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 35 : Oak and Ash and Thorn

     He had not been able to move.  They had held him down, and
cut his arm that they might catch the blood in a bowl of hammered
silver.  With care and patience, a circle of twisted crimson had
been scrawled around him upon the cement floor.  They had drawn
sigils upon his naked body in his own blood, the touch of their
fingers light and smooth over his flesh.  The one in black, the
one who did not speak in any tongue of humanity, had cut him a
few times as she touched him with her nails.  Kontongara never 
had.  

     It had not been the paralysis of drugs or weakness.  His
eyes had been wide open all the time, his hearing sharp enough to
hear every word they said, although they were words in no 
language of which he knew.  Some force had held his body rigid
and immobile throughout it all.  He could not give voice to the
screams, to his own rage.  

     They had worked slowly.  A pulsing had grown, filling the
room, as if they were within the chamber of some great and awful
heart.  Air grew thick to his eyes, as if new colours unknown
before were preparing to emerge.  Sweat had stung in the cuts 
the masked woman's nails had made upon his body.  The chanting 
had gone on for a time, and then the hurting had begun.

     They had used needles at first, and tiny blades with edges
keen as razors.  His blood had flowed slickly down his body.  
They flayed his skin with whips of braided leather.  Coals 
red-hot from the brazier had been applied.  Almost worse than 
anything was the casualness with which they did it; the too-dark 
eyes of the one in black would sometimes dance with amusement, 
but Kontongara never showed anything at all beyond disdain.  He
visualized killing both of them time and time again as it went 
on.

     They seared his hands and the soles of his feet with irons.
By then, the pain had become so vast that he should have passed
out.  But he did not.  Somehow, they were keeping him awake 
through all this.  The pulsing of the air was inside his head
like a roaring of storms, and it would not let him slip away into
the dark mercy of unconsciousness.  It had not actually been that
long, he realized in hindsight.  No more than two hours.  But it
had seemed to stretch on into infinity then.

     When they stopped for a moment, he imagined it was over.  
They would kill him, and that would be the end.  They had won,
they had broken him.  If he could have spoken, he would have
pleaded for mercy.  Pride was gone.  The pain was too much.

     But it did not end.
     
     They knelt, with bright needles and long knife, and cut out
his eyes and tongue.  They turned him over to stop him from 
choking to death on his blood.  Now there was only hearing, only
the feel of the cold floor on his open wounds, only the smell of
something sweet burning.  He could hear them chanting again, and 
the pulsing had risen to a fever pitch.  The maimings of his eyes
and tongue itched, but did not hurt nearly as much as he thought
they should have.  

     And he realized that it had only just begun.  Because then
the images began to run through his mind in an endless tide.  
His mother and sister stretched out dead hands imploringly, and
then grabbed his throat to drag him down with them into an ocean 
of the rotting dead.  Down they pulled him, until his mouth was
filled with the charnel taste of flesh, and the maggots writhed
within his clothing and tickled his skin.  There they toyed with
his hair and whispered into his ear.  
     
     He prayed.  To his ancestors, to the Buddha, to his mother's
singular God and his incarnate Son.  His mother and Kodachi 
laughed, and told him the truth, which they in death had realized
now.  

     That which we serve is older by far, and mightier still, 
they said.  They held him as if he were an infant, and raised him
up.  Gasping, his face broke the sea of corpses to gaze into a
sky filled with fire.  

     And then he saw Him.
     
     He was beautiful, and sat upon a throne that hung suspended
in the burning sky.  His eyes were filled with light.  Hair of 
the palest silver shone like metal in the tongues of fire licking 
through the sky.  Great wings, glistening-scaled and dark as jet, 
were furled around his naked body like a cloak.  One hand was of 
gold, and the other of flesh.  His flesh hand cradled a great 
black-hafted glaive.

     As if lifted by the wind, he soared towards Him.  The
beautiful one beckoned with his hand of gold.  His eyes were
bright as stars new-born.  When he reached the throne, He stood
and kissed him upon the lips.  It was wonderful.

     Then He seized him by the throat with the hand of gold, and
hurled him back down among the dead.  His eyes were plucked out
here too, and his screams silenced as they sliced out his tongue.
The dead passed eyes and tongue back and forth among themselves,
fondling them as if they were toys.  Too deep among the dead to
breathe.  Too deep among the dead to move.  Too deep, too deep,
too deep.

**********

     "You ever wake up from a dream you can't remember?"
     
     Silence.
     
     "I think that's what happened to me, sis.  I know I had 
some sort of dream, I just can't remember what was in it.  Kinda
wish I could."
     
     The vehicle they were riding in went over a bump in the
road, and Nabiki winced as the impact shook through her.  There
was no light anywhere; the windows had to be covered.

     "Kasumi?"
     
     Silence.
     
     "Come on, Kasumi, talk to me."
     
     Nabiki had woken up a few minutes ago, and had been making a
futile effort to get Kasumi to talk to her.  She assumed it was
Kasumi, at least; she was lying on a surface of cold metal, tied
back to back with someone, and it didn't feel like her father or 
Kuno.

     The van jarred again, and Nabiki closed her eyes.  "I'm
sorry, Kasumi."

     Maybe she wasn't awake yet.  But her breathing didn't sound
like that of a sleeper.     
     
     "Kasumi?"
     
     "He came in the house, Nabiki," Kasumi answered.  Her voice
was a whisper flat as a pane of glass.  "He came in the house and
he touched me."

     Guilt and grief descended on Nabiki like a vast weight.  No
answer.  No answer to give at all.  Kasumi seemed to speak from
the bottom of some vast pit that swallowed up her words almost as
soon as they left her.

     "He's not here right now, Kasumi."  How awkward, to try and
be soothing.  "You're safe now."  But he'll be back later.  He'll
be back later, and he's crazy, and if he'd hurt Kasumi there's
nothing he won't do.  "I promise."  Lies.  Easy, so easy.  

     I wish it wasn't so dark, Nabiki thought.  I wish it wasn't
so dark.  I wish Kasumi would talk to me.

     "Kasumi?"
     
     Long silence.  Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes.  With
her arms bound to her sides by the same thin cords that cut 
lightly into the flesh and bound her to Kasumi, she could not 
wipe them away.  It was a soundless weeping, quiet and desperate.  
The tears rolled down her cheeks, tiny and cool as summer 
raindrops.
     
     Nabiki, without realizing it, began to hum.  The tune was
familiar, but she could not place it.  Slow, melodious.  

     Distantly and faintly, Kasumi spoke.  "Mother used to sing 
that."
     
     Nabiki stopped.  "Kasumi?"
     
     Silence.  Kasumi was right.  Had it been a lullaby?  It
sounded like one.  Nabiki began again.  There had been words,
hadn't there.  She couldn't remember.
     
     "Kasumi, help me out," she whispered.  "How did the words go
again?  I can remember the song, I just can't remember the 
words."  She turned her head slightly.  Kasumi's hair brushed 
against her cheek like a gentle touch.  "Come on, sis.  Sing it
with me.  You remember the words, don't you?"

     She tried again, thinking every second that Kasumi would
join in.  If Akane were here, they could have formed a group, she
thought half-hysterically, and nearly giggled.  Three beautiful
sisters would have been a cliched but workable gimmick.

     But Akane wasn't here, thank God.  She was in China, which 
was about as far as she could hope to be from Tofu.  

     And Kasumi wasn't singing.

     No group, then.  This time, she did giggle, unbelievably.  
It became a sob halfway through.  Any moment, Kasumi was going to
speak.  She'd start singing.  Or she'd say something comforting.
Nabiki was certain her older sister wouldn't leave her alone in
the dark like this.  She tried sobbing more vehemently.  Anything
to get Kasumi to talk.  To respond.

     "Nabiki?"
     
     "Daddy?"
     
     "Is Kasumi all right?"
     
     He would not, of course, ask if she was all right before
making sure Kasumi was, Nabiki thought sourly.  "No, Dad.  No, I
don't think she is."  The blankness in Kasumi's eyes as she lay
naked and violated in her bed came back to her, and how the light
had shone on Tofu's glasses so that they became opaque and hid 
his gaze.

     "Tofu," her father whispered.  It was said like a promise, 
or a curse.

     "Yeah," Nabiki said.  "Tofu.  Who would have guessed?"
     
     "I should have," Soun moaned from wherever he lay in the
darkness.  "A father is supposed to know when his daughters are
in trouble.  He's supposed to help them.  I am a failure, 
Nabiki."

     Again, no response.  Nothing she could say honestly would
change his feelings.

     "Can you move, Dad?" she asked at last.
     
     There was a clink of metal, as of some small chain.  "I'm
handcuffed.  Tied, too.  No."

     "You're not tied to anyone?"
     
     "No."
     
     Oh, Kuno, she thought.  Am I to have you on my conscience 
now on top of everything else?  This was the end.  Tofu knew
about all she'd done.  They were in the hands of the ones who
wanted Ranma for some reason.  A power that had brought Japan's
crime families to their knees and turned them into pawns would
smash them all like eggs.

     "I'm going to kill him, Nabiki," her father whispered.
     
     "Yeah, Dad," Nabiki responded faintly as the van rolled on.
"Whatever."  Then she began to hum again, but there was no
comfort in it, none at all; nor any in the soft breathing and 
silent presence of her sister next to her.  Eventually, as if 
there were some small blessing still to be found amidst her fear
and grief, she somehow managed to fall asleep again, and there 
were not even any dreams to forget this time.

     Some time later, the jerk as the van braked woke her again, 
and she blinked her eyes as the back doors opened and let in the 
thin, dim light from outside.  The absolute darkness of the back 
of the van now broken, she could see her father sitting in one 
corner, his eyes closed and hands cuffed behind his back.  His 
arms and legs were tightly bound.  Kasumi let out a soft, breathy 
sound, but nothing else.  Faced away from the back doors, Nabiki 
couldn't see who had opened them.

     "Take them out," a voice said.  "Gently, now."
     
     Someone undid the ropes that bound her back to back with
Kasumi, and hands urged her to her feet and out of the van.  She
stumbled out into a field of tall grass dotted with pine trees.
A rough dirt road bore the marks of the van's wheels, stretching
off into the night beyond the vanishing point of her vision.  A
short distance away in the opposite direction, the lights of 
houses could be seen.  Nabiki balanced uncertainly, arms and
ankles still tied, against the side of the van.

     The short man who'd untied her from Kasumi expressionlessly
flicked out a butterfly knife.  A moment of icy fear disappeared
only when he knelt and sliced away the ropes around her ankles.
There were other people around as well; three more men, and a 
woman in robes that seemed to have been sewn together from a 
dozen different colours of fabric.  

     Another man was carefully taking off Kasumi's ropes.  A
steady ache began in Nabiki's stomach as she stared at the dim
eyes of her older sister, and at her too-rigid posture.  

     "Let me guess," she said with a heavy sigh, turning to
address the four who stood nearby.  "You're not here to rescue
us, are you?"
     
     The oldest man laughed.  He was rail-thin, with a fringe of
long greying hair clinging to the edges of his balding head.  In
black hakama and wide-sleeved tunic, he was almost invisible 
against the darkness of the late night.  "Spirited, and more 
talkative than your sister."  He snapped his fingers at the two 
men flanking him, and they hopped into the back of the van to 
take Nabiki's still-tied father by his arms and legs and bring 
him out.  "I'm Unagi."  He gave a surprisingly formal bow.  "We 
have no interest in harming you."

     "Tell that to my sister, you bastard," Nabiki hissed.  It
was surprising how quickly the venom rose, despite the situation.

     If she had expected the brutality of Tofu, she was wrong.
Unagi's amusement faded, and he swung his dark-eyed gaze to
Kasumi.  "I regret what happened.  Tofu is an irresponsible fool
who should never have risen as far as he has."

     The woman, who had remained silent until now with the
slightest of amused smiles on her face, spoke then.  "Do I detect
a certain professional jealousy, Unagi?"

     "He is unfit to be ko-daimyo," Unagi said, turning away from
the prisoners for a moment.  "That he was my student only shames
me."

