Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum 
-harnums@thekeep.org
-harnums@hotmail.com (old/backup)

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shokakugan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Waters Under Earth at Transpacific Fanfiction:  
http://www.humbug.org.au/~wendigo/transp.html
http://users.ev1.net/~adina/shrines2/fanfics.html

Chapter 18 : The Long Night's Journey

Forget the dead, the past?  O yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it;
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell
That joy, once lost, is pain.
-Percy Bysse Shelley

And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind
-Leonard Cohen

     She lay on her back, trying to find sleep, and sleep fled
from her.  In the clinging shadows of the room, she could see the
shapes of dresser and table and chair, the faint glint of light
from the outside reflected in the mirror of her bureau, the empty
human shape of her robe hanging on the back of the door.

     Sleep, she whispered silently, sleep, forget that you 
remember, dream that you forget.  Go down, down, past the fog and
the darkness, and be at peace for once.

     But no, there wasn't sleep, because outside the window the
wind was going by, and the whispering fingers reached through the
panes of glass and called her name.  She closed her eyes, but
there were other eyes there, there always were now, and she
couldn't forget the shape and hue and cast of them, despite what
face they wore.

     Come, the night wind said as it slipped through the window
and danced in the shadows across the walls, leaping and spinning
and pirouetting in dark delight.  Come out, into the embrace of
the shadow, into the breath of darkness, come out, into the arms
of night.  

     She could feel a pull, a tugging at her limbs, as if the
moon and stars had claimed possession of her and fought to bring
her before them.  The night wind flitted across the ceiling, and
its silent voice echoed through her as if she were a struck
crystal, and it was that one word, come.  

     No, no, she said to herself, stay, because though it be
darker in here even then it be out in the night, at least in here
she knew the limits and confines of the space, the length and
breadth of the darkness.  

     But the night, and the night wind, were calling to her, 
beckoning with a roll like the ocean waves, inviting as the
clearness of the sea on the hottest summer day.

     She rose out of bed, the covers pooling in folded layers
about the foot of the bed as she placed her feet on the floor and
walked slowly to the closet, pulling the doors open slowly and
gently with a creak of hinges, and along the walls and ceiling
the night wind sang joyously in all the voices of the shadows.

     Dressing went quickly, the dark dress and white blouse and
polished shoes sliding on with easy familiarity.  She crept to
the window, and the wind outside beckoned her.

     The window slid open, and the fullness of the night air came
in and filled the room, stirring dried rose petals in the glass
bowl on the table, lingering in her hair in caressing fingers.

     From the lights below, she guessed that her brother must
still be up, though the hour was late.  He would be worried, of
course, but he could not understand now, perhaps he never would,
because the night wind called her, and it always had, and for so
long she'd ignored the call, turned eyes inward and outward to
other eyes and denied the beckoning, but not now, oh, not now,
because now she was out the window and descending to the ground,
and the night was a summons, a call, and she obeyed.

     Come, the night wind whispered, blowing through the grass of
the lawn and the leaves of the trees, stirring foliage into tiny
spirals.  Come, the stars said, and the moon, peering down from
the heavens.

     Oh, come.
     
**********

     Mousse followed him for a long time, not quite sure why he
was following, with something that was not an emotion so much as 
it was the lack of emotion burning inside his chest.  The man
who'd been kissing Shampoo when he'd arrived back at the
restaurant walked quickly, but Mousse had no trouble pacing him 
for the dozen or so blocks he followed him, sticking to the
shadows so as not to be seen.

     Finally, the man turned down an alley, and Mousse realized
that it was not as if he could follow him all night.  He had to
either confront him or back off, and he was not the type to back
off.

     "You," he said, striding into the alley; his white robe
fluttered about his legs in the quickness of his motion.  The 
young man turned from his position near the dead-end wall of the
alleyway, and for a fraction of a second the catch of light and 
play of shadow created a strange distortion on his face, making 
it seem somehow unformed, malleable.

     Then it was gone, and he looked at Mousse a bit nervously.
"Yes?"

     "Who are you and why were you doing that to my -- why were 
you doing that to Shampoo?" he said, taking a step forward.  The
distance between them was a little less than ten feet.

     "I'm Asakazu Hidarite," he said, the nervousness in his
voice lessening slightly as he spoke.  "I came by to talk to
Cologne about the Joketsuzoku, but I ended up talking to Shampoo,
and, well... it just kind of happened.  I had no idea she was
already involved with someone."

     The words nearly rose from Mousse, the familiar ones that
he'd spoken before.  Shampoo is mine, Shampoo is mine, we will be
married, we will be happy...

     A week ago, he likely would have attacked the man, despite
the fact that he didn't appear to be a fighter.  Six months ago,
he would have attacked him as soon as he'd come into the
restaurant.

     But it was not a week ago, it was not six months ago, it was
now, and he had realized, finally, after such long blindness,
that he could never have what he wanted.  

     Some part of him still wanted to attack, to see this one
suffer, because he had so easily found in a few hours what Mousse
had desired for all his life.  He wanted to see him in pain, he
wanted to see him broken.  

     The man was staring straight at him, apparently unafraid 
now.  His eyes were an icy blue.  The wind ruffled his slightly 
dishevelled dark hair; he held his black briefcase up in front 
of him as if it were a shield.  There was a great sense of 
anticipation in him.  He was waiting, Mousse realized, to see
what would happen, not with fear or anger, just with a sort of
mild interest.

     A step forward, or a step back, Mousse wondered.
     
     "No," Mousse said, barely a whisper, pain rising sick and
raw in him as he spoke.  "She's not involved with anyone.  Not
anymore."

     He took one step back, turned, and walked away.  
     
     Much later, he would realize that he had been closer to 
dying in that moment than he ever had been before.  It had all 
hinged upon that single decision, the direction in which his step 
had gone.  
     
     Such a small choice, and it is by such things as these that
our paths are chosen.     
     
