A brief but painful run through the shadows, dedicated to those poor souls
who have walked the valley. May whatever gods there be, give you peace.
 
==============================
Divided I Stand: Part IV Rev 0
==============================
 
 
       The following story is based on the fictional
characters, situations, and settings created by Rumiko
Takahashi for her Ranma 1/2 series of manga. They are here
used without permission.
　
　
       Ranma had been walking around in his trance-like haze,
studying the ki of the sick and injured when the shouting
started. He broke his concentration and made his way back
into the clinic to find out what had been going on. Tofu was
being accosted by more thugs. They were more determined this
time. Something about how they were going to take over the
clinic and that if Tofu was smart enough to cooperate, he'd
get a reasonable cut of the take, now where was the morphine?
 
       Ranma had not bothered with a verbal warning. This was
anything goes martial arts with an edge--the edge of surprise
and it belonged to him. Four of the bastards went down
quickly. The remaining three ran outside. Ranma had followed
them. Much to his surprise, Soun Tendo was standing there
with a bo. The three thugs Ranma had been chasing were lying
on the pavement unconscious.
 
       "Trying to hog all the fun I see," Soun said with a
nonchalant air. 
 
       Ranma started to offer a wise crack, but his voice died
in his throat. He and Soun suddenly found themselves
surrounded by tattooed men bearing swords. He felt a chill
run up his spine. Ordinary street thugs were one thing, but
yakuza were a completely different kettle of fish. Whipping
one of them, or even a group of them was not a problem. The
problem with the yakuza was that they were organized, and
they took the defeat of one of their own as an insult to
their tribe. They would keep coming until they were all dead,
or had exacted their revenge. Ranma had just blundered into a
war, and he knew it.
 
       "Check with your boss," Soun said to no one swordsman
in particular. Such an action would have taken his focus off
the group. "We have a very old agreement."
 
       "Had an agreement," one of the men said. He was not,
Ranma noted, carrying a sword. "You just interfered with his
business, Tendo-san."
 
       "This was never his kind of business," Soun answered
grimly, while not failing to keep track of the swordsmen
surrounding him.
 
       The man shrugged his shoulders then said, "Times
change."
 
       Soun Tendo's bo flashed, making a wicked noise as it
whipped through the air. One of the swordsmen went down
vomiting blood. His naked sword rang against the pavement as
it slipped from his grasp. The other swordsmen shifted their
stances. Ranma could see by the looks on their faces that
they were frightened. Ranma was more than a little surprised
himself. He had never seen the Tendo patriarch in a mood
quite like this, nor could he believe that Tendo could kill a
man without even blinking.
 
       "Change isn't always progress," Soun said in a cold
voice. "It would be best for all concerned if this course of
action were reconsidered."

       Ranma felt a tingle on the back of his neck and ducked.
Something whistled as it passed nearby, nicking the end of
his braided queue. That guy just tried to cut my head off and
I ain't done nothin'! Ranma thought to himself as he stepped
forward with his right foot and pivoted. The swordsman was
following up with another cut. He was grinning at Ranma with
eyes greedy to see blood. Ranma waited until the last
possible fraction of a second to dodge the exceeding keen
edge of the man's katana. He felt the tip of it whistle
through the front of his shirt. As the blade went by, Ranma
surged forward and hammered the man's chest with the chestnut
fist. The man dropped his sword and fell to the ground. The
icy hand of guilt squeezed Ranma's heart as he realized that
he had just killed his assailant.
 
        This distraction nearly cost Ranma his life. Another
swordsman attacked and Ranma had not realized it until almost
too late. The man's katana sliced through Ranma's shirt
making a shallow but painful cut down his chest. But a miss
by a fraction of an inch was as good as a mile in this game.
The thug recovered quickly from his miss and was now
preparing to cut Ranma down overhand strike with his katana.
Ranma's training took full control. The hours and hours of
kata had honed his nerves and muscles into finely made, and
horribly efficient killing machine, quite without Ranma fully
realizing it. He suddenly found himself in possession of a
sword while a headless opponent lay twitching at his feet. It
had all happened as if by magic.
 
       Something in the back of Ranma's mind screamed that he
was killing people, but there was no time to respect it. He
parried off another swordsman's attack then struck the man's
hands off at his wrists. The man fell to the ground screaming,
trying to staunch the flow of blood by desperately clamping
his stumps beneath his armpits.
 