     Soun had ropes untied now, though his hands were still
cuffed behind his back.  His head hung as if he could not support
it.  "Let my daughters go," he murmured.  "Do as you want with
me, but let my girls go."

     Unagi shook his head.  "That I cannot do.  But you shall not
be treated cruelly under my hand.  As I say, we have no interest
in harming you."

     "But neither," the woman cut in crisply, "do we have any
hesitation.  Honoured mother of the night is not nearly so soft
as--"

     The backhand, almost casual, split her lip and knocked her
off her feet.  Kasumi whimpered softly, and Nabiki took a 
half-unconscious step closer to her older sister.

     "I'm not soft," Unagi said.  On the ground, the woman
groaned, half-conscious.  There was a scarlet splatter of blood
on the white and yellow collar of her robes.

     "You should not have done that, Lord," one of the other men
said.

     Unagi shrugged.  "I answer to honoured mother of the 
shadows, and honoured mother of the night has my infinite
respect.  Her pups do not.  She should not have spoken as she 
did, and knows it."

     Nabiki wished she could wipe away the tracks the tears must
have left on her face.  Her eyes felt puffy.  How easy to adjust,
she thought.  I don't even really care how much a mess I must 
look.  All I want to do is live through this.  At least Unagi 
seemed to be less openly dangerous than Tofu, if that was saying 
anything.  

     "What are you going to do with us?" she asked tremulously,
hating the way her voice sounded.  Weak.  As if it were not under
her own control.  She hated not being in control, hated showing
it even more.  But she had to get what information she could if
she was going to do anything.

     "That's not my decision," Unagi answered as he turned and
began to walk away towards the village.  "This way, please."

     Nabiki fell into step beside him, his relatively mild manner
emboldening her.  The shuffling sound of her father and Kasumi
slowly following through the long grass came from behind, flanked
by the men.  They left the still-groaning woman behind on the
grass.

     "Who are you guys?  Yakuza, right?"  She knew perfectly well 
that they weren't, but feigning ignorance often got people to 
reveal more than they would have otherwise.

     "We're much older than that," Unagi said conversationally.  
He rolled up his sleeve and glanced at his watch as they walked.
"It is nearly midnight."

     Nabiki waited for him to say more, but he didn't.  She tried
again.  "If you're not yakuza, then what are you?"

     A slightly annoyed twist came onto Unagi's wide mouth.  "You
ask a lot of questions, don't you?  I am not surprised that 
honoured mother of the night used you as her informant."

     He said it too loudly.  Nabiki felt rather than heard her
father's reaction, and stopped in her walking to look back at 
him, regret breaking over her so suddenly that she found herself
at one of those rare points where she had no idea what to say.

     Soun raised his head, face half-hidden behind tangled hair.
His eyes, though, were perfectly clear.  They burned.  "Nabiki,"
he asked, very softly.  "What does he mean?"

     "Dad," she began.  But there were no more words rising to
join that single one.  "Daddy."

     "Don't Daddy me," Soun said.  "Just tell the truth, Nabiki.
What does he mean?"

     "Oh, what do you think he means?" Nabiki snapped suddenly.
"How dim are you?"

     The anger went out of Soun's eyes.  "Don't yell at me," he
murmured pathetically, looking at the ground again.  "I only want
to know."

     Nabiki felt a surge of shame that he was her father.  He was
weak and broken, and had been that way ever since their mother
died.  Almost immediately, that was followed by guilt; but guilt
was far easier to ignore for her, and always had been.  Unable to
look into her father's face any more, she began to walk again,
not speaking any more to Unagi.  No one spoke in the long walk
across the field to the town.  It was small and rural, with as 
many trees still in the streets as telephone poles.  It might 
have been the late hour, but the streets were deserted.  Now that
they were on the streets of the town, she could see that the
lights only burned in a few isolated houses.  For some reason, a
feeling of familiarity arose in her, but no more than that.

     Unagi took them to the largest house in town, and led them
up to the second floor.  They passed several women dressed in the
same manner as the one they'd left semi-conscious in the field 
along the way, and Unagi had a short conversation with each one 
that Nabiki couldn't hear.  The three of them were taken to a
large room that overlooked a copse of trees growing in the
back yard, and ushered inside.  The ropes on their wrists were
cut, and Soun's handcuffs unlocked.  There were chairs and a 
small table covered in books and magazines.  Unagi dismissed the 
rest of the men and stood in the doorway, watching them with
unblinking eyes.  Kasumi walked stiffly over to a chair and sat
down, hands folded in her lap.  Soun went to the window and
stared out into the night.

     Nabiki attempted one more time to get information from
Unagi.  This time, she told herself, was because she was 
concerned, and not for her own benefit.  "There was one more
person at our house when Tofu--"

     "He is being dealt with," Unagi said shortly.  The door
closed with the click of a lock, and his footsteps faded away.

     "Window's locked, I guess," Nabiki said, hesitantly coming 
up behind her father.  

     He nodded.  His shoulders were slumped and weary.  In the
chair, Kasumi stared straight ahead at nothing, lips tight and
motionless.  Her eyes reminded Nabiki of the painted ones of
dolls.

     "Too small to go through anyway."
     
     "How much did you make, Nabiki?"
     
     There was a long pause between them.
     
     "Enough to live on comfortably if I'd wanted," she replied
after a time.  "It's all in various accounts."

     If it were possible, her father's shoulders bent a little
more.  "When did it start?"

     Past the first threshold now.  He knew.  There was little
worse in telling more.  "Remember two years after mom died," she
said, and as always she was startled at the sharp pain even 
speaking of it brought, "when you were worried we were going to
lose the house, and you weren't talking to us?"

     Hands on the sill, her father's head was bowed so low that
his hair hung all about his face.  "I didn't want you to--"

     "I was twelve, Dad," Nabiki interrupted, trying but failing
to keep a little disdain from her voice.  "I wasn't stupid at 
that age.  Maybe Akane and Kasumi didn't know what was going on,
but I did.  Remember when you threw that guy out of the house?"

     Even though she couldn't see her father's face, she knew
somehow that he must have finally put the pieces together.  "Oh,
Nabiki," he murmured, half-turning, not meeting her eyes.  
"Didn't you know what he was?"

     "No, I didn't."
     
     "But later--"
     
     "Yeah.  Later."
     
     "Why?"
     
     The laughter, as it came forth, sounded bitter and harsh
even to her.  "What was I supposed to do, dad?  Tell them no?"

     Now at last he turned fully around to look at her.  The
anger was all gone out of him.  He looked older than she'd ever
seen him.  "I have been your father for seventeen years, Nabiki,"
he said dully.  "I--"

     He said nothing more.  A divide, steep-sided and empty, had
opened between them.  Nabiki watched him walk to the chairs and
pull one next to Kasumi.  When he spoke to his oldest daughter,
his voice was pitched too low for Nabiki to hear.  Old wounds, 
the buried pain of never being able to have any real closeness at 
all to her father even as a child, throbbed anew beneath the 
scars lain over them.  Akane had been Dad's student, the follower 
of the Art.  Kasumi had kept his house.  What had she done?  It 
wasn't surprising, in the end, that it had come to this.

     Kasumi never said anything back, but her father kept on
talking.  After Nabiki could not stand to look at them any 
longer, she took one of the chairs over to the corner of the 
room near the window, and picked up a fashion magazine three 
months old from the table.  She read two articles without 
remembering a single thing from them, and then the sound of the 
door opening drew her attention from the pictures of elegant 
women in their new summer colours.

     It was Unagi again.  He had his hand on the shoulder of a
girl Nabiki recognized, as if he were guiding her.  With a gentle
push, he urged Akari into the room.  He gave Nabiki a perfunctory
nod, and closed and locked the heavy door of the room again.

     Neither her father or Kasumi moved.  Nabiki put the magazine
down on the floor and crossed to where Akari stood, arms clasped
tightly around herself.  She was very pale, her eyes wide and
unfocused.

     "Hiya," Nabiki said.  Flippancy was always a defence against
anything.  "Come to join the fun?"  Out of the corner of her eye,
she saw her father pause in speaking to Kasumi and give her a
disapproving glare.  She ignored him.

     Akari didn't speak for a few seconds, and when she finally
did, her voice was tremulous.  "It was so cold in there."     
       
     Nabiki had only met Akari briefly, and her impression had
always been that Ryoga's new girlfriend was perfect for him.
They were both cute, loyal, and slightly dim.  "Yeah, whatever."
     
     "So cold."
     
     Nabiki ignored her and began to organize the disparate
thoughts running through her head.  If Akari had been taken as
well, then they were all obviously intended as hostages.  She'd
guess Ranma's mother would be showing up soon.  

     As she pondered, she vaguely noted her father get up and
lead the shaky Akari to a chair.  Hostages or bargaining chips,
against their family and friends.  All of whom were in China,
thousands of miles from here.  Tofu had - she forced her mind not
to dwell on what he'd done, only when he'd arrived - come to the
house at around lunchtime yesterday.  Unagi had said it was
midnight.  It didn't feel like more than a day had passed, so 
unless they had been flown before being put into the van, they
couldn't be much more than twelve hours from Tokyo.  And why did
this place seem familiar?
     
     And what - the final thought, one that brought a surprising
tight sadness with it - had happened to Kuno?     
     
**********

     She was riding on the back of a great dark bird.  Its 
feathers were of iron, its beak was of brass, and its eyes were
filled with molten steel that glowed a fierce red.  They flew
over an endless dark ocean that rolled and surged, white-capped,
below them.  The bird was terrible, but the only alternative was
to release her grip upon the feathers and go plunging into the
sea.

     There was no sound except for the rapid beating of the 
bird's wings, a choppy noise like the buzzing of many insects.  
The transition from dream to reality was as subtle as the change 
of seasons; the metal of the bird became the metal of the cabin, 
the black ocean became the night that sped by outside, and the 
too-fast sound of the wings Nodoka now realized was that of 
helicopter blades.

     She raised her head up from the padded bench she lay upon
and blinked her eyes to clear the last dreamy traces of sleep
from them.  Across from her, Yoko Kontongara raised her half-full
wine glass in a slight greeting, but said nothing.  
     
     The cabin of the helicopter was small but well-appointed,
with padded benches, a small fridge, and a tiny television screen 
in one corner that presented for now only a blank face.  Long
windows showed the night outside, and the grey shapes of clouds
whipping by.  Two doors, opposite one another, presumably led to
the cockpit and somewhere else - probably a washroom.

     A throbbing headache began to make itself known as she sat
up and gave the younger woman her sternest glare.  "I demand," 
she said, "to know what is going on."

     "You are in no position to be making demands," Yoko replied
with what seemed thinly-veiled contempt.  The sounds of the
helicopter blades cutting through the night seemed in time to the
too-fast beating of Nodoka's heart.  Kontongara took a mild sip
of her wine.  The wash of light in the cabin reflected not the
least in the solid black of her glasses.  There was a memory, on
the edge of Nodoka's mind, of what Yoko's eyes had looked like
when she'd removed the shading lenses - but something else held
the memory upon that edge, and would not let it cross over into
full recollection.

     Ugly, unfamiliar, frustration and tension rose to the fore.
She inwardly winced even as the first words left her mouth at the
shrill tone.  "Listen, young lady--"
     
     At that, Yoko threw back her pale head and laughed.  It was
an empty sound, devoid of any true mirth.  "Young," she chuckled.
"Ah, I suppose it would seem true."  Uncomprehending, Nodoka sat
in silence as Yoko rolled one long black glove down her arm and
held up a hand that was wrinkled and worn.  The pale young skin
of her arm flowed gradually into the gnarled flesh of an old 
woman.  "These do not, I would expect, seem the hands of a young
woman."

     Nodoka nodded.  A dryness like dust had invaded her mouth.
     
     "I was seventy-seven last spring," Yoko continued, pulling
off her other glove and holding up her hands before her.  "The 
hands, for some reason, have aged while the rest of me has not.  
I have never understood why.  That and the eyes, of course, are 
the marks I bear from the master."

