Hi all -

It's me again, the procrastinating author. :)  Part A of this story has so 
far received a warm welcome (yay!), and I thought, heck, why not, I've 
cleaned up Part B, why not 'inflict' away.  Here we go. :)  Once again, 
thank you in advance for reading and responding!

=====

DISCLAIMER: Ranma 1/2 is property of Rumiko Takahashi.  No profit is
being generated from its use in this original work of fiction, and no
infringement is intended.  Louis Armstrong and W.C. Handy perform the
version of "The Beal Street Blues" used in this story, no infringement
is intended and no profit is being made.  Michi Hirugashi is my own
property; please do not take her without my permission.

ARCHIVE: Do not archive; this is a draft

RATING: R (adult themes and bad language)

All C/C and commentary is welcomed at echonymph@msn.com (trust me, I
need the C/C, save your eyes, preserve the grammatical sanctity of the
internet fiction force, please, please C/C)

For past sections, please email me privately.

=====

CATHARSIS: ONE (b)
Hubris/Pride Above Power

=====

The Special Ops department functioned much on its own; for the most
part, it was better that way.  Few if any people knew about their
existence, content to believe that most plainclothes cops didn't carry
guns and that all the really ugly crimes didn't happen.  They *did*
happen - they just never saw the light of day.

"Where are you headed today, Saotome-san?" asked the fresh-out-of-
nowhere desk clerk, her brown eyes shallow in the overhead light.

"Shooting range," he muttered unhappily.

The girl rolled her eyes.  "Honestly!"  Her eyes glazed over in a
familiar, disconcerting expression of adoration, and her voice grew
dreamy as she said, "Didn't someone mention that you were a super-sharp
martial artist, Detective?  Why do you need the gun?"

Being male, he could obviously see that she was attractive.  Being
sober, he also knew that to pick up a thread of flirtation with the
near-teenager would only further impede his mental stability.  He
growled, pressing his security code.

"Because," he reasoned quickly.

He wandered down the steps, around the corner, and into a room with one
long, tempered-glass window.  It gave him a perfect view of the
officers that had deigned to arrive early and practice with their paper
targets, and he noticed that his partner was the only one there.  The
Special Operations department had a gorgeous new indoor shooting range,
and they'd spared no expense as they'd built it.  They'd had moving
targets put in, top of the line safety, and arguably, the lamest
product name left on every piece of newly installed material: The
Rangemaster 2000.  Michi said she was ashamed even to be in the room.

Michi, Ranma had learned, took her shooting very seriously.

He'd learned from his new coworkers that she, as a rule, carried a .38
Smith and Wesson, standard police issue in Japan, and in addition to
that she had a Berretta strapped to the small of her back.  "She's
little," they'd explained, "if she had a side holster, it'd be too
obvious, freak people out in the streets."  She didn't particularly
like large tactical weaponry, or even tactics, but she obsessed over
her gun, over her aim.  It was the result of hundreds of hours spent in
the Quantico range ("Which," she'd said once, "incidentally, *wasn't*
called the Rangemaster 2000").

At that moment, she had a small heap of clips next to her, and Ranma
could only guess that something was troubling her.  He frowned, staring
at Michi's tensed muscles.  She was pushing herself too hard, and there
was too much on her mind.  Ranma knew from personal experience that
what Michi needed most at that moment was not release (as she was -
presumably - seeking at the range) or even comfort, she simply needed
rest.  A good, long weekend free of worries, or even just a nap,
something, *anything* to stop her from running herself ragged.  But
Ranma had no right to suggest such a thing, after all, they were merely
coworkers: people who shared an office and occasionally chose to have
lunch together over crime scene photos.  He wanted to help her, but he
wasn't allowed, and he was certain his efforts would not be
appreciated.

He put on the protective headgear, and semi-deaf from the thick,
soundproof padding, he ventured next to Michi on the range, and watched
her with fascination.  'She's got amazing aim,' Ranma thought idly,
watching her in fascination.  Her whole body rocked back with each shot
fired, the force of the explosion making her arms shake.  Her feet were
planted firmly upon the ground, and her face was schooled to an
expression of utter determination.  None of the shots she fired strayed
from the innermost circle drawn on the paper target.  'Note to self,'
he whispered in his mind, 'don't piss her off when she has a firearm.'

Suddenly, willed by some unseen force, Michi loosened her stance.  She
bit her lip, switched on the safety lock of the gun, and turned about
to face him, a quizzical look in her eyes.

"What're you staring at?" she called out of him, her voice unnaturally
loud to compensate for their momentary handicap.  She set down the
weapon, and walked toward him.   "What are you doing here, anyway?"

He shrugged absently, watching the paper target rush at them with a
dull 'whoosh' of wind against flimsiness.  "I was worried about you
today - you weren't in your office and everyone said that you'd been
out shooting."  He watched her eyes glaze over.  "How long have you
been here?"

She furrowed her brow, looking at the ceiling in thought, and then
glancing back toward him, she said, "Only about five hours."

His eyes grew wide.  "That's not healthy, and you know it."

She sighed.  "So what, I'll lose a few tenths of a percent of my
hearing; it's not a big deal.  Hell, if gunfire was really that
detrimental, I would have been deaf long ago."  She motioned at the
range, saying, "Go on, it's all yours."

He snorted.  "Forget it, after seeing that display, I'd be shamed if I
tried to go up against you."

She raised an eyebrow.  "Does the Great Saotome express doubt at his
utter aptitude?"  He scowled at her and she allowed him to see the
briefest glimpse of a smile before her expression fell into one of
unhappiness.

"Don't ever try to go up against me in the dojo, Hirugashi, you'd be
beaten into smithereens before you knew what happened," he said, unable
to hide the innate cockiness that had ruled his personality since he
was old enough to understand at what he excelled.

She looked mildly surprised.  "I'll keep that in mind."

"Right," he said slowly.  Gathering his courage, he ventured bravely
forward into uncharted waters.  One false word and the firearm that was
sitting so harmlessly on the counter might chance Michi's hands again,
and then, he was certain he'd have another hole in his head, only not-
so-genetic.  "So when are you taking it?"

"Taking what?" she asked, her voice monotone, and walked back to her
stall, picking up her gun again.  For a moment, Ranma felt panic unlike
any other, and only barely resisted the urge to duck.

He took a deep breath, continuing, "A pregnancy test?  Don't you want
to know whether or not you're pregnant?"  While he was speaking, her
hands were busy.  She pulled the emptied clip from the gun and
discarded it, dropping it next to a small mountain of them that was
building by her right side.  Sighing, Michi said, "I'll know after I've
missed my period for nine months, and you'll know when my water
breaks."

He sighed wearily, noting the expression on her face.  "Michi, please,
you can't do this," she rolled her eyes at him, "think about it.  If
you *are* pregnant," his words were interrupted by Michi groaning
loudly, but blithely continued, "then you have a responsibility to tell
the baby's father!"

"God!" she yelled angrily, pulling the protective gear off, and
throwing the goggles onto the ground.  "Why do you have to be so
rational?"

"It has nothing to do with being rational!  Do you know how cruel it
would be if you gave birth to a child and he *never* knew he had a baby
somewhere out there in the world?" Ranma argued.

She frowned deeply at him.  "Why are you so invested in my personal
life, Ranma?  This is none of your business!  Whether or not *I* tell
the father is of no consequence to you!"

"It *damn well* is!" he argued.  At her shocked expression, he paused,
taking a deep breath before starting again, "Look, Michi, I - I can't
have children, okay?"  She bit her lip and lowered her eyes.  "You
don't know what you have until you can't have it anymore," he
whispered.  "I can't even imagine what it would be like to have a child
out there somewhere, and not know about it.  All I *would* know is that
I'd be angry, and sad."

There was a long, stony silence before Michi found it in herself to
say, "I'm sorry.  I didn't know."

Ranma nodded.  "You owe him that much at least," he murmured.

She narrowed her eyes.  Her partner frowned.  "Look, Ranma.  He's not
like you.  In some ways, he'd be better off not knowing."

He smirked bitterly.  "I seriously doubt that."

With her opinions challenged, Michi rose to the occasion, defending her
point to the death, and Ranma, always up for a fight, retaliated.  The
argument only escalated, and the insults started getting nasty.  One
would suppose that grown-ups were able to avoid such confrontations,
and yet one would be wrong; sometimes, adults had the most childish
disagreements of all.

=====

To: kasumi@nerimaclinic.org.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[new friend]

Kasumi,

Of course, you'd hook onto *that* part of my email. :)  You'll meet her
when the time comes.  Don't worry about it: not an axe murderer, and
doesn't want to marry me.

To tell the truth, we just had a huge blow-out today.  I don't really
know who's fault it is, in the end, we're both pretty mad at one
another.  Any suggestions?  And if they involve swallowing your pride
and apologizing first, no dice.

-RS

=====

If there were two things that civilized adults were capable of doing,
they were not to fight while bearing firearms, and not to keep
screaming until the argument escalated to personal attacks.

