---

      She was trapped by those blue eyes.
      Beautiful blue Hitomi, sad and alone.
      She saw him sitting on a park bench, and it was noon and his eyes
looked like shiny electric prisons she might willingly have been lost in
for hours.  There was something in them that was wild and out there, a
little bit of the animal and still something more that was not.  He was
older though, maybe five years older, maybe ten years or more.  And she
did not know, could not know, decided that she did not care to know, just
why she chose to sit next to him.
      And she noticed that he was not quite so large as he had first
seemed.  He was very tall, and his shoulders were indeed broad, but there
was no excess bulk in his musculature and there was a distinct leanness
to his shape.
      That confused her, for at first, looking at him from a distance, he
had seemed to her like a giant with the massive build of a titan.  It was
in the way he carried himself, shoulders squared, back ramrod straight,
arms somehow heavier in their stillness.
      He was dressed all in black, black combat boots, black jeans, a
plain black T-shirt, a black leather jacket over that, and black half-
gloves that left his fingers and knuckles bare.  Long, shiny bangs slid
back and forth across his forehead, a black curtain that sometimes
covered his eyes.
      Looking at her nervous fingers, clenched on her bare knees, she
wondered why she was being so foolish, and realized that when she looked
away, trying to picture his face in her mind, it was all smudged lines
and blurred shadow.  All that had struck her were the eyes, eyes sadder
than sad, and older than old, and wise like deep night sky.  And she
blushed fiercely, wondering why she thought of him so, muttering softly
to herself, "pfeh!  Deep night sky."  Memories of a bad poetry seminar
one summer were briefly contemplated and discarded for the immediacy of
the now.
      But, oh, those eyes were lovely, eyes that changed depending upon
how one looked at them, she guessed that they were probably icy and cold
in the morning, lustrous and metallic at noon, warm and soft at sunset
and the deepest darkest velvet at night.
      The man had not moved at all, not at all - in the silence of the
almost empty park, she could tell that his breathing had not even
changed, still slow and relaxed and even.
      "Shouldn't talk to strangers, you know."
      His voice made her check to see if the hem of her skirt had ridden
up her thighs, but they had not, so she felt silly as she tugged it down
for no reason other than that the sound of him made her feel so warm.
      She was scared, so she looked at him, and again those arresting
blue eyes made her think of things that puzzled her.  She licked her
lips.
      "You looked lonely," Hitomi said to the familiar stranger, "a small
blue thing."
      That was not quite the truth, but the truth was even more
frightening than this strange attraction.  Surprising then how her mouth
slipped somehow and she found herself adding, despite herself, "I had a
dream last night that you would be here..."  She bit off the last word,
suddenly horribly embarrassed, afraid that he would laugh.
      He just smiled this little, tiny smile at her and then she could
see the rest of him, and not just those incredible, incredible eyes.  The
aquiline lines of his face, ruggedly handsome, the skin deeply tanned.
      "So here I am."  He spread his arms with his palms facing up, head
inclined, as if offering himself and afraid that his offering would be
refused.
      The words made her gasp, the gesture made her feel feverish.  He
had said and done that in the dream, too.
      And she noticed that he was so... beautiful, she could think of no
other word that described him, that he would have been terrifying if she
did not at the same time feel this terrible need that had to do with him.
      "My name's Hitomi.  Ah, I go to a high school close by."
      He extended a hand towards her, and she was surprised when she
noticed that hand trembling.  Nervousness seemed so out of character for
this... stranger who was so, so familiar.
      "I used to go to that high school myself."  He chuckled when they
shook hands, at the feel of her hand in his, also rough and hard and
callused, a martial artist's hand for sure.  His voice was shivery when
he said, "My name's Ranma.  Have you been waiting long, Hitomi?"
      She whispered to him as sensations she could not explain welled up
inside her: "I've been waiting all my life."
      Her tears flowed and flowed, and she wondered if they would ever
stop.  And he held her and nothing in the world mattered anymore, except
for his holding her.

---
The NFT Zu
presents

'blue kiss'

the sequel to 'Winner'

by  Rain Man

foreword:  I predict that a significant fraction of those of you who
enjoyed Winner may be a little put out with this sequel.  Can't be
helped!  It's a different kind of story, it's true, but I hope that some
of you will still enjoy this, and be taken up a little, maybe, by the
fate of Ranma and the gang.  BTW, the verses are from T.S. Eliot's
Wasteland.  And this will make absolutely no sense for those of have you
who have not read Winner, by the way, so read that on the Zu page if you
haven't already.
---

      In the years since he had found the True Path of Fists, he had come
across philosophers and monks, witches and fortune-tellers of all kinds.
He had visited the dragon lord Herb, the growing child god-king Saffron,
and the ancient village of the Joketsuzoku.  There were Tibetan wise men
and Hindu ascetics, and powerful beings who might once have been gods and
goddesses, and twice he met an odd little group of immortals and once an
Endless one.
      And he remembered the discussions, every one of them, about whether
or not there was such a thing as "Free Will."  If there was destiny, or
pre-destiny, or whether an awareness of a future that might have locked
the path in that direction.  They often laughed at how he took it all so
seriously, and when they did, he would just grace them with a rare,
beautiful smile (though always a sorrowful smile).
      He had grown long past puzzles, long past curses and engagements
and honor.  And suffering.
      "I wanted to know," Ranma had asked the Endless one, "why my father
did what he did."
      The pale man had fingered the heavy emerald hanging from his neck,
and murmured, "You would do better to ask my older sister that."
      Their voices echoed in the massive obsidian hall, at the very heart
of and yet so very far away from the Dreaming.
      "But you met my father.  Several times.  You know him if anyone
does."
      The pale man shook his head.  "The events you speak of are dim in
my thoughts.  I remember them, but what understanding that part of me
that knew him might have had, was lost when I became what you see before
you."
      "Then this journey was pointless."
      "Was it, Ranma?"  The pale man rose to his feet.  "Was it?"
      Ranma was surprised when he saw that he was taller than the Endless
one.  And realized just how young the pale man actually was.  He sighed.
      "No, it was not.  My thanks for your hospitality."
      The Endless inclined his head.  "You are always welcome here,
Morning Child.  We are much alike, you and I.  Both our fathers made
mistakes.  Ranma, will you not let go?"
      Ranma closed his eyes.
      "He promised me, thirty years ago.  He promised.  And then I
lost... lost everyone that truly mattered to me."
      Thirty years ago when he mastered the True Path of Fists.
      He had been so sure that it would be so simple, so easy...

