Subject: [FFML] [Ranma][Fanfic] Waters Under Earth - Chapter 7 (3/3)
From: "Alan Harnum" <harnums@hotmail.com>
Date: 3/26/1998, 9:07 PM
To: ffml@fanfic.com

Chapter 7 : Revelations in Grey (3/3)

     "SHUT UP!" Ukyou shouted, face collapsing from indignation
to a ruin of concealed grief.  "I don't hate him!  I don't!  I...
I love..."

     Shampoo turned away again, which meant she never saw the
blow coming.  The flat side of the enormous spatula connected
with her head with a ringing crack, and knocked her sprawling to
the ground, dark suns bursting in front of her eyes and muted
explosions ringing in her head like hollow bells.

     "Why?" she heard Ukyou whisper, and there were tears in her
voice.  "Why couldn't you have just stayed in China, married
Mousse or something?  Why'd you have to come here?"

     Shampoo tried to raise herself up, but somewhere amidst the
ringing in her head and the wet dripping down the side of her
face, she'd forgotten just what combination of arms and legs
would do that.  She heard footsteps softly approaching.

     "Why did he leave me behind?" Ukyou's voice said.  A soft
sob broke from her, an aching sound of sadness unseen and pain
long-hidden, truths long denied and hopes forever shattered.
"Why?"

     Again Shampoo tried to get up, but the blow had severely
rattled her.  She tried to raise herself to her hands and knees,
but Ukyou was right beside her now, and her head was still
ringing so badly.  She braced herself for an expected blow.

     The blow never fell.

     "Oh god..." she heard Ukyou say.  "Oh, god, I'm sorry.  I...
I don't know what to..."

     There was the clatter of some large metal object being
dropped to the ground, and then someone pressed their hand to the
side of her head, against the slow flow of blood from the small
laceration the blow had left.  "I'm sorry, Shampoo.  That was...
that was dishonourable.  I hit someone with their back turned.
I..."

     A soft sniffle.  "I hurt so bad.  I know it can't be any
better for you, but... it hurts so much."

     "I be okay," Shampoo whispered softly.  "Joketsuzoku women
have very hard heads."

     "Not as hard as some people's," Ukyou said, something in her
voice dancing on that line between laughter and weeping.  

     Ukyou carefully put her hand on Shampoo's uninjured shoulder
and helped her sit up.  Her head hurt horribly, vision swimming
back and forth from clarity to murkiness.  Ukyou was very pale,
tears still on her face.

     "I'm sorry," she said again.  Behind her, Shampoo could see
the discarded giant spatula.  "That was... I don't know why..."

     "Everything changing," Shampoo said.  "So fast.  It make
everyone change with it, whether they want to or not."

     "I know this isn't your fault," Ukyou said in a soft voice.
"You... I saw you tried to stop them.  Everything's all screwed
up now.  Ranchan's gone, I..."

     She sighed and closed her eyes.  "We'd better start looking
again.  We have to find him."

     "If he still here," Shampoo said quietly.

     Ukyou nodded.  "I just hope he's okay."

     Shampoo slowly stood up.  "So do I."

     "What about your great-"

     "I hope Ranma okay."

     Ukyou frowned, turning to pick up her spatula from the
ground.  She hefted the weapon over her shoulder and turned to
look back at the other girl.  Shampoo was looking at her with a
strangely contemplative expression.

     "What?" Ukyou asked finally.

     Shampoo smiled bitterly.  "You know what you do, right
Ukyou?  You defeat me.  You defeat Joketsuzoku woman in battle."

     Ukyou's mouth dropped open.  "Wha..."

     "Outsider woman who beat Joketsuzoku, must receive kiss of
death," Shampoo said, taking a step forward.  "Must be hunted
down and killed."

     Shampoo's hand came up, and for some reason, Ukyou could do
nothing to stop it.  Slowly it came forward, until it was nearly
touching Ukyou's face, almost brushing against her cheek.  There
was something in Shampoo's face impossible to describe,
impossible to put into words or even thoughts.

     Very gently, as if she feared the other girl might break at
the touch, Shampoo put her fingers against Ukyou's cheek in a
gesture almost like a caress.  She leaned forward; sun caught the
highlights of her hair.  Her breath was warm against Ukyou's
face, a summer breeze, a light zephyr, lighter even than the
touch of her fingers.