**********

     It was past midnight when Tatewaki Kuno finished his reading
in the small, bookshelf-filled ground floor study.  He carefully
locked the papers he'd been examining back in the small safe in
one corner of the room, and headed out to make his way upstairs 
to bed.  Kodachi had gone to bed hours ago, soon after dinner.

     She was sleeping a lot recently, and it worried him in some
ways.  He had a lot to be concerned about these days; the state 
of his sister's mind, and Ranma Saotome's disappearance were only
the foremost among them.

     He had no idea if that second thing was connected to his
interests, but he had a vague uneasiness in him each time he
thought of what Nabiki had told him in the cafe.  

     Tomorrow, he had a meeting over lunch.  Usually, one of the
numerous executives who handled the businesses would have been
used, but they had insisted on seeing him.  He was going mainly
out of interest as to how they had followed the complex trail of
paper and legal loopholes that had made him, still technically a
minor, the head of the massive multinational company that his
father's father had worked so hard after the war to build up.

     Sen-Atama itself was of interest to him; he had never heard
of the software company until three days ago, when he'd gotten 
the call from one of the company secretaries informing him of the
CEO's desire to meet with him, and only him.  Looking into them,
though, he had been astonished that they were an unknown to him;
they had dozens of government and business contracts throughout
Japan, many for projects that he had never heard of either.  

     But right now it was late, and he was tired, weary to the
centre of his bones.  Tomorrow he would focus on Sen-Atama; right 
now, he would sleep.  

     After, of course, he checked on Kodachi.
     
     Walking softly down the carpeted hallway to her door, he
slowly and carefully turned the handle without making a sound.
The door gave the mildest of creaks, like a soft sigh, as he
opened it and peered inside Kodachi's room, dimly lit by the
flood of the hall lights.

     The bed was empty, the coverlet and sheet piled atop each
other at the foot.  Kodachi's nightgown lay discarded in a heap
before the open closet.  

     And the window was open to the dark, moonlight splashing on
the sill, the night wind blowing gently and making the curtains
flutter like wings.  

     Slowly, with a dull fear rising in his heart, Kuno realized
that he likely would get little sleep this night after all.

**********

     Mousse didn't know what he could do except walk.  He did
that for a long time, lost in his own thoughts.  He certainly
couldn't go back to the restaurant, not now.  He didn't even know
when he'd be able to make himself go back there.

     He spent a long time walking, a long time watching the
midnight sights of the area, the scattered people walking alone
or together, passing through the pools of light made by the 
streetlamps, and the pools of shadow left beyond them.  

     The occasional car rolled past, headlights stark eyes in the 
darkness, and still he walked; and the nearly-full moon crept
higher into the sky, and the few stars whose light could break 
the smog and haze of the Tokyo skyline shone dimly over him as if
in judgement.

     A wind blew along the streets, pulled bits of litter along
in its passage, murmured around his feet, tugged at his hair.  He
almost thought it spoke to him, a whispered word, rising and
falling as if in chant, a song sung to the darkness.

     With a flicker and a soft crackle of electricity, the nearest
streetlamp extinguished, and the darkness grew greater, light to
shadow in a single second.  Uncaring, he leaned back against the
metal pole, smooth against his back through his robe, and looked
up at the empty sky.

     So it comes to this always, he realized, to disjunction, to
separation, to the ends.  His heart hurt, or perhaps it was an
absence of hurting that was close to the same.  

     He thought, quite casually, of Shampoo.  Of her face, of her 
eyes, of the sound of her voice, of the movement of her body, the
flowing of her hair.

     Nothing.
     
     There was no desire any more, no aching in his body to hold
her, to be with her.  There was no wanting anymore.  He had the
memory of it, of what it had felt like, but it simply was not 
there any more.

     He didn't want Shampoo anymore, he realized.  He didn't
yearn to hear his voice speak his name like she had spoken 
Ranma's, although he could remember with ease all the times he
had desired that.

     Oddly, though, he could not remember why he had desired it
at all.     
     
     He didn't want Shampoo anymore, and he didn't love her
anymore.  That, he realized, was what the emptiness of the past
few days had been.

     He didn't love Shampoo.

     And oh, what a realization that was.  What freedom it gave,
from pain past and pain that might yet come.  Such freedom.
     
     Such a waste.  Such a terrible, terrible waste.
     
     He saw the path of his life spreading out before him now.
He would go back to the village, back to the safe prison of the
Joketsuzoku.  He would see his grandmother again.  She would 
raise the topic of arranging a marriage, something that by 
tradition should have been done for him when he turned fourteen;
he was a man, after all, and that was the way it was done amongst
the Joketsuzoku.  

     Perhaps he'd accept.  Perhaps he'd have children.  His
family's bloodline would go on, and wasn't that important too?
His grandmother had always said it was, and he was, after all,
the only one left to carry on the bloodline.  

     Perhaps he'd be happy, after a time.
     
     Perhaps he might someday care one way or the other.  
     
     Shampoo had been his centre, and his centre was gone, and
now he would drift, like a leaf in a river, or perhaps he would
be more like a boat in a maelstrom.  
     
     Shampoo would go her way, and he would go his, because it
had come to this at last, to endings, to disjunction.  She was
free from him, and he was free from her, and that was how it
would be.

     Mousse threw back his head and laughed.  It did not sound
good, even to his ears, but he didn't care.  It was laugh or 
weep, and laughing sounded much better to him right now than
that other thing.
     
     There was a wind blowing through the streets again, and 
after a while, he pushed himself away from leaning and followed
it down, through the winding tangle of city streets and into the
awaiting night.

**********

     The bridge was wooden, and showing the signs of age in the
soft creaking as she stepped lightly onto it.  She leaned her 
arms against the wooden railing and peered down into the slow
flow of the river beneath, the canal, running straight and true
through the concrete banks, as the faded, crowded houses rose all
around.  From the scattered patches of grass came the soft sound
of cicadas, gently chirping.

     The water was dark and sluggish, glittering slightly in the
light from the streetlamps.  Kodachi watched it for a long time,
the tiniest of frowns tugging at her lips.

