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, public or private, is very appreciated.

Chapter 28 : Judgements (3 of 3)

     "From what my grandfather has told me," Kuno said quietly.
"Those who he reports to have been watching Ranma for a long,
long time."

     "So now that I've answered your question," Nabiki said.
"Answer mine.  Who are they?"

     "Grandfather said little of them," he answered.  "They are
all women, I know that.  They don't age.  They are very hard to 
kill."

     His voice was very quiet, and his eyes were sad.  "And 
beginning twelve years ago, they systemically butchered the
families of key yakuza members until all the oyabuns and their
organizations submitted to their will."

     And now his voice dropped to a bare whisper, a vein of grief
running through it like gold through stone.  "And I defied one of
them, and for that she caused my sister's death.  She made it
appear an accident."

     Nabiki stared at him in silence for a moment.  She had
thought last night that he was mad; that who he had pretended to
be had only disguised a dark, dangerous core.

     And perhaps it did, she realized, looking at his eyes.  But
there was a dangerous sanity in how he spoke, a sense that he, at
least, had no doubts of what he said.  It sounded mad, of course;
women who did not age, who could bring the vast might of the
yakuza to heel, who could kill and not be detected.

     Any madder, some inner voice whispered, than people who
changed shape with water, or a land of cursed springs, or a
winged race whose king was a child with a god's power?  She had
seen the first, heard of the other two from her younger sister.

     And Akane had told her what had happened on the mountain.
Women who controlled shadows, who made lightning come from clear
sky.  They had wanted Ranma; they had been ready to kill all the
rest of them to get him.  

     Puzzle pieces began to fall into place, dozens of sections 
of disparate information connecting to each other in a few quick
seconds, as automatic to her as breathing.  

     "Oh god," she whispered heavily as she began to realize.
"Ranma.  It was always Ranma.  They wanted to know what he was
doing, where he had been, who he had fought, how it had
happened..."

     Fear was nothing.  Fear was a word for what she had felt
before, when she had been entrapped in something she could
understand, something she could reconcile with the world of
numbers and dealings that occupied most of her time.  Fear was
not adequate; terror, perhaps, as if she had lit a candle in some
deep, dark pit only to see that all around lay all the bones of 
all the dead.

     She was shaking.  One of Kuno's hands was on her shoulder, a
human touch, mildest of comforts.  She should have pushed it 
away, but did not.  A sick, numb ache was growing in the pit of
her stomach.

     "Ranma is the key," Kuno said quietly.  His hand squeezed
her shoulder gently.  "Everything centres upon him."

     "What?" Nabiki asked, confused, trying to stop shaking but
unable.       
     
     "I had a dream," he replied.  "A week before he came.  A
creature both male and female who burned as bright as the sun,
and the people gathered to his light.  And those who came too
close to him burned, as moths burn drawn to candles."

     "Why'd you do it, Tatewaki?" she asked, too conscious of his
hand upon her shoulder to be comfortable.  "Even before Ranma 
came, all those years... my sister..."

     There was a long silence between them.  He took his hand
from her shoulder, and in his eyes there was a very deep sadness,
one that she did not think she could ever understand.

     "I was an actor upon a stage, Nabiki Tendo," he said 
finally.  "I played my part, believing I did what was best for my 
ends."  Pausing, he lifted his bokken slightly in both hands, as 
if weighing it.  "I think now that I was wrong.  But what is done 
is done."
     
     Nabiki looked at him for a moment, aghast.  "What ends?  
What could possibly be worth pretending to be something you're
not?"

     He lowered his bokken to rest it upon his knees again, and
slowly met her eyes.  From beyond the shelter of the equipment
sheds, she could hear the sounds of other students arriving now, 
and realized she had been here, talking with him, for a very long 
time.

     "If they cannot touch you, they cannot hurt you."  His voice
was very soft, and a gust of wind blew a few scattered leaves,
green and torn from the trees too early, by them across the cold 
concrete.  "If they do not know you, they cannot betray you."

     "Who can't betray you?"
     
     He smiled thinly.  "Everyone.  Everyone, Nabiki Tendo."
     
     She stared into his eyes.  "What about me?"
     
     He laughed, harshly.  "We are on equal footing now, Nabiki.
Each of us knows something of the other that we do not desire
others to know, yes?"
     
     She nodded, and said nothing.  Her legs had grown stiff with
pins and needles from having sat on the ground so long.  "Tell me
one more thing."

     "What?"
     
     "Why'd you go after my sister?"
     
