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 Shogakukan 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 24 : A Pricking of Thumbs

     Everything was pain.  Everything was broken.
     
     It felt that way, at least.  Every part of her body ached as
if it were aflame.  Individual blows had melded, gathered, until
there was only one pain, all-consuming, world-encompassing.

     The air stank of the discharge of a storm, of earth 
blasted by lightning.  Someone was laughing, and she could hear
water flowing.

     And then the laughter stopped, and the screaming began, the
snapping sounds like trees being broken, the high-pitched shrieks
of pain.  
     
     And the waters carried her down, and she was walking out of
the cold waters of the pool into the heavy mists, staring at the
shadowy trees, wrapping the cloak about her body.

     And up, into the clouds, gathered like the rain, and 
falling, the wolf's howl, the scream of the dying one, the hand
wrapped around her throat, the eyes like yellow scars the fabric
of the air

     "Akane?"
     
     fading, and the water like a voice
     
     "Akane?"
     
     words whispered in a flowing tongue, in every language, in 
all the speakings of the seas, and she could not understand-
     
     "Akane, wake up."
     
     Akane blinked and snapped awake abruptly.  She looked into
Ryoga's concerned face as he leaned across the arm of the seat,
his hand on her shoulder.

     "You were having a nightmare," he said softly.  "It's okay.
It's over now."     

     Akane took a deep breath and leaned back against her seat,
listening to the sounds of the great wheels of the train driving
it through Qinghai, towards Jusenkyou.  The images of the dream
were already jumbling, already fading.  

     "How long was I asleep?" she asked, looking out into the
early night as the wilderness rolled past.  

     "A few hours," Ryoga answered, resting back against his 
seat.  "We're supposed to reach the stop we're getting off at by
morning."

     Akane nodded.  "Good."
     
     There was the sound of someone shifting in the seat ahead,
and Happosai's head peeked over.  "We won't have any delays,
hopefully."

     "Hmm?" Akane queried, leaning forward slightly.
     
     Happosai ran a hand through his thin dark hair.  "China's
different from Japan, particularly a wilderness province like
Qinghai.  The reach of the government isn't as great here, 
because it's so isolated.  Trains sometimes get attacked by
bandits."

     Ryoga snorted.  "Any bandits who attack this train are going
to be in for a surprise."

     "Quite right," Happosai agreed.  "But they won't know that,
and it will still slow us down.  Hopefully, it won't happen."

     Akane nodded in silence.  They'd gotten off the plane in
Xining, caught a few hours of sleep in a hotel, and then grabbed
the train that headed deeper into the interior of Qinghai.  
Going through the airport customs had been surprisingly easy;
whatever documents Happosai had gotten for them certainly worked.

     They rode near the front of the train, in the half-empty
first class section.  Lulled by the motion of the train, Akane
had fallen asleep soon after the journey had begun.  That was
fortunate, because she hadn't slept a wink in the hotel room,
lying awake in one bed as Shampoo dozed in the second.  

     She glanced back at the seats behind her, where the
Joketsuzoku lay curled up in a ball, sleeping contentedly, then
turned her attention back to Happosai.

     "How far is it to Shampoo's village once we get off?" she
asked.

     Happosai scratched the bridge of his nose with one finger
before answering.  "Not sure exactly.  It's been a while since I
was in the area.  Maybe twenty miles, but the terrain is bad.  
It'll take us a day, at least."

     Akane sighed gently.  "The sooner we get there, the better."
     
     Happosai said nothing, only nodded and settled back into his
seat.  Ryoga reached over and put a hand on her shoulder.  "Don't
worry so much, Akane.  It won't help us find..."

     He trailed off, taking his hand off her shoulder and 
twisting his fingers nervously in his lap.  "Nothing."
     
     Akane looked at him, smiled slightly.  He was worried too,
but he was trying not to show it for her sake.  "Thanks, Ryoga."

     He smiled back.  "You're welcome."
     
     Resting an elbow on his seat arm and cupping his chin, he
stared past her out the window, his eyes deep and sad.  "I hope 
he's okay."

     "So do I," Akane murmured, yawning, eyes closing.  She was
still so tired.  "So do I."

     Ryoga continued to stare past her into the darkness as she
dozed, watching the shadows of the trees and mountains as the 
train rolled deeper into the dreaming night.

**********

     He could not see for the darkness.  The choking scent of
rotting flesh surrounded everything, the weight of bodies piled
atop him, their rigid, icy fingers clutching at him.  

     He should have been dead.  They had thought he was dead, so
still he had lain, covered in blood and unmoving.  And they had
hurled the corpses atop him, one by one, burying him beneath, a
fetid mound of corruption, a tomb of dead flesh.

     But he was not dead.  He was not sure how long it had been
since he had lain here, beneath the mountain of the dead.  He
wondered if he was dead as well.  Time had flowed together into
the pain, into the cold of the air and the feverish burning of
his brain.  He heard voices, his mother, his father, his friends,
others that he did not know.

     He should have died.  He lay for three days and three 
nights, too weak to move, too weak to make a sound.  The voices
stopped sometimes, or became fainter.  He grew weaker; his wounds
festered, and he sank deeper into the cold oblivion that lay at
the edge of death.

     Near the end, he began to feel a presence, something 
hovering on the edge of the scent of the corpses, at the fringes 
of the sounds of the carrion birds feeding on the pile that he 
lay at the bottom of.  

     Let me in, it said, gentle as the rain falling on a lake.  
Let me in, let me in, let me in.

     It was plaintive, ceaseless.  It made all the other voices
go away.  It whispered to him softly, let me in, let me in,
persistent as time.

     And on the third night, with the barest sliver of the moon
hanging high in the cloudless sable sky above the icy plains, he
did.

     Slowly, he opened his eyes.  He heard the gentle rumble of
the train rolling along the tracks first, and then the sounds of
the other passengers quietly talking.

     He smiled.  He had not had that dream in some time.  He
looked out the window, into the night, into the landscape rolling
past.  The pull was like a weight upon his soul.  The call of
Jusenkyou, the siren-song of her waters.  They were close, now.

     He was in an old man's shape now, lids of his pale blue eyes
half-closed.  Across the aisle and up a bit, he could see the
five sitting.  Most of them appeared to be resting.

     He steepled his hands, wrinkled as old parchment, and leaned 
back in the seat, ill-fitting suit shifting around the thin limbs
of his body.  

     Slowly, he became aware of another presence, tangled within
the weave of the pull, the beckoning on the fringe of his mind.  
It was not far; he felt it, familiar and ageless as the hound had
been.

     "So you too have been reborn," he murmured contemplatively.  
"You have found yourself a body.  This is... unexpected."

     He smiled, though.  Unexpected did not mean unuseful.
     
**********     

     Ryoga first began to realize something was wrong when the
lights of the train began to go out.

     Row by row, beginning at the front of the train car, the 
banks of lights began to extinguish, winking out into darkness.  
In seconds, the interior of the train was as dark as the night
outside.

     He heard murmurs of discontent from the other passengers,
and reached almost instinctively for Akane in the darkness.  His
hand fell upon her shoulder, and he shook her awake gently.

     "Hmm?" she asked sleepily, a dim shape in the darkness.       
     
     "Something's wrong," he said softly.
     
     In the seat ahead, the flickering flame of a match flared,
illuminating Happosai's face.  The train was coasting to a slow
stop.  

     "Don't get into a panic over nothing," he said, prodding 
ungently the sleeping form of Genma in the seat next to him.  
"Wake up, Genma."

     From the darkness near the front of the train, a voice
speaking in Chinese could be heard over the slightly scared
voices of the other passengers.  

     "What's he saying?" Akane asked Happosai.
     
     "He's telling everyone not to panic," the master replied,
then yelped as the sputtering match burned his fingertips before
he blew it out, plunging them into darkness again.  "They're
experiencing some kind of problem with the train's electrical
systems, so they're stopping to check it out."

     The voice was still speaking, raising in volume.  A
flashlight clicked on, revealing a man in a conductor's uniform
standing at the front of the train car.  The presence of that
single light seemed to bring immediate calm; the train had
entirely stopped now.  

     "We are asked to get off the train," Happosai translated.
"They apologize for the delay."

     Ryoga nodded.  He could not shake the feeling that something
was very, very wrong.  A cold chill was working its way up and
down his spine, like a crawling worm.

     The conductor was opening the doors now, and people were
beginning to rise from their seats, shadowy forms in the edges of
the light cast from his flashlight.  Ryoga swung his legs out 
into the aisle, and nearly collided with an old man in a wrinkled
suit.

     "Excuse me, sir," he said, steadying the doddering man with
a hand on his shoulder.

     The man said something to him in Chinese through a toothless
mouth, and tottered by.  Ryoga caught a flash of blue eyes, sharp
and out of place in the wrinkled face, and then he was gone.

     In the seat behind his, Shampoo was stirring awake, looking
about and blinking sleepily.  "What going on?"

     "Problems with the train," Ryoga replied.  "We've got to get
off."

     The Amazon yawned and stretched her arms over her head, then
hopped out of her seat and walked into the aisle.  Genma, Akane
and Happosai were already nearly out the doors.

     Shampoo headed by him and he followed her, guided by the
flashlight of the conductor as he stood by the doors, ushering
people out with a wave of his hand.