     And then, just as slowly, she let her hand drop and
straightened up, the impossible expression vanishing, the bitter
smile returning.  "No one see.  Joketsuzoku laws cause enough
hurt already, I think."

     And with that, she turned and walked away.

**********

     Ryoga frowned as he looked into the western sky.  The sun
seemed to have moved so fast; it was already there, already past
the mid-mark of the day.  In a few hours, it would set.  It
didn't seem like they'd been searching since this morning, but
they had, along with all the volunteers the police in town had
been able to round up.

     They hadn't been able to give them the whole story, of
course.  Supposedly they'd come up into the mountains to camp out
and train together.  Ranma, they'd said, had gone off on his own
yesterday and never come back.

     They seemed to have been believed, at least.  They'd been
put up last night in two rooms at a small inn, and had arisen
early in the morning to start the search again.  Hours and hours
had been spent combing the mountain, fruitlessly calling Ranma's
name.

     Ryoga had the sneaking suspicion they weren't going to find
anything, though.  No one else had seen Ranma's face but him
before those two women had come.  There had been something there
that Ryoga could not quite ever understand, some sense of
finality.  Wherever Ranma was, if he was alive, it wasn't here.

     He was alive, though.  He had to be alive.  Because Ryoga
wasn't sure he could face himself ever again if he wasn't.

     Watch over them, Ranma had said.  His mother and Akane.  The
words had been spoken only to him, only for him to hear.  And he
would.

     "Always," he said softly, as he'd said to Ranma before.
"Always."

     "Find anything?"

     Ryoga turned slowly around and regarded Mousse evenly.
"Nope.  Not a thing."

     The taller boy nodded and took a few steps closer to stand
with Ryoga under the shade of a branching tree.  "Me neither."

     "I don't think we're going to, either," Ryoga said after a
moment.

     Mousse nodded again.  "I don't know what Cologne was up to,
and I don't know who those two women who showed up were, but if
Saotome were still here, he'd have found us by now."

     Ryoga sighed and put his hand against the trunk of the tree,
feeling the rough bark against his callused palm.  "Yeah.  Either
someone has him or he's left on his own, for some reason."

     "The question is," Mousse said, absently taking out a
shuriken and dancing it along his knuckles as he talked.  "If
someone has him, is it Cologne or those two women?"

     Ryoga shook his head ruefully.  "I don't know about you, but
I'm kinda hoping for Cologne."

     Mouse pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his
free hand and smiled slightly.  "I have to say I am as well.
It's better than the alternative."

     Ryoga touched his fingers to the four scabbed-over cuts
across his face, parallel lines left by Yamiko's hands.  He
thought they might leave scars.  "Yeah."

     "I don't think the girls are going to give up after just one
day, though," Mousse said quietly.  "But after that..."

     Ryoga's eyes followed the throwing stars as Mousse flipped
it between his fingers.  It flashed silver in the sunlight.
"After that, what?"

     "I don't really know," Mousse said with a sigh.  "But I'd
say if Cologne has him, against his will, then they'll be on
their way to China."

     Ryoga raised an eyebrow.  "And if those two women have him?"

     "Then my prayers go with him," Mousse said softly.

     "I thought you'd be jumping for joy," Ryoga said before he
could stop himself.  "After all, you've got Shampoo to yourself
now."

     He saw something pass across Mousse's face, a twitch.  The
boy grimaced, and the shuriken fell from his fingers, clattering
off a rock on the ground.

     "Ouch," Mousse said, raising his bleeding fingers to his
mouth and sucking on them.  "Have to be more careful with those
sharp objects."

     "Something happen?" Ryoga said cautiously.  "I was wondering
why you weren't with her."

     Mousse slowly nodded.  "Yeah.  Something happened, I guess."

     "I'm sorry," Ryoga said.

     Mousse smiled, very sadly.  "It's been coming for a long
time.  My blindness goes beyond my eyes at times."

     He looked at Ryoga, eyes magnified behind the thick lenses
of his glasses.  "I'd expect you to be happy, though.  You've
never seemed to like him much more than I do, and now he's not in
your way with..."