     It took effort to form words, to ask a question.  Not upon
any of what she'd said now, but of what had been said earlier.
"How do you know my son?"

     "I have been your son's watcher," Yoko answered.  "His
silent shadow, for all his life.  When he was born, I was there.
When your husband took him from you, I was there.  When--"

     "Where is he now?"
     
     "Jusenkyou."
     
     Hope flared, wild, incandescent.  "Then he--"
     
     "Yes, of course he is," Yoko said, cutting her off.  "It
would not do to have him be anything but."  The way she said it 
made Nodoka realize for the first time how truly dangerous Yoko
was; the coldness of her tone left no doubt that she felt Ranma
lived only because she had chosen to let him.  The ruthlessness
in her voice was absolute.

     "Again I am to be used as a pawn against my son, then?"

     Yoko said nothing in reply.  The question had not truly
needed to be answered anyway.          
     
     "You said at the house that you were a mother like me," 
Nodoka said softly.  "Can you not understand my grief, then?  
For your own children, would you not--"

     She trailed away.  Somehow, she had hit some nerve.  The
tight rage in the lines around Yoko's mouth choked off the rest
of her words.

     "Do not speak to me of grief," she said, deadly cold.  "When
they brought me from the ruins of my home in Nagasaki, I had been 
blinded by the light.  All the skin had been scorched from my 
body.  Yet I would not die.  For two years, I lay wishing for 
death with every fibre of my being, but they would not let me 
die.  I heard the screams of my three children as they burned for 
two years inside my head."

     With the words, it was as if a vast pit had been opened
beneath Nodoka, and the winds of some deep abyss howled up from
within it.  Such a thing as this could barely even be 
comprehended, let alone understood.

     "Now I am as you see me.  He has made me whole again, and
more even than that."

     How long a time lay between those words and the next Nodoka
could not have said.  Such a thing as time had ceased to matter.
When at last Yoko spoke again, it was so quiet that Nodoka barely
heard it.  The pale woman had turned her head away, and cupped 
her chin with one ancient hand as she stared out the window.  No
blindness there; Nodoka did not remember precisely what had been
beneath those glasses, but it had not been blindness.

     "Do not speak to me of grief."
     
**********

     They had begun to kill the animals hours ago.  There were
many of them, and the women were mages.  When the animals died, 
their bodies shrank to normal proportions as the magic of the 
waters left them.

     By a pool in a garden, the Lady of Life sat and watched as
image after image of the slaughter in the forest flitted within
the waters.  She had known the fall was coming, of course; it had
been inevitable since the arrival of the Lord of Waters.  

     That did not, however, make it easier to watch.  The animals
of wood and field, innocent of the evils that plagued the minds 
of man, were her children before all others.  To see them die 
like this wounded her heart.  That she could not aid them, here
in her sanctuary, and remain safe herself, made the hurt even 
more bitter.

     Ryugenzawa would fall, as Wurdsenlin had.  That was written
in the stars, in the tracing of the sun through the sky, in the
spinning of the worlds through space.  Written in the solitary
flow of the waters as they wound beneath the earth in the 
endless questing to sea.

     In his lake, the guardian of the forest - shadow of her
shadow - stirred.  He too could feel the dying of the animals,
and the pain of the forest as the blood of human and beast
seeped into the ground and touched the roots of trees.  She 
soothed him and held him fast in his sleep; it was not time yet.

     Unlike her sister, the forking maze of the future did not
lie open and comprehensible to her.  There was only immediacy for
her, and instinct.  There were chances, and only that.  For now,
she waited.

     Overhead, the sunlight fell through the oceanic depths and
struck the green crystal dome that enclosed her garden.  It 
filtered through, emerald-tinged, and the plants and trees of the
garden stretched eagerly towards it.

     With each drop of blood that fell upon the soil of 
Ryugenzawa, another hairline crack appeared.  Soon enough, she
would have to wake the forest guardian, whether there was 
anything but time to be gained by it or not.

**********

     The helicopter carrying Yoko and Nodoka touched down, in the
same field the van had arrived in, an hour later.  Nodoka, still
shaken from the conversation, was given into the hands of
subordinates and taken to the room where the others were kept.
Yoko held the meeting in a small room dominated by a round table.
The noticeable absence of Tofu, atop the fiasco at the Tendo
house, sent her into a cold rage, and she vowed silently that she
was going to have words with her ko-daimyo when he appeared.

     As if responding to her thoughts, Tofu stepped into the
room, albeit five minutes late.  His hair had dried spikily from
walking in the rain hours earlier, and he gave the others the 
boyish, half-apologetic grin that had caught Akane's heart from 
the first time she'd seen him.  It did not have the desired 
effect, but he hid his apprehension.

     Unagi, stiff-backed in his chair by Yamiko, regarded his 
former student with thinly veiled distaste.  Tofu had learned the
arts of manipulating the body's ki by pressure points well from
him - too well, in Unagi's opinion, for the kind of man he was.
He would not admit it to anyone but himself, but perhaps there
was some jealousy there.  It had taken him thirty years to become
ko-daimyo in Osaka, the absolute leader of the Children there and
second only to Yamiko in commanding them.  Tofu had come to that 
position in Tokyo in a third of that.  The quickest ascension 
ever.  Favoured by the master, it was said.  Unagi knew 
different: Tofu was simply perfectly suited to his position.  
Most men took decades to become what he had been from the day he 
was born.

     Yamiko simply watched her cool, efficient ko-daimyo look at
Tofu, and chuckled inwardly.  Little love lost there between 
teacher and student.  On her lap she held a scrawny cat that had 
been wandering the streets of the town, and fed it scraps of meat 
that she pinched between her fingernails.  The cat purred 
contentedly, a sound that Yamiko had always found soothing and 
conducive to planning and thought.

     The fifth one at the meeting, standing in the corner, didn't
say or think anything at all.

     "You're late," Yoko said, the edge on her voice audible to
everyone in the room.

     Tofu sketched a quick but respectful bow.  "Forgive me,
honoured mother of the night.  Attending to what was necessary
took longer than I thought it would."

     "Perhaps you are simply growing incompetent."
     
     The words cracked like a whip.  Tofu began to realize then
just how angry Yoko was, and Unagi grinned slightly with 
pleasure.  Yamiko knuckled between the cat's ears, and it arched
its back and purred louder.

     Yoko stood, voice cold and measured.  "I have tolerated your
little quirks before, Tofu, distasteful as I myself may find 
them, because they have never interfered in your work before."

     "Honoured mother--"
     
     Her hand flew out.  Tofu screamed and fell to his knees as a
pressure like the deepest depths of the ocean came down upon him.

     "Eight men, Tofu," Yoko snarled.  "Not only that, but eight
of our elite troops.  I am very unhappy.  So is Yamiko."  She
indicated the other woman with a wave of her hand.  Yamiko hissed
in response and the cat meowed uncertainly as she ceased her
stroking of it.

     Tofu felt as if his eyes were going to explode, his eardrums
burst.  Yoko kept the pressure on a moment longer, then dropped
her hand and let Tofu fall prostrate and gasping.

     "The girl is nearly catatonic, by the way," Unagi commented,
resting his elbows on the table and folding his hands within the
depths of his sleeves.  "I had always thought you liked them to
struggle, Tofu."

     Yamiko stopped her attention to the cat altogether.  It
hopped off to the floor and padded over to the rigid figure of
the fifth, rubbing up against his long legs and purring.  There
was no response.

     Tofu didn't say anything back, but he raised his head and
gazed back, and the hatred between the two men was clear as 
glass.  It went deeper than the purely political maneuvers that
had made Yamiko go against Yoko before; it was a distaste for 
what the other was.  Unagi was so competent at what he did 
because he was experienced - a veteran soldier of the master.  
Tofu, on the other hand, simply had his mind put together in such
a way that he would have served the master's cause in the end 
even if he never knew of their great lord's existence.  In
slaughter the master reveled, and in pain; Tofu and those such
as him were almost always favourites.

     "Don't fight," Yoko said, and the tension between the two
men was buried again.  "Put personal differences aside."  She
felt weary, and wished inwardly that she had not spoken to Nodoka
Saotome as she had.  Too many memories had been dredged up out of 
the past for the work of this dark hour.

     Yamiko let out a deep, phlegmy growl and gestured at Unagi.
He had learned over the years to understand what passed for
speech in her.  Left in charge of preparations for the past few
days, he gave his report.  "We began moving into the forest at
your orders before sunset.  Fifteen teams of ten Children and one 
Circle mistress; I held the rest back to relieve them when
necessary.  The animals are very large, but die easily enough; 
they are not afraid as normal ones are, and walk quite willingly
into ambushes.  There has been no sign of anything odd."  He 
paused, then laughed softly.  "Except, of course, the giant 
animals."

     "She is here," Yoko said softly, a thin hatred in her tone.
Always on the edge of her mind, the master stirred suddenly and 
stroked her with his power, and the hate swelled.  "If we kill 
enough, she will come forth.  Then we will proceed."  She turned
her head to Tofu, who had shakily found a chair.  "On other
matters..."

     The fifth attendant of the meeting stepped out of the 
corner, barely missing putting his foot down on the cat.  It
hissed and scuttled under Yamiko's chair.

     Tofu had not even noticed him, but he hid his shock well
enough.  "What--"

     Yamiko chortled softly.  A dank sound.
     
     "Eight men," Yoko said.  "Eight men bound to us.  It was
only appropriate."

     "I do not entirely approve," Unagi murmured.  "I had men who 
were more than willing to be bound."

     "As did I," Tofu said quietly, looking the silent figure up
and down.  "All that, for a single--"

     "Eight men," Yoko repeated.  "Without a wound upon him."
     
     Tofu licked his lips.  Sorcery, the true magic of the 
Circle, had always unnerved him.  "How--"

     "He's mine now," Yoko answered before he could finish.
"Yamiko can have him later."

     Yamiko nodded.  She reached down under her chair and ran a
gentle hand along the cat's back.

     Unagi leaned back slightly in his chair and looked out the 
window at the silent town.  "There is no further reason to delay, 
I think."

     "No," Yoko agreed.  "None at all."
     
**********

     Nodoka was escorted to the room on the second floor by an
angry-looking young woman whose lip and cheek bore the marks of
a recent blow, and two unsmiling men.  Her arm was gripped a 
little too tightly by the woman, but she didn't complain.  When
they opened the door, and she saw the Tendos, her heart sank a
little.  She had suspected, of course, but seeing that they were
here as well was nevertheless disheartening.  The girl was
unfamiliar, but no doubt had some connection as well to those who 
had gone away.

     More disheartening, however, was the feeling in the room; 
one of separation.  In a family that seemed as close-knit as
Soun's, it was hard thing to see.  Nabiki was seated in the
corner, thumbing through a magazine.  Soun was sitting beside
Kasumi near a low table, but neither of them seemed to be 
talking.  The unknown girl was by the window, elbows on the sill
and chin cupped in her hands.  It was the lack of speech that was
the worst; the silence was cloying and tight.  In a situation
like this, they should have been talking, offering each other
what comfort they could.  But there was none of that.

     All but the girl at the window looked up as she entered.
Behind her, the door was closed and locked.  Soun gave her only a
glance, and then returned to staring at the bare wooden floor as
he had been before, as if too ashamed to meet her gaze for long.
Nabiki performed an almost identical act, not even saying a word
of greeting before returning to her magazine.  

     Neither of them compared, however, to Kasumi.  The pain in
the girl's large dark eyes as she looked up was staggering, and
the blank look that immediately replaced it nearly as terrible.
The eyes were those of someone long imprisoned; the eyes of the
walking wounded.  What, Nodoka wondered, could have happened to 
do this to all of them?
     
     The question was answered a moment later, because Kasumi's
eyes swam from the dull flatness to an almost manic brightness.
"He came in the house," she said, her voice clear and steady.  
"He came in the house and he touched me.  It's all so dirty."  
The tone was one of dread, self-loathing so deep it was sharp as
any blade.  "So much filth."  She fell silent and began to rub 
her hands together.