     The night wind shrugged through her hair, pulled strands of
it against her face.  She saw her own pale reflection in the
water down below the bridge, and her own eyes seemed to beckon.

     Come, the shallow waters seemed to whisper to her.  Come
down, come down, to us, for though we flow slow and though we do
not flow deep, we flow in the end to sea, to sea, to sea, all the
rivers go to the sea.

     She remembered the sea, the ocean, the harbour, and the body
swimming, floating, because that was where she'd been in the end,
and it was, Kodachi realized, true, because everything, in the
end, returns to the sea.  

     You could read reports, yes, but what could they convey?
Broken fingers that had danced across piano keys before, ripped
throat that had sung and spoken softly and with love, shattered
arms that had held you so gently when you were small, they could 
give none of that.  They could not show what was lost, they could 
not possibly know the depths of pain, the hollowness, and what
rose in time to fill that hollowness, like the darkness flows to
fill the empty room in which the light is gone.

     And everything, everything, goes back at last to the sea, to
Oceanus, the ocean river, and the sea takes them, into the cold
embrace, like it was taking her weeping now, the tears falling
from her face, leaving spreading ripples in the dark flow below
her, the ripples spreading out and touching each other, marring
the perfection of the surface, intermingling with one another.  

     In the canal below, her shadowy doppelganger was weeping as 
well, the tears falling upwards through the flow to strike 
precisely against hers as they broke the skin of the water.
     
     In time, it all goes back to the ocean, and it is only a
matter of how much time.  Tears went, and memory, and people, and
love and pain, they all went there.  
     
     Her mother had gone there, and her brother and father would
go, and her.  Come, the night had called, and the night was in
the water now, in the reflection of the moon, in the shadow of
her mirrored eyes, and one foot was on the railing now, and a
hand to balance--

     And she scrambled away, weeping still, to fall back against
the railing behind her, hunched down with knees hugged to her
chest and face buried in her hands, desperately clinging to 
herself, to the core of her being, the part that was Kodachi,
that was not Black Rose, or the wounded child who had come back 
now after so long a time in hiding, because that one hadn't gone 
to the ocean, she'd only gone away for a while.

     The night wind danced across the water and kept on calling,
and in the tone was something like laughter.       

**********

     It was in that quiet, sombre time that lies between midnight
and morning, when all the world seems dead and lightless, that
Mousse experienced the most pivotal event towards the role he
would play in what was to come.

     With the garbage of the streets scattering before his
slippered feet, which had begun to ache hours ago, he was 
following the tracing path of the canal that ran through Nerima;
going past houses that had seen better days, and would not likely
see better in days to come.  

     He had his arms in front of him, folded into the voluminous
sleeves of his robe; he felt the play of the wind across his 
face, tasted the acrid scents of night in the city that passed
across his mouth and nose.  

     A dog howled in the distance, and as he turned his head
unconsciously towards the source of the sound, he saw the girl
standing at the railing of the bridge, leaning against it.  The 
canal was wider and deeper here than almost anywhere else, and 
something in the stance of her body made him distinctly nervous.

     He was into a run almost as soon as he saw her place a foot
on one of the lower railings and a hand on the highest one, and
begin to boost herself up, but he knew it would be too late.

     Then she half-fell, half-jumped back, stumbling against
the railing behind her and sitting down; crouching into almost a
fetal position.  As he placed his feet on the wooden boards of 
the old bridge that crossed the canal, he heard the first soft
sound of weeping.  

     "Hey," he said, crouching down beside the girl in the black
dress.  "Hey, what's wrong?"

     She raised her head from her hands, and he recognized her
then, or thought he did.  Kodachi Kuno looked very, very
different from when he had last seen her at the failed wedding;
all the arrogance and abrasive manner was gone from her face, and
there was only a painful vulnerability that was almost
heartbreaking to see.  

     There were tears in her eyes, and an expression of despair
that ran very deep within her.  He saw a shaded reflection of
himself in the darkness of her eyes, and had the strangest
impression of looking upon himself again and again, as if he
stood between two mirrors, each an infinite reflection of the
other.

     "It all goes to sea," she said softly.  
     
     "Hmm?" Mousse queried, confused.
     
     She laughed, a harsh sound, and wiped at her eyes.  
"Nothing.  Nothing at all."

     Mousse straightened up and held out a hand to her, a strange
protective urge rising in him.  She clasped his hand, and let him
pull her gently to her feet; her fingers were very cold, as if
shaped from ice.

     He glanced down at the water.  "Kodachi, right?"
     
     She nodded.  "And you are Mousse."
     
     He inclined his head barely in response.  "Why are you out
so late?"

     Her voice sounded strange when she spoke next.  "The night
called me, and I came."

     "Shouldn't you be at home?" he asked.
     
     "Shouldn't you be?" she countered.
          
     "Yes," he said after a moment.  "I suppose I should be."
     
     "And did the wind call your name too?" Kodachi said, as if
she spoke from beyond a dream.  "Did the oceans beckon you?"

     "Uhh... no," Mousse said, giving her a dubious look.  "I'm
just walking."

     "Walk with me, then," Kodachi said, turning on her heel and
starting away.  

     Strangely, Mousse realized that he truly had nothing better
to do than that.  

**********
     
     It was nearly two in the morning when Tatewaki Kuno came
back inside the house, after almost two hours of fruitless 
searching throughout the estate.

     He had checked all of Kodachi's haunts at least twice; the 
pond in the backyard where Midorigame was kept, the greenhouse, 
the subterranean training hall.  He had searched throughout the
house, through all the empty rooms that made the place too large
for only two people, through all the dust and desolation of the
abandoned bedrooms and bare-walled chambers where there was no
light.

     She was nowhere to be found.  He thought, for a moment's
fragment, of calling the authorities, but viciously shoved that
idea back down.

     You couldn't trust them; they had proved that to him 
already.  He could trust no one but himself; he who has no people
cannot be betrayed.