---

      "Ranma, you wound your father's heart," said the stocky old man,
spectacles glinting from the fluorescent lights overhead.
      Ranma shrugged.  "I spoke with Mother about it.  She did not like
it either, but she understood."
      "Honor dictates that the Tendo engagement takes precedence!"
      "You have a pretty selective memory when you talk about honor,
Dad."  It felt so strange calling this stranger that.  Ranma knew almost
nothing about him, about growing up under this man's tutelage, only about
the actions and events that had such consequences on their lives today.
      "Ranma, you are marrying Akane and that is final!" Mr. Tendo
exclaimed.  "You must choose Akane!"
      The young man shrugged again, looking out at the pond.  The others
about them at the dining room table stared openly, except for Akane, who
was up in her room, waiting.  He closed his ears to the shouting from the
two middle-aged men, let the dissonant sounds wash over him, slide by
ineffectually.  Their anger did not touch him, and outside in the yard,
he saw a moth catch fire from a hot spark, dying as it fluttered to the
ground.
      Such a pleasant day it had been; why, he wondered, did it have to
end with this?
      As he ignored them for a time, he recalled how, earlier that day,
Akane had arched her brow, scowling.  "You cooked," she said to him.
      Ranma sighed as he brought out some plates and laid them out on the
sheet.  "Kasumi and Nabiki said we would be less likely to fight if I
just prepared the picnic food and headed off any arguments about it.  I
don't know; maybe it was a mistake."  He ran his fingers through the
short, bristly area of his hair at the margin of his neck and head.  "I
don't remember what your cooking is like."
      "Well..." she mumbled.  "Perhaps it could use some improvement."
      "Oh, yeah.  Here."
      His hands moved then, with that awesome speed characteristic of
him.
      Akane blinked.
      "For me?"
      "Don't you like flowers?"
      "I hate flowers!"  She frowned fiercely, thinking about Tatewaki
and Kodachi, and the irritation and complications that always came with a
gift of blossoms.
      Then she saw that look in his eyes, the look that was a part of the
new him, the part of him she had glimpsed just that morning, defying the
wrath of the storm.  Power, but more than that, a certain - what was it?
Acceptance?  Yes, Akane thought - it was acceptance.  Not resignation,
but a determination to deal with anything, a look that saw and analyzed
but that did not judge.
      And behind the veil of strength and understanding, she saw in his
eyes the same vulnerability that, when she was too tired to fight off the
strange new feelings, made her feel sorry, made her remember, made her
want to comfort the raw hurting she glimpsed inside.
      Akane glanced down at the little yellow daffodils, nothing fancy,
but... when she took them from his hand, their fingers touched briefly,
and her heart beat faster.
      In a tiny voice she was unaccustomed to using, Akane said, "Okay, I
like flowers."
      Nervous fingers pushed one into her hair, and she hoped that she
did not look silly, blushing so, blushing down to her neck and a little
past that, down to the curve descending between her breasts, concealed by
the modest, sleeveless blue sundress she wore.
      The uncertainty cleared from Ranma's eyes, and he smiled with that
smile of his that warmed her everywhere.  He handed her a little box of
fried chicken after extracting a leg for himself, and lay back on the
grass, chewing slowly.
      Again, he had handed her something, and their fingers had touched
again for a tiny electric moment.
      She dug into the chicken too, eating just as slowly and carefully
as he did.  Akane tried smiling at him, and then his eyes seemed to
sparkle as they slowly consumed their lunch.  She could look into his
eyes no longer, and blushed.
      "It's good," she said, licking her fingers before wiping them on a
napkin he had offered.
      He let out a long breath.  "You're frowning again."
      "I just," her throat felt as though it were closing on itself,
"wish you weren't so much better at everything, 'sall."
      "Ah," he said.
      "And 'course, I keep on 'xpecting you to rub it in like you used
to."
      Ranma had to sigh at that one.
      "Well, I won't anymore.  And you're better in school, right?  I'm
not better at everything!"
      Then he noticed her looking at the charred remains of the tree by
the koi pond, and read her lips as she mouthed, "just better at
everything that matters to me."  He handed her a drink withdrawn from the
big wicker basket, and absent-mindedly, she took it.
      The condensation on the outside of the can of Pocari Sweat slid
onto her fingers, cooled the heat on them before Akane took a long
draught of the chilled beverage.  She put the can aside and looked at
him.
      He looked back at her.
      Eventually, he touched her shoulder, and she had to remember not to
jump back, or hit him or shout.  Or kiss him, which is what she really,
really wanted to do.  "If you want it badly enough, if you want it with
every part of you, inside and out, if you want it enough so that you can
put up with the pain on the way, well," he stopped and bit his lip.
      Akane was still holding her breath, these little touches just made
it all feel so much more - intense!  So much like, well, like it had been
on the now forgotten, may-as-well-have-never-been-Thursday.
      "If I want it that much?" she said.
      Reluctantly, he continued, "Even if you do, you may never reach the
Path."
      She blinked back sudden frustration, sudden tears.  It was worse
that he was still touching her, so kind and gentle.  Before, she could
have dismissed it as one of Ranma's usual taunts, but she was gradually
learning that he did not lie, not about things like this.  That this
Ranma could be brutally honest.
      Her voice grew rough.  "Oh.  Gee.  Guess that means I'm not gonna
be picked, huh?"  Her fists clutched at the cloth of her skirt.
Trembling.  "Who would want a clumsy tomboy like me anyw-"  She tried to
be angry, but it was getting to be so hard, so tiring to be so angry...
      His arms were around her and she felt so bad and yet this felt so
right that the backwash of emotions was just driving her crazy, so she
shut up and held him back.
      "I didn't mean that you don't have skill.  I didn't mean that
you're clumsy."
      She was crying softly, and he rocked her back and forth.
      "It's just that.  Akane, to get skill like that - it would change
you."  He paused, trembling when she slid her cheek back and forth
against his.
      "So?"
      "... Don't you like being yourself?"
      She let the contact soothe her, to try to regain control of
herself.
      "Would you really throw away the life you have here, to be that
good at fighting?"
      "I don't know," she murmured, distracted by his freshly-bathed
scent, by the slow pulsing of the blood in his neck that she could feel
against her cheek.  His skin there was so soft.  Elsewhere, his body was
hard, toughened and battered and scarred.
      If he had been able to read her mind then, he would have seen how
she was thinking of some of health articles in a magazine she had read;
about the effects of extreme stress on human joints: osteoarthritis, the
painful loss of cartilage worn completely away by friction, the
development of bony spurs around the joints, sometimes fusing them
completely immobile.  She thought about the incredible strain Ranma's
elbows and shoulders must go through each time he used the roasting
chestnuts technique.  And thought about the pain Ranma would be in later
in life if he pushed himself and used that technique over and over... as
he already did.
      She remembered the day her father had started to ease back in
training her, remembered wondering what it was that caused him to wince
when he moved his arms a certain way.  Akane knew now, that her father
lived in constant pain everyday, that it took him great willpower and
focus to still move like an athlete.  That there was a reason why his
movements were stiffer, slower, without the same power she remembered him
having when she was a child.  The magazine mentioned the phenomenon of
eburnation, the polishing effect on the ends of the bones because the
bone becomes worn down by continued use after the cartilage is gone.
       She knew that if she kept up even her current level of martial
arts training, she would experience the same phenomenon by the time she
reached her mid-thirties.
      Confidentially, she had asked Doctor Tofu about it once.
      "At the rate of escalation in the intensity of Ranma's Art," he
said carefully, slowly, "I would guess that he will start feeling the
pain in his joints by the time he is twenty-three years old.  Maybe
sooner.  I've discussed this with him, you know - he knows.  But you
can't get him to slack off or give it up, Akane, you know that as well.
And in his short prime, who knows what he can accomplish, what heights he
can reach?  At least, that is what he believes in, and I can understand
his desires."
      What would she give up for the Art?  How much would she want to
suffer?
      She did not know how long she sat there, lost in thought before
Ranma prompted her, "Have you thought about it, Akane?  About what it
would be like?  The things you would have to go through?  The things..."
But he stopped himself before he said: the things I went through?
      Would she tear herself up like Ranma did for his Art?  Like her
father and his father, too...  "Does it really have to be like that?"
      "Depends."
      "On?"
      "How far you want to go."
      "If... I wanted to fight as well as Shampoo and Ukyo?"
      He closed his eyes.  "I don't remember how well they fight."
      "Oh.  That's right... sorry."
      "Doesn't matter.  Akane, the Art is not about being able to take on
everyone and win.  Being the best is not everything."
      She pulled back, startled.
      "Doesn't sound like something I'd say, right?  Bet the old me'd
never say that, ever.  I get glimpses of my old self now and then."
      Akane nodded.  She sniffled a little, and when he put his arms
about her again, she did not fight it, she let herself rest against him.
She hated to admit how comforting this felt, especially now that he just
seemed so much... larger.  In her head, she knew that it was because of
his chi, that his body was the same as it had been just yesterday; but to
her eyes, and to the touch, Ranma was now a very large man... who seemed
to be capable of enfolding her in this soothing glow that was just him.
      "Akane, the best you can be is to be true to yourself.  What do you
really want to do?  What is your calling in life?  What tastes, colors,
sounds do you like or dislike?  That's who you are.  The Art may not just
be fighting, but the Art does not always have to be life.  For me, well,
I never had a choice - it's all I've ever known."
      Akane stopped shaking, finally, and eased out of his embrace.  "I
don't know," she mumbled, "that anything you just said makes me feel
better."  It was his holding her, she thought, that did make her feel
better, but she was doing her best to ignore that.  If Nabiki knew what
was good for her, Akane decided, she had better not try to sell anything
about what just happened.
      "It isn't about who the best person is, Akane..."
      'Oh, yes it is,' she wanted to yell at him, 'it's about who the
best person is for you!'
      Instead, she let herself smile tentatively when he offered her a
cupcake, and took that, again letting the contact linger just so.  She
finished it quickly, to distract herself from his face for just a moment.
She wondered if he could ever have been this easygoing with her, before
the fight with.  Before the fight that changed everything.
      And she blinked, staring at him.  He was looking at her - he was
looking at her just like...  No, she refused to think it, it was probably
just another result of this new level of the Art he had reached.
      A warm breeze ruffled his hair, and he gifted her with a warm, soft
smile.
      Just maybe, she wondered, these changes Ranma had gone through were
not so bad.

