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

Homepage at:  http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758

Any commentary is always welcomed.  

Chapter 24 : A Pricking of Thumbs [1 of 3]

     Everything was pain.  Everything was broken.
     
     It felt that way, at least.  Every part of her body ached as
if it were aflame.  Individual blows had melded, gathered, until
there was only one pain, all-consuming, world-encompassing.

     The air stank of the discharge of a storm, of earth 
blasted by lightning.  Someone was laughing, and she could hear
water flowing.

     And then the laughter stopped, and the screaming began, the
snapping sounds like trees being broken, the high-pitched shrieks
of pain.  
     
     And the waters carried her down, and she was walking out of
the cold waters of the pool into the heavy mists, staring at the
shadowy trees, wrapping the cloak about her body.

     And up, into the clouds, gathered like the rain, and 
falling, the wolf's howl, the scream of the dying one, the hand
wrapped around her throat, the eyes like yellow scars the fabric
of the air

     "Akane?"
     
     fading, and the water like a voice
     
     "Akane?"
     
     words whispered in a flowing tongue, in every language, in 
all the speakings of the seas, and she could not understand-
     
     "Akane, wake up."
     
     Akane blinked and snapped awake abruptly.  She looked into
Ryoga's concerned face as he leaned across the arm of the seat,
his hand on her shoulder.

     "You were having a nightmare," he said softly.  "It's okay.
It's over now."     

     Akane took a deep breath and leaned back against her seat,
listening to the sounds of the great wheels of the train driving
it through Qinghai, towards Jusenkyou.  The images of the dream
were already jumbling, already fading.  

     "How long was I asleep?" she asked, looking out into the
early night as the wilderness rolled past.  

     "A few hours," Ryoga answered, resting back against his 
seat.  "We're supposed to reach the stop we're getting off at by
morning."

     Akane nodded.  "Good."
     
     There was the sound of someone shifting in the seat ahead,
and Happosai's head peeked over.  "We won't have any delays,
hopefully."

     "Hmm?" Akane queried, leaning forward slightly.
     
     Happosai ran a hand through his thin dark hair.  "China's
different from Japan, particularly a wilderness province like
Qinghai.  The reach of the government isn't as great here, 
because it's so isolated.  Trains sometimes get attacked by
bandits."

     Ryoga snorted.  "Any bandits who attack this train are going
to be in for a surprise."

     "Quite right," Happosai agreed.  "But they won't know that,
and it will still slow us down.  Hopefully, it won't happen."

     Akane nodded in silence.  They'd gotten off the plane in
Xining, caught a few hours of sleep in a hotel, and then grabbed
the train that headed deeper into the interior of Qinghai.  
Going through the airport customs had been surprisingly easy;
whatever documents Happosai had gotten for them certainly worked.

     They rode near the front of the train, in the half-empty
first class section.  Lulled by the motion of the train, Akane
had fallen asleep soon after the journey had begun.  That was
fortunate, because she hadn't slept a wink in the hotel room,
lying awake in one bed as Shampoo dozed in the second.  

     She glanced back at the seats behind her, where the
Joketsuzoku lay curled up in a ball, sleeping contentedly, then
turned her attention back to Happosai.

     "How far is it to Shampoo's village once we get off?" she
asked.

     Happosai scratched the bridge of his nose with one finger
before answering.  "Not sure exactly.  It's been a while since I
was in the area.  Maybe twenty miles, but the terrain is bad.  
It'll take us a day, at least."

     Akane sighed gently.  "The sooner we get there, the better."
     
     Happosai said nothing, only nodded and settled back into his
seat.  Ryoga reached over and put a hand on her shoulder.  "Don't
worry so much, Akane.  It won't help us find..."

     He trailed off, taking his hand off her shoulder and 
twisting his fingers nervously in his lap.  "Nothing."
     
     Akane looked at him, smiled slightly.  He was worried too,
but he was trying not to show it for her sake.  "Thanks, Ryoga."

     He smiled back.  "You're welcome."
     
     Resting an elbow on his seat arm and cupping his chin, he
stared past her out the window, his eyes deep and sad.  "I hope 
he's okay."