     Soun began, quite softly and suddenly, to weep into his
cupped hands.  Nodoka almost yelled at him.  He was supposed to
be strong here.  The gods help his daughters if their father 
couldn't be strong in the face of this.

     Nabiki closed her magazine with a dry snap and stood up.
"Oh, stop that.  It's not going to do us any good to have you
bawling like a two year-old."

     Nodoka winced.  "Nabiki," she said, gently but firmly.  "Do
not ever speak to your father like that in my presence again, if
you have the slightest respect for him or for the memory of your
mother.  At least your father shows some emotion for your 
sister."

     Nabiki's mouth hung open, as if she could not manage to
close it.  She looked as if she'd been slapped.  Good, Nodoka
thought with surprising venom.  Maybe she'll actually learn
some respect for her father, weak or not.

     Soun had stopped crying.  Like all the swingings of his 
mood, it had been brief.  Now he was awkwardly patting his eldest
child on the shoulder, saying things too soft for Nodoka to hear.
     
     At the window, the unfamiliar girl finally turned and looked
at Nodoka.  She was very pretty, but looked as if she'd just been
through something quite terrible.  "What are they going to do
with us?" she asked softly.  

     Nodoka crossed the room to stand by her, the two of them
looking out through the small window at the tall conical shapes
of the trees.  "I don't know, dear," she replied.  "I don't 
know."

     "I'm Akari Unryuu," the girl said.  "Ryoga's girlfriend."
     
     Ryoga was a good boy, Nodoka thought vaguely.  It was nice
that he had someone; there'd always been a sort of loneliness in
him all the times she'd seen him.  "I'm Nodoka Saotome.  Ranma's
mother."

     Akari nodded, closed her eyes.  Nodoka, in a familiar
gesture from the long-ago childhood of her son, reached out and
touched her forehead.  It was very cold.  "Do you feel all right,
dear?  Have you been sick?"

     "I don't know," Akari murmured, not opening her eyes.  "I
don't remember anything.  I went to Ryoga's house and she was
there.  We went through a cold place."

     "You don't know what happened to them, do you?"
     
     Akari shook her head.  "None of them seem to want to talk,"
she replied.  "I don't really want to right now either."  
Downcast, she opened her eyes at last, but couldn't look at
Nodoka's face.  "I'm sorry."

     "I understand," Nodoka said soothingly.  Pushing back
hesitation, she took a chair to where Nabiki sat, eyes closed and
head tilted back.  The clothing she wore was mismatched and
looked to have been hastily thrown on her.  The magazine lay on 
the floor beside the chair, pages askew as if tossed there.  
"Nabiki?"
     
     Her eyes opened.  "What?" she asked guardedly.  Nodoka
wondered what different paths Nabiki had walked than her sisters,
to fill her with so much bitterness.  Or was it not a matter of
that so much as simply one of different natures?

     "I need to know what happened," Nodoka said, gently as she
could.  "I can't ask Soun or Kasumi.  Akari doesn't know.  If I'm
going to do anything to help, I need to know."

     Nabiki told her quietly.  The room was large, and they were 
far enough away from the others that no one else heard.  That,
Nodoka thought, was important.  She listened, and each word from
Nabiki cut her like a blade.

     At the end, Nodoka had tears in her eyes.  Nabiki's were dry 
as bone.  She seemed to have done all the crying she would allow
herself to do already.  "It should have been me," she said
hollowly.  "He said if I let him, he wouldn't touch her.  But I
couldn't.  I couldn't."

     Oh, child, Nodoka thought, wanting to reach out and hold
Nabiki, not knowing if she ever could.  Oh, my darling child.  
Such a pain in her now, risen to the surface.  There were no
shields here, nothing for Nabiki to throw between herself and the
rawness of her emotions.  

     "He broke her," Nabiki muttered.  "I couldn't do it, and the
son of a bitch broke her."

     Oh, child.
     
     When she wrapped her arms around Nabiki's slim shoulders and
drew her close, the girl stiffened at first.  For a long minute,
Nodoka simply held her, and said nothing.  

     At last, slowly, Nabiki raised her arms and put them around
Nodoka.  She couldn't weep.  But she clung, desperately, like a
child, for a long time.

**********

     Hours from sunrise, the hostages were taken back to the
field, and loaded into the back of van.  The mentality of 
prisoners had fallen upon them now; the silent submission that
allows survival.  The van drove the short distance to the
borders of Ryugenzawa.  Hills flattened out and melted into lush 
woodlands here.  Unobscured that night by clouds, what remained 
of the moon cast a pale light down upon the land.  They were led 
by their silent escorts into the woods, to a tiny grove through 
which a thin stream trickled.

     Two dozen of Unagi and Tofu's men were there, and perhaps 
half that number of Circle members.  The prisoners' hands had
been bound again, and they stood in a small and silent huddle,
each terrified in their own way of what might happen next.

     After a time, five people came walking out of the night and
into the grove.  There were the two senior Circle members, and 
their ko-daimyo, and one other.  The last was the only one of 
them who bore visible weapons among the five; two sheathed swords 
at his waist.  Nabiki saw the clothing he wore, though his head 
had been covered by a blank hood of black leather, and recognized 
him.  She let out the tiniest sound of grief, not even a whisper. 
Next to her, Soun glanced up at his middle daughter, and looked 
away.

     From within the forest, the occasional sound of a human or
animal voice crying out in pain could be faintly heard.  The 
bark of the trees looked strange in the moonlight, weirdly 
distorted.  In the air, there was a sort of dry electricity that 
made the hairs of the body stand on end.

     Yoko, clad in the full robes of her office, stepped before
the prisoners.  "You are privileged to witness this first step
towards the returning of this world to its true master."

     None of them spoke.  The sorceress turned away, with nothing 
more to say.  One of Tofu's men laughed softly and fingered the
hilt of his katana.  

     The dozen Circle members, bright and chaotic patches of 
colour against the dark clothing of the others, linked hands and
ringed Yoko and Yamiko.  Unagi and Tofu moved closer to the
prisoners.  Tofu gave the barest of grins to Kasumi, and Soun
snarled deep in his throat and almost started forward.  A soft
word from Nodoka checked him.

     Yoko pulled a bundled sheaf of papers from the recesses of
her robes, and looked about.  Trees stretched their branches high
overhead, and in the tiny trickle of the stream the reflection of
the moon shimmered.  

     "Bring the oldest girl," she commanded sharply.

     Two men grabbed Kasumi by the arms.  She let out a soft
sound, and went limp.  Soun cried out his daughter's name, and
this time he did start forward.  Unagi intercepted him and laid 
him flat on his back with a stunningly fast blow to the chin.

     Kasumi was taken into the circle, the women parting for a
moment to admit her.  As if upon impulse, Nabiki stepped forward.

     "Take me instead."
     
     Yoko's head turned.  The black-glass gaze swept over Nabiki.
"No.  You are not fit.  She will not be harmed badly."

     The men who had taken Kasumi stepped out of the ring.  
Kasumi swayed, eyes closed, and looked as if she would fall.  At
the last moment, she did not.  Her eyes opened, and she looked
from Yoko to Yamiko with something utterly unreadable in her 
gaze.  On the ground, Soun groaned softly.

     The fifth one, the hooded one, stood motionless as a statue.
     
     Yoko raised the papers to the sky, clenched in one pale 
fist, and cried a harsh and guttural word of power that cracked 
through the night air like a mountain breaking.  The dozen women
in the circle echoed it as one.  A wind grew from nowhere into 
the grove, and ran through the grass and the leaves of the trees 
to dance ripples upon the water.

     Swiftly, Yamiko stepped forward and seized Kasumi's right
arm.  She raised it, and a quick slash of her nails scored open
the wrist.  Kasumi did not scream; she did not make a sound.  
Yamiko squeezed, and a rain of blood fell upon the earth.  The
circle became an open-edged wedge and, with Yoko and Yamiko at
the head, advanced to the edge of the stream.  The women raised
their voices in low chants.  Kasumi's blood trailed on the grass
behind her as Yamiko continued to grip her wrist.  Nabiki closed
her eyes and muttered something too soft for anyone to ever hear.

     When Yamiko moved Kasumi's bleeding wrist over the rushing 
of the stream so that the blood fell upon the waters, the wind
picked up, and tore leaves from the trees until they swirled 
overhead like a flock of jade birds.

     Yoko cried out a word again, a long and ceaseless string of
clicking syllables that seemed to echo and reverberate throughout
the clearing.  The air rang with the sound of it, and the tiniest
of tremors ran through the earth.  In the water, Kasumi's blood
did not disperse, but hung like a stain in the flow.

     And like the drawing back of a curtain, the veil of 
protection fell away from Ryugenzawa.  Now the trees could be
seen in all their glory; towering and mighty, the sort that long
ago would have been cut down had they not been hidden.

     "It is done," Yoko said, lowering the arm that clutched the
papers.  She sounded weary but triumphant, half-disbelieving that
it had finally been accomplished.  "She is here.  I felt her."  A 
slow, triumphant, hateful smile came onto her face.  "And she is 
afraid."

     The thin sound of hands clapping drew everyone's attention
away.  "Very good," a sardonically cultured woman's voice said.
"Very good indeed, Yoko."

**********

     Soun raised his head from the ground to see the women
walking in an arrowhead shape towards the stream, his wounded 
daughter pulled along by the leaders.  Handcuffed or not, he was
going to--

     A foot landed on the small of his back, not hard, but with
enough pressure to prevent him moving.  Unagi, perhaps ten years
older than him, looked down.  "Honoured mother of the shadows 
will not harm her permanently," he murmured reassuringly.  "Do
not fight or I will be forced to hurt you further."

     There was a low hum on the edge of Soun's mind, mixing with
the crackling, electrical feel of the air.  The wind was tugging
at his hair like fingers; this close to the earth, he could smell
the rich and fertile scent of it.  An ant crawled across a stick
inches from his nose.

     Out in the underbrush, a dozen feet from the edge of the
grove, he saw a flicker of movement.  Tofu's voice was very soft
over the sound of the chanting.  "Not to interrupt your dialogue,
my honoured former teacher, but we are surrounded."  His tones
held no respect; only mockery.

     The voice of the woman who seemed to lead the ceremonies 
cried out again, and Soun saw the trees change.  The image of
them bent and skewed, and he saw like the end of chrysalis the
truth of the forest.  Trees that had seemed stunted or simply
average were revealed as towering.  Somehow, the eye had not
realized it.  The earth shook.

     The leader said something, but Soun didn't hear all the 
words.  He did hear the clapping, and as Unagi hauled him up to
his feet, he saw the gaunt woman walking out from the woods.  
"Very good.  Very good indeed, Yoko.  Unfortunate that you chose
not to ask me along.  I would have enjoyed it."

     "Fuhaiko," Yoko said casually, as the other women began to
disperse from their formation.  The black-clad one in the mask
led Kasumi back to stand with the prisoners.  The wound on her
wrist appeared to have already stopped bleeding.  Unagi had his 
hand on Soun's shoulder; his grip was tight and tense.  "You 
shouldn't be here."

     "Do not tell me what I should and should not be doing,
traitor."  All the amusement was out of the gaunt woman's voice
now.  "You have violated our code, Yoko.  You have moved against
another Circle member without trial."

     Yoko's voice when she answered was low and dangerous.  "You
make such accusations quite casually for having no evidence, nor
anyone to back you up."  There was a long pause.  "Nor, it seems,
anyone but yourself here."

     Fuhaiko laughed and raised a hand.  From the sky, a black
shape landed upon her wrist in a flurry of wings.  "You think me 
that stupid, Yoko?"

     "There are a good three dozen of them," Tofu said.  He 
looked and sounded relaxed, but his easy stance was on the edge
of being ready to fight.  "Both yours and mine, honoured mother
of the night.  Though I suspect these ones have more loyalty to
honoured mother of the plague in Kagoshima than to you."  The
last words were said with the slightest tone of amusement.