Unfortunately, though Ranma and Michi were able to avoid the first one,
they weren't able to escape the second.

They had left the shooting range in separate cars and agreed to meet
and talk the next morning in her office.  Both of them were still
fuming by the time they got back to their homes.  Ranma was angry that
Michi would act so badly, and Michi was still raging over the fact that
Ranma would accuse her of something that awful - ex-wife indeed.

She was sitting on her desk, wearing a navy-blue pantsuit, her dark
hair tied up in a pony-tail to disguise the horribly lopsided wave that
had manifested itself in her long tendrils.  The light from the windows
filtered in through the blinds and landed in soft, warm slats across
her legs, making them look prison-striped in tones of blue and dusty
gray.

She frowned as she was left alone with her thoughts.

She'd gone home the day before incensed, and spent her midnight hours
bent over her sink, angrily emptying liquor bottles down the drain.
She'd caught herself halfway through swallowing a shot of bourbon, and
suddenly realized that she might have been turning her (possible, 'God,
I hope not,' she'd thought) unborn child into a lush before ever having
a chance to be sober.  She'd spit it out, rinsed out her mouth with hot
water, and just barely stopped herself from inducing vomiting to get
every last trace of it from her system.  She'd then rocked back on her
heels in front of her tv, watching with dark fascination as an imported
and badly dubbed American program showed a mother rocking her child to
sleep.

There was a quiet knock on the door.  "Come in," she called.  Ranma's
dark head poked into the room, bearing a half-apologetic, half-sheepish
look on his face, saying:

"I realized something as I was driving in this morning."

"What would that be?" she asked, overly polite.

"When I said you were worse than my ex-wife - " she narrowed her eyes
at him " - I wasn't exactly being truthful.  My ex-wife..." he started
in a shy, reconciliatory tone of voice.  "She, uh," he paused, sliding
himself next to her on the desk, "had some *violent* tendencies," he
smirked, "you, on the other hand, have only verbally abusive ones."

She rolled her eyes but could not keep the smile from her face.  "All
right, I'll mark you off of my list of people to kill."  There was a
long pause before she added, "I, uh - I bought the test."  He raised
his eyebrows.

She looked exhausted, utterly drained, and Ranma could not in good
conscience, let her work or take that pregnancy test while in that
condition.

He smiled thinly, saying, "Hey, c'mon, Hirugashi."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, grinning bravely, "I'm a survivor and all
that other crap."

He rolled his eyes, "I'll buy you a cup of coffee, lets get out of this
office for a while - you need some air."

=====

To: aoi120690@hotmail.co.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Re:[Re:[Dad's B-day]]]

Good Lord, Aoi, do you never shut up?  Fine - *FINE*, I will attempt to
make time in my schedule to show up, but I grant no promises.  As for
giving him the sake, that's a stupid idea.  You can buy him that if you
want to.  I'm getting him something else - something he can't get
*tanked* off of.

=====

"Are you sure this is Yakuza related?  Our stakeout and the four
thereafter turned up nothing.  I've combed through all evidence," Michi
said, waving her styrofoam cup of decaf java in the air, beckoning a
waiter to her and Ranma's small roadside table to give her a refill.

The caf� was only a three-minute walk from the offices, but was never
frequented by the other detectives.  The place was small and cheap,
while the imported Starbucks across the way was expansive as it was
expensive.  It probably had something to do with looking impressive.
"They're strange," Michi had remarked once, showing him into the small
store, the air full of ambient sounds and smells.  "I don't worry about
not spending enough money to look good," she grinned, "I'd rather spend
it wisely."  He'd laughed and asked her how so, to which she'd only
replied with an enigmatic grin.

Ranma sighed.  "What else could these be?  We know for sure that at
least two of the victims were former yakuza members, and the manner in
which they died is awfully strange."  He frowned.  "What are you
thinking?"

"Serial murder," she said proudly.

"God!" Ranma laughed.  "Quantico messed up your brain!"

"No," she said studiously, "I'm not messed up; I'm serious."  Ranma
snorted, and Michi leaned forward.  "No, honestly, think about this."
She started to tick the points off on her fingers.  "A random pattern
of victims, the only similarities lie in their gender - male, and *how*
they died - aside from the most recent victim, of course - are all the
same, *inexplicable*."

"I thought you said wolfsbane was easy to catch."

"It is - the rest of them probably got some other type of biodegradable
protein poison," Michi said lightly, as if biodegradable protein
poisons emerged during all routine autopsies.

"I hate talking to smart people," Ranma muttered, taking a swig out of
his cup and motioning for her to go on.

"The killer obviously wants herself to be known; yakuza related
killings are usually completely cleaned up.  Even if it *was* a series
of discreet hits, our contacts swear up and down that they've got no
clue about the killings, and these guys are pretty strong leaks up in
the hierarchy," she said, holding up a third finger.  "And last but not
least, there's been a serious shortage of strange, violent, or sexually
deviant crimes in the last decade, this peace is a statistical anomaly.
It's either going to explode in a giant necrophilic orgy that occurs
right in the middle of the Tokyo business plaza, or there's going to be
a serial killer."

"A seventy-five person orgy?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, a seventy-five person orgy," she said blithely, ignoring the
bewildered expressions that the other diners were tossing them.

He decided not to further comment on the functioning physics of such a
sexual interaction, instead, choosing to press a more valid point, "But
that's where the flaw in your logic lies, Michi!"

She looked confused.  "What, the orgy?"

"No!" he cried, exasperated.  "You say that there's a shortage of
strange, violent, or sexually deviant crimes, when in reality, this is
completely false.  How many rapes do we read about in annual crime
statistics?  How many domestic incidences?  Hell," he said, her voice
low, "child molestation and schoolgirls whoring themselves out to over-
the-hill businessmen!  How is this a shortage?"

Michi regarded him oddly for a second, as if working through his words,
taking the point of view he'd just provided and applying it to
preexisting information.  Finally, she asked, "Have you ever wondered
why most officers in Japan do scut labor?  Patrols and things like
that?"

Ranma looked confused for a moment, unable to reply.

"I mean, think about it," Michi went on, "in America, there is the FBI,
the CIA, and the NSA, all national security agencies, dealing with
terrorist activity, national safety, and intelligence.  Certainly, we
have our share of intelligence and security, and our lack of a standing
army is more a political deal than any desire not to have one or to be
neutral." She took a deep breath.  "But look at our police situation!
We rarely if every do the takedowns and busts that you hear about in
the news in America, and if we do, it is only when there exist no other
options, or our other method of control has failed."

Ranma sighed, growing more and more puzzled.  "And what would that
method of control be?"

"We are social controllers!" Michi cried.  "Our neighbors and our rules
for politeness curtail our actions far more than any police retaliation
could.  Even then, the courts are apt to turn a blind eye if the
families of the wrongdoers are wealthy or in good standing with them,
don't you get it, Ranma?  Don't you see the difference?"

"No," he answered, irate.  "No, I really don't.  I just got a lecture
on Japan's sociopolitical structure, and I haven't the damndest idea
what in the hell you're talking about."

"The prostitution, the molestation, all the immoral sex, rape, and
disgusting, seedy things that you find in soapland are faceless, quiet,
and not talked about in the light of day.  We hide that part of
ourselves because we'd rather not think about it," Michi said in a
hush.  "But these murders, Ranma, they come with a face, a clear
killer, and motive.  This person is giving shape to all those desires
that we dare not mention in the light of day."

Ranma blinked at her, silent.  He stared at her serious expression, and
studied her earnest eyes, and he saw her mouth set itself into a tiny
frown.  "Well," he finally forced himself to say.  "That's...one way of
looking at it."

Michi narrowed her eyes.

Biting his lip, he whirled around to the counter of the coffeehouse,
his partner's icy gaze still on him, and did the only thing he could in
such a situation:

"Check, please!"

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
>From rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: case

Hey Michi,

The ME who did the previous two autopsies (before the case got referred
to us) just faxed me his reports.  I glanced through them, not too
detailed, but he said immediate cause of death was heart attack, but
what caused the attacks doesn't pan out.  History rules out basic
medical causes (neither had high blood pressure, a family history, or
anything that would lead one to believe they would be up for a
coronary, then again, I might be horribly wrong).  Thought you might
wanna come up to the office and check them out.

Oh, I went through the first ten people on the list, all of them own
small, private establishments, and they all have permits to sell,
mostly for medical purposes in small doses, a few of them dabble in
marijuana, but that's small potatoes.  Didn't want the paperwork.

Anything on your end?

-RS

=====

Once an investigation changes suspects, it changes focus, and not just
in the pursuit of capture.  It has more to do with *how* to investigate
as opposed to what.  Autopsies need to be reviewed with new, watching
eyes.  Not only for *how* they died but also of where, and how they
were treated *after* their deaths.  A visual examination becomes vital
evidence.  Family members must be revisited; old wounds must be
reopened.  Ranma and Michi were playing this exact game that day,
sitting in her office - digging through the stacks of case information
that one and a half months of investigation had created.