     Further words were knocked out of him when Ryoga grabbed him
by the collar in a tight grip with both hands and slammed him
back against the tree.  "Shut up, Mousse!  Just shut up!  You
don't have any idea how I feel, understand?"

     He closed his eyes.  "You don't have any idea."

     Mousse's arms came up.  Silver flashed in the sun.  He
locked eyes with Ryoga and a slow, humourless smile spread across
his face.

     "You don't take your hands off me right now, Ryoga," he
said, very quietly.  "You're going to have a few more marks on
your face."

     Ryoga opened his eyes and gazed up at Mousse, pent-up rage
and frustration blazing behind his eyes.  "Try it."

     "What are you two doing?"

     Ryoga and Mousse looked away from their staring contest at
Akane.  "Uhh..."

     "I guess since Ranma isn't around, you two have to fight
each other, huh?" Akane said slowly.  "Is that it?  Why don't you
put some of that energy into looking for him, alright?"

     Ryoga slowly let Mousse go.  "Really, Akane, we weren't
fighting..."

     "I don't want to hear it," Akane said wearily.  "I don't
care who started it, or what.  Go ahead and rip each other's
throats out.  I really don't care."

     She turned and started to walk quickly away.  Mousse brushed
his collar off and looked at Ryoga with a slow, regretful sigh.

     "I think you'd better go after her," he said quietly.  "You
get along a hell of a lot better with her than I do."

     Ryoga looked at the other boy for a moment, then began to
walk quickly after Akane before she got out of his sight.  He
caught up with her after twenty or so feet, and laid a hesitant
hand on her shoulder.

     "Akane?"

     She turned and stared at him, and it hurt him deep inside to
see her face.  "What?"

     "I'm sorry," he said, feeling himself go tongue-tied, as he
always did around her.  No words came to him, no words with which
he could express himself.  Regret, sadness, love, they all
intertangled themselves within his mind, wove a net that let no
words past.  There was so much to say, and yet it was so hard to
say it.

     "I'm sorry," he said again.  "Really, I'm sorry Akane, I..."

     "Oh, Ryoga," Akane said.  She smiled softly at him.  "It's
alright.  It's not you.  It's me."

     "Huh?"

     "I'm so scared," she whispered, as if shamed to admit it.
"I'm scared for him."

     He hurt inside; he felt as if there was a wound upon him, a
wound that would not heal, something deep inside his soul that
went deeper each time he took a breath, drove itself like a
splinter of glass throughout his very being.

     "He'll be okay," he said.  "Really, Akane.  He'll be okay."

     "But what if he isn't?" Akane said, closing her eyes.  "What
if he isn't, and then..."

     A few tears leaked from beneath her closed eyelids, hung
upon her lashes like dew upon leaves for a fraction of a second,
and then fell upon her cheeks.  "And I never told him how..."

     "How you felt?" Ryoga said, not sure how he managed to say
the words at all.

     "Yeah," Akane sniffed.  "But the worst thing is, I don't
even know how I really feel."

     She put up a hand and brushed at one cheek, as if that could
somehow stop the tears.  "I... he made me so mad.  All the time,
he made me so mad.  But he always..."

     She opened her eyes and looked at him, tears shimmering upon
her face and unshed inside her eyes.  "How can you feel two ways
about someone at the same time that are so totally different?
How can you..."

     "I don't know," Ryoga said thickly.  "But I know you can.  I
know...  You can hate someone so much, and at the same time you
can almost sort of l-"

     "I don't know what I'd do without you," Akane said suddenly.
"You're always there for me, Ryoga.  You're..."

     As if by their own volition, his hands came up and put
themselves upon her shoulders.  "It'll be okay, Akane," he said
gently.  "Really."

     Slowly, slowly, he drew her against him, embraced her, as
he'd always longed to.  She seemed so small, so fragile.  Her
body was warm against his, her hair fragrant and soft against his
cheek.

     "I promise it'll be okay," he said.

     "Thank you," Akane whispered, her head on his shoulder.

     All life is suffering, thought Ryoga, remembering the words
of another.  And the root of all suffering is desire.  And if 
that thing which I desire brings me suffering, why for it do I so
desire?

     And it was this third which was his own thought, and for it
he had no answer.