       Ranma Saotome was no phony samurai. He had spent ten
years of his young life learning from the best Japan had to
offer. The yakuza were not a match for him, even though they
trained almost exclusively with weapons. They were not, for
all their pretensions to the contrary, men of The Way. They
were inu-zamurai, or "dog-warriors". Ranma was a man of The
Way, and that difference proved fatal for the inu-zamurai.
 
       Ranma was now faced with an opponent who was a better
swordsman than the first two had been. This one had not
allowed his emotions to seize control, and did not therefore,
attack blindly. He also seemed to understand what to look for
in an opening. Ranma moved carefully, testing the man's
knowledge. 
 
       Fighting unarmored with the katana had always been
something of a hit or miss proposition, even for the men who
had done a great deal of it. Over half the duels fought
without armor had resulted in the deaths of both combatants.
At least half of fighting for real with a katana is the art
of tempting one's opponent into committing to an attack, and
hoping your counter move will work. The other half is
accepting an opponent's offer of an opening, confident that
you can deliver a death-dealing blow before he can
successfully counter. Confidence is a must. The slightest
falter in action is fatal in such a contest.
 
      Just as Ranma got full measure of his opponent, his
danger sense tingled. He took a quick flickering glance to
his right. One of the yakuza, the one who had not been
carrying a sword, was pointing a pistol at him. I'm gonna die,
Ranma thought silently to himself. I hope it doesn't kill
Ranko too. 
 
       The inu-zamurai thought he saw an opening and tried to
cut Ranma down. Ranma parried the blow off with the flat of
his blade. The swords rang loudly in his ears Ranma felt his
borrowed blade tremble like a living thing in his hands.
 
      "Gun down!" a distant voice bellowed.
 
       The inu-zamurai was too close for Ranma to strike with
a swinging cut. Instead, he lowered the tip of the katana and
turned its edge to his left as he lunged forward, planting
his left foot just in front of his opponent's leading foot.
This was not the sort of trick that would have been familiar
to a kendoka, but this was not about points and trophies.
 
       "Kiiiiyaa!" Ranko shouted, her voice shattering the
heated air as though it were glass.
 
       A gun barked and Ranma could hear the terrible whistle-
splat of slugs destroying human flesh. He wondered briefly
why he was not falling down, or suffering any pain. He heard
swords ringing as they fell to the pavement. The tip of the
katana he was wielding had slipped between the legs of his
opponent, its razor sharp edge sliced deep into the inner-
thigh of the inu-zamurai's right leg. By now, Ranma and his
opponent were standing almost nose-to-nose. The inu-zamurai's
eyes were wide with surprise. Ranma could smell the man, and
see the beads of sweat dancing on his face. Most of Ranma's
weight was now on the ball of his left foot. He pivoted his
torso and stepped forward with his right foot, slamming his
right shoulder into the man's chest, as he pulled back on the
katana at the same time. The man sailed away, a fountain of
blood spewing from the deep laceration in his thigh.
 
       Ranma cast a quick glance around. He had no other
opponents. The yakuza were running. He turned back to face
his most recent opponent. The man was screaming while
desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood from his leg.
 
       "Halt!" someone shouted. "You are under arrest! Halt!
 
       The sound of gunfire erupted in three closely spaced
bursts, making Ranma wince in time with each. The air was
suddenly alive with the throbbing of rotor blades overhead.
Uniformed men poured down out of the sky. Ranma blinked in
surprise. The uniformed men quickly disappeared at a dead run,
limbering their weapons as they went. He looked over at his
first opponent. Death had frozen the man's face into the
agony he had felt as he died. Pain Ranma had inflicted on him.
The second man was not entirely headless. Ranma's form had
been perfect. He had left the man's head partially attached
to the body. The yakuza had died with that greedy grin on his
face. Ranma's third opponent had died seated against the
clinic wall, staring at the handless stumps in his lap. Death
had frozen the look of hopeless dismay on the man's face. He
was solid red, as though someone had dumped a bucket of paint
on him. Ranma stared in horror at the man.
 
       The sound of a dry hacking cough followed by a sob
attracted Ranma's attention. His last opponent was lying flat
of his back, staring sightlessly at the sky. The tarmac
around the man was shiny wet with blood. It oozed outward in
a gently spreading puddle, like motor oil. Ranma's ears began
to ring as the smell hit him like the blow of a heavy fist.
The smell of human blood, urine and feces was bad enough, but
the smell of his own sweat made him ill. He remembered that
he had smelled something like this after his fight with
Safuron, but this was much, much worse. The smell of a skunk
would have been more pleasant. He was suddenly aware of a
sickening brassy taste in his mouth. It was then that he
realized that he was terrified, and had been from the very
start. 
 