Ranma had silently crossed Kodachi off the suspect list that he'd been
making in his mind.  She'd changed so much, and her new personality
(the one he liked much better) seemed so far away from that of a serial
killer.  He didn't even think she was dangerous anymore, at least not
to anyone but herself.

Yet even with what had seemed like a likely suspect marked off the
list, there was still an incredible amount of room for error.  The
lists of people, possible suspects, herbal suppliers who had access to
the wolfsbane composed an incredibly long list.  While they'd spent the
week trolling the streets, talking to person after person, nothing
seemed to help.  If Ranma was the type to lose hope, he might have said
that the case seemed like a dead end.

"Placement?" Ranma asked quietly, handing Michi a stack of photographs.
Each of the pictures was stark black and white. She took them in her
hands, scanning them eyes strangely blank of emotion.

"They were all found face down behind well-known, expensive bars -
hostess bars?" she added the last phrase in a questioning tone of
voice, almost as an afterthought.

She smirked as he answered, "Not necrophilic hostess bars at any rate."

"Is that a 'yes' or 'no', Ranma?"

He glanced down at his file, and not looking back up, he said, "Nope,
just regular bars - really high class regular bars - but regular bars
none the less."

"Right," she said, drawing her eyes away from his bent-over head.
"Face down," she murmured, pressing a finger to her lips, and whispered
in a lowered tone, "She was ashamed."

Ranma frowned at her.  "Why do you say 'her'?"

Michi looked disturbed for a moment.  "I was saying 'her'?"

"You didn't notice?  You've been saying it since you started thinking
that it was a serial killer." Ranma pointed out to her, taking a sip
from his coffee cup.

"No," she said, her face growing pale with worry, "no I didn't notice.
Her - her - it's got to be a woman, though, there's no other way."

He looked at her solemnly.  "How are you so certain?"

"Well," she said, catching his eyes as she started to speak, "First
off: you mentioned that these were all extremely high class
establishments.  Most people drink in groups, you know, after work,
heading toward a bar is a normal salary-man activity.  In that case, at
least one other member of their colleagues - who have all been
interviewed, a useless motion that turned up nothing - would have been
there.  None of them were able to name a suspect.  Naturally, the
assumption would have to be that the victims were out trolling around
with women, narrowing the gender down to a more logical XX-chromosome
pair."

"Yes," Ranma countered, "but you've forgotten two vital aspects of the
case, Hirugashi.  First, people drink alone.  And secondly, each one of
these men were discovered after having been sexually assaulted -
scratch marks, dull ones, created by short fingernails, all down their
backs, bruised genitals, and torn sphincters.  And in that one
instance, an entire testicle was removed.  I'll concede to the fact
that being found face-down bears a significant indication of shame, but
the signs of rape most certainly indicate a *male* suspect."  He smiled
in satisfaction.

"I said that based from the blood flow from the wound that the testicle
had been removed *after* death," Michi said demurely, treating the
subject as something she'd discuss with her mother on a lazy Sunday
afternoon, enjoying the banter.  "Such mutilation could have been done
by a female.  Actually if you think about it, the fingernail marks, the
bruising, even the torn anal opening, they could all be attributed to
some seriously rough, exploratory sex.  Maybe the killer did it to
satisfy some sadomasochistic urge, and then realized how ashamed she
felt, and couldn't bear to let those men lie face up and watch her as
she backed away."

Ranma watched her curiously.  "The evidence really could go either way,
Hirugashi, and you seem to be a pretty open-minded, rational person -
why are you so bent on this person being a woman?"

She looked sheepish.  "You really want to know?"

"Yeah," he said, grinning, "yeah, I do."

"Intuition," she replied, an embarrassed blush on her face, as if she
was ashamed to admit such a thing.

He frowned.  Just when he thought he was starting to understand her,
she pulled something like this.  A woman, who existed within the
strictest confines of medicine, believing with absolute faith, and
arguing on the behalf of what was nothing more than a few flawed
electrical impulses between her synapses?

He decided that she was determined to confound him at every turn.

Did it mean that she was more open-minded than her science had led him
to believe?  She'd never said a word of faith and personal religious
reasoning, or if she believed that there was magic.  His vision of her
seemed very elastic at the moment: someone who held science in the
strictest regard, and yet she professed to believe in her intuition
more than case evidence.  Idly, Ranma wondered of his supervisor's
warning: "It's better if you tell her *now*, Detective Saotome.  It's
not going to stay dry in Tokyo forever, and there are always accidents.
If she finds out like that, the chances for a successful partnership
are nearly nil."  Scowling, he brushed away the thoughts, deciding that
he'd further explore Michi's carefully plotted reality before he
attempted to insert the reality of magic and impossibilities of biology
and physics into the mix.

"I didn't know that scientists believed in that stuff," Ranma remarked.

Michi smiled.  "We try not to; but sometimes, numbers and proof isn't
everything, you know."  With another brief grin, she turned back to the
autopsy reports, poring over the photos in each file.

"Hmmm," he said in a distracted tone, a flutter of hope in his heart.

=====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhiruagashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[case]
Attachment: suspect_list(2).doc (38K)

Ranma -

Final lab results came in.

A few general things: blood alcohol was .28 (pretty damn drunk, but not
all that unusual in this country); marijuana and trace amounts of
cocaine in his system.  Akito Fujiwara was a partier, but all evidence
points to his last hit being weeks ago.  Genji Moroboshi and Takashi
Soru were much less interesting, just had the liquor, .26 and .22
respectively.

Still, I can't find conclusive reasons for #1 and 2's deaths.  Both of
them were (according to their families) very healthy people, did daily
calisthenics with their companies, low cholesterol count, no previous
heart problems - a sudden heart attack seems odd.  I've ruled out
caffeine as the poison, but I can't pinpoint anything specific.

This case is starting to drive me nuts.  I can't wash the lab-smell
from my hair anymore.  I fear I might have to boil myself inside-out
(like I told that intern) before I'm going to stop smelling like
formaldehyde, and I doubt even that will work.

Anyway, I attached the revised list to this email (it's a doozy still).

-Michi

=====

In the grand scheme of things, the list of people hadn't been that long
compared to the nightmare that some cases created, yet 45 was still a
big number.

Ranma discovered that getting to work early yielded no significant
positive results: no one else was at work, and few if any were at their
homes.  He'd spent the last forty minutes staring out the window,
thinking idly about Kodachi.  Images of her had been flooding his mind
since their dinner meeting, the way her eyes had sparkled, and how
she'd smiled at him.  He'd never truly considered her a viable romantic
option before that night, and he still hesitated to think so, what with
their history.  'Besides,' he reasoned, 'it's been years, she's
probably got someone much better already.'  Did she?  Kodachi had made
no mention of any significant other at dinner, and his quick (but
careful) study of her had yielded no flashes of gold wedding ring or
tan lines from where one should have been.  He made a mental note to
ask in their next email exchange.

He growled darkly at his musings; he should have been focusing on the
case, not mooning over someone like a lovesick schoolgirl.  Turning
back to the files, he heard a knock on the door, and absently, he said,
"Come on in, it's not locked."

There came a thumping of footsteps, the sound of a heavy object being
tossed against a desk, and then the sound of muffled cursing.  Ranma
looked up cautiously.

Michi, he decided, did not feel good that day.  Her hair was pulled
back into a severe bun, and her face was pale, slightly green, as if
she'd spent most of her morning being sick to her stomach.  Her right
hand was balled into a tight fist, and was pressed to her stomach,
right above her naval.  Whereas she usually wore at least one article
of brightly colored clothing, her outfit that day was strict black and
white, very dour.  Her mouth was drawn into a tortured pout, and her
eyes were closed tightly.  She was leaning against her desk taking deep
breaths, seemingly in pain.

In as nice a voice as possible, he said, "Good morning, Michi."

She simply 'hmm'ed in response, covering her face with her hands and
sighing deeply.  "Anybody call for me?" she asked quietly, her tone
carried a slight desperation, as if she *needed* to have messages, or
needed to hear from one specific person.

Ranma stared for a second before he managed a stuttering, "Uh, no.  No
one called."   There was a long, deathly silence before Ranma ventured,
"D-Do you want to talk about it?"  She gave him a look that made him
cold all over.  "Uh, you know, whatever's bugging you today."

She sighed again, this time more tragic than ever.  "There's nothing
bugging me.  I'm pregnant, that's all."

"Oh, well, that," Ranma said stupidly.  He had no idea what to say, or
how to say it.  In fact, he wished that he wasn't in the office; at
least he wouldn't have to deal with her somber appearance and rock
bottom mood.  He'd been bogged down with guilty thoughts of her all
week, and frankly, he was beginning to resent her for it.  The
overwhelming weight of knowing that Michi still hadn't told the father
was starting to keep him up nights.  He kept having waking dreams,
streams of conscious were some haunted, teary-eyed man burst into their
office a decade later, raving about how he had a nine-year-old daughter
that he'd never had a chance to kiss goodnight, and how it was all his
fault for not making his partner tell.

