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 32 : That Which We Destroy

     They were in one of the enclosed gardens, near a stream that 
trickled down through a narrow channel formed by rocks to make a 
pool reflecting the blue of the early-morning sky.  A single 
willow stretched wearily near the pool, casting the spot where 
they sat into shade.  Two paths led out of the garden, laid out 
in flat stones that ran to a narrow wooden porch; beyond glass 
doors, the hallways that led between buildings in the Kenzan 
compound stretched.

     Konatsu turned his head and looked at Ukyou where she sat
beside him on the stone bench.  Her right knee was still twisted 
and puffy, and she had walked down the hallways with a limp.  A 
red silk kimono, slightly too large and with contrasting black 
vines, was belted tight around her. 

     "You were right," she said when she saw him looking, "the
gardens are very beautiful."  Her voice was soft, muted.  Unbound
hair hung down her back and shoulders in a silky wave.  Stiff and 
sore upon the floor, he had awoken this morning to hear her in 
the shower.  No sign of Hako or anyone else; the compound seemed 
deserted but for them.

     Konatsu was not that naive, however.  He knew Hako better
than that.  The gardens, as Ukyou said, were beautiful, a 
contrast to the grief they'd had in the last few days and Hako's
savagery.  But the memory of it was never far away.

     In his pocket, the object the crow had given him the night
before seemed too heavy.  He wasn't sure what to do.  Fuhaiko and
Nenreiko were unknowns in this.  He didn't even know what had
made him keep the thing from Ukyou.  Only an instinctual 
wariness, perhaps; somehow, he recognized that the tiny stick of
carved bamboo would change everything.  As things were, he was
not truly happy, but Ukyou was safe, and with him.  Perhaps that
was what was best to hope for, for him at least.

     But what, something else in him said softly, for her?
     
     The warmth of her hand lain across his broke him from his
thoughts.  "What are you thinking about?" she asked softly.

     "The future," he answered quietly, looking up at a drifting
cloud.  The bright Okinawa sun came down in bars through the
leaves of the willow and glistened on the pool and the chips of
quartz crystal in the rocks, as if upon jewels.

     "What future?" Ukyou said, taking her hand away and cupping
her chin dejectedly with it.  "We're trapped here by these
lunatics, and..." 

     Konatsu listened to her trail away into silence before he
spoke.  "And what?"
     
     "And you're not willing to try and get away," she said after
a moment's hesitation.  "Konatsu, we're not even guarded.  We
could slip out the front gate, and--"

     "You still don't understand," he interrupted, an edge of
frustration creeping into his voice.  "Hako can find me no matter
where I go."

     "Then we can run off and get help!" Ukyou persisted.  "We
can fight--"

     Again, he interrupted.  "Hako does not fight as you or
anyone else who could help us is used to fighting.  You fought 
her yourself; you know what she is capable of."

     Ukyou winced.  "But..."
     
     "And that is without even the full weight of Kenzan behind
her."

     A sigh escaped her, and her shoulders slumped in seeming
defeat.  "Okay," she said wearily.  "We'll just stay here until
we die, or Hako decides to kill us."

     "Oh, she won't do that," Konatsu said, shaking his head.
"She needs me.  And she understands the consequences if she hurts
you again."  He glanced pointedly to the short sword on his belt.

     "Konatsu," Ukyou said with a troubled expression, "don't
talk about that."  She put her arm around his shoulders and
shifted closer on the bench.  "Promise me you won't hurt yourself
if something happens to me."  Konatsu sat in silence, though his 
heart raced at the closeness of her.  "Promise me," she repeated.

     "No," he said finally.  "I can't.  Forgive me, Ukyou.  I
have to be willing to go through with my threats, or I have no
power over her."
     
     Ukyou was silent for a long time, just holding her arm
around his shoulders, and then she slipped it off and folded her
hands in her lap.  "You can't control her," she said.  "She's 
barely human."
     
     "I can die if she hurts you," Konatsu said, forcing the
threat of a tremble from his voice.  "That's enough.  She needs
me."

     "Why?" Ukyou asked.
     
     Konatsu opened his mouth, and then shut it.  "I don't know
precisely why," he answered after a moment's thought.  "Only that
she does."  The endless litany, from his mother, his father, his
stepmother - one day, you shall be called upon to serve your clan
in the way that only you can.

     "And when the time comes that she stops needing you?  What
happens to you then?"

     Konatsu didn't care.  But the question that was unspoken
weighed heavily upon him.  Chances were, Hako would stop needing
him.  Perhaps soon.  And what, then, would happen to Ukyou?

     "We have to get out of here, Konatsu."
     
     He nodded once, not even realizing he intended to until he
did.  With a quick motion, he drew out the stick of bamboo from
one of his hidden pockets and held it up.  "I don't know what
this is," he said softly.  "But I think it might be able to 
help."

     From end to end, the stick was carved with intertwined
Chinese characters.  He looked at Ukyou's face; the light of
recognition was in her eyes.  Her hand reached out and took it
from him.  

     "You know what it is, don't you?" he asked softly.  He
didn't, but he could see she did.

     Ukyou nodded.  
     
     "What?"
     
     "Hope," she whispered, and, taking an end in each hand, she
snapped the stick in half.  Across an ocean, the snapping 
screamed like a klaxon in the head of an old man in a library.  
Neither Konatsu nor Ukyou was aware of this happening, but it was 
very important to what would later occur.  Nor did they notice 
the three crows perched upon the roof of one building, motionless 
as they watched with yellow eyes.  This, though not quite so 
important, also had something to do with what went on afterwards.

**********

     Hako walked.
     
     Hako walked in the darkness, through the labyrinth of
caverns that stretched under the Kenzan compound.  Ancient they
were, the walls rough and jagged, but carved by human hands.  
Various entrances led into and out of the cramped warren of 
passages, all of them more-or-less concealed except for the cave 
mouth on the beach.

     Ahead of her, the shadows loomed, flickering in the yellow
light of the torch she carried.  A lantern, even an electric 
flashlight, would have been easier.  But tradition broke hard; 
torches had been the only lights of this place when it was sliced 
out of the rock of the cliffs, so a torch lit her way now.  And 
the sensory experience, the resinous smell of the smoke and the 
tang of oil upon the tongue, was something that no other source 
of light would give.

     Her steps were silent as she went, not even a shuffle of the
soft slippers she wore audible.  The uneven floor was dusty, and
each step left her footprints behind her.  She passed through the 
sepulchre, a narrow passage lined on either side with wide, deep 
niches.  In each one, an iron casket held what remained of a 
leader of Kenzan.  Not so many as one might have thought there 
should be; as she passed, a momentary spasm made her lose control 
of her left hand, and the flames of the torch whipped out behind 
the burning head as it dipped closer to one niche.

     Pulling it under control, she left the charnel place behind,
and came after a few minutes more into the central room of the
underground.  This one held no roughness or unevenness in its
construction; floor and walls and ceiling were glass-smooth, and
four circular pillars were arranged in a diamond shape in the
centre, rising up almost to the ceiling and narrowing to
needle-sharp points at the top.  Those were dark iron, almost
indistinguishable from the rock around them, except when the 
light glistened on them and upon their tips.  Four torch brackets
were spaced equidistantly on each pillar.

     Hako breathed in.  Here there was no dust on anything.  She
walked lightly to stand near one pillar, and carefully placed 
her torch into the only empty bracket upon it.

     She stepped back, and raised her hand.  With slight pops as
air was consumed, all the other torches upon the walls and the
pillars sprang to life.  This place lay under the central
building of the compound; a focus of power.

     Now she came into the area bounded by the pillars.  The reek 
of sulphur from the torches mingled with the cold tang of iron.
She raised her hands, and peeled off her left-hand glove with a 
grimace.  Freed from its confines, she flexed the fingers a few
times, and then removed the right-hand glove as well.  Lacing her 
fingers together, she stretched her arms over her head and let 
out a deep, throaty sigh of pleasure.

     Flesh slapped on cloth as she dropped her hands to her 
sides; turning a slow circle, she pushed out and found the ebb 
and flow of the energies.  Then, with an action so long-practiced
as to be nearly instinctual, she united herself with them.

     The power seared through her; she clenched her teeth at the
suddenness of it, so vast a store of might.  Upon the edges, the
slumbering presence that was the source shifted at her brief
contact with it.
     
     "My lord," she whispered reverently, resisting the urge to
fall to her knees.  The Circle, of which she was nominally a
part, believed that specific ritual and ceremony were necessary.  
They knew nothing.  Only the knowledge, the willingness to reach 
out and submit, to bend but not be broken; only those were 
necessary, and the Dark would touch you deep as any lover.  She 
drew forth a glass vial from within the depths of her uniform, 
and uncorked it with a pop.  With a flick of her wrist, she sent 
the powdery contents scattering around her to drift like snow to 
the floor.

     The torches flared blue.  She spoke a single word, made a 
simple gesture with her hands, and they burned white.  The iron
pillars swam with shifting waves of torch-fire, almost pulsing.
Over her head, the needle tip of each pillar began to glow, a 
firefly-sized spark as bright as the sun.  Shafts of light shot
off like spears, arcing along walls and floor and ceiling.