     "You missed all of mine," someone said in a low whisper from
just behind them.  Unagi let go of Soun's shoulder and turned.
This woman was short as the other was tall, and in pale grey to
the other's sickly green.  "They're further away, but await my
command."
     
     "And quite a few more of mine are close at hand," Fuhaiko
said, picking up as the other woman stopped talking.  "I've been
having them move into the area over the last few days.  
Concurrent, I might add, with the rather surreptitious movements 
of your own.  You shouldn't have left us out, Yoko."

     "I had left instructions for all the other branches to be
informed this morning," Yoko responded angrily.  "Beyond that, 
however, you make these accusations of me.  What cause have you
to do such things?"

     Fuhaiko smiled thinly.  "Will you swear, upon your blood,
that you did not send a girl bearing a box that contained the
Living Dark to Hako and to Clan Kenzan?"

     Soun saw Yoko stiffen slightly.  Somehow, although he
understood nothing of what they spoke, he knew that the words had 
struck home.  She recovered quickly, but it had been obvious 
enough that no one watching could have missed it.  The tiniest of 
hopes began to grow in Soun.

     "This is not the time for such things," Yoko said after a
moment of heavy silence.  "We are about to take vengeance upon
the eldest of them.  Do you know how long this has been in
coming, Fuhaiko?  Dare you interfere in it now?  The rules of our
Circle are only transitory.  A thousand generations served our
lord before we began.  His goals are eternal."

     "Nevertheless," Fuhaiko replied, shaking her head so that
her lank hair swirled about her bony face.  On her wrist, the big
crow squawked softly.  "Nevertheless, you cannot take the oath, 
can you?"

     Next to Soun, Unagi had an uncertain expression on his
narrow features.  "Honoured mother of the night," he asked
softly.  "Is--"

     The masked woman, who stood near Kasumi and Nabiki, turned
on him and hissed softly.  Unagi went instantly silent.

     "Let us settle this later," Yoko said diplomatically.  The
tension was rising in the grove.  Soun could see other men and
women in the woods nearby; the men all held weapons, long swords
or spears.  "After we have united against this common foe.  
Yamiko and I have nearly a thousand ranging within these woods or 
nearby.  I suspect you and Nenreiko have much the same."

     "We do," the stout woman said in her whispery voice.
     
     Soun glanced over to his daughters.  Nabiki caught his eye,
and he looked away.  He could not bear to look at his middle 
daughter, now that he understood.  Oh, Nabiki, he thought
mournfully.  How could you betray your family?  The forgiveness 
of that did not yet lie within him, and he hated himself for
that.

     "Let us do it together, then," Yoko said, looking from 
Nenreiko to Fuhaiko.  Yamiko hissed her own assent to the idea.

     "Let those below us do it together," Fuhaiko said.  "We are
going to settle this.  Take the oath.  If you pass, I will do
this.  If you fail, you shall step down from your position and 
defer to me."

     Yoko raised one gloved hand and touched the needle that
bound her hair.  "You know not what you do, Fuhaiko."

     "I know exactly what it is you do."
     
     The laughter that came from Yoko was harsh.  "Then take the
oath yourself.  Swear upon your blood, thin and sickly as it is,
that you took no role against Hako."

     Now it was Fuhaiko's turn to look shocked, and to hide it
moments later.  "You know not of what you speak."

     "Do I not."  Yoko's voice was low but triumphant.  "Who do
you think I am, Fuhaiko?  I am the eyes of the night, and _I can
see all of what you have done_!"

     Soun saw Yamiko give the slightest hand signal to Unagi,
almost unnoticeable.     

     "Your forces are farther from here than mine, Fuhaiko," Yoko
said.  "You should have come earlier."  One hand was inside a
pocket of her robes now, and appeared to be gripping something.

     "We've been occupied," Fuhaiko said dryly.  She stroked the
head of the crow upon her wrist.  Her lips moved, but if she said
anything, Soun didn't hear it.

     Everything seemed to happen all at once.  Unagi spun on 
Nenreiko, steel shining in the moonlight as a pair of long 
fighting talons slipped onto his hands from within the depths of
his sleeves.  On Fuhaiko's wrist, the crow screeched and became a
writhing mass of sickly green-black flesh for the briefest of
moments; then it shot forward over the dozen feet between the
gaunt woman and Yoko, half-flying through the air, half-scuttling
upon the ground.  Shadows rose from the earth around Yamiko, like 
the sudden burning of flames, and she simply vanished into them 
as if consumed.  Yoko screamed a command that was lost in the 
clashes of weapon on weapon and the bolts of power arcing through 
the air as the small forces of the two sides met in battle.

     Tofu moved for Kasumi.  His side was open completely.

     Soun spun, pivoted, and with the desperate strength and 
speed born of the absolute knowledge that this truly _was_ the 
only chance, kicked him as hard as he could in the ribs.  He 
opened his mouth and bellowed, "Run!"

     Tofu's scream was deeply gratifying.  Soun shifted, 
followed up; he moved awkwardly because of the handcuffs, but
still had enough in him to land a second kick into Tofu's ribs,
one that almost knocked him to the ground.  Enthused with a grim
rage, he threw a third kick, a sweeping axe blow that would have
shattered Tofu's skull had it connected.  The doctor caught the
blow upon his palm, grunted, and twisted.  Soun felt the bones of
his ankle break.  As he fell, biting off a cry of pain, he 
managed to sweep Tofu's legs out from under him.  The landing on 
his back sent pain snapping through his arms.  He saw that the
women were running, and as Tofu rose up and began to hit him in 
the face again and again, he prayed desperately that they might
get away.

**********

     Yoko saw Kuronuma, the most potent of Fuhaiko's warped 
little creations, flow in a seething and monstrous mass from his
mistress's arm.  The command had already been sent, though.  
Halfway to her, Kuronuma was intercepted by the grim, silent
figure of Tatewaki Kuno.  

     The binding had been difficult.  Terribly difficult.  To
Yamiko, and to her.  He had fought hard.  But now he was theirs;
what she held within her robes guaranteed that.

     Kuno's swords flashed down.  Kuronuma shrieked like a 
wounded child.  Power flared from Fuhaiko, and Yoko barely got a
shield up in time.  The attack punched against the shield like a
great fist, and their two wills warred for a moment before it 
fell away.

     Fuhaiko leapt, bolt after bolt flying from her hands.  Yoko
dodged, shielded, and counter-attacked with a wave of force that
sliced the tops off several trees but failed completely to hit
the other sorceress.  Somewhere on the edge of her mind, the
realized that the Circle had just been broken.  Fourteen hundred
years of tradition thrown out, just like that.

     Oh well.  These things happened sometimes.  The prisoners
were trying to run.  They wouldn't get far.  The Children loyal
to her and Yamiko were warring with those of Nenreiko and
Fuhaiko, both sides shouting battle cries to the master.  
Fanatics, Yoko thought with mild amusement.  

     Kuno was hacking at the malleable shape of Kuronuma faster
than it could put itself back together.  The thing screamed and
writhed, but the swords moved too quickly.     
          
     As Fuhaiko came down, Yoko threw her arms up.  A towering
pillar of black flame exploded around her, narrowly missing the 
gaunt woman.  Fuhaiko's hands were wreathed in light the sickly 
yellow-green of a festered wound.  She lashed out, and
Yoko stepped back.  Perhaps she'd be able to fight off the
effects of the carrion-mistress's touch, but she wasn't going to
do it if she didn't have to.  

     Nenreiko had Unagi by the throat with both hands.  His flesh 
was searing off his skin, decades of aging hitting him all at 
once.  Something exploded from the shadows behind her, and Yamiko
nearly severed her spine with one swipe of her hand.  Stupid,
Yoko thought grimly as she watched Nenreiko fall.  She had known
the other woman for over thirty years, and Nenreiko had always
become too intent on single tasks like that.

     This should have affected her more than it should have.  The
Circle was broken; days earlier when she had spoken to Ritter in
her office and he had told her she should kill Yamiko, had she 
even imagined this could come to pass?  She should have mourned
the breaking of the Circle.  But she did not.  There was only a 
rapturous joy as she matched power with Fuhaiko, as Fuhaiko's 
bolts glanced off her shields and hers glanced off Fuhaiko's.  
Like all other times when she felt a way she knew she should not, 
she knew what it was.  The hand of the master, touching her, 
letting her know his will.  He approved, she realized.

     It was drawing to a close already.  Nenreiko was down, dead
or dying, and Yamiko was moving among the enemy like a dark
scythe.  Most of them seemed to be surrendering.  Yamiko even
seemed to be accepting most of the surrenders.

     "You've lost, Fuhaiko," Yoko said, catching the eye of the 
other woman where she stood a dozen feet away near a shattered 
tree.  Their short fight had devastated the area around them, 
cracking trees and sundering the earth.  On the ground near Kuno, 
the dank and leaking remains of Kuronuma lay.  Kuno had his 
swords held low, ready again to kill it if it awoke.

     "Perhaps," Fuhaiko growled.  The hate was deep and fierce in
her eyes.  "But it doesn't mean I have to let you live."  Her
voice rose to a shout.  "NOW, LITTLE WORM!"

     Nothing happened.  Fuhaiko's mouth hung open in shock for a
moment, and then the remains of Kuronuma swelled up into a single
protean shape and smashed Kuno away.  Yoko was distracted for 
only a moment, but Fuhaiko's blast smashed her flat on her back 
with the wind knocked out of her all the same.  The battle was 
fading, but still not over yet.  Fuhaiko loomed over her as she 
tried to recover her breath.  Yoko tried to summon enough power
to stay her, even for a moment, but there simply wasn't the time.
Fuhaiko raised a her hand.  Her fingers burned with a sickly 
aura.

     "What should I give you?" she hissed.  "So many ways to 
die--"  That was the end of her speech.  Forever.  A needle-thin
blade punched through her heart from behind and just as quickly 
withdrew.  Her killer, a wizened old man in rich robes, wiped the 
blade on Fuhaiko's sleeve and slipped it back within the 
concealment of his cane.  Yoko saw that he had wings.

     He knelt before her as she sat up shakily.  Respectfully, he
touched his forehead to the earthen floor of the forest.  "I am
Xande, formerly of Phoenix Mountain.  Your servant, if you will
have me."

     It was over now.  How quickly it was over.  She stood, and
looked down at the prostrate winged man.  "I will have you for
now.  For later, if you prove yourself worthy."

     He nodded and kept his head down.  Yoko hid her disgust.
Fuhaiko had given him the right name.  A little worm he was, with
no loyalty at all; perhaps he thought she couldn't tell what he
was, but her eyes saw the thread of his life as easily as other
eyes might see the light of day.  

     Kuronuma was nowhere to be seen.  Kuno was on his feet 
again, silent and tall, with his swords sheathed.  There had been
surprisingly little deaths of either side; twenty bodies in all, 
not including Nenreiko and Fuhaiko.  The survivors of the losing 
side were ringed by the winners.  Yamiko was kneeling down by the
prone body of the Tendo father; next to her, Saotome's mother was
doing the same.  Unagi was a practically mummified shape nearby, 
shrunken to the size of a child within his dark clothes.

     Yoko strode up, and cast a glance to Nodoka.  "Why didn't
you run?" she asked.  The edge of her voice was disdainful, but
she was genuinely intrigued.  

     "I did, at first," Nodoka murmured, touching her fingers to
Soun's forehead.  His face was covered in blood.  "But then I saw
Soun fall, and I thought, I want to see my son more than 
anything."  She smiled softly.  "Also, I managed to get in the 
way of the doctor.  Anything to let Kasumi and the others get
away from him.  He wasn't very pleased."  And, face tightening
with pain, she held up a hand on which two of the fingers were
obviously broken.

      A cold rage ran through Yoko.  One more act of unnecessary
brutality from Tofu.  He would be dealt with.  "Where is the
ko-daimyo?"
     
     "He went after the prisoners," one of her subordinates in
the Circle reported.  

     Cursing silently, Yoko turned to the remains of Nenreiko and
Fuhaiko's force.  They had taken most of the casualties, and now
looked back at her warily.