     In the sitting room, he sat down heavily on the wooden bench
of the piano, and lightly ran his fingers across the cool, 
age-weathered ivory of the keys; the soft tinkling of them filled
the room.

     A stab of painful memory struck him, and he glanced to the
spot on the floor, where a chair now stood, that had been his, to
sit and listen to the music as it was produced, shaped to the air
in beautiful fragments.

     He wiped a hand across his eyes, but they were dry of tears.
Silently, he berated himself for the moment of weakness, the
moment of self-pity; none of that could be allowed, not ever.  
The weak were destroyed unless protected by the strong, and he 
had no one to protect him now.  

     He had sworn vows, he had made promises, and he could not
shirk from them, no matter the pain they caused him.  A vow 
broken before the eyes of the gods broke all vows by association,
and no matter what circumstances a vow is made under, it must be
kept.

     No matter what.
     
     He rose stiffly from the bench and paced the room in his
bare feet.  He tried to think of all the places Kodachi could 
have gone in the city; he tried to think of the most likely.

     His eyes fell to the piano's dark wood, and he slowly drew a
long breath.  He knew that she, at least before a week ago, never
went there.  It was hard for him to go there as well, because
each time he went there came the risk that he would be overtaken
by the weakness of spirit that was ever waiting to engulf him,
and then that would be the end of his vows.

     However, it was as good a place to start as any, he 
supposed, and left the room to go and get the car.

**********

     They walked together for a long time, in that oddly 
comfortable silence that usually takes place only among the 
oldest of friends.  From time to time, Mousse would glance over
at the tall, slender girl walking beside him and open his mouth
to say something, but somehow, the words always lost themselves.

     The dilapidated houses of where they'd met faded as they
entered into nicer areas.  They had passed the mid-point of night
long ago; in a few short hours, the sun would rise.  

     Mousse did not understand why he was doing this; it did not
seem rational.  His feet hurt, and his body ached; he wanted
sleep.

     Yet something in the cast of Kodachi's eyes and the set of
her face awakened something in him again, something that made him
feel less empty.

     Not the same as he had felt for Shampoo; he did not quite
know if he would ever desire to feel that way again.  He did not
want her in the way he had wanted Shampoo, though he was able to
see that she was fair.  It was a want to protect, to keep her
safe, to see that harm did not come to her.  Much the same as he
would feel, he imagined, if he had a sister.

     After a time, they came to a place of gently rolling hills,
surrounded by tall stone walls that the wind and rain had long
ago worn smooth.  An iron gate barred the way through, and beyond
were row upon row of stone markers.  

     A place of the dead, then, he realized, was where she had
brought him to.  He had never seen places like these before 
leaving the village; the Joketsuzoku gave their dead to the 
flames upon bowers of wood.  

     "Is this where you wanted to go?" he asked quietly, finally
able to speak.       

     She slowly nodded her head, seeming unsure.  "I think so.  
I..."  Her shoulders sank in an expression of dejection, and she
stared at the ground.  "I don't want to be here, and yet... 
somehow, I do.  Do you understand what I mean?"

     Mousse frowned and shook his head.  "Not really."
     
     She turned to look at him, face pale and slender as the edge
of the moon.  "Have you ever stood upon the edge of a cliff, and
looked down into the vast expanse of nothing, and something in
you wanted to jump?"

     "Yeah," he replied.  "Hasn't everyone?"
     
     "Have they?" Kodachi whispered.  
     
     Hesitantly, he put a hand on her shoulder.  "Look," he said
gently.  "There isn't anything to be afraid of here."

     She laughed, very softly.  "I know that.  There's nothing
here but empty shells; whatever made them what or who they were
is gone."  Her voice turned singsong, as if reciting a rhyme for
children.  "Gone to sea, to sea, they all go to sea, to sea, to
sea..."

     "Kodachi!" he said, more sharply than he meant to.  She
flinched, as if afraid, but then drew herself up straight and
fixed him with an unyielding gaze.

     "I thank you for walking this far with me," she said.  "But
I have no further need of your services.  You may depart now."

     He thought for a moment, then shook his head.  "No."
     
     "You may depart now," she said again, as if expecting him to
obey.

     "No," he replied for the second time.  "I'm staying with 
you."

     "Very well then," she said, albeit somewhat bitterly.  "If
it be your will, I shall not stop you."

     The wall was less than ten feet high, and provided no 
barrier for such as them.  They were over and walking through the
cemetery moments later, along a winding path that led between the
rolling grass of the hills.

     Mousse glanced around as they walked.  Most of the markers
were plain stone memorials, names and dates and elegies and no 
more.  Some few were adorned with decorations of angels, or
symbols whose purpose he did not recognize.  Row upon row stood
all around them as they walked, fading into the darkness
gradually until no more could be seen, so many it seemed almost 
as if all the world's dead might be buried here.

     Near the centre, when they were so deep that no more walls
could be seen, and there was only the endless expanses of stone
markers, they stopped, or, more specifically, Kodachi stopped and
thus he stopped with her.

     She stepped forward, off the carefully-raked gravel path
that they had walked upon, and knelt down by a grave.  The only
illumination was the smoke-shrouded moon and stars, but Mousse's
eyes had adjusted to the night long ago.

     There was a wilted bouquet of flowers by the grave that
looked as if it had been there for several weeks.  The flowers
were drooping and faded, dry sticks with withered blossoms and no
more.  

     "Brother must come here sometimes," he heard Kodachi say 
from upon her knees.  "Oh, brother..."

     Then she buried her face in her hands; there was a long,
long silence from her, and Mousse stood torn and indecisive, and
then a single, choked sob broke from her, a wail of a grief 
suppressed for so long a time that he could never imagine it, 
how deep this sorrow must have been buried to allow Kodachi to 
make a sound like that.

     It did not cease, but simply rose in volume for a time,
dancing upon the edge of becoming a scream, and then it slowly
dissolved into harsh weeping.  Her body shook like a leaf, and
she abruptly wrapped her arms around the stone marker and cried
against it, tears running down the smooth marble sides.