     "So do I," Akane murmured, yawning, eyes closing.  She was
still so tired.  "So do I."

     Ryoga continued to stare past her into the darkness as she
dozed, watching the shadows of the trees and mountains as the 
train rolled deeper into the dreaming night.

**********

     He could not see for the darkness.  The choking scent of
rotting flesh surrounded everything, the weight of bodies piled
atop him, their rigid, icy fingers clutching at him.  

     He should have been dead.  They had thought he was dead, so
still he had lain, covered in blood and unmoving.  And they had
hurled the corpses atop him, one by one, burying him beneath, a
fetid mound of corruption, a tomb of dead flesh.

     But he was not dead.  He was not sure how long it had been
since he had lain here, beneath the mountain of the dead.  He
wondered if he was dead as well.  Time had flowed together into
the pain, into the cold of the air and the feverish burning of
his brain.  He heard voices, his mother, his father, his friends,
others that he did not know.

     He should have died.  He lay for three days and three 
nights, too weak to move, too weak to make a sound.  The voices
stopped sometimes, or became fainter.  He grew weaker; his wounds
festered, and he sank deeper into the cold oblivion that lay at
the edge of death.

     Near the end, he began to feel a presence, something 
hovering on the edge of the scent of the corpses, at the fringes 
of the sounds of the carrion birds feeding on the pile that he 
lay at the bottom of.  

     Let me in, it said, gentle as the rain falling on a lake.  
Let me in, let me in, let me in.

     It was plaintive, ceaseless.  It made all the other voices
go away.  It whispered to him softly, let me in, let me in,
persistent as time.

     And on the third night, with the barest sliver of the moon
hanging high in the cloudless sable sky above the icy plains, he
did.

     Slowly, he opened his eyes.  He heard the gentle rumble of
the train rolling along the tracks first, and then the sounds of
the other passengers quietly talking.

     He smiled.  He had not had that dream in some time.  He
looked out the window, into the night, into the landscape rolling
past.  The pull was like a weight upon his soul.  The call of
Jusenkyou, the siren-song of her waters.  They were close, now.

     He was in an old man's shape now, lids of his pale blue eyes
half-closed.  Across the aisle and up a bit, he could see the
five sitting.  Most of them appeared to be resting.

     He steepled his hands, wrinkled as old parchment, and leaned 
back in the seat, ill-fitting suit shifting around the thin limbs
of his body.  

     Slowly, he became aware of another presence, tangled within
the weave of the pull, the beckoning on the fringe of his mind.  
It was not far; he felt it, familiar and ageless as the hound had
been.

     "So you too have been reborn," he murmured contemplatively.  
"You have found yourself a body.  This is... unexpected."

     He smiled, though.  Unexpected did not mean unuseful.
     
**********     

     Ryoga first began to realize something was wrong when the
lights of the train began to go out.

     Row by row, beginning at the front of the train car, the 
banks of lights began to extinguish, winking out into darkness.  
In seconds, the interior of the train was as dark as the night
outside.

     He heard murmurs of discontent from the other passengers,
and reached almost instinctively for Akane in the darkness.  His
hand fell upon her shoulder, and he shook her awake gently.

     "Hmm?" she asked sleepily, a dim shape in the darkness.       
     
     "Something's wrong," he said softly.
     
     In the seat ahead, the flickering flame of a match flared,
illuminating Happosai's face.  The train was coasting to a slow
stop.  

     "Don't get into a panic over nothing," he said, prodding 
ungently the sleeping form of Genma in the seat next to him.  
"Wake up, Genma."

     From the darkness near the front of the train, a voice
speaking in Chinese could be heard over the slightly scared
voices of the other passengers.  

     "What's he saying?" Akane asked Happosai.
     
     "He's telling everyone not to panic," the master replied,
then yelped as the sputtering match burned his fingertips before
he blew it out, plunging them into darkness again.  "They're
experiencing some kind of problem with the train's electrical
systems, so they're stopping to check it out."

     The voice was still speaking, raising in volume.  A
flashlight clicked on, revealing a man in a conductor's uniform
standing at the front of the train car.  The presence of that
single light seemed to bring immediate calm; the train had
entirely stopped now.  

