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.

I am not subscribed to the FFML, so please direct any commentary
to my personal e-mail address.  Comments are welcomed,
appreciated and very helpful to the continued betterment of this
series.  

I have also set up a page for this series.  If you've missed
previous chapters, you'll be able to find them at the Waters
Under Earth page at http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758/

Chapter 6 : Stained Be My Soul (3/4)

     Happosai closed in on the staggering, black-clad woman,
Ryoga and Shampoo close behind.  "It's over, girl.  Surrender
before we have to hurt you."

     The woman hissed, and the shadows deepened around her.
Dozens of thin, glowing streamers of ki so dark red they were
almost black exploded into the air around Happosai, trailing like 
smoke a half-dozen feet above his aged head.  His white hair, no
longer sparse, blew back in a sourceless wind.  "You aren't fast
enough, girl.  I want some answers.  Who are you?"

     A ragged sound came from the woman, like some muted wet
explosion.  The shadows seemed to loom around her like a cloak of
night; Happosai drew himself up to his full height, a little over
five feet, and his manifested battle aura rose higher, waving
like the fronds of an undersea plant.  "HOLD!"

     Yamiko stood there, shadows flickering around her body and
the ground around her, shadows without source, and then they drew
tight around her.  She laughed, just a little; it sounded like
some large animal slowly dying in enormous pain.

     "HOLD!" Happosai shouted again, and the ribbons of his aura
leapt forward like a net of power, to entangle, to trap.

     Too late, as it was.  The shadows suddenly flared like an
inversive burst of blinding light, exploded into a hurricane of
darkness centered around her, and when they vanished, Yamiko was
gone and Happosai's aura had caught nothing but air.

     "Damn," Happosai muttered.  He rounded on Ryoga and Shampoo.
"Boy, you need to bandage yourself up before you faint from blood
loss.  Shampoo, you make sure Mousse and Ukyou are alright."

     The two teenagers bit back any protests they might have had,
because something in Happosai's eyes was there that never had
been before.  It might also have had something to do with the
fact that his battle aura was still visible, still flaring about
his body.  Not a twisted, giant shadow of himself as he'd often
done before; more like a cloak of power.

     "What about you?" Ryoga asked, trying to staunch the blood
flowing down his arms and chest from half-a-dozen ragged wounds.
It was only a testament to his endurance that he was still on his
feet at all.

     "I'm going to look for Cologne," Happosai said, turning his
back and letting his aura fade as he walked away from them.  "And
Ranma."

     Ryoga glanced sideways to Shampoo and smiled a bit weakly.
"I think I'll go find myself a band-aid or two."

     Shampoo nodded mutely and glanced sideways at the
red-stained shoulder of her tunic.  The leather breastplate had
five long scratches in it where it had come between her heart and
the woman's hands.

     Then she turned away from Ryoga and began to walk towards
the dazed, half-conscious forms of Ukyou and Mousse.

**********

     The body of Denkoko lay in a crumpled heap within the pool
of shadows cast by the tree.  Blue-white robes were spattered
with blood; very little of it was her own.  The blow that had
killed her had left little trace of itself.

     Her eyes stared up, dead and unseeing, at the waving leaves
of the tree overhead.  There was still fear in them, though her
mouth had twisted itself into a half-smile that clashed with the
fear in her dead eyes.

     Around her body, the shadows suddenly deepened, stretched
out and thickened.  From within them, as if rising from
submersion beneath a pool of water, a black-clad figure rose,
mask covering her face.

     A low sound emerged from beneath the mask, a sound like the
hiss and bubble of acid upon metal made into a twisted parody of
human weeping.  Yamiko came forward a few steps and knelt down
beside the tree, gathering up the broken body of her sister in
her arms and rocking her as if she were a child.

     She stood up, still making that awful sound, though no tears
came from her eyes.  What she was was no longer capable of tears.

     The black rod on its silver chain was missing from her
sister's left wrist, although she'd carried it for decades.  But
in the twisted claw that passed for a right hand, something was
clutched tightly, half-hidden in the sleeve of the robe.  A long
white feather.  She could see a few others scattered around the
ground.

     Beneath the mask, what passed for a mouth gave its closest
approximation of a smile.  Yamiko's hand gently took the feather
from her sister's hand and tucked it away into her robes.  

     She cradled the body of Denkoko in her arms, letting her
sister's head rest on her shoulder as one of her hands gently
stroked back dark bangs from over dead eyes.