     Once outside, the five members of the party stood in huddled
silence for a few moments.  Up and down the long line of the
train, crew members with flashlights walked, amidst crowds of
passengers speaking in Chinese.  He could see a spine of 
mountains in the distance, the moon hanging about them as if torn
upon their peaks.

     Ryoga wrapped his arms around himself and involuntarily
shivered.  The tingling chill had spread to his whole body now,
the sense of wrongness.

     Happosai raised a hand, and it flared into light, white and
ghostly, defining the faces of his companions and himself in pale
shadows and lines of darkness.  "I don't like this.  Something's
wrong."

     "I can feel it too," Ryoga said.  "There's something..."
     
     He was not sure of where the next word came from.  "Coming."
     
     Happosai slowly nodded.  The light vanished from his hand
and he began to walk away from them.  "Wait here."

     Ryoga and the rest watched his dim shape move to the front
of the train, and begin holding a rapid conversation with a 
member of the train crew.  He waved his arms a lot for emphasis.

     "What's he doing?" Akane asked Shampoo.
     
     Shampoo shrugged.  "Not sure.  Can't hear everything he
saying."

     Ryoga was silent, staring ahead past the front car of the
train, up the serpentine shape of the tracks.  He could not shake
his foreboding.

     "I don't like this," Genma growled, kicking at the sparse
grass of the ground.  "We're in the middle of nowhere."

     Looking around, Ryoga saw that he was right.  There probably
weren't any towns within miles.  Qinghai was incredibly remote,
nothing like the crowded eastern provinces.

     Happosai came swaggering back, what could be seen of his
face in the night darkness bearing a proud smile.  "It's done."

     "Huh?" Ryoga responded.
     
     "They're moving people away from the front of the train," he
replied.  "I'm a high-ranking member of the CCP, by the way,
escorting a diplomatic party, so try to act properly... well,
diplomatic, if the need be."

     "What?" Akane said in a strangled voice.  "How did you..."
     
     Happosai tapped a finger to the side of his head.  "The weak
mind is easily dominated by the power of..."

     "Never mind," Ryoga interrupted.  "Why do you want everyone
moved away from the front of the train?"

     "Because there's something nasty and powerful and dangerous
coming from the opposite direction, and I thought it best that we
have the innocent civilians out of the way before we engage it,"
Happosai said cheerfully.

     The apprehension Ryoga had been feeling became full-fledged
dread.  "What?"

     "I'm not sure," Happosai replied.  "But it gives off a real
sense of power and malevolence.  And it's getting closer, but
slowly."

     He smacked a fist into a palm.  "It is our duty to combat
such threats, as true martial artists."

     "Right," Genma said, looking down at the youthful form of 
the once-decrepit master.  "You, of course, are deeply concerned
with such matters."

     "You wound me, Genma," Happosai replied.  "Come on, you
bunch.  There's work to be done."

     He began to walk towards the front of the train.  Ryoga
shrugged and followed, the others doing likewise.  Behind them,
the crew members were herding the other passengers towards the
back cars of the train.

     Stopping when they stood in front of the hulking metal shape
of the locomotive, Happosai pulled out his pipe and lit it, the
embers a dim glow in the night.  Ryoga's eyes had adjusted to the
light of the moon and stars, and he could see fairly well now the
definitions of the landscape.  The train tracks stretched out
ahead of them in a long, straight line, far beyond the range of
his vision.

     The pungent scent of tobacco smoke began to fill the air as
Happosai puffed, leaning back against the front of the locomotive
and staring contemplatively into the darkness ahead of them.

     "I no like this," Shampoo commented, looking around and
idly twirling her bonbori in her hands.  "No feel right."

     Ryoga looked at her for a moment, then turned his head away.
There had been very little sign of the exuberant and outspoken
girl he was used to; Shampoo had been quiet and depressed since
they'd met her at the airport.

     He suspected it had something to do with Mousse's absence,
but he was not the type to pry into something like that.  
Shrugging, he turned his attention to Akane, who was looking off
in the same direction as Happosai, her arms folded over her
chest, the long checkered skirt she wore blowing slightly in the
night breezes.

     "You sure you don't want to wait away from this?" he asked,
then immediately regretted it as Akane scowled at him and turned
away.  

     Far off up the train tracks, he heard a soft jangling sound, 
metal striking metal.  It put his nerves on edge, made the 
feeling of danger accelerate in him.  

     "What was that?" Genma asked, a tremble of fear in his
voice.  

     Ryoga saw, in the distance, a pure white light like 
distilled fire, a pinprick at first, but growing larger and 
larger by the second.

     "Here it comes," Happosai said, tapping out ash onto the
ground from his pipe and stowing it away.  

     Ryoga strained his eyes, trying to see just what it was.  He
could feel the tension of the others, the heavy silence of their
baited breaths.

     It was a figure, walking along the tracks.
     
     No, not walking.  Floating, a good foot off the ground.  It
came closer, rimmed in a burning corona of heat, body motionless
as it drifted.

     It was within a hundred feet now, lit by its aura, details
clearly visible.  From the shoulders down, it had the body of a
woman, draped in thin silks that hung across the pleasing curves,
the cloth almost translucent in the fiery light.  Golden anklets 
jangled on the slender legs.

     From the shoulders up, it was a monstrosity.  Three arms
sprouted from each shoulder, and on the graceful neck rested a 
ponderous conglomerate of three heads, cruel-featured and almost 
inhuman in their savagery.  The arms were draped in golden
bracelets that sounded in time to the anklets as the thing moved.

     "What is that thing?" Ryoga said softly, as it drifted 
closer in total silence.

     "That's Rouge," Akane said.  
     
     Then, to his horror, she began to run forward, waving a hand
and calling out.  "Hey, Rouge!"

     At the sound of Akane's voice, the thing seemed to snap to
attention, the arms waving, the eyes of the frontward-facing head
turning to focus on her.

     The eyes narrowed.  The distance was less than fifty feet
now, and Ryoga was breaking into a run behind Akane.

     The thing raised one of its half-dozen hands, a languid
gesture, almost dismissive.  Flames boiled in the palm, red-gold
and chaotic.

     Ryoga grabbed Akane from behind, yanked her down and to the
side, hurling himself atop her, as a bolt of fire ripped through
the space between the creature and the two of them; Ryoga felt
the heat of it across his back as it shot overhead.

     He raised his head to see it strike the locomotive, reducing
a section of the front to melting slag, glowing red-hot from the
blast.  Shampoo, Genma and Happosai had already scattered to the
sides; the six-armed thing was rising into the air, flying
without any means of support.  
     
     "Rouge..." Akane said softly from where she lay on the
ground below the shield of his body, shock in her voice.  
     
     Ryoga leapt to his feet, pulling Akane with him.  "You know
that thing?"

     "She fell in a Jusenkyou pool," Akane replied.  "That's her 
cursed form.  But..."

     And then all other words were cast into silence, because the 
thing opened its mouths and spoke.  The voices were booming, 
echoing, vaguely female, speaking the same words in three 
slightly different voices.

     "Puny things," it said, a sound that seemed to crawl inside
the skin, buzzing, otherworldly.  "Bow, and you may live this
night.  Give tribute to glorious war, to the all-consuming fire
of destruction, to the sweet annihilation."

     The arms moved in the air, as if weaving cloth.  Streams of 
fire shot from hand to hand, flares in the darkness.  The thing 
laughed, hideously.  "Bow before Ashura."

     "Oh, boy," Ryoga heard Happosai say from behind him.  "I
remember this thing."

     The thing moved closer, until it hung almost over their
heads.  The three faces peered down at them with interest, as if
they were intriguing insects.  This close, the aura was so bright
it was painful to look at.  Ryoga could see that the passengers
who'd been on the train were busily running for the hills.  He
couldn't see Shampoo or Genma anywhere.

     "Stay back, you kids," Happosai said, stepping in front of
them.  "I'll handle this."

     "Hey-" Ryoga began.
     
     Akane put a hand on his arm.  "Ryoga, he's right.  Rouge was
about an even match for Tarou in his monster form.  She's way out
of my league.  Or yours."

     Ryoga looked up at the monstrosity hovering in the sky.  It
seemed to be observing, waiting.  He glanced to Akane, remembered
that his reason for being here was to protect her, to keep her
safe.

     He slowly nodded.  "All right.  Let's get back."
     
     The two of them slowly backed away, leaving Happosai 
standing and looking up at the thing, his arms folded over his
chest.

     The eyes of one of the heads watched them move away.  The
arms and legs wove back and forth in the air, causing the glowing
light of Ashura's aura to shift and flow.  

     And then the head that had watched them opened its mouth and
spoke, in a voice utterly unlike when Ryoga had first heard it
speak.  It sounded lost and frightened and scared, travelling
through long darkness to reach them, barely a whisper.  "Help me, 
Akane."
     
     "Rouge?" Akane called, beginning to start forward again.

     Ryoga grabbed her shoulder.  "Akane, no!"
     
     "But..."

     There was a grinding sound.  Ryoga looked up at the hideous
shape of Ashura.  The neck was twisting, rotating, bringing 
another face to the front.

     That one opened its mouth and spoke, like thunder.  "If you
will not bow, you will die."

