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 4 : The Motive of the Deed  (3/3)

     "Shampoo, what's wrong?" Mousse asked quietly, coming up
behind her in the kitchen as she bent over the sink and worked at
scrubbing a pot.

     "Nothing wrong," she said, redoubling her efforts even
though the pot was already clean of grime.

     "It's about the ghoul, isn't it?" Mousse said sharply,
putting his hands on her shoulders.  "Shampoo, if this is some
plan that's gone wrong, tell me..."

     Shampoo calmly slid her shoulders free of his grip, took a
step to the side, and threw the cold dishwater over him.  His
robes collapsed into a wet tangle, a surprised quacking emerging
from them.  "Shut up!  You no know what you talk about, Mousse."

     There was doubt in her words though, because she was still
seeing the image of Cologne's discarded staff, laid across her
empty robes on the bedroom floor.  Where had her
great-grandmother gone?

     Mousse struggled free of his sodden clothing and shook water
off his feathers, barely missing hitting her with the droplets.

     "You want me transform to?" she said sharply, aiming a
half-hearted kick at him that he avoided with a flap of wings and
a displeased quack.  He landed on the counter of the sink and
began fumbling the taps with his bill until he got the hot water
running.  Shampoo turned away and took a few steps across to the
stone counter where a pile of green onions lay, the string that
had bundled them lying in a tangled knot beside them.  She began
to chop them rhthymically with a knife as she heard the clunk of
someone's head hitting the underside of a shelf, and a male voice
swearing in Chinese.

     Then there was a rustle of cloth and the clank of metal
hitting against metal, and she heard soft footsteps coming across
the floor of the kitchen.  "Shampoo, I only want to help you..."

     She whirled and pointed the kitchen knife at him.  "You only
want help yourself to me.  I no want to talk about this, Mousse."

     "What's going on?" Mousse said.  "This is about Cologne
being in her room for three days, isn't it?  What was she doing
in there, Shampoo?"

     "I NOT KNOW!" Shampoo shouted, surprised at her own
frustration.  "I NOT KNOW WHAT SHE DOING IN THERE!  SHE NOT TELL
ME!"

     Mousse blanched and took a few steps back.  "I'm sorry,
Shampoo.  I..."

     She drew a long breath and got control of herself.  "I
alright.  It's just..."

     There was the sound of the front door banging open, and then
an old voice cried out.  "Cologne!  It's me!  Now that you're
young again, there's ever so much fun we can have..."

     Shampoo's face went pale and she rushed out into the dining
room.  "What you doing here?" she shouted at Happosai, who stood
scratching his head by the open door.

     He glanced up at her and slid the door closed behind him.
"Eh, dear Shampoo, have you seen your great-grandmother?  She's
sure gotten a lot younger all of a sudden.  Reminds me of my
youth..."

     He sighed and sniffled slightly.  "So many memories... you
two look a lot alike, you know.  Let me weep into your bosom, my
dear, for this old man grows melancholy..."

     Shampoo broke a chair over his head without much effect
beyond stopping him from leaping to grope her.  "What you
talking about?"

     "My dear little Cologne's young again," Happosai said with a
happy smile as he rubbed the lump on top of his head.  "So now
I've come back to start up our wild love affair, since she's no
longer so old and wrinkled."

     "You see great-grandmother?" Shampoo said.

     "Maybe, maybe not," Happosai said craftily.  "What's in it
for me?"

     "You get to walk out of here with all your bones in the same
places they were when you came in," Mousse said softly as he
glided up to stand beside Shampoo.  "Shampoo asked you a
question, old man.  You would do well to answer it."

     Happosai smiled, and his eyes narrowed.  "I go easy on
women, boy.  You, I have no objection to pounding into a thin
paste.  Now where's my dear Cologne?"

     "We not know," Shampoo said with a sigh.  "That's why we ask
you."

     The door suddenly banged open again.  Ranma, Akane, Ukyou
and Ryoga stood there.