     "We are asked to get off the train," Happosai translated.
"They apologize for the delay."

     Ryoga nodded.  He could not shake the feeling that something
was very, very wrong.  A cold chill was working its way up and
down his spine, like a crawling worm.

     The conductor was opening the doors now, and people were
beginning to rise from their seats, shadowy forms in the edges of
the light cast from his flashlight.  Ryoga swung his legs out 
into the aisle, and nearly collided with an old man in a wrinkled
suit.

     "Excuse me, sir," he said, steadying the doddering man with
a hand on his shoulder.

     The man said something to him in Chinese through a toothless
mouth, and tottered by.  Ryoga caught a flash of blue eyes, sharp
and out of place in the wrinkled face, and then he was gone.

     In the seat behind his, Shampoo was stirring awake, looking
about and blinking sleepily.  "What going on?"

     "Problems with the train," Ryoga replied.  "We've got to get
off."

     The Amazon yawned and stretched her arms over her head, then
hopped out of her seat and walked into the aisle.  Genma, Akane
and Happosai were already nearly out the doors.

     Shampoo headed by him and he followed her, guided by the
flashlight of the conductor as he stood by the doors, ushering
people out with a wave of his hand.

     Once outside, the five members of the party stood in huddled
silence for a few moments.  Up and down the long line of the
train, crew members with flashlights walked, amidst crowds of
passengers speaking in Chinese.  He could see a spine of 
mountains in the distance, the moon hanging about them as if torn
upon their peaks.

     Ryoga wrapped his arms around himself and involuntarily
shivered.  The tingling chill had spread to his whole body now,
the sense of wrongness.

     Happosai raised a hand, and it flared into light, white and
ghostly, defining the faces of his companions and himself in pale
shadows and lines of darkness.  "I don't like this.  Something's
wrong."

     "I can feel it too," Ryoga said.  "There's something..."
     
     He was not sure of where the next word came from.  "Coming."
     
     Happosai slowly nodded.  The light vanished from his hand
and he began to walk away from them.  "Wait here."

     Ryoga and the rest watched his dim shape move to the front
of the train, and begin holding a rapid conversation with a 
member of the train crew.  He waved his arms a lot for emphasis.

     "What's he doing?" Akane asked Shampoo.
     
     Shampoo shrugged.  "Not sure.  Can't hear everything he
saying."

     Ryoga was silent, staring ahead past the front car of the
train, up the serpentine shape of the tracks.  He could not shake
his foreboding.

     "I don't like this," Genma growled, kicking at the sparse
grass of the ground.  "We're in the middle of nowhere."

     Looking around, Ryoga saw that he was right.  There probably
weren't any towns within miles.  Qinghai was incredibly remote,
nothing like the crowded eastern provinces.

     Happosai came swaggering back, what could be seen of his
face in the night darkness bearing a proud smile.  "It's done."

     "Huh?" Ryoga responded.
     
     "They're moving people away from the front of the train," he
replied.  "I'm a high-ranking member of the CCP, by the way,
escorting a diplomatic party, so try to act properly... well,
diplomatic, if the need be."

     "What?" Akane said in a strangled voice.  "How did you..."
     
     Happosai tapped a finger to the side of his head.  "The weak
mind is easily dominated by the power of..."

     "Never mind," Ryoga interrupted.  "Why do you want everyone
moved away from the front of the train?"

     "Because there's something nasty and powerful and dangerous
coming from the opposite direction, and I thought it best that we
have the innocent civilians out of the way before we engage it,"
Happosai said cheerfully.

     The apprehension Ryoga had been feeling became full-fledged
dread.  "What?"

     "I'm not sure," Happosai replied.  "But it gives off a real
sense of power and malevolence.  And it's getting closer, but
slowly."

     He smacked a fist into a palm.  "It is our duty to combat
such threats, as true martial artists."

     "Right," Genma said, looking down at the youthful form of 
the once-decrepit master.  "You, of course, are deeply concerned
with such matters."

     "You wound me, Genma," Happosai replied.  "Come on, you
bunch.  There's work to be done."