**********

     Nabiki shuffled the papers upright, banging them again the
flat top of the desk to straighten them, and then tucked them
into the drawer.  She locked it, and then hung the key on its
chain back around her neck, where it was more often than not.

     She swivelled her desk chair around and looked out the
window.  Dinner had been a few hours ago, an uncomfortable meal
with Kasumi carrying on with a variety of inane chatter between
their father's bouts of depressive doomsaying.  The sun had set,
and the city outside had fallen into darkness broken by the
symmetric randomness of the patterned lights of the buildings.

     The phone rang, and Nabiki started slightly in her chair.
Then she steadied herself, cursing her own nervousness, and
picked it up.

     "Hello?"

     "Nabiki?"

     "Hi Akane.  You find him."

     After a second's silence, Akane made her reply.  "No."

     "Any sign at all?"

     "No."

     Her younger sister's voice was flat and controlled, and
carried a sense of terrible weariness in it.  "No sign.  I just
came down the mountain a few minutes ago.  Auntie Saotome said I
should give you and everyone else a call."

     "So what's the plan now?" Nabiki said.

     "We're staying here another night, and searching some more
tomorrow.  Afer that..."

     The next words sounded very difficult for her sister to say.
"After that, we're gonna come back and try to figure out what to
do next."

     "Hey, listen sis, you were kinda abrupt when I talked to you
last... give me a rundown on what happened, and I might be able
to help you out."

     She said it casually, as if in passing, steadying herself
with a deep breath. "Okay?"

     "Sure," Akane said.  She began to talk, and Nabiki began to
take notes in point-form of anything that sounded important.

     When Akane was finished, her voice was trembling slightly on
the other end of the line.  "That's it, I guess."

     "Okay," Nabiki said.  "Look, sis, it'll be alright.  He's
Ranma.  He'll be okay."

     "I wish everyone would stop saying that," she heard Akane
say, so quietly she almost wasn't sure she heard it correctly.

     "Look, call me tomorrow, okay?  I wanna know how you're
doing," Nabiki said.  "Hang in there, Akane."

     "Thanks, Nabiki.  Bye."

     "Bye."

     The phone clicked down.  Nabiki sat in her chair for a few
long minutes, alternating staring at the newly taken notes with
staring out the window at the dark-fallen city and sky.

     She finally turned her attention to the notes, reading them
over and trying to make connections between them, scrawling down
anything that seemed particularly important.

     Finished, she licked her lips and pressed the eraser end of
her pencil to her chin for a moment in thought.  Then she put the
pencil into the small jar on her desk with a clatter that seemed
loud in the silence of the room, and picked up the phone.

     The number was familiar.  Far too familiar.  Too many times
dialed, too many times.

     "Hello, Nabiki."

     The voice on the other end of the line was deep and soft.
"I'd been wondering when I'd hear from you again.  Your last
report was so... inadequate."

     "My little sister didn't tell me much the first time she
called.  I can't help that."

     "Have you got something a little more substantial this
time?"

     "Yes."

     "Go on."

     She started to read off her list, filling out the quick
notes with memories of what Akane had said.  The voice on the
other end occasionally asked questions, and she answered them as
best she could, though grudgingly.

     "Is that all?" the voice said finally.

     "Yeah."

     "Better than last time, Nabiki."

     "Whatever."

     Hesitantly, she spoke again.  "If he... if he doesn't come
back, am I..."

     The voice laughed, very softly.  "Nabiki dear, once we have
something useful, we don't ever let it go.  You don't just
discard your business assets.  You hold onto them.  You never
know when you'll need them."

     It paused for a second.  "Although perhaps I could help you
out, you know.  You've become a very pretty young lady, Nabiki.
I'm always..."

     "No.  Can I go now?"

     "For now.  Keep my offer in mind though, Nabiki."

     She hung up the phone without saying anything else, and sat
there at her desk, trembling slightly.  She put her hand to her
mouth in a fist and nibbled slightly on one knuckle, a nervous
childhood habit she thought she'd gotten rid of.

     She didn't even realize she was crying until a few minutes
later, the tears falling silent down her face.  And she couldn't
stop trembling, no matter how hard she tried.

     She curled her knees up to her chest, wrapped one arm around
them and hugged her legs tightly to herself.  She was just glad
her door had a lock on it.