     Another word, and the shafts gathered, leapt from pillar to
pillar until a diamond of almost blinding brightness glowed
overhead.  Hako tilted her head back, eyes open wide as they 
could go, and spoke a final phrase.  Power surged; it struck 
like a hammer blow.  She bit her lip until blood ran down her 
chin, and the coppery taste of it lingered on her tongue.

     Longingly, like a mother reaching for a child, Hako, the
Lady of Kenzan, reached out for her servants and whispered to
each of them but one word:

     Come.
     
**********

     Cold.  That was what it had to be.
     
     Ukyou stared out at the ocean, and folded the sleeves of the
blood-red kimono around her hands.  There was no wind, and the 
sun was warm.  Something else, then; something else was to blame
for the tingles running erratically up and down her spine.  
Behind her, the buildings and walls of the Kenzan compound
loomed, confining her.  Before her, the sheer cliffs dropped down
to the deserted beach.  From up here, the white sand glistened,
the minute crystals ground in with the fine powder trapping the
sun.

     There had been nothing, no surge of power or flash of light
or sign of anything else, when she had broken the stick; but when 
she had looked at the two broken pieces, the surfaces were 
smooth.

     Konatsu had not questioned her about it.  He had simply
seemed to accept it, or perhaps he had not even cared.  The
thought at the edge of her mind, no matter how much she disliked
it, was that perhaps it was best Konatsu didn't know precisely
what it was meant to do.  He was terrified of Hako; not that she
wasn't, but his fear was something deeper, a child's terror of 
the dark.

     She glanced down the cliffs, to the long stepped walkway
that had been worn out over time by wind and rain.  They could
have simply walked away from the place; but the closest town she
knew of was little more than a base of Clan Kenzan, and Konatsu 
had said that Hako could find him no matter where he went.  
Whether that was true or not, she could not convince him to 
leave.

     So there was only the waiting now then - the brief hope that
help would come.  Only she did not know if it would come, or come
in time if it did.

     Another tingle ran through her, and she shook her head.  
The twisted knee on her right leg throbbed with a dull pain.  
Salt-sea breeze gusted off the endless roll of the Pacific, and
made her nose twitch.

     There was the rattle of dishes on a tray; she turned her 
head - Konatsu approached with light steps upon the grass.  He 
smiled, and bobbed his head in a small bow without saying 
anything.

     Ukyou shifted, wincing once as the motion sent pain through 
her injured knee, and arranged the folds of the kimono about her 
knees.  Konatsu set the tray down between them and knelt on the
other side of it.  "A nice view, isn't it?"
     
     Ukyou nodded and picked up the steaming china teapot.  A
fragrant herbal smell mingled with the lingering aroma of the sea
as she poured a cup for each of them.

     "I used to sit here all the time before you came," he 
continued softly, as Ukyou raised her cup to her mouth and 
sipped.  "I'd stare out across the ocean, and think about what
lay beyond..."

     "China," Ukyou answered flatly.
     
     Konatsu's smile slipped a little.  Untouched on the tray,
his teacup sent tendrils of twisting vapour into the air.  "I
know that," he said after a moment's silence, "but I mean... all
the things that are out there.  All the places to go, the new
sights to see--"

     "All the places that aren't here," Ukyou interrupted.
     
     Konatsu nodded.  His smile was tight and forced.
     
     Ukyou hesitated, then resigned herself to one last try.  "We
could get out here, you know," she half-whispered.  "Go out the
gate, or down along the beach.  Naha's far, but not that far... 
there must be other towns along the way."

     "Your knee," Konatsu pointed out.
     
     "Well..."
     
     "Hako can find me, Ukyou," Konatsu said.  "You still don't
understand.  It's not that she can track me down.  She can sense
me, exactly where I am if she's close enough, general direction
if I'm far from her."

     Ukyou blinked.  "How?"
     
     "Kenzan's arts are old," Konatsu answered.  His voice bore
little emotion, but there was something of fear in his eyes.  "I
am the one who comes but once a century."

     Out over the ocean, the white birds flew free.  "We have to
get out of here if we can, Konatsu.  You realize that, don't 
you?"

     "If we can," Konatsu replied with a nod.  "But we can only
escape so far from what our lives intend us to be."

     He reached down and picked up his cup in both hands.  As he
raised it, there was a sharp snap, and it fell into two pieces.
Konatsu made a soft sound of pain as scalding tea splashed his
hands.

     Ukyou leaned forward, concerned.  "Are you okay?"
     
     Silently, he picked up a linen napkin from the tray and
wiped at his hands.  "A few little burns," he said with a 
grimace; the palms of his hands were an angry red.  "I'll be 
fine."

     The two broken halves of the cup lay upon the grass before
him.  Ukyou picked them up; the pieces were almost equal in size,
and the lines of the break were clean and even.  "Wonder how that
happened?" she mused.

     Konatsu shrugged, and dabbed the last of the tea off the
cuffs of his uniform.  "The china is delicate," he replied as he
wadded the sodden napkin into a ball and laid it down on the 
tray.  "Perhaps I gripped it too hard."

     Ukyou frowned, then turned and tossed the two bone-white
pieces of china over the side of the cliff.  A glance over showed
that they were lost amidst the glare of light upon the sand.

     "The waves will roll in," Konatsu said softly.  "In and out,
in and out.  They will drag them in and grind them up, and in 
time, they too shall become sand."

     "That's rather poetic," Ukyou said with a slight grin.
"Perhaps you'd have made a better Basho than a kunoichi."

     Konatsu laughed.  "I do not think there is anything I could
be better at than what I do."

     "No," a voice said, soft but forceful, from nearby.  "There 
is not."

     Startled, the two of them jerked their heads away from the
sight of white sand upon the beach.  They had not even heard Hako
approach.

     The tall woman gave them a cursory nod.  "Konatsu, child,
you must come with me now."  Konatsu stood without a word.  
After a moment, Ukyou stood as well.  Hako flicked a disdainful 
glance to her.  "Not you, little girl."

     "I go where he goes," Ukyou said.
     
     "Where I go, she goes," Konatsu said.
     
     The words had been almost simultaneous.  They looked at each
other, then smiled, despite the fear they both felt.  Moment of
kinship.

     Hako laughed.  There was no warmth in it, or humour.  "How
touching.  Come, Konatsu.  I swear no harm will come to her 
through the lack of your presence."

     "Your words mean nothing," Konatsu said quietly.
     
     Hako's stance shifted.  "I had hoped you would be more 
cooperative," she said.  "I am through with these games,
Konatsu.  Now you will obey."

     How hard she looks, Ukyou thought.  How terribly hard.  Like
something broken again and again, reforged so many times that it
can never again be broken.

     "I do not play games anymore," Konatsu said quietly, and
before he finished speaking, his sword came free from the sheath; 
before he finished speaking, Hako was in motion.

     Konatsu cried out as she hit him; they wrestled for a 
moment, and then the sword flew, glittering in the sun, over the
edge of the cliff.

     Ukyou reached down, biting back a cry of pain as the sudden
motion made something shift in her knee.  Her hands came up with
the half-full teapot.  Nearby, Konatsu and Hako grappled near the
edge of the cliff.

     Ukyou stood, and Clan Kenzan rose, it seemed, from 
everywhere.  A dozen, two dozen, three, she could not count.  
From behind trees and bushes, from lying flat in the grass, from
out the air itself.  On the ground, Hako held her hand over 
Konatsu's mouth as he struggled weakly.

     Someone hit her from behind, and the teapot fell from her
hands and shattered.  Hands grabbed her arms.  A cloth clamped 
down over her nose and mouth, and a pungent scent burned into her 
brain for the few seconds of consciousness that remained.  Then 
she crumpled, her last sight the white beach, glinting in the 
sun.

     The last sound, Hako's voice.  "Oh my little pretty one," it
said.  "If only you knew..."

**********

     Nenreiko and Fuhaiko watched from the shadows cast by one of
the walls as Hako and her clan took the two away.  

     "So," Nenreiko said quietly.  "It begins."
     
     "Oh, it began a long time ago," Fuhaiko answered.  She 
glanced to the side, where Xande stood in human form.  "And what
do you think, little worm?"

     "What I am required to, Carrion-Mistress," he replied.  The
hate burned in his eyes, sunk so deep into his withered face that
they seemed to gaze out from within caverns.
     
     "Tonight," Nenreiko said softly.
     
     "Tonight," Fuhaiko agreed.
     
     "Look out to sea," Nenreiko said, pointing.  "Your pets are
coming in, Fuhaiko."
     
     "I see," Fuhaiko said, watching dispassionately as shrieking
black shapes fell with outstretched talons and slashing beaks 
upon the flock of white gulls.  "I see."

**********
     
     Nabiki trudged home from school along the familiar streets,
a frown on her face, schoolbag clenched tight in one hand.  She
had been hoping to talk to Kuno again, after their long
conversation of that morning, but after the last class he had
just seemed to vanish.

     The sky mirrored her mood, grey clouds that had only
increased since the day began.  Rain was coming, and the clouds
choked off the sunlight.  Still her mind reeled from what Kuno
had told her, half in terror, half in disbelief; she had been
little more than an automaton all day, staring out the window in
class, almost grateful when the teacher ordered her out into the
hall with buckets, because it gave her a chance to think without
so much distraction.
     