     Ashura raised two of her arms, golden bracelets sounding
together.  Fire gathered between her hands in a ball.  Ryoga had 
no time to argue anymore.  He simply grabbed Akane around the 
waist, lifted her, and ran.  Behind him, he felt a wash of heat, 
as the ground buckled and the grass lit aflame from Ashura's 
attack.  

     "I told you to get back, damn it!" he heard Happosai shout.
Risking a glance back as he ran towards the cover of a narrow
rise of land sparsed with trees, he saw the master raise his 
hands, pointing at Ashura as she soared over his head in pursuit
of the two of them.

     A dozen ribbons of dark red ki exploded from between his
clenched fists, lashing around the six-armed monster like whips.  
Ashura's pursuit suddenly stopped, and she hung motionless in 
the air for a fragment of a second, ki-fire crackling around her 
limbs.

     Then, with a motion of her arms, she flung the bonds away, 
tattering them to nothing in the air.  She turned to look back at
Happosai, a sun-bright glow wreathing her, lighting the night for
a hundred feet around her.  

     "Where's Mr. Saotome and Shampoo?" Akane asked worriedly, as
Ryoga put her down.  

     "I don't know," he responded, half-crouching on the ground
and taking a deep breath.  "They disappeared after Ashura 
attacked us."

     Legs kicking as if she swam through the blankness of the 
air, Ashura began to soar towards Happosai.  "For impeding 
Ashura's will, the price is your death."
     
     He watched as each of Ashura's fists began to glow, and then
a ball of power shot forth from each hand, exploding into the
ground around Happosai, who nimbly dodged each one.

     "Stand still and die, fool!" Ashura's three-part voice
shrieked into the stillness of the night, bouncing off the
mountains.  

     "Not now, thank you," Happosai answered.  "But I'll consider
the offer."
     
     The air around him seemed to waver, like a haze of heat, a
huge, vaguely man-shaped distortion that glowed palely next to 
the white-hot aura of Ashura.  It stretched out a hand and 
slapped almost gently at the demon, sending her into a tumbling
spin in her flight.

     Happosai followed up, body moving in time to the 
manifestation of his aura.  He punched, and Ashura was slammed
backwards in the air a dozen feet before she stopped herself.

     "Ha!" she cried derisively, sweeping her arms wide, as if
opening a door.

     The air between her and Happosai exploded into fire almost
instantly, a roiling vortex of flames that licked hungrily,
consuming all before them.  Happosai's aura projection shrank
before the flames.

     Sick with horror, Ryoga watched as Happosai raised his 
crossed forearms, a futile gesture of defence, almost 
instinctual.  
     
     The stream of flames engulfed him.
     
     And parted around him, like a river parted by a rock, 
scorching parallel lines along the grass behind him, cracking the 
earth with their heat, but leaving Happosai unharmed.
     
     Happosai lowered his arms.  Even from this distance, Ryoga
could see his smirk, his face made pale by Ashura's 
incandescence.  "Is that your best shot, demon?"
     
     Ryoga shook his head, glanced over at Akane.  "You always
forget how damn good he is, you know?"

     "I hope he doesn't hurt her," Akane muttered in reply, the
glow of Ashura's light reflecting in her eyes.  "Something's
wrong with her.  Rouge isn't like this."

     Ryoga frowned in silence and turned his head away to watch
the fight again.  He remembered watching Ranma fight Saffron,
feeling much the same sense of uselessness as he did now.

     Ashura was going berserk in the air, launching shot after
shot of fiery power at Happosai, turning the ground around them
into fused and scorched wasteland.  Happosai was dodging easily,
little more than a blur.

     With each dodge, Ashura's rage seemed to increase, and she
stepped up the speed of her firing, with a concurrent loss in
accuracy.  

     "Make this fun for me, at least, demon!" Happosai taunted,
leaping away from a fireball that shattered the earth where he
had been standing.  

     "DIE!" Ashura's tripartite voice shrieked.  The fire changed
to bolts of lightning, blasting the earth into fragments and
sending forks of blue-white power crackling along the ground, and
still Happosai dodged.
     
     "Again, I ask, is that your best?" Happosai called, nimbly
escaping a blast of electricity meant to annihilate him.

     Ashura screamed, high and piercing, pure rage.
     
     Her aura flared, blindingly bright, turning night into day
for a fraction of a second; Ryoga hid his eyes at the last 
second, saw Akane do the same.  When he moved his hand away 
moments later, blinking spots of glaring light from them, he saw 
Happosai staggering, clutching his eyes.

     Ashura brought her arms forward, forming a circle of her six
outstretched palms.  Energy flared in the empty space between 
them, and then a line of flame so pure and hot that it was like a
beam of power shot from her hands at Happosai.

     Who seemed to dodge by pure instinct, throwing himself out 
of the way, stumbling to the ground.  The beam scored down the 
side of the locomotive, carving out a line through its steel 
shell.  

     "Enough playing," Ashura hissed.  "Now it is time for your
death."

     She raised her arms to the air, spinning them in circles so
fast that the eye could not seem to follow.  Ryoga watched,
fascinated by the power, by the sheer fury of destruction.

     "Rouge, don't!" Akane yelled, trying to draw the attention
of the thing.  "You don't want to do this!"

     Again, there was the grinding sound, as Ashura's heads
rotated to look back at Akane.  "Seek not to command Ashura,
mortal."

     There was no aura anywhere but on her arms now, as they wove
circles, as if she performed a complicated dance.  
     
     And then Happosai struck, leaping to his feet, all signs of
his blindness gone.  He swung his arms wide, and the power of his
aura reflected it, a ghostly shape flaring around him.

     He brought his hands together, as if clutching something,
and for a few seconds, he held Ashura, the vast power of
destruction, held her motionless in the air, unable to complete
her attack, unable to move.

     Ryoga watched the strain on Happosai's face, the sweat
beading his brow.  He felt a strange sense of wonder, at the kind
of power that it must take, to be able to hold something mighty 
as Ashura helpless, to suppress her aura with your own and trap
her.

     Only for a few seconds, but they were enough.
     
     Because then Shampoo leapt to stand atop one of the train
cars, something dangling from one hand.  Another leap carried her
through the air towards Ashura, stretching out her free hand as
she did.  

     She landed, palm placed flat atop the centre of Ashura's
three heads, lifting herself into a vertical stand as she did,
and upending the steaming kettle atop the form of the paralysed 
demon.

     She vaulted off, as Ashura's aura winked to nothingness, as
her monstrosity disappeared, and the form of a girl fell towards
the ground, long hair trailing behind her.

     Happosai stepped forward and caught her in his arms, as 
Shampoo landed nimbly on her feet.  Genma emerged from behind the
cover of the locomotive, looking pale and frightened.

     Ryoga began to head down towards them, Akane following,
again cast into the darkness of the night by the disappearance of
Ashura's light.  
     
     Happosai placed the still form of the girl on the ground,
rising up and dusting himself off.  He glanced around at the rest
of them, then focused his gaze on Genma and Shampoo.

     "Took you long enough to get that water heated, didn't you?"
he asked them.  Then he looked down at the girl at his feet.
"Yowza.  Where has she been all my life?"

**********
     
     Ryoga fed another log into the crackling fire, and glanced
around at Genma and Happosai.  Despite the master's entreaties,
he'd been denied permission to carry Rouge, that task falling to
Ryoga until they'd gotten far enough away from the train.  They'd
retrieved their baggage before the passengers and crew had shown
up again, and set off into the wilderness towards Jusenkyou.

     They had made camp in a clearing amidst a stretch of sparse
forest, picking their way through tangled roots and gnarled trees
to find a suitable spot to stay the night.  The clearing lay in a
shallow dip in the land around it, hidden from the sight of
anyone except those walking close by.
     
     Ryoga was beginning to realize something about Happosai, a 
train of thought that had begun ever since he'd seen the old man 
fight Yamiko.  If Happosai genuinely desired something, there 
wasn't any one of them who could have stood in his way.  The 
battle with Ashura had only driven that point home even more.

     Akane and Shampoo had taken charge of Rouge as soon as 
they'd arrived at a suitable spot to stay for the night, a fact
for which Ryoga had been grateful.  Carrying her, he'd realized
just how tattered her clothing was.  The fact that she was
astonishingly beautiful hadn't helped much either.  He had forced
himself to focus on the fact that she'd been trying to annihilate
them earlier, and that had helped.  A little.

     The three girls were some distance away from the fire, the
light flickering across their faces.  Rouge was still 
unconscious, showing no sign of waking up.  Shampoo was holding a
warm cloth to the girl's forehead, as Akane held her hand and 
said words that Ryoga couldn't hear from this distance.

     Wood popped in the fire, startling him and sending a spray 
of sparks rising into the night for a few seconds, before they 
winked out into darkness.

     "So what now?" he asked, glancing to Happosai.

     Happosai took a drag on his pipe, then leaned over from 
where he sat cross-legged on the ground and tapped his ashes into 
the fire.  "We'll spend the night here, and move on in the
morning.  If we push ourselves, and push ourselves hard, we 
should make it to Jusenkyou by early tomorrow morning."

     Genma plucked up a handful of grass from the floor of the
forest clearing they'd made camp in, and tossed it into the fire.
"All this walking..."