     The shadows rose around them, and they were gone.

**********

     After Ryoga had been bandaged and they'd assured themselves
that Mousse and Ukyou were alright, the five who'd come up the
mountain with the vanished Ranma sat on the ground near the still
unconscious form of the woman who they'd come to take back,
uncertainty and a little fear written on all their faces.

     "Well," Mousse said finally, rubbing the bridge of his nose
with one hand as his glassed dangled from the other.  "What do we
do now?"

     "Wait for Happosai to get back, I guess," Ryoga said
wearily.  His chest was bare, his shirt little more than
tattered, blood-stained scraps on the ground beside him.
Bandages were wrapped over his arms and chest, dotted with small
spots of blood.

     "We can't," Akane said, shaking her head.  "He... Ranma's
out there somewhere.  Those two women are still around.  He might
be in trouble..."

     "Akane right," Shampoo sighed.  "Have to look for Ranma.
Happosai find us if he need to."

     "Just let me rest for a few more minutes," Ukyou said.  She
had both hands on the ringed end of her spatula, with the haft
between her knees and the bladed end resting on the rocky ground;
leaning on it appeared to be the only thing keeping her up.

     "I could do with a little rest as well," Mousse said.  "I
don't know what she did to me, but I feel as if I haven't had any
sleep for the past week."

     "It was some kind of ki draining attack."

     There was mutual surprise among all of them; none of them
had heard Happosai approach.  It was the first time Akane, Mousse
or Ukyou had really gotten a close look at him since he'd shown
up.  His face was the same, although considerably more unlined
than it had been before.  He had a full head of hair now, and his
dangling white mustache seemed thicker.  His eyes were hard and
bright beneath bushy white eyebrows.

     The primary change had been in height; he was short, but no
longer dwarfish.  He now looked now like an extremely old but
still fit man.

     "Did you find them?" Ryoga asked before anyone else spoke.

     Happosai shook his head and didn't sit.  "No sign.  The
forest looks like a lightning storm hit it, but I didn't find
anyone.  This mountain is huge; if we're going to look for them,
we've got to cover a lot of ground."

     "Any idea what's going on?" Ryoga said.

     Happosai sighed.  "None whatsoever.  I don't know who those
two women were, or what Cologne was up to with this.  But I
intend to find out."

     "Should we split up?" Akane said.

     "Under any other circumstances, I'd say we should," Mousse
quietly said.  "But we have no idea if those two are still around
here somewhere, and if one of them was able to hold all of us to
a standstill for a while, I doubt we want to meet up with even
one of them if we're split up."

     They all glanced, not quite realizing it, to Ryoga.  He
slowly nodded.  "She tore me up pretty bad.  These aren't...
these aren't people like we're used to fighting, I think.  She
really was trying to kill us."

     "Came close sometimes," Shampoo said, running her fingers
over the marks the woman's razors had left in her breastplate.

     "Enought talk," Happosai said.  "Let's get moving.  I'll
carry Ranma's dear mother."

     Ryoga looked at him flatly.  "No.  I think I'll do that."

     "You're injured, Ryoga," Happosai said pleadingly.  "Come
on, let me carry her.... Please?"

     "I'll carry her," Ryoga said firmly, standing up and taking
a few steps towards where Nodoka lay.  "I promised Ranma I'd
watch her, and..."

     He trailed off, face going slightly red.  Bending down at
the knees, he gathered up Nodoka in his arms, draping one of her
arms around his neck.  "Come on.  Let's go look for them."

     Slowly, they all nodded and began to move out together in a
single long line.

**********

     "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

     Shampoo glanced to her side, where Mousse walked.  There was
a rare note of genuine anger in his voice, something seldom heard
when he spoke to her.

     "What it matter to you?" she sniffed, silently cursing the
fact that she'd been paying so little attention as to allow him
to get near her with no one else around.  They were ranging out
through the forest, all keeping within a few dozen feet of each,
close enough to always hear a call for help, and to see the
others most of the time as well.

     "Damn it!  Why do you think it matters?" Mousse hissed.  "I
love you, Shampoo.  Does it even occur to you what you were
trying to do back there?"

     Shampoo silently stalked away from him and paid rigid
attention to a shattered tree, the scraps of bark still clinging
to the ruined trunk blackened as if by fire.

     His hand grabbed her shoulder and forcefully spun her
around.  "I'll tell you what you were trying to do back there!
If Ranma hadn't stopped you, you'd be dead!  Dead, Shampoo!"

