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

Gosh.  Twenty-five chapters.  How did this story ever end up getting
so big, anyway?

As usual, any commentary is very much welcomed.

Chapter 25 : What Rose in Darkness [2 of 3]

     The night was falling slowly outside the kitchen window as
Kuno sat at the table and ate his plain rice.  The silence, the
sense of solitude, felt incredibly peaceful.  There was a certain
freedom entailed in knowing that he was unlikely to be disturbed
for a long time.

     He did not know how long Kodachi would be gone.  He would
carry on as he had before.  When his dinner was finished, he
would complete his schoolwork.  When that was finished, he would
practice with the blade until he was ready for bed.  Simplicity,
practiced routine.  A waiting. 

     He finished his rice, laid down his chopsticks on the table
beside the bowl, and looked at his hands, as he had last night.
He turned them back and forth, studying the way the light moved
across them, defining the folds of the skin, the minute details.

     He rose from the table, rinsed his bowl in the sink, rinsed
his hands, dried them, rinsed them again, enjoying the feel of
the cool water running over his hands, between his fingers,
rolling across his palms.  

     The phone rang.  He glared at it, as if that could somehow
make it stop.  He wished he'd gotten one with a call display as
soon as this whole mess had started.  Kontongara seemed
implacable; she would not leave him alone.  It was always her;
never anyone else from her company.  

     It rang again.  There was nothing he could see doing to make
her stop beyond legal action, and in his opinion, it was too 
petty a thing to bring the courts or the police into.

     He reached out and snatched up the phone.  Perhaps it would
not be her.       

     "Hello?"
     
     "Tatewaki, I am running out of patience."
     
     It was her.  His grip tightened almost imperceptibly, and he
had to force down an angry response.  He was very good at hiding
things, very good indeed, but she was truly trying him.

     "You are not the one being forced to have patience in this
affair," he coldly replied.  "It has gone beyond a mere matter of
business into the realms of harassment.  If this does not 
stop--"

     "Oh, what then?" Yoko's voice interrupted, crackling from     
the phone, cynical and amused.  "The police?  Oh, yes, they are
most effective, are they not?"

     He winced, glad that she could not see.  The barb had struck
home, though he was sure she could not know why, or how deeply.  
"I ask that this cease, Miss Kontongara.  I will not sell the 
land to you.  I do not know your reasons for desiring it, and if 
I did, still I would not sell to you."

     "You do not need to know reasons," she said, voice measured
and calm.  "What cares the seller for what the buyer does with
the sold?  Is it your responsibility?"

     "Yes," Kuno said vehemently.  "Good day."
     
     He began to move the phone away from his ear.
     
     "Wait."
     
     The single word cracked out like a whip, harsh and cold,
commanding.  He paused in his preparation to hang up, listening.

     "Did you not receive a call from my associate?"
     
     "He holds less sway over me than even you," Kuno snarled,
something rising bitter and broken to the surface in his voice.
"He is nothing to me."

     "You stupid little buffoon," Yoko hissed back, her voice a
bare edge of anger, all pretension of friendliness or patience
gone.  "I have given you enough chance.  No more games, Tatewaki.
You shall learn the price of this misplaced pride."

     The phone line clicked, and then the dialtone was buzzing in
his ear, blank and empty.  He let the phone handset drop from his 
shaking hand and dangle by the cord a few inches above the 
kitchen floor, swaying gently back and forth.

     He laughed, shakily, trying to dispel his own feelings.  
What could she do to him, truly?  She was only a businesswoman,
powerful in that sphere, ruthless perhaps, but her threats held
no weight.  He would not submit to her.

     He ran water in the sink, and again washed his hands.
     
**********

     Mousse was not sure how, but after what seemed like hours of
sitting in the comfortable seat, his eyes closed, thinking of
nothing but unable to find sleep, he had managed somehow to slip 
away into an easy and dreamless slumber.  

     When he awoke, the world outside the windows lay in inky
darkness, and Kodachi was gone from her seat.  He tried to sit
up, and was jerked back into his seat, having forgotten the 
presence of the belt.

     Unbuckling himself, he stood up and stretched the kinks out
of his aching arms and legs, just as Kodachi came back through
the curtain that led towards the cockpit.

     "The captain says we crossed into Chinese airspace a few
hours ago," she said conversationally, stepping by him and going 
to stand in front of the low cupboard near the back of the plane.  
She crouched down and opened it.  "Do you want anything to 
drink?"

