew he deserved it.

     Someone caught her hand from behind, grabbed her wrist in a
grip that was gentle, but as firm as steel, held her arm back
with a strength that was strong beyond measure.  "You can have
him when I'm done with him."

     And Ryoga stepped past Ukyou, worn boots scuffing the grass,
and grabbed Ranma by the collar.  "RANMA!"

     "Hey Ryoga," Ranma said.

     "How dare you?" Ryoga hissed.  "How dare you, after you
nearly marry Akane, how dare you spend this time consorting with
another woman?"

     "It wasn't like that," Ranma protested.  "She kissed me!
Tell him, Ucchan."

     Ukyou glared back at him and turned her head away without a
word, hair hiding her face as she made a silent dismissal of him
and left him to Ryoga.

     Ryoga's face was livid, contorted into an expression of raw
fury.  "You led them on... Akane, Shampoo... You led them on and
then you..."

     "That's not true," Ranma protested, but he heard the doubt
in his own voice.  "I don't mean to, it just kinda..."

     Ryoga's free hand, balled into a fist, came forward, and
Ranma threw himself downward, tearing his collar free from
Ryoga's grip and rolling to the side, as the punch cracked the
tree behind where he had been in half.

     <That could have been my head,> Ranma thought, as the sound
of the wood splintering drove into his headache.  It pulsed and
burned in the back of his mind, a pounding like a taiko drum,
like the fall of steady drops of rain on a tin roof, like the
rhthym of marching footsteps, like the scorching hiss of molten
metal dripping into water.

     And as that thought came, the thought that Ryoga's single
punch could have killed him, he felt the fire freeze and turn to
ice, and the ice burned as well, a cold burning, firing his
nerves and reflexes to overdrive, and it seemed as if he could
see, actually see, every movement of muscle in Ryoga's back and
legs as the other boy turned, so slowly was he moving.

     One.  Leg came out, low and fast and hard, snapping Ryoga's
feet out from under him.

     Two.  Get purchase, bring the other leg around, supporting
himself with the first leg, and catch Ryoga in the ribs as he
fell.  It felt like kicking a wall, only more painful.

     Three.  Hands came up now, into fists, looking like blurs
even in this strange slow motion world he'd entered.  Ryoga was
still falling, and he was raining punches on his arms and body
and face, a hundred of them, two hundred of them.

     And then the ice shattered, fell away like a mask, and
things went back to normal speed, and Ryoga was a half-dozen feet
away, raising himself already up from the ground.  Ukyou's face
was shocked, turned back now to see the fight.  It had taken,
perhaps, a little more than three seconds.

     "I'm going to kill you," Ryoga said, rising up with utter
seriousness in his voice.  He wiped a thin trickle of blood from
the side of his mouth where his lip had been split, and despite
his legendary toughness, Ranma could see he was holding one hand
to his left side in obvious pain.  "I don't care how fast you've
gotten, I'm going to break your damn head open."

     "I can beat you," Ranma said, knowing it was true.  Knowing
that it would be easy, even though Ryoga was stronger and
tougher, because he could move so fast that the other boy would
not be able to touch him, he could wear him down like water over
rock.

     "Not this time," Ryoga said.  "Not this time."

     He took a step to the side, past Ukyou a few feet, and
grabbed his umbrella from where it rested against a tree.  "I've
had enough of you, Ranma.  I've had enough of how you treat
Akane, of how you treat Shampoo, of how..."

     His face tightened.  "Of how it's so easy for you.  They
just seem to fall into your arms."

     "Ryoga," Ranma said.  "What about Akari?  Why do we need to
fight?"

     "Akari?" Ryoga said, as if the name were alien.  "She..."

     "She loves you," Ranma said softly.

     "She loves me because I beat her pig," Ryoga said.  He
pointed the umbrella forward.  "I don't want to talk about Akari
right now, Ranma.  This is the end to this feud, Ranma.  I'm not
holding back anymore.  Not after seeing you behave this way with
another woman after you were practically married to Akane.  Even
if not for my sake, for hers.  For this final insult to her
honour that I will not allow to go unpunished.  One way or
another, this is going to be over."

     Ukyou stood up, stepped between them, arms outstretched to
her sides, a palm flat and held towards each of them.  "No.
Ryoga, it's true what he said.  I kissed him, he didn't want to
kiss me, he said he didn't love me, he lied to me, he..."