     Shampoo slowly realized that all four were looking at her.
Akane and Ukyou were casting accusing glances at her, and even
Ryoga looked a little wary.

     Ranma, however, was worse than all three put together.  His
face was utterly blank of any expression, as were his eyes.  "Hi
Shampoo?  Is Cologne here?"

     Shampoo licked her lips nervously, and unconsciously took a
step closer to Mousse.  "No.  You see her in last few hours,
Ranma?"

     The slow, weary smile that spread across Ranma's face made
it look even worse than his previous emotionless facade had.  "In
a manner of speaking."

**********

     Nodoka Saotome slowly came awake, her first conscious
feeling the heat of a fire on her face, and the sound of wood
crackling.  One cheek was against cold, rocky ground, and her
hands appeared to be tied behind her back.

     The only movement she was capable of seemed to be opening
and closing her eyes, and not even speech was possible.  She
tried to force her body to move, but it didn't seem to want to
respond.  She still had feeling throughout her body, but it was
as if she had been separated from it somehow.

     It all came back to her in a flash, the attack upon the
house by the strange young woman who claimed to be the
great-grandmother of one of the girls interested in her son.
She wondered how long it had been.  Quite a few hours, obviously,
because what she could see of the sky overhead was dark.  There
were more stars than you saw in the city, so they must be out in
the country somewhere.

     After the recollection came the fear, the memory of what the
woman had said.  Not only for herself, but for her son.  The
woman was crazy, quite obviously.  There was no telling what she
might do.

     She felt a hot wetness on her cheeks, and realized she was
crying.  She was frightened, of what might happen when her son
came tomorrow.  She knew he would come; he was a good boy, and an
honourable man, although he'd inherited in smaller quantities
some of the flaws of his father.

     She knew he would come, and she knew that that was exactly
what this woman wanted.  There had been a madness in her eyes, a
hatred, but not directed towards her.  Towards her son, as she
spoke those venomous words toward him.

     She became aware of another sound beyond the crackle of the
fire, and the night animals, and her own quiet sobbing.  It was
someone else, sitting nearby.  They were saying something, so
softly she nearly didn't hear them.

     "Not because it is easy," the voice said.  "Or because I am
cruel, or because I wish him harm.  I must do this... I must do
this... I must... I must..."

     There was a sound that might have been a sob, or a laugh.
"Because it must be done."

     Then another sound, a long shuddering breath.  The same
voice again, though choked this time by grief barely held in
check.  "It must be done.  Oh, may all that is good forgive me,
it must be done."

     Then there was only silence, the crackle of flames and
chirping cicadas, small creatures scuttling through grass.
Nodoka closed her eyes, and surprised herself by falling asleep
almost immediately.

**********

     "Shampoo, are you sure there's nothing I can do to-"

     "NO!"

     Mousse recoiled as Shampoo slammed the door of her room
closed with a bang.  He sighed and reached up to brush back his
dark hair, before he slid his hated glasses into place over his
eyes in preparation to find his own room for the night.

     As he was turning to leave, he heard the door slide open
behind him, more softly than it had closed.  "Mousse?"

     He glanced back to see Shampoo standing behind the half-open
door, hesitation written in the slender lines of her face and the
dark definitions of her eyes.  "Yes, Shampoo?" he said, a
tremulous note of eagerness in his voice.

     "Is not your fault.  I... just want be alone for a while,"
Shampoo said slowly.

     Mousse nodded, and reached up to play nervously with the arm
of his glasses.  "You know you don't have to be alone if you
don't want to.  I'll always be..."

     Shampoo's face hardened.  "You never understand, will you?"

     "Shampoo..."

     "Go sleep, Mousse.  We need be ready leave tomorrow to get
Ranma's mother back."

     "Why is Cologne doing this, Shampoo?  I know you didn't..."

