BLISS

                                part 7

                               a fic by

                     Mike Loader and Lara Bartram

                           ***   ***   ***

	...cometouscomecomeyoumustgetupopenyoureyescome 
wecallyoucome...
	Akane's eyes snapped open, and a low whimper escaped her 
lips. She was on fire, she was burning up, she needed something...
	Slowly, gingerly, she threw off the blankets that stuck to 
her sweating limbs and walked over to the balcony. The cool air 
blew in, and the moon illuminated her nude form in a faint glow.
	It was out there. She had to go.
	It took all her willpower to stop and hastily throw on some 
clothes before leaving, the feverish craving singing in her veins. 
She supposed this must be how a drug addict would feel. Should she 
be worried? Probably, but she couldn't quite manage fear. There 
was just the awful aching that needed to be salved, and the thing 
that would salve it was out in the jungle. She knew it.
	She also knew that she really should wake Ukyo up, but... he 
wouldn't understand. He might try to stop her, and then she would 
be able to go and make the burning stop...
	A low moan escaped her lips. Carefully, quietly, she 
descended the ladder, opened the palisade gate, and carefully shut 
it behind her. Then, without hesitating she walked through the 
cleared fields and into the jungle.
	She knew that if the dogs caught her, as they were likely to 
do, they would probably kill her. She was unable to feel any fear 
at this. The whole thing was like a hazy dream, all except for the 
savage, twisting craving filling her. It wasn't hazy at all. It 
burned like the sun.
	She walked through the jungle, green on black on green, 
pushing aside the branches with her hands, stumbling over rocks 
and vines, running in a slow lope through the darkness.
	Howls arose from her left, then from her right. Glowing eyes 
like bright yellow lamps appeared in the bushes. Akane ignored 
them. They weren't important.
	Branches lashed at her form, ripping her garments, drawing 
blood from low scratches. She ran on, the dogs loping about her 
like shadows, snarling and slavering and utterly inconsequential. 
She dimly supposed she should be afraid of them, but there was a 
foggy wall wrapped around her brain that was cutting off such 
silly things as fear and doubt. There was only the desperate, 
hungry NEED that was filling her veins, inflaming her, burning...
	She ran, ignoring the rocks and trees, stepping right 
through a small river of carnivorous ants who parted for her like 
the red sea. They did not part for the wild dogs, and only the 
ones who loped almost at her heels survived. She barely heard the 
dying yowls of the others.
	Green on black on green on black, and she was almost sobbing 
with the need for relief. It drew her on, like a magnet to a 
lodestone, and she feared that her heart would burst before she 
got there...
	The temple loomed before her, and she scrambled desperately 
through the barren ring around it. The dogs at her heels drew to a 
sudden halt as she stepped through the ancient gates; they 
stopped, convulsed once, then fell lifeless to the eon-worn 
stones.
	She pulled to a halt in front to the statue she had seen 
before, admiring the beauty of it, the loveliness of the work. 
Then the gnawing, burning compulsion hit her with almost physical 
force, and with a choked wail she stumbled into the main building, 
into the darkened vaults, and finally came to a stop before the 
muck-encrusted slab. The slab door leading to the steps, the door 
with the loathsome sign on it.
	Drawing her fist back, she shattered it into a hundred 
pieces.
	Gasping with pleasure, she lurched frantically down the 
stairs. It was down there, what she needed to quench the terrible 
craving was down there...
	The geometry of the room was wrong, warped, but she felt 
oddly comfortable with it. An oily black liquid swirled around the 
floor, and she waded into it with a low sigh of contentment, 
feeling it pulse warmly and damply around her legs. And there, 
floating in the center of the room, was a large glassy sphere, 
almost delicate looking, that pulsed and shone with a hue that her 
fogged mind refused to identify, and yet somehow knew intimately. 
She needed it. That was what would stop the burning!
	Screaming an incoherent shriek of need, she jumped to the 
sphere, grabbed it, curled herself around it, pulled herself 
tighter and tighter against it...
	And, with a pop, the sphere burst like a soap bubble.
	The color within it suddenly was everywhere, in the walls, 
in the floor, in her, and a black oil began to well up from 
between the cracks of the walls to join the ichor she waded in...
	And then the haze over her mind callously left, and her 
emotions and reason returned, and Akane shrieked in sheer terror 
and ran, the black oil suddenly feeling like the foulest substance 
imaginable.
	It welled up from the pit of her stomach, like a burning 
acid, almost making her faint from the pain. Slowly, tendrils of 
it moved through her body, and she screamed, feeling something 
inside her twist and writhe and decay. The scream ended in a 
choking cough, and blood spattered across the steps as she 
staggered out of the oil, up, away, up...
	Her heart skipped one beat, then another, and a giant fist 
seemed to close around the inside of her chest, and a black tide 
swelled through her brain, sweeping her with it. She tried to 
scream again, and more blood gushed forth. Her vision dimmed, and 
she cleared the last step, and then she fell.
	Frantically, limbs and body spasming and flopping, she 
clawed at the stones, trying to pull herself a few more feet away. 
She knew she was dead, but she wanted to get as far away as 
possible from the thing before the end. Her eyes failed, and she 
convulsed again, hands flailing weakly at the ground.
	Behind her, flutes played with malignant glee. A final cry 
of horror tried to escape, and the resulting wet gurgle was the 
last sound she heard before her ears shut down. She felt rather 
than saw the blood flowing up from her throat, and hoped Ukyo 
would be all right.
	And then there was nothing.