     There were tears streaming down her face, and Ranma saw
Ryoga's face soften slightly.  Then he sighed, and his eyes
closed for a moment.  "It doesn't matter what happened, Ukyou.
It never really has, did it Ranma?  This has never been about
Akane, or Jusenkyou, or bread, or anything like that, has it?"

     Ryoga's eyes were sad in his hard, angry face.  "It's just
been about you and I, hasn't it?  Not anything else.  Just you
and I.  To see who the better is."

     There was a shift in Ryoga's stance, a difference in the
grip of his umbrella.  He would attack soon, because talk was
done, because, Ranma realized, what was there left to say?

     <He has a reach advantage,> a part of him said in a cold
voice.  <Let him go for you, sidestep, hit him in the joint of
the elbow.  Break the arm, he'll drop the weapon...>

     His thoughts died, horror overwhelming them.  What was he
thinking?  This was Ryoga.  Ryoga, who was his rival, and his
occasional ally, who'd protected him when his strength was gone,
who had stood with him against how many different foes, against
the Musk Dynasty, against Tarou, against others.  This was Ryoga.

     Who was his friend.

     "No," Ranma said, shaking his head slowly.  "Ryoga, it
doesn't have to be this way."

     Ryoga shook his head in return, and spoke a moment later
with a weariness that reached beyond simple exhaustion.  "But it
does."

     Ukyou turned her back to Ranma and stepped forward, putting
one hand on Ryoga's shoulder and the other on his umbrella,
forcing the tip down to point to the ground.  "Ryoga, hon, listen
to him, you guys don't need to fight.  This is all my fault, I
started this, please don't fight, he's right, it doesn't have to
be this way..."

     Her voice was gentle, soothing, but Ryoga looked at her face
and the tears in her eyes, and it was as if he were carved from
stone.  He reached out with one large hand, and he held Ukyou by
the arm, and he moved her out of his way, as easily and gently as
if she were a small child.

     "It's always been this way," he said softly, his words as
heavy as a mountain.

     And then he was coming forward, and the fire was turning to
ice again, and Ranma forced it to keep burning hot inside his
head, though the pain was almost unbearable, and he stepped back
from the swinging barrage of umbrella blows.  In here, in the
grove of trees, Ryoga had the advantage.  In here, his
maneuverability was restricted.

     He dodged, and behind him a tree had the branches of one
side sheared off cleanly as if they'd been cut by a chainsaw.  He
stepped forward, and Ryoga drove him back with a swinging kick to
his front arc, and the umbrella descended like a hammer, and the
ground where Ranma had been was cratered and cracked when it came
back up.

     The ice was still there, behind the wall of painful fire
inside his head, and the temptation was to let it melt and
smother the flames with cold, but he did not entirely know what
would happen if he did that.  And though he did not entirely
know, he feared it.

     "STOP IT!" Ukyou yelled, but her voice seemed very, very far
away from where he and Ryoga were, because his world was one of
a single flame burning atop a wasteland of ice, and there was
room here for only him and Ryoga.

     And then he felt the fire begin to die, and soon there would
only be the ice, a cold embrace as deep as the night sky
awaiting him, a jagged frozen sculpture whose heart he could not
see.

     Time slowed, and the fire was weak flickering thing, a hot
pain that he clung to, for it was as if he stood on the brink of
an abyss, and below him loomed the dark.  He clung to the pain as
if it were the slender branch of a tree, the only thing between
him and a long, long fall.  And then he did the only thing he
could, before the last of the fire died beneath that ice.

     He stopped moving.  Stopped dodging.

     Time slowed...

     The umbrella came down, red bamboo catching the sun, metal
rain-guard glinting, whistling through the air in a scream that
was so high-pitched it was almost inaudible, Ryoga's knuckles
white on the handle, and his eyes darker than night for a moment
before they lightened with realization of what he was about to
do.

     Time slowed, fragmented, and dissolved...

     In that strange, slowed, icy-frozen time, he saw Ryoga's
shoulder and arm heave, strain, desperately change the direction
of the swing, fighting against hundreds of pounds of pull and
momentum.  And it was a testament, both to Ryoga's strength of
body and strength of heart, that the umbrella stopped dead a good
three inches from Ranma's head.

     They stood there, a frozen tableaux, Ranma with his hands at
his sides, Ryoga with his body straining forward, sweat beading
his forehead, and the umbrella paused between them.

     The ice was gone.  And so was the fire.  There was only
Ranma, and Ryoga, and the sun and the sky and the smell of
fresh-cut grass.

-Continued in [Ranma][Fanfic]Waters Under Earth - Chapter 3 (3/3)

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