     He ran a hand through his hair.  "Because I was sure that
she would reject me."

     Abruptly, he stood to his feet, stretching and rotating his
shoulders.  His bokken dangled loosely from one hand.  "We should
part, Nabiki Tendo.  Classes will begin soon."

     He leaned down and offered her his free hand.  To her own
surprise, perhaps to his, she took it and allowed him to pull her
to her feet.  "Thanks."

     She stood there for a moment, her hand in his, letting the
blood flow back into her cold, numb legs and looking at his stoic
face.  His eyes were bright and hard, intelligent.  He was an
actor, she realized, a superb one; he had fooled them all, even
her.  And he was quite possibly insane, though not in a way she
had ever imagined someone could be insane.

     "We are both in a great deal of danger," he said at last, as
if it were something they both did not already know.  "You even
more now because of what I have told you, and I because of what I
have told you.  But hear me out, Nabiki Tendo."

     He let go of her hand and seemed to gather himself.  He was,
she realized, going to make a speech, of sorts, if she recognized
the signs correctly.

     "If I believed in any gods any more," he began, "I would
swear by them.  But now I can swear only by myself, and what
honour one whose existence has been for the most part a lie could
be said to possess.  I will do all that I can to help you and 
yours, Nabiki Tendo.  I swear it."

     "Thank you," Nabiki said, genuinely grateful to another
person for the first time she could remember in a very long time.
For the offer of help, the sharing of his own secrets, and also,
she realized, for listening to the sharing of hers.

     She was still terrified.  The guilt, however, at how far she
had allowed herself to fall, was less.  She felt cleansed, as if
washed in water, and felt a thin spar of hope for the first time.
Thin, insubstantial, but hope all the same.

     "We're in this together, then?" she asked quietly, holding
out her hand.  He took it in both of his and shook it formally.

     "It is a deal," he answered.  "Together."
     
     In the distance, all the bells of the school began to ring,
shattering the peace of the moment, summoning them away.
     
*********     
     
     The light went out.  A thin knife of laughter cut from the
darkness.  "Can you see in the dark, children?"

     "Stay together," Wiyeed's voice said, clearly and almost
frighteningly calm.  "Ranma, Herb, give me your hands."

     Ranma reached out and found her in the darkness, slipped his
hand into hers.  "What are you doing?"

     Out from somewhere in the dark, the World-Hater laughed
again.  There was a sound like a great wind howling down a
mountain pass, a roaring scream that seemed to build and build 
and build.

     "Get in close," Wiyeed said.  "Quickly, now."
     
     Footsteps.  Mint, Lime, Kima.  Herb had been next to Wiyeed
when the light had gone out.

     The piercing scream grew higher and sharper, until Ranma 
felt as if his ears would explode.  Wiyeed's hand gripped his
tightly.  Ranma felt a slight touch upon his mind, a 
feather-light probing.

     The screaming grew, as if all the winds of the world
gathered howling around them.  He heard laughter again, drowned
out by that vast screaming.

     Then it stopped.  Totally and completely.  Silence reigned, 
dead and heavy, over everything.
     
     "Now," Wiyeed said desperately.  "Let me use your power."
     
     It was easy enough.  He realized the touch upon his mind was
her, showing him how.  They had done something like this before,
the three of them in a circle, to make light in the darkness when
one alone had not been enough.

     Ranma opened himself, and let his ki flow out of him and
into her, through the contact of their hands.  Then there was a
screaming as of wind again, deafeningly loud, gigantic even
compared to the first howling.

     He felt the ground beneath his feet rock, and a dome of
light flared around them, centred on Wiyeed.  He saw, in the
brief second of illumination, the stone floor to either side of
them being furrowed and ripped away as if by some great plow, 
rock shattering as a scum of ice formed across it and it 
crystallized and exploded, debris pattering off the shield.  He 
heard the wind screaming past them, and saw frost crystals 
forming in the air as it went by.
     
     Dozens of feet away, he saw the Ravager, left hand raised,
silver hair whipping around his face.  The ground before him was 
torn and rent like an arctic wound, a long swathe of icy 
destruction that split at the dome of light into two lines,
diverging around the barrier in a fork.

     Then the light went out again, and all was still; the air
was freezing cold around them, like the heart of winter.  
Wiyeed's grip was so tight as to be painful.  Ranma felt drained 
and tired; something was stirring wearily in the back of his 
mind, that vast and ancient force of ice and fire.  He forced it 
back down.
     
     "Very impressive," the Ravager said from the darkness.  
"How long can you keep that up, little one?"