***

	Ukyo woke, and immediately realized something was wrong.
	He sat up in bed, and his mind registered the unfamiliar 
absence next to him. "Akane?"
	No response.
	Alarmed, he lit a lamp and peered out into the stockade. 
"Akane? Are you out there?"
	Silence, except for the normal sounds of the jungle at 
night.
	Swiftly descending the ladder, he checked all of the 
outbuildings, knowing exactly what he would find. Nothing. Akane 
was out in the middle of the jungle, alone, without having 
informed him first. They _never_ did that, not even during the 
day. That was the rule, you always told the other person where you 
were going to be hunting, just in case...
	So was it an emergency? What sort of trouble, though, would 
prevent her from waking the person sleeping an inch away?
	And then he remembered Akane standing on the balcony at 
midnight, eyes glazed. Akane complaining of odd dreams and 
nightmares. Akane absently sketching the temple...
	The temple...
	A cold, prickling feeling began to work its way along Ukyo's 
spine. He returned to the main house, grabbed his fighting stick 
and a torch, and ran out into the jungle night.
	Akane was easily a match for several dogs when awake. 
Asleep, though, or at least partly asleep... he wasn't sure what 
had happened, but all of his guesses involved a helpless Akane 
lurching blindly through a predator-infested wilderness to a place 
that practically radiated evil.
	No wild dogs appeared to contest his passage. The night was 
unnaturally silent, which frightened him even more. By now he 
should have been attacked at least once, night birds should be 
cooing, things should be scampering out of his path... Instead, 
there was just the swaying of the branches and vines in the low 
breeze, and the sound of his running feet against the rocks and 
dirt.
	He entered the blasted ring of vegetation surrounding the 
temple, and his heart skipped a beat. There, lying under the entry 
arch, were several shadows that were unmistakably bodies.
	Running forward, he let out a sigh of relief. All of them 
were the corpses of dogs, the dead eyes staring at the moon, 
tongues lolling out of mouths filled with dying gore. Akane had at 
least made it this far, then, and no animal ever came in here... 
so she was probably safe, right?
	No, he suddenly realized with a terrible certainty. There 
was a reason the animals didn't come in here, and Akane would 
probably be safer out in the jungle. Or in the caves of Canis 
Mountain, for that matter.
	Trying to fight down the growing fear, he strode swiftly 
into the main building, shuddering as he passed the hideous 
statue. It seemed to leer at him in the pale moonlight, the eyes 
glowing with reflected radiance.
	He broke into a run, past the fountain, through the vaulted 
doorways, down towards the crypt that they had almost opened...
	And there, by the shattered remains of the carved, muck- 
encrusted stone slab, lay Akane.
	"Akane?" he said softly, suddenly very afraid.
	She lay still, a slender, crumpled figure in the darkness of 
the vault.
	He dashed to her side, crouching down by her, a sick feeling 
building in his stomach. "Akane... Akane, wake up... Oh, God...."
	Dark blood spattered the front of her shirt, her neck, her 
face. She was very pale, and very still.
	Numbly, he began to reach for her wrist to check for a 
pulse, and then she convulsed, flopping on the bloody stones like 
a landed fish, twisting and writhing. And then she went slack 
again, a new trickle of blood and bile oozing from a corner of her 
mouth.
	From the vault, a dim whistle of flutes came, and he thought 
he saw a glimpse of something moving up the steps.
	Ukyo's mind quickly summarized the situation. If I stay 
here, I will die. If I move Akane, she may die. If Akane stays 
here, she will die.
	Without hesitating, he scooped up the frighteningly light 
body of his love, gritted his teeth, and ran out of the vault.
	The fountain spewed a foul black oil as he dashed passed it, 
the odor sickening. He ran, and did not slow his pace until he has 
passed the gate and was safely out of the barren zone.
	Moving as fast as he dared, he gently carried her back to 
the house, loping through the jungle in a half-run. Even if it 
weren't for the wild dogs, he didn't think that staying in the 
shadow of the ruins would be a good idea. He ran, and prayed to 
any power that might be listening that the move would not kill 
her.
	Akane lay still in his arms, her breathing like a rusty 
knife being slipped in and out of its sheath; slow, uneven, barely 
audible. Her face was horribly pale in the moonlight, an unhealthy 
pasty white. Now and then a violent spasm twisted through her, 
sending her flopping in his grip; then, as fast as it had come, it 
would stop, and again she would hang limp against his shoulder, 
and the sound of breathing tore in and out...
	The run seemed to take forever, and twice he drew to a 
panicked stop, unable to hear her lungs working. But then he would 
catch a whisper of ragged breath, and he would run on, a terrible 
fear in the pit of his stomach.
	Finally, like a beacon in the night, the camp loomed out of 
the darkness. Dashing through the gate and securing it, Ukyo 
slowly ascended the trunk ladder and laid her tenderly on their 
pallet.
	Nabiki began to cry from her cradle as he lit the lamp with 
his flint, and moved to kneel by Akane. Carefully, terrified by 
the pallor he saw in the flickering light, he stripped away her 
clothes and began to search every inch of her for a puncture or 
welt.
	He found nothing the first time, nor the second. On the 
third attempt he even ran his fingers through the close-cropped 
hair, trying to find a bump or swollen patch. Still nothing.
	She didn't appear to be bitten or stung.
	He swore quietly under his breath. Akane wouldn't have eaten 
anything untrustworthy; she was smarter than that. And it wasn't 
just sickness. He was sure it was no coincidence that he had found 
her at those steps.
	Another spasm rippled through Akane, almost throwing her off 
the pallet. Then another. And another, even as he grabbed her 
shoulders to keep her from spilling onto the floor.
	And then a hideous gasp came from her throat, sending Nabiki 
into a frenzy of wailing. She convulsed once more, and stopped 
breathing.
	"No..." he moaned, grabbing her face, "No, Akane, please... 
don't, please...'
	...classman, are you listening? Put your mouth to the 
dummy's and blow...
	Knowledge flooded into him in a burst, and he put his lips 
to her cold, ashen ones and desperately performed CPR.
	He blew into the silent lungs as Nabiki screamed, and sobbed 
as he did so, crying for the first time in his briefly remembered 
existence. It wasn't going to work.
	And then her lungs heaved, and a choked breath escaped, and 
she began to gag. Swiftly he grabbed their crude clay bowl and 
tilted her head, placing the container under her mouth.
	Akane spasmed, and then an oily black liquid spewed from her 
mouth, splattering against the bowl. The odor hit Ukyo like a 
blow, and for a few seconds he was afraid he would pass out. As 
soon as the vomiting ceased, he hurriedly laid her back down on 
the pallet, dashed onto the balcony ledge, and hurled the bowl 
over the edge of the stockade.
	A few spatters of it had fallen to the floor, and he grabbed 
a leaf from their sanitary supplies to mop it up. He had never 
seen anything like it... almost like tar or petroleum, slowly 
eating at the boards where it had fallen, and the stench of it...
	Once the floor had been wiped, he poured a gourd of water 
and bathed Akane's face. The rasp of her breathing was painful to 
listen to, and she lay very still.
	Nabiki's wails had died down, to be replaced by a low, 
frightened whimpering. He felt like doing the same. She looked so 
fragile now, and she had always been so strong...
	"I love you," he whispered brokenly. "Please don't die. I 
love you..."
	The only answer was the slow rise and fall of her chest.
	Ukyo pulled a chair up beside the bed, sat down, and waited. 
He had never felt quite as scared, or as helpless.