     Not so grateful now, though.  She rubbed her aching arms 
while she waited at a pedestrian crossing.  Cars rolled past, and 
she listened idly to the chatter of students behind her, their 
petty little concerns.  Then the lights changed, she crossed the 
street, and turned the corner to walk what was almost the final 
stretch towards home.  The canal lay nearby, water winding lazily 
in union with the streets.

     Clouds were grey, and sky was dark.  Too dark for the close
of summer and the fall of autumn, too dark by far.  She kicked an
empty soft-drink can out of her path, and it bounced off the
chain links of the fence with a metallic rattle.

     "Well, good afternoon, Nabiki."
     
     She looked up from watching the path ahead.  Tofu stood,
broom in hand, outside the gate of his clinic.  "Hey Doc."

     He nodded in greeting and swept the dust of his front walk
to either side with broad motions of the broom.  "We seem to keep
running into each either like this."  He laughed, though Nabiki
didn't.

     "Yeah."  She smiled weakly.  Dealing with the doctor was not
something she wanted to do right now.

     Then he asked the question she didn't want him to.  "How's
K... Kasumi?"
     
     "She's fine," Nabiki replied guardedly.  
     
     He grinned, an unusual-looking smile that didn't seem to
suit his face.  "How about setting up another rendezvous for me?"     

     He said it so casually, so without any of his normal 
nervousness around the topic of her older sister, that it
disturbed her.  Nabiki blinked.  "Uh..."

     "I made it worth your while last time," he said quietly.
"More than worth your while.  I can do that again, or better."

     His eyes were intent upon her, and he had stopped sweeping.
The broom leaned against the wall at a low angle.  At last, 
Nabiki shook her head.  "No can do, Doc."
     
     "Why not?" Tofu asked, a vague air of disappointment.
     
     She waved an admonishing finger at him.  "We don't want to
move too fast, do we?"

     Tofu looked unsure, and then nodded.  "Did Kasumi enjoy the
dinner last time?"

     Nabiki had never asked.  "Sure she did," she told him
reassuringly.  "But you know how we women are sometimes.  
Kasumi's an old-fashioned girl; she wants to take things slowly."
     
     Tofu nodded, and beamed.  "I like old-fashioned girls."
     
     "Great," Nabiki said.  "I'll give you a call if anything
comes up."

     "Wonderful," Tofu said.  He reached into his pocket and
extracted a wad of bills, presenting them to her with a manic
glint in his eyes.

     Nabiki looked at the money.  "What's that for?"
     
     "A future retainer," the doctor replied.
     
     She half-reached for the money, then pulled her hand back.  
"I don't take money for services I don't know if I will ever
render."

     "Oh?" Tofu said, sounding surprised.  "Not anymore, you
mean?"     

     A silence seemed to fall.  She stared, and then realized she
was being paranoid.  He could not, did not know what he was
talking of.  Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to be away 
from him.  The sky threatened rain, she told herself, and she had 
to be indoors before that happened.  "Gotta go," she said.  
"Looks like it's going to start coming down soon."

     Tofu glanced up, then shook his head.  "No.  I'd say there's
a little longer to go."

     "Bye, Doc."  She turned to walk away.
     
     "Bye, Nabiki."
     
     And as she left, something interposed itself before the
ankle of one foot and behind the heel of the other.  She fell
heavily, crying out as she caught herself on her hands.  Her
right knee slammed into hard pavement with a crack, and tears 
came to her eyes.

     "I'm sorry, Nabiki," Tofu said in a concerned voice.  "I
shouldn't have left the broom there.  Are you okay?"  He knelt 
down by her, and put a hand on her shoulder.  

     "Just a bit scraped up," she whispered.  He helped her to 
her feet; her knee was bleeding heavily, staining the skirt of 
her dress, and her palms were badly skinned.  Clumsy, she cursed
herself; she hadn't been watching where she was going.  Tripped
over a broom.  She had been sure it had been on the other side of
the gate.  Maybe Tofu had moved it - but that was ridiculous, why
would he do that?

     "Come inside the clinic," he said gently, his hands still on
her shoulders.  "That knee needs to be bandaged up, and I'll have
a look at your hands too."

     He led her inside to the small examination room, got her to 
sit on the clinic bed, then knelt and began to probe at her knee
with his fingers.  Nabiki started as his hands reached up under 
her dress, but reminded herself he was a doctor.  There was
nothing on his face but clinical detachment.

     After a few seconds of pressing with his fingers, the flow
of blood from the cut slowed, and then stopped altogether.  His
hands lingered on her knee for a moment longer, doing what must
have been a few more necessary adjustments, and then he stood up.
"Better?"

     Nabiki nodded.  He handed her a tissue from a box on the
small table by the bed, and she dabbed at the few tears of pain
on her face.  "Thanks, Doc."

     "How are your hands?" he asked as he rooted through the
supply cabinet.

     Nabiki looked at them and grimaced.  The first few layers of
flesh on her palms were ragged and bloody, and hurt with a dull,
throbbing pain.  "Not so good."

     A bottle and a white cloth in his hands, Tofu returned.  
An acrid, medicinal tang filled the air as he splashed liquid 
from the bottle on the cloth.  "Hold out your hands."

     No reaction showed on his face when she winced at the sting 
of the iodine.  He bandaged her hands, then indicated for her to
raise her skirt above her knee with a motion of his fingers.  
Trying not to flush, Nabiki did so, and he cleaned and bandaged 
that wound as well.  There was a satisfied expression on his face 
when he finished.  "Better?"

     She nodded.  "Better."  She slipped off the bed and grabbed
her schoolbag from the floor.  "Thanks, Doc."

     "No problem," Tofu said with a smile.  "You're not really
used to injuries like Akane, are you?"

     The best she could give him back was a weak grin.  "Guess 
not."     

     "She used to come around here all the time," Tofu said with
what might have been a sigh.  "Kasumi, too.  Then they both
stopped visiting."

     "Uh-huh," Nabiki said as she took quick, though slightly
limping, steps towards the clinic door.     
     
     "Goodbye, Nabiki."  Tofu turned away from her and began to 
pack away his medical supplies.  
     
     "See you around, Doc."
     
     She walked out of the clinic and through the gate, glancing
warily at the sky and hoping to make it home before the rain 
came.  In the end, she did.

**********

     "It is not the why I am interested in.  It is the how."
     
     Seated on the couch, Yamiko shrugged and hissed something in
her grotesque parody of a human voice.  Yoko frowned, thought for
a moment, and then shook her head.  "Possible, but unlikely."  
The thin wood of the chair creaked as she shifted her weight on
its thin cushions.  It was the latest style, and grotesquely
flimsy in appearance, all curves and struts.  Yamiko toyed at her 
braid with one black-nailed hand, then shrugged again.  Then she 
leaned back and put her feet up on the glass top of the coffee 
table, only to remove them a moment later when she got a look at 
Yoko's face.  Both women were tense, and the source of most of 
that tension lay on the table between them.  The note was on 
clean white paper, unfolded, and had been on the shoe mat inside 
Yoko's apartment when the two of them had arrived.  What was 
written there, in a neat and large hand, was this:

          I will set events in motion tomorrow here.  By the
     morning of the day after, Ryugenzawa must be under your
     control.  Do not fail in this.
     
     It was signed with an ornate English letter R.  A moment
after Yamiko took her feet off the table, Yoko picked it up and 
read it again.  With an annoyed snort, she crumpled it and tossed
it to bounce off the rain-streaked glass doors leading out to the
balcony.

     "Well, how far are you capable of moving with that 
shadow-walking of yours before you get exhausted?" she asked,
turning her head to glare at the wetly-chuckling Yamiko.  Yamiko 
thought, then grated an answer.  The chair creaked again as Yoko 
banged one arm with her clenched fist.  "No.  I can't believe 
he's that powerful, and he's male as well.  It has to be some 
other explanation."

     A gurgling laugh was Yamiko's reply.  The rain hammered on
the windows and the balcony doors as Yoko stood and began to pace
the room.  "I suppose it is not important.  If he says it, I
believe it will be done.  Fortunately, things are already in
place there, and I have the property deeds in my hands."  
Yamiko's questioning hiss made her pause by a tall bronze floor 
lamp.  "Yes, that is important, believe it or not.  It is a form
of contagion, one of the most fundamental laws in these things; 
you should know that."  Yamiko, in fact, did, but was hoping to 
get more of an explanation.  Yoko did not feel like giving it, 
however, and resumed her pacing.  "I will tell them to begin 
preparations.  In the meantime, we will obtain those of use to 
us."  She paused again as Yamiko gave a low, inquisitive growl.  
"The strong are only as strong as the weakest thing they cherish, 
Yamiko dear."
     
     Yamiko rose from the couch and walked with flowing grace to 
stand in front of the balcony doors.  Outside, a single bright 
arc of lightning cut across the sky, illuminating the tall 
office buildings of downtown Tokyo.  Osaka was much nicer, in 
Yamiko's opinion.

     As if reading her thoughts, Yoko spoke.  "Do you trust
whoever you've left in charge at home?"  Yamiko shook her head, 
and Yoko laughed.  "Of course you don't.  I won't trust whoever I 
leave in charge either.  But none of that will matter once 
Jusenkyou is ours, Yamiko.  None of that at all.  If they unleash 
terror that makes the Aum Shinri Kyo look like children, it will 
not matter in the slightest."