     "It's okay," Mousse said, finally able to act, kneeling down
with her and gentle rubbing her back, a silent sadness in his
heart for anyone that had to bear a pain like that in them,
though he did not know the source.  "Shh... it's okay."

     "I'm sorry, mother, I'm sorry, I'm so bad, I'm so bad, I 
hurt everyone I hurt everyone I let you down..."

     "Come on," Mousse said helplessly, gently but firmly easing
her back from embracing the marker.  "Come on, it's alright."

     She seemed to resist being pulled away for a moment, but
then let go easily, turning and burying her face against his
shoulder.  He caught a glimpse of her countenance for one moment,
and his heart felt close to breaking at what was there.

     "They killed her," she said, voice muffled by her sobs and
his robes.  "They slaughtered her like an animal.  She was so
beautiful, so good, and they killed her, they took her away and
they killed her, and they dumped her body in the harbour like she
was just a piece of trash, and she was broken, broken, on the
inside and the outside, and she was gone for three days, it took
them three days, they killed her, they killed her..."

     She trailed off into incoherent sobbing, unable to say
anything more.  

     "Oh my god," Mousse whispered softly into the night as he
gathered her weeping form in his arms as one holds a child.  He 
felt a terrible intermingling of sadness and pity for this one, 
the one who had named herself Black Rose, and had taken on the 
mask of the beauteous thorns with such seeming dark delight.

     Had anyone, he wondered, ever realized that amidst all the
thorns, the Rose had a broken stem?     

     He sat there, holding her, not knowing what else to do, for
how long he could never be sure.  He knew that all weeping had to 
end in time, but some part of him realized how long this had been 
in coming, and it seemed as if it might go on forever.  

     It might as well have, actually, because it hadn't stopped
by the time her brother showed up.  Mousse was so occupied with
giving comfort to Kodachi, he did not even register the footsteps
until he heard the cold, deep voice speaking from nearby.

     "Methinks you had best find a very good explanation for
this, varlet," the voice said.  "Or if not, then make peace with
your gods, and prepare to face my wrath."

     Mousse turned his head and looked up at Tatewaki Kuno's tall
form and noble face, barely visible in the darkness.  There was a
long wooden blade in his left hand, held loosely and easily.  
"Well, uhh..."

     Kodachi looked up from his shoulder, exposing eyes red from
weeping and a face torn as if by grief.  

     "Hello, brother," she said softly.  "I finally came to see
mother.  Was that a good thing to do?"

     For a moment, so brief Mousse was not even sure he saw it,
an expression of such deep and abiding love passed across Kuno's
face that it almost hurt to see.  

     "Yes," Kuno whispered thickly, his voice losing for a short
time all the arrogant inflection it usually carried.  "Yes,
Kodachi, that was a very good thing to do."

     "I thought at first she was calling me to come to be with
her," Kodachi said.  "But that wasn't it.  I didn't realize it,
but... she only wanted me to come here.  To tell me it's okay."

     "Aye," Kuno said, all pomp and circumstance again.  "Best
that we return home then, sister mine."

     Kodachi sighed and laid her head back against Mousse's
shoulder.  She closed her eyes, and seemed to go to sleep.     

     "There actually is a very good explanation for why I happen
to be sitting in a graveyard holding your sister," Mousse said as
he looked at Kuno.  "I'm just trying to think of what exactly it
might be right now."

     Kuno shook his head and half-turned.  "You can think of it
on the way to the car.  Wouldst thou be so kind as to carry her?"

     Mousse carefully lifted Kodachi from the ground as he stood,
cradling her slim body gently in his arms, and followed the tall
form of Kuno towards the light of the streets.
     
**********

     Tanzei came awake to the sound of someone frantically 
pounding on her door.  After a moment spent in that fogged
half-sleeping state common to those abruptly woken, she threw off
the covers and got out of bed, the stone floor cold under her
bare feet.  A wave of her hand and a word lit the lamp upon the
wall, and she stepped forward and opened the door.

     The young, pale-haired novice on the other side managed to 
stop herself before she hit Tanzei instead of the now-absent 
door, and drew herself up straight.  "Honourable Tanzei, I bear a
message in..."

     "Get on with it," Tanzei said grumpily.  "I'm too tired for
protocol."

     "You said you wished to be informed of any abnormality in 
the rituals, no matter the hour," the girl said, making a hasty
half-bow as if in apology.  
     
     "What happened?" Tanzei asked, annoyance replaced by concern
in an instant.  

     "We had a backlash a few minutes ago," the girl said.  "One
of the partakers was caught in it."

     "Does she live?" Tanzei asked, stepping into the hall as she 
began to belt on a robe over her nightdress.  

     The girl nodded.  "We're treating her now, but she should be
okay.  It... it isn't going well, though.  Not at all."

     Tanzei realized the girl was shaking, as she closed the door
behind with a soft bang.  "It's okay, child."

     "He's so strong," the girl said softly, twisting her hands 
in front of her.  "It takes so many of us just to barely hold him 
off, and sometimes he slips through and we have to push him 
back."  She brought up a shuddering hand and touched her 
forehead.  "He's so very strong, and he hates us so very much.  
Is there anything to him but hate?"

     "Yes," Tanzei said, as they began to walk down the narrow
stone corridors, past niches sunk into the walls that contained
reconstructed antiques exhumed from the wasteland.  "There is.
There is rage, and madness, and power-hunger as well.  But it is 
true that most of all, there is the hate."
     
     "How long do we have?" the girl said, slippered feet softly
whispering on the floor to the rhythm of their walking.  

     Tanzei thought for a moment, then sighed as she answered.
"I say a week at the least.  Perhaps two, if we are lucky."

     "Will we know when we have won or lost?" the girl asked.
     
     Tanzei nodded, and laughed somewhat bitterly.  "We will most
definitely know."

     "What... what will happen if we lose?" 
     
     "Then he will die," Tanzei said coldly.  "And it is better
then that he die sooner than later."     