	Twice more that night her lungs stopped. Twice more he put 
his lips to hers, each time sure that it would not work and that 
she would die. But instead her breathing would resume, and he 
would slump back into his chair and sob in terror and relief.
	Morning came, the light streaming through the windows harsh 
against his reddened eyes, and what he saw frightened him even 
more.
	Akane's skin was a pale, puffy, grub-white hue. Her hair was 
in matted strands, and her fingernails had turned a deep blackish-
blue. If it weren't for the slow, unsteady rise and fall of her 
chest, he would have judged her dead.
	As the heat of the day rose, she began to sweat, and a new 
horror appeared. He watched, fascinated, as inky black drops 
beaded on her skin, peaked, and ran down her body in a stained 
trail. A horrible odor began to fill the tiny hut.
	He carefully wiped away the liquid, making sure not to 
directly touch it with his hands. From time to time he forced a 
little water into her mouth, and she would reflexively swallow it. 
Little Nabiki watched from her crib, wide-eyed, not making a 
sound.
	Around afternoon Akane went into another fit of convulsions, 
and it took all of Ukyo's strength to hold her to the bed. Her 
eyes shot open, she gave a hoarse, strangled scream, and then 
began to gag and choke. He barely got the empty skin to her mouth 
in time.
	After filling the vessel with another load of oily, viscous 
discharge, she sank back into unconsciousness, breathing slow and 
shallow.
	That night, he forced a little bit of plantain soup down her 
throat, and ate a little himself. The smell in the hut was getting 
unbearable; if he dared, Ukyo would have moved Akane and himself 
to the old house in the yard. But he didn't want to move her 
unless he had to.
	Her lungs stopped for a fourth time towards morning, and 
this time upon recovering she coughed, heaved, and brought up a 
ball of material as big as his fist, an unwholesome mass of green 
and gray and black that looked like watery clay. He had gagged at 
the stench, and almost fainted as he threw it over the palisade.
	Akane was semi-awake when he staggered back in, and a hand 
clutched at him with blackened fingers. "Ukyo... help, help me... 
that thing..."
	"You're going to be all right," he lied soothingly, not 
knowing what was going to happen. She would die, or she wouldn't.
	"Help me..." she whimpered, terror and agony in her voice, 
and then she sank back into sleep, her nude body a pale white 
against the brown reeds of their pallet.
	Ukyo took Nabiki, who had begun to cry, and walked out onto 
the balcony of the hut. He stood for a while, and bounced her up 
and down in his arms, and finally she giggled at him and began to 
tug at his shirt with a tiny hand.
	He held his daughter, and stared at the setting sun, and 
watched the trees sway back and forth in the breeze. It was very 
beautiful.

	The next morning, Ukyo found the first of the lesions.
	It was on her left side, between her breast and her hip, and 
it was the color of a bruise, all purple and blue and scabby red, 
and it wept a black oil.
	He cleaned it, and rubbed ash and palm wine in it to stave 
off infection. That was all he could do.
	He discovered another one at noon, on her buttock, and then 
another one behind her right shoulder, and then one in the small 
of her back, and then one on her cheek...
	By the fourth day, the unnatural paleness was pocked with 
the purple-red sores, all oozing the black, tarlike fluid. He 
washed and cleaned then all, doing his best not to actually get 
any on his skin. If he contracted whatever it was, they were both 
dead. And then Nabiki would starve to death in her crib, and that 
would be the end of everything that had ever mattered to him.
	He no longer cried. He was too numb to cry. The hours passed 
mechanically, cleaning, forcing soup down her throat, wiping the 
loathsome oily fluid from her body. It hurt to look at her. His 
Akane, his life, his beautiful, fiery, wonderful goddess on earth, 
a thing of grace and strength and life. Lying on the clean pallet 
where they had made love so many times, now stained and filthy and 
sticky with bile, writhing and convulsing, the beautiful, strong 
body chalk-pale and covered with weeping sores...
	The fourth day came and went, and now he was only waiting 
for her to die.
	"I'm a coward, Nabiki," he told his daughter that night. "I 
should just release her from this. But I can't, I can't..." He had 
cried again, and this had made little Nabiki cry, and again he had 
walked up and down the balcony with her until her sobs turned into 
contented sighs.
	On the fifth day Akane vomited, and his saw to his mixed 
apprehension and relief that the substance that came up was not 
black, but merely plantain soup and stomach acids.
	The sores continued to leak the oily fluid, and the drops of 
sweat that beaded on her still resembled ink, but no more of the 
liquid was vomited up.
	That night she awoke for a short time and asked weakly for 
water. He gave it to her in measured sips, and spooned almost half 
a gourd of soup into her. She gulped in down, smiled wanly at him, 
and then slipped back into sleep.
	The remainder of the night passed without the usual 
convulsions, and on the morning of the sixth day the sun revealed 
that some of the lesions were shrinking in size. Again he sobbed 
like a baby, this time in thanks and hope and desperate relief.
	At noon, her eyes slowly opened, and moved to gaze 
unsteadily at him. "Ukyo-chan..."
	He was at her side immediately, trying to hide the fear and 
anxiety and stress in his face. "I'm here, Akane-chan. It's okay."
	"God, I feel awful..."
	"You're going to be okay." He thought that was the truth, 
now, and he spoke with a firm conviction. "You're past the worst 
of it. You'll be okay now."
	"I went down, and there... was something, and it opened, and 
the color, it was all wrong..." An edge of hysteria entered her 
voice, and he stroked her matted hair and made calming noises.
	"It's okay. You're home now, and you're going to get 
better."
	"Ukyo, I'm scared, Ukyo..." Akane coughed, and he brought 
over a gourd of water for her to sip. "Oh God, I feel so awful..."
	"I thought you were going to die," he told her, hoping 
honesty would help comfort her. "You were very sick."
	"But now I'm fine," she joked weakly, and he laughed and 
gently hugged her. She drank almost a full gourd of soup, and then 
slept.
	Her rest was relatively peaceful, and by the when the sun of 
the seventh day rose, the sweat that beaded upon her brow and 
stomach and breasts and legs was a clear, translucent, normal 
sheen.