     Suddenly thirsty, Yoko walked towards the kitchen, then
paused again as Yamiko asked another question.  "No.  Not them
this time.  One does not easily capture kings with pawns, even
unprotected kings.  We shall send a knight instead."  She stood
silently for a moment.  "We'll handle the mother ourselves.  She
deserves a certain delicacy.  There is another, but I have not
yet foreseen if she will be convenient."

     Rain left serpentine trails down the glass as Yamiko leaned 
back against the cool sliding doors of the balcony and snarled 
softly.  Yoko nodded.  "In the morning.  We have other things we 
must do this night."  A half-step into the kitchen she looked 
back, her hand on the frame of the open door.  "Do you want 
something to drink?"  

     In droll silence, Yamiko pointed to her mask.  
     
     Yoko chucked softly.  "Of course you don't.  How silly of 
me."
          
**********     

     Kuno sipped his tea and watched the rain falling on the 
green grass of the lawn through the large picture window of the 
sitting room.  Steam from the blue-tinged china cup drifted in 
lazy spirals as he set it down upon the saucer atop the grand 
piano.  Lightly, he drifted his fingers across the keyboard.  
Seldom had the hinged cover for them even been opened since his 
mother had died, but the tone was still perfect.

     "Do not lay this burden upon me, my dead," he said to no 
one.  "I have not the strength to bear it."  He had begun to
regret his words to Nabiki Tendo this morning.  Had he been able
to save his sister?  No.  What good could he do her?

     He envisioned a serpent, a great and devouring beast,
lurking under the surface of the earth for untold centuries.  
Consuming and turning lesser creatures into its own body, until
it had so many thousands of heads that it could never be killed.
Such was what his grandfather served.  How could you fight
something like that?

     What, he wondered, had they been behind?  How many wars went
back to them?  How many mothers and daughters dead?  How many
children left alone, how many fathers driven mad?  The monstrous
size of it was almost too much to contemplate - it seemed unreal,
something from a nightmare.  

     Perhaps flight, then.  But where?  Where would be safe?
     
     "I cannot do this thing," he whispered, closing his eyes.
"Entreat me not.  Let it pass from me.  Let it end.  What does
any of it matter, in the scope of things?"

     Something drew his body up from the piano bench, and he
crossed to the large single pane of the window that overlooked
the yard.  Off in the distance, he saw his sister's greenhouse,
the lights within illuminating row upon row of plants.  He had
given up trying to care for them himself, and they were slowly
dying.

     The glass was cool under his palms, and against his forehead
as he leaned forward and rested it there.  Grief was too great in 
that moment, it seemed, to bear.  "Sister mine, mother mine, do 
not ask these things of me."  The masquerade was finished, long 
over.  Nothing they could be done - he, Nabiki Tendo, all of them 
were dead.  The foe was ancient and vast.  Outside, the rain fell 
down gently.  He stepped back to draw the curtains closed, and 
saw that the rain was falling up the window.  Hypnotized, he 
stared.  The drops beaded upon the glass, and each time a drop 
hit, it flowed up the glass rather than down.
     
     "I do not understand," he said, the curtains dropping
limply from his grip, whispering softly against each other as 
they half-obscured the impossible sight beyond.  "What does this
signify?"  He closed the curtains, and turned away.  At the
piano, he closed the keyboard cover, and then turned to leave the
room.  In the hallway where stairs led between first and second
floor, he stopped.  There was a tapping at the front door.  
Frowning, wondering who it could be, he went and threw it open.

     Rain fell down on the empty front stoop.  "Who is there?" he 
called into the night.  A gust of wind blew rain through the door 
and spattered a hundred wet droplets upon his face and hair.  
Next to the stone walkway that led to the front gates of the 
estate, a cement birdbath overflowed, and a steady trickle of a
waterfall spilled over the sides.  Upon it perched a dove.  The
plumage was white as snow, though dampened by rain.  

     Kuno stared.  Two images seemed to overlay.  One, a small
white dove.  The other a larger bird, greater than an eagle, 
every feather pale as alabaster.  The night wind and the rain
were coming in through the door in almost solid sheets now,
washing over him, but he cared not.  Layers on layers - truths
upon truths.  The bird took wing, tiny, vast, into the sky.  So
huge the storm, so small that which flew.  Wind battered it, rain
hammered it, but upwards, ever upwards striving.  He watched it
go, felt as if it carried his heart with it.  Up it travelled, up
and up, until it seemed but a star against the night sky.  West;
to the west it flew.

     "I see," he said softly.  "I see."
     
**********     
     
     Morning, grey and dull.  Alarm clock ringing on the desk.  
Stumble out of bed, then discover that your right leg doesn't 
work.  Not the best way to wake up.
     
     "Kasumi!"
     
     The door opened, and Kasumi stepped in, a laundry basket
tucked under one arm.  "Oh, Nabiki.  Why are you on the floor?"

     "For my health," Nabiki snapped with a gesture at her limp
leg.     

     Kasumi nodded.  "All right, then."  Humming cheerfully, she
turned to go.

     "Kasumi!"
     
     "Did you want something, Nabiki?"
     
     Nabiki sighed and motioned with her hands.  "There's
something wrong with my leg, Kasumi."  The alarm blared still 
upon her desk, until Kasumi stepped over and switched it off.

     "Oh my," she said as she knelt down.  The laundry basket was
laid aside, and she began to massage Nabiki's calf with her
hands.  "Do you feel anything?"

     Nabiki shook her head.  "Nothing."
     
     Fingers travelled up along her leg, stopped when they 
reached the knee.  Kasumi pursed her lips.  "Did you fall
yesterday, Nabiki?"

     "Yeah.  Outside Tofu's clinic.  He patched me up."
     
     The purse moved a fraction closer to a frown.  "Oh."
     
     "You don't think that he's got something to do with this, do
you?"

     Kasumi shook her head vehemently.  "Oh, no, never.  Never."
     
     Suppressing the urge to frown was difficult.  In hindsight,
Tofu had been acting strange yesterday.  It just hadn't hit her 
at the time - Tofu was always so good-natured, except where
Kasumi was concerned.

     But he wouldn't do something like that.  It would go against
everything she knew about him.  Or maybe he'd done something to
her knee by accident.  Even if it hadn't been showing up in his
behaviour as usual, Kasumi had undoubtedly been on his mind.

     "Well, you certainly can't go to school with this," Kasumi
concluded, breaking Nabiki's train of thought.  "Let's get you
back into bed."

     With a little help from Kasumi, Nabiki returned to bed and
propped herself up against the headboard.  Kasumi fussily 
adjusted the sheets and fluffed the pillows, then stepped back
with her hands on her hips.  "There.  Is there anything else 
you'd like?"

     Nabiki pointed.  "My schoolbooks."
     
     Kasumi retrieved them from the shelf and put them on the 
bedside table, within easy reach.  "I'll bring your breakfast up 
to you after I call the school."

     "Call Tofu as well," Nabiki said.  "He should probably have
a look at this."  Even if the doctor was responsible, he could
fix this easy, as long as he wasn't around Kasumi.

     Kasumi shook her head.  "Oh, my, no.  I wouldn't want to
bother him for something this little."

     "Little?  My leg doesn't work, Kasumi," Nabiki said with a
sigh.  "That's not little."  She didn't feel like arguing with
Kasumi right now - she had the feeling it would be futile.

     "I'll see what I can do later," Kasumi said evasively,
picking up the laundry basket and stepping out into the hallway.
"In the meantime, you rest up.  Maybe it will get better on its
own."  Before Nabiki could respond, the door closed and Kasumi 
was gone.
     
**********

     Her pen ran dry after the first hour of writing.  A scowl,
a sigh, and a few shakes did nothing to bring forth any more ink.
Resigned, Nabiki was preparing to hobble out of bed over to her 
desk when someone knocked on the door.  

     "It's open."
     
     The door swung open and her father stepped in, his hands
clasped nervously in front of them.  "Not feeling so well, are
you Nabiki?"

     Nabiki rolled her eyes, and indicated her bedridden,
pyjama-clad state with a wave of her hand.  "Whatever gave you
that idea?"

     Looking vaguely hurt, Soun was silent for a moment.  "I just
wanted to see if you needed anything," he mumbled at last.

     Nabiki hid her usual disdain.  A grown man, unable to talk
coherently to his own daughter.  "You could get me another pen
while you're here," she directed.

     Soun stepped up beside the bed and looked down at her notes.
"School work?"

     "Something like that," Nabiki replied, covering most of the
writing with what looked like a casual movement of her arms.  
"Get me that pen, would you?"

     As her father stepped over to the desk, Nabiki put a blank
page on top of the others.  It was not school work; she was,
rather, writing down everything Kuno had told her and any other
conclusions she could draw from that.  It would have gone faster
by computer, but she preferred handwriting when she really needed 
to think things through.

     A pen was offered, and she accepted it.  "Thanks, Dad."
     
     "You're welcome."  He hesitated.  "Can I sit down for a few
minutes?"

     "Be my guest."
     
     Soun did not sit, but rather stood and fidgeted.  "Has Akane
called?"