       Ranma dropped the katana as he began to shake
uncontrollably. He felt as though someone had pushed him off
into an ice-covered cesspool. He retched and a thick fluid
fell from his lips. Then he wretched again, this time
doubling over with pain as his empty stomach convulsed. I'll
never be clean again, he thought. Never!
 
       "Oh, no!" Ranma cried out aloud, his voice telling the
world how lost his soul felt. He did not hear the murmur of
sympathy that came from those around him.
 
      "Corpsman!" a hard voice called out. "See to this young
man first. That guy can wait."
 
      Ranma felt strong but gentle hands close around his left
arm. He was staring all around himself now, but not really
seeing anything. 
 
      "Come on over here and sit down, kid," the voice of a
man not much older than Ranma said. "You're gonna be okay."
 
      "Yeah, Ranma," Ranko said as she brushed at Ranma's
bangs. "You did what you had to do. You shouldn't feel bad
about it."
 
      Ranma allowed Ranko and the corpsman sit him down. He
felt the prick of a needle on his left arm. A sense of calm
rapidly spread through his body. His vision faded quickly as
the drug put him to sleep.
 
     "If you'll excuse me miss," the corpsman said to Ranko.
"I'd like to clean these cuts while the painkiller is
working."
 
     "Oh! Yeah, sure!" Ranko said as stepped out of the young
man's way. "Sorry 'bout that."
 
     "No problem," the corpsman said as he sat about tearing
Ranma's shirt open. "He your boyfriend?"
 
     "Ah, well, more like a brother, I think," Ranko said, not
sounding very certain.
 
      "Just my luck," the corpsman said with a wry grin. "The
pretty ones are always taken by the time I get there."
 
      Ranko blushed, suddenly aware that her shirt was
considerably worse for wear and that she was not wearing a
bra. Wait a minute! She thought to herself. Since when did I
ever care about stuff like that?
 
      "Things aren't ever quite what they seem around here,"
Ranko told the corpsman.
 
      "Oh, really?" the corpsman asked as he worked at
swabbing out the cuts across Ranma's chest. Ranko winced as
she watched. The cuts were deeper than Ranma had let on
during the fighting. She was suddenly very happy that she had
not been the one engaged in swordplay. She had to fight off
the urge to clutch at her chest in sympathy.
 
       "Yeah, you'll find out," Ranko said. "Nerima's about
the weirdest place in Tokyo, maybe even in all of Japan."
 
      "Well," the corpsman said as he taped Ranma's cuts so
that they would remain closed. "It'd have to go some to do
that, so it must be a pretty strange place. Your boyfriend,
er, brother here needs stitches, but I think I'll let 'em do
that at the hospital when it gets here. Looks like this head
wound is almost healed. He get that before the storm?"
 
      "When the hospital gets here?" Ranko asked sounding
puzzled.
 
      "Yeah, we're gonna airdrop a mobile unit over at the
high school," the corpsman said. "Ever seen it done before?
It's impressive."
 
     "You're gonna drop a hospital out of an airplane?" Ranko
asked. "I wanna see that shit!"
 
      The corpsman was a little surprised by the roughness of
Ranko's speech, but he grinned at her anyway and said, "Well,
we won't be dropping a building in the soccer field if that's
what you're thinking, just all the stuff we need to make a
temporary hospital."
 
       "Oh," Ranko said. "Lot's of small pieces on parachutes
then?"
 
       The corpsman's grin grew a bit larger as he said,
"Lot's of big pieces out of really big planes."
 
       A large helicopter with two monstrous rotors on each
end roared overhead, traveling eastward toward Furinkan. It
had some kind of machine dangling from a cable beneath it.
 
       "That'll be the sappers," the corpsman said. "The
planes will be along in a few minutes."
 
       "That thing was huge!" Ranko said.
 
      "Wait'll you see the planes," the corpsman said. "Stay
here with your buddy and try to keep him calm when he wakes
up. I have other folks I need to see about, okay?"
 
      "Yeah, sure!" Ranko said. "Thanks for the help."
 
      "Don't mention it," the corpsman said giving Ranko a
short bow. "Gotta go now, bye."
 
      Ranko sat down cross-legged; facing the somnolent Ranma
then took his left hand in both of her own.
 
      "You know, Ranma," Ranko said in a quiet voice as tears
began trickling down her face, "if we go on for very long in
separate bodies, we're gonna be two completely different
people. That is if we ain't already. I hate to think about
what you must've gone through today, but I wish I could've
been in there with you. You needed me today and I wasn't
there."
 