She shook her head, her eyes hardening into a look of determination
before she turned to him, saying, "Give me half that phone list.  We'll
split the work."  He nodded, handing her the last three pages in
silence, observing her curiously.

A week had passed quietly since Michi had revealed her belief in
intuition, and much of Ranma's time since then had been dedicated to
determining the lengths which that belief could be taken.  Would she
trust in his ability to read her ki-lines?  Or would she say that he
was bluffing?  Would a splash of cold water make her believe that there
were strangers, kidnappers, or cross-dressers about, or would she lend
credence to magic and curses?  The questions had plagued his mind
incessantly.

'And why,' he asked himself unhappily, 'is her opinion so important?
You never told any of your old coworkers, why should Michi be any
different?'  He cast her a sidelong expression, watching her face
reflect her irate mood as she dialed number after number, engaging
person after person in casual conversation, asking them a few
questions, either crossing their names off the list in front of her, or
circling them for future reference.

Michi was starting to get to him.

He only allowed this thought to tantalize for the briefest moment
before turning back to his labors, reminding himself that there were
greater problems than pregnancies and sex-changing curses afoot.

=====

To: Kodachi@kunoinc.co.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[dinner plans]

Kodachi,

This week is bad - how about...next Thursday?  You pick where.

- RS

=====

Ranma had attempted to stick it out, to wait until Michi called it
quits, and then he wouldn't have to feel bad about clocking out.  At
half past eight, he decided that enough was enough; he was leaving,
whether or not she decided to stay in the office.  He'd grabbed his
coat, shut down his computer, and gave Michi a quiet "Good night, don't
stay too long, okay?"  She'd nodded distractedly, promising that she'd
be out and in bed soon as well.

He'd called Kodachi on the way home, and she asked him to dinner.  He'd
agreed, and they'd shared another lovely evening at a small,
traditional restaurant, quietly testing their wasabi limits.  He'd
driven her back to her house ("You know, so you don't have to pay the
horrible cab fare") and then lingered for coffee after she assured him
that neither her brother nor her father were home ('It's only polite
that I stay,' he'd told himself).  Finally back at his own apartment,
Ranma had realized he'd left his laptop in the office.  Normally, he
wouldn't have worried, but he had a progress report due early the next
morning, and it was time for his interim conference with his commanding
officer at Special Operations; showing up without required materials
would not look favorable.  Cursing, he'd fought the traffic to get back
to the Special Operations headquarters, berating his own
absentmindedness.

'I'm such a loser,' Ranma thought to himself.  'I'm thirty-three years
old and I can't remember to bring my laptop home from work.'

He stumbled into the office, flicking on the overhead lights.

"Ah - that's hurts!" came a shriek.

Startled, he almost fell out of the doorway, his eyes as wide as dinner
plates as he finally saw *who* had let out the scream.  It was Michi
Hirugashi, the same Michi Hirugashi who had promised to be home just a
few minutes after he left the office.  Her eyes were bloodshot and red-
rimmed, puffy from crying.  Her hair was mussed and she looked two
steps shy of collapsing from physical exhaustion.  Added to that, she
looked...

She looked...*guilty*.

Ranma could find no other word for her wide-eyed, shocked expression.

His brow furrowed, and she remained stock-still and silent as he walked
toward his desk, placing one hand on his laptop, keeping his eyes
trained on her.  "Hey there," he said quietly.

There was a short space of silence before she whispered, "Hi."

"Did, did you forget something here?" he asked.

She looked startled.  "I didn't leave," she said plainly.

"Oh," he quipped.  Moving slowly, very carefully, as if he were afraid
that she was apt to bolt from the scene at any moment.  "Did you have
trouble getting home?  Or did you just want to stay?"  She stared at
him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes clear and piercing.  Once
again, like earlier that day, Ranma wanted desperately to be free from
the office, to be rid of her stare and her eyes and the questions that
she posed without speaking a word.

"I took your advice," she said, her voice very hoarse.

He blinked and eased himself toward the doorway of the office again,
consciously backing away from her for reasons unknown.  Michi, Ranma
knew, posed no physical threat to him, and whatever she said would be
no more hurtful than the barbs and whispers he'd pretended not to hear
while in the Kyoto offices.

"About what?" he asked quietly.

She shuffled nervously.  "Telling the father."

He gave himself a mental high-five, celebrating a success.  "Did you?"

She nodded mutely, taking a shuddering breath before she reached into
her pocket, her hand remerging balled up into a tight fist.  "He - he
wants to marry me," she said, deathly quiet.  She opened her hand, palm
up, and he saw a ring.  "He gave it to me nearly a month ago.  I took
it, but wasn't sure I was going to marry him, you know."  She paused,
still staring at her hand.  "He's calling his mother right now; I'll
meet his parents tomorrow night."  She looked up at him, her dark gray
eyes black as midnight in that instant, sparkling with unshed tears and
speaking of some horrible, grudging acceptance of a perceived fate.

Ranma breath caught in his throat as he recognized the defeat in the
plastic smile she offered.  'This is my fault,' was all he could think.
When he'd insisted that she tell the baby's father, he'd only been
thinking of the far-future repercussions, of being fair to the baby.
He had not taken into account his probable actions and how Michi had
reacted every time they'd ever spoken about her significant other.  Now
she was marrying him.  He feared that she'd wear that smile on her face
until the wedding day, and that he'd have to see it every day at work,
and remember with a resounding thud that it was his fault.

"Well?" she asked, her voice flat.  "Aren't you happy for me?"

He nearly jumped at her words, but found it somewhere deep in himself
to offer a strangled, "Congratulations, Michi.  That's...great."

"Yes," was her only reply.

She put the ring on, slowly, and held her hand out in front of her
face, her fingers shaking badly.  He realized with shocking clarity
that the way her hands trembled then seemed to contrast the firm,
perfectly collected grip he'd seen her bearing at the shooting range.
As this memory surfaced, so too did the image of her holding a scalpel,
glancing upward to explain something to him, her hands were perfectly
still.  'Michi's hands don't shake,' he thought.  'They don't shake
when she holds a gun, they don't shake when she holds a knife, they
don't shake when she pours coffee.  Michi's hands don't shake.'

They remained under the harsh overhead lighting of the office for
another tense moment of silence, before he coughed loudly and asked,
"Do you need a ride home?"

She gave him a wavering smile, this one genuine, and in the softest
whisper he'd ever heard, she said, "That would be great."

As he eased the car out into the late night traffic, he was momentarily
surprised by how much he cared for the welfare of the woman beside him.
He knew in the deepest part of his intellectual mind that whatever was
going on was her own private matter, and that if she chose to let
herself become trapped in a marriage or to let her fingers shake to
horribly, it was her own choice, as long as she didn't harm anybody
else.  He frowned to himself, thinking, 'God, it's Akane-syndrome all
over again,' he glanced to his side, where Michi was staring out a
window, 'probably because she looks like Akane, too.'

"Michi?"  She turned at the sound of his voice, eyes looking strangely
hollow.  "Where do you live?"  She turned away as she gave him the
directions, leaning her head back into her seat, and forgetting her
surroundings as the car's gentle motions continued to lull her into
nothingness.  Slowly, her eyes slipped closed, and the worry-lines on
her face faded away as she fell asleep, her breaths slowing.

The stone on her finger sparkled brightly, taunting Ranma with a
constant reminder of why her hands were still shaking, and what he'd
done to make them do so.

=====

To: aoi120690@hotmail.co.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Are you kidding?!?!]

No, Aoi, I lie to Mom and Dad for fun.

Yes, I'm actually getting married.  You guys will meet him in a few
days; I've just got to calm Mom down enough so that she can help pick
out a nice place.

=====

Her house was just as he'd imagined it.

Decorated in tones of soft pinks and blues and yellows, a comfortable
haven from the horrors of her job.  It was smaller than his own
apartment, and decorated with an eclectic mix of American, Chinese, and
traditional Japanese furniture.  On the other side of the room, near
the windows, there was a small, sleek black piano, and a few pages of
sheet music scattered across the bench before it.

He turned on two lamps, the pale pink ceramic ones that sat on either
side of her couch, and grabbing Michi's arm, led the dazed woman down a
hallway, peering into the rooms to find which one had a bed in it.
After discovering the bathroom and the linen closet, he found her
bedroom.  With a muffled 'omph' she fell to the covers, instantly
asleep.

Seeing that she was already out like a light, and that his experiences
with women forbade him to attempt to unclothe and change her, he found
himself standing about, observing his surroundings furtively.  Michi
had a double bed with pale pink and fawn-colored sheets.  The bedroom
was ridiculously small, having barely enough space for a night table
and a tiny dresser.  On every available surface, there were scattered
papers and books, medical journals and more half-blank pages of Michi's
messy handwriting, marking out sharps and flats on sheet-music, writing
it out on notebook paper, and then scratched out.