     An exasperated sigh escaped her.  "I'll tell you when and if
she does.  Western Qinghai is not exactly the most developed area
in China."  Flippant she might be, but the lack of contact from
Akane was worrying her.  The last they'd heard had been a quick
call from Xining, and then nothing.  That had been days ago.

     "Oh."  Soun's face was downcast.
     
     "Is that it?" Nabiki asked.

     "Err... no."
     
     She sighed again.  "What else?"
          
     The wheels of the desk chair squeaked as Soun pulled it over
to the bed and sat down.  "Do you think Kasumi's all right, 
Nabiki?"
     
     Nabiki touched the end of the pen to her lips, unable to
write anything as long as her father was here, and annoyed by
that fact.  "Yeah, as much as she ever is."

     Soun frowned.  "And what does that mean?"
     
     "Oh, come on," Nabiki responded.  "A grown woman whose
ambition in life is to be a housewife for her father?"

     Her father looked as if she'd just slapped him across the
face.  "But... but..."

     Nabiki winced inwardly - she'd hit a nerve she hadn't been
aware existed, apparently.  "Sorry, Dad.  I didn't mean it that 
way.  But you've got to admit, it's a bit weird."  Her father 
mumbled something, so faint she couldn't make it out.  "What's 
that, Dad?"

     "Nothing," he said, shaking his head.  "What about Tofu?
She's interested in him, isn't she?"

     "I don't even know any more," Nabiki said.  "She seems
really hesitant, but..."  She tapped the pen against her lips.
"If I didn't know Kasumi, I'd think something happened between
them, around the time she stopped visiting."

     Perplexed did not even begin to describe her father's
expression.  "What do you mean?"

     Nabiki arched her eyebrows.  "What do _you_ think I mean, 
Dad?"
     
     Soun laughed weakly.  "Ridiculous.  Kasumi's a good girl."
     
     Suddenly, Nabiki wished she hadn't mentioned it.  "Yeah.
You're right."  A pause.  "Daddy, I'd really like to do this
work, okay?"

     Soun nodded.  "Sorry for taking up your time," he said
morosely.     
     
     "It's okay," Nabiki said dismissively.  "You want to do me a
favour?"  Eagerly, her father nodded.  "Bring me up the papers?"
     
     "Certainly."  Outside the window that framed Soun as he 
stood from the chair, drops of the night's rain clung to the 
glass.  The day was drear and grey, promising more rain soon.
He looks so old, Nabiki thought suddenly, and dismissed the
thought almost as quickly.  "Thanks, Dad."

     "Anything for my little girl."
     
     The words were sincere, as sincere as her father ever was,
but sounded so silly that Nabiki had to fight back the urge to
laugh out loud.  "Whatever."

     After he left, Nabiki waited until she heard the stairs
creak under his footsteps, and then resumed her work.  Outside,
thick dark clouds began to drift across the face of the sun.

**********
     
     The floor tile was cool under Soun's bare feet as he stepped 
into the kitchen.  It was slightly damp as well, and glistened in
the muted sunlight coming through the window over the sink, 
obviously recently washed.  Water ran from the faucet and into 
the sink, and Kasumi stood, back to him and sleeves rolled up to
her elbows, before it.  Soun noted that, oddly, there were no 
dishes - clean or dirty - by the sink.  
     
     "Oh.  Hello, father."  Kasumi turned and picked up a
dishtowel to dry her hands.  "Would you like something?"

     Soun scratched his head.  "I can't seem to find the papers."
     
     Kasumi rolled up her sleeves and hung the towel back up on
the rack by the sink.  "Oh dear, I already put them out in the
bins.  Did you want them?"

     Soun shook his head.  "Not me.  Nabiki wanted them, but I
can just go dig them out."  To his shock, he saw that Kasumi was
hanging her head, a shamed expression on her face.  "Kasumi,
what's wrong?"

     "I'm sorry, father.  I should have thought Nabiki would want
the papers.  She always reads them.  And I just threw them out
like that."

     Soun started to laugh, then cut it off when he saw the shame
deepen on his eldest daughter's face.  "Don't be ridiculous," he
said soothingly.  "It's okay."  That drew no response, and he
stepped over and put an arm around his daughter's shoulders.  
"Kasumi, no one can be perfect.  Not even you."

     "But I have to try," Kasumi murmured, twisting her hands in
the yellow fabric of her apron.  "I have to try."  Something
about her hands caught his eye, and he reached out to take one of
her wrists.  Kasumi's arm was limp in his grip as he drew her 
hand away from pulling at the cloth of the apron.  Her fingertips 
were red and the skin looked too dry.  

     She must have realized what he was looking at.  "I've just 
been washing my hands a lot lately.  Sometimes it has that effect 
on my skin."

     Soun studied his daughter quizzically.  "Kasumi, are you
feeling all right these days?"

     A vehement nod.  "Of course."
     
     "Maybe you should go see Doctor Tofu.  I don't think..."
     
     "Father, it's okay."
     
     "I was thinking of calling him about Nabiki's knee anyway,
and it wouldn't be too much trouble for him too..."

     Kasumi tugged her wrist free of his grip, so fast she 
stumbled back and almost lost her balance.  "Father, I said no!"

     Soun blinked.  This was hardly normal behaviour from Kasumi.
"Now listen, Kasumi.  I'm your father, and I believe that Tofu
really should do a private examination of--"
     
     "NO!"
     
     And then, of all things, she was trying to run by him.  He
moved in front of the door to stop her, and gaped as she shrank
back, holding her arms up defensively before her face as if she 
feared she would be struck.  What he saw in her eyes shocked him 
to his core; a mad fear, the look of an animal caged.

     If there was one thing Soun would have said in his own
favour, it was that he knew, to some extent, his own weaknesses.
One was his inability to control his emotions; another was the
fact that he was not the quickest at picking up on subtle things.
When he did, however, they often struck him all at once.

     As slowly and carefully as he could, he reached out and 
touched Kasumi's shoulder.  She shook like a leaf in strong wind
under his hand.  "What is it about Tofu, Kasumi?" he asked
softly.  "Why are you so frightened of him now?"

     "I have to clean the bathroom," Kasumi said mechanically,
shrugging free of his hand.  The control in her voice was 
brittle, like ice about to crack.

     Soun took her by the shoulders.  Not too hard, but firmly
enough she couldn't escape.  "Kasumi, tell me."

     Her eyes were wide and frightened.  "Please, father," she
whispered disconsolately.  "Please.  I have to clean the
bathroom."  Let her go, something whispered in him.  You don't 
want to know this thing.  So do not.  Let her go.  

     "Tell me."  He made his voice as demanding as he could 
without being too harsh.  

     The reflection of the kitchen lights swam in the tiles of
the kitchen floor.  Head bowed, Kasumi would not meet his eyes.
She wasn't trembling any more; now she was tense as the string of
a violin.

     And then, as Soun listened, the horror came out in a few
short words.  Like a dam cracking.  "He touched me for the first
time when I was sixteen."

     "What?" Soun asked in a whisper, blood draining from his 
face.  All of a sudden, he couldn't seem to keep his body 
upright.  His hands slipped bonelessly from Kasumi's shoulders
and fell to his sides.

     "He said he loved me," Kasumi said.  The dullness and
flatness in her voice were painful to hear.  Still she would not
meet his eyes.  "He said we'd get married when I was older.  But 
he lied, Daddy.  He lied."

     Soun could not speak.  Somehow, he managed.  "Kasumi..."
     
     "After Ranma came, I told him that... that it would have to
stop.  That he'd have to marry me or I'd stop letting him touch
me.  You know what he said, Daddy?"  She stared at him almost 
accusingly, as if he somehow might.  "You know what he said?"

     A dry desert, his mouth.  Oceans roared in his ears.
     
     "There's always Akane.  That's what he said."
     
     Some things are so against everything that we have known and
believed that we do not want to believe them, Soun thought.  But
this was his daughter, his beloved Kasumi, who was telling him
this.  Now speech truly was beyond him, and he could only stand 
and listen as horror after horror spilled from her mouth as if 
from some dark oracle.

     "So I let him keep on touching me, even though I didn't want
him to.  I let him keep up his little game, so that we could be
alone more often.  And then when Akane stopped going to see him, 
and she started liking Ranma, I went and told him it was over.  
And you know what he did then?"
     
     There was silence, empty of the sound as the cold void of
space, between them.  For a time, it seemed as if they might 
stand there forever, frozen in time like statues.

     "He _made_ me," Kasumi wailed, voice suddenly breaking from
dead calm to hysteria, like clear sky to storm or still sea to
maelstrom.  "He made me and I tried to stop him but he was too
strong and he hurt me and he wouldn't let me go and finally he
did and he said no one would believe me and if I told anyone--"

     "I'll kill him," Soun said.  No heat in it, none of the 
usual fire of his frequent rages.  Absolute and deadly 
conviction.  
     
     He turned, and now it was Kasumi who held him back, as he 
had held her.  "No, father, no, please..."

     A twist of his body broke his shoulders free from her hands,
and he walked out of the kitchen, Kasumi following, pleading for
him to stop.  He did not listen.  Out the back doors and heading
for the equipment shed.  The swords, the weapons, he pictured
their locations in his mind.  Sickness; his throat was filled 
with bile.  That any man would do this to one of his daughters...