     "What does it matter?" Shampoo whispered quietly, not even
having enough anger to hit him.  "Rather it be by my hand than by
Council's.  Less humiliation for family."

     "What about you?" Mousse said softly.  "What about you,
Shampoo?  Don't you care what happens to you?"

     "I lie," Shampoo suddenly blurted.  "I lie to Ranma.
Great-grandmother... great-grandmother, I think I know why she do
this."

     "What?" Mousse said.  "You..."

     "After she came out of her room," Shampoo said haltingly.
"We talk.  About laws.  There is... there is small loophole.
Very... very hard."

     "What is it?  Why would you-"

     Mousse trailed off, putting it together in his head.  "Of
course.  If he dies, you don't have to marry him."

     Shampoo slowly nodded and closed her eyes, leaning back
against a tree with a soft sigh.  The wind played with her hair
for a moment.  "Yes."

     "But he said he'd go back to China with you," Mousse said
after a moment, agony laid bare in his voice.  "He said he'd go
and you still..."

     "Used to think it would be enough," Shampoo said quietly.
"Used to think it would be enough if he just marry me.  That I
somehow able to make him start loving me if he just marry me."

     She clenched her hand into a fist and abruptly punched the
trunk of the tree she leaned against hard, scraping her knuckles
open.  "Not enough."

     Mousse's silence seemed to fill the air more than words
could ever have.  Far off, very far off, there came the cry of
some bird, long and sad.

     "I not care if he marry me," Shampoo said.  "Only... all I
ever want was for him to love me."

     Mousse made a small sound, as if something had broken deep
inside him.  Then he whirled, white robe flying about him for a
moment.  A low growl rose from his throat, and sunlight flashed
through the leaves upon something shining and steel-sharp in his
hands.

     "DAMMIT ALL TO HELL!" he said.  There was the sound of a
heavy impact, and Shampoo saw him sink slowly to his knees, his
hands still on the hilt of the straight, short sword.

     The straight, short sword driven to the hilt into the tree
next to him.

     "Damn it all to hell," he said, this time in a whisper so
soft it was almost beyond hearing.  "Damn."

     "Mousse..."

     "He holds the only thing I want in the palm of his hand and
discards it like so much garbage," Mousse said.  "Can I be blamed
for hating him?  I know he's stronger than me, I know he's better
than me, I know that he is more than I can ever be.  How can I
help but hate him?"

     "Mousse, please..."

     "I always told myself it was because of the laws," he said,
knuckles white on the handle of the sword as he crouched before
the impaled tree.  "I always told myself..."

     He gave a soft, bitter laugh.  "No one lies as well to you
as you yourself do, eh Shampoo?  I've loved you since I saw you,
and I've always dreamed... I've always dreamed..."

     Shampoo said nothing; there was nothing she could ever say
that would take away but a fraction of the hurt of this, this
final realization come upon him at last.

     "All dreams are born only to be broken," Mousse whispered.
"I would die for you, Shampoo.  And I see now that you would die
for him.  What greater love is there than that?"

     "Mousse, I'm..."

     He stood slowly to his feet, a grin on his face that looked
like it belonged on a skull.  "Sorry, Shampoo?  What do you have
to be sorry for?  It's my own fault.  Blind, stupid, weak Mousse.
It's always been my fault."

     "I should have tried to..."

     "You always did," Mousse said softly.  "You always told me.
Every time you stared at him with that look in your eyes I always
wanted to see when you looked at me, every time you ran to his
side, every time..."

     "Never wanted to hurt you like this," Shampoo said softly.
"Never wanted that.  You were friend, Mousse, before time come
when you really start thinking about getting me for your wife.
Never wanted it to end like this; I tried to tell you, but...
I not good at things like that.  I not know how to..."

     "I know," Mousse said.  "I know."

     "Wish it didn't have to be this way."

     A soft sigh escaped Mousse, and the frightening smile on his
face slowly faded.  "There's a big difference, I've found,
between the way we wish things would turn out and the way they
actually do turn out."

     Such true words, they both realized.  So very agonizingly
true.

**********

     Ryoga felt Nodoka stir in his arms as he walked through the
forest, Akane and Ukyou silently accompanying him on either side.
Shampoo and Mousse were a few dozen feet back; Happosai was
ranging ahead, his small, darting shape occasionally visible
through the thickness of the trees.

     He paused and looked down at her peacefully sleeping face.
It struck him just how much she looked like Ranma when he was
transformed; the face was matured, but it was much the same.