     "Fuhaiko and Nenreiko attempted to usurp power from me, the
one chosen by the master to be the supreme mistress of the 
Circle Eternal," she said crisply.  "They received what they 
deserved after making false accusations.  Do you understand 
that?"

     "Supreme mistress!" one of the Circle members cried out.  
"There is no such thing!  Power is shared between--"

     Yoko waved her hand.  The woman fell without a sound, broken
like a toy.  No one said anything else for what felt like a very 
long time.  

     "Go to those who came with you," Yoko said at last.  "Tell
them the truth of what happened here."  She smiled in a way that
made it absolutely clear what she meant.  "The truth."

     Yamiko made an uncertain sound deep in her throat.  Yoko
looked pointedly at her, and she quieted.  "Yamiko, take half
your people and go looking for the prisoners.  I'll do the same with
mine.  The prisoners stay here."  She glanced to the bodies of 
Nenreiko and Fuhaiko.  "After, of course, we retrieve the gifts 
of our founder."

     With a growl and a wave of her hand, Yamiko indicated Kuno.
     
     "He'll go with me," Yoko replied.  "For now."
     
     "What can I do?"
     
     Yoko turned to look at Xande.  Her eyes narrowed.  "You're
with me.  Did you happen to see where Fuhaiko's pet went?"

     The winged man shook his head.  Yoko laughed for a moment.
"Watch your back.  It was very attached to her.  I suspect it
will be looking for you once it gets over her death."

     She laughed again at the look that brought to his ancient
face, and turned to the main body of the group again.  Just once,
she clapped her hands.  "Go.  For the glory of the master."

     The night's work had just barely begun.
     
**********

     Nabiki didn't even have time to think.  She heard her father
say to run, and she did.  Not following anyone, not looking to
see whether anyone was behind her, she fled into the depths of
the forest.  As she ran, she thanked whoever might be listening
for the brightness of the moon overhead.  That was the only thing
that let her see enough to prevent her from tripping over 
something.

     Magic.  That was all it could have been.  And something
different, more powerful, than Ranma's transformations or
otherwise.  An entire forest had changed in front of her eyes.
She had felt the power in the air, the invisible presence of
something totally beyond her experience.  And it frightened her.
There was nothing humorous about it, nothing laughable as 
Ranma's curse had been so often.  It was primal, deep, and
powerful.
     
     If she could manage to elude whoever might be pursuing, and
get out of this forest, and get to a phone, then maybe there'd be
hope for the rest of them.  Maybe Kasumi and her father and 
Nodoka and Akari had gotten away too.  Maybe they'd all escape.
     
     Maybe someone would pull up in a fast car and offer her a 
ride.  Nabiki ran, cursing Tofu, cursing herself and what she'd
done.  She hoped her father had broken every rib in Tofu's body 
with that kick.

     She scrambled over a rocky rise in the land, splashed 
through an ankle-deep stream, and reeled back on the other side
as a huge dark shape loomed up before her.

     It was a rabbit.  A rabbit the size of a small elephant.
     
     A thin, involuntary moan escaped her.  Now she knew where
she was, and why the town had seemed familiar.  She should have
figured it out earlier.  Ryugenzawa.  They'd come here on
vacation, to that same town, to the Ryugenzawa Health Centre.
The hot springs were supposed to be good for the health.

     They had been.  Their mother had been a lot better, the
disease gnawing her alive from the inside seeming to go into
remission after they'd come back from the week they'd spent
there.  That had gone on for exactly two weeks, and then it had
come back in full force.

     Akane had told them about the giant animals then.  They 
hadn't believed her; she'd only been about seven.  Once she went
back, and told them the same things, they believed her then.

     The rabbit looked at her with inquisitive black eyes the
size of dinner plates.  Its pink nose twitched.

     "Nice bunny," Nabiki tried.
     
     The monstrous animal growled, and leapt the stream in one
bound.  A tremor shook the earth when it landed.  Nabiki saw
that there was a gaping wound on its side, blood darkly matting
the fur, and a scrap of what looked like clothing in its teeth.

     A blur leapt from the darkness of the woods, and three 
quick impacts sounded, one after the other.  The rabbit dropped
as if poleaxed.  

     A slender boy about her age landed lightly on his feet
before the rabbit, a long push-broom held loosely in one hand
like a staff.  He wore a short black jacket over a blue tunic and 
pants, and the white headband did little to hold back his unruly 
bangs; at the back, his hair had been gathered into a small, 
stubby ponytail.  "You'd better head back," he said.  "This place 
is full of traps."  The words sounded more automatic than 
anything else.  There was a terrible weariness in his eyes.

     Nabiki's mind whirled, found the name.  "You're Shinnosuke, 
right?"
     
     His face clouded with suspicion.  "How do you know my name?"
     
     "My sister told me about you."  Not much, admittedly - Akane
seemed somewhat closed about talking about just what role
Shinnosuke had played in her and Ranma's time at Ryugenzawa, as
if she were embarrassed.

     "Sister?  I don't know your sister."
     
     Nabiki sighed.  "Akane?"
     
     "Who's Akane?"
     
     Damn.  He really _was_ that forgetful; Akane hadn't been
exaggerating.  As she watched, though, a look of comprehension 
came onto his face.  He mouthed her younger sister's name under 
his breath, a bare movement of lips.

     "You remember now?"
     
     "They're in the forest," he murmured, not paying her any
attention at all.  "They're killing the animals.  Grandfather and
I tried to stop them.  They killed him."  He looked sad and lost,
very young and very old all at once.  "Or maybe not.  I can't
remember.  You know what that's like, not being able to remember
if you're grandfather's dead or alive?"

     "I'm sorry," Nabiki said, not knowing anything else to say.
He glanced at her, seemed to notice her for the first time, and 
walked up to stand in front of her.

     In a way that made her rather uncomfortable, he looked her
up and down.  "Who are you?" he asked guardedly.
     
     "I'm Nabiki Tendo.  Akane's sister."
     
     "She went away."  He smiled, though his voice was sad. "I
told her that I loved her and she went away anyway.  With him."

     Well, it was obvious why Akane hadn't wanted to talk about
Shinnosuke much.  "Listen," Nabiki said, speaking as she imagined
one might to a child, "I need your help."

     "Of course you do," Shinnosuke replied sharply, his smile
disappearing.  "This forest is full of monsters."  He pulled out
a small shape from his pocket and pressed it into her hands.  
"Blow this if they come near you."

     Then he turned and ran off into the woods before Nabiki 
could give any response.  He was fast, he knew the forest far 
better than she did, and so he was out of sight before she even 
thought of following.

     Sighing, Nabiki walked away from the stream and the rabbit, 
and looked at what was in her hands while standing by a towering 
oak.  A small, crude horn whistle with a leather strap tied to 
it.  Akane had told her about that too.  The problem was, she
expected to have more trouble from things walking on two legs
than anything else.  She looped it around her neck and tucked it
inside her shirt; it was cool against her bare skin.

     This forest couldn't be that big.  They'd find her sooner or
later.  It was growing cold, and a thin mist was rising up from
the ground.  The trees overhead were ominously dark, the branches
nearly intertwining and forming a canopy through which none of
the moon's light could pass.

     "What am I going to do?" she murmured.  She felt as if she
were trapped within a nightmare; but this was not something she
could wake up from.

     <You shall reap what you have sown>, Tofu had said.
     
     Oh, she was reaping all right.  A bitter harvest, for her,
for her family, for Ranma's mother and somehow for Akari.  It
wasn't all her fault, no, but...

     She couldn't forget the look in her father's eyes.  There
had never been that kind of disappointment in him for her before.
Never that kind of rejection.

     "Don't cry, Nabiki."
     
     It wasn't until she heard the voice that she realized she
was crying.  She turned, slowly, and looked at Kasumi.  "Good to 
see you, sis."

     "Don't cry," Kasumi said again, and opened her arms.  
Nabiki practically fell into the embrace.  It felt so warm, so
good.  She hugged her sister fiercely back, under the shadow of
the tree.  The mist was up around their ankles now, and growing
thicker as time passed.

     "I'm sorry, Kasumi," she half-sobbed, not caring that they
might be heard, might be found.  It was all hopeless anyway.  
Her sister's eyes were lucid again, though, and there was 
something in that which finally let her bring all her grief
forth.  "Oh, god, I'm so sorry.  I should have let him--"

     "Oh, Nabiki," Kasumi murmured.  Her hand moved up and down
Nabiki's back, again and again.  "Oh, do you think he wouldn't
have done it anyway?  It's him, Nabiki.  It's him who did it.  
Not you."

     "How can you say that?"  With a hard twist of her body,
Nabiki broke free from her sister's arms.  "After what I did?  
Don't you get it, Kasumi?  I was their damn pawn!  I sold us 
out!  I took their money and--"

     Kasumi smiled.  Her eyes were infinitely old in that moment, 
deep as oceans.  "It's okay, Nabiki.  I forgive you."

     Here in night, in the tangled underbrush and the mist and
the rising trees, there was nowhere left to hide.  From herself,
from anything.  Nabiki couldn't look at her sister.  It was not
possible to meet that gaze.  The next word was torn from her
throat as if by some unstoppable force; her voice was bare, 
absolutely naked, completely vulnerable: "Why?"

     In the small space between them, Kasumi stretched out her
hand.  "Because I love you, Nabiki.  Because you're my sister.  
Do you think you've fallen far?  I tell you that some have fallen
farther still, and come back."

     Nabiki couldn't say anything.  Words would not let 
themselves be formed.

     "Mother's calling, Nabiki," Kasumi said.  Her smile was
beautiful in the darkness.  "We have to go to her.  We'll be safe 
there."

     This is not my sister, some tiny part of Nabiki thought.
These are not her eyes, or her words.  But it was, she realized.
This was Kasumi.  As if Tofu had never touched her.  As if all
her life she'd been only a plant growing in the shadow, and this 
was what she would have been if the shadows had never been there.

     "Okay," Nabiki heard herself say.  She reached out and took
Kasumi's hand in hers.  Their fingers intertwined, tightly, like
ivy.

     Someone laughed, nearby.  "You'd best be careful, girls."
From behind a tree, Tofu stepped out.  He was grinning like a
shark.  Trapped within the lenses of his glasses, the moonlight
turned his gaze into a blank and unreadable expanse of silver.  
"This forest is just _full_ of monsters."

**********

     It had been cold, and there had been no light at all.  That
Akari remembered virtually nothing beyond those two things of the
passage through wherever Yamiko had taken her was probably a
minor sort of blessing.  Since they'd come out somewhere far from
where they'd entered, she'd been walking in a daze, feeling as if 
she were passing to varying degrees in and out of a state of 
dreaming.  

     But the cold stayed with her, and recollections of the
darkness.  Even as she ran through the night forest, stumbling
over root and rock and picking her way through the tangled
underbrush, they would not leave her.  Had there been voices?  
She thought perhaps there had been voices; a laughter, of sorts,
seemed to echo in her ears.

     Ryoga.  The thought of him came like a shaft of light, 
piercing the haze of icy darkness around her mind.  She was in
the hands of his enemies, and they were going to use her against
him.  The opportunity had been given; there had been the short
space in the beginning of the fight, when Mr. Tendo had thrown
himself at the only one paying any attention to them and they'd
scattered.  Dense and tangled were the paths through this place,
and though she'd tried to return to the outskirts that she was
sure lay not far from the grove, somehow she had plunged only
further into the verdant thickness of it.  She could hear things
moving beyond the range of her vision occasionally; human or 
animal, she did not know.  
     
     At least she was in good shape.  Years of work on the family
farm had accustomed her to hard work and given her excellent
stamina, enough that she was always one of the stars on the
school track team.  Now if only she could find her way out of
this forest.

     The ground had turned almost swampy now, padded with tufts 
of springy dark grass.  As she ran, it shifted beneath her feet.  
Every shadow around the trees seemed to be that of something
moving, something watchful.  Here the trees seemed more stunted,
twisted as if by some blight.  