     But it was beyond that.  It was a man he'd trusted, who he'd
entertained notions might join the family some day.  A man who'd
bandaged his youngest daughter's injuries and sat down at his
table for dinner and had done... this _thing_, this violation.

     Oh, he would kill him all right.
     
     Kasumi had her arms around his waist now, saying words he
couldn't hear.  The grass was damp and slick under his feet.  He
was, he realized, dragging her.  She would not let go, would not
be quiet.

     "Why?" he snarled.  He pulled free, spun, and grabbed her by
the shoulders.  "Why should he live when he has done this?"  
Kasumi opened her mouth.  No sound came out.  Not even realizing 
it, he began to shake her.  "Why?"

     Kasumi said nothing.
     
     "WHY?" 
     
     Her head snapped back and forth as he shook her.  The fear,
the terror in her eyes, was awful.  After long seconds, he
realized it was of him.  Fear and self-loathing burning in him,
he let her go and stumbled back.  There were tears in Kasumi's
eyes; she sank to her knees before him, head bowed, weeping into
her hands.  

     Shame had replaced the rage.  Soun knelt on the wet grass;
nearby, the pond lay.  Raindrops caught in the leaves of 
overhanging trees glistened like jewels, and fell every few 
seconds, disturbing the glassy calm of the water.

     "Oh, Kasumi," he said softly, such an agony in his heart 
that he was not sure he could bear it.  "Why didn't you tell 
anyone?"

     "Because I liked it, father," she whispered, raising her
head from her hands to look at him.  "At the start, I liked it."

     Soun reached out.  Wordlessly, he gathered his daughter into
his embrace.  His Kasumi - the one he'd always secretly thought
was the most beautiful of his three beautiful girls, even though
a father wasn't really supposed to make a choice like that.  He
held her, stroked her hair, murmured words that meant nothing in
any human tongue.  Whenever she'd had nightmares as a little 
girl; she'd always come to him.  Never to her mother, whom she 
went to for everything else.  To him.  And he'd made the 
nightmares go away.  Failure, he realized.  When it had really 
mattered, he had failed.

     "Touching."
     
     In disbelief, Soun looked up.  All the rage came back in a
rush.  In the shadow of a tree, Tofu idly scratched his heel with
the toes of one bare foot.  He grinned, eyes bright and merry 
behind his glasses.  "It's time to go now, Kasumi," he said 
softly.  Kasumi said nothing, eyes squeezed tightly shut.  

     Soun rose, left his eldest daughter kneeling on the ground.  
His hands balled into fists at his side, he stalked towards Tofu.
"Get out," he growled.  

     Tofu shook his head.  "Kasumi and I have business."
     
     In a rush, Soun came.  Silver glinted in Tofu's hands.  
Before Soun even came within striking range, he felt the strength 
go from his limbs.  A numb feeling in his shoulder made him 
glance to the side, to see the glinting head of an acupuncture 
needle driven into his flesh.  His legs crumpled.  Desperately, 
he tried to fight, but his blood had turned to ice. Movement was 
impossible.  Face down in the grass, he inhaled the scent of rain 
and wet earth, and cursed himself in every way he knew.  Fool, he 
thought.  Failure.  Can't protect your daughter.  Can't protect 
anyone.  Useless.  Someone turned him over with a foot; he didn't 
even feel it - his body was a prison now, not a servant.  He 
looked up into Tofu's grinning face.  Behind his glasses, the 
doctor's eyes seemed not to be those of a man.  There was a 
coldness in them, a hunger that chilled Soun to see.

     Footsteps, light on the grass.  Kasumi weeping, no words in
her voice.  Men stood behind Tofu now; a half-dozen of them,
perhaps.  Soun could not see their faces.  Tofu reached down and 
put his fingers to Soun's neck.  "Take the old man inside," he 
said.  "I'll handle the women."

     "Honoured mother of the night did not say--" one of the men 
began.  His voice was oddly high and musical.     
     
     "The honoured mother the night is not here," Tofu cut off.     
"Nor is the honoured mother of the shadows.  I am, however, and I
am ko-daimyo.  Do you defy me, child?"

     "No, lord."
     
     "Good."
     
     Tofu pressed down on a certain point on Soun's neck.  
Forgive me, daughter, he thought, and then there was nothing.

**********     

     The arms of the clock on the classroom wall ticked slowly 
down the day.  Bored almost beyond reason, Kuno listened to the
teacher drone on and on.  School taught him nothing now, and 
never had before.

     White bird, flying alone, through the storm.  He thought he
knew what it meant, but was not sure.  Moreover, he had been
occupied this morning in consideration of Nabiki Tendo's 
situation.  Now the first class of the day was half over, and she 
still had not appeared.  It was unlike her to be late.

     From his desk near the classroom window, he could see out
into the front yard of the school.  Shrubbery and trees, dampened
by rain, hung low and heavy.  Rain was coming again, though he
couldn't guess when.  Could it be that Nabiki was unwell this
morning?

     No.  The sudden conviction came over him that something was
very wrong.  It had begun; he should have seen the signs last
night.  He cursed himself silently for a fool.  The teacher
recited interminably from the textbook.

     Kuno sprang to his feet.  "Enough, varlet!  Teach us not of
these petty, womanish things!  Let us hear a history of Musashi,
or of the campaigns of Nobunaga!"

     "Well," the teacher replied icily, adjusting his glasses, 
"if you don't want to learn about the socio-economic factors
behind the Meiji restoration, you're welcome to stand in the 
hall.  In fact, I insist upon it.  With buckets, if you please."

     Stiffly, Kuno walked out of the classroom, enduring the
snickers of his peers as he always did.  Fools mock that which
they cannot comprehend.  Once he reached the hallway, however, he
began to run as quickly as he could.

**********

     Footsteps, coming up the stairs.  You learned to recognize 
the tread of your own family upon the stairs after a while, or at 
least Nabiki had.  Kasumi's steps, but there was something odd 
about them.

     Nabiki closed her notebook with a snap and laid it down on
the bedside table.  The footsteps stopped outside her room, and
she called out.  "Kasumi?"
     
     Without a word, the door swung open.  Tofu stood in the 
hallway, hand on the doorknob.  Kasumi was behind him.  Her older 
sister's hands were clasped tightly in front of her, and she 
stared fixatedly at the ground.

     "Have you ever heard of knocking, Doc?" Nabiki asked, 
annoyed.
     
     Tofu stepped in in silence, and Nabiki saw he almost seemed 
to glide across the floor, he walked so lightly.  That was why 
she hadn't heard his steps.

     "Doctor Tofu?" she asked hesitantly.  
     
     He didn't even seem to register her voice, but rather 
glanced back to Kasumi.  "Stay, Kasumi.  Don't go."
     
     A nod from Kasumi raised her head slightly, and Nabiki saw
that her face was tear-stained, yet expressionless as if carved
from stone.  Before that thought entirely registered, Tofu closed
the door of her room with a finalistic click, and glided over to
the bed.  He was smiling.

     "Nabiki dear," he greeted jovially.  "You've been an awfully
bad girl, haven't you?"

     "What?"
     
     "Selling out your family," he continued.  "Selling out
everyone.  I wonder, is there anything you would not sell if the
price was enough?"

     Trying to think of words to use was futile.  Words had
always been her weapons, but Tofu's had disarmed her.  All she
could do was stare.  A vague itch at the base of her spine, cold
and sharp as an icicle, began.  As she looked into Tofu's eyes,
it speared through her entire body.  Suddenly, she realized how
vulnerable, how horribly vulnerable she was.  Lying in bed, in
pyjamas, the sheets covering only her legs.  And one leg didn't
work.  So this was Tofu, she realized vaguely.  Another mask.
Another disguise.  Was nothing she had believed true, true?

     A finger traced the line of her collarbone.  Fast; he had
moved so fast she had seen no motion.  His smile was all teeth.  
Then he moved the hand to rest upon her breasts, and the physical
reaction was almost automatic.  He caught the hand before she
could slap his face, shook his head slightly, and then bent her
wrist almost to the breaking point.  A ragged scream burst from 
her.  The pain was almost unimaginable; she could feel bones 
shifting, ready to pop if she moved her arm even fractionally.  
Tofu slapped her, hard enough to rock her head back, and dropped 
her arm.  Sobbing, she cradled it in her other hand.  

     "No one who can help can hear," Tofu said softly.  He 
leaned over the bed, resting his hands on the wall behind her
head, until his face was only inches from hers.  "Whatever I
want, I may do."

     "You son of a bitch," Nabiki growled, finding words amidst
the pain.  "Kasumi's already run off and called the police."
     
     Tofu laughed, his breath coming hot against her face.  "You
do not know your sister very well, do you?"  He seized her face
under the chin and tilted her head back to examine her intently.

     "Bastard."  She would fight, she vowed.  Whatever he tried
to do, she would fight.  The startling horror of the situation
was only slowly hitting her - Tofu knew, which meant he was
connected somehow.  Yakuza, or worse.  

     He slapped her again, this time so hard her lip cut against
her teeth.  "Watch your mouth, Nabiki.  That's not proper 
language for a young lady."

     The words came forth before she could even think of stopping
them.  "Fuck you."
     
     A hand grabbed her wrist in a grip like iron.  There was a
pop, and the pain leapt straight up her arm and knifed into her 
heart.  She screamed.  Couldn't help it.  Hurt too much.