Glancing at her still-sleeping form, he reached over to her dresser,
picking up a sheet of yellowing hotel stationary.  It crinkled in his
hands, brittle with age.  Curiously, he stared at the sloping lines,
drawn in semi-neat rows, at the beginning of each line, a treble clef,
and then there followed an incomprehensible mess of sharp and flat
signs, and a three stacked on top of a four.  He winced as he saw what
came next.  They were sixty-fourth notes, he knew them from when he
dated a music major in college, and they rose and fell so dramatically
that he was nearly convinced that fingers, regardless of how skilled
could not play them as quickly as that music seemed to demand.

He glanced at Michi again.  'Another secret,' he thought idly.  'Does
he know this about you?'  He turned back to the music, setting it down,
wondering if Michi had ever bothered to title her composition.

She groaned softly in her sleep, and Ranma sighed.

There were two options at that point: leave and be free from the
aftermath of his own mistakes, or stay and take care of her.

He glanced to where his partner was collapsed on the bed, frowned, and
looked toward the doorway.  Weighing his options, he sighed, cursed
himself, and started to take off his coat and shoes; it was going to be
a long night.

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject:[blank]
Attachment: Best Wishes on Your Engagement - an e-greeting!

=====

The sun was soft, and it made her fingers warm as it fluttered through
her open window.  Opening one eye slowly, and then the other, she
yawned, stretching her arms and legs in a nearly catlike fashion.  She
couldn't remember anything that had happened the night before, just
momentary glimpses of driving to work, and then riding home.

She struggled out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.  Once there,
she peeled off her jacket and skirt, ripping her pantyhose in her haste
to strip it from her legs.  With shaking hands, she tossed off her
lingerie and stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as she
could bear for it to be.

She filled her mind with petty, pointless thoughts: which of her
kimonos was most appropriate to wear to the meeting with Kazuaki's
parents that evening, how much padding to be used in the obi, and how
was it to be tied?  Did she wear the flowers in her hair that her
mother liked, or did she go for something simpler?  Did she need to
bring a gift?  What would she do when it came time for the traditional
toast of sake?  Would she be able to explain to his parents about the
dangers of drinking during pregnancy, or would they just see it as
disrespect?  Could she even *tell* them that she was pregnant?  She
couldn't remember where she'd left her only pair of zori sandals.
She'd have to find those.

Underneath it all, there simmered the more important problems.

If Michi Hirugashi was a braver person, a more self-defined woman, she
would have told Kazuaki exactly what she wanted to: "I'm sorry, but I
don't love you.  It wouldn't be fair to us or the baby."  If she hadn't
been a coward, she would have shed the security in his ring and the
marriage, and struck it out on her own.  If only she'd managed to say
those things to him; it didn't matter that he'd be hurt, she realized
with a tone of disgust.  What he felt had very little consequence to
her, nor did the family structure for the child in her belly matter.
She could barely believe that she was pregnant, much less care for the
baby.

Gasping for breath, she turned off the water, realizing that if she
stood under that stream of boiling liquid any longer, she'd be cooked
through.

She pushed open the shower door and stepped out into the whirl of steam
that escaped from the stall.  For one moment, she was drawn to the
strange shadow that her body cut against the mist in the bathroom.

And with her heart thumping, she closed her eyes and swallowed, hard,
banishing her demons to somewhere darker inside of her belly -
carefully hidden away from what other secrets might have held inside
her.

=====

To: aoi120690@hotmail.co.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Re:[Are you kidding?!?!]]

Naturally, the engagement meeting is just a formality.

Tell Mom and Dad for me:

Next Thursday, 6:30 pm

Oh, and ask Mom if I have to bring a gift.

=====

Ranma had passed out on the couch the night before, falling asleep to
the sound of badly dubbed American horror movies, and wondering in the
back of his mind if Michi was all right.  'Of course she's all right,'
he reasoned to himself, 'she's a big girl, she's strong, she can handle
herself.  Why, she'd think it were insulting if she knew I doubted her
self-reliance.'  Still, a voice in the back of his mind had forced him
to stay.  'I'll leave in the morning,' he decided.  'I'll just check on
her and sneak out before she wakes up.  She'll never need to know.'

He was very confused.  Just a few months ago, he would not have
hesitated to leave her alone overnight in that apartment.  He would
have, instead, settled into his own bed, thinking only of his own
problems, drowning in his own self-pity.

Kyoto was Kyoto, and Tokyo was, well, different.  'Or rather,' he'd
thought darkly, 'the people here are different.'  He'd caught himself
on more than one occasion beating down nearly maternal feelings of
concern for his partner, and had decided to blame it on her.  She'd
been entirely too nice to him.  She knew the rumors about him, of that
he had been certain, it had been the topic of their first conversation.
'Sure,' he'd reasoned, 'she hasn't *seen* me hare out yet, but she's
certainly heard about it, probably from her boss, too.  And yet,' he'd
paused, 'and yet she's never mentioned it, never treated me differently
because of it.'  It was either a wonderfully nonjudgmental facet of her
personality, or that she merely didn't care.  Either way it was those
kindnesses, intentional or not, that had most likely led to his
affection.

He'd woken to the sounds of her shower cutting on, and yawning three
times, he tiptoed around looking for his shoes, cursing himself for
oversleeping.  Bumbling about in the watery light of early morning, he
was pulling on his jacket when he heard the soft footsteps of a woman
behind him, followed by a surprised gasp.

"You're still here?"

He turned around to stare at her, taking in the black silk bathrobe
with silvery butterflies embroidered along the hem and sleeve,
memorizing how her blow-dried hair fell in soft curls at her shoulders,
and how her face expressed everything that her voice could not.
Gratitude, happiness, comfort, embarrassment, safety - all because he'd
bothered to stay.

He smiled at her in embarrassment, his face flushing bright red.
"Yeah, you were pretty bad off last night.  I couldn't leave you like
that."

They stood there, watching each other for a moment.  Ranma's eyes
gravitated to where the ring sparkled on her finger, each glitter
another jab at his already bruised conscience.  He couldn't help but
believe that he'd led her to marital slaughter.  Michi kept watching
the way that he watched her, amazed that he looked so concerned.

She cocked her head to one side.  "Thank you," she said softly.

Ranma felt the tension in his shoulders slowly dissipate.  In an
instant of realization, he understood how hard it must have been for
her to say it, to have admitted that she'd needed his assistance in any
way.  They were such similar creatures in so many ways.  He knew deep
down that the guns she carried gave her a sense of self-control.  She'd
been spiraling recently.  First the pregnancy and now this, whatever it
was.

He would have told her that it was okay to be weak once in a while; it
was fine to be needy.  He would have told her that he was her friend,
after all, and that he'd stayed over because he'd wanted to, not
because he felt obligated to.

Instead, he murmured, "Are you hungry?"

=====

To: kasumi@nerimaclinic.or.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[Nabiki's Wedding]

Kasumi,

Geez, that soon?  I'll see if I can make it, I'll do my best, but with
this case, I can't really offer any solid promises.  Sorry.  I'm in the
wedding, right?  As a guy, right?  Is it okay if I bring a date?

- RS

=====

Michi was pulling into the Special Operations parking lot when her cell
phone rang.  Sighing in annoyance, she pulled up to the first security
gate, handing the guard her ID card and picking up her phone.

"Hello?" she asked, her tone curt.

She sounded annoyed; knowing her situation, one could hardly blame her.

It had been three days since she'd agreed to Kazuaki's renewed
proposal, this time with honest intent.  It had seemed as if all the
walls had been closing in on her.  As family and damnable tradition had
delayed Nerri yet again in Osaka, Michi had been abandoned to her
personal demons for upwards of seventy-two hours, and had spent the
time vacillating between hopelessness and disbelief that she was
pregnant when she wasn't forced into her fiance's presence.  Her mother
had made hourly phone calls, terribly concerned with her dress for the
meeting between parents.  "The spring green one, Michi, it brings out
your beautiful eyes!  And be sure to pad your obi well - oh, never
mind, I'll do it for you - do you still have your obi?" and a thousand
other pointless conversations had filled her time.

Something sparkled on her finger, and with inexplicable surprise, she
discovered for something like the tenth time that she was wearing The
Ring.  It had been called The Ring ever since Michi had decided that
its very presence was an omen of ill luck, merely a precursor to a
lifetime of unhappiness.  So surrendered to her miserable fate, it was
understandable that she'd spent much of her weekend attempting to
forget it places, or drop it down drainage openings.  None of these
endeavors worked; The Ring was bound and determined to drag her down
into a state of matrimony.  It, she decided, was the crux of the
problem.  If she could get rid of The Ring, all the other stuff would
fade away, too.

On Sunday night, Kazuaki had taken her out with his friends and incited
her temper when he'd insisted that she toast their marriage with his
group of ill-mannered friends.  It seemed, or at least Michi thought,
that as soon as their marriage seemed inevitable, all those charmingly
polite things about her intended faded away into the dreary template
for the stereotypical Japanese salaryman husband.  In the end, Michi
had left the bar in a huff, and gotten into an explosive argument with
Kazuaki on the way home: he was angry that she'd embarrassed him, she
was angry that he'd attempted to deform their offspring with the evils
of the drink.  Neither gave any ground, and Sunday night ended up
silent and sullen, both parties disgusted with one another, sleeping on
opposite sides of Michi's bed.  That Monday morning, he'd sat up at her
kitchen table, drinking tea and smoking until she'd stormed in, put out
his cigarette, and started breakfast, glaring at him the entire time.
He seemed disinterested, and hadn't even thanked her for the meal.