      After the picnic, well, there had been homework to worry about.
Homework, and Ranma had taken off, probably to talk to the others.  Akane
wondered if they were happier because of his lost memories.  Wondered
what they would think when he told them what was going to happen over the
next week.
      The geometry assignment was simple really, just on the long side.
It needed some rather circuitous reasoning to prove, but she could have
finished it quickly, if she wanted.  Stubborn, though.  She stared at it
for a whole hour, with the equation at the top of the table, a list of
axioms and theorems she could use on the left-hand side, and a blank
sheet of paper and a pencil on the right.  She let it take up the rest of
the afternoon; it was an excuse to avoid Nabiki, who had surely seen or
would surely find out how Ranma was acting with her as well as with the
other fiancées.
      She had been quite grateful for Kasumi's almost telepathic
understanding; she had brought dinner to Akane so that the youngest Tendo
daughter would not have to be there when Ranma told their respective
fathers about what he would do.  "Stupid family honor," she muttered,
pushing the pencil idly, scratching little curlicues and dandelion
designs along the edge of the paper.
      Pausing when she heard the shouting begin downstairs, she rested
her forehead against her forearms on the table, and thought about what it
would be like if she - well, she had to admit it was possible - if she
lost.
      It was true, what he said, this was not a battle between her and
Shampoo and Ukyo anymore - this was just him taking control of his life,
and fixing it so that they could all move on, past the static, painful
cycle that had perpetuated itself since he had brought the chaos herewith
him.  He wanted to stop hurting them.  At least, that is what she tried
to believe.
      She thought about his words at the end of their picnic together:
"The way things are is cruel.  To all of you.  Not fair at all, 'm really
sorry."
      And he was.
      "I won't regret knowing you, Ranma," Akane whispered into the
shadows between her arms.  "I won't regret... falling for you.  Even if I
lose..."
      And she realized, she was looking forward to Ranma's choice;
whatever happened.  Even if she lost, she would live on, sure, she would
be hurt, but she would move on, grow stronger and life would - well.
Life would be whatever she could make of it!  It was time to grow up;
things could not go on the way they had anymore.  They were becoming
adults.
      Akane wondered if this feeling of moving on - this half-excited,
half-sad, anxiousness - was how Ranma felt about the situation, too.
      She thought about living the Art as Ranma did, thought about his
words and the sheer perfection of what she had seen him reach.  Thought
about what it would be like to live as Ranma had, to be Ranma himself.
      "I don't have to be the best at martial arts..." she whispered to
herself.  "I'm Akane Tendo - I go to high school.  I'm going to college.
I'm going to be a teacher."  That future did not seem so terribly
mediocre after all, with or without Ranma.  "Not a martial arts
instructor... a school teacher."  That which she really wanted; to make a
real difference in people's lives instead of being an instructor of what
was a mere hobby to most of the world.
      Yes, that did not seem so bad at all.
      At some point as she had been repeating that to herself, the
gentlest arms encircled her, and she turned to accept what comfort Kasumi
had to give.
      "It will work out, Akane, you'll see," Kasumi said, stroking her
little sister's back softly.
      They could hear fighting break out downstairs, heard it stop just
as quickly as it had begun.
      "Yes," Akane said, "it will..."
      And she believed that with all her heart.

---

      "And Akane agreed with this?" Ukyo murmured.
      He shrugged.
      "Don't you find it ridiculous?  The way things are with me?"
      He had been helping her around the restaurant.  Cleaning dishes and
utensils, cleaning the countertops and tables, bringing orders to the
customers and taking them from others.  Taking out the trash from the
scraps of customers' leftovers.  During the peak hours that evening, the
work was fast and it surprised him how many people walked in and out of
those doors.
      When he had offered to help her with the restaurant today, she had
been surprised, but grateful.  Konatsu had taken off on some ninja
business for the week and Ukyo had forgotten how much trouble it was to
run the restaurant by herself.
      A little nervous with him at first, and the other way around as
well, they had settled into a fairly efficient routine by the time the
last rush had begun.  They spoke between the moments, during the lulls
here and there.
      "I don't want to hurt any of you."
      Her face was a mask when she said, "Ranma... do I have a chance in
this, really?  Or are you trying to, to be kind..."
      His smile faded, and he would have responded, but another group of 
customers came in, loud and hungry, and when he glanced back at her, she
had on her game face, the cheery smile she had for all of them.
      "Oh, yes, Mr. Yoshida - got your usual coming right up!"
      It was almost enough for her to forget about Ranma, this
satisfaction with her business.
      But a couple of her regulars noticed, noticed the handsome young
man helping her with the restaurant today, and their answering smiles to
her, she was unsure if they made her feel better or worse.  She blushed
and smiled her inscrutable smile and had Ranma bring them their orders.
      Of course, at a certain point, Ranma had gotten some cold water
onto himself.  He, then a she, barely noticed the change - there was too
much to do, despite the occasional pat on the buttocks, which she simply
ignored.  There was too much to do to let that get to her, and in a way,
she almost expected it.  She did not want to make trouble in Ukyo's
restaurant; the customer is always right.
      Ukyo gave her a queer look at that, but continued dealing with
people's orders.
      The late afternoon crowd had swelled, thinned and was gone.
      "I didn't think you'd handle it that well."
      "Hmm?"
      "The groping."
      Once more, the countertops had to be wiped, the plates had to be
washed and dried, utensils, knives, cutting boards.  The trash had to be
brought out, the floor mopped.
      Ranma shrugged.  "It didn't happen much.  And it didn't mean
anything."
      "None of my regulars would do that.  Sorry, Ranma."
      The redhead waved it off, stacks of dishes balanced on head,
shoulder and palm.  "I like helping you out.  Too busy to worry much."
Ranma proceeded to dry them, a spectacular blur of flashing cloth and
flying ceramics.  She set them down neatly and smiled at Ukyo when she
brought her a glass of warm, steaming water.  Ranma poured and then red
hair darkened and before the rivulets of water reached the collar of the
plain white shirt, he was taller than her again.  "And I like how the
place smells."
      "Let me," Ukyo said, blushing again as she wiped at the moisture on
his neck, at his shoulders and back, with a thick white towel.  "How does
the place smell?"
      He stood still for it, and sighed just a little when her arms
closed around him.  "Smells like you."
      She laughed softly.
      "You didn't have to ask that question, you know," Ranma told her.
      "I... I suppose not."
      "I wish I knew just how I felt," he said quietly.
      She hid herself against his chest, tried to sink against him and
press herself into the muscle over his ribs and sternum and make herself
a part of him.  Pressed her ear against the place over his heart,
listened to it beating.
      "I won't push anymore," she said.  "I'll try not to rush you."
      He rested his hand atop her head, caressed her temple with slow
sliding touches of his thumb.  "I have to make a choice.  It shouldn't
have to be this way for any of you."
      Ukyo shook just a little.  "I'll wait, okay?  Take your time."
      "Ukyo, I'm sorry."
      "Shh.  You're not so bad, really."  She wondered though, if the way
things were was all that terrible.  Just maybe... but no, it couldn't be
so easy, could it?  And she wanted to cry, but was used to winning the
fight against that.  If only, she thought, if only she was sure of
winning him.  If only it was the way it used to be...
      But oh, she would not give this moment up for anything, and she
kissed the spot between under his jaw, next to his left ear, and sighed
when he pulled her tighter against him.
      "Thank you for coming by and helping me out today."
      His voice was thick, soft against her:  "I'm so sorry..."
      Her heart went out to him, beyond her control.  And the changes in
him just did not matter any more.
      "Isn't your fault.  Don't... don't cry, Ranma.  Please."