     "Come on, Nabiki," she chided herself softly.  "It'll be
okay.  It'll be okay.  It'll be okay..."

     She closed her eyes.  "I won't ever let him touch me.  No
matter what, I won't ever let him touch me."

     She rocked slightly in the chair, hearing it creak amidst
the silence.

     "It'll be okay..."

     A mantra.

     "It'll be okay..."

     A chant, perhaps.  A charm, a ward, a spell of protection.

     "It'll be okay..."

     Words.  Words had power, maybe, if you said them often
enough.

     "It'll be okay..."

     So Nabiki sat in her room, with the door locked, with the
night sky watching her and the city lights like a hundred
thousand eyes at her back, and she said her words long into the
night.

     As always, though, she had little hope that anyone was
listening.

**********

     The man called Ritter stood upon the balcony of his
expensive hotel room, forty floors above the Tokyo streets, with
the night wind blowing through his pale hair.  The city spread
out before him, a chaotic sprawl of flashing lights, and about it
all, in the spaces the light didn't reach, there was the dark.

     Ritter smiled, and his pale blue eyes gazed out across the
west, across the tangle of the city into the countryside, and
beyond that land to the ocean, the Sea of Japan, out across the
Korean peninsula and the Yellow Sea.  He knew where he was gazing
at, even though it was over a thousand miles away, across oceans
and rivers and lakes and mountains.

     He could feel the pull, even this far away.  Far into
central China, in the sparsely populated, mountainous province of
Qinghai, Jusenkyou lay.

     None of them could go there but he.  Despite all that
Jusenkyou was, defiance of all barriers was a part of what he
was.  But Yoko and her sisters, and the pathetic fools who bowed
their heads and worshipped, and had no idea of the depths of
that to which they gave their prayers, none of them could go
there.  He knew they'd tried, just as he knew they had a few
hands there, a few who had slipped through, working within the
loopholes of the ancient protections that shielded the place.

     But they would not shield it from him.  And once his work
was done, they would no longer shield it from anyone.

     He had been hasty last time, far too hasty.  It had taken
him a long time to understand what he had done wrong.  He had
learned finesse, and patience.  Neither had come easily to him,
because when he had first begun his service they had not been
necessary.  

     But times had changed, and he had changed with them.  This
time, he would not move too quickly.  This time, he would do it
right.  He had waited for a long, long time for when the moment
would be right to strike.

     Jusenkyou would fall to the Dark, and he would deliver the
heart of the springs into the hand of his master.  He would burn
the village of the Joketsuzoku to ash, he would lay the palace of
the pathetic remnants who called themselves the Musk to ruin, and
he would bring the halls of Phoenix Mountain down atop her
people's heads.  And at long last, he would finally be granted
that which he most desired.

     "Not long, my lord," he said softly to the listening night.
"Not long at all, after so long a time.  Soon the new times shall
come, and all that has been shall cease to be.  We shall rip out
the roots of the world-tree and tear the sun from the sky.  The
seas shall swell with the blood of the slain and rise upon the
land."

     He leaned forward, resting his arms on the balcony.  He
looked out to the west, and slowly smiled, raising an arm as if
to grasp something, as if he might reach across the hundreds of
miles and hold Jusenkyou in the palm of his hand.

     He hoped his little demonstration today had put Yoko back in
her place.  It would be something of a shame if he had to kill
her.  

     The man called Ritter straightened up, and smiled with
perfect teeth.  Ritter was one name he had in the world right
now, one face.  
     
     The man walked inside his hotel room and closed the door to
the balcony behind him.  He walked into the bathroom and
stretched his arms over his head.

     He looked into the mirror, at his reflection, and
concentrated.  He formed a mental picture of the same face as he
had now, the same body, the same hair, only with green eyes
instead of blue.

     He closed his eyes, and opened them.

     Blue eyes stared back at him from the sharply-chiselled
face.  He shrugged and smiled.  It was true as always; he could
not change his eyes.

     Shrugging, he walked back inside the hotel room and
undressed, crawling into a bed that he did not feel any real need
of anymore.  But he was a creature of habits, and sleep was one
of them.  He closed his eyes, and willed sleep to come.

     Sleep came, and with it glorious dreams of ashes scattered
upon the winds of desolation.

-End Part 7

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