***

	Ukyo walked swiftly along the game path. It was the ninth 
day.
	Akane was awake now, much of the time. She still slept most 
of the day, but that was to be expected. She was still very weak, 
and needed all the rest she could get.
	But she was getting well, and that was all that mattered. 
The lesions had closed, and were now just black and purple bumps. 
She was eating like a horse, and drinking even more than she ate. 
No, Akane was definitely on the mend, and he felt it was safe to 
leave her alone for an hour or two while he went to replenish 
their supplies. They were running very low, and he had to get the 
soft foods that Nabiki would be able to eat. In light of the black 
oil that had emerged from Akane's pores, he thought it wise that 
their daughter not breast-feed for a few weeks.
	Ukyo had already gathered a large bundle of plantains, which 
he had carried back to the stockade. Now all he needed was a few 
coconuts and some meat... Monkey, pig, or wild dog. Wild dog 
seemed to be the most common, possibly because they didn't try to 
avoid him. Far from it. Still, you didn't see them much in the 
daytime...
	Whistling a little, he trotted up the last hill before the 
coconut grove. Thank God Akane was better, he thought, and 
whatever it was, let it please not come again...
	He crested the hill, stared down at the grove, and stopped 
dead.
	The trees. For as far in front of him as he could see, the 
trees were a charcoal black, their trunks twisted and warped into 
hideous parodies of normal limbs, the branches clawing at the sky 
like fingers of a corpse. A light pattering, like a distant rain, 
reached his ears... he unwillingly looked closer, and saw the 
green-black sap dripping from the branches and twisted leaves to 
spatter on the ground...
	He could make out the coconut grove. Bloated globes of a 
milky green-yellow substance hung from it, and as he watched one 
fell from the blackened bough to squelch against the ground. A 
white pus oozed from it, and he watched in horror as grublike 
forms wriggled out, squirming away through the putrid fluid...
	On the nearest of the corrupted trees sat a monkey, eyes 
festering holes leaking a black oil, dead mouth open in a silent 
scream. The branch it sat on was already beginning to sent probing 
roots into the corpse.
	But it was the leaves, the twisted, curling leaves that 
caught his gaze and made him unable to look away. They were not 
purple, or green, or black, or yellow... they were a color, but he 
couldn't find a name for it, and it was wrong and an 
abomination...
	The wind shifted towards him, bearing the smell of it, and 
he turned away and vomited.
	After retching for almost a minute, Ukyo turned and ran for 
Akane and home. He needed to find out what had done this before it 
killed them all.

***

	"What?" Akane stared at him through reddened eyes.
	Ukyo nodded wearily. "Everything below the hill was like 
that. The smell, the look of it... whatever it is, it's the same 
thing you had." He looked at her, and shuddered; her skin was 
returning to its normal color, and the blotches were fading, but 
she still looked like the living dead. "Akane-chan, I need to know 
what's going on."
	She shook her head numbly. "I don't know."
	He sighed. "Can't you at least tell me what happened to 
you?"
	"I don't remember very much," she said hesitantly, a tinge 
of fear entering her voice. "I was dreaming, but I was awake, and 
a voice called me... I had to follow it, and it led me to the 
ruins, and down the steps, and through the halls, and then there 
was a room..." She shuddered, and stopped, staring at him 
helplessly.
	"Please, Akane-chan," he said as gently as he could. "You 
need to tell me."
	"There was a seal, and I broke it, and the color... it was 
in the walls and the floor and everywhere and I woke up and ran, 
but it had me and I started up the steps..." She grabbed his arm, 
the grip almost painful. "The color. It was..."
	"Wrong," he finished grimly. "It wasn't right. You didn't 
know what it was."
	Akane slowly nodded.
	"It's in the leaves. They're all that color."
	"Ukyo..." she said, eyes widening, "the ruins. The ruins are 
past the coconut grove."
	She was right, he realized. "It must be spreading outward, 
although the coconut grove is a long way from..."
	His eyes widened in horror.
	"I'll be right back," he said frantically, pulling on his 
sandals and desperately hoping he was wrong. Before Akane could 
reply, he was sliding down the treetrunk and darting out of the 
stockade.
	He ran, and ran, and prayed that he was wrong. And then he 
came to the hill, and pulled to a stop, and wondered what the hell 
they were going to do.
	Because the corruption, which on his last visit was only at 
the base of the hill, was now halfway up it.
	It was spreading.
	It was spreading quickly.
	The leaves rustled in the tepid breeze, glittering mockingly 
with a color that no human being had ever put a name to.

***

	The next few days were spent in a frenzy of preparation.
	Akane was still very sick. While the traces of the lesions 
were slowly fading, she was unable to rise unassisted from the 
pallet. Despite eating over twice the normal amount of food per 
day, she remained very weak and slept away most of the day and all 
of the night.
	Ukyo hunted and harvested and prepared stocks of food. It 
wasn't difficult, because the blight was driving the animals 
towards them, into the yet-untainted parts of the island. Pigs, 
monkeys, birds...
	The wild dogs...
	Canis Mountain lay far in the middle of the corrupted area, 
and without their cool, deep caves to lair in the dogs were 
swarming about the area. Twice during the day he was attacked by 
small, desperate packs of them, and it was only through a 
combination of luck and skill and desperation that he had fought 
them off. They fought with a savage hunger in their bellies. He 
fought knowing that Akane and little Nabiki would die if he was 
gone. He won.
	And the blight creeped on.
	It swallowed the outermost plantain grove. It swallowed the 
pillar of flint. It swallowed the waterfall where they had 
frolicked two years ago, each aroused by the body of the other.
	The plantains turned black and scarlet and wept green pus. 
The pillar jutted from a clearing of slimy purple grass, seeming 
to revel in the desolation around it. The cool, shady bowers that 
had graced the waterfall became blackened corpses twisting in upon 
themselves, but the waters still flowed unpolluted. The leaves on 
its banks had turned that indescribable, ghastly hue... but water 
is colorless, and remains so. The falls still poured down pure 
water.
	So it was with the river. No foulness marred the flow of it, 
although once in a while a twisted, leprous branch would float 
downstream. Water was beyond its power.
	Ukyo watched the spread with a sick feeling in his heart. 
Watched it eat the closer groves. Watched it eat the 'dojo' 
clearing where they practiced. Watched it eat spots where he had 
sat with Akane and talked, or where he had hunted, or where he had 
shown his daughter something beautiful, or where he had made love 
to his lady. He watched them crumple into obscene caricatures of 
black trunks and diseased sap and leaves of vile, unnatural color.
	Days past, and he prayed that the blight would come to a 
halt. But instead it advanced all the faster.
	He knew, finally, what needed to be done, and told Akane. 
She agreed, and then wept, and so did he. It would very probably 
kill them all.