     "That's a dislocation," Tofu explained in a clinical voice.
"I can pop that back in easily, and do it so it won't hurt for
more than a few hours.  Speak to me like _that_ again, and I'll 
break it.  That won't heal so easily, and if I splinter the bone
through the skin, believe me that the pain you have right now 
will seem a pleasant memory."

     Her wrist was already bruising, and the limp angle it hung
at was not anything even approaching normal.  Even the soft 
feel of the bedcovers it lay upon was like needles stabbing the 
skin.  Screaming won't help, she thought vaguely.  Be strong,
Nabiki, be brave.  Don't let him know you're scared.  Fat chance 
of that.  Stupid, stupid, why didn't you see, why didn't you see 
what he was?

     "Do you want me to fix that wrist of yours?" he asked
politely.  The urge to shake her head, to defy, was consumed by
the awesome pain she was in.  Tearfully, she nodded.  How easy it
was, to rid herself of pride in the face of this.

     Tofu grabbed and twisted.  There was another pop, and the
agony of before was like pleasure next to this.  The coppery 
taste of blood filled her mouth, and she realized she'd bitten 
her tongue to stop herself from crying out.  It took her long 
seconds to descend from the towering apex of her pain, until the 
fire in her arm was but a dull throbbing in her tender wrist.

     "You love Kasumi, don't you?" she asked in a pained whisper.
One last try, one desperate grasping for salvation.  Even if, 
from what she saw in Tofu's eyes, love was not even a part of his
being.

     Tofu looked, of all things, surprised.  "Of course I do."
     
     "Then let us go." Half-pleading, the sound of her own voice
shamed her.  "Let us all go."
     
     He shook his head, still smiling.  "But don't you see?  I
love her so much I can't let her go.  She's mine, Nabiki.  She'll
always be mine."  He reached out and seemed to brush his fingers
against a point on her neck.  All the strength flowed out of her
body below the shoulders.  "I had her.  I could have had Akane.
But I never even thought of having you."  He bent down until his
mouth was next to her ear.  "But I'll make you a deal," he
whispered, pushing a few locks of her hair out the way with 
gentle fingers.  "Let me have you right now, instead of Kasumi, 
and I won't touch her if you're good enough.  How's that sound?  
Is it a deal?"

     Oh, god, Nabiki thought, oh god, the loathsome bastard.  
Tears of remorse began to mingle with the ones of pain upon her
face.  She couldn't do it, oh, forgive her, she couldn't.  It was
beyond her.  She was nothing, nothing here, against this 
nightmare, this monster in flesh.  

     "I didn't think so."
     
     Tofu silently crossed the floor of her room.  The door 
opened, and he was gone.  Paralysed, she wept silently, unable to 
give voice to screams or anything else.  Footsteps in the hall 
outside, and then the sound of a door opening and closing.  Let 
it end, Nabiki thought desperately.  Let me pass out from pain, 
or faint, or anything.  Do not make me hear this.  But that was 
denied.          
              
**********

     Tofu closed the door to her room, and she was trapped.  He
was in the house now, he was a guest, you couldn't be rude to
guests, no matter where they touched you, no matter what they did
to you, because home was the place where you were safe and people
loved you and no one could hurt you in the home as long as it was
a good home and he promised he wouldn't hurt Nabiki if she didn't
run and--

     His hands, reaching up to undo the ribbon from her hair.  
She saw her face in the mirror on her table, saw it was a mask of
skin, and could not cry although she wanted to.  So go away 
someone whispered.  Go to where you don't need to cry, where no 
one can hurt you, where it's safe.  Not the house anymore - not 
even here.

     Not the body.  The body hurts, the body is wounded.  Not
safe here.  He undid the ties of her apron and slid it slowly
from her body.  The body whimpered like an animal, and she heard
it as she went away.

     His hands touched the hips, slid up to cup the breasts.
The body screamed, the body couldn't help it, the body was 
scared.  Flesh was weak.  The buttons on the back of the dress 
popped one by one under his fingers.  A hand stroked the back, 
pebbled the skin with goosebumps.  So cold, so cold.  A deep 
place.  No more running.  No more need to run.  Nothing to run 
from.  The body trembled, wept, screamed.

     He was silent.  He had always been silent, never making a
sound during this.  That had not been right, she knew.  But he'd 
said he loved her, that she was his forever.  And the body was, 
the body was, he could take that, he could have it, she hated it, 
it was weak, it had liked it at the start.  

     Oh god, oh any god that can hear me, oh god.  The body was 
naked now, and his hands touched it, dipped and soared across the 
curves and contours.  The deepest darkest coldest safest pit 
there ever was.  The body screamed again as it was hurled 
face-first upon the bed and his hands grabbed the shoulders and 
pressed down and oh god, oh, merciful god the body prayed in the
silence of the dead.
     
     But Kasumi was safe.  Kasumi didn't hurt.  She was in a dark
place, a lonely place, but not a place that hurt.     
     
**********

     There were four of them in the yard.  Warriors all, he could
have told that by stance alone.  Their dress was strange, two of
them in flowing tunics and blousy pants of dark grey sashed with
black, two of them in tight-fitting and featureless black from 
head to toe.  The men in grey had sheathed swords, of a make he
could not tell from this distance - the eye seemed to slide off
if not carefully kept upon them.  The ones in black were even
worse; he had not even noticed them at first from his 
vantage-point across the street, until he had seen the way their
shadows fell upon the grass beyond the gate.  Seeing the shadows
before the men that cast them was not something he liked.

     Thoughtfully, he ran a finger across the edge of one of his 
bokken.  There had been no time to go home and get the swords,
but had not Musashi himself given up all blades but those of wood
in his later years?

     People passed by on the street outside the house constantly,
but given the odd displacement of vision the men seemed to 
induce and the isolation provided by the high white walls, it was
not strange that no one had noticed anything.

     Tucking the two bokken into the cloth belt of his hakama,
he took a roundabout route to the back of the Tendo compound and
hopped atop the wall there.  He might not be able to equal 
Ranma's prodigious leaps, but such acrobatics as that were not a 
function of his Art.  What he was capable of sufficed.  Crouching 
low, hands upon the hilts of his weapons, he scuttled along the 
top of the wall.  There were four more of them, scattered around 
the back of the house, hidden behind bushes or trees.

     Finding the most isolated, one of the black-clad ones, he
dropped behind him and landed in silence upon the grass.  Two
quick steps, and one bokken flashed out at a blinding speed.  
The man dropped from a blow to the base of the skull, where neck
met spine, making no sound but for the soft impact of his body 
with the earth.  

     Though that, it seemed, was enough.  He heard them, running
through the grass, coming around from the front of the house, and
drew his other wooden blade.  Flicking them out to the sides and
dropping their points low to the ground, he paced back as they
came, close to the wall so they couldn't surround him from all
sides.  The men in grey had knotted their black sashes over their 
eyes, for some reason, but moved as if they could see all the 
same.  

     Seven of them.  The swords of the men in grey were straight
and uncurved, about the same length as his bokken.  The ones in 
black held a hooked knife in each hand.  Their faces were hard 
and brutal without exception.  Killers - they had the same 
deadness of the eyes as the men whose faces he had memorized, the 
ones who had killed his mother and then been let go.  Justice had 
been served, though.  He had made sure of that.  Too young he had 
been, he had thought later.  But he'd done it all the same.  And
he'd kept it inside - kept the killer in, buried under so many
guises and layers that it couldn't ever come out.

     And now it seemed the time had come to let it forth again.
The men smiled.  One of the grey-clad said something that he did
not hear.  Blood roared in his ears.  The men came at him in a
concerted wave.  Seven.  Too little.  Kuno brought his blades up, 
and began to kill them.  Turned upon the living, a wooden blade 
that cleaves through stone and wood as easily as it does through 
air is a horribly effective weapon.
          
**********     

     Footsteps, coming up the stairs.  A single tread.  The
screaming had stopped a while ago.  Now, only the occasional
pained moan came from beyond the door, and there had not been one
of those for some time.  Not once had she heard Tofu's voice - 
only Kasumi's.  Somehow, that frightened her more than nearly 
anything else had.  She wanted to believe he wasn't human, but 
knew that he was.  You read about people like Tofu, or saw them 
in movies; you didn't meet them in real life.

     She had given up trying to move, given up trying to reach
the phone upon the desk.  Not a muscle could she work; it took
effort to breathe, to blink her eyes.  The footsteps weren't her
father's; too light, and too fast.  She wondered what Tofu had
done to her father.  The thought brought unwelcome others, and 
she pushed it away.

     The footsteps paused outside her door.  Now Kasumi had gone
silent, and the click of someone turning the handle of her door 
seemed the only sound in all the world.  Slowly, the door swung 
open.  When she saw it was Kuno, she tried to let out a sigh of
relief.  It came out as a hiss.  Kuno strode to the bedside.  
"Nabiki Tendo, your father lies insensate below.  Where is your 
elder sister?"

     She stared.  Spots.  Spots of blood, all over his clothing.
His face - she would not forget the look of his face until the
day she died.  Empty was the only word - empty of everything, and
his eyes looked like those of a man who had seen all the horrors
the world had to offer, that no more might ever touch him.  
Through the cloth belt at his waist, two bokken were thrust - the
edges were red-stained.

