-----

	Ryouga wasn't sure why Nabiki was following him. It wasn't like
she was very subtle about it, either. The girl was no Konatsu... then
again, no girl could be like that particular kunoichi. After all, he was
the first female ninja not to be an actual member of that gender.
Disturbing. But his mind was wandering off track, as it tended to.

	Why was Nabiki following him?

	He decided to ignore her, and concentrate on the task at hand.
Walking around, past the empty tubes that had once held the Tendo
family, he saw Mr. Tendo fiddling with one of the control panels. Ryouga
inclined his head as he walked by.

	"Any luck, Tendo-san?"

	"None yet." The father of three didn't bother to turn his head
when he spoke. He just kept working. Ryouga understood, and kept
walking, not wanting to break the other man's concentration. Luckily for
the lost boy, the simple layout of the ship meant that even he could get
where he wanted without problems.

	Opening the door to the room with the ... examination table in
it, Ryouga walked by, and pressed his palm to the next door. The second
one from outside. It opened in the usual fashion, once he moved his hand
away, and Ryouga tossed the alien corpse he'd been carrying in. It
landed in a heap with five others, a twisted heap of bloody malformed
bodies.

	"And that takes care of that!" He stepped away from the door,
and it closed on its own accord. Probably pressure sensors, like those
in the mall. That was how it worked, right? Ryouga had no idea, and
didn't much care either. There was another panel up against the wall,
near the door. Ryouga reached for it.

	"What do you think you're doing?" Nabiki asked, from the other
end of the room.

	"Huh?" Ryouga gave her a quick look, and lowered his hand.
"What's wrong?"

	Nabiki put her hands on her hips. She was obviously annoyed by
something. "I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

	"Um..." Ryouga indicated the door with his thumb, over his
shoulder. "I was just going to dump these things outside."

	"WHAT?!" Nabiki roared, and one of the premier martial arts
savants of his generation cringed in fear. "You were going to SPACE
them!?"

	"Ummm...." Ryouga gave a small smile. "Yes?"

	"You idiot!" Nabiki grabbed his hand and started to drag him
away from the controls. When they were out of reach, she stopped, and
waved a scolding finger to his face. "Don't you DARE!"

	"But..."

	"No buts, Hibiki!" Nabiki yelled. "Do you have any idea how much
those things are worth?!"

	He saw what he problem was now. His eyebrows fell into a look of
distaste. "No. I don't."

	"Tens of Billions of yen!! EACH!" Nabiki cried, and interposed
herself between him and the door controls. "And you just want to dump
them out an... out an airlock? No! I won't let you!"

	Ryouga thought, oh so briefly, about just gently moving her out
of his way. He decided to reserve that option for later. Just thinking
about pushing a girl around made him feel ill, and he knew Nabiki would
take this sort of thing personally.

	"Nabiki-san," he began, using a respectful tone. "We don't know
anything about these creatures. They may look dead now... but I've
encountered things which can come back from the dead. Things that can
regenerate."

	"Like... Saffron?" Nabiki guessed, correctly. She deflated a
fraction at the thought of all the aliens behind her suddenly coming
back to life.

	"Saffron was the best example, yes. Ranma and Akane-san killed
him, but he came back."

	"Ranma... and Akane?"

	"Without her, he'd have died. Several times." Ryouga shook his
head. "But that's aside from the point. Not only can't we be sure those
damn things are dead, for good, but we don't know if... if they release
poison or anything when they decay. We don't know."

	Nabiki saw some of the logic in his argument, but persisted.
"You make some good points, Hibiki. I'm surprised."

	He blushed a bit at the compliment. He wasn't used to anyone
saying positive things about him. Then again, when people did, most of
the time they were trying to trick him. And given that this was Nabiki
he was talking to, he quickly concluded that she was just manipulating
him. He forced a frown.

	"However," Nabiki added, still holding her ground. "I think the
odds of those aliens rising from the dead are pretty low. It's been
hours already, and there hasn't been a peep from them. Even the many
limbs you cut off haven't grown back. Moreover, if any sort of toxins
are being released by them that we already haven't breathed in, then
that problem can be solved simply by keeping the bodies in one area,
separate from where we move around."

	Ryouga's frown deepened. She was right.

	"Wouldn't you agree?" She asked, with a gleam in her eyes.

	"I..." He wanted to say no, but couldn't think of a reason why.
"I suppose. But..."

	"Furthermore, think of the benefit to medicine. To the sciences!
To philosophy! It is out duty to bring these bodies back as proof of
extraterrestrial life! How could you think about just throwing them
away?" Nabiki took a few steps towards him, and Ryouga backed away.