Finally, the voice on the other end of the connection brought her
roughly back to her present: a gray Tuesday morning, where she was
nauseated and annoyed that she was engaged.

"Hey, Michi, it's me," came Ranma's familiar tone.  The background
noise was almost overwhelming, as if he had decided to call her from
the busiest point in Tokyo.  She could hear faintly the sound of
cameras.  "We just found another one."

She merely sighed and took back her security ID from the guard.
Glancing in her rearview mirror, she shifted the car into reverse and
started to back out of the parking lot again, headed out toward the
unfriendly city, the ominous glitter still winking at her from her ring
finger, whispering of things yet to come.

=====

To: aoi120690@hotmail.co.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[kimono]

Wearing the green one Ma picked out a couple of years ago.  She's going
to get it out of storage today.

=====

The Indigo Caf� was a trendy little place, so trendy in fact that it
pulled a hefty profit and never advertised, preferring word of mouth
and the scent of money to attract potential customers.  They ran a
small, elegant restaurant, and though the menu less than creative, the
food was always hot and fresh.  On the second floor there was a sleek
lounge, complete with bar and female company.  The entire atmosphere
screamed "yuppi chic."  While it was never crowded, it was usually
busy, the customers were faithful; that morning, it was absolutely
deserted.

Instead of quiet big band music, there was instead the rhythmic
clicking of cameras and the low mumble of voices, all still groggy from
sleep.  Officers from all over Tokyo had been called in early that day
to the scene of a eerily clean crime.  There was not a drop of blood
anywhere, none that the eye could see, anyway, no sign of struggle at
all.  It had almost seemed like the poor victim (Kaneda Tsukishiro,
thereafter identified most commonly as #4) had just stumbled into the
back alley and had a heart attack; and this very fact was part of the
reason that all the detectives looked so irate to be hanging around.
None of them liked being under Ranma Saotome's command, and they really
resented being treated like servants.  Still, in some part of their
mind, they knew that he had to have had a logical reason to waking them
from their sleep; they just wished that he'd done them a favor and
roused his partner as well.  Why he had waited until so late in the day
was still a mystery to them all.

The crime scene investigators all stood around under the few umbrellas
available to them, the lucky ones under the large tarp that had been
set up over the body and all surrounding areas until Michi arrived.  A
few of them milled around the Indigo Caf�, but most of them still
traipsed out into the rain, worried that they had not protected the
scene well enough, or just eager to get cracking on the case.  The rain
was starting to come down hard, and all of them were worried.

Ranma not only looked worried, he looked terrified.  He'd been hiding
inside the building ever since the drizzle had started.  While he'd
heard the snide remarks about his apparent disinterest for thoroughly
investigating the scene, he'd let them all pass without comment.  He
was senior detective on the case, with more years case experience and
more time out in the field than any of the others that were plodding
around, if he felt like delegating authority, and keeping his curse a
secret, well, it was his right to do so.

His eyes scanned the scene and saw Michi's car pull up to the curb.  He
noted with a smile that she (for the third time since he'd known her)
parked illegally on the corner and stepped out of the car, jogging
through the rain and into the building, stopping at the door to wave
the other investigators in as well, saying, "What the hell are you
doing?  Waiting to catch pneumonia?  Get your asses in here!"

As she ducked into the building, his eye caught against the shimmer of
diamond on her finger, and that gaping abyss of guilt opened up in his
stomach once again.  She didn't seem to notice her partner's sudden
paleness of complexion, offering him a harried "hello" and turning to
the officers surrounding her, wet, damp, and agitated.

"How long have you guys been here?" she asked, incredulous.

"Four hours," one of them piped up, his tone irate.

"Why didn't you call earlier?" she asked again.

Ranma cleared his throat, making his partner turn to him in surprise.
"That's my fault.  I wanted to make sure that this was actually our
guy, and not a fly-by-night or something like that."  He smiled at her
charitably.  "Wouldn't want you exhausting yourself in your delicate
condition over a false alarm."

His words caused a wave of titters over the all-male group of police
officers behind them, and he saw his partner stiffen in a tell-tale
sign of her annoyance.  Michi, instead of offering him a glowing smile
and blushing words of thanks (as his chivalrous actions, without a
doubt, deserved), narrowed her eyes and scowled at him dangerously.
Ranma's eyes widened in surprise and he backed away unconsciously.
Without replying, his partner whipped back around to the officers,
addressing them as one would an army:

"The rain is really coming down, we're on a slope, before long, water
is going to start destroying vital evidence.  I guess that we don't
have much more than," she glanced at her watch, "ten or fifteen minutes
before everything goes to hell."  Looking up, her eyes hardened in a
determined expression.  "Photos were already taken, right?"

"Right," someone answered.

"Good, it's getting dark, tarp in the other side, close it all in.  Two
of you use the luminor.  Take photos quickly, it lasts 30 seconds,
tops," she said expertly.

Ranma, more comfortable with this line of conversation finally came
free of his shock and said, "Fingerprinting and blood samples, bagged
and *quickly*, the moisture will start to destroy evidence soon.  Hair
and fiber, *be careful*.  It's windy out there."

Michi didn't miss a beat.  "Also, look for anything that's generally
out of place.  If it doesn't look like it belongs in an alley behind a
hostess bar, bag it.  If it looks oddly shaped, bag it.  If it incites
the vaguest sense of something, *bag it*.  Label everything and - "

" - Write everything down," Ranma finished with a firm tone.  Glancing
at their dazed subordinates, still frozen in surprise at the perfectly
synchronized set of directives they had gotten, Ranma was unable to
hide his irritation as he yelled, "Well?  Get to it!"

They scattered to all corners of the scene, their objectives clear.

As the last officer left the comfortably climate controlled interior of
the Indigo Caf�, Michi turned to her partner, her eyes blazing, her
hands balled into tiny fists.  "I will thank you *not* to reinforce
their stereotypes," Michi hissed.

For a moment, he at a loss for words.  And finally, gathering himself,
he managed a stuttering, "Wh-what are you talking about?"

She huffed, "Look, it's hard enough to get these guys to respect you
when you're a woman, I don't need you saying things like that and
making them think it's alright to keep me out of the loop."

She was so mad she could barely see straight.  She'd always thought
that Ranma was different from the rest of the trash; since the
beginning of their partnership, he'd never shown any signs of
discrimination against her gender.  Aside from the occasional macho
comment (which Michi could easily ignore and found quite funny, to be
honest), he'd always treated her with the deepest respect.  She'd never
been so embarrassed as she was that day.  Imagine, telling her that she
was *too delicate* to be roused from her slumber - in front of
*coworkers*!

He sighed in frustration, still clueless as to why she was so angry.
"What did I say wrong?  It *is* a delicate condition!"

She boggled at him.  "What - the pregnancy?"

He nodded eagerly, hoping that she would see it from his point of view.

"You're so stupid!" she howled.  Ranma flinched at her words, as if
physically slapped, remembering so many other occasions where people he
had loved had said the same words.  They hurt as much in that instant
as they had in high school.

"Waking me up for an *important*, *priority one* case is *not* going to
hurt my baby!" Michi continued.  She stamped her foot and glared at him
a bit longer before walking out into the rain, leaving him alone in the
bar, musing of good intentions.

=====

To: ntendo@pricewaterhouse.co.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: women

Nabiki,

Question: Work partner has physical condition; we have an early morning
case we're not really sure of yet.  I hold off on calling until I know
for certain that it's legit.  I get yelled at for mentioning the
"delicate" condition and being thoughtful.

Why?

Help - I'll never understand women.

- RS

=====

"Tuesday, May 8th," Michi glanced at her watch, saying as she did,
"5:08 pm."  She looked up again, speaking into the microphone more
playfully, "Welcome to Post-Mortem Radio - our guest for today is Mr.
Kaneda Tsukishiro.  Age 34, approximately 170 cm in height, and 195
lbs."  She sighed gently and glanced downwards for a moment, taking in
her surroundings.

She was at the morgue - again.

The story of her life, if it wasn't a dead relationship, it was a dead
*person*.  Though, sometimes she wasn't sure which one she preferred.
Dead people rarely caused more trouble than they were worth.

The room was new; the entire morgue had been renovated just a few
months ago.  All the cabinets were gleaming stainless steel, and the
new drainage holes were clean and free of growing biological organisms,
a small blessing in life.  She'd gotten sick of picking the short straw
and being forced to poke it clear.  And as an added plus, they'd
installed voice activated recording systems in rooms 1A-4C, there'd be
no more wiping her hands off on her scrubs before pressing the 'record'
button, no more *praying* that the microphone had picked up whatever
incredible medical revelation she'd made.