     Kasumi, she tried to say.  But there was no voice.  A thin
squeak.  Kuno leaned down, put his ear to her mouth.  "Who has     
done this to you?"

     Tofu.  Damned bastard Tofu.  The words wouldn't come forth.
She tried to force them, but could not.  Beyond Kuno, she saw the
door edging slowly open, so as to make no sound.

     Behind you.  No - no, speech was denied.  Blink and breathe,
that was all she could do.  Kuno leaned closer.  "Nabiki Tendo,
speak."  His voice was so dead of everything, of all emotion.

     The door opened fully, without a sound.  Tofu stood beyond,
something long and glinting in one hand.  From the room next 
door, a whimper that must have been Kasumi came through the wall, 
so faint it almost could not be heard.

     Kuno whirled at the sound, as Tofu lunged on cat-quiet feet
into the room.  A wooden blade, anointed with blood, whirled up
so fast it was only a blur and a scream of sound.  Silver flew
from Tofu's hand, and the bokken clattered on the floor as 
Kuno's right arm went limp.  Then the two were only blurs of 
speed, so fast Nabiki could hardly keep track.  Kuno began to 
draw his second blade with his other hand, and then Tofu hit him, 
low punches, one, two, driving the air from him.  In silence they 
grappled for a moment - enmeshed, seeming perhaps one single
creature - but Tofu was the better in hand to hand combat and 
Kuno fought with the nerves of one arm dead.  A vase of dried
flowers fell from Nabiki's desk and shattered on the floor in a
spray of colour, as Tofu swung Kuno round and slammed him into 
the wooden edge.  Kuno groaned as the small of his back hit, and 
Tofu seized his neck and squeezed with one hand.  Kuno's body 
went fluid as water, and dropped to the floor.  Nabiki despaired 
in silence as she watched him fall.

     Tofu turned to her.  "That was a close one," he said.  His 
glasses had fallen off during the short fight, and he reached 
down and picked them back up from near one of Kuno's weapons.  
Putting them back on and pushing them a fractional distance up 
his nose, he walked over to her and leaned down.  "You almost 
made it, Nabiki.  But that's not the way these things work."  He 
reached out and tapped her nose with one long finger, almost 
affectionately.  "You shall reap what you have sown, Nabiki.  
Ever hear that?"  He waited as if for an answer, than sighed when 
he didn't get one.  "Oh yes.  Nearly forgot."  His fingers 
pressed a half-dozen points on her body in a blur of speed, and 
the feeling came back to her limbs in a rush.  "Well?  What do 
you think?"

     "Maybe I'm just getting what I deserve," Nabiki murmured
weakly, half believing it herself.  "But Kasumi doesn't deserve 
any of this, you sick bastard."

     Tofu straightened up.  "The destiny of innocents is to lose
their innocence."  He pointed his finger at the open door of her
room.  "Go and get your sister ready to go.  Please don't try to
run, or I'll be forced to chase you down and make sure you can't
run again."

     "Where are we going?" Nabiki asked as she stood up.  
     
     "You'll see when we get there," Tofu replied, kneeling down
next to Kuno and rolling him over onto his back.  He began to
carefully extract a long, thin needle from Kuno's shoulder.

     Somehow, she no longer felt afraid.  Perhaps she was beyond 
it now - whatever horrors might happen in the future, how could 
they even compare to what she had just heard going on in the room 
next door?  Or maybe she was in shock; she'd read of that, when 
the part of the mind that was scared just shut down so you would 
not go mad.  She hoped that wasn't it; she'd always thought she 
had more will, more control than that.

     When she walked into Kasumi's room, her pace slow and
measured and automatic as a machine, she saw that the lights were
off.  Only the dim sun from the grey day outside illuminated the
huddled shape lying nude under a single thin sheet upon the bed.  
Hesitant, she touched Kasumi's bare shoulder through the sheet,
her hand still sore from yesterday's fall - which now seemed to
have taken place centuries ago.  Her sister flinched back from
the touch, whimpering.

     "Kasumi?" Nabiki whispered softly, kneeling down by the bed.
"Kasumi, it's me.  It's okay.  It's over now.  But we've got to
go, or I'm worried he'll do worse things."  The words sounded
ludicrous even as they left her mouth - what, what could possibly 
be worse than this?

     Kasumi said nothing.  Nabiki touched her again, and felt how
she shook.  With her other hand, she drew down the sheet from
Kasumi's naked face.  The eyes, which had once been bright, were 
dull and unfocused.  They looked back at her, but Kasumi didn't.  

     "Oh, Kasumi," Nabiki said, pushing away the hair that clung
damply to the pallid forehead.  The air of the bedroom was hot
and musky, smelling of things she did not want to think of.  "Oh, 
god, I'm sorry.  I should have let him, I should have, but I 
wasn't strong enough.  It should have been me; I'm the one who 
sold the family out, I'm the one who..."  Anything would be 
better than this silence.  Cry - oh, how much she wanted to cry.
But somehow, she couldn't.

     "Can't do it, can you?  Useless."  She turned.  Tofu stood
in the doorway; the glare of light from the hallway turned his
eyes into blank circles of glass.  "Your would-be rescuer killed 
eight men down there."  It came as no surprise, no shock at all.  
Too much already to register another fact so great - file and 
store for later reference.  "I'll just have to do it myself."  
Something shone in Tofu's hands.  A glint in the air.  A stabbing 
pain in her shoulder.  Blackness.  
     
**********
     
     The phone rang three times, and the monster stopped his work
and picked it up.
     
     "Hello?  Dad?  Nabiki?  Kasumi?"
     
     The monster breathed slowly into the phone, and considered
speaking.  But things had already gone badly enough on this
operation - four Eyeless and as many Voiceless dead because of a
random factor whose strength had been grossly underestimated - 
that he would not risk it, entertaining though it might have 
been.  Honoured mother of the night would not be pleased at the 
deaths, nor would honoured mother of the shadows.  They would 
know of the dead now - they could sense the extinguishment of men 
who had given up a part of themselves in sacrifice for the power
they granted in return.  The monster did not relish explaining
where he had been at the time.

     The monster hung up the phone and resumed his work.  Almost
immediately after, it rang again.  He did not answer this time,
only continued his work until it stopped, but the next time he 
passed the phone, he took it off the hook so it wouldn't disturb 
him any more.

     He finished a few minutes later - his work was quick and
efficient.  The targets had been taken away hours ago by other 
operatives, in a plain blue van, to the rendezvous point.  He had 
been forced to wait for night before he could finish the job 
here.  Once he was done, almost the last traces of Ranma Saotome 
would be gone from Nerima.

     The bodies - or pieces of bodies, as had been the case with
most of them - of the dead men he had strewn throughout the 
house.  Let the authorities wonder at that.

     A light rain began to fall as he walked out the front door.
Overhead, the night sky was rather pretty, the monster thought.
The air smelt of damp earth and fresh water, though the 
unpleasant odour coming from the house spoiled it slightly.

     The monster walked down the carefully-laid stones of the
front path, out through the gate in the tall white walls, beneath 
the peaked roof that sheltered him from the rain for a moment.

     Outside on the sidewalk, he stood in the pattering caress of
the raindrops for a few seconds.  Two children, a boy and a girl, 
ran past, their feet splashing through puddles.  "Hurry home, 
kids," he called to them.  "It's really going to start coming down 
soon."  The children laughed and waved to him, then ran away into 
the night.  The monster watched them turn the corner, then 
glanced to his watch as it ticked down the seconds.

     "Three..."
     
     Far in the distance, he heard sirens.
     
     "Two..."
     
     A night-bird called, off in the darkness.
     
     "One..."
     
     There came a muffled boom from within the house, rending
apart the gentle, soft tapestry of sound that was the night.  The 
central section fell in upon itself in a great roar of flames.  
Windows blew out, spraying glass through the air, as the 
gasoline ignited.  The grass caught almost instantly despite the 
dampness, and the trees lit like torches moments later.  In a 
long line, the flames rushed along the walkway that bridged house 
and dojo, and the training hall too went up in a blossoming rose 
of fire.     
     
     The monster smiled.  Yellow flame reflected in his glasses.
The people on the street began to scream.  The monster walked
away from the inferno through the gently-falling rain.  How easy 
it is to destroy what takes so long to create, he thought, as 
behind him flames clawed apart the night and reached hungrily 
towards the stars.  No one noticed the monster walking away, for, 
like many other monsters, he wore a human skin.

     Hungry as time or desire, fueled by gasoline and the old dry
wood, the blaze swept through the house where six generations of 
Tendos had lived.  It consumed photographs, clothing, books.  
Treasured heirlooms that had been passed down from one hand to 
the next over the years were destroyed in an instant.  In the
dojo, the family altar fell for the last time in ashen ruin.  
Carefully-cultivated greenery blacked and twisted to ash in the
yard.  As the firefighters fought to extinguish, or at least 
contain, the stubborn blaze, the house slowly collapsed into its 
own foundations.  When they finally probed through the ashes and
skeletal framework that remained after the flames at last burned 
out, they found fragments - teeth, bones, little more than that - 
that seemed to indicate that several people had died within the 
inferno.  And that was the fall of the House of Tendo.