     "Do us good," Happosai said cheerfully.  "Like when you
trained with me, Genma."

     Genma shuddered and looked at his feet intently, saying
nothing.

     Happosai nudged Ryoga in the ribs with his elbow and winked.
"So, Ryoga, what do you think of this new girl?  Is she a hottie
or what?"

     Ryoga scowled and blushed furiously, waving dismissively at
the old man.  "I'm not the kind of man to comment on such 
things."     

     "Ahh, but that body, that hair..." Happosai sighed.  "Makes
me wish I was a young man again."

     "You are," Ryoga muttered.
     
     Happosai chuckled.  "Quite right, quite right."
     
     Happosai waved his pipe under Ryoga's nose; the acrid scent 
of pipe tobacco made his head feel foggy.  "Now, remember, I'm
Rikuichi, not Happosai."

     "Whatever," Ryoga sighed, glancing back at the girls for a
moment.  "Just don't forget the reason we're here, Happosai.
This isn't a girl-chasing expedition."

     "Life is a girl-chasing expedition," Happosai said in a
lecturing tone, as if he were explaining something to a child.  
"The problem lies in eliminating all the little distractions that 
get in the way of it.  And don't roll your eyes at me, it's
rude."

     Turning away, Ryoga reached over beside him and opened one 
of the flap-covered pockets of his backpack, rooting around until 
he found the small shape he was looking for it.  

     Pulling it out, he examined the torn half of the photo wallet
in the dancing light of the fire, gazing at the portrait shot of
Akari.  

     Happosai looked over his shoulder and whistled softly.  
"Cute little thing, isn't she?"

     Ryoga hid the photo under his hand and glared at the smaller
man.  "Do you mind?"

     Happosai shrugged his narrow shoulders and grinned 
roguishly.  "Nope, I don't mind looking at all.  That your
girlfriend?"

     "Yeah," Ryoga said, and then immediately regretted it.
     
     Happosai smirked and leaned over.  "So tell me," he
whispered.  "Have you..."

     Ryoga grabbed him by the back of the neck, feeling a slow
anger rise in him.  "Don't talk that way about Akari, Happosai."

     Happosai slipped free of the grip and moved away from him a
bit, dusting himself off before settling back into a seated 
position with his pipe dangling from his fingers.  "Don't get
defensive.  And the name's Rikuichi."

     "Whatever you call yourself, you watch your mouth," Ryoga
snarled.  "I won't have you insulting Akari."

     "Do you two mind?" Genma muttered from where he sat, head
bowed.  "I'm trying to relax here."

     Happosai snorted and turned his back to Ryoga and the fire,
drawing long on his pipe and blowing a succession of smoke rings
into the air that were soon scattered apart by the gentle night
breeze.

     Ryoga looked at the photo of Akari for a moment longer, then
slipped it back inside his pack.  He stared into the fire, 
letting it warm his body as he watched the dance and weave of the
flames.  Somewhere far in the distance, a night bird called, and
was answered by another moments later.

     The flames twisted round the wood in fire, blackening it.
Ryoga picked up another dry log from the pile they'd gathered, 
and tossed it in, watching the cleansing heat of the fire consume
it to ash.

**********

     "Rouge?" Akane asked again, giving the girl's hand another
squeeze and looking down into her pale face.  Rouge looked as if
she'd just recovered from a long illness; her cheeks were hollow,
her eyes dark-circled.

     "You know her, Akane?" Shampoo asked quietly from where she
sat with Rouge's head cradled in her lap, wiping a hot, damp
cloth across the girl's forehead.

     "Yeah," Akane replied, glancing off to where Ryoga, Genma
and Happosai gathered around the fire a short distance away.  
Happosai had claimed knowledge of any number of pressure points
that would be helpful to the unconscious Rouge, but Akane had
refused him, saying she would care for the girl.  To her
surprise, Shampoo had offered to help.

     Akane shifted her grip slightly, uncomfortable at how cold
Rouge's fingers were.  "She showed up with Tarou a while back.
The two of them did a lot of damage fighting each other."

     Shampoo raised an eyebrow as she looked at Rouge.  "She 
fight Pantyhose boy?"

     Akane nodded.  "Uh-huh."
     
     "Can't be all bad, then," Shampoo said with a shrug, moving
a lock of glossy dark hair out of Rouge's eyes.  "Why she try to
kill us, though?"

     Akane frowned uncomfortably.  "I think her personality
changes a bit when she's in her cursed form.  But... she was 
never that bad when I met her before."

     She glanced around at the skeletal, twisted forms of the
trees and shuddered slightly.  "So you and Mr. Saotome went to
get hot water to change her back, did you?"

     Shampoo nodded.  "Happosai tell us to."
     
     Akane blinked.  "Useful of him."
     
     Shampoo nodded again, then snorted.  "For once."
     
     Akane let Rouge's hand fall gently to the soft grass of the
clearing, and gently rubbed at her temples with a sigh.  "I wish
she'd wake up.  I'm worried about her."

     Shampoo said nothing, looking up at the darkness of the sky
and the lights of the stars.  
     
     "Shampoo?" Akane asked finally, breaking the stillness.
     
     "Yes?" the other girl said, glancing over at her.  
     
     "What's it like in your village?"
     
     Shampoo paused as if in thought, touching a finger to her
lips.  She ceased her swabbing of Rouge's forehead, wadding the
damp cloth into a tight ball in her fist.  "Different from
anything you used to."

     "Uh-huh?" Akane prompted.
     
     Shampoo shrugged and continued.  "Very small, maybe eight
hundred villagers.  Biggest village in Jusenkyou valley, but 
small next to anything else.  Not very complicated life; spend 
most of your time training to fight or working in the fields.  
Every woman trained as warrior as soon as they old enough."

     Akane heard a bird cry out in the night, long and sad, 
mirrored by an almost identical reply a second later.  "Were 
you happy there?"

     Shampoo nodded, smiling softly, the shadows thrown across 
her face by the distance fire like bars around her eyes.  "Very 
happy.  I was finest warrior of my generation."

     Her expression clouded slightly and she frowned.  "Ranma
change all that.  Is dishonour to be defeated.  Is greater
dishonour to return without woman's head.  Now that I go back
without Ranma as husband, dishonour be even worse."

     "What's going to happen to you?" Akane asked.
     
     Shampoo sighed.  "Not know, Akane.  Very special situation.
I tell Council about everything that happen, with Cologne, with
Ranma, and we see..."

     "What's the Council?"
     
     "Joketsuzoku Council.  Thirteen women on it.  Cologne leader
for last twenty years.  Now there be new leader."

     She shook her head dismissively.  "What happen, happen.  I
not able to control it, so why worry?"

     "Aren't you scared?" Akane asked softly.
     
     Shampoo's eyes narrowed, and she glared at Akane.  
"Joketsuzoku woman not know fear."

     "Oh," Akane replied in a droll voice.  "How useful.  I know
that if I were in your position, I'd be scared."

     Shampoo ducked her head, letting the fall of her hair hide
her face.  She said nothing; as Akane watched, a silent shudder
wracked her shoulders.

     Akane felt a strange sadness rise in her for her former
rival.  She hesitantly reached out a hand.  "Shampoo..."

     Shampoo lifted her head, eyes shining slightly as if with
unshed tears over her scowling mouth.  "We not friends, Akane. 
No fool yourself.  Too much past between us."

     "Fine," Akane said, hurt showing in her voice.  "If that's 
the way you feel..."

     "It is," Shampoo said, standing to her feet and walking away
towards the fire.  Her slippers whispered softly across the
carpet of the grass.

     Akane looked down at Rouge, then enfolded the still girl's
hand between both of hers.  "Rouge, wake up."

     To her surprise, Rouge stirred slightly and her eyes
fluttered open, staring blankly for a moment before they focused.

     "Akane?" she whispered.
     
     "Good to have you back with us, Rouge," Akane replied, 
smiling down at the other girl.  "Are you feeling better now?"

     To Akane's shock, Rouge suddenly threw her arms around her
neck and began weeping, great hiccuping sobs that made her entire
body shake.  "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou..."

     Embarrassed and glancing over to the now attentive group by
the fire, Akane patted Rouge on the back, mystified at the
behaviour.  "What's wrong?"

     "I couldn't stop her," Rouge said through her tears.  "She
hid when the rains came so she wouldn't change back, and it got
harder and harder, and I could watch what she was doing, but..."

     "Rouge, get a hold of yourself," Akane said gently, 
detaching the girl's arms from around her and holding her by the
shoulders.  "What happened?"

     "Ashura," Rouge said, and shuddered.
     
     "What do you mean?"
     
     Rouge had not yet stopped crying, but had at least slowed
down a little.  "Nothing.  It doesn't matter."     

     Akane stood up, helping Rouge to her feet.  "Come on.  Sit
down by the fire, and you can tell everyone about it."

     She led Rouge over to where the fire burned, and sat her
down between herself and Ryoga.  Genma was lying back, his head
pillowed on his hands as he looked up at the sky; Happosai smoked
his pipe nearby.  Shampoo was leaning back against a tree a few
feet away, her arms folded over her chest and her long legs 
stretched out.  The air smelt of the burning wood of the fire, 
mingling with the sweetish scent of Happosai's tobacco.  