     He began to walk towards the front of the train.  Ryoga
shrugged and followed, the others doing likewise.  Behind them,
the crew members were herding the other passengers towards the
back cars of the train.

     Stopping when they stood in front of the hulking metal shape
of the locomotive, Happosai pulled out his pipe and lit it, the
embers a dim glow in the night.  Ryoga's eyes had adjusted to the
light of the moon and stars, and he could see fairly well now the
definitions of the landscape.  The train tracks stretched out
ahead of them in a long, straight line, far beyond the range of
his vision.

     The pungent scent of tobacco smoke began to fill the air as
Happosai puffed, leaning back against the front of the locomotive
and staring contemplatively into the darkness ahead of them.

     "I no like this," Shampoo commented, looking around and
idly twirling her bonbori in her hands.  "No feel right."

     Ryoga looked at her for a moment, then turned his head away.
There had been very little sign of the exuberant and outspoken
girl he was used to; Shampoo had been quiet and depressed since
they'd met her at the airport.

     He suspected it had something to do with Mousse's absence,
but he was not the type to pry into something like that.  
Shrugging, he turned his attention to Akane, who was looking off
in the same direction as Happosai, her arms folded over her
chest, the long checkered skirt she wore blowing slightly in the
night breezes.

     "You sure you don't want to wait away from this?" he asked,
then immediately regretted it as Akane scowled at him and turned
away.  

     Far off up the train tracks, he heard a soft jangling sound, 
metal striking metal.  It put his nerves on edge, made the 
feeling of danger accelerate in him.  

     "What was that?" Genma asked, a tremble of fear in his
voice.  

     Ryoga saw, in the distance, a pure white light like 
distilled fire, a pinprick at first, but growing larger and 
larger by the second.

     "Here it comes," Happosai said, tapping out ash onto the
ground from his pipe and stowing it away.  

     Ryoga strained his eyes, trying to see just what it was.  He
could feel the tension of the others, the heavy silence of their
baited breaths.

     It was a figure, walking along the tracks.
     
     No, not walking.  Floating, a good foot off the ground.  It
came closer, rimmed in a burning corona of heat, body motionless
as it drifted.

     It was within a hundred feet now, lit by its aura, details
clearly visible.  From the shoulders down, it had the body of a
woman, draped in thin silks that hung across the pleasing curves,
the cloth almost translucent in the fiery light.  Golden anklets 
jangled on the slender legs.

     From the shoulders up, it was a monstrosity.  Three arms
sprouted from each shoulder, and on the graceful neck rested a 
ponderous conglomerate of three heads, cruel-featured and almost 
inhuman in their savagery.  The arms were draped in golden
bracelets that sounded in time to the anklets as the thing moved.

     "What is that thing?" Ryoga said softly, as it drifted 
closer in total silence.

     "That's Rouge," Akane said.  
     
     Then, to his horror, she began to run forward, waving a hand
and calling out.  "Hey, Rouge!"

     At the sound of Akane's voice, the thing seemed to snap to
attention, the arms waving, the eyes of the frontward-facing head
turning to focus on her.

     The eyes narrowed.  The distance was less than fifty feet
now, and Ryoga was breaking into a run behind Akane.

     The thing raised one of its half-dozen hands, a languid
gesture, almost dismissive.  Flames boiled in the palm, red-gold
and chaotic.

     Ryoga grabbed Akane from behind, yanked her down and to the
side, hurling himself atop her, as a bolt of fire ripped through
the space between the creature and the two of them; Ryoga felt
the heat of it across his back as it shot overhead.

     He raised his head to see it strike the locomotive, reducing
a section of the front to melting slag, glowing red-hot from the
blast.  Shampoo, Genma and Happosai had already scattered to the
sides; the six-armed thing was rising into the air, flying
without any means of support.  
     
     "Rouge..." Akane said softly from where she lay on the
ground below the shield of his body, shock in her voice.  
     
     Ryoga leapt to his feet, pulling Akane with him.  "You know
that thing?"

     "She fell in a Jusenkyou pool," Akane replied.  "That's her 
cursed form.  But..."