     The door slid softly closed, removing Shampoo from his sight
again.  Mousse gave another heavy sigh, and his shoulders slumped
in defeat.  Ranma and everyone else had left a few hours ago.
Their stay had been very short, to tell the truth.  None of the
four had seemed eager to spend much time discussing anything, and
not even Shampoo seemed to want Ranma to stay longer than he had
to.

     But the end result was that tomorrow morning, he was for
some reason setting off to bear witness to whatever duel was
going to take place between Ranma and Cologne.

     Troubled, he walked down the hallway to his small, sparse
room that faced out into the back alley of the restaurant.  He
had only his bed, and a dresser for his clothes.  He wanted and
needed nothing else.

     Except that which he could not have.

     He looked out the small, dusty-paned window and sighed
deeply.  Outside, as evening fell, the grey of the backstreets of
the city seemed even more dull, as if some facade were stripping
back with the fall of night.  Clouds were drifting across the
sky, the promise of a storm within them.

     He thought it would break tomorrow.  Tomorrow, there was
going to be a change, despite what any of them might wish.

**********
     
     He could not find the ice, no matter how hard he tried.

     In the dojo, Ranma sought the ice as desperately as a man in
a desert seeks an oasis, for he longed to lose himself within the
cold embrace of it and forget.  But the ice escaped him, though
sometimes it was like a figure glimpsed out of the corner of his
eye, but gone when he turned to look at it.  The fire pulsed
inside his head, but he let it, for it had been only amidst that
burning pain that so far he had found the ice.

     They were leaving in the morning, he and Akane and his
father, Shampoo and Mousse and Ukyou and Ryoga.  They had to go
out to the mountain where he and his father had trained all those
months ago, where Cologne had showed Ryoga the breaking point.
He knew he had to sleep, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Sleep meant uncertainty, half-formed remembrances of things he'd
never done, glimpses into oceans of his mind so deep that he
could not see their bottoms.

     Akane had been watching him for some time before he became
aware of her presence, because he'd been forcing himself to focus
completely on the rapid movements of his own body.

     "Ranma, you have to get some sleep," she said softly from
where she leaned against the wall of the dojo.  "We've got to
leave tomorrow morning for the country, and you... you need to
rest."

     "I'm not tired yet," Ranma said, turning his back on her and
flowing smoothly through half a dozen forms in the space of a few
seconds.  "You should sleep if you can, Akane.  I'll go to bed
when I'm ready."

     "Do you... do you think you can beat her?"

     He stopped moving and glanced back at her.  "Of course."

     "Damn it, Ranma!" Akane snapped, striding forward to stand
near him.  "Why do you have to be so cocky?  You've lost before,
to people a lot less skilled than Cologne."

     "But I always win in the end," Ranma said.

     Akane reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"There's no second chance here, Ranma.  Don't you see that?
Can't you understand that when the sun sets tomorrow, you're
either going to have to marry Shampoo or you'll be... you'll
be..."

     He put his hands gently on her wrists.  "Or I'll be free,
Akane.  I..."

     He sighed.  "Why does it have to be so damn hard?  Isn't
there any middle ground, anything at all?  You heard what Shampoo
said; it's likely she'll be exiled from the village if she goes
back without me as her husband.  She..."

     "But it's not your fault," Akane said, letting her hands
drop from his shoulders.  She tangled her fingers in his and
stood in front of him, looking up at him with dark eyes.  The
open space of the dojo seemed a small, confining thing upon the
two of them in that moment.  "They're her laws, not yours.  She
can always..."

     "But don't you see?" Ranma said.  "It is... All this time,
it's been my fault.  Ukyou, Shampoo, Kodachi... it's all been my
fault.  If me and pop hadn't eaten the prize in China, I wouldn't
have had to fight her in the first place.  Maybe if I'd just
shown them I wasn't really a girl, something could have worked
out.  Maybe if I hadn't lied to her the first time she came here,
things might have been better."

     He pulled his hands free from hers, tore his gaze away from
her eyes and turned his back on her, hands clenching themselves
into fists at his sides.  "But I ran.  I ran away, like my father
did with Ukyou, like he's done for everything in his life."