     Ryoga looked up at Rouge as she sat, the firelight 
reflecting in his dark eyes.  "Hi.  Feeling better?"

     Rouge nodded and stared at her hands.  Akane put a hand on
her shoulder and looked over at Ryoga.  "Rouge, this is Ryoga.
Ryoga, this is Rouge."

     "I am very pleased to meet you," Rouge said formally, 
bowing her head to Ryoga and extending a delicate hand.  "I am 
from Shanghai."

     "Nice to meet you too," Ryoga said a bit warily, reaching
out and shaking her hand for a moment.  Then he turned and looked
back into the fire; Akane thought she saw the faintest sign of a
blush tinge his cheeks, or perhaps it was just the way the fire's
light caught his face.

     Akane caught Rouge's eye and gestured to Shampoo.  "That's
Shampoo."

     Shampoo raised her head and glanced at Rouge through 
half-closed eyes, smiling a bit unpleasantly.  Than she slowly
nodded a silent greeting and turned her head away.

     Akane continued the introductions.  "Mr. Saotome's lying
down over there.  And this is..."

     "Rikuichi," Happosai said, walking over and bending down to
extend a hand to Rouge.  He smiled, putting his young face a step
closer to being called simply plain rather than unattractive.
     
     When Rouge gave him her hand, he raised her fingertips to 
his lips and gently kissed them.  "Madam, you are forgiven for
your attempts to burn me to a crisp earlier.  I could forgive a
woman of your loveliness of anything."

     Akane groaned softly, watching as Rouge blushed and lowered
her head demurely.  He might not be doing as much groping as he
used to, but Happosai hadn't changed.  

     He let Rouge's hand go and sat back down, tapping out a thin
sheet of ash to the ground from his pipe.  "How did you come to
be in such a state, however?"

     Akane had taken the time to explain about Rouge's situation
while they'd walked, so there was no need for her to talk about
her battle with Tarou back in Japan.  Once that was made clear,
Rouge launched into her explanation of matters afterward.

     "After I obtained more of the source of power," she began.
"I made my way back across the ocean as Ashura, but..."

     She sighed and looked at the ground.  The fire cast sharp,
glinting highlights into her hair, and danced metallically in her
golden jewelry.  "Something went wrong.  I... feel different when
I am Ashura.  So angry all the time, and it is so much easier to 
let the anger be free with that much power... I sunk into the 
rage, and became a prisoner of my own flesh, unable to control 
the impulses that were mine in that form."

     She closed her eyes, tears leaking out from underneath and
hanging for a moment on her long lashes.  "I'm not sure how much
damage I did to the villages around here before Ashura attacked
your train and you stopped her, but..."

     The next words were said barely as a whisper.  "I don't
think I hurt anyone too badly.  I hope I didn't."

     "I'm sure you didn't," Happosai said, surprisingly gentle.
"And none of this was your fault."

     "Jusenykou makes people do strange things," Akane heard
Ryoga say softly, though his words made no sense to her.

     She hesitantly put her arm around Rouge's shoulders.  "I
don't think you'd hurt someone on purpose, Rouge."

     "It's so hard," Rouge said, opening her eyes, tears
glistening with the light of the fire on her cheeks.  "Ashura...
I... she is so angry.  There is so much hate in her."

     She reached up and brushed at her tear-stained cheek.  "So
much hate in me."

     Ryoga unwrapped his bandanna and handed it to her.  "Here."
     
     Rouge wiped at her eyes with it, then blew her nose gently.
"Thank you.  But..."

     "I've got spares," Ryoga said, reaching into his backpack
and producing another, which he wrapped around his head and
tied.  "No big deal."

     Akane smiled.  Ryoga was so sweet sometimes it almost broke
her heart to see.

     "You're right, boy," Happosai said, looking intently at
Ryoga.  "Jusenkyou can make people do strange things.  Some of
the springs change the mind as well as the form.  I suspect 
that's what happened with this lovely young thing here, eh?"

     Akane rolled her eyes and buried her face in her hands as
Rouge blushed again.  "You are very kind, sir," she heard the
girl say in her dulcet voice.

     "You needn't worry, though," Happosai said.  "Since you'll
be travelling with us from now on, we'll be here to help you out 
if the need arises."

     "What?" Shampoo said, breaking her silence and leaning 
forward from where she sat.  "You no-"

     "Be quiet," Happosai snapped, turning his head to look at
her.  Shampoo shrunk back, eyes wide.  "Rouge, we are travelling
to Jusenkyou ourselves.  You could cure yourself there with the
Nyannichuan, if you wish..."

     Rouge stared into the fire for a long time, and then slowly
nodded.  "I... I like being strong.  But Ashura is so angry.  So
dangerous.  It cannot continue."

     She ran a hand through her long hair.  "I wish to come with
you, if you will allow me."

     "It's no problem," Akane said quickly.  She risked a glance
back to Shampoo.  "Is it?"

     Shampoo shook her head, scowling.  "I no care."
     
     Rouge smiled and yawned.  "Thank you."
     
     "It's okay," Akane replied.  
     
     Rouge yawned again.  "You never told me," she murmured
softly, eyes half-closing.  "What are you doing in China..."

     "It's a long story," Akane answered softly, feeling a sudden
sadness come upon her.  "We'll talk more in the morning, okay?
You look like you could use some sleep."

     Rouge nodded.  Akane could see from her slumping head that
she was close to collapsing from exhaustion.  

     "She can sleep in my bedroll," Ryoga said, then suddenly
blushed furiously.  "I mean... no... by herself, I can sleep on
the ground, I've slept in worse places..."

     He trailed off, as Akane looked at him sympathetically.

     Rouge covered her mouth to hide her smile.  "Thank you."
     
     Happosai laid his pipe aside and stretched his arms over his
head.  "I'm going to nod off as well."

     He hooked a thumb in Genma's direction.  The man lay on his
side, without blanket or pillow, snoring softly.  "And he's out 
like a light already."

     Akane nodded, realizing that she herself was very tired.  
They began to unpack their bedrolls, as the unfed fire slowly
died down to a few glowing embers, and the stars overhead began
to grow brighter in the absence of any other light.

     Lying in her sleeping bag minutes later, her head on a thin
pillow, Akane breathed in deeply, inhaling the fresh scent of
grass and the vague, lingering odour of Happosai's pipe tobacco.
Nearby, she could hear Rouge snoring softly; out of the corner of
her eye, she could make out the dim shape of Shampoo, still
sitting with her back against the tree.

     Her eyes closed, and the stars above seemed to wink out one
by one, as the night came down across her like a cloak, and she 
fell into a deep sleep, dreamless and untroubled.

**********
     
     Ryoga came awake suddenly, his eyes snapping open to stare
into the darkness.  He was not sure immediately what had 
disturbed him for a moment, until he heard it again.

     Footsteps, soft and light, and nearby.
     
     As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he could make
out the sleeping shapes of Happosai and Genma nearby, and two
others across the ashes of the fire that he was fairly sure from
their locations were Rouge and Akane.

     He was lying on his side, head pillowed on his pack.  The
ground beneath him was hard, the sparse grass providing only a
modicum of comfort.  He wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep, 
but he didn't feel tired anymore.

     He slowly sat up, rolling over from his side to rest his
back against his pack.  Some distance away, on the spot where the
land began to rise into a hill, he saw a shadowed figure 
standing with her back to him, strands of long hair blowing about
her back and shoulders in a slight breeze.

     A quick glance over assured him that Rouge was asleep, 
pretty face calm and untroubled as she slowly breathed the even,
deep breaths of slumber.  It must be Shampoo, then.

     For a moment, Ryoga considered putting his head back down
and trying to go back to sleep.  He was not sure what he might
say, or even if there was anything he could.

     Then, with an almost inaudible sigh, he stood up as quietly
as he could, and walked towards where Shampoo stood, grass
crushing under his feet.  Overhead, the stars seemed infinite,
not even the dimmest of their number lost out here in the
wilderness.  
     
     Shampoo turned as he approached, and he saw the light of the
stars, light of the moon, shining in her eyes, in the trails of
tears running down the slenderness of her cheeks.

     He remembered Akane, weeping against his shoulder on the
mountain as they'd searched for Ranma.  He seemed to have deal
with a lot of this kind of thing these days.  

     "Nice night, isn't it?" he asked neutrally as he came to
stand beside the silent girl, staring out in the same direction
as her.  

     Still, silence.
     
     He risked a glance to his side, looking down at the Chinese
girl, trying to read her mood.  There was nothing there but a
mask, obscured by tears.  "Shampoo?"

     "Is nothing," she whispered thickly.  "Go back to sleep,
dummy."

     "Why didn't Mousse come with us, Shampoo?" he softly
inquired.

     That was it, the great unanswered question, that none of
them had raised with her since they'd gotten onto the plane.  He
saw Shampoo's shoulders heave slightly, and her eyes closed.  The
tears stained her cheeks, hung upon them like the rain on a
window.

     "We have fight," she answered finally.  "Very bad fight."
     
     Ryoga reached up and nervously fumbled with his bandanna.
"Oh."

     "He leave," Shampoo continued.  "I not know where he went.
I not care."

     "Why are you crying, then?" 
     