     And then all other words were cast into silence, because the 
thing opened its mouths and spoke.  The voices were booming, 
echoing, vaguely female, speaking the same words in three 
slightly different voices.

     "Puny things," it said, a sound that seemed to crawl inside
the skin, buzzing, otherworldly.  "Bow, and you may live this
night.  Give tribute to glorious war, to the all-consuming fire
of destruction, to the sweet annihilation."

     The arms moved in the air, as if weaving cloth.  Streams of 
fire shot from hand to hand, flares in the darkness.  The thing 
laughed, hideously.  "Bow before Ashura."

     "Oh, boy," Ryoga heard Happosai say from behind him.  "I
remember this thing."

     The thing moved closer, until it hung almost over their
heads.  The three faces peered down at them with interest, as if
they were intriguing insects.  This close, the aura was so bright
it was painful to look at.  Ryoga could see that the passengers
who'd been on the train were busily running for the hills.  He
couldn't see Shampoo or Genma anywhere.

     "Stay back, you kids," Happosai said, stepping in front of
them.  "I'll handle this."

     "Hey-" Ryoga began.
     
     Akane put a hand on his arm.  "Ryoga, he's right.  Rouge was
about an even match for Tarou in his monster form.  She's way out
of my league."

     Ryoga looked up at the monstrosity hovering in the sky.  It
seemed to be observing, waiting.  He glanced to Akane, remembered
that his reason for being here was to protect her, to keep her
safe.

     He slowly nodded.  "All right.  Let's get back."
     
     The two of them slowly backed away, leaving Happosai 
standing and looking up at the thing, his arms folded over his
chest.

     The eyes of one of the heads watched them move away.  The
arms and legs wove back and forth in the air, causing the glowing
light of Ashura's aura to shift and flow.  

     And then the head that had watched them opened its mouth and
spoke, in a voice utterly unlike when Ryoga had first heard it
speak.  It sounded lost and frightened and scared, travelling
through long darkness to reach them, barely a whisper.  "Help me, 
Akane."
     
     "Rouge?" Akane called, beginning to start forward again.

     Ryoga grabbed her shoulder.  "Akane, no!"
     
     "But..."

     There was a grinding sound.  Ryoga looked up at the hideous
shape of Ashura.  The neck was twisting, rotating, bringing 
another face to the front.

     That one opened its mouth and spoke, like thunder.  "If you
will not bow, you will die."

     Ashura raised two of her arms, golden bracelets sounding
together.  Fire gathered between her hands in a ball.

     Ryoga had no time to argue anymore.  He simply grabbed Akane
around the waist, lifted her, and ran.  Behind him, he felt a
wash of heat, as the ground buckled and the grass lit aflame from
Ashura's attack.  

     "I told you to get back, damn it!" he heard Happosai shout.
Risking a glance back as he ran towards the cover of a narrow
rise of land sparsed with trees, he saw the master raise his 
hands, pointing at Ashura as she soared over his head in pursuit
of the two of them.

     A dozen ribbons of dark red ki exploded from between his
clenched fists, lashing around the six-armed monster like whips.  
Ashura's pursuit suddenly stopped, and she hung motionless in 
the air for a fragment of a second, ki-fire crackling around her 
limbs.

     Then, with a motion of her arms, she flung the bonds away, 
tattering them to nothing in the air.  She turned to look back at
Happosai, a sun-bright glow wreathing her, lighting the night for
a hundred feet around her.  

     "Where's Mr. Saotome and Shampoo?" Akane asked worriedly, as
Ryoga put her down.  

     "I don't know," he responded, half-crouching on the ground
and taking a deep breath.  "They disappeared after Ashura 
attacked us."

     Legs kicking as if she swam through the blankness of the 
air, Ashura began to soar towards Happosai.  "For impeding 
Ashura's will, the price is your death."
     
     He watched as each of Ashura's fists began to glow, and then
a ball of power shot forth from each hand, exploding into the
ground around Happosai, who nimbly dodged each one.

     "Stand still and die, fool!" Ashura's three-part voice
shrieked into the stillness of the night, bouncing off the
mountains.  