     Mousse turned and walked down the aisle to the table, 
resting his palm atop it.  He was surprised to find that he could
detect very little sign of the plane's motion.  "What is there?"

     There was a rattling of glass from the cupboard.  "A quite
astonishing variety of liquor.  I believe there is water and soft
drinks in the fridge."

     She pulled out a bottle and glanced up at him.  "Shall you
indulge with me?"

     Mousse shrugged.  "Why not?"
     
     She rose, bringing the bottle and two small clay cups to 
the table.  As she sat, a sudden bump of turbulence rocked the
plane, sending one of the cups rolling off to land gently on the
ground.

     "Let me get that," Mousse said quietly, kneeling down and
putting on his glasses.  He grabbed the cup, his fingers brushing
against the thin blue carpet that covered the floor of the plane
as he did.  Standing, he took a seat across from Kodachi and
placed the cup before him.

     "Sake," Kodachi said, indicating the bottle.  "A good brand,
as well."

     Mousse frowned slightly.  "Do you drink a lot of it?"
     
     "Occasionally," she said softly, pouring a measure into her
cup and his.  Her eyes were shadowed, unreadable.

     Mousse cradled the clay cup of rice wine in his hands for a
moment, and then sipped gently from it.  The room-temperature
liquor was sweet going down his throat.  "Just why did you want
to go to Jusenkyou, anyway?"

     Kodachi looked at him for a moment, sipped her own drink in
silence before she spoke.  "Because of Ranma."

     Mousse gave a slight nod.  "I'm not surprised."
     
     Kodachi smiled, somewhat bitterly to his eyes.  "I hid from
the truth for so long, of what he was."

     "People do that," Mousse said.  "You... don't want to face
something that's painful, so you won't believe it's true."

     He put down his cup and stared out the nearest window, into
the rushing darkness.  "If you want someone to love you, you can
convince yourself that they do, no matter what evidence there is
against it."

     "No," Kodachi said softly.  "Not that.  I always knew that
he did not love me.  I simply believed that I could change him, 
if I tried hard enough.  I realized that I could not at the same
time I realized that he and the pig-tailed girl were one and the
same.  Perhaps the two were tied together, somehow, in my mind.
I cannot say for certain."

     She looked down at the table, at her hands, clasped around
the shape of the sake cup.  "As I have said, much of life seems a
dream these days."

     Raising her head, she caught her eyes with his.  "Tell me
about yourself, Mousse.  How you came to be in Japan."

     "You probably already know why," Mousse replied quietly.

     Kodachi nodded.  "To some extent."
     
     A silence fell between them.  Mousse looked out the window,
saw a far-off point of light that vanished almost before his eyes
had time to register it, retreating somewhere back into that vast
expanse of dark sky.

     He drained the last of his sake.  "I loved Shampoo as long
as I could remember.  Even as a child, I wanted nothing more than
to have her as my wife.  She was everything to me.  Nothing
mattered but her."

     He shook his head fiercely.  "None of that matters anymore.
I'm not... I'm not..."

     He bowed his head, closing his eyes and trying to force down
an unwanted tide of emotions.  "I'm not going to let her hurt me
anymore.  Not even the memory of her."

     Hands closed around his, cool and soft.  He looked up at
Kodachi.  She was smiling, softly and gently, and there was
understanding in her dark eyes.  "Pretending that it does not
hurt you will not make the hurt any less."

     He stared at her, wondering, drew a shuddering breath that
seemed to wrack his entire frame.  "Lady..."

     The word rose unbidden from him, and yet somehow seemed to
embody everything, impossible as that might be, all feeling, all 
grief, all regret.  

     His neck bent, and he felt her hands, linked with his, touch
his forehead.  "Oh, lady, it hurts so bad."

     "Shh," Kodachi said, a barest whisper, like a mother to a
child.  "Accept what is past, guardian.  Only when the pain is
realized can there be an end to it."

     He raised his head and stared across the table at her, as
she held his hands in hers.  Lady.  Guardian.  Those two words.

     They had no source.  They had no reason to call each other
those things, no reason even to be in each other's presence.  And
yet he felt as if he knew Kodachi Kuno, truly knew her, her pain,
her pride, knew her and understood her, realized that she knew
and understood him.  He felt as if he had always known her, but
had only realized it now.