     "As long as I must," Wiyeed answered.
     
     "Wiyeed--" Herb began.
     
     "Shut up, Herb," she hissed.  "Get in closer.  Close as
possible.  That makes it easier."
     
     "Master Herb--" two voices said in unison.
     
     "Mint, Lime, get over here and be quiet."
     
     Footsteps again.  Ranma felt a hand fall upon his shoulder.
"Ranma?" 
     
     He reached up with his free hand and laid it across the
almost-human talon of Kima's.  Said nothing.  Tried to ignore the
trembling in his legs, the great weariness.

     There was a roaring sound, and the air was filled with
flames.  The dome of light flared again, showing the six of them
huddled tightly together, showing the world consumed by fire.
Wiyeed's teeth were gritted, her eyes closed.  Sweat beaded her
face, making her hair cling damply to her forehead.

     "Lady protect us," she whispered softly.  "He's so strong."
     
     The inferno of heat rolled around them, red-orange tongues
of flame stroking across the barrier.  Ranma heard stone
exploding beyond the dome, detonating at the impossibly great 
heat.

     Then it stopped.  The flames died away, revealing for a
moment before Wiyeed let the dome of light fall a wasteland of
blackened and melted stone, filled with huge clouds of steam from
the ice that had boiled away.  Ranma saw no walls or ceiling in 
this place; only the endless floor, stretching out in all
directions, and then the light was gone.  The heat of the flames
had not died yet; he felt the heavy caress of heat across his
face.

     "Wiyeed," Ranma asked softly, "are you okay?"
     
     "I'm alright," she answered wearily back.  "I can't keep
this up for long, though.  We have to get out of here."

     "How, precisely?" Herb demanded.  "We don't even know how we
got here."

     There was a click, and a pale light shining from the carved
ivory box in Kima's hand.  It was almost shocking, to see that
tiny, bright light when before the only illumination had been the
flaring of Wiyeed's shield or the annihilating glow of the heat
of the flames.  "Ranma, remember when we came through from 
Ryugenzawa to Jusenkyou?"

     Ranma glanced back to her where she stood behind him, her
hand still on his shoulder.  "Yeah."

     She looked silently to where his hand covered hers, and he
took it away, embarrassed.  "Remember what it was like between?"

     (...vast darkness, all-consuming absence of light...)
     
     He nodded slowly.  "Dark."
     
     (...the invisible cold of the spaces between the stars,
places where the light has never reached...)

     "I think he was waiting there," Kima concluded.  She looked
to Wiyeed, as if for confirmation.  "Well, sorceress?  Does the
hypothesis hold?"

     "That is not a title I like," Wiyeed murmured, her eyes
half-closed, still holding hands with Herb and Ranma.  "But I
believe you are correct."

     "All well and good," Herb, his face harshly defined by the
light Kima held.  "But where is he now?"

     There was a light chuckle from somewhere high above them.
Wiyeed almost got the shield up again in time, but the
black-armoured shape, plunging like a stooping falcon, crashed 
into her with both feet, smashing her to the ground and ripping 
her hands free from Herb and Ranma.  Checked by the shield, the
Ravager had resorted to purely physical force.

     A blade of light rushed up Herb's arm, and he sliced
sideways at the Ravager's neck, as the silver-haired man landed
lightly on his feet near the fallen body of Wiyeed.

     The World-Hater dodged with ease, and casually backhanded
Herb across the face, snapping his head sideways and driving him
staggering back.  Lime swung at him, snarling ferally, and the
Ravager grabbed his wrist, spun, and tossed the huge boy
crushingly to the floor.

     He knelt and seized Wiyeed by the throat with a 
seven-fingered silver hand, the gems upon it sparkling in the
light; bright rubies, liquid emeralds, pearls like tears, a 
single triangular diamond on the back the size of a man's eye.  
"She dies if another of you makes a move towards me."

     Ranma backed away, saw Mint, his curved sword drawn and held
slightly nervously in his hands, do the same.  

     "You'll kill her anyway," Herb said coldly, wiping a hand
across a lip split by the Ravager's blow.  "You're going to kill
all of us in the end."

     The Ravager lifted the weakly-struggling girl by the neck,
dangling her loosely off the ground.  "True enough."

     He turned his eyes to Ranma.  They were simply fire in the
sockets.  "A deal, perhaps, Lord of Waters?"

     Ranma glared back at him.  There was a pounding in the back
of his head, a rising and falling like the waves hitting the
cliffs.  "I won't make deals with you."
     