     "Not now, thank you," Happosai answered.  "But I'll consider
the offer."
     
     The air around him seemed to waver, like a haze of heat, a
huge, vaguely man-shaped distortion that glowed palely next to 
the white-hot aura of Ashura.  It stretched out a hand and 
slapped almost gently at the demon, sending her into a tumbling
spin in her flight.

     Happosai followed up, body moving in time to the 
manifestation of his aura.  He punched, and Ashura was slammed
backwards in the air a dozen feet before she stopped herself.

     "Ha!" she cried derisively, sweeping her arms wide, as if
opening a door.

     The air between her and Happosai exploded into fire almost
instantly, a roiling vortex of flames that licked hungrily,
consuming all before them.  Happosai's aura projection shrank
before the flames.

     Sick with horror, Ryoga watched as Happosai raised his 
crossed forearms, a futile gesture of defence, almost 
instinctual.  
     
     The stream of flames engulfed him.
     
     And parted around him, like a river parted by a rock, 
scorching parallel lines along the grass behind him, cracking the 
earth with their heat, but leaving Happosai unharmed.
     
     Happosai lowered his arms.  Even from this distance, Ryoga
could see his smirk, his face made pale by Ashura's 
incandescence.  "Is that your best shot, demon?"
     
     Ryoga shook his head, glanced over at Akane.  "You always
forget how damn good he is, you know?"

     "I hope he doesn't hurt her," Akane muttered in reply, the
glow of Ashura's light reflecting in her eyes.  "Something's
wrong with her.  Rouge isn't like this."

     Ryoga frowned in silence and turned his head away to watch
the fight again.  He remembered watching Ranma fight Saffron,
feeling much the same sense of uselessness as he did now.

     Ashura was going berserk in the air, launching shot after
shot of fiery power at Happosai, turning the ground around them
into fused and scorched wasteland.  Happosai was dodging easily,
little more than a blur.

     With each dodge, Ashura's rage seemed to increase, and she
stepped up the speed of her firing, with a concurrent loss in
accuracy.  

     "Make this fun for me, at least, demon!" Happosai taunted,
leaping away from a fireball that shattered the earth where he
had been standing.  

     "DIE!" Ashura's tripartite voice shrieked.  The fire changed
to bolts of lightning, blasting the earth into fragments and
sending forks of blue-white power crackling along the ground, and
still Happosai dodged.
     
     "Again, I ask, is that your best?" Happosai called, nimbly
escaping a blast of electricity meant to annihilate him.

     Ashura screamed, high and piercing, pure rage.
     
     Her aura flared, blindingly bright, turning night into day
for a fraction of a second; Ryoga hid his eyes at the last 
second, saw Akane do the same.  When he moved his hand away 
moments later, blinking spots of glaring light from them, he saw 
Happosai staggering, clutching his eyes.

     Ashura brought her arms forward, forming a circle of her six
outstretched palms.  Energy flared in the empty space between 
them, and then a line of flame so pure and hot that it was like a
beam of power shot from her hands at Happosai.

     Who seemed to dodge by pure instinct, throwing himself out 
of the way, stumbling to the ground.  The beam scored down the 
side of the locomotive, carving out a line through its steel 
shell.  

     "Enough playing," Ashura hissed.  "Now it is time for your
death."

     She raised her arms to the air, spinning them in circles so
fast that the eye could not seem to follow.  Ryoga watched,
fascinated by the power, by the sheer fury of destruction.

     "Rouge, don't!" Akane yelled, trying to draw the attention
of the thing.  "You don't want to do this!"

     Again, there was the grinding sound, as Ashura's heads
rotated to look back at Akane.  "Seek not to command Ashura,
mortal."

     There was no aura anywhere but on her arms now, as they wove
circles, as if she performed a complicated dance.  
     
     And then Happosai struck, leaping to his feet, all signs of
his blindness gone.  He swung his arms wide, and the power of his
aura reflected it, a ghostly shape flaring around him.

     He brought his hands together, as if clutching something,
and for a few seconds, he held Ashura, the vast power of
destruction, held her motionless in the air, unable to complete
her attack, unable to move.

-Continued in section 2


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