---

      He blinked, thought again about how it was that such a pleasant day
could end like this.  It had all slid downhill after he returned from
Ucchan's and they had asked him, "Where did you spend this afternoon?"
      "Stop it!"
      It was his mother's voice.  He realized that he thought of her that
way, he did think of her as his mother.
      The heavyset older man was struggling to his feet, visibly
outraged.  Mouth opening to curse and shout.
      "Not a word out of you," his mother said to Genma, and he slammed
his jaw shut.
      It had been easy, too easy.  He felt it now, constantly, the way he
breathed the chi and out of himself, the way it slid through and around
everyone.  The angles, the weaknesses of the painful lock Mr. Tendo had
him came to Ranma's mind easily, and it was not half an instinct's moment
before he freed himself, just by hooking his feet and twisting.  Then
Genma... then his father had launched a fast, all-out attack, with all of
his considerable strength and skill behind it.  Fast, but in the other-
ness of Ranma's new senses, far, far too slow.
      Ranma saw him.  Saw all there was to see, in the flowing movements
and patterns.  One blow, and his father was down.  Surprised where he
found himself, face buried in a plate of leftovers, glasses smeared and
cracked.
      Genma had been angry.  Angrier than he realized he had ever been.
So he had used the forbidden martial arts forms he had devised - the
Yamasen-ken and Umisen-ken.
      By that time, Mr. Tendo had realized how serious this fight was,
and backed away.
      A part of Ranma remembered what that stance represented, a part
that snapped and slammed his father down, with speed and power and utter
ease.  A vicious and painful blow with the edge of his hand against
Genma's ribs.  Just short of breaking them.
      "You don't want to find out how far I'll go for this... Dad."  The
last word had been tacked on as an afterthought.
      Genma had only grown angrier.  Insulted by the casual manner in
which he was being fought.  Ranma had still been standing at ease, hands
lowered to his sides, feet side by side, a slight slouch curving his
back.  It was very simple to Ranma.  He had measured the fullness of
skill in his opponent and it was lacking.
      And that was when his mother stopped them.
      Ranma did not stay to listen to the argument, could not bring
himself to listen.
      So he left.  Who could stop him?
      He was only on the roof for a few minutes before the mushroom
silhouette formed by Akane's short hair and her neck appeared over the
edge of the rooftop and the rest of her followed, clambering nervously
onto the shingles.  The breeze caused the loose cloth of her pajamas to
flap against her limbs.
      "Sorry."
      She lay down beside him and they watched the stars overhead for
along time.  Silently.
      "I should've been there to help you out with them," she whispered.
"Just didn't want to have to deal with them yet, y'know.  I should've - "
      Rough fingers touched her forearm, slid from elbow to her wrist.
Reassurance.  Caring.
      Love?
      "You couldn't have done much.  Anyway, it won't be for much
longer."
      "Thanks," Akane mumbled to him, "for understanding, I mean."
      She closed her eyes and focused on listening to the sounds of the
night, crickets and other things and soft rustling leaves.  Instead of
the continuing argument below them.
      "So.  Another day's over.  Is it really just five more days?"
      Ranma said nothing, just looked at her and maintained the gentle
touches he slid along her right arm.
      "Ranma..."  She wanted to force him, wanted to convince him somehow
to tell her how he felt about all of them already, to threaten him, to do
anything it would take.  Oh, how she wanted.  She pressed her lips
together tightly, and thought about the soft way they were touching.
"This guy scares me, Ranma."  That was true and not quite true, she knew.
That was not how she felt in her dreams, and not what she remembered that
last moment after he had deposited Ranma's limp form in front of Akane,
and smiled at her.
      His fingers stiffened and she clutched at them with her hands to
keep the contact going.
      "I beat him before.  I can do it again."
      "Ranma, why is he doing this?  Who is he?"
      The night sky had been so clear just moments before, but heavy
clouds in the distance were moving in from the horizon.
      "I have some guesses," he said, slowly.  "But it'll have to wait
until I talk to him again."
      "You're shivering," Akane said.
      Ranma sat up slowly, and his profile against the darkness seemed to
shine for an instant.  He pulled her to a sitting position and rested his
forehead against her shoulder.  Still shivering.
      "Akane, I have dreams about him.  About what it could mean."
      Something kept her from telling him about her own dreams.  About
how the dark man dressed in white was there too, waiting for.  Something.
Watching, smiling, friendly but frightening.  Oh yes, he was scary - but
there was in him the hint of anything being possible.  And the warmth,
the knowing acceptance in his clear gaze, as though he knew everything
there was to know about her, and - no she did not know, did not want to
know what that made her feel.  It was too complicated.
      And so their dreams stayed secrets.

      "Genma?" the dark giant had laughed in Ranma's head.  "That fat
fool!  He made a bargain with me a long time ago," he said to Ranma,
smiling.  "Would you like to know what it was?"
      He could not respond in the dream, wracked and chained by sudden
doubt.
      "Oh, Ranma, Ranma," he chuckled.  "Have I not given you enough
hints?"
      It was the black room again, the empty place with a hot light high
overhead, burning down on Ranma where he sat, a tiny steel chair.
      Yes, he was afraid again, only not of falling, but of what the
stranger had to say to him.  He knew himself well enough for that.  He
had learned it quickly enough; one could only fear the fall so many
times.  And yes, it had helped him the one time Akane had woken him from
it the week before.
      He knew that, this time, Akane would not be able to rescue him.
      The stranger laughed again, stepping out of the darkness when Ranma
pressed him to speak clearly, to cease the evasions, "Oh, Ranma!"  But he
stopped when he saw the anger in Ranma's tense shoulders, and his wise
old face twisted, frowned, relaxed into a sad, ironic smile.  "You want
the truth, do you?"
      "Look in the mirror, Ranma."