She knew every inch of the facility, having spent her first summer
after Medical school haunting the hallways as a resident flunkey,
learning to do the most unpleasant, and then later on, the most
unpleasant, yet most important, jobs.  She'd been possessed by the way
that one could trace a killer from the victim, she'd loved how all the
little facts and detail that one recorded drew together to create the
perfect profile of a human being, how knowing what someone had *done*
was often the key to finding *who* the someone *was*.

She'd given up a great deal of what she'd once been for what she'd
wanted to do.  A younger, more na�ve Michi had been a musician, she'd
been deeply in love with the piano, and took any and all opportunities
to learn a new piece of jazz accompaniment.  A more reckless Michi had
spent many a night along the beach, staring at the stars and falling
asleep to the lull of the tide.  A more hopeful Michi had been married,
and had wanted children.  All three of those isotopes of herself died
with her desire to succeed.  To be respected in her field, she had to
be better than all the men around her, she had to excel where they
could satisfy, and she had to do it faster, too.  She'd suffered for
it.

She'd been so busy outshining her peers in medical school that she
hadn't noticed her husband's rapidly spiraling depression, she hadn't
seen him down the liquor and didn't notice him worrying himself to
death over money.  She'd only lived to lay with him after making love,
to tell him how she'd done something else wonderfully, how she'd made
him proud again.  And he *was* proud - proud to have such a brilliant
and beautiful wife.  She'd been everything to him; he would have done
anything for her.  So he'd never mentioned any of the problems with
paying for her education, and he'd never whispered a word of hesitation
when her smiles and pouts had begged from him another trinket or pair
of shoes - he couldn't deny her anything.  It was only after he'd
thrown himself from the highest bridge in Tokyo that she'd found the
bills, seen how he'd been working *three* jobs as opposed to the one
that she'd thought - it was only *after* he was lost that she knew how
much he'd loved her.

She'd grown so suddenly serious - playing the part of a respectful
widow with a heavy sort of gloom hanging about her at all times.  She'd
given up the idea that love was good for a person, seeing the effects
of the said emotion of her late spouse.  And later on, fueled by
desperation and loneliness, she'd had her first one night stand.

She'd cried for three days afterwards.

So one night, she'd sat reviewing job opportunities, scheduling
interviews, and staring repeatedly at one tiny, two-lined ad in the
newspaper.  "Officers needed; training offered; medical experience a
plus.  Call 555-1128, Ext. 45800."  So she had.

And she'd loved it.

But where was she now?

The morgue - again.

She winced - she'd been in the morgue when someone had finally told her
about her husband.  She'd been bent over a cadaver, explaining in
careful detail to her professor how she'd conducted the autopsy, with
nothing but the oral test on her mind.  "Miss Hirugashi?" they'd
hazarded, she remembered how strange it was to still be called that
when she was a married woman.  "Miss Hirugashi - your husband -
something happened to your husband."

She laid a gentle hand over her abdomen, remembering with dark
amusement the expression on her face last week when the pink plus sign
had magically appeared on the end of the pregnancy test.  She'd been so
disturbed that she'd actually bought five more and conducted the test
over and over again, wrought with disbelief.  'What am I going to do?'
she whispered to herself, 'I haven't got a husband - I don't know how
to take care of a baby,' she paused, her mouth going dry, 'I don't love
the father.'

Shaking herself hard, she decided that there'd be time for panicking
later - there were four families without one of their brothers or
fathers or friends that night, and they were all dependent on whether
or not she was clever enough to outwit a killer.

With a sigh, she grabbed the scalpel, saying loudly, "I will now make
the y-incision."

=====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: meeting

Ranma -

I heard about how you didn't get a chance to finish writing your
progress report because of me (sorry).  So, I took the liberty of going
in to Detective Eda's office and giving an oral review of your
fantastic casework thus far.  Hope you don't mind, but I thought it was
the least that I could do after you gave me a ride home.

- Michi

=====

Ranma was irate, as he always found himself when he was with people who
thought it was funny to bring up his career record in Kyoto.

"You know, you sonuvabitch - there're stories about you in every damn
corner of Japan," the man laughed, braying loudly.  Ranma scowled,
hoping against hope that the ignorant bum he was sharing a car with
would get the clue and shut up.  "I mean - come on!  What kinda' crazy
fuck levels a warehouse?  I mean, without a gun, without a bomb, but
one hundred percent total blow-up."  Chojo slammed his palm hard
against the steering wheeling, letting loose his donkey-laugh again as
he cried, "Fuck!  *Fuck*!  That's just *fucking* beautiful!"

Ranma half smiled, half winced, and nodded miserably, turning to stare
out the window in desolation.  He wanted to blame Michi, but logically,
he knew it wasn't her fault.  She had an autopsy to do, and he had
people to interview.  He'd wanted to do it while she was there, but
red-tape and timing conspired to trap Michi underground in the morgue
while he traversed Tokyo toward the Indigo Caf�.

Chojo was nothing short of stellar when he was hot on someone's trail.
Altogether, he was a good detective, and reasonably intelligent, but he
had personal skills that measured at two drops short of bone dry, and
Ranma made that mental concession only because he still communicated
with Ryoga Hibiki, and the basis of comparison was a boon to Chojo.

Ranma would have removed an appendage rather than to admit it, but he
missed Michi's company - *desperatelyE.  It had only become clear to
him how gregarious and forgiving she'd been about his reputation when
he'd been taken away from her nonjudgmental company.  'I'm going to
have to kill him,' Ranma thought hatefully.  'I'll just have to wound
him, and drown him in a puddle of his own blood.'

He perked up suddenly as the unassuming storefront of the Indigo Caf�
came into view, and turning about, he yelled, "We're here!"  Chojo
sighed unhappily, parking the car, promising that they'd continue their
"man to man" discussion after the questions.

Ranma was feeling quite doomed, and in that instant, would have rather
heard another extended diatribe on feminism and empowering women in
male-dominated workplaces from Nabiki than stay with Chojo for even a
minute longer.

=====

To: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[meeting]

Michi,

Thanks so much, you have no idea!  I was convinced that Eda was going
to fire me from the way he was glaring at me.  Besides, it was no
trouble.  If all else fails and I lose my job at SO - I'll just live
off of your income.  :)

- RS

=====

Michi frowned, and then she winced.

"Visual exam of the subject's stomach contents reveals," she paused,
sighing and reaching down to shift a flap of skin before finishing,
"cashews, lots of them.  What looks like," she squinted, mentally
cursing the human habit of chewing before swallowing, "maraschino
cherries.  Bar food."

The relative silence of the autopsy bay was broken as her cell phone
rang shrilly, the sound echoing off the walls.  She sighed, peeling off
her gloves and wandering toward where her purse and jacket lay.  With a
groan derived half from exhaustion and half from nausea, she whispered
a meek 'hello' into the mouthpiece.  There was long pause before there
was an answer.  "Michi?  Are you okay?  What's wrong?  You sound sick."

Michi frowned.  "I'm fine, Ranma, just tired."  She released a long
breath and sat down, leaning her forehead against the cool metal
surface of the counter.  "How's it going?"

Ranma snorted bitterly.  "I'm going to kill him."

Michi raised her eyebrows, fighting back her dizziness.  "Why?  When I
talked to the manager earlier, he was a really nice guy."  She looked
worried for a moment.  "He's being uncooperative?"

"Not the *manager*," Ranma hissed quietly, "*Chojo*!  How did you think
that I'd work *well* with this asshole?"

She would have laughed, but then she would have also thrown up.
"Ranma, I *never* said that you'd work well with Chojo; *no one* gets
along with Chojo."  There was a short silence before she asked, "Are
you going to be okay?"  No answer.  "What did he say?"

"Nothing," he answered petulantly.

She groaned.  "Fine, whatever.  Just talk to the manager, and don't
kill anyone."

"Michi?" he asked, an echo of concern in his voice.

"Yeah?" she whispered, pressing her palm to the cold glass, a voice in
her head begging for reprieve from the rocking sickness that had
claimed her.

"Are you sure you're okay?  You sound, I don't know, off."

She sighed.  "I'm fine, Ranma, I swear."

=====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[meeting]

Ranma -

My income?  Please, we both know how little we're paid.  We'd end up
having to live in a cardboard box.

- Michi

=====

She'd said that she'd be waiting for him outside of the coroner's
offices, and she never flaked out on him.  He had frowned and told
Chojo to circle the block, he'd be back in a moment; Ranma was
convinced that something must have happened to detain his partner.
This unusual absence coupled with her earlier tone was enough to make
him worry.

"Michi," he said quietly, poking his head into the first autopsy bay to
check for his partner, nd seeing instead the city coroner.  Weakly, he
asked, "Hi, sir, have you seen Michi Hirugashi around here?"

The other man snorted, and turned back to the cadaver and the rib-
spreaders with which he was occupied.  "She lords over these autopsy
bays; I *always* see her because she's *always* here.  If you want to
find her, go check 4a."  Ranma nodded his thanks and walked down the
hall, following the signs.  His eyes spotted the door with 4a etched
into it, and with a soft sigh, he stuck his head into the room.
"Hirugashi?" he called again, "You there?"