***

	"It is time."
	Akane glanced over at Ukyo, nodded, and laboriously stood. 
She still felt like hell.
	Sometimes she wondered if the Color had shattered her health 
forever. She had been able to break stone with her hands, and now 
she was weak... so very weak...
	Her jaw firmed. She would be strong, today. She needed to 
be.
	Little Nabiki was lifted from her cradle by her... husband? 
In every way that mattered, she supposed. He gently placed their 
crying daughter into the back harness slung over her shoulder, and 
picked up his fighting stick. "Are you ready?"
	She looked at the bed, at the painstakingly molded clay 
lamp, at the crib dyed with bright pigments. The rug Ukyo had 
spent a month weaving. The shelves and drinking gourds and crude 
bowls. Her home.
	"I'm ready."
	Slowly, carefully, they descended the ladder for the last 
time, and walked past the first hut and past the now empty storage 
sheds, smokehouse, and tanning hut. At the gate of the palisade, 
she stopped suddenly. "Shh. Listen!"
	Ukyo froze, and she knew he heard it too. A low panting, a 
shifting of paws. Just behind the gate.
	She quietly swore. The damn things somehow knew.
	The farthest tree in sight shone with a color that had no 
name.
	"Ukyo, we need to get out," she said grimly. "We only have a 
few hours, if that."
	He nodded, still staring at the closed gate. "I know. 
Perhaps if we wait..."
	"More will arrive. No. They hate us, Ukyo."
	"So what can we do?" he said plaintively. "I can fight my 
way through, but you..."
	She took a deep breath, unhooked Nabiki's harness, and 
handed it to him.
	He stared at it in shock. "No... no, I shall not permit..."
	...i shall not permit it!...
	She brushed away the nausea and memory. "I can fight. I'm 
not in top form, but I can fight." She gazed at him pleadingly. 
"If I fall, at least Nabiki will be safe with you. But I don't 
plan on falling." She grinned at him, purposefully making it cocky 
and careless. "I didn't fight off that icky stuff just to be puppy 
chow, okay? But no sense taking chances, and I'll fight better 
without Nabichan on my back weighing me down."
	Ukyo looked at her, looked at his daughter, and took the 
harness. He carefully buckled it around the highest part of his 
back, took a deep breath, and glanced at Akane. "Ready?"
	"Yeah... wait, hold on!" She walked swiftly into one of the 
storage sheds, emerging with two large torches dabbed at the end 
with flammable tar. "Light these, okay?"
	He complied, pulling the flint out of his belt to ignite 
them, and she smiled. She didn't think she was going to make it. 
She was sure Ukyo and Nabiki would. It was enough.
	"Okay. Ready." Her heart began to race, and adrenaline began 
to wash away the fear. It was time to fight.
	He kissed her fiercely. Then, with a roar, he kicked open 
the gate and charged out, fighting stick moving too fast for the 
eye to follow. With a cry, she jumped after him.
	The dogs leapt to meet them, springing from all sides. 
Ukyo's stick neatly sliced one in half, moving rapidly downwards 
to send another cur flying with bonecrushing force into the outer 
wall. He ran as he fought, and she followed.
	A wild dog sprang for her throat, jaws snapping, and Akane 
shoved the burning brand into its skull with enough force to crack 
the bone. Another leapt at her from the side, and she was barely 
able to take it in the throat with a spinning kick. She could feel 
the illness still within her, sapping her strength, her speed...
	Onward. The river wasn't far from the gate, they just had to 
make it to the river, it wasn't far....
	The maelstrom of jaws and fangs and fur and slathering teeth 
swirled about her, and she kicked and thrust and chopped and 
punched. A torch snapped off in the chest of a large, brown and 
black dog, and she switched to a one-weapon form. Ahead of her, 
Ukyo's stick rose and fell in graceful, deadly arcs.
	A huge dog ran at her, and she almost gagged. The face was 
half gone, one eye socket a mass of festering black ooze with a 
rancid, shriveled eyeball the color of the obscene leaves...
	Panicked, she clubbed it down, forgetting the others, and 
then she screamed in agony as a set of jaws clamped shut on her 
shoulder.
	She broke its neck with a quick throw, but another leapt on 
her back and she stumbled forward, hand frantically moving to keep 
the fangs away from her neck. Sensing a kill, two others closed in 
on her...
	Ukyo's fighting stick whistled past, knocking the dog off 
her back. Akane lunged forward, killing the other two with savage 
blows to the throat and head, and stumbled onward.
	And then they were at the river.
	Akane jumped for the canoe, landing with a clumsy thud on 
her back in it. The sky turned dark, and suddenly a mass of fur 
and teeth and rabid yellow eyes landed on top of her.
	Fangs lunged for her throat. Weakly, she thrust her arm up 
to block, and the slavering maw stopped inches away from her chin. 
Claws scrabbled on her chest for purchase, sending white hot lines 
of pain down her side as the hot, fetid breath nearly gagged 
her...
	...guri...
	Screaming, using the last of her strength, she slammed her 
fist into the furry chest again and again until the ribs snapped 
like twigs and the internal organs broke with sickening splats. 
The yellow fire behind the eyes dimmed, and Akane felt the 
telltale thud as Ukyo jumped into the canoe and pushed off. She 
dimly heard his voice cry her name, somewhere in the distance, and 
then everything was black.

***

	Akane awoke in the bottom of the canoe, with the gentle 
murmur of the water in her ears.
	"I thought for a second that it had killed you."
	Painfully, she eased herself into a sitting position. The 
bite on her shoulder had a crude bandage wrapped around it, damp 
and reeking of palm wine. "I thought so too. It nearly had me, for 
a second."
	Ukyo smiled slightly, and she noticed a similar bandage on 
his left leg. "We killed over a dozen of them, I think. They won't 
be as eager to attack for a few days."
	Akane shook her head. "They're desperate, Ukyo-chan. They 
can sense that it's the end of it all, and they just want to kill 
as much as they can beforehand. Especially us." She shuddered, 
again feeling the teeth ripping into her flesh. "We'd better build 
a small fence to sleep in before we work on enlarging the raft."
	He shook his head. "There isn't enough time. We have maybe a 
week before it reaches the shore. I think it's speeding up." With 
a low sigh, he looked into the bottom of the boat. "I saw it 
overtake the stockade, and some of the injured wild dogs. It... 
was not pleasant."
	Tears rose in her eyes at the thought of her home, the home 
she had built... No. She thrust it away; there was no time for it. 
"Maybe the mainland is just over the horizon. Or another island."
	"Maybe." Neither of them believed it.
	They paddled on in silence. Up ahead came the roar of the 
surf against the rocks.