     Shampoo looked up at him, and smiled sadly.  "Why you not?
Enough to cry about even if Mousse here."

     She was right, Ryoga reflected silently.  But he had done
his grieving already, for Ranma vanished, for all the pain that
had come.  "Because I have to be strong."

     Shampoo shook her head.  "You outsider men so stupid 
sometimes.  Always hold everything in till I think you going to 
burst.  Ranma... Ranma always worst of all of you.  Never willing 
to show anything, except until it too late."

     Ryoga hesitated for a moment before speaking.  "Shampoo, I
know that the laws of your village are different, and..."

     "You want to know what happen to me, come back without Ranma
for husband?" she interrupted.

     Ryoga blinked, then nodded. 
     
     Shampoo reached up and wiped away what she could of the
remnants of her tears.  "I not know.  Is hard to say with the
Council.  And circumstances very strange."

     She looked at the ground and scuffed her feet on the grass.
"It help that I have witnesses to what Cologne do.  You, Akane,
Genma, Happosai.  It also help that I bringing back what
Happosai steal before."

     She fell silent, then, her expression slightly despairing.
     
     Ryoga put a hesitant hand on her shoulder, feeling her
trembling slightly under his palm.  "What would usually happen?"

     Shampoo shuddered.  "Exile.  Public humiliation of family.
If council decides I simply ignore law, not try to carry out,
execution.  But..."

     She laughed, softly and bitterly.  "If one thing I know, it
that I try to get Ranma for husband.  Try so hard, so hard I not
even see that he never love me, that I do so much wrong..."

     Ryoga dropped his hand from her shoulder to hang it at his
side.  "Shampoo..."

     "What?" she asked sharply, glaring at him.
     
     "Are you afraid of what's going to happen to you?"
     
     She shook her head fiercely.  "No.  Why everybody always ask
same questions?"     
     
     Ryoga frowned for a moment, confused.  "You remember when we
were fighting that woman on the mountain, Shampoo?  Yamiko?"

     Shampoo slowly nodded.
     
     "I thought I was going to die for a little while," he said,
voice soft in the darkness, the heavy stillness of the deep 
night.  "She was better than me, and she wanted to kill me so
bad."

     He reached up and gestured to the scars on his cheek that
Yamiko's hands had left.  "I was so scared I could hardly 
breathe, Shampoo.  You fought her too.  Weren't you frightened
then?"

     Shampoo said nothing, but reached up and rolled the short
sleeve of her flower-patterned blouse up to the shoulder of her
left arm.  A long pattern of four wide scars, puffy and white and
new, ran down nearly to her elbow.  

     "Yamiko do that," she said softly.  "If Happosai not there,
we would have died."

     And slowly, she smiled.  "Yes, I scared then.  And I scared
now.  But I not going to run away.  Not then.  Not now."

     Ryoga looked up at the stars for a moment, crossing his arms
and listening to the night's silence.  "That's what's important, 
I guess."

     Shampoo nodded.
     
     There was a long silence between them, so still they could
hear the quiet breathing of their companions who lay asleep 
nearby.

     "We are none of us alone in this," he said finally, words to
fill the quiet void.  "Not you, or I, or any other."

     Shampoo tilted her head to look up at him, and smirked
condescendingly.  "You really believe that?"

     He considered silently for a moment.  "I guess I do."
     
     She shook her head.  "You a foolish man, Ryoga," she
clucked.

     The words did not sting him, even if she had meant them to.  
"I've never claimed to be more than that."

     She smiled up at him, her eyes half-closed.  "Foolish man,
but you have good heart."

     Ryoga felt an odd sense of pride, and happiness, at the
words.  He studied Shampoo for a moment, standing under the 
light of the stars and moon.  
     
     How he had changed, he wondered silently.  How they had all
changed.  The comfortable world of conflicts, the easy status 
quo, the roles chosen for each them, all of that had been ripped 
asunder.  The threads were torn, but they were being gathered, as 
if by unseen hands, plucked and spun, woven anew, the patterns
changing.  

     "We should get some sleep," he said to Shampoo eventually,
after what seemed like hours of silence between them.  "We've got
a lot of travelling to do."

     She nodded her head.  "Yes."
     
     They turned, each almost in time with the other's movements,
and began to walk towards where the huddled shapes of their
comrades lay upon the ground.

**********

     He watched them go back down the slope of the land towards
their campsite, the girl and the tall boy.  He had watched them
from less than twenty feet away, hidden by the covering shadows
of trees, still as the stones of the earth and as quiet as the
whisper of the wind.

     He remembered this landscape from before, walking it in the 
winter, and the men and their horses breathing clouds of frost 
into the air, the snow crunching under his feet and theirs, and 
the heavy hooves of the horses.  He had pushed them too hard, 
forgetting sometimes that they needed sleep and food.  They had 
followed him blindly, walking after him till they dropped dead in 
their tracks, driving their horses to keep up with him until the 
hearts of the animals gave out.

     The climate, at least, had been nothing to them.  They were
used to colder climes than this.  But of the nearly ten thousand 
he had begun his long, long march with, less than one of every 
ten still lived.  The elements, disease, and the scattered
skirmishes he'd had to engage in when they were unavoidable, all
those had taken their tolls.

     It would have been enough, if he could get them through the
protections of Jusenkyou.  And a way had been provided; a
darkness succoured long within the heart of the valley, a betrayal
driven by jealousy and hatred.  The way had been opened, if only
for a little while.

     But he had been defeated, his force annihilated, and he had
fled, to wait, to plan for the next opportunity.  And now, after
so long a time, he had it again.

     He had no army this time, only himself.  He would not need
one.  Yet.  When the time came, Yoko and her followers would
serve his purposes.  For a time.

     And, oh, he smiled now, his eyes the cold blue of ice, the
barest edge of a lightning stroke.  How sweet this would be, how
very, very sweet.

     And, turning, he walked into the night.
     
**********     

     "Want some water, Rouge?"
     
     The older girl looked up from where she sat under the 
shading branches of a tree, then slowly nodded.  Akane sat down
next to her and handed her the closed canteen.  Rouge opened it
with immense care and took a delicate sip before she carefully
closed it again.

     Afternoon was fading slowly towards evening, and they'd 
stopped to rest for a little while, before they would press on 
into the night, hoping to get as far as they could towards the 
Joketsuzoku village before they made camp.

     "I hope we find an inn tonight," Rouge said quietly.
     
     "Me too," Akane agreed.  She felt dirty with road-dust and
sweaty from travel, and knew Rouge was no doubt in a worse
position than her.  She had lagged behind for the last hour of 
travel, voicing an occasional complaint about her weariness or 
her aching feet.

     Shampoo had told her rather harshly to shut up after about
her dozenth complaint, and Rouge had lapsed into a rather shamed
silence for the rest of the time, until Happosai had called a
halt to rest and take his bearings.  

     There had been little conversation between any of them on
their walking, all of them lost in their own thoughts.  Even
Happosai's joviality had waned by the time they'd stopped for a
mid-day meal.

     "Akane?"
     
     She glanced over to Rouge.  The girl looked much less exotic
dressed in a borrowed skirt and blouse, though still, Akane 
thought with an unfamiliar twinge of jealousy, more beautiful 
than anyone had the right to be wearing clothing that didn't fit
them completely perfectly.  "What is it?"

     "You never told me why you were all in China.  You said you
would."

     Akane drew a soft breath, realizing she'd been avoiding it
all day.  And she had said she would.  It wasn't as if she was
worried about bursting into tears again; she'd done plenty of
crying already over Ranma, and didn't feel the need for more.

     But to talk about it, to acknowledge the pain that underlay
the surface of every action she did, only made the hurting of her
heart worse.  

     She took a moment to gather her thoughts, looking around to
the other members of the travelling party.  Genma appeared to
taking a nap nearby under another tree.  Shampoo was sparring
with her own shadow on a nearby rise of land, and Ryoga sat
cross-legged near her, sorting through his backpack.  She saw no
sign of Happosai.

     "Akane?"
     
     Steeling herself, Akane launched into a concise explanation
about Ranma's disappearance.  Rouge listened silently, eyes
growing wider with each passing moment.

     Finally, when Akane finished, she bowed her head sadly and
stared at the ground.  "I am so sorry, Akane."

     "It's okay," Akane replied, the barest tremble in her voice.  
"I'm going to find him.  He's going to be okay."

     Rouge nodded.  "I'm sure he will be."
     
     She raised her head, and reached up to brush a lock of
silky hair out of her eyes.  "I will be glad to go to the village
of the Joketsuzoku.  I came to Jusenkyou the first time because
of them, you know."

     "How's that?" Akane asked, intrigued.
     
     Rouge looked reticent for a moment, as if she were sorry she
had mentioned it.  "It's silly..."

     "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Akane said
gently.

     The other girl sighed, and shrugged.  "I wanted to see if
they would let me join somehow.  I wanted to be a strong woman,
like I had heard they were."

     Rouge's gaze fell to where Shampoo spun her bonbori through
combat forms, effortless grace in her movements.  Akane saw envy
in Rouge's eyes, admiration.  "I wanted to be strong.  The power 
of Ashura made me strong, so..."

     "Why did you want to be strong?" Akane interrupted.
     