 
                             ==========
 
 
       Colonel Abe joined his men on the ground. It was the
only prudent thing to do under the circumstances. JGSDF had
only minimum support in the Diet and very few friends in the
press. He needed to know what had happened first hand, not by
reading written reports. He reminded himself to walk
carefully after detaching from his descent line. The pavement
was slick with running blood.
 
       "Corpsman!" Abe ordered as he pointed at a teenaged boy
doubled over in pain. "See to this young man first. That guy
can wait."
 
        "Yes, sir!" the corpsman answered as he left the
raggedly breathing yakuza and ran toward the boy.
 
        Abe looked around and grimaced at what lay on the
ground. Combat was always nasty, but combat with ancient
weapons was especially so. A tall, lanky man with long hair
and moustache stood in the center of a circle made of inert
bodies. He was clutching at a pole for support and openly
weeping. Abe recognized him at once.
 
       "Good afternoon, Tendo-sensei," Abe said performing a
formal bow. "Please excuse me for not having gotten here
sooner."
 
       Tendo took a deep breath and got control of himself,
just as Abe had expected. "Abe-san?" Tendo asked, "Is that
really you?"

       "Hai, Sensei," Abe answered. "It's been a long time."
 
       "That it has," Tendo replied. "Why haven't they made a
general out of you yet?"
 
       "Problem with my peripheral vision," Abe replied with a
sardonic smile.
 
       "Oh, really?" Tendo asked.
 
       "Yes, it seems I never notice certain toes until after
I have already stepped on them," Abe replied. "What were
these rats after?"
 
       "It seems they wanted to kidnap the doctor and take
over the clinic so that they could charge people exorbitant
fees," Tendo said grimly. "I really didn't want to let them
get away with that."
 
       "Hmph! They got away with a lot of it in Kobe," Abe
said, his lip curling in disgust. "Until the politicians
finally woke up and turned us loose."
 
       "Hence your reputation for not noticing certain toes,
eh, Abe?" Tendo asked.
 
       "Something like that," Abe answered then he raised his
voice and asked, "How many of these rats are still alive,
Lieutenant?" 
 
        "We have found five so far, sir," the younger man
answered. "One is in very bad shape, but we've taken all of
them into custody."
 
        "I want to know where their nest is within the next
two hours," Abe said. "As of right now, Nerima-ku is under
martial law."
 
        "Yes, sir," the Lieutenant answered, the scurried off
to give orders.
 
        "Where's that correspondent?" Abe asked.
 
        "Right here, Colonel!" said a man wearing olive drab
without rank or insignia. "You really gonna declare martial
law?"
 
        "For the next three days," Abe answered. "At the end
of that period, I will decide if military control needs to be
extended. I don't expect it will be necessary. Get the word
out to your colleagues."
 
        "Any comment on what went on here today, Colonel?"
 
        "Sergeant Tanaka happened upon a criminal act while
reconnoitering the area. I have since ascertained that there
are certain elements of organized crime exploiting the people
of Nerima-ku and I intend to put an end to it for the
duration of this emergency."
 
       "May I quote you on that, Colonel?" the reporter asked.
 
       "I just said it, did I not?" Abe asked. "Now go take
horror pic's or something! I've got business to take care
of."
 
       "Of course, Colonel!" the reporter said with a grin
then ran off.
 
       "By the way, Sensei, who is that young tiger?" Abe
asked, pointing at the young man with braided queue.
 
       "Oh, that's Ranma Saotome. My youngest daughter,
Akane's fiance," Soun said sounding proud.
 
       "Saotome?" Abe asked. "Genma Saotome's boy?"
 
       Tendo nodded his head.
 
       "Not much like his dad, is he?" Abe asked.
 
       "In some ways, he is very much like his father," Tendo
replied. "In other important ways, they are night and day."
 
       "I can see that! Who's the girl?" Abe asked.
 
       "That would be Ranko Saotome," Tendo said, with some
hesitation. "She's ... well, I guess you might say she's
Ranma's sister in a way."
 
        "Well, she's a fierce little thing," Abe said,
grinning. "I'll need an affidavit from you later, Sensei."
 
       "Of course," Tendo said with a nod of his head. "Happy
to oblige."
 
       Abe began walking east as he shouted, "Sergeant
Tanaka!"
 
       "Sir!" Tanaka cried out, snapping to attention.
 
       "Come with me," Abe ordered. "Raise Major Nishimura and
find out if the market district has been secured."
 
       "Archangel One, Big Mercy," Tanaka said into his
microphone as he fell into step with his Colonel. It was
going to be a long, busy night.


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