     Her eyes blinked open.  "Who-"

     "I'm Ryoga, Mrs. Saotome," he said a bit haltingly.  "I'm
Ranma's friend."

     Strange, how easily a single word comes after so long a
time denied.

     "I know," Nodoka said.  "Could you put me down, dear?"

     He flushed terribly and carefully set her down on her feet.
She stumbled slightly, putting a hand on his arm to steady
herself.

     "I'm glad to see you're awake, Mrs. Saotome," Akane said.

     "My son?" Nodoka said, making the words a question.

     "We don't know, Mrs. Saotome," Ukyou said.  "We're looking
for him now."

     "What about that girl's grandmother?"

     "Great-grandmother," Ryoga said.  "We... we're looking for
her too.  Something happened right before she and Ranma were
going to fight."

     They stood there for a few minutes, Nodoka leaning on Ryoga
for support, and the three of them explained everything from this
morning onwards.

     "So my husband is here?" Nodoka said at the end.

     "He tried to be," Akane said.  "He kind of got caught up in
the village down the mountain because of..."

     "I think I'd really rather not know," Nodoka said with a
sigh.  "Let's just look for my son."

     "Don't worry, Mrs. Saotome," Ukyou said.  "We'll find him."

     Nodoka said nothing, looking off into something only she
could see.  "I should be able to walk on my own.  Thank you for
carrying me, Ryoga."

     Ryoga coughed and blushed to the tips of his ears.  "No
problem, Mrs. Saotome."

     The four of them headed slowly off in search of Ranma.

**********

     Happosai frowned as he glanced around at the area near the
river.  There was blood on the ground, and scorched grass and
plants.  This was where the subtle trail had ended, at the edge
of the riverbank.

     He closed his eyes and concentrated, opening his senses to
the flows of energy in the air, the lingering aftereffects of
whatever might have been done here.

     The first jolt hit him like a physical blow; he staggered to
the side, gasping for air and falling to one knee.  There had
been something done here, something of monumental importance.  He
caught dim flashes; pain, fear, confusion, a lot of those.

     And power.  Incredible power, like he'd never sensed before.
He tried to cling to it, learn more, put together some picture of
what had gone on from the fragmented jigsaw puzzle the events had
left on the area, but it was like trying to grab greased rungs.

     Something had been done here, afterwards, to mask whatever
had gone on to anyone trying the technique he was using.  The
technique to block what he was doing was difficult and virtually
unknown.  He personally knew of four martial artists in the world
who knew the technique, although he was sure there were many more
who had the potential for it.

     One of those four was him.  Another was Cologne.

     "No fair, woman," he huffed, letting his senses recede back
to normal.  "You promised me an explanation."

     He looked around at all the blood staining the ground, the
scuffed dirt and broken tree limbs.  "You should have learned a
hundred years ago that I don't give up very easily, Cologne.  If
I have to follow you to the ends of the earth to find out what
the heck's going on, I will."

     A slow smile curved onto his face.  "Besides.  I never got a
really good feel in on you.  Memory doesn't live up to the truth,
Cologne.  You're even cuter then I remembered."

     He looked around again and sighed.  "I'll find out what
you're up to Cologne.  I just hope I'm not too late."

     Too late for what, he did not know.  But over a century of
life had given him a certain ability to see things, to look
farther ahead than most people could ever hope to.  Not really
seeing of the future so much as looking at the past and the
present, looking at the patterns woven in them, because it was in
those that the future was shaped.

     And the shape the future was taking was not a particularly
optimistic one at this moment.

**********

     (...sometimes it had two arms and sometimes three, a vast
fluid shape like a mountain made of water, only it was not water
but stone, stone flowing like water, taking different shapes, and
he raised his sword and came on towards it, a cry upon his lips,
a final proud defiance in the face of this impossibly deep and
ancient power...)

     A slow stirring was the way Ranma awoke, balancing for long
seconds upon the brink of waking and sleeping.  His eyes opened,
and were greeted only with the dark.  He was lying on his back on
rough, dry stone.  Slowly he sat up, his body aching.

     "Hello?" he said tremulously.  His throat hurt.  "Is anyone
there?"

     It came back to him with sickening clarity, the last few
moments before he'd passed out.  The raw detachment, the furious
power, the pure speed.  He'd never imagined he could move so
fast.

     The almost gentle wheeze of final breath as his fist crushed
Denkoko's windpipe a moment before it snapped her neck.