***

	The fishing raft was big enough to seat one person in 
comfort, and lie buried safely beneath a cairn of rocks on the 
beach. From time to time Akane - or, more rarely, Ukyo - had 
hauled it out and cruised along the shore, fishing line trailing. 
It was not really necessary, but ocean fish made a pleasant change 
of diet once in a while.
	The raft was once again unearthed, but this time it wasn't 
for a luxury item. This time their lives would depend on it.
	Working as fast as possible, Ukyo felled trees with his 
fighting stick and dragged the trunks down to the raft. There, 
Akane carefully used the stone cutting tools and the flat of her 
hand to shape them into new boards. These were then built into a 
new hull around the old core, more than doubling its size. Hemp 
rope and tarlike sap secured the frame in place, and wooden spikes 
liberally smeared with natural adhesives provided the flexible 
joints of the middle structure.
	A precious day was spent erecting a crude mast, with several 
sewed skins forming a sail. They constructed a rail around the 
edge, more to keep water out than for anything else, and secured 
the all-important water barrels to the middle of the raft with 
rope and a wooden frame.
	A tiny shelter was built of poles and rope in the forward- 
center of the raft, and salvaged rugs of woven hemp were used as 
the upper walls and ceiling. The rough, uneven weave would allow 
some heat to escape during the hot daylight hours, and could be 
drenched with seawater for additional cooling properties. Hide 
blankets, tanned to a point where they were nearly waterproof, 
were placed inside against the possibility of cold nights.
	And as they worked, the Color spread its chromatic death 
across the island, devouring plants and animals and soil, the 
twisted, unholy leaves shining malignantly in the tropical sun.
	The wild dogs made sporadic attacks, in scattered, fear- 
crazed groups. Akane and Ukyo killed the first, smaller ones. When 
larger groups congregated, they pushed the raft into the ocean and 
sailed down the shoreline to a different worksite.
	And then the day came when the sky became a cascade of 
colors; green and red and blue and yellow and pink. The birds of 
the island, parrots and toucans and songbirds, were flying out to 
sea, into the ocean. They wouldn't get very far; they weren't 
designed to fly long distances. But their instinctual knowledge of 
their limitations was outweighed and drowned by the onrushing tide 
of death and corruption, and so they flew out into the horizon, 
passing over Akane and Ukyo in a feathered rainbow as they fled.
	Behind them, the obscene Color writhed among black, twisted 
trees, loping steadily towards the beach.
	They pushed the raft, laden with supplies, into the waves 
and began to row.
	Behind them, the remaining animals of the isle burst from 
the jungle and ran into the sea. For a time they swam, forming a 
howling, shrieking, splashing wake in the rear of the tiny vessel. 
Then, one by one, the furry heads and backs slipped beneath the 
water and vanished.
	The corruption reached the shore and stopped, its limit 
reached. A crash of the waves cleansed the beach, a surge of rot 
and decay befouled it again. The tide counterattacked, and again 
the sand was clean and white.
	Ukyo and Akane watched for a time, and then turned their 
faces away. It was over.

***

	They sailed into an unknown sea.
	They had no home port. They knew nothing of stars or 
constellations or latitudes. Their map was the vague assumption 
that land existed on the planet aside from their island.
	So they drifted, the hide sail flapping listlessly in the 
hot air, and told each other that land was ahead.
	It had to be.
	Food wasn't a problem. They had stored plenty of it; both 
soft foods for Nabiki and protein-laden meats for each of them. 
With a bit of chewing on their part, too, anything could become a 
soft food.
	Fish existed, and Akane was able to catch several. These 
they ate raw, for nutrients now could not be sacrificed for 
flavor. Fire on the raft was a risky proposition anyway.
	A day out they floated through a band of multicolored, 
sodden feathers, and Ukyo cried.
	It was water that was now their problem, and they rationed 
it severely. Nabiki had as much as each of them. They didn't have 
much. To minimize the need for hydration, they tried to stay 
inside the shelter as much as possible during the day.
	Days passed, and the water was a sheet of glass.
	Once Akane pointed downwards in great excitement, and they 
peered into the suddenly transparent water to glimpse the 
crumbling green spires of a city. The architecture was strange and 
angular, as if built to a geometry of unfamiliar kind, and neither 
of them liked the statues that lined the sunken boulevards and 
terraces. The weed-wreathed faces smiled back at them maliciously, 
and then they were past, and the ocean's murk descended once more.
	Days, and days, and days, and the wind was a tepid breeze 
and the sun was a dull ball of orange in the sky.
	They told each other stories, and sang to Nabiki, and 
speculated about the place their raft would eventually make 
landfall at.
	"Where would you like to wind up, Ukyo-chan?"
	He rubbed his chin. "I think I would like to be in Japan. 
Nabiki could go to a real school... I remember that the Japanese 
have the best schools in the world."
	Akane leaned her head against his shoulder. "What would we 
do there?"
	"I don't know. Learn who we are, I suppose."
	"I think I'd like to wind up in China. Or on another 
island." She smiled at him, and he stroked her hair fondly. "I 
don't care who I was anymore. They're dead and gone, and now 
there's only me and you and Nabiki. And that's how I like it."
	Ukyo pulled her close, and they watched the nameless stars 
wheel and dance over the sea.
	It rained once, and they were caught between gratefulness 
for the extra water and fear of a real storm, for they knew that 
the little raft would never be able to ride out a spell of rough 
weather. But the ocean stayed as smooth as a rock, and after four 
minutes the rain melted away.
	Days, and days, and days.
	They made love once, little Nabiki tucked safely out of 
sight in the shelter.
	"Please. Once more."
	"We can't. You know we have to save our..."
	"Please. If we reach land it won't matter, and if we 
don't... it still won't matter. Just once more."
	"All right."
	It was done with a sort of desperate pleasure, each one 
knowing that it would very likely be the last time. Afterwards 
they held each other, and did not speak.
	Days, and days, and days, and now the water was almost gone 
from the barrels. The desert of the ocean stretched from horizon 
to horizon, and the sun burned in the sky.
	They saw a dolphin, once, swimming near them. It grinned at 
them in a cocky, mocking fashion, and dove. They did not see it 
reappear.
	The fish vanished, and the food ran low.
	Now there were no waves, and the water was as still as a 
millpond, and the tattered sail hung limp.
	Days, and days, and then there was no more fresh water.
	They gave the last few swallows to little Nabiki, waited for 
a day, and then knew that it was over.
	Finally, Ukyo turned to Akane, and embraced her.
	"It was a good try," she whispered, and lay down inside the 
shelter. He lowered himself down beside her, and Nabiki squirmed 
in between them, giggling.
	"I love you."
	"I know."
	They held each other, and soon Nabiki fell asleep, and 
finally the fatigue and lack of water rolled over them like a wave 
and they sank beneath it, together.