     The girl looked uncomfortable, and was silent for a few
moments as they continued to walk.  Finally, when she spoke, it
was only to change the subject.  "The Lady is restless tonight."
     
     Tanzei nodded.  "That she is.  But the Lady moves as the 
Lady will."     

     "And we move as the Lady wills," the girl said, completing
the words.  She looked at the floor, and sighed deeply.

     "Is there a chance for him?" she asked finally.
     
     "Perhaps," Tanzei said.  "So long as we hold it off, even if
only barely, there is a chance for him.  But she is so far this
time that no divining we can perform has found her."

     "Is there no way for us to search for her, then?"
     
     Tanzei shook her head.  "The Lady is trying, child.  That is
why she is so restless.  She is calling, as best she can, but the
calling is hard.  Too little and it shall not reach, too much and
she shall lose her."

     "What hope is there, then," the girl said dejectedly.  "What
hope if with all of us, all the Lady's power, he is still able to
reach through."
     
     Tanzei paused in her stride, and laid a hand on the girl's
slender shoulder to stop her as well.  "Do you not remember the
First Teaching?"

     "Of course," the girl said.  "I remember them all."
     
     Tanzei looked at the girl, prompting silently.
     
     "He is stronger than us," the girl recited.  "He is stronger
alone than you or I, stronger alone than the Lady, stronger alone 
than all of us and the Lady together.  His strength be easy to 
use, and our strength be hard to use.  But so long as he goes 
opposed, and even if at the end we and all we were are returned 
to nothingness, than he shall not have had his will entirely, now
and until time's end."

     "He is stronger than us," Tanzei said.  "But he shall not
have his way without battle, and that is what we do, young one.
All that he needs to win is for us to cease in fighting."

     "I know," the girl said, sounding ashamed.  "I'm sorry.  I
should not have said what I did."

     "It is understandable," Tanzei said, starting again to walk.
"I do not wish for him to die any more than you, child, but once
he is claimed, there is no going back for him.  You must 
understand that; if he is taken, then the best thing that may be
done for him is that he be slain.  If he falls, he falls all the
way, and it is a fall from which none of them can come back."

     The girl nodded, and said nothing.  They turned a corner,
and stood now before the iron-banded wooden door that led into
the chamber where the rituals would be taking place.  Despite the 
wards graven into the iron, Tanzei could feel the waves of power
spiralling out from the room beyond, as if it were the centre of
a whirlpool.  That, and the low sound of chanting that was just
audible through the closed portal, gave testament to what went on 
beyond.

     "Come on, my dear," Tanzei said, putting her hand on the
doorknob and trying to smile in a reassuring manner.  "We shall
see this long night through together, then."
     
**********

     Mousse shifted uncomfortably in the padded wooden chair and
looked about the sitting room, dominated by the large grand
piano in the centre.  

     "Nice house," he whispered quietly under his breath.  He did
not quite know why he had accepted Kuno's invitation to come in,
but as it was, he had.  

     He heard footsteps coming from the hallway nearby, the one
that held the tall, long staircase leading up to the second 
floor.  Kuno stepped into the room, a terrible weariness in the
cast of his body as he moved, but along with that a fierce
determination.

     "She is sleeping," he said quietly, resting the tip of his
wooden blade against the floor.  "More peacefully than I have
ever seen her."

     Mousse nodded, a bit uncomfortably.  He barely knew the
older boy, and he was not a friend by any means.  He had seen 
Kuno's obsession for Akane and Ranma, and how it had twisted him 
inside.

     Much, he realized now, like he himself had been twisted by
his own desire for Shampoo.  Kuno seemed different now, though,
here in the earliest hours of the morning, half-leaning on his
bokken in the doorway.  His face looked almost peaceful, tranquil
and deep as a mountain stream.

     "I should be going," Mousse said, rising out of the chair.
Kuno stepped forward and raised his hand.

     "Please," he said.  "Stay for a short while.  I would 
discuss with ye."

     Slowly, Mousse sank back into the seat.  Where, he realized,
did he have to go but the Nekohanten, and he did not want to go
there with all his soul.

     Kuno settled down into the chair across from Mousse and 
looked at him intently, both hands clasped around the handle of
his bokken.  

     There was something wrong here, Mousse realized.  This was
not Kuno as he knew or remembered him; this seemed almost someone
else.  

     Finally, the older boy spoke.  "What did Kodachi tell you of
our mother?"

     Mousse peered intently at his hands for a few seconds before
answering.  "Enough.  Not very much, but enough."

     "It is best if you know what happened, then," Kuno said.  "I
know how the mind can create its own histories from fragments, if
it does not see the fullness of the story."

     Kuno's voice went very low, and seemed to come from a
distance as he spoke now.  "My mother died-- was murdered a
little over ten years ago.  She was to pick up my sister at her
kindergarten, and never arrived.  There was much searching done,
but no sign was found.  Three days after she vanished, her body 
was found in the harbour."

     He sounded horribly cold and detached, as if he were 
speaking of something he had no emotional connection too.  Maybe,
Mousse decided, it was the only way in which he could maintain
control now.

     "Certain things had been done to her," Kuno said in a flat
voice.  "Violations that to call them monstrous render that word
unusable for anything else.  They said," and here his voice 
sounded slightly, oh so slightly, choked, "that it took her a
very long time to die."
     
     Mousse rested his chin against his hand and took off his
glasses, letting them dangle from his fingers.  He realized that
he desperately did not want to be there, but he was helpless to
leave.

     "Around six years after that, they arrested two men for the
murder," Kuno said.  "Lowlifes, criminals.  They found scraps of
my mother's clothing in the domicile of one of them.  Being used
as cleaning rags.  They also apparently found some of her
identification, kept as a kind of souvenir."  His face could have 
been that of a statue, and his voice that of a machine.  
"However, somewhere between the arrest and the trial, the 
evidence was lost.  The men were released.  They were not seen 
again."  He spread his hands, letting his bokken fall to the 
floor with a clatter.  "That is the story, then."