	"I..." He tried to defend himself.

	She didn't give him the chance. "I know you don't like them Ryo-
baby. And I know they give Akane and Kasumi the creeps. To tell you the
truth, they make me uncomfortable, too. But we should think things
through, shouldn't we? We don't want to do something we'd regret,
right?"

	His back hit the wall. "I guess so."

	"So you aren't going to toss them into space, are you?"

	"No," he said, and let out a deep breath he'd been holding. "No,
Nabiki-san."

	"You'll keep them in this room. Where we won't have to look at
them. Right?"

	"Yea."

	"Promise?"

	The lost boy hesitated a second, but relented. "I promise."

	"Thanks, Ryo-baby. I knew you'd see things my way." She smiled
warmly at him, like a cat, and patted him on his shoulder as she took
her leave. "And you can call me Nabiki, you know. We're all friends
here."

	He watched her go, and sighed.

	Walking back to the controls, he was sorely tempted to vent the
little bastards anyway, promises or no. He wanted them off the ship. He
wanted them to burn up in the atmosphere. Then again, bringing them back
to Earth would hurt the alien cause more than his own selfish and
destructive sense of revenge. They were dead, he was sure of it. It was
wiser and better not to destroy them, then. On earth, scientists and
doctors would probably dissect the bodies and perform other degrading
experiments on them.

	And that thought finally made Ryouga Hibiki smile.

-----

	Akane rubbed her eyes, fighting off sleep.

	She yawned and covered her mouth, even though no one else was
awake to berate her for a lack of manners. Nearby, she saw Kasumi and
Nabiki, sleeping close to each other. It reminded Akane of the
sleepovers they used to have when they were younger. It had only been a
few years ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Ryouga and Ranma slept far
from each other, on the opposite side of the room. Both were sitting up,
their backs against the wall, unlike Kasumi and Nabiki who were curled
up on the floor. Akane's father was also sleeping with his back to the
wall, near the door.

	Akane tried not to look at her annoying fiancee.

	Instead, her eyes wandered to the hologram that was on display
in the middle of the room, projected over the table that had 'activated'
when they got the control panel online. It showed a sphere, covered in a
crisscrossing grid, and lines that outlined continents. Just above the
sphere, a dot slowly moved, following a projected line. The thin green
line curved around the sphere several times, before abruptly starting to
descend. Shortly afterward, the line hit the sphere, in what looked like
the South Pacific, near Samoa.

	For several hectic hours, the assembled group had tried to
interpret the information given by the display. Nabiki had seen a
several lines of alien code next to the dot, and guessed that they were
an altitude and velocity measurement. Another bisecting line in the
course probably indicated when they began to enter the upper atmosphere.
A smaller bit of code in the upper right corner of the display seemed to
indicate the time before they crashed down.

	Nabiki had spent over an hour trying to decipher the alien
numerical system. Akane had helped, but mostly she had tried not to get
in the way. Her older sister had patiently sat and counted as the alien
squiggles changed, then counted to see how many different squiggles went
by before the next line changed, and then again for the next. Akane had
not spoken much during that time, while Ranma and Ryouga had worked the
controls, trying to get more information, but she had been quietly in
admiration of Nabiki.

	Her sister had always been smart, but Akane had never really
seen her put it to any constructive use. Soon enough, Nabiki announced
that she had (probably) figured out the alien system of numbers. The
first two sets of numbers went by very quickly, but the second pair was
easier to read before it changed. Nabiki announced that these were the
equivalent of seconds, but with only about half the duration, and there
were a hundred of them. Soon, she had confirmed that the aliens did seem
to use a base ten numerical system, and that there were one hundred
alien seconds in an alien minute, one hundred alien minutes in an alien
hour, and (supposedly) so on and so forth. Meaning that there were a
million alien seconds in an alien day, which was almost six earth days
long.

	That she had done the math and memorization in her head...

	Akane had enough trouble just remembering the basics of what her
sister had determined. Supposedly, the ship would make six orbits around
the earth before it hit the atmosphere. According to the alien computer,
and Nabiki's interpretation of the information, they had about nineteen
thousand alien seconds before then. That was a little more than ten
earth hours. How long ago THAT had been, Akane wasn't sure.

	Above the table, the alien countdown continued.

	But Akane couldn't read it.