     Up ahead, she could see the trees were thinning out.  Beyond
rocky shores where slender reeds and rushes grew thickly, a small
lake spread out, darkly glistening and with the reflection of the
moon wavering in its depths.  On the other side, the land was
higher, a cliff-face barely covered by soil in which few trees 
grew.  Her breathing coming hard and fast, Akari sank down on her 
knees beside the lake and rested for a moment.  The water served
as her mirror, and let her see her dirty face and tangled hair.
Cupping her hands, she splashed the cool water on her face.  The
few drops that she tasted upon her lips were sweet and oddly
soothing, and she drank deeply.  

     Fatigue seemed to leave her.  Refreshed, she stood back up
and got ready to start moving again.  The forest was enormous,
with many places to hide.  She was well-used to outdoor living,
and knew how to survive for a while if she had to.  She'd be
okay.

     A twig broke, she whirled, and all optimism fell away like
the drawing-off of a shroud.  Yamiko, barely more than a stain of
black against the darkness of the night, was thirty feet away,
walking slowly and easily from the woods.

     Some subtle movement of Akari's body must have caught 
Yamiko's eyes, because she shook her head and pointed to both the
left and right.  Along the edges of the lake, and from other
directions, a dozen grim and silent men and three of the women in
the swirling patchwork robes of many colours were closing in upon
her.

     Yamiko made a soft sound that carried yet through the
darkness, a thin and rheumy chuckle that grated on the senses.
Akari wondered faintly just what it was that the shadow-wielder
hid under her mask.

     Behind her, the waters of the lake glimmered darkly.  At
swimming she had never been good, capable of keeping herself
afloat and little more.  Yet they were nearly on her now, and
this was the only way.  She steadied herself, thought of Ryoga,
and how much she loved him.  They would not take her if she could
help it.

     The water had been cool when she drank, but it was cold, icy
cold, when she plunged into it.  Deep she dived, and the water 
grew dark almost immediately, so dark that she could barely see
anything.  

     And then she felt the currents.  Serpents.  Great, invisible
serpents that wrapped around her limbs and dragged her down.  The
rushing of blood filled her ears like a throaty voice, or the 
roaring of a river plunging over a cliff into some vast and empty
gulf.

     Before she could stop herself, her mouth opened in a silent
scream.  Water rushed into her mouth, making her panic further.  
The currents ran deep, unseen upon the surface of the lake but 
strong as titans below.  Desperately, she tried to claw her way 
towards the surface and air, but they were too strong, too strong.  
Down they pulled her, down towards the bottom, towards the dark 
and unseen end.  Without a deep breath of air to hold in her 
lungs, it did not take long for the night to come down.

**********     

     Fear came sweeping over instantly, replacing whatever other
emotions had been there for Nabiki before.  She stepped without
realizing it behind Kasumi, breaking the contact of fingers
between them.

     Tofu was ten feet away.  Less.  Like before, his feet made 
no sound as he moved across the forest floor.  He seemed even 
less human in that moment than he had before; a spectral thing, 
silver-eyed and silent.

     It crossed her mind to run, and then that thought vanished.
Tofu had his needles, no doubt, and was faster than her anyway.
Worse if she ran.  She remembered Kasumi screaming in the room 
next door, and closed her eyes.  Tofu's presence was no doubt
going to send her sister back into the place she'd been before;
out of the light and into the darkness that left her eyes blank 
as leaded glass.

     He was in front of them now, smiling, eyes no longer hidden
by the gleam of the moon in his glasses.  As casual if he had 
met them upon the street and were going to greet them.  "It's a 
little late for you to be walking alone, girls."

     It's simply a game to him, Nabiki realized suddenly, cold
and dispassionate.  All of this.  He's like a little boy playing 
make-believe.  We're nothing to him but toys.  

     Kasumi was straight-backed in front of her.  At this angle,
Nabiki couldn't see her sister's face.  Kasumi looked like a
statue.  Tofu's teeth were very white.

     "Your father hurt me, you know," he said conversationally,
and touched his side.  "If I didn't know the points on the body
that suppress the pain receptors when stimulated, I'd probably be
having some trouble walking right now."

     "Good for you, Dad," Nabiki murmured under her breath, 
focusing on the ground.  She couldn't meet his gaze; too cold.
Too cold by far.
     
     It appeared she had spoken too loudly.  Tofu's eyes went
from Kasumi to her.  "What was that, Nabiki?"

     She said nothing.  It wasn't in her to meet his eyes, no
matter what.  Too easy to remember the helplessness, the ease
with which he'd made her into nothing before him.

     Tofu moved to step past Kasumi to her.  Here it comes,
Nabiki thought, with almost a gladness.  I will receive what I
have earned.  

     Kasumi took a step over, and blocked his path.  "No."
     
     "Move, Kasumi," Tofu said softly.  All the merriment had 
gone out of his voice now, and it was flat and cold.  Dead.  

     I wonder, Nabiki thought, if he has anything like love for
her at all?  Does even the semblance of any emotion, even one so
strong as that, lie within him?

     Kasumi's voice was strong and steady as she spoke.  "No,
Tofu.  I'm not afraid of you any longer.  I used to be.  But now
mother's shown me what you are."

     Oh, Kasumi, Nabiki thought sadly.  Where have you gone, my
sister?  How far?

     "Your mother?" Tofu laughed.  It was horrible to hear in the
silence of the forest.  "Your mother is dead."

     As if she had not heard him, Kasumi went on.  "You're a 
sick, sad child.  There's nothing in you, Tofu.  You're empty.
There's barely any of you there.  You're just a vessel for hate."

     Despite all he was, despite all he'd done, it was still
shocking to actually see Tofu strike her sister.  Not a slap,
either, or a light blow; a closed fist to the jaw that connected
with a sickeningly solid impact.  Kasumi crumpled with a tiny 
cry.

     "When I was a child," he said softly.  "I used to think it
was him.  I called him Kufuku.  When Father caught me with my
sister, I told him Kufuku made me do it.  He didn't believe me, 
of course."  There was a distance in his voice.  "The first one I
killed used to count the scars on my back.  One, two, three.  She
always stopped when she got to a hundred, because she'd start
crying again.  I think there are more than that.  I loved her
too.  She tried to leave me, and Kufuku made me kill her."

     And, Nabiki realized, with horror and almost with pity, that
Tofu did, in his own twisted way, love Kasumi.  It wasn't 
anything approaching human love, but it was all he was capable 
of.  Like a crippled man trying to walk, he did all that he was
capable of, and it wasn't enough.  Not nearly enough.

     As if coming back from some long journey, Tofu shook his
head and turned his cold eyes from her unmoving sister to her.
"Nabiki dear, it's time to receive payment."

     I should run, Nabiki thought.  I should fight.  But she
couldn't.  Something; fear, perhaps, or the lingering thoughts
that this _was_ her just reward for what she'd done, held her
fast.

     His hand, almost gently, cupped her cheek.  "You and I,
Nabiki, we're the same.  We're above the petty things.  We see
the big picture.  And we look out for number one."

     The words were wounding as a blade.  They struck her at her
deepest core; how many times had she told herself the same
things, about herself?  Above such petty things as the looks that
passed so rarely between Ranma and Akane.  She was number one;
whoever got hurt, as long as it wasn't her, didn't matter.

     It's true, she thought, feeling as if she would be sick.  I 
am the same as him.  Or close enough that it hardly mattered.

     He was leaning forward, to kiss her.  His hand was still on
her cheek.  Uncaring suddenly of consequence, Nabiki spat in his 
face and stepped back.  "I am nothing," she hissed, letting all
her hate for him show forth, "like you."  Denying it gave her a
certain joy, even if she wasn't able to entirely deny it herself.

     With his sleeve, Tofu wiped at his cheek and sighed deeply.
"We could have done it the easy way, Nabiki."

     And then he moved.  With a cry, she slammed back up against
the tree, Tofu's hands locked around her throat.  Her arm flailed 
wildly, and she somehow managed to strike his face.  His glasses 
flew off.  

     He broke her arm at the elbow.  The sound was sickening.
Nabiki screamed, piercingly, and then she was down on the ground
and one of his hands were still upon her throat.  The pain in her 
arm was beyond imagination, beyond bearing.  He tightened his 
grip, and she stopped screaming.  Tears of pain rolled hotly down 
her face.  The mist, which had sunk lower to the ground when Tofu
appeared, clung thin and cold to her body.

     One hand roughly seized her left breast.  Tofu's eyes were
small and hard, and she realized for the first time how much his
glasses had distracted from the cold glint of them.  His knee
drove down between her clenched legs and forced them apart.  Her
broken arm was afire with pain, each tiny movement where it lay
limp against the ground like the scrape of a knife across the
bone.

     "No," she said.  "No, no, no."  She kept on repeating it, 
the same word, brokenly.  Sobbing, begging.  End of pride.  End
of everything.

     "No, Tofu."
     
     It was said quietly, but with an air of utmost command.
Amazingly, amazingly, Tofu obeyed.  He stood up and turned away
from her to face Kasumi.  
     
     Her sister's jaw was already bruising an ugly yellow-black,
but in her eyes was a calmness that was completely alien.  "It 
ends here.  Nabiki and I are going to see mother, and you're
going to let us."

     Again, Tofu laughed.  There was an edge to it this time, as
if his mask of humour were on the verge of cracking, so that the
true monstrosity of what lurked below would come screaming madly
into the light.  "Or what?"

     "Or you will die," Kasumi said softly.  "You will die, and
that will be the end of it.  Either way, Tofu, it ends here.  You
will not hurt my sister, or me, ever again."

     Nabiki watched, awestruck and suddenly filled with so much
gratitude and love for her older sister that she could not bear
it.  He was going to turn on Kasumi again, and this time she knew
he really would break her.  There would be no coming back again,
no risings from the depths to which he would drive her to, even
to the gentle madness of believing their mother still alive.

     "Get back here, Tofu," she called, forcing words through
terror and the pain of her arm.  "You've had my sister how many
times?  Leave her alone.  Get a taste of me."  It did not seem 
her saying these things.  Yet it was; it is me saying these
things, she realized.  I am more frightened now than I have ever
been before, and yet I can say this.  I can take some of this
upon me, that my sister will not need to bear it.

     Kasumi's eyes turned from Tofu to her.  Oh, but they were
calm.  So calm, so at peace.  "It's okay, Nabiki.  It's over."
She smiled, and turned her gaze away.

     Tofu and her sister stood only two feet apart now, the both 
of them in profile to her.  Tofu's hands were clenched into fists
at his side.  Kasumi's hair had fallen unbound long ago from its
customary ponytail, and it hung all about her shoulders, wild and
tangled as vines.  Neither of them seemed now to be paying any 
attention to Nabiki at all any more; trapped within their own
tiny world, of which she had no part.

     "Tofu!" she cried.  There was no response.

     "This is the last, Tofu," Kasumi said.  Her voice was calm
as her eyes.  "By oak and ash and thorn, you will leave us now,
or you will die."

     Tofu hesitated for a fractional moment, and then struck 
Kasumi again.  It was harder than the first blow, straight to the
face.  Nabiki heard the crunch of breaking bone.  Kasumi flew 
back, twisted by the force of the blow, and landed on her face 
without a sound.  Her arms and legs were askew like those of a 
broken doll.
     
     Slowly, Tofu turned back to Nabiki.  His face was simply 
empty now.  "She made me," he said softly.  "You saw her."

     The earth shook.  Not the tiny tremble of the unexplained 
ceremony in the grove, but an earthquake that made the ground 
ripple with waves like the sea, and set the trees to dancing.  
Tofu stumbled, and nearly fell.

     Nabiki saw a single wave behind Tofu that didn't move, and
her eyes widened.  Then, in a fountaining column of earth and
stone, the head rose atop a towering serpentine neck.  It was 
massive and ancient.  Moonlight edged emerald scales with silver.  
White-bearded, it had the vague resemblance of a patriarchal old 
man turned into a serpent.
     
     Nabiki stared, in awe and fear.  As if responding to the
dragon's presence, the mist suddenly rose until it was thick
throughout all the air, giving the entire scene the unearthly 
quality of a nightmare or a dream.
     