     "But we both have something to offer," the Ravager said
chidingly.  "I am forbidden to slay you, Lord of Waters.  And yet
you may oppose me, and make my vengeance difficult upon these
five."  

     He gestured with his free hand at the others.  "And I hold 
their lives in my hands.  Literally, in the case of this one."
He spared a glance to Wiyeed as he held her a foot off the floor
with one hand.  Her eyes were narrowed with hate as she looked at 
him, both hands gripping his arm to keep from being choked.

     "Cursed be your name till the end of time," she said.  
There was blood in her hair from where her head had struck the
floor as she fell.  "May the Lady never guide you down that last 
river, and may your dark soul find no peace anywhere in all the 
worlds."

     The Ravager struck her across the face with his free hand.
"Empty threats, little one.  What I serve is older than your Lady
by far, and the Dark loves those who do its will."

     "Do not touch her again," Herb said.  His voice was very
cold.  "Mark my words.  Mark them well."

     "The bloodline has not changed in all these years," the
Ravager said, turning blazing eyes to Herb.  "You are still
blindingly arrogant, all of you."

     He glanced to Wiyeed.  "And your whores are still most fair.
Would your body give me pleasure, I wonder, young one?  Would you 
learn to scream my name, in time?"

     Wiyeed glared coldly at him.  "I would sooner die."
     
     He grinned savagely.  "The choice is not yours to make."
     
     "Leave her alone," Ranma said, clenching his fists and
taking a step forward.  "I'll talk.  What do you want?"

     The Ravager lowered his arm slightly, almost letting 
Wiyeed's feet touch the floor.  "Choose two of them."

     "What?"
     
     "Choose two of them," the World-Hater repeated.  "I will let
them and yourself leave this place.  The other three will stay
with me."

     Herb turned his head to look at Ranma.  "Take the women and
go, Saotome.  We of the Musk shall deal with this."

     Standing behind Ranma, Kima made a disgusted sound.  "How
typical.  Let the poor, helpless females flee, while the men stay
here and get nobly torn limb from limb."

     Herb glanced at her dismissively.  "Would you stay in my 
place, then?" he asked.  "You can do nothing here.  You cannot 
even fly any longer."

     Stunned, Ranma watched as Kima stared at Herb, her face
blank, a mask.  "Stay here and die then, childkiller," she said
at last, a coldness like ice in her voice.  "I, for one, shall 
not mourn the loss."

     Ranma looked from one to the other, unable to speak.  There
had been no cruelty in Herb's voice.  He could read nothing in
the other man's eyes.  He looked to Kima, saw only a fierce, 
steady, wounded pain in hers.  She turned away, shoulders slumped 
and head bowed.  

     The Ravager laughed.  "Delightful.  Utterly delightful.  I
hope you let me keep those two, Lord of Waters.  I'll just force
the two of them to remain in each other's company."

     "Shut up," Ranma snarled, whirling and stabbing a finger
through the air.  "You're not keeping anyone."

     "Then we have no deal?" the silver-haired man asked with
mock sadness.  Ranma hesitated for a moment, and then saw 
Wiyeed's nod, almost unnoticeable.
     
     "I'll negotiate," he said quietly.  "Let me stay here.  Let
the rest of them go."

     The World-Hater shook his head.  "That I cannot do."
     
     "Let me stay, then," Herb said, the first words he had
spoken since that casual, impossibly cruel thing he had said to
Kima.  "Let the others go.  I am sure I will provide you with
amusement enough."

     A little of Ranma's rage at the Musk prince lessened at the
sincerity in those words.  A little, but not all.  Once they were
out of here, he decided, he and Herb were going to have a 
discussion.

     "Too little for me in that deal," the World-Hater said,
laughing.  "Too little, dear prince."     
     
     Ranma frowned.  "This is going nowhere."
     
     He glanced to Wiyeed.  She nodded again.  All the Ravager's
attention was on him and Herb now.  Mint and Lime stood in
silence, confused and not knowing what to do.  The thin circle of
light Kima held was barely enough to contain the scene playing
itself out upon the stone floor.
     
     "Let me take three," Ranma said.
     
     The Ravager paused to consider it.  "If I may choose one of
those who stays."

     "Who?"
     
     "Only if you agree first."
     
     Ranma shook his head.  "No can do."
     
     Wiyeed moved then, very quickly.  The hand she'd slowly
crept down while keeping a grip on the Ravager's arm with the
other seized the dagger from her belt, drew it forth, and 
stabbed it into the Ravager's eye.