     "I... am sorry," Mousse said finally, not knowing what else 
to say.  Out the eastern window, he could see the first traces of 
the coming dawn.  "I really should..."
     
     "Another thing," Kuno said.  "My sister..."
     
     Mousse's head snapped to attention.  "Yes?"
     
     "My sister is not well," Kuno said.  "There is a sickness to
her that no pill nor physic can mend.  It is an affliction of the
spirit that runs deep and sore within her."

     "There are doctors who can help with that, you know," Mousse
said.       

     Kuno brought his fist down on the small table beside his
chair.  "No," he said fiercely, and his tone left no room for
argument.  "I shall not subject her to that."  He looked at 
Mousse in silence for a moment.  "Have you heard of Jusenkyou?"

     Mousse laughed softly; he could not stop himself.  "Much
more than that.  And you have heard of it as well, then?"

     Kuno nodded.  "I have."
     
     "Jusenkyou is very close to the village where I grew up,"
Mousse said.  He decided not to mention his more personal
experiences with the cursed springs.

     "My sister wishes to go there," Kuno said.  "I... I believe
it might be the last step in a healing of her soul that has been
a long time in coming."

     Mousse looked at Kuno appraisingly.  "Jusenkyou is very
isolated, you realize, even for China, even for Qinghai.  It is
very difficult to reach, nearly impossible for someone who does
not speak the language of the country or know the area, I would 
say."

     Kuno nodded.  "I am aware of this.  I was supposing that
Kodachi would need a guide, of course.  Someone who knew the
area, and is aware of the delicacy of her situation."

     "Yes," Mousse said softly.  "I suppose she would."
     
     There was the faintest tracery of a smile on Kuno's face.
"Do you believe in fate, my friend?"

     "Sometimes," Mousse said as he looked out the window at the
faint rays of the coming sun.  "I suppose I have to, don't I?"
     
**********

     Kodachi's dreams had always been of two types before, each 
one as different from the other as the sun was from the moon.  

     The first were the nightmares that woke her screaming in
terror, the ones that she never remembered.  Those had become
less and less common as the years had gone on, until she was able
to imagine that she'd stopped having them all together.

     The second had been the glorious dreams, where her presence
was exulted, where she was worshipped and loved by all, where the
true reality of what she had become was denied.  As the 
nightmares had decreased, those dreams had grown in number, until
they had perhaps become more real than reality for her.  In the
time since she had met Ranma, he had featured prominently in
them.

     This one, though, if dream it was, for it seemed more real
than much of what she called real before, was unlike anything
that had been before.

     There was the beach, rolling dunes of white sand stretching
out behind her as far as could be seen, and there was the ocean,
foam-capped waves lapping gently against the shore, where the
white sand was turned dark by the water, and where polished
lengths of driftwood and the abandoned white shells gathered.

     She felt small, like a child, though she knew herself to be
the age she had always been before.  The sky was vast and empty
of clouds, reflected in the shimmering blue of the waters, with a
golden orb dancing high amidst the depths of blue.

     The ocean seemed infinite, as if it held all the waters of
the world within it.  No land could be seen beyond the spread of
it.  Kodachi walked in her bare feet across the warm, giving 
sand, and stood at the shore, the water rising and falling up to
her ankles.  It was then that she realized she wore not a stitch
of clothing, but somehow, there was no sense of shame in that,
not in this place.

     Far out across the waves, she saw a dot, barely visible, a
single dark spot against the vastness of the ocean.  But it came
closer, seeming to move a mile in a second, and she saw soon that
it was a woman, walking atop the water.

     The white silk of her garment hung loose from her arms, and 
her hair was as dark as the night, each subtle movement of her 
body making it shift and fall about her face like the rolling of
the waves.  She was smiling, and her face was more beautiful than
even the fairest day of summer.  

     When she was perhaps a dozen steps from the shore, she
ceased to walk, and stood easily upon the tumbling waves.
"Come," the woman said, in a voice that somehow filled 
everything while being little more than a whisper, and she
beckoned with one slim hand.  

     "I can't," Kodachi said, shaking her head.  For though the
water was lovely, it was also deep as well, so deep that it could
not be measured.  
     
     "Come," the woman said again, gently, commandingly.
     
     "I'll sink," Kodachi protested, feeling fear grow slowly in
her heart.  

     "Come," the white-clad figure said for the third time.  
     
     And then Kodachi took that first, trembling step, like the
first step of a child, like the first touch of a lover to the
skin of the loved, and she was walking upon the now water as if 
it were the land, and there were tears in her eyes.

     Slowly, uncertainly, Kodachi made her way across the 
tumbling ocean to stand before the lady in white, and she saw
that amidst the aching beauty of that face there was the single
pale line of a long-faded scar across one cheek.

     The lady seemed to look down at her as if from a great
height, though she seemed little taller than Kodachi.  Her eyes
were dark and endless, old as time, and a terrible, terrible fear
filled Kodachi, because there was so much power in that ancient
gaze.

     Then the lady raised her arms, white garments fluttering in
the gentle salt-sea breeze like wings, and she spread them wide,
as if she might embrace all of creation.  Her smile grew wider,
and there was such an expression of love on her face that despite
all the power of her gaze, the fear left Kodachi in a heartbeat.
     
     And the lady took her wayward child within her arms, and
held her gently and easily, and she sang to Kodachi, but when in
the morning the Black Rose awoke, she did not remember the words.
     
**********
     
     He stood on the western battlement, his hands gripping the
weathered stone, scarlet eyes gazing out through the night into 
the long pass between the ridge of mountains that his clan had 
always called the Dragon's Ribcage.

     It was a cage, at least, a prison.  The Fortress of the Boys
lay at the end of the trail, on the lower slopes of the mountain
that terminated the pass of the Dragon's Ribcage, rising 
thousands of feet, an impassable barrier.  The only way out was
over those sharp, jutting peaks, or down through the western 
pass, towards the Fortress of the Men, where his father ruled.