     She let his hands go, reached up and brushed his hair away
from his forehead, looked deeply into his eyes.  "Soon, we shall
be there."

     The table, the chairs, the confines of the metal shell of
the plane, all of those might well have not even existed.  There
was only him, only her.  

     "What is happening to us?" he heard himself whisper.  "Why
are we..."     
     
     "We are called," Kodachi replied before he finished.  "We
are called, and we go."

     Things seemed to fall back into focus.  He felt the tiniest
whisper of wind across his face, fluttering his bangs, caressing
his skin.  

     Suddenly, he felt embarrassed, self-conscious.  He tucked his
hands into the sleeves of his robe and stared at them, feeling a
hot blush tinge his face.

     "Tell me about Jusenkyou, Mousse," he heard Kodachi say.  
"Tell me what your home is like."
     
     "It is very beautiful," he said quietly, unable to look at
her.  "There are many mountains."

     Finally, he managed to raise his eyes.  "From wherever you
stand, you can see the mountains."

**********

     Yoko frowned, and lowered her hand.  The space between the
octagonal frame was still black, a mirror reflecting darkness.
     
     She reached out and pressed her fingers against the 
unyielding expanse of black, frowning.  There was a lot of pain, 
anguish, and the girl was still unconscious.  Hako had obviously 
hurt her very badly, but she hadn't killed her, and she hadn't
touched her since last night.  Odd.

     Shrugging pragmatically, she waved a hand again, and the
blackness faded from the mirror, leaving the glass reflecting
normally.  The mirror hung on the wall of her bedroom, an
eight-sided shape of polished metal and glass.  

     On to other business.  She reached down and picked up one of
the objects resting on her bedside table.  She held it up and
turned it back and forth.  The eyeball inside the glass sphere of
water bobbed slightly with the motion, half-hidden by the tangle
of golden and silver wires that were wrapped, seemingly at 
random, around the sphere.

     She raised the baseball-sized object up in both her hands,
and began to chant the words of power, the ecstatic rush of the
magic coursing through her, the tiny connection between her and
the vast might that was the master forcing her body to sing, to
bend in time with the power, or be consumed.

     Her reflection in the mirror fell away, into jagged motes of
colour that swam and flickered and reformed themselves into 
another scene, a panel of instruments, dials and lights and
buttons, dozens of them.  She studied them, hands gripping the 
sphere tightly.  Not close enough yet.  A few more hours.

     There was a certain irony in the situation, she supposed.
She hadn't been able to find out why the boy's sister was going
to China, to the area that she knew held Jusenkyou.  Knowing why
would not have changed her intentions at all, however, so perhaps
it did not matter.

     She had given him adequate time to come around, adequate
warning.  He had been stubborn and prideful, and now he would pay
the price.  She had toyed with him too long anyway, and the time
was coming close that they would need to have possession of the
land Ryugenzawa occupied, so as not to arouse suspicion when it
would be necessary to bring it under her control.
     
     Ritter had warned her to leave Ryugenzawa for now.  But
Ritter was in China now, far away from Tokyo, far away from where
he might be able to physically threaten her.  Still, she was wary 
of moving too fast.  It was foolishness not to be wary of one 
with his power.
     
     She shook her head, cast the thoughts away.  The image in
the mirror faded as she lowered the sphere in her hands, and 
placed it back upon the bedside table.  Now she would wait.  Soon 
enough, it would be time.

**********
     
     Kodachi cupped her chin with one hand and gazed at him
intently across the table.  "And the women of your tribe marry
outsider men who defeat them because?"

     Mousse gave a small yawn and took his glasses off to rub at
his eyes.  Kodachi seemed to want to know everything about
Jusenkyou, everything that he could possibly tell her about the
history of the area.  He wasn't sure how many hours they'd spent
talking.  "Lemme think..."

     His voice sounded slightly slurred, and he realized he also
wasn't sure how many cups of sake he'd drunk.  Perhaps one too
many, in hindsight.  
     
     He put his glasses back on and stared at Kodachi, his sight
still slightly blurry.  Her eyes were bright and questing as she
waited for him to answer.

     "The way my grandmother always told the story to me," he
said quietly, resting his elbow on the table.  "A long time ago,
over a thousand years, some warlord came to the Valley of the
Waters..."

     "Valley of the Waters?"
     
     He shrugged at the interruption.  "Old name for the area.
Never thought about it much, but I guess it's got to do with
Jusenkyou."