---

      There was a nightclub, in a place best reached by stepping through
the looking-glass at the fringes of dreams.  At the intersection of every
city, the point where the seedy began and the high class still came.  It
was dim inside, cozy somehow.  But looking into the shadows fooled the
eyes, and Ranma knew just how much larger it was than it seemed.  Dressed
all in black, Ranma blended in well, standing out only in the manner he
stood and in the size he projected by the set of his powerful shoulders.
      It had taken him ten years to find this place.  Years of looking
through books and learning dead languages and learning and learning and
learning more than he had ever thought possible.
      Cologne had been of great assistance of course.  She had provided a
start, the beginnings of knowledge in the storehouse of ancient scrolls
hidden in the caves beneath her village.
      "Vengeance, of course.  It's enough of a cause for this old woman
to help you, Ranma."
      And still he only looked like a young man in his early twenties.
      "Just vengeance.  That is all my people ask of you, now," she said
to him.
      It was true, he saw it in her eyes.  The fire, the life in them was
gone, only partially brightened by the anger smoldering quietly under the
sorrow.  An anger nursed and cultivated so that it could never fade.
      Ranma saw his reflection, distorted by the curves of the shot-glass
set before him, tinged amber by the liquor contained within.  The surface
of the bar contained intricate, swirling patterns of white spiraling
through the darker background of the black marble top, and he recognized
from his studies that the designs were fractally generated, that there
was an endless pattern of repetition in that distorted, ordered chaos.
It was beautiful, and like the club itself, disturbing at a very
fundamental level to the human psyche.  Only it did not disturb him, and
he knew that he was not merely human.  He was tempted by the thought of
crushing the glass, of turning on everything, everyone in that strange
place and destroying it all.  It was so easy to destroy!  Patience, he
reminded himself.  Besides, it would have been a waste as gestures went -
the nightclub was practically empty.  And he knew that it was not wise to
anger the likes of the creature who manned his duties behind the bar.
      He drank the bitter liquid down, the taste of frustration and
helplessness and fear sliding smoothly past his tongue.
      Light reflected into his eyes off of the lavish gold handles on the
double doors as they opened.  And a woman walked in, tall as he was,
statuesque and barely covered by a gauzy red gown slit high along her
legs up to her waist and not much material to speak of over her
thrusting, opulent breasts.  A white half-mask completely covered one
side of her face, a face that smiled at him.  She sauntered over to
Ranma, hips swaying with each step in time with the music he had only
then realized was playing.  Hers was the sultry look that time itself
slowed down for and reality bent around.  There was a jukebox in the
corner; it was not there when he had walked in moments before.
      "Lucien," Ranma called to the tall giant behind the bar, "your best
red wine for the lovely demon, please."
      The demon laughed, a hideous, raking rasp.  Those pendulous breasts
shook beneath the thin cloth over her heaving chest and then she sat next
to him, smiling as though it pained her.
      "ArE yOU alWayS sO poLiTE to thOSe yOu HatE, mOrNIng ChilD?" she
said, words distorted by the non-human half of her jaw and lips,
concealed by the white ivory covering.
      "I don't hate you."
      "aH, yOU HaVe leArnED to LIE!  YoUR FatHEr wOuLD bE pROuD!"
      His knuckles were white as his hands tightened against the edge of
the bar.  "You worked for him.  For a long time."
      She laughed again, and it was shameful but she was beautiful,
stirringly so, despite his knowledge of what she really was.
      "FOr aS loNg aS I cAn remEMBeR."
      Ranma looked into her one human eye, startled by what he saw in it.
"You love him!" he marveled.  "But you were just a slave!"
      The demon drank her wine, licked her pouting crimson lips.
      "I miSs hIM so."
      And despite himself, Ranma understood that.
      "Tell me where to find him, demon."  He drew into himself the focus
and concentration that he had practiced ever since he lost his innocence, 
and power roared behind his eyes, made the shadows he cast darker than
night.
      Magic, he had learned, was mostly like the tricks of chi attacks -
flashy and draining, with the effects more easily accomplished through
other means.  The Way, the True Path of Fists was everything now: the
ultimate technique of converting will into possibility, possibility into
probability, probability into reality.  He could see the demon's death in
the span of a heartbeat, sunder its defenses and break its form in body
as well as in dreams.
      The darkness around her rose defensively, protectively in response.
      "Don't cross me," he said to her.
      And she laughed again, genuinely surprised.  "mY liFe IS yOuRS,
mORniNG cHIld.  I kNOw nO mORe tHAn yoU."  She showed him her empty
palms.
      "You know that I could kill you.  It would not take a second."
      The demon sighed.  "I kNOww."  She looked away for a moment, and
the air of sadness about her touched him once more.  She whispered things
into her hand, made skittering, spidery sounds, syllables not meant for
human tongues, and drew forth from shadows a book bound in cloth made
from the night with words written on paper drawn up from moonlight.  Her
fingers trembled when she offered the book to him.
      Ranma ignored the black tear winding its way down her cheek,
ignored the bitter cold against his skin when he took hold of the book.
      "dO nOT kiLl hiM.  pleASe."
      The demon bit her lip, put her face in her hands.  "iF yoU dO, yOu
WOulD owN mE juST as hE DiD.  i wiSsH he dId noT Go.  i WIsH yoU WOulD
noT gO."
      He looked at the glass between them and said, "You barely touched
your drink."
      And she moaned, "I lOVe hIm.  I cOuLD lOVe yOu, toO... sO
beAuTIfUL, just liKE hiM..."
      He knew that it hurt her that he was so cold to her tears, that his
appearance must move something deep within her slave's mind.
      "iT iss a TeRRiBLE thInG tO loVe..."
      "Yes, it is."  He shook his head and stood to walk out of the
Dream, ignoring the ache in his heart and the hunger of his loins.  Those
emotions were not his, Ranma told himself; they belonged to Him.  But,
yes, he admitted to himself, it is a terrible thing to love.  He should
have done something, he should have saved them!  If only, he cursed, if
only they had told him about their dreams!

---

      "Welcome, Shampoo," said the stranger dressed all in white.  Huge
and imposing - and with a smile that was terribly beautiful.
      It was easy to recognize him from Akane's and Ranma's descriptions,
easy to remember her great-grandmother's warnings to stay away from the
creature if she ever saw it.  Saw him, that is.  It was impossible to
attack, impossible for her to strike him then, even with him standing
still, right before her.  Not when his air, not when everything about him
made her think of people she loved, of her mother, her dead father...
yes, he reminded her of Ranma too.  And she hated that.  Hated him for it
- she needed to, because this was the enemy that had hurt her beloved,
standing here on the ancient stone tiles before a temple that was empty,
abandoned, falling to pieces.
      But it was so hard!
      Shampoo grit her teeth.  "Leave Ranma alone!"
      Oh, that smile, it was sad, so sad and its sorrow and regret pulled
at her heart so.  The bronze skin around his eyes crinkled with the
tragic smile, laughed and made it look as if he were about to weep at the
same time.
      "I wish I could," the Devil said to her, and she believed him when
he said that.
      The effort was incredible, and she was weeping with the strain of
forcing herself to hate this man.
      "Magic in my head," Shampoo cursed as she wiped at her eyes.  "You
messing with my head!"
      He shook his head, looking even more forlorn as he did so.
      "You know that's not true."
      And she did and so a part of her tried to hate him for it even
more.  She dug her knuckles into her temples, trying to make the pain a
means of focusing when she heard him say, "I love him too, dear girl."
Because that, too, was the truth and she hated it, hated hearing that
voice thick with emotion.  With the emotions like her own, the feelings
that meant everything to her, the complicated tangle that she felt for
Ranma so strongly that it kept her away from her home, kept her here and
wanting to make this her home instead.
      "I want you," he said to her, "to come to me, three days from now.
You will not be alone, Akane and Ukyo will be there, too."
      Shampoo wrapped her arms about herself, crying.
      "This just dream," she whispered to herself.  "You not real!"
      "Oh, it is a dream," he told her.  "But it is real and so am I, my
dear.  You know, you really are beautiful, inside and out, and smart and
strong.  All of you are.  It's not a wonder that Ranma is having such a
difficult time between you."
      The stranger in white was leaning against one of the gnarled,
deformed looking trees in the yard.  Two rows of those trees lined the
path leading up to the Temple, monstrous, absurd-looking trees.  Knots
and galls swelled at the roots like so many cancers, and the leafless
branches spread out like pleading arms with scarred stumps where the
fingers should have been.  The trees looked like pain; Shampoo had never
seen anything like them before.
      It bothered her that she had to look away from him to regain
control of herself.  It was weakness; shameful.
      "Stupid Devil!" she yelled at him and clenched her fists.  "You
just thing of shadows!  Weak!"
      Oh and he smiled.  "I am older than the oldest dust of this world.
But humans have always surprised me; always.  It was a human who wrote
these words, and I could not better say in a hundred languages what he
had to say in his own paltry one."
      The words were in a language Shampoo should not have understood,
but in this dream, she did.