     His shoulders slumped and he hung his head.  "I'm no better
than my old man.  If anything, I'm worse.  I've got to do this,
Akane.  Not even because of my mother.  I've got to make things
right, or else what does any of it mean?  What does it matter if
I can beat up everyone in the world if I have no honour?  I'm no
better than a thug off the streets."

     Her arms came around him from behind, encircling his chest
and holding him tightly, one hand gripping the other wrist as she
pressed against him from behind.  The soft warmth of her body was
almost enough to drown the pain of the fire in his head, and he
felt the heat of her tears against his shoulder.  "You're more
than that.  I know you are... I..."

     He put his hands over hers and bowed his head to the side,
feeling the softness of her hair against his cheek.  "Maybe I am.
But I've got to prove... I've got to prove I can do something
right for once."

     "But what about us?" Akane whispered.

     "What about us?"

     He felt her stiffen slightly.  "Is that all you can say?
After all that's happened today?"

     Ranma closed his eyes, almost able to see the fires dancing
before him.  "Especially after all that's happened today.  And
all that's going to happen tomorrow."

     "But I... how I feel... doesn't that mean anything?"

     "More than everything else," Ranma said soothingly, still
resting his head on hers.  "More than anything.  But... what can
we say, Akane?  What can I say to you that I know isn't going to
be a lie by tomorrow?"

     "Do you really think you can beat her?" Akane asked him
again.  He thought more carefully this time before answering.

     "Maybe.  If I'm lucky.  I was thinking about using Shampoo
to go into Neko-ken, but I'm sure Cologne's prepared for that.
The only thing I can hope for is to tap this thing inside me,
the..."

     He trailed off, not wanting to call it the ice, even though
that was what he thought of it as.  "If I can get that part of me
to come out like it did against Kuno and Ryoga, I might have a
chance.  Otherwise..."

     "Promise me something," Akane murmured, tears silently
leaking onto his shoulder.

     "What?"

     "Promise me you'll surrender to her if it looks like you
can't beat her," Akane said.  "She... we know she's crazy, Ranma.
I... I don't want to see you hurt, even if it means..."

     She trailed off, and hugged him even tighter with a long
sigh.  "Promise me."

     "I promise," Ranma said, hoping it was one promise he would
at last be able to keep.  "Akane, I..."

     "Don't say anything more," Akane whispered.  "Please, don't
say anything more.  Just... let me have this for a while.  We
don't need to say anything more."

     And, Ranma slowly realized, they didn't.  He turned around
in her arms and held her to him, for as long as both of them
needed.  There were no more words said in those few long minutes,
because the words that might be there to be said were as heavy as
all the world to them, and they could both feel the weight upon
their souls.

     They sank down, eventually, still holding each other, to the
wooden floor of the dojo, Akane's head resting against his chest
and the beat of his heart echoing in her ears.  Not even quite
realizing it, they fell asleep there, holding each other, with
such a bizarrely innocent quality to it that neither of them felt
embarassed at all.

     And outside, the moon swung higher into the sky, and the
storm clouds drifted on the night breeze, and the world went
spinning on without any care for the two of them.

**********

     The storm broke that night, and the rain of this morning
had been but the prelude to this storm.  Water poured down in
almost solid sheets upon the earth, and the earth drank thirstily
of the waters of the sky, and drew them down within itself into
the waters under earth.  Thunder rolled like the voices of
warring gods, and lightning stabbed the sky in white-burning
spears upon the cape of night.

     But there was another storm in the air that night.  A
building one still, one that had been building for a very long
time, that would build still for a time before it let loose the
full fury of its power upon the land.

     That storm was coming soon, though, for the elements that
would drive it on were slowly coming together, gathering
themselves in preparation.  Who had sown this storm, and who
would reap the consequences was yet to be seen, but the storm was
coming, because it had been building for far too long to be
stopped.

     And the storm of this night was unto that building storm
what sleep was unto death.

End Part 4



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