	It looked bad, either way. Despite everyone's state of
exhaustion and anxiety, they had tried to discuss what the options were,
in light of this new development. No one was sure what speed the ship
would fall at, or if it could survive the crash. Nabiki was certain that
it could survive reentry, since the computer plotted a course all the
way down to the surface. The question was: would the ship survive that,
and would anyone aboard it survive if the ship did? And even if some of
them could (like Ranma and Ryouga), how would those without superhuman
constitutions fare, like Nabiki and Kasumi, or even herself and her
father?

	Of that, no one knew.

	So they had decided to take a break: three hours of sleep,
before they went back to trying to get into the computer system. Kasumi,
father and herself could probably afford to sleep longer. None of them
had Nabiki's experience with the alien writings, and Ranma and Ryouga
were the only two on board who could actually use the interface. Akane
glanced at the two boys, and sensed that they weren't sleeping as
soundly as they looked. Both had an air of tension, and of a readiness
to pounce. Nabiki, on the other hand, was fast asleep.

	Akane slowly got to her feet, and crept out of the room.
Outside, through the nearest window, she could see the sun rising over
the horizon of the earth. It was almost blindingly bright, and she had
to turn away when her eyes began to tear. In that moment, a new concern
arose in her mind. Did the aliens worry about radiation? Was the ship
shielded for that sort of thing? Akane hoped so, though at this point
there was little sense worrying about it.

	She walked around the edge of the ship, and took the personal
lift down. Not for the first time, she cursed the aliens for their lack
of facilities. It just wasn't right to abduct people and expect them to
hold it in until they got home! Walking the halls of the ship alone was
still scary, but at least there weren't any alien bodies around anymore.
After this experience, she had the feeling her phobia of haunted houses
would be a distant memory.

	She walked past the tube she had once been placed in. She hardly
gave it a glance. There was a tube out of sight, way to the back on the
other side of the ship, which they had marked for 'other business.' That
was the only one she had an interest in. Heading there, Akane noticed
something unusual. The other tubes on that side of the ship had normally
glowed orange. Now they were blue.

	"Huh." She shrugged, and kept walking. As she had said before,
who knew why these aliens did anything? Maybe the change in mood
lighting was...

	Akane stopped.

	Ahead of her, a face was pressed against the clear cover of the
cylinder. Strips of flesh hung loosely off of a skull, its jaw opened in
a wordless cry for help. The eyes were gone, leaving two ragged red
hollows. Down the rest of the body, against the light blue fluid, Akane
saw more pale bones and dissolving flesh. A potpourri of organs, red and
yellow and one almost blue, floated in an emptied out abdomen.

	For a few seconds, Akane forgot how to scream.

	"Oh kami... oh kami..." Akane's lower jaw trembled. In the tube
next to the horrible sight, another person was frozen in a state of
anguish, their hands at their throat, their body half dissolved. And
past that, Akane could see another murky shape: a skeletal hand. She
screamed. And screamed, until her voice nearly gave out.

	Covering her eyes, she turned away, and ran.

	'They were alive in there! They were awake!!' Akane's mind
boggled at the horror of it. While they had been together, while they
had been sleeping, these others - their neighbors, their friends - had
been... been... she couldn't even put it into words. Akane just ran, up
the lift, and into the control room.

	"Wake up." Her voice was small and weak at first. She shook her
head, tears in her eyes, and spoke much louder. "Wake up! WAKE UP! We...
we have... they're..."

	Ranma and Ryouga's eyes opened instantly. Akane's father, too,
was quickly awake. Nabiki and Kasumi looked at her crossly, both having
just been sound asleep. Akane didn't care.

	"Wake up! All of you!" She gulped in great breaths of air, fear
and adrenalin coursing through her veins. "There's... Oh, kami, its
horrible!"

	"What is it?" Ranma asked, as he got to his feet.

	"The others..." Akane wiped her face. "They're dead! It killed
them!"

	"What?" This time it was Soun who spoke up. His eyes widened
when he realized who Akane had to be referring to. He ran past her, and
out the door. Ranma and Ryouga followed right behind him.

	"Dead?" Nabiki wasn't as quick on the uptake. "Who?"

	"Oh dear." Kasumi got it just then, and also made for the door.

	"Wait!" Akane reached out to stop her older sister, but Kasumi
was already through the doorway. Nabiki groaned, ran her hand through
her hair, and followed in a more relaxed pace. Akane fell in behind her.
She had no intention to look at what was happening. All of this - the
aliens, the ship, the danger - it had seemed surreal, like an adventure.
Now, suddenly, it was different.

	This wasn't just a ship; it was a shop of horrors.

-----

	Soun got there first, the two younger martial artists only a
second later. All three were shocked silent by what they saw. Hearing
steps from behind, Soun turned and saw Kasumi getting closer.