     Oh, the sound of it.

     He drew a long, heaving breath, there in the darkness.  It
went beyond terrible; it went beyond anything he could have ever
imagined himself doing.

     He'd killed a human being.

     And worse, he'd killed a woman.

     But it was even worse than that.  He'd enjoyed it, while he
was doing it.  Or perhaps enjoyment was the wrong word.  He'd
felt something, at least.  Something beyond the cold detachment.
Triumph, perhaps.  The exaltation in the defeat of a foe.

     He wanted to weep, but he knew if he let himself do that, he
might never stop.  He wanted it to be a dream, for the whole past
day to be a dream.

     "You're awake now," a vaguely familiar voice said from
somewhere to his left.  "How are you feeling?"

     "Who's that?" he asked.

     There were no words in response, only a click that sounded
like someone opening a box.  A dim, pale light appeared to his
left, from a small container held in the cupped palms of two
hands that were a mix between human hands and the talons of a
bird.  Within the container a stone glowed dimly, the source of
the light.

     The eyes that looked at him from under the white hair were a
very pale blue.  One of them had a large bruise over it that
looked as if it were fairly recent.

     "Kima," Ranma said with little enthusiasm.

     The winged woman did not look in very good shape; there was
another bruise on her right cheek, and her lower lip was swelled
as if she'd been hit there.  One wing was drooping oddly to one
side, while the other was furled and held against her back.

     "You've gotten better," Kima said quietly.  "I don't know
how, but you never moved that fast, even against Lord Saffron.
>From the state you were in when I left you, I didn't think you'd
be moving for days."

     He shuddered slightly at the memory.  She was talking about
when-

     When-

     When he'd killed the woman.

     "That was you, wasn't it?" he asked.  "Wasn't Akane at all."

     Kima nodded her head slowly and held the glowing object in
one hand, reaching up with her other to minutely adjust the
positioning of the white feather tucked behind one slightly
pointed ear.  "Yes."

     "Oh."

     He shuddered again, although he tried to hide it, and held a
hand to his forehead.  "I... oh god.  I..."

     "Sometimes you must kill," someone said to his right.  "It
should never be an easy thing, but it is sometimes a necessary
thing."

     He turned his head, neck and shoulder muscles protesting at
the movement, and looked at Cologne.  The revitalized Amazon was
sitting in the lotus position a few feet away from him, eyes
closed, a slim hand on each knee.

     "Cologne."

     He glanced from Kima to Cologne and sighed softly.  "Can
someone please tell me what's going on?  Cologne, I wanna know
what this is all about.  My mother, those two women..."

     He jerked a thumb at Kima.  "What the hell she's doing
here."

     Kima sniffed slightly and looked down her nose at him.
"You're as rude as I remember, at least.  That hasn't changed."

     "Sorry if I'm not overjoyed to see you," Ranma said
sarcastically.  "It's just the last time I saw ya, your king was
trying to flambe me."

     Kima sniffed again and turned her head away.  Ranma turned
his attention back to Cologne.

     "Cologne?"

     "You've been having dreams, have you not?" she asked
quietly, her eyes still closed.  "Fragments of a whole,
reflections on people you have never known or been?"

     Ranma was silent for a moment before answering.  "Yeah."

     "And more than dreams," Cologne continued.  "Intrusions upon
the waking world.  The feeling that you are someone else.  A
different part of you, a change in who you are."

     The sound of the woman's neck breaking.

     "Yes."

     He unconsciously wiped his right hand on his shirt, noting
it was tattered and bloodstained.  "Cologne... do you know what's
happening to me?  Does it have something to do with why you did
all this?"

     "Somewhat."

     "Cologne," Ranma sighed.  "The only thing that's stopping me
from trying to get the hell outta here and back to everyone else
is I don't think you've gone crazy.  I ain't too good at thinking
things through, but there's a lot more going on than I know.
And..."

     The next part came out more softly than he'd wanted it to,
almost like a plea for help.  "And I just killed a woman as
easily as if I were stepping on a bug, and I wanna know why."

     His jaw tightened and he glared at her fiercely, even though
her eyes weren't open to see.  "But don't play your goddamn
inscrutable mind games with me, or I'm outta here."

     He glanced around.  "Where are we, anyway?"

     "Still on the mountain," Kima answered, not looking at him.
"In a small cave.  Cologne sealed off the entrance."

-Continued in [Ranma][Fanfic] Waters Under Earth - Chapter 6 (4/4)

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