***

	Log of the Wakazashi Maru, 5/23/98

		46 days out of Innsmouth, Mass., USA, spotted small
	raft adrift off the starboard bow at latitude 32 longitude
	180. Second Mate Jiro Abe boarded the raft in a motor
	launch with two seamen. He discovered two young adults
	of apparently Japanese ancestry, both badly dehydrated
	and in a stupor, and one infant, in good health. Abe
	immediately transferred all three to sick bay, and I have
	ordered watches posted for more rafts. The materials
	used in construction of the craft do not appear to be from
	a wreck, and I admit to being perplexed by this discovery.
		A call to the Registry in Osaka confirmed that no
	ships have been recently lost in these waters.
		Doctor Winchester assures me that, given time and
	rest, both of the adults will survive. He hopes to see then
	awake and lucid by tomorrow.


	Log of the Wakazashi Maru, 5/24/98

		More mysteries. The two young people identify
	themselves as Akane and Ukyo, no last names, and claim
	to have been fleeing an island there they had been
	stranded for two years. They further claim to have no
	memory of their lives before this wreck, citing amnesia.
		This is a patently ridiculous story, since there are
	no islands aside from Midway within any reasonable
	distance. Furthermore, a unusually large storm swept
	through this area four days ago, which would have
	certainly sunk their tiny raft.
		However, the browning of their skin and signs of
	exposure to the elements are evidence of an island
	existence. So is the construction of their raft, and each
	bears healing puncture wounds, which they attribute to
	wild dogs. Dr. Winchester confirms the bites as canine.
		The baby is healthy, the adults are confused but
	otherwise in sound mental health. We shall reach Japan
	within a few days, and perhaps there fingerprint or
	dental records will allow us to identify the two beyond a
	first name. Since neither appears to speak English, I shall
	assume them to be Japanese citizens.

***

	The phone rang.
	And, with a slight sigh of irritation, Akane Tendo put down 
her college application, walked across the kitchen. and picked it 
up. "Hello, Tendo residence."
	She listened for a few seconds, and then her face turned 
pale and her hand tightened alarmingly around the receiver, almost 
cracking the plastic. She wasn't going to cry, she firmly told 
herself. She had put this behind her a year ago, and she was now 
able to visit Ukyo's grave with regretful sadness instead of 
almost suicidal grief. One day she would be able to visit Ranma's 
monument in the same manner.
	"I'm sorry," she replied in a cool, controlled voice. "He 
died a little over two years ago, and..."
	She listened for another few seconds, and then her world 
turned upside down. The plastic of the receiver gave way slightly.
	"Y-you... it's a mistake... he died two... I mean, they 
never found the body, but, but... Wait! With who? Where!"
	Dizzy, sick with a desperate hope and with the fear that it 
was all a sadistic mistake, she calmly asked for and got an 
address.
	And the second she got it, she abandoned all pretensions of 
calm and dropped the phone and ran for the door.
	Kasumi, who was just entering the house with the groceries, 
was extremely surprised to have her younger sister physically 
shove her out of the way and nearly trample her on the way out the 
gate. Nabiki entered the house a few seconds later, bearing on her 
face an extremely pissed expression and a red mark reading 'NIKE'.
	Five minutes later she ran down a moving taxi, shoved money 
at the driver, and asked him to take her to the Tokyo Bay 
Immigration and Naturalization Centre. The terrified driver 
complied. He wasn't used to passengers ripping the door off 
instead of taking the trouble to actually open it.
	They were briefly held up in traffic. Akane got out, removed 
the offending cars to places on the sidewalk, and ordered the 
driver onward.
	They arrived at the Centre. The driver noticed with mixed 
relief and amazement that the crazy woman didn't wait for the cab 
to stop before getting out. After all, as he somewhat hysterically 
told his friends in a bar that night, the car had slowed to a mere 
25 miles per hour...
	Akane picked herself up, brushed herself off, and ran into 
the Centre. She didn't bother opening the doors.
	And so a very startled official in the medical office found 
herself speaking to an 18-year-old woman who looked as if she had 
just come from a war zone. "Can I help..."
	"Where's Ranma?"
	"Excuse...?"
	"You called and told me you had found Ranma..."
	The official, seeing the girl on the verge of tears, ushered 
her to a seat and checked the computer. The wanted information 
quickly was found.
	"Ranma Saotome. Rescued by a Japanese freighter in the 
Pacific along with..."
	"I know. How is he? When can I see him?"
	"According to the medical report, he's suffering from 
amnesia. They only identified him via dental records. Are you his 
sister?"
	"Fiancee. Can I see him? Please?"
	The official shrugged. "If you're his fiancee, certainly. 
And good luck. Down that hall, fifth room to your left."
	The girl had already torn out of the office by the time the 
official looked more closely at the file and noticed something 
odd.
	Akane ran down the hall as if in a dream, hope and fear and 
desperation raging within her. It would be a mistake. She would 
open the door and it would be someone else, just an error in the 
records, haha, and Ranma would still be dead. After all, how on 
earth would he come to be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean... 
but still, there had never been a body... no body, just a charred 
shred of Chinese shirt and the end of a pigtail...
	She raced toward the door, hesitated in an agony of fear and 
anxiety, and then threw it open.
	And then she screamed with joy, because Ranma was there. 
Older, browned by the sun, hair trimmed into a short, ragged cut, 
dressed in obviously loaned shipboard clothing. But it was Ranma, 
alive.
	Akane crossed the distance between then in seconds and flung 
her arms around the shorter girl, sobbing with relief. "Oh God, 
Ranma, I though you were dead... we all thought you were dead... 
where have you been, I thought you were dead..."
	Ranma stood, awkward, clearly unsure and timid. "I'm... I'm 
sorry, who are you? I lost my memory..."
	"It's me. It's Akane."
	To her surprise, Ranma flinched. "No, I'm Akane..."
	"You're Ranma." A stab of fear ran through her with horrible 
suddenness. "You're Ranma. My fiance."
	The other girl laughed awkwardly, looking increasingly 
nervous and tense. "No... no, I'm Akane... I'm not Ranma... we 
can't be... we're both girls, so that's impossible. Don't you 
see?"
	The door opened behind her, and someone else she hadn't 
expected to ever see again stepped in. Holding a baby.
	"I found some formula and diapers..."
	She couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe.
	Dimly, as if in a fog, she turned to Ranma and heard herself 
ask if the child was his. She didn't understand the answer, only 
that it was yes. It was their child.
	She heard herself scream, felt herself grab the other girl, 
heard herself scream that no, he was a man, he couldn't have. He 
was Ranma, not Akane. He would never have done it.
	The eyes that looked back at her held confusion, and pain, 
and obviously didn't know what she was talking about.
	"NO!" she screamed, backing away. "RANMA! HOW!"
	"I'm not Ranma!" the other girl screamed. "I'm Akane! I'm 
not Ranma Saotome! He's dead! He deserved to die! He's dead!" And 
then she stopped, aghast as that she had just said.
	Akane pushed her way past Kuno, who stood in baffled concern 
holding the baby, and ran, and ran, and ran.
	It was all some obscene delusion. First it was her dream 
come true, now it was a nightmare. Ranma would never have done 
that with Kuno. Never. He would have died first.
	She finally stopped running and sank to her knees, shrieking 
in pain and fury. How? How could he do this to her? How could he 
do this to himself?
	She sobbed, and screamed, and put her fist through the wall. 
And then, slowly, rational thought re-exerted itself.
	He had lost his memory.
	How easy it must have been. It would have been like a dream 
come true for Kuno, wherever it was that they had wound up. Just 
him, and a helpless, female Ranma with no memories, and no-one to 
stop him.
	The bastard. He couldn't have taken her by force; not Ranma 
Saotome. So instead he just told her she was a woman. Akane. He 
had finally gotten both of his two 'loves'.
	God, she thought, horrified. It could have been me. That 
could have been my baby, could have been me as Kuno's little 
concubine.
	But instead it was Ranma, which was even worse, and she 
silently wished that she could trade places with him. Because at 
least she was really a woman.
	So now she had two choices. She could either go home, 
knowing that at least Ranma was alive, and get on with her life. 
Or she could try to cure Ranma, try to bring him back. If it could 
even be done.
	What would Ranma have done, she asked herself, if that had 
been me in there?
	Answer: he would have done everything humanly possible to 
free her.
	She could do no less.
	A whistling noise caused her to raise her head, and she 
nodded slowly when she saw its origin. It had brought him out of 
the Neko-ken. Perhaps it would work here, as well.
	Taking the office teakettle from its hotplate, she slowly 
marched back into the room.
	The sight that greeted her - Ranma holding Kuno's hand, 
smiling somewhat girlishly at him - almost made her run again. 
Instead, it only renewed her determination.
	"Ranma," she said quietly. "You are Ranma. Come back."
	The girl blanched. "No... no, I'm Akane..."
	She advanced slowly, the kettle of hot water held tightly in 
one hand. "You're Ranma Saotome. You know that. Deep inside, you 
know."
	"I'm not..." Ranma whispered, staring at her in terror. 
"Ukyo..."
	"You're frightening her," Kuno said, a hint of anger in his 
voice. She fought down the rising fury. That sick bastard.
	"Ranma. Look at me. Remember." She lifted the kettle, and 
Ranma recoiled in fear.
	"No... no, get it away... no..."
	"It's just hot water, Ranma." A calm engulfed her. "You 
know, somewhere inside you, what hot water does. It restores."
	"NO!" shrieked Ranma, and Kuno rose threateningly, and Akane 
swung the kettle towards them in a wide arc.
	Hot water drenched them, and Ranma's form shifted.
	And he screamed.