     A slow sneer blossomed on his face at the thought of his
father.  The old fool, a slave to the tradition.  That was what
had kept him a prisoner here for fifteen years now, ever since
he'd been weaned from his mother.  

     The time would come when his father would be dead, though,
and wife or no wife, he would be king of the Musk Dynasty, and
then, then-

     (Then he would have the women brought before him)
     
     And before he even realized it, the rage was rising in him,
and the power, at that alien thought that had no source from his
mind, and his hand came up, clenched into a fist, light stabbing 
from between his fingers in a blaze of incandescence, raw energy 
ready to be shaped to his will.

     Shuddering, he forced it back down, forced control upon
himself, drew the power back inside his body.  All his life, 
that had been the mantra of his training, all the training his 
father or anyone else had given him.  Be in control; control of 
himself, control of his power.  
     
     It had always been so easy before.  Control of himself and
control of the power had been one and the same.  Then, months 
ago, there had been the accident at Jusenkyou and the journey
across the sea to Japan, and with those had come the rage.

     He had always had a short temper, he knew that.  But always,
always, he had been in control of his anger, he had let it drive
him when needed, he had checked it when needed.  Now, it was as 
if his anger controlled him much of the time.

     That frightened him, although he would never tell anyone
that, never allow it to be known that Herb, the prince of the
Musk, could feel fear.  He had told no one that he could remember
in detail only a little more than half of what had happened to 
him in Japan; the rest was a fog, lost in a red haze of rage.  

     It had been easier since he'd come home.  It was easier 
here, because it was easier not to think of the women, of the
shape and curve of their bodies, of the softness of their face,
the silk of their hair-

     (He would have them brought before him)
     
     And this time, he could not hold it in, through he tried, so
hard it hurt, and his hand rose, and a blast of power lit the
darkness, blazing like a star for the hundred feet it travelled
before finally winking out.  The rage howled in him, shredded
through his flesh and bone, and he sank to his knees, one hand
still on the battlements, the other clutching at his head.  His
hair whispered against his hand as he let out a soft whimper, 
like a wounded child.

     "Master Herb?" 
     
     At the sound of the voice, he forced himself to rise, his
head throbbing in agony, and turned, forcing any sign of pain 
from his face.

     "What?" he snapped at the source of the voice.

     Mint shuffled his feet nervously.  "Are you okay, Master
Herb?" 

     The smaller of Herb's two bodyguards was dressed in his
pyjamas, his hair tousled from sleep and eyes half-closed.  He
looked even younger than he usually did as he stood on the stone
floor of the tower near the iron door that led back down inside
the halls of the fortress.

     "I'm fine," Herb said angrily.  "Don't concern yourself with
me."

     "I'm supposed to concern myself with you," Mint said, a bit
uncertainly.  "That's my duty, Master Herb."

     "I just couldn't sleep," Herb said.  "I'm like that
sometimes.  You know that."

     That was true; ever since he could remember, there had been
nights when sleep escaped him, when he would come out here to the
battlements of the fortress and gaze out across the mountains.

     In his younger days, he'd often been convinced that he could
hear someone calling his name.  More often than not, it had come
from the east.  He had imagined it had been the wind, or 
sometimes the ocean.  The foolish fancies of youth.

     "You need to sleep, Master Herb," Mint said.  "We have
training tomorrow."

     "We have training every day," Herb said.  "Do we ever really
do anything but train, Mint?"     
     
     Mint laughed nervously and put a hand behind his head.  "I
guess we don't, Master Herb."

     Herb snorted and shook his head.  "Why are you up, Mint?"
     
     "Lime's snoring woke me," Mint said, making a face.
     
     Herb laughed now, very softly, and it felt good.  "I 
sometimes can hear him through the wall between our rooms, you 
know."

     Mint smiled.  "Well... as long as you're okay, I'll go back
then.  I can put a pillow in Lime's mouth or something."

     Herb took a few steps over and clapped a hand on the young
boy's shoulder, finding to his surprise that he was smiling as
well, and that felt nearly as good as the laughter.  "No, I'm 
coming back too.  I'm rather tired."

     Mint nodded and walked quickly to the door, pulling it open
for Herb.  Herb began to walk to it, then paused.

     The night wind tugged at his hair, and he felt an odd pull
at his body.  With a frown, he gazed out to the east, as 
somewhere off in the distance he heard the soft call of a 
night-bird rising from the darkness.

     "Master Herb?"
     
     With a shrug, Herb walked through the doorway and down the
stone steps that would lead him to his chambers.  He heard a last
whisper of wind before Mint closed the door, and he almost,
almost thought it sounded like a voice.

********

     When the sun rose the next morning over the Kuno house, all
three of the occupants were asleep.  Kodachi slept the peaceful
sleep of a child, a tiny smile upon her face.  Tatewaki slept 
through uneasy dreams, but his stoic face and rigid body would
have given no testament to an outside observer of that fact.  In
a guest bedroom, Mousse slept restlessly, waking more than once
with a name upon his lips that he had forgotten when he awoke.

     The first rays of the sun struck the surface of the
rock-bordered backyard pond, sparkling on the clear surface and
dancing greenly through the lilypads upon it, and on the rough
emerald flesh of Midorigame, who was not asleep, but rather
staring with languid intent at a spot near the pond that the
cold, reptilian instinct of his tiny brain told him contained
something extremely interesting.  He'd been staring intently at
the same empty space for several hours now.

     As the sun came up in the east, a wind gathered itself from
around the pond, swirling upwards.  It scented darkly of the
night, of shadowy woods in winter and the humid breath of summer 
evenings that rises like perfume through the open windows of
houses.  Midorigame shifted his eyes slightly, and let out a low, 
uncertain sound from deep in his throat.

     The wind moved higher, spreading itself out into the air,
and then began to travel towards the ocean to the west, from
whence it had come before.

     The interesting thing gone at last, Midorigame closed his
great eyes and slept, as the sun ran laughing fingers of gold
across his scaly body.