No response.

He frowned and stepped in.  A body was laid out on the autopsy table,
halfway stitched shut and unwrapped.  The toe-tag told him that that it
*was* indeed their latest victim.  Michi usually hated working with an
assistant, so he understood that there was no one else there; but where
was she?  With a deep sigh, he stepped past the body into the locker
area that connected all the autopsy bays.  It was a long, narrow room
with showers and bathroom stalls, places for the MEs to change in an
out of their scrubs and wash the smell of formaldehyde from their hair.

He figured that Michi, unlike the women from a past life, wouldn't beat
him senseless if he accidentally walked in on her, *especially* if she
knew he had done it out of concern for her welfare.  Plus, she couldn't
hit worth crap.  He winced.  'But if she has her gun - that's a *whole*
other story.'

Closing his eyes, he stuck his head into the nearest stall.  "Michi?"
he asked nervously.  He tried a last ditch attempt, "Detective
Hirugashi, are you in here?"

There was the sound of rustling cloth, and in surprise, Ranma opened
his eyes to see her curled up in a little ball in the stall, tugging
the shower curtain around herself to cover any vitals.  Her hair was
dripping wet and pasted to her face, her eyes were closed, and she
looked almost as pale as the blue tiles.

"Michi," he whispered.  He could see how fragile she looked at that
moment, her whole body was shaking and water still dripped slowly from
the faucets in the shower stall.  Her lips were purple, and he could
swear he saw tear tracks down her face.  With a sigh, he said, "Are you
okay?"

She didn't say anything, just shook her head, afraid that if she opened
her mouth, she'd end up retching again.

Ranma took a deep breath, rallying his courage.  'It's Michi,' he
consoled himself, fighting back a fight/flight instinct that screamed
in no uncertain terms for him to run for the hills.  'She's not like
the others, besides, she already said okay.  She needs your help.
Pretend that it's *you*.'  He, Ranma noted hopelessly, did not have
such charmingly round arms, nor the Boticellian figure.  Ranma had
never viewed his female half as a sexual entity, understanding rather
early on that it would be like lusting after his younger sister.  Michi
was a separate female, one with whom he worked in close proximity;
besides, she *was* very pretty.   'This could be bad,' he surmised in a
low, mournful tone.

In all honesty, if embarrassment levels between the two were compared,
Michi would have won, hands down.  Sure, Ranma was a bit startled that
his work partner was naked, dripping, and too weak and nauseated to
stand on her own; but Michi bore the greater burden: her own
insecurities.  She was horribly ashamed that she was unable to speak or
to get up; she'd tried earlier, and it had only resulted in a miserable
case of vertigo and more vomiting.  Michi, despite universal
stereotypes of thin, short Asian females, only fit the latter category
well.  She'd never been slender, never been slim; all her life, she'd
worn the large sizes, and had always been uncomfortable nude.  Lights
on during sex was not an option; not with her, anyway.  At 5'1", she
was a hefty 130, and even though it was pretty evenly distributed, she
*hated* the way she looked, no ifs, ands, or buts.  Only the last
shreds of her dignity kept her from bursting into tears over her
situation; she wanted desperately to wrap herself in an enormous
blanket, to hide herself from his pitying, disgusted gaze, and cry
herself to sleep.  She'd never felt so humiliated before.

"Is it okay if I help you up?" he asked cautiously, turning bright red
even as he spoke.  The tearful expression on Michi's face made
something inside himself hurt.  She looked like she just wanted to
crawl into a dark hole and disappear forever.

Hesitating, she weighed the pros and cons of allowing him to touch her.
Pro: she wouldn't have to sit on the cold tile and be naked anymore.
Con: he might realize with perfect clarity how disgustingly overweight
she was.  Pro: maybe she would stop throwing up if she could get some
warm clothing and warm tea.  Con: he might realize with perfect clarity
how disgustingly overweight she was.  Pro: she could get dressed and he
could stop staring at her.  Con: he might realize with perfect clarity
how disgustingly overweight she was.

Finally, with a resigned sigh, she nodded weakly, closing her eyes
tightly and surrendering herself to the fact that he'd sneer every time
he saw her from there on out.  She'd dealt with it in high school, she
could deal with it again.

Ranma released a shuddering breath, coaching himself in all manners of
self-control and Soul of Ice technique as he took three steps forward,
carefully untangling her from the shower curtain and holding her in his
arms.  She seemed to shake harder as he lifted her up, though she
didn't seem any colder.  It never occurred to him that she might be
afraid.  Holding her tightly against him, he finally realized how
terribly cold she was.  He looked around frantically, momentarily
forgetting his embarrassment, and saw the basket of towels that was a
few feet away, moving forward, he grabbed one quickly so as not to drop
her.  Setting her down on the tile floors, steadying her with his arm,
he wrapped the towel around her shivering body, and then taking another
one to dry off her hair.

He gave a silent word of thanks that she was soaked with warm water -
otherwise, she might have been in for an unpleasant surprise.

If he had been watching her face during those moments, he would have
seen a strange curiosity emerge in Michi's dark eyes.  There was some
odd familiarity in the way he had covered her with the terry-cloth,
something she couldn't quite put her finger on.  Maybe it was the way
that he knew exactly how to wrap the thing about her to keep her
covered, or maybe it was how he knew how to dry her hair without
hurting her or mussing the strands too much.  He seemed to have held
her with a platonic knowledge of women and female habit known only by -
well - other females.

In between these feverish musings, a screaming voice filled her head
with an endless string of thoughts: 'Oh, God, he saw you.  How awful,
how disgusting!  He's never going to look at you again.  It doesn't
matter if he doesn't look at you again; you're getting married,
remember?  Oh, God, why do I have to get my morning sickness in the
afternoon?  Oh, he's pitying me - *don't do that*!  I'm not that -
okay, yes I am, but you don't have to *pity* me - '

"I'm going to go get your clothes, okay?"  She nodded again, watching
him leave quickly and return, holding out her pants and shirt and
underthings, a slight blush on his cheeks.  "Can you get dressed on
your own?"

She nodded again, whispering, "Thank you."  The nausea was starting to
ebb; enough at least so that she could stand on her own two legs and
dress.  It would be a while before she could eat, or think about
eating, again.

He nodded brusquely, and turned around, not leaving the shower area.
"Are you just going to stand there?" she asked softly, her voice meek,.
He nodded, not saying a word but conveying all his thoughts with that
one motion.  She rolled her eyes, "I'm okay now, really."  She paused,
"I'll be right out, Ranma, please."  If he didn't leave right then, she
was going to burst into undignified tears right in front of him, and
the man had already been forced to deal with enough that day.  Ranma
didn't deserve to hear a fat little girl wail about how everything was
wrong with her life on top of it all.

Inwardly, he thanked God for giving him an escape; outwardly, he just
nodded sedately, and walked away.

=====

To: ntendo@pricewaterhouse.co.jp
From: rsaotome@police.go.jp
Subject: [blank]

Nabiki,

...You're a feminazi.  Thank you for the answer to the question,
really.  It would have been nicer had it not been buried under a 35K
email about women's rights and stuff like that.  It didn't sound
insulting to me, and it wasn't meant to be.  Anyway, I'll apologize.

- RS

=====

"I thought Chojo was driving us back to the office," she murmured.
Ranma sighed, steering her toward the curb.

After taking twenty minutes to giver herself a good, long cry and put
her clothes on, Michi had finally emerged from the locker rooms, still
on shaky legs, but better than before.  She'd been at first sullen,
snappish, and mean, still bright red with embarrassment and self-
loathing at that afternoon's events.  Ranma could not for the life of
him figure out what was wrong; he'd only be helping, hadn't he?  After
about five minutes of uncomfortable silence, Michi realized that all
the stinging barbs about her weight that she'd been prepared for were
not going to come, and the tension in her shoulders left; her whole
figure loosened.

"Well, he was," Ranma said as he glanced around, searching for any
signs of a cab.  "But *I* decided that maybe you should just go
straight home instead of back to the office."  He turned back his
partner, saying, "I don't think you needed to be around him at that
moment."  Michi just smiled at him, very grateful for his foresight,
his "delicate" comment instantly forgiven.  "What?" he asked, feeling
suddenly self-conscious.

She lowered her gaze shyly.  "Nothing."  She paused, and in a burst of
courage, managed to say, "You're too nice to be divorced, you know."

He looked down, blushing from her words.  "Yeah?  Really?"

"Really," she said softly.  "Why would anyone ever leave you?" she
joked, more to herself than anything else.

He seemed startled for a second before replying, keeping his tone
light, "Actually, I left her."

=====

To: rsaotome@police.go.jp
From: mhirugashi@police.go.jp
Subject: Re:[apology]

Ranma -

Don't worry about it; you were already forgiven.  Just try to tone down
the baby references.  It's not common knowledge, you know.

- Michi

=====


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