     He screamed.  A blinding flare of light exploded from the
curved blade, buried to the hilt in his face, a shining, 
pulsating glow like a star.  He staggered back, dropping Wiyeed, 
and clutched both his hands to the slim dagger.

     Herb caught his sister as she nearly collapsed to the ground
and leapt back with her, as the Ravager pulled the blade free 
with a terrible wet sound and cast it to the ground.

     He looked at brother and sister.  His right eye blazed with
hate, the fire brighter than ever before, and his left was a 
ruined, gaping socket of blood and worse, dripping down the 
smooth, beautiful lines of his face.  A few weak tongues of fire 
licked about within the terrible wound, rimmed with black at 
their edges.
     
     "I owe a hand and an eye now to the cursed weapons of the
first ones," he hissed, holding up his flesh hand to cover the
ragged hole in his face.  "I have made my choice.  You two will 
stay.  I give you no choice in this, Lord of Waters.  Are we
agreed?"

     "No," Ranma said, and struck.  He remembered Galm, held in a
world he should never have existed in by those black chains that
Ranma had unbound.  It was Kima who had given him the idea, the
understanding he had needed, and Wiyeed who had given him the
time.  That, and the Ravager's staggering arrogance, his childish
desire to play with what he had captured.

     This was the place between the waters, a place of the Dark,
obedient to the Ravager's will.  And they did not belong here; he
had trapped them and held them, against their desires, against 
the will of the waters.  He was Lord of Waters, then, and this
was against his will.

     He looked with his eyes - call them eyes, perhaps - at the
weave and flow of this place.  There was a vast darkness, and
something burning black at the centre, and six faint lights bound
to that black burning like moths to the flame, with chains forged
of hate and vengeance.

     It was astonishingly easy.  If the Ravager had been 
expecting it, it would not have been, but he was taken by
surprise as Ranma began slicing, with a bright blade of purest
will, at the weave and wind his trap.  

     The World-Hater tried; he sent his own vast will lashing
back like the binding threads of a spider's web, seeking again to
trap, to pull them back.  Ranma fought back, unbinding his 
efforts, slowly pulling them free of the trap.

     A last cutting, a last act of will, and the darkness became 
as light, and the stone became as water.  Again, now, they were
falling, down into a depth of the ocean, with waters closing in
over their head, and a blinding, beautiful light at the end,
welcoming them home.  And in the darkness behind, a voice
shrieking hatred and vengeance denied.

**********

     The part of the Dark that had once been called the Ravager
screamed in fury as his prey escaped.  He raged in his lightless
dominion, like a spoiled child denied a toy.  As he had so many
times before, he hammered with his vast hate against the confines 
of this place, as he had for four thousand years, and as always
before, he could not break free from the mindless embrace of the
Dark that held and loved him, smothering him like a protective
mother and keeping him away from the light and hope of the world
he had been born into to destroy.  

     As he had so many times before, he gathered the tortured, 
fragmented soul of the woman who had sacrificed herself to send 
him here, and made it whole, and inflicted agonies upon her that
would have broken the strongest will.  She broke, of course.  She 
always did, in the end.  But such a thing gave him little 
pleasure after so much time confined, and he casually threw the
essence of her being into the lightless space, as he had so many
times before.

     He was patient, though.  He would wait.  It was hard - very
hard - for him to observe the world beyond his prison, but he
could sense the greatest disturbances in the weave and skein of
time.  The Serpent walked in the Valley of the Waters now, and
the Lord of Waters went now towards his final meeting with the
third and final.  Across the ocean, the forces of his servants
gathered, a vast and mighty corruption seething like a cancer
beneath the surface of the land.

     What remained of the Ravager - who could only recollect with
effort the name he had been given at his birth - sat and brooded
for a moment, his silver hand cupping his chin.  Even after four
millennia, the habits of physical existence had not disappeared
completely from him.  He crafted a replacement eye from the
malleable stuff of this place, of purest beaten gold and shining 
gems, and its beauty pleased him.  Beauty still could, if only 
because he could render it ugly so easily.

     In time, though, he heard the voice of his master calling -
like him, only a part of a part, though a far greater part than 
he - and he left, returning to merge with the Dark like a river 
comes in time to merge with the sea.  His essence unbound from
the physical shape he had crafted, and he fell into something 
like a sleep, to wait again.  

     Soon, the true day of judgement would come, a final 
judgement for those who had defied he and his master's will...

     ...for the land that they lived in...
     
     ...for the powers that had cradled and protected them...
     
     ...for everything.

-End of Chapter 28

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