     Yamata no Orochi.  The lord of the forest.
     
     Tofu didn't even have time to scream.  The neck cracked like
a whip, and the head plunged as a diver does, man-sized jaws 
open wide to expose teeth as long as Nabiki's forearm.  Vicelike,
the jaws snapped closed over Tofu's upper body.  Again there was 
a sinuous movement of the neck, and Tofu was hurled high into the 
air, bloody and screaming.  Nabiki caught a second's horrifying 
glimpse of his half-severed body, nearly fallen into two pieces, 
and then the head of Yamata no Orochi shot up and swallowed him.
There was a noticeable bulge going down the neck for a moment,
then nothing.

     Akane said it only liked women, Nabiki thought vaguely.
     
     The monster's massive eyes looked down at her.  She was
trapped as surely as if she were bound beneath that ancient gaze.

     The earth shook again, and again, and trees heaved out their
roots from the earth and toppled.  One head rose from the ground,
then another.  After scant seconds, seven heads gazed at her from
atop seven waving necks.

     Nabiki looked over to where Kasumi lay, still as if she were
dead.  Maybe she was, Nabiki realized with grief.  Surely Tofu 
could have killed with a single blow if he wanted?

     Yamata no Orochi did the same.  Then, in unison, all the
necks dipped their heads once towards Nabiki's sister, and the
monster turned to go.  Cresting through the earth as easily as a
ship through sea, uprooting trees and cracking boulders as it
went, the dragon left Nabiki and her sister behind.  

     Broken arm hanging limp at her side, Nabiki got to her feet 
and began to walk towards the spot where Kasumi lay.  Halfway 
there, something crunched underfoot, and she looked down to see 
Tofu's glasses, broken and twisted under the heel of her shoe.  

     When she reached Kasumi, she knelt down.  There were tears
rolling down.  "Oh, sis," she said.  "Oh, god."  She rolled her
over, expecting to see at the very least the terrible damage a
blow like that would do to her sister's face.

     Unmarked.  Not even the bruise from Tofu's first blow
remained.  Then, and only then - even after the coming of the
dragon - did Nabiki really begin to realize the sort of thing
that had happened here.

     "Wake up, Kasumi," she murmured softly, and took one off her
sister's hands in hers.  Kasumi's eyes fluttered open, and she
smiled for just a moment.

     Then the blankness rolled back into her eyes.  Nabiki's 
heart sank.
     
     "Kasumi, he's gone," she said.  "He's dead.  He can't ever
hurt you again."  But already he had done enough, she realized;
already far too much hurt.  "Come on, Kasumi.  You said we're
going to go see mother."  Hard to get the last word out without 
her voice cracking slightly.  

     A warm tingle was in the hand that she held Kasumi's with.  
It seemed to fill her body.  Feather-light, it touched her 
broken arm.  Hardly daring to breathe, Nabiki turned her head to
see the bulge in her flesh shifting, as bone knit in seconds.

     "Mother's dead, Nabiki," Kasumi said, staring blankly up
through the dissipating mist at the stars.  "Mother's dead and we
can't see her again."

     "We have to get moving again, Kasumi."  Firm but gentle.  
She half-lifted her sister to her feet.  There was no pain in her
arm, none at all.  

     "Came in the house," Kasumi whispered.  "Came in the house
and touched me.  Nowhere safe."

     With no idea of where to go, Nabiki kept her hand in her
sister's, chose the direction away from the one in which the
dragon had gone, and began to lead.

**********

     The first team which Yamata no Orochi came upon after it
left Kasumi and Nabiki did not have time to give warning.  They
died, all of them, in perhaps ten seconds.  

     The second team managed to get off a short, panicked
communication on the radio they carried, before one of the seven
heads swallowed the radio and the holder.  The Circle mistress
accompanying the men raised her hands and shouted three quick
words of power, and then watched the bolt of force patter off the
vivid scales of the creature like rain; a second later, she was
dead as well.

     The dragon rampaged through the forest, bringing the 
shrouding curtains of mist with it as it went and leaving a trail
of ruined earth behind it.  

     They had come into the forest, and killed.  Innocent blood
had been spilled within the water, further diminishing the power
of Ryugenzawa.  

     And now the forest guardian had been woken, and it had come
to kill and kill, until either it or all those who threatened
Ryugenzawa lay dead.

**********

     Yoko could feel it approaching.  A primal force, raw and
untamed, coursing through the forest in a straight line towards
her, destroying everything in its path.  Even without the frantic
communications of the teams it encountered, she would have known
it was coming.

     She had sent them all away.  Even Kuno, though she still
directed his actions through the mental link between them.  Her
glasses were off, slipped into a pocket of her robe.  Calmly,
unafraid, filled with the power of the master and his hate, she
waited.

     It did not take long.  The first signs beyond the feeling of
power was the crashing of rock and the splintering of trees.  
Then a thick mist began to appear, rolling between the tall trees
and presaging the coming of the forest guardian.  It was cold and
damp as it passed over her, and then she saw the Orochi itself.

     At first, it was only a seven-headed shadow in the mist, a
monstrous dark hydra-shape whose eyes shone dimly like 
searchlights.  As it came closer, the mist thinned out, and the
full might of it lay revealed.  Huge and serpentine, it looked 
ancient as the woods around it.  Forked tongues flickered from
between the mighty jaws and licked at spots of blood upon the 
fine white hairs of its snout, and its great bulging eyes stared
at her almost contemptuously.

     The hate of the master thrummed in her head like waves
hitting a rocky beach.  His despite filled her with courage, left
no room for any fear even in the face of this much power.

     She brought her hand forth, clutching the sheaf of papers.
Deeds of ownership to the land that Ryugenzawa occupied, 
transferred legally from the hands of the Kuno family companies 
to her.
     
     Sometimes, what a thing represents is as important as what
it is.  Some said that the ownership of land was a ridiculous
thing; you could not own the earth.  But the perception that you
could was just as powerful.

     In her hand, she held the embodiment of that.  A focus of
will, of hundreds of years of codified laws.  In the minds of 
tens of millions of people, she did own this land.  It was hers 
to do with as she wanted.

     Oh, by itself, it was useless.  But as a focus, with her own
will, with a hate so strong it had endured since the dawn of 
time...

     Nothing seemed beyond her here, or now.
     
     She met the savage eyes of the dragon with hers, and spoke
the words that came rushing into her head.  More song than
anything, the language was not Japanese, not anything she had
ever heard, and yet she understood:

     *Wind and fire*
     *Rock and root*
     *You are mine*
     *Earth and sky*
     *Tree and beast*
     *You are mine*
     *Water, river, ocean, sea*
     *You are mine*
     
     The words struck the Orochi like a hammer blow.  The heads
reared, and a high cry of pain in many voices echoed throughout
the air.  The mist boiled as if flame had been lit beneath it.

     Yoko clenched her fist around the papers.  They burst into
flames without heat, and yet were not consumed.  The necks of the
dragon tangled with each other like a skein.  
     
     Yamata no Orochi screamed.  The impact of the seven heads
crashing down to the ground shook the earth.  Yoko raised the
papers like a torch and marched forward.  Slowly, a great crack
was opening in the earth where the seven necks disappeared into
the ground.

     There were no more words rushing into her head now.  The
jagged chasm was wide as a house.  Still twitching, the seven
heads withdrew within it.  There was a deep rumble, as of some
great shift far below the crust of the earth.  

     Towering upon the seven smaller necks, the eighth head rose.
Many times larger than any of the others, it broke the highest
branches of the trees as it came.  The tiny pupils of its great
eyes swung about and focused upon her.

     "Well met, old one," she said softly.  And now the words
came again:     

     *Desert, wasteland, dryness, dust*
     *You are mine*
     
     The triumph was almost too great to contain as she felt the
power surge through the air.  With those words, it was complete.
The papers turned to ash in her hand and were whirled away by a
gust of wind.

     Tiny puffs of smoke rose in curls from between the scales of
the dragon.  In seconds, they became torrents of flame.  The
creature writhed and screamed, slamming its massive head back and
forth in a futile effort to put out the consuming fires.  Sheets
of brilliant flame roared up and down the necks, turning green to
black.  The head blazed like a torch, white hairs catching in an
instant.  Night became bright as day.  The flames touched 
nothing, no tree or plant, but the dragon.  

     It was over in minutes.  Near the end, the struggles grew
weaker.  At last, they stopped altogether, and the burned remains
of the vast head sank down as its smaller brothers had to the
ground.  Slowly, it slipped down into the gaping crack in the
earth from which it had come.

     Yoko could barely breathe.  Wave after wave of power
battered at her like fists.  Nearly, so nearly, it broke her.  
She was one of the strongest mages on the earth, and absorbing
all the might that had been embodied in Yamata no Orochi nearly
broke her all the same.

     The master laughed inside her head.  He was happy.  Strength
filled her, and she struggled back from the edge, bound the power
and made it hers.

     "Oh, my lord," she whispered at the end, shuddering with
ecstasy.  The power was sweeter than anything, more glorious and
bright than the sun itself.  "My lord, my lord."  On her knees,
trembling with the feel of it, Yoko laughed.  When she looked up,
she could see that the mist was all gone.  With a clenching of 
her fist, she closed the chasm and interred the remains of the
Orochi beneath the forest it had guarded.  Such might; such 
power.

     Her knees were shaky as she rose.  Now the web of power that
stretched throughout the forest lay visible to her.  She reached
out and plucked them, to send a message down to their centre, 
laden with hate and all the dark joy of vengeance so long in
coming:

     *I am coming, and I am the vessel of the Dark.  I end you.*
     
     No answer rose from below, but she could feel that, as 
before, the eldest was afraid.

**********

     So it was finished.  Her guardian - a shadow of her shadow - 
was dead.  As she had known he would be.  Let him rest, now.  
Forever.  It had been enough.  Soon the dome would crack, and the 
ocean would rush in.  For now, she held it steady.

     Because they were coming.  Eldest sister called to eldest
sister.  The ways had been opened in the caverns, as she had
opened them for the Lord of Waters.  Down they would come, down
through earth and stone.  

     Power enough had remained to open the ways, but not to close
them again.  She was unprotected now, and she had heard the
message.  How great his hate, after all this time.  Her time here
was ended.  Little remained left to do, and she hoped that enough
was left within her to do so.
     
     Overhead, the dome creaked ominously.  The animals of the
garden had gathered in her meadow now, amidst the bright 
flourishes of the wildflowers.  Tiger lay with deer, and wolf
with rabbit.  Upon the horns of the deer, the birds perched.  All
watched her silently, and with love.

     Oh my children, she thought sadly, looking back at them with
the same.  If I must ask it if you, you will die for me.  And it
may come that I must.

     They were coming, though.  There was hope, then.     

**********

     The cave was huge, a yawning blackness in the side of the
mountain.  They had come to it after what might have been hours
of walking, and to the clearing where there were no trees.  There
were bubbling springs all about, and Nabiki knelt to drink.  At
her urging, Kasumi stiffly did the same.  The eastern skyline was 
rosy with the promise of dawn soon to come.  The night was almost 
at an end, but danger was far from past.  

     "How you feeling, sis?" Nabiki asked after she finished 
drinking.  The water was clear and pure.  "Was this the right way
to go?"  She smiled at her sister, who was washing her hands in
the flowing waters of the spring.  "I kinda think it is.  I don't
really know why."

     Kasumi pointed towards the cave.  "Mother's in there."  They
were the first words she had spoken since they'd begun to walk.

     "Yeah, I bet she is," Nabiki replied quietly as she stood
and offered Kasumi her hand.  "Come on, sis."  
     
     At the edge of the cave entrance, they paused.  "It's too
dark to see in there, Kasumi.  I--"

     Kasumi squeezed her hand.  There was the same calmness in
her eyes again, the utter tranquillity.  "I'll lead the way, 
Nabiki.  I know where we need to go."

     What have I come to, Nabiki wondered.  What is beyond this?
     
     Together, they walked into the darkness.