***

	It had been another search for a cure. He had stolen the 
idol, and incanted the words, and hoped that maybe, just maybe, it 
would work and he wouldn't turn into a girl anymore with cold 
water.
	Oh, it had worked.
	It had worked in that it ripped open a hole in the fabric of 
reality, through which had hopped a titanic, semi-living obscenity 
that should never have existed.
	They had all fought it, the best martial artists of their 
generation in Tokyo. They had done this sort of thing before.
	But not like this.
	It was almost over. Ryoga lay facedown in a pool of his own 
blood; Ranma wasn't sure if he was dead or just mortally wounded. 
He hoped the Lost Boy was as tough as he had always thought.
	Shampoo, a wide gash exposing some of her entrails, had 
curled up in a corner and was singing hysterically in Mandarin, 
stopping from time to time to either giggle or shriek.
	He hadn't seen what had happened to Mousse. A shred of white 
robe, soaked in crimson, lay on the pavement.
	Behind him, Akane lay slumped against a wall like a rag 
doll, arms and legs at unnatural angles. A thin trickle of blood 
ran from one corner of her mouth.
	The attack had gone badly. The thing was fast... faster and 
stronger than anyone had dreamed, and within only a minute Ranma 
had found himself flat on his back as the killing pincers ripped 
downward at him.
	Ukyo had jumped in front of him, her combat spatula swinging 
defiantly, and had bought him the four seconds he needed to regain 
his footing. And then it had sent the weapon flying, and then it 
had ripped Ukyo apart, torn her into seven bloody shreds as she 
screamed for him to help her, help her...
	And now it was just him, and Kuno, and the badly wounded 
demon.
	So he screamed in rage and grief, and picked up Ukyo's gore-
spattered weapon, and used the Tenshin Amaguriken to drive it 
through the thing's chest repeatedly as Kuno distracted it from 
the side.
	He saw the unholy light in the thing's eyes begin to dim, 
and knew that he had won. For what that was worth.
	A final blast formed at the end of a pseudopod, and he 
prepared to dodge. In his girl form, to which he had switched at 
the beginning of the battle, it would be easy.
	And then he realised that Akane's prone form was directly 
behind him.
	Ranma sighed, and stood still. After what he had done in his 
selfish, reckless search for a cure, maybe it was better this way.
	I'm sorry, Ukyo. I'm sorry, Ryoga, Shampoo.
	I'm sorry, Akane. Forgive me. I love you.
	And then Kuno leapt for him, shouting something about love 
and danger, and he felt a brief annoyance at the idiot as the 
light rushed towards them. Stupid fool didn't need to get himself 
killed too...
	And then he was burning, and light flayed him, and his mind 
shrieked and ran far away as he fell through somewhere outside of 
reality...
	And then, for the first time in over two years, Ranma 
Saotome opened his eyes and screamed.


...