     Rouge looked sad as she spoke.  "My parents raised me to be
a good wife who would get a rich husband.  Someone who would
provide a big dowry to keep them comfortable in their old age."

     She toyed with one of the gold bracelets on a slim wrist.  
"I learned how to cook, to clean, to be demure and ladylike.  I
learned how to speak English and Japanese, how to play music... 
All that a good wife should know."

     Turning her head slightly so that Akane could only see her
face in profile, she went on, in a quiet voice.  "When I was
eighteen, they took me to a meeting with the man who would be my
husband.  He was nearly forty years older than me, a rich
businessman who'd never married."

     Akane raised a hand towards Rouge's shoulder, and then
hesitantly dropped it.  "Rouge, if you don't want..."

     "I would have married him," she said softly.  "It was all I
had been raised to do.  A shy, beautiful bride.  But when he was
talking to my parents, I saw his eyes, the way he looked at 
me..."

     She shuddered.  "Like I was an object, a piece of property,
no more than that.  And somehow, I realized that it was wrong,
that I could not live like that."

     Shaking her head, she seemed to regain some of her 
composure.  "So in the night, I packed up and ran away.  I had
read about the Joketsuzoku in a book, and..."

     She shrugged.  "You know the rest.  I came to Jusenkyou, and
fell into the pool of Ashura.  So I was strong, then, as I had
wished."

     Slowly, she rose to her feet, and stared up at the sky,
clear blue and nearly cloudless.  "I did not realize for too long
a time that the greater the strength, the greater the price that
must be paid for that strength."

     Akane was numb and silent, still sitting on the ground,
still contemplating the story she'd been told.     

     "I'm sorry to hear that, Rouge," she said finally, standing
up and putting a comforting hand on the other girl's arm.  "Your
parents..."

     Rouge shook her head.  "I have not seen them since I left.  
I do not think they will want to see their disobedient daughter 
again."

     She seemed to bury her sadness then, smiling gently at
Akane.  "I am sorry to have burdened you with my own troubles,
Akane.  You have many of your own now, you do not need mine."

     "It's okay, Rouge," Akane said, taking Rouge's hand in hers
and giving it a companionable squeeze.  "We're friends, right?
So we should listen to each other's problems."

     Rouge squeezed her hand back, looking both surprised and
happy.  "Thank you, Akane."

**********

     Happosai knelt on the top of the hill, palm pressed flat to
the ground, unlit pipe clenched tightly between his teeth.  His
eyes were closed.

     He was not, strictly speaking, entirely there.  His 
consciousness was ranging more freely than usual, travelling 
through the area around him, through the earth and air, along the
paths left by the passages of time.

     He was seeking something.  What it was precisely, he did not
know.  But ever since they had abandoned the train and began 
their long walk towards Jusenkyou, he had felt the vague
suspicion that they were being watched.

     At first, he'd dismissed it as his sensing of Rouge's Ashura
curse.  He was not an expert on Jusenkyou by any means, but he
understood how some of the curses could alter the mentality of 
the host.  The Ashura curse was different, though.  He could 
sense that easily, simply by looking at Rouge's aura.  There was 
an impression of something on the edges of it, something vast and 
awful and hateful.  It was very important that the girl be cured 
of the curse, and soon.

     The feeling of being watched had not left, however, and he
had begun to realize it was not related to Rouge at all.  So he
had called a halt, and gone off on his own to try and figure out
just what was going on.

     There was nothing he could sense, no presence that would
account for the feeling of being watched.  Slowly, slowly, he
drew back into himself, letting consciousness layer back over
subconscious, opening his eyes as his heart began to beat faster,
his breathing grow more rapid.

     Suddenly, he spun, pipe falling from his mouth to bounce on
the ground.  His aura flared around him in crackling power.  

     "Show yourself," he growled, his eyes little more than
slits, glowing slightly with the force of his energy.  "Whatever 
you are, come out and face me."

     Nothingness greeted him, and a silent patch of shadow cast
by a cloud straying in front of the sun.  He let his aura die,
and sat down heavily, picking up his pipe and examining it for
any damage.
     
     "Jumping at shadows," he muttered disgustedly, shaking his
head.  "Old fool."

     Dismiss it he might, but still he could not shake the
feeling that an unseen eye was pacing all that they did.  He'd
just have to be on his guard.

     A quick flick of his wrist sent a match into his hands, and
he lit his pipe as he walked down the hill towards where the
others rested.  They still had a lot of travelling to do.

     Halfway down, he paused and slowly looked back towards the
empty hillside.  Then, shaking his head warily, he continued 
down the hill.

**********

     They did not find an inn that night.  In fact, they saw no
signs of any human civilization at all.  They were in true
wilderness now, travelling through a terrain of rocky, useless 
soil and scraggily vegetation.  Mountains loomed all about as 
they trekked, rising sharp and forbidding in the distance.  

     Sometimes, they felt as if they were the only people left
alive on earth.  They made camp at last, bone-weary and 
exhausted, all of them falling into a deep and uneasy sleep, to
the far-off night sounds as the things of the darkness, owls and
cicadas, began their music.

     In the morning, after perhaps two hours of walking, they 
came to the mountain pass that headed westwards into the valley 
that held Jusenkyou.

     Happosai never managed to shake the feeling of being 
watched, but, unsure of his own fears, he kept it to himself, and
eventually managed to ignore it, the way one grows used to the
pain caused by old wounds.

     An hour after they entered the pass, they crossed the border
of Jusenkyou.  The ancient, sleeping power passed invisibly over
them, found their hearts to be without malice, and let them 
enter her domain unchallenged.

     Perhaps ten minutes after that, a single traveller passed
through the border.  The unconscious probing flowed past him, and
did not even register his presence.

     And thus did the Serpent enter into the valley.
     
**********

     The village of the Joketsuzoku lay in a craggy dip in the
mountainous terrain, a rolling valley of rocky hills and rising
crags.  Houses lay scattered haphazardly about the uneven land, 
with no clear pattern to their layout; long and even rows of 
farmland dotted the flat portions of the settlement in stripes
and ribbons.

     Ryoga took a quick count from his perch halfway up a winding
trail leading into the bordering mountains, estimating perhaps a
little less than two hundred houses, in designs ranging from 
large and elegant to small and thatch-roofed.  Scattered figures
ranged throughout the dusty streets, too far away to make out any
details.  

     He glanced to Shampoo and the others where they stood beside
him, wiping a hand through sweat-damp hair.  "We're here, then."

     Shampoo nodded, and took a deep breath.  "Yes."
     
     Then she began to walk down the trail, a heavy pack on her
shoulders, carrying a clattering bag in each hand.  The treasures
of the Joketsuzoku, both those her great-grandmother had brought
to Japan and the ones Happosai had taken so long ago, returning
to their source.

     Ryoga followed after her, carefully picking his way down the
steep path.  A chance stray of his foot sent pebbles scattering
down the rocky face, and he glanced back to the rest of the
travelling party pacing him.

     So they'd arrived at last, Ryoga realized.  This was where
their lead for Ranma ended, and such a slim lead, a weapon
wielded against them that Happosai said could only have come from
here.  

     He hoped they were right.  He hoped Ranma was near here.  If
he wasn't, they might not find him in time.  

     In time for what, Ryoga didn't know.  He only knew that
Ranma was either in Cologne's hands, or in the hands of the two
maniacs who they'd fought on the mountain.  And despite what had
happened to Cologne, he found himself hoping that she had been 
the victor.

     As they came closer to the village, he saw the heads of 
those walking in the streets go up with interest, and they began
to approach.

     "There don't seem to be many people out today," he said,
looking to Shampoo as the villagers came closer.

     Shampoo looked up at the sky, and shrugged.  "Is lunchtime.
Most inside for meal."

     A ring of about two dozen women in simple but colourful
clothing similar to Shampoo's usual style of dress had 
half-surrounded them now.  All of them looked to be around
Shampoo's age, and more than half carried visible weapons, a
mixture of polearms and swords for the most part.

     Ryoga looked warily around at them, as he and his comrades
stopped walking near the border of the village.  The Joketsuzoku
did not look exactly unfriendly, but not particularly welcoming
either.

     Shampoo dropped her bags, took the pack off her shoulders
and laid it beside her on the ground.  She folded her arms and
looked about at the silent circle of weapon, a challenging
stance.
     
     A quick glance to Akane rewarded him with a reassuring if 
nervous smile.  Genma appeared to be trying to make himself as 
inconspicuous as possible, while Rouge seemed slightly fearful.  
Happosai was simply looking around at all of the women and 
nodding thoughtfully, a trace of a smile on his face.

     There was a long silence as the two groups seemed to size
each other up, and then a girl a few years older than Shampoo
stepped forward and spoke in Chinese, staring directly into the
eyes of the returning Joketsuzoku.  There was a vaguely
accusatory tone to the words.

     Shampoo answered in her native tongue, sharply and angrily.

     The other girl snarled something back.
     
     Shampoo said a single word, in a snide voice.
     
     The girl threw a punch at Shampoo.  Shampoo sidestepped, 
spun to a crouch and cut the other girl's legs out from under 
her with a low kick.  The older girl crashed heavily to the 
ground.

     A few murmurs ran through the gathered tribeswomen.  Half of
them scattered quickly away into the village.  Ryoga frowned
unconsciously, and tensed slightly.