     He drew himself up slightly from the slump he'd fallen into.
"He came down from the northern mountains with an army of 
warriors unlike anything anyone had ever seen... The legend says 
that they drank the blood of those they killed, and ate their 
flesh.  They destroyed several villages before anyone realized 
what was happening..."

     He sighed gently, remembered when his grandmother had first
told him the story when he was only a child, sitting at her feet 
as the light from the fireplace shone in her eyes.  "An outsider
man came to the Joketsuzoku and asked their help in stopping the
warlord.  The stories say he wasn't from the area, wasn't even
Chinese, hardly spoke the language at all.  Some of the women 
wanted to execute him immediately; the Joketsuzoku were very 
hostile towards outsiders then."

     He sighed again.  "Even moreso than they are now.  But it
was decided that he would be allowed to fight a champion, the
greatest of the young warriors, to decide if he deserved the aid
he requested.  He defeated her after a long battle, and the
Joketsuzoku marched to battle.  They defeated the warlord and his
army, supposedly about a mile north of Jusenkyou; grandmother 
took me to the spot once."

     "Are you very close to your grandmother?" Kodachi asked
quietly.

     "Not anymore," Mousse said, a twinge of regret in his voice.
"She... did not approve of my choices in my life for the past few
years."

     He shook his head.  "That's not important, though.  The law
came into being soon afterwards, as it was judged a good way to
strengthen the bloodline..."

     The plane tilted to the side, suddenly and shockingly.  
Mousse's hip slammed hard against the arm of the wooden chair,
and Kodachi gave a cry and nearly tumbled from her seat.  The
nearly empty bottle of sake and the clay cups fell from the table
and went rolling across the floor, tilted nearly forty-five
degrees to the right.

     Mousse heard the sound of glass bottles shattering in the
cupboard, and then the plane abruptly righted itself, as he clung
desperately to his seat to keep from falling.  It had been tilted
for but a few seconds.

     "Sorry about that," the pilot's voice said, echoing from the
ceiling, oddly dull and flat.  "Turbulence."

     The floor dipped sickeningly forward, sending Mousse, still
disoriented, into the table.  The air rushed from his lungs as 
his stomach slammed against the wooden edge.

     "What's going on?" he wheezed, as the interior of the plane
spun madly about him.  Kodachi was holding onto the table to stop
herself from falling out of her chair.

     A chill ran down his spine, sharp as an electric current.
     
     He looked out the window into what had once been a
featureless expanse of dark sky.     
     
     "Oh my god," he whispered, sickly realizing that he was
about to die.     
     
**********

     *Tanzei.*
     
     She woke instantly at the voice in her mind, the clear,
sweet tones of the Lady resonating with power, a sound like the
ringing of a great bell.

     "Lady?" she whispered into the darkness of the room.
     
     *She comes, Tanzei,* the voice said, stroking lovingly
through her very being, gentle and ancient.  *She comes.*

     Tanzei gestured, and the lamp flared to life on the wall.
"How soon, Lady?" 

     *Soon, daughter,* the Lady said inside her head, the beauty
of the voice undiminished even after such long service, so pure 
and lovely that it made her want to weep.  *He seeks to destroy 
her.  He seeks to tear the threads and weave them anew in his 
pattern.  Even his tools do not realize the truth of his ends.*

     Tanzei swung out of bed, an arc of fear tracing through her.
The Lady sounded calm as always, but her words were terrifying.
"What can we do?"

     *Gather them.  Go now.  There is not much time, beloved.*
     
     A breeze touched her face like a hand, and she felt the
presence of the Lady fade.  The lamp on the wall stabbed its
light into all the corners of the room.

     Tanzei opened the door and ran into the hallway, raising her
voice to wake the sleepers in the dark.

**********

     Yoko groaned with the effort and clutched the orb she held
in her right hand so tightly that she feared it might shatter.  
The other was a mess of water and glass and wire on the floor,
the ruined, blackened eye sitting obscenely in the middle.

     The image in the mirror was tilting madly, mountains 
spinning out of the darkness towards the glass, as hands trembled
on the controls of the plane.  Even a few minutes of control like
this was incredibly draining, absolute and total mental 
domination a near impossibility, even with the sympathetic power
of the objects she'd made.  The co-pilot was a babbling wreck; on
the edge of her mind, she could hear the sound of his voice.  His
mind had broken when she'd broken the sphere that held his eye.