         "And I will show you something different from either
          Your shadow in the morning striding behind you
          Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
          I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

      And, oh yes, she was afraid.  Afraid of what lay behind the giant's
dark, dark eyes as he spoke to her quietly in beneath the great cloudless
sky above them.
      "Do you love him enough to face that fear, little girl?"
      "Fancy words mean nothing to me," Shampoo spat when she finally
stopped trembling.
      He crossed those massive arms over his chest and grinned at her.
"Just show up at the appointed time, Daughter of the Amazons.  I will be
waiting in the waking world.  Bring your weapons."

      All during their date together, Ranma noticed how Shampoo was often
withdrawn, how she would stop and close her eyes and sigh.  She did not
tell him of her dream either.  When she would notice him watching her,
she would give him a wan, lovely sad smile and draw close to him,
trembling, needing to touch him to reassure herself that he was real, but
hesitating, still a little afraid to push him away with her eagerness.
The part of her that was still unsure, the part that had twitched and
bled ever so quietly all those old times when he only pushed her away...
She wondered how long that would last.  She wanted to see the day when
that fear would be gone... she wanted...
      "What's wrong?" Ranma finally asked her.
      "Don't know."
      "You're crying."
      "Uh-huh."
      He drew her to sit at a bench beside him, and sighed.  "There seems
to be a lot of that going around these days.  Do you want something to
drink?"
      Shampoo nodded.  When she was sure that Ranma was too far to hear,
she shuddered once, whispering, "I don't want to die."  She shook her
head.  "I won't die!  I am an Amazon!"
      Then Ranma was in front of her again, that look of naked concern on
his face, and everything just felt better, like it would all work out in
the end.  Of course it would work out in the end!  It always did!  She
wiped the tears from her eyes abruptly with the blue scarf he had given
to her.  It was a rich, dark material that shimmered at the edges, and it
did bother her sometimes to make a mess of it, but it was his and that
was what mattered.
      She drained the paper cup of water that Ranma brought to her with a
few hasty swallows, and tossed it at him, almost catching him on the end
of his nose.
      He just barely managed to bat it away with the back of his hand
(directly into a trash can, of course).
       "Hey!"
      "Husband slow today!" she teased.
      Ranma saw how alive she was again and grinned.  Everything was
going to be okay, of course it was!  "You got lucky 'sall!"
      "Oh?"  Shampoo's eyes gleamed with a distinctly predatory light and
he backed a few steps away nervously...
      A furious exchange of movements followed, arms and fingers darting
and circling and striking, and soon they were both reduced to a rolling,
giggling mass.  "Secret Amazon pressure point tickle strike!" Shampoo
yelled, and then the stalemate was over and he was completely helpless,
squirming and gasping beneath her.
      Eventually, she had mercy on him, and they just looked at each
other, giggling, still close and hot and sweaty and supremely determined
to ignore the looks of disapproval occasional passersby gifted them with.
      Finally, Ranma had his breath back, but just as he parted his lips
to speak, she pressed a rough finger gently against his lips.
      "I love you," Shampoo told him simply, quietly.  "You understand,
yes?  Do anything for you, anything at all - I do all that, 'kay?"  She
pressed her palm tightly against his mouth when his lips fluttered again
to speak.  "No say anything.  Don't, I mean.  Want Ranma to... I want you
to understand.  Love you.  No matter what happen.  Happens, I mean."  A
kiss, deep and slow and soft - it took his breath away.  "It always been
my choice to love you," she said, "you understand?  Thank you for letting
me win."
      Shampoo stood up, and pulled him to his feet, kissing him one more
time, madly, deeply, thrillingly soft.
      "Now, we watch that movie, 'kay?"
      His legs were limp as she pulled him along, laughing at the bright
flush of his cheeks.
      Neither noticed how, from a not-so-far-away rooftop watched a
figure in gleaming white robes, with blades and chains hanging from his
baggy sleeves.  And as that figure leaped into the sky, long black hair
streaming behind him as he prepared to strike, neither of them saw how
another dressed in clothes just as white flew up to meet the first man.
The stranger was large and he was fast and strong - and none of Mousse's
blades could seem to touch him and -
      It was a perfect throw, Mousse knew.  Four tiny razor-spikes of
steel all flying straight for the other's face with enough force and
speed to punch through a tree trunk.  There was the sharp 'clink' of
metal striking metal, and his eyes caught the briefest flicker of the red
steel studs on the stranger's gloves.  The thrown weapons shattered in
mid-air, and Mousse extended from his hands a set of spinning chains
weighted at the ends, a weapon deadly either in close combat or at longer
ranges often used by assassins because of its concealability.
      There was a flicker, a moment of disorientation so fast he did not
notice the pain.  His hands were bleeding...
      They descended into a narrow alleyway just as Ranma and Shampoo
passed the corner with only the soft sound of rustling cloth accompanying
them.  It was over, just like that, thought Mousse.  And Shampoo would
never know...
      "I can't let you interfere with my son any further," said the huge
man as he pushed Mousse's face into concrete with his foot against
Mousse's neck.  The adversary had been faster like the wind and just as
impossible to touch, with the fierce strength of a hurricane.
      Mousse's glasses were crushed and out of reach, and he just could
not move.  The smell of garbage was strong in his nostrils and the wet
heat trickling down his legs made him groan.  Shameful, he berated
himself, shameful!  The blurry outline of the giant's boot rose up and
Mousse closed his eyes, expecting his neck to be broken, weeping as he
thought of what a meaningless death this would be.  And his eyes widened,
bulged, his back arched with the incredible pain and he wondered why he
could not scream as the Devil in white systematically broke Mousse's
appendages.
      "You shall fly again, little bird.  But not for a while.  Be glad
that you yet live."
      He did not feel the final blow to the back of his head, and it
would be weeks before Mousse would remember his own name as he woke in
the sterile white bed of a hospital.  Weeks more passed before he
remembered enough to tell the others what had happened to him.  And a
year and a half before he had the strength to fight Ranma again, to try
to kill him for all that had happened.