     "Ryoga?"
     
     He turned his head at Akane's touch on his elbow, relaxing
slightly.  "I wish I could understand what they're saying."

     "The girl was saying Shampoo had lost her strength," Rouge
said softly.  "Then Shampoo called her... something very rude."

     Akane shrugged.  "I just hope Shampoo doesn't start a fight
right now."

     Ryoga saw Shampoo glance back and snort slightly.  She
turned to the girl she'd just knocked to the ground and offered 
her hand.

     The girl turned her nose up and stood, pushing back long
dark hair with one hand and brushing dust from her pants with the
other.  Then, she slowly swept her eyes over the travellers
gathered behind Shampoo, and asked something in Chinese.

     Shampoo answered in a quiet but forceful voice.
     
     The girl nodded once, said something else, and extended her 
hand to Shampoo.  Shampoo took it, and they gripped each other's 
wrists for a quick moment, hard, still glaring at each other
hostilely, and then the girl turned away and walked off down the 
streets of the village.

     The girls who remained looked at the travellers with
undisguised interest now.  Shampoo glared back and forth at them,
and barked something in Chinese.  

     They turned and walked slowly away, casting a few backward
glances as they went.     
     
     Shampoo turned around and smiled slightly at them.  "Elder
coming now.  We stay here."

     "Who was that girl you talked to?" Ryoga asked.
     
     "Bai Ling," Shampoo answered.  "I beat her in semi-final of
last tournament.  She ask if I get lazy and weak in Japan.  I 
show her I not."

     Villagers were emerging from their houses now, older men and
women, small children, cowed-looking teenage boys in robes
similar to what Mousse wore.  They stood at their front doors
watching the outsiders with interest; the low hum of their voices
filled the air of the village.

     From around the corner of one house, Bai Ling returned,
accompanied by a hunched and elderly woman.  They made an odd
pair, a tall and pretty young woman and a wrinkled crone.

     The old woman walked not with a cane or stick, though, but
with a wicked-looking polearm topped with a wide blade like a
crescent moon, her withered hands wrapped tightly around the haft
with a strength that belied her age.  As she came closer, Ryoga 
saw her eyes; they were like he remembered Cologne's eyes, 
ancient and dark and burning with cold intelligence.

     Ryoga heard Shampoo say something under her breath.  From 
the tone, it sounded like a curse.  "What's wrong?"

     "Fang Shi," Shampoo answered in a half-whisper.  The name
was said with a great deal of distaste.

     The old woman stopped in front of them, leaning on her
weapon and regarding them with her ancient gaze.  Then she 
slowly said something to Shampoo in Chinese; Ryoga heard what
might have been Shampoo's name, and Cologne's.

     Shampoo bowed her head, and said something in respectful
tone.  

     "Very well, then," Fang Shi replied, her Japanese perfect.
"We shall speak so your foreign friends can understand us.  I ask
again, Shampoo, where is Cologne?"

     "Is long story, elder," Shampoo answered.  "I ask leave for
friends and I to get settled in house of my family, and then I
answer questions."

     "No," Fang Shi said bruskly.  "Where is Cologne?"
     
     Bai Ling glared at Shampoo, and said something tauntingly in
Chinese.  Shampoo's eyes narrowed, but then Fang Shi elbowed her
companion hard in the ribs, doubling her over.  "Keep quiet, 
girl."

     "We tired, elder," Shampoo said.  "Been long travel for past
few days.  We ask to rest, wash road dust from ourselves."

     "Are you deaf or stupid, girl?" Fang Shi snapped.  "Where's
Cologne?  And where, for that matter, is your husband?"

     Ryoga saw Akane's face twist angrily for a moment before she
visibly regained control.  "Easy, Akane," he whispered to her.

     Even at those quiet words, Fang Shi's gaze focused on him 
for a moment.  He looked back at her, frowning slightly.  

     The elder dismissed him with her eyes and turned her
attention back to Shampoo.  "Well, Shampoo?"

     "Elder..."
     
     "No more excuses!"
     
     "Oh, really, Fang Shi, let them have a few hours to rest," a
deep, sardonic female voice said from behind Ryoga.  "The poor
things look half-dead."

     He turned to see a tall woman dressed in grey robes trimmed
with white.  By the lines around her eyes and mouth, he would 
have placed her in her late fifties, but she was trim and fit as
any woman half that age.  Silver-grey hair fell midway down her
back in an elaborate braid, and she carried a slender wooden 
staff in her left hand, shod at either end with iron and inlaid 
with pieces of smooth jade that swam green in the sunlight.

     Shampoo turned as well, a grateful look on her face that
faded when she saw the woman, replaced by a weary sadness.

     "Lang Bei," she said quietly.

     "Hello, Shampoo," the woman said.  "Is my grandson with 
you?"

     Shampoo shook her head.  Surprised for a moment,  Ryoga
quickly realized that Lang Bei did look a lot like Mousse; they
had the same eyes.
     
     "Ah, well," Lang Bei said, shrugging her shoulders.  "Go and
get your friends settled.  The Council will hear the details of
what occurred to you in Japan, and your explanation for Cologne's
absence, after the evening meal.  Public meeting."

     She glanced past Shampoo to Fang Shi.  "If that's alright
with you, Elder Fang Shi?"

     "Fine, Elder Lang Bei," Fang Shi answered venomously, before
turning and stalking away, the haft of her polearm sending up 
puffs of dust as she supported herself with it.  Bai Ling 
followed close behind her.  

     A dozen feet away, she turned and looked back, her voice
harsh and cold.  "But we will have our answers, one way or
another."

     The watchers in the streets and houses began to disperse 
with the show over.  Lang Bei stood regarding all of them 
silently for a moment, and then smiled slightly.

     "Welcome back, Shampoo," she said quietly.  Then her smile
slowly faded, and her face went hard, blue-grey eyes cold. "Fang 
Shi and I agree on little, girl, but in this thing we are as one.  
We of the Council will have our answers.  For everything."

     Then she turned and strode away, grey braid bouncing against
her back as she walked, long staff swinging in her hand and
occasionally tapping the ground.

     Shampoo looked around at all of them, saying nothing.
     
     Happosai finally broke the silence.  "Handsome woman for her
age, I'll give her that."

     That seemed to break the air of tension, and there was a bit
of nervous laughter.  

     "Come," Shampoo said.  "Family's house this way."
     
     She smiled.  "My home."
          
**********     
     
     He watched the confrontation in the village from far away,
watched the crowd disperse into the streets and houses of the
Joketsuzoku's village.

     He dug his fingers into the stone of the mountain crag he
stood near as easily as if it were made of water.  Even after so
long a time, his hatred had not died.  

     He hated the Phoenix Tribe, isolated in their mountain, 
their king dead now.  He hated the pitiful, fallen people who the
Musk Dynasty were the last remnant of, their noble bloodline long
corrupted and diluted.  He hated Jusenkyou, and everything that 
lay within her confines, all her peoples, all that she protected.

     But nothing, nothing compared to how much he hated the
Joketsuzoku.  There were no words to describe the depths of his
hatred, no way to render it into terms that any other being might
understand.

     His hate was a flame, burning down through all the centuries
since his rebirth, consuming all in its path.  Cities had fallen,
and he had hated them.  Life after life he had given to the Dark,
and he had hated them.  Empires rose from dust and returned to 
dust, and still his hatred had been fresh and new as ever.

     Oh, how he despised them.  He could live till the end of
time, till the last star burned out in its cradle, till the last 
world fell to howling dust blown on the winds of the void, and 
never would he hate anything so much as he hated the Joketsuzoku, 
for their memory was the memory of the treachery that had been
done to him.

     And because he hated them more any other thing upon the
earth, he would use them as his weapon, as his tool.  He would
make them the engine of their own destruction, seal their doom 
with their own hands.

     "You shall pay," he said softly, in his true voice, older
than the fall of Rome, a voice that had spoken before Shanghai 
and Tokyo were even rude villages by the water.  It was a voice 
raw with hate, like a blade scraped time and time again upon the 
whetstone, until all that remains is the edge, so sharp and fine
that even a mere touch draws blood.  "Oh, do not think that you 
shall not pay."

     And then he took the flame of his hate, and buried it, 
layer upon layer of ice piled atop, cold calculation underlain by
rage.  Fire would consume at last itself, but ice would last
until the end of time.  

     He knew enough of hate to know that for destruction, ice 
would do as well as fire.  With that, he shrugged his shoulders,
put on another face like other men might don another set of
clothes, and went walking down towards the huddled village that 
lay below, smoke rising placidly from the chimneys of the houses, 
spiralling into the air like twining wreaths.  
    
     He smiled as he approached, his blue eyes cold and flat as a
snake's.  They would learn the price of betrayal, all of them, 
amidst the ruins of all that they held dear.  They would fall, he
would drag them down into the darkness, and with their fall, the
fall of Jusenkyou, and he would fulfil both his lord's desires
and his own, after so long a time denied.

     Fourteen centuries had passed since his last failure.  This 
time, he would not fail.  There could be no more chances; not for 
him.  

     He would have his victory this time.  The Dark would consume 
Jusenkyou, until all that remained were memories, and, in time 
those, too, would pass away.