     There was blood running down her hand from where the shards
of glass had cut her, but that was a pain very small compared to
the strain upon her mind.  The air of the room was buzzing, 
wavering with the effort, with the power being expended.  

     Yoko reached out across the link, and forced the pilot's     
hands to tilt the plane towards a jutting spire of stone.
     
**********

     Tanzei threw the door open and stepped into the chamber
beyond, into a rounded room filled with the sound of chanting and
the hum of power, and a half-dozen dark-robed women surrounding
the circular stone basin of glass-clear water in the centre.  The
room glowed with the light of lamps on the walls.

     A pale-haired novice with a weary face turned from the pool,
pausing her chant and lowering her hands as the others continued.
The glow of power still wreathed her palely, fading slowly as she
let her power die.  "Honourable Tanzei..."

     "Stop the ceremony," Tanzei said shortly, striding into the
room, more than a dozen other women following behind her, eyes
still slightly fogged with sleep, wearing hastily belted robes or
thin nightgowns.  "We need the Nightpool."

     Shock lit the face of the girl.  "But if the ceremonies are
stopped he will..."

     "If they are not, then there is no reason for him to live,"
Tanzei snapped back.  "Stop the ceremonies."

     The other women stopped.  The hum of power in the room began
to slow, and the water in the pool began to darken.  The novice
took a hesitant step forward.  "Please..."

     "Ring the pool," Tanzei said to the assembled women, 
ignoring her.  "Open yourselves.  The Lady needs us."

     At the words, a hush seemed to fall.  Silently, the women
began to circle the pool, which was beginning to be striated with
bands of darkness through the clearness.  Tanzei made her way to
the front, paused at the edge of the pool.

     A hand touched her arm.  "Honourable Tanzei, why..."
     
     "Later, child," she said, gently as she could.  "Please,
later.  Only trust in the Lady and I."

     She raised her hands.  The other women did the same.  
     
     "We are ready, Lady," she said softly.
     
**********

     The mountain peaks loomed outside the window, seeming only a
few feet away, dark and jagged in the night.  Mousse's voice died
in his throat.  He felt a moment of terror so absolute and pure
that before it, all fear he had ever experienced seemed nothing.

     The plane tilted again, and he was flung from his seat, 
sent spinning through empty space like a leaf.  His shoulder
clipped the top of a seat, and he slammed hard against the wall.
     
     Blackness swam before his vision, and he heard Kodachi say
something in a soft voice, but he words were lost to the 
darkness.
          
**********

     *Lift,* the Lady said, and they lifted, directing their
power at the pool, making themselves the vehicle of her will.  
The water heaved like a living thing, a furrow parting it down
the centre and sending water up in two waves to lash into the
air, hissing and crackling with power.

     The lanterns went out, as a wind howled through the chamber,
shrieking across them, threatening to drown out their voices.  
Tanzei watched as the furrow in the water deepened, and on either
side, the waves rose even higher, dancing in the air, forks of
black lightning coursing through them.

     *Lift,* the Lady said again, and Tanzei heard with fear that 
there was the faintest note of apprehension in her voice.  The 
Lady was afraid as well, she realized.  

     The wind grew in pitch, a keening wail, whipping her robes
about her, blowing hair in front of her face.  The very air
seemed heavy, so impossibly heavy, threatening to bring her to
her knees, to break her like a twig.

     She heard a cry, saw one of the women drop and fall, another
follow moments later.  There was so much power arrayed against
them, so much hate.

     *Lift,* the Lady called a third time, weakly, so faintly it
was almost inaudible, with such love, such fear.  *Lift, dear
ones, lift, beloved daughters, oh, lift.*

**********
     
     Yoko screamed and forced her will upon the pilot.  He should
not have been able to fight so hard.  The mountain peak loomed
ahead in the mirror, impossibly huge at so close a distance.  

     Gasping with pain, she sank to her knees, gritting her teeth
and summoning all the power she could, sending it out through the
thousands of miles in a great wave, all her hatred, all of 
herself.  

     The mirror turned dark and shattered, at the same time the
wire-wrapped glass sphere in her hand exploded, ripping through
the flesh of her palm.  She screamed again, real pain in it this
time, curling into a ball on the floor as convulsions wracked her
body.  
     
     She was smiling, though, through all the agony, because it
had been enough, and she fell into the soft embrace of 
unconsciousness with the smile still upon her face.

**********

[Continued in section 3]


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