      It took even more time than that, a very long time indeed for Ranma
to reconstruct all the events that had happened, to decipher from the
stories of others and the little fragments of old conversations and the
little secrets hidden in the diaries and journals of others the scope of
the events that transpired in those last days of his youth.  The days
that passed so quickly.  Investigations into the past, sometimes with the
aid of magic and sometimes with simple or not so simple detective work,
these formed the basis for the visions which he wove his memories into.
      Ranma relived those days in his head often, replayed them over and
over with perfect clarity and pain.  The pain and the anger, the sorrow,
these emotions were not to be denied - a lesser martial artist might say
that emotion is weakness, that it takes away from the strategically
controlled power of the Art.  When Ranma mastered the True Path of Fists,
he learned that, as with many things, the key to mastery was balance.  To
forget emotion and feelings completely is crippling, it weakens will and
determination - to let emotion and feelings take control of the self was
just as crippling as it weakens the power of the mind to analyze and
synthesize data.  The trick to emotions was using them to strengthen
oneself without losing control to the maelstrom of colors, the black and
purple and brown and yellow streaks of emotion that burned brightly in
any man's chi.
      And that was what he did for years, remembered and re-focused the
old hates, the old fears and sorrows over and over, riding the crest of
their intensity and accepting them all into himself while staying Master
of it all.  Bent and folded and hammered and re-hammered them, like a
master swordsmith working the steel into a blade like no other.
      The others had grown old and forgotten, except for Cologne who was
most vengeful of all and clung to life for one purpose alone, to wait for
word that Ranma had found vengeance.  The others had their own lives to
live for, or were too weak or too shocked, but Cologne was strong still
and old and all her future, all her hopes lay in Shampoo and then it was
all...
      Oh, they were all so sad, so very sad at the incredible loss!  And
no one could do anything, no one could do more or less than blame him and
of course he had to leave, what reason did he have to stay?
      Ranma hoped that the intensity of his lost love, of his fury, his
loss, he hoped that all this would give him the strength to face the
Devil in white, who he knew must have millennia upon millennia of
emotions and experiences to muster in this technique of his own devising.
      All too soon, he was done examining the words written in letters of
moonlight bound by covers of night, and it was time.  He might never be
ready, he might never be so powerful, who knew how long his lifespan was
in comparison to that giant stranger...  His chance was upon him at last,
the chance that, while it would not redeem the losses of the past, might
at least do his memories of them the honor they deserved.
      Easy enough to tear a few scales from the Midgard serpent that
circled the earth, easy enough to find the Kraken's ink and a fang from
Fenris.  It took some time, but Ranma managed to persuade Dream and Death
to lend him their sigils.  He scattered them about him and then he spoke
the runes and found himself -
      In the place of his dreams, dark shadow and only that.
      He felt the attack approaching him and sank into the currents and
rivers of the True Path, of the flow of chi all around even in this
desolate place, an abandoned corner of the Limbo between Heaven, Hell,
Earth and Dreams.  Here, they were beings of pure energy and willpower,
here, entire worlds could be created and destroyed from the same
emptiness Creation itself was spun from.
      It was terrible, it was incredible, the sheer strength that the
Devil possessed, thousands upon thousands of years of experiences and his
own personal history and the sublime bliss of the memories from when he
still dwelt in Heaven and the unutterable agony of being flung into Hell.
And for a moment, Ranma doubted that his paltry lifetime of mortal hurts
and joys could match it.  And he faltered, strength and speed weakening.
      At this level of combat, death only took a moment, the kill was
faster than thought itself, the kill was at the speed of the soul...  It
would only take one blow to end it all, just one, but his father beat him
down slowly, a hundred weak, battering blows when any one of them should
have finished him.
      With each painful strike against his dream flesh, jagged pain
filled him, the pain of the Devil's own memories, of sufferings and loss
and a personal Hell beyond mortal imagining.
      The whole while there was the giant's laughter, mocking, sorrowful,
painful as it echoed in his ears over and over.
      "Is that all, my son?  Come, come!  Your three fiancées gave me a
better battle than this!  Only, I suppose, unlike them, you will not
whimper when you die!  Just like Ryoga whimpered and begged when I took
back the power I had lent to him!  Surely you won't whimper now, after
whimpering so long with every passing day?  Is it not such a relief to
know that it was all in vain?"
      And oh, Ranma thought, how the memories burned!  Finding their
broken bodies, the bloodstains washing out of the stone tiles from the
rain, the quiet little smiles on their lifeless faces, still beautiful.
The sight of Ryoga trembling in a straitjacket, weak and drained and
completely lost, not even despair and anger left in those empty eyes.
Akane's sisters weeping, accusing him.  Cologne's quiet sigh of dignified
despair, Kuno's accusations, everyone's eyes on him, telling him without
words how he had failed to protect them.  They flared fresh and new and
then he was a hundred, a thousand times more than he had been and then it
did not matter how weak he was, how his blood poured from his mouth and
nose and ears, only that he needed to do this for them!
        He blazed a furious flaming black and flew into the immense,
blinding face of his father, the Devil in white, screaming, "I loved
them!  I loved them true and you took everything, everything!"
      Focus absolute, chi focused to a razor's edge and beyond, his black
fist punched into the Devil's white breast, pushed through and out
through ethereal flesh and bone and -
      And the Devil in white, he had smiled and wept and cried, "Thank
you, my son!" and -
      And it all turned white, white beyond the ability of the soul to
encompass, to imagine, to absorb.
      Ranma felt his father's broken heart beating in his hands, felt
himself swimming in the ocean of that fallen angel's blood, and screamed
as the ancient thing's memories invaded his own.  He was lost in it,
eternities of wandering and loss and brief intervals when it seemed that
even the Devil could find love, could have a family, all too short and
far in between -
      And finally, he understood what it was all for.
      Too weak to pull himself out of limbo, it was Death who came to him
next, in the darkness, as he clutched her sigil in his hand and moaned
her secret name.
      "So is that it?  Am I dead and all my father's plans for naught?"
Ranma asked the pale, black-haired beauty in leather pants and a black
tank top.
      She smiled and shook her head, and drew the silver ankh from his
hand and replaced it about her neck.
      "Sorry, kid," Death said, "I'm afraid things aren't going to be
quite so easy.  Your pops made a deal with me, too, you know.  This was
apart of it."
      And Ranma saw in the Devil's memories that were now his that it was
all true.
      She touched him and he felt black-feathered wings spread wide from
his back...