	"Kasumi!" he barked, his voice deadly serious. "Stay back! Don't
come any closer!"

	"But father!" Kasumi protested, but didn't disobey him. She kept
her distance. It was just enough that she couldn't see what was going on
behind the backs of the three men.

	"Kami..." Ranma whispered, looking from one macabre scene to the
next. He didn't have words to describe what he was seeing. This wasn't
just murder. This wasn't just torture. It was inhuman. Even as he
watched, a little cord of muscle floated away from one of the bodies,
broke into little chunks, and dissolved.

	Next to him, Ryouga's face contorted in built up rage. "No..."

	Two down from the first man, a girl no more than thirteen years
old had her hands pressed against the clear material. Most of her face
was gone, but her long hair waved back and forth, pushed aside by the
occasional release of bubbles from below her feet.

	"No," he said again, and closed his eyes, burying his face in
his hands. "Not again..."

----

	Akari's mouth moved, but made no words. Still, he could tell
what she was saying, her brown eyes distant and resigned. Her chest
heaved, and she gasped. Still, she had the strength to repeat that one
word.

	"Ryo... ga..."

-----

	"NOT AGAIN!!"

	The lost boy's eyes snapped open, and he let out a pained cry.
His fist swung through the air, graceless but possessed of a terrible
power. What Ryouga Hibiki punched, he broke. Bricks, concrete, boulders,
cars, nothing stood against his strength. His fit hit the clear alien
material with a thud, and bounced off to the side.

	With another feral cry, he continued his attack, battering with
his fists. Every blow glanced off, not leaving so much as a dent or a
crack. Undeterred, he struck again and again, while the others watched
in horrified silence. Then, a long red smear marred the material, as the
skin on one of Ryouga's knuckles peeled away. That mark was followed by
another, and then another, and yet more, as he hit again and again to no
avail.

	"Ranma..." Akane whispered, from where she stood next to Nabiki
and Kasumi, both of which had come closer regardless of their father's
orders. "Ranma! Do something! Stop him!"

	Ranma nodded, and approached the lost boy. "Yo. Come on, man.
Cool down before you hurt somebody..."

	"Get away from me!" Ryouga swiped at the other boy, who nimbly
danced out of the way. He then faced the tube smeared by his own blood.

	"Ryouga-kun!" Kasumi cried. "Please...!"

	"I swore. I swore that I wouldn't let it happen to anyone else."
Out of Ryouga's right hand, his index finger straightened. "Am I so
useless... that I can't protect anybody? This is my fault. What kind of
man would I be if I didn't do all I could to set it right?!"

	"Listen, son," Soun kept his voice level and calm, a fatherly
tone that had served him well many times in the past. "You'll hurt
yourself if..."

	"I don't care! I won't let this happen again!" Ryouga lunged at
the cylinder, finger forward. "Bakusai Tenketsu!!"

	The breaking point technique roared, but the sound was not that
of breaking glass, crumpling metal, or exploding stone. With a loud and
gruesome crack, Ryouga's finger bent and broke. He fell forward with a
howl of agony, his whole body shaking. Akane covered her eyes and shook
her head back and forth.

	"This isn't happening," the youngest Tendo said to herself,
voice barely heard by those nearby "This isn't happening!"

	"The..." Ranma blinked, hard. "The bakusai tenketsu...didn't
work?"

	"Holy!" Nabiki gasped. "Is he...? Did he...?"

	"Kasumi! Nabiki! A bandage!" Soun quickly ran over to the fallen
youth. Nabiki hesitated, not knowing what to do, but Kasumi acted
quickly. She joined her father near Ryouga's body, and tried to tear
part of the tunic she was wearing. The material that made up the
sleeves, however, was tough, and she struggled.

	On the ground, Ryouga made a sound that sounded part cry, part
laugh.

	"We're food..." he said, and then louder. "We're food! I see it
now! Rats and pigs and dogs! We're animals to them! Things to play with
and eat and kill! Oh kami, I see it all now..."

	With a loud ripping sound, Kasumi tore a piece of cloth from
Ryouga's tunic. His hands were bleeding, but the lost boy wasn't
struggling or moving. After his declaration, he just laid there, eyes
closed, bathed in the blue glow of death. Kasumi helped her father cover
up the bloody scars on Ryouga's knuckles, and tried not to look or think
about the dead that surrounded her; loomed over her.

	On the floor, Ryouga's broken finger mocked them. The martial
arts technique designed to destroy inanimate materials had, in turn,
been broken. And so, apparently, had been the man who used it.

-----

	END Chapter Two

-----


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