      He spent many nights recovering in the abode of Dream and the
company of his mirthful sister.  Matthew, once raven and the new
librarian, handed Ranma the book of his father's life, and the plans and
the stories and the dreams never written.
      Then he felt that he had spent enough time in dreams, and raising
wide his new (old) wings, he asked them to return him to the world of
man.
      Dream waved goodbye and then Ranma closed his eyes and spread his
wings, as Death guided him back to the waking world.  There was no
sensation of movement, not even a hint of a breeze against his face, but
when he opened his eyes, they stood by a fountain in a park in daylight.
      "That's her?" Ranma asked.  "The girl from... his book?"
      There was a breeze then, and it sprayed his face with but a few
droplets of water from the fountain, enough to cool but not enough to
change.
      "Yes.  Pretty, isn't she?" Death whispered in his ear, amused at
the blush spreading across his cheeks.
      "She's so young!" whispered Ranma wonderingly as he folded his
wings away into shadows.
      Death laughed.  "You are a pervert, aren't you?  Sixty years old
and in love with a barely pubescent little girl!"
      "I'm not in love!"
      The white-skinned lady in black grinned at him.  "Who do you think
you're lying to, hon?  No one lies to me."  She turned from him a moment
to smile sweetly at a man pushing a little old cart along the sidewalk.
"Four squidballs, please!"
      "For you," the portly little man said, "it's free!  Here, have
another stick, too, and a cookie!  And some fishballs, too..."  He walked
off, happier and smiling after pressing a half-dozen more little articles
of foodstuff upon her.
      Ranma clapped a hand to his forehead dramatically.  "Unbelievable!
You're shameless, I say!"
      He smiled at her as she responded to him.  Her mouth was still full
of spicy, vinegar-dipped processed squid meat, when she said: "Look you,
I know what you were like when you first got your curse - at least with
me, people just love me an' want to give me stuff.  You wiggled your cute
li'l butt an' giggled an' everything!"  She burped after polishing off
another stick of squidballs.  "So don't you talk 'shameless' to me!"
      It was a wondrous spring day, the sun high in the sky, its heat
dissipated by cooling breezes full of promise.
      "I love you, do you know that?" he said after a time.  "It should
bother me, but it doesn't."
      "Kid, everyone loves me.  They can't help it.  Now what are you
going to do about that pretty young thing over there who's so depressed
all the time without knowing why?  So unhappy and desperately lonely, as
if she was missing something from her soul that's familiar and seems just
out of reach.  Watcha gonna do, wiseguy?"
      He deftly whisked a few of her fishballs into his mouth and gulped
them down, drawing a semi-indignant shriek from her, "Hey, those are
mine!  Git some of your own, you bozo!"  She kicked his shin with her
shiny steel-toed boot.
      Looking down at her fondly (he was about a foot taller), Ranma
said, "You really are cute, aren't you?"
      Death grinned at him again.  "Doncha forget it, mister!"  She
promptly offered him a stick of fishballs.  "Want a couple more?"
      He shook his head, returning his gaze to the young girl wandering
amongst the trees, kicking up the brown and yellow and red fiery carpet
of fallen leaves with each step.  Fiery like her hair, fiery like so many
things he remembered about the fiancées he'd had so little time to know.
      "What should I do, really?"  He said it as though it were a moan.
      "What do you think, Ranma?  Right now, Hitomi is eleven years old.
This is the first year that her martial arts skill will start increasing
faster and faster.  All her life, she has felt alone, somehow different
from everyone else.  Faster, stronger, and at the same time, awkward in
the certainty that all her peers seemed childish to her.  Something about
her is haunted and strange and older than her age.  She doesn't
understand it yet, how could she?  She hates it, this strangeness that
seems to poison how she acts with everyone else.  This is the first year
that she will surpass her adult instructors in the Art."
      Ranma bit his lip and turned away.
      "I do know how she feels, I suppose," he admitted warily.
      "Spiffy keen!" she exclaimed.  "At least that's a little progress.
But you shouldn't have to fight your nature so much, y'know?"
      They looked at each other for a long, long time.
      "I'm not ready yet," he said at last.
      Death nodded slowly as she took a dainty little bite out of her
cookie.  "And neither is she, kid.  But she does need you."
      "I will protect her.  I will.  But I won't come to her yet."
      The white-skinned woman sighed, "I believe you mean it, too.  But
you do have duties, Ranma, really you do."
      "Can't I just," he paused, waving his hands feebly.
      "Well, duty's a funny thing, kid.  It has this way of chasing after
you when you try to ignore it.  Your father found that out the hard way,
and spent the rest of his existence running from it."
      Death sat on the ledge about the fountain at the entrance to the
park, and wiped her fingers carefully with a little white handkerchief.
      The schoolgirl they were watching had left the park by then and
crossed the street, and by the time the next wave of traffic has passed
that corner, she was long out of view.  But Ranma could still feel her,
could see the lingering traces of her aura in the air, the brightest and
darkest of colors tinting her footprints to the sight of his power.
      "You should forgive him, you know," Death said.
      Ranma clenched his fists and sat down next to her.
      "I may know all the reasons now.  But forgive?  What right did he
have to do all that to us!  To me, to them, to her!  Did you see how sad
they were in those last few days?"
      She rolled her eyes, tossed her wild mane of pitch black hair.
      "My brother found you quite interesting those days.  Yes, of course
we watched you.  And them.  But Ranma, all life has suffering, what makes
you think the lot of you were any more special because of it?  What made
you special is what you were, deep inside.  There were happy moments,
too, you can't deny that.  And the tempering flames of it all, did they
not make you what you are now?"
      "And should I be glad about what I am now?" his expression twisted,
and if the passersby were to look at Ranma then, they would have seen the
shadow of his wings spreading angrily.
      But no one looked, and briefly, Ranma considered asking Death to
drop the spell concealing him and letting everyone see what a monster he
was.
      Her expression turned serious, eyes sharp and bright.
      "You're not a monster," she said to him.  "I was there at every
beginning and every ending, and I know monsters by sight and touch and
smell and taste.  Don't flatter yourself!  Do you think I and my brother
stay with you because we need to?  Because somehow, you are dangerous?"
      She stood and marched closer to him, looked down at him, eyes
flashing with a dread power older than the most ancient of dead things
and younger than every newborn yet to be born.
      "Are you so arrogant to think that a little thing like you is worth
the combined attention of me and my little brother at once?"
      Ranma could not look at her then, did not want to see what there
was in those eternal eyes unveiled.
      "I'm sorry," he choked on the word.
      Her eyes softened, as did the curve of her shiny, black lips.
      "A fine pair we are, aren't we?  Dressed all in black on such a
warm, sunny day, you sitting there like that and me looking down on you.
People walking by prob'ly think we're boy an' girlfriend having an
argument."
      He frowned.  "Trust you to think of that."
      Death whacked the side of his head with a friendly, familiar bop.
"Are you still so afraid of what others think?  Really!  You are the most
exasperating creature!  I can see why you drove your old fiancées crazy
all the time!"
      But he saw that she was smiling as she said that and somehow he
knew that it was all alright between them again.
      "I'm sorry I'm such a clumsy little kid, you old lady."
      She sniffed aristocratically and stared down her nose at him.
"Just goes to show how little maturity is appreciated."  Death turned on
her heel and was about to start marching away, but Ranma caught her hand
and squeezed ever so softly.
      "Thanks for saving me.  Really.  And I'm glad you don't go for the
quiet and mysterious thing like your brother.  You're much more...
comforting this way.  Familiar."
      She was still looking away, but he could tell that she was smiling
when she said, "Any time, Ranma.  But don't you come to me or my little
bro' askin' an' beggin' for favors every other day when your job gets
hard!  Don't whine so much when you've got so much going for you!  It
really gets on my nerves sometimes how people forget that their suffering
is not unique, that it does not make them any more deserving than anyone
else.  I got a job, too, y'know?  And I've seen some pretty miserable,
pretty tragic deaths, I'll have you know.  What do you think it's like to
be related to Despair?"
      She took a deep breath and squeezed back just a little.  "I like
you, ya know.  Too bad you're engaged again already..."
      Then he was alone.
      Ranma took to the rooftops, and stayed just out of view as his mind
turned inward to those reconstructed visions of the past.  There were
times when the pictures and the voices were so clear that he wondered if
he was not subconsciously weaving magic to view the real past instead of
merely imagining it.  There was magic in his blood and it had grown only
stronger with the acquisition of his new (old) wings.  But then he
realized that these were new, these were the memories of the Devil in
white himself...

      "Mirror mirror on the wall."
      She sighed as she stared at the reflection, heart heavier and
heavier as she thought of the rest of the day to come.  Unlatched the
windows and opened them, looked out at the late afternoon sun.
      And tied the white ribbon in her hair for one last time.
      Her lips trembled, her eyes became blurry.  "Will you remember meat
least, Ranma?"
      The ends of the white silk stirred, fluttered slowly in the gentle
breeze.  She thought of the days that would be forgotten if she lost, of
swings and a rock and the shade of a tree so tall.  When he was a child
and she was a child and there was nothing beyond the horizon except
infinite futures.
      "Goodbye."  She watched her lips move as she said it.
      Then, Ukyo tidied up her room, pulled on her bandoleer of throwing
spatulas, and walked down the stairs to where the others had been
waiting.
      "So you had the dreams, too, right?" Akane said.
      The other girls nodded, one fingering the rough denim of her jeans,
still a new and unfamiliar sensation to her, the other sighing as she
brought them the slowly cooling plates of okonomiyaki she had prepared
some minutes before, the scent rich in the air.
      "And none of us have told him..." she whispered almost to herself.
      "I no want to worry Ranma," said Shampoo.
      "I don't want to, either," Ukyo said as she slid into the seat
beside Akane.  "He's got enough on his mind already."
      No one new quite what to say then.  Not one of them felt like
looking each other in the eyes.  There were too many emotions boiling
just beneath the surface and it was hard enough staying in control.
      "Come on, the okonomiyaki's on me - don't let it get cold!"
      They all ate, all of them just a little mechanical, eyes looking
some place far away.  They each did this in a slightly different fashion,
Ukyo daintily cutting hers into little bite-sized pieces and chewing them
ever so slowly, Akane pushing hers around absent-mindedly, occasionally
tearing loose a piece with her chopsticks and bringing it to her lips,
Shampoo wolfing down hers in rapid, large bites.  There was an unspoken
agreement that the silence between them would be maintained until the
last person finished her okonomiyaki.
      Outside, the sun was setting and it tinged the heavy clouds in the
distance with deep violet and maroon highlights.  The sound of cicadas
sang in the air.
      Akane sighed.
      Ukyo murmured softly to herself, "I don't want him hurt."
      The purple-haired amazon sitting opposite her brought her palms
down heavily against the table top, "I love Ranma, too!"
      They gave each other searching, not-hostile-but-not-quite-friendly
looks.  They were seeing in each other the parts common to them all that
they had never known was there before or never wanted to know of before,
and if they marveled at the similarities between them, they also hated
those samenesses, at least a little, sparks in their eyes.  Was it the
sameness between them that attracted the man they loved, or was it the
differences?  They were sure they did not want to know.
      It was quiet again for a long time, and then the sun dropped
beneath the distant crest of the horizon, and outside the restaurant's
window, the streetlights sputtered alight.
      No one was quite sure who said the next words, maybe they all did,
but it did not matter anymore: "We all love him."  And they were all
thinking about the last several days, far too few of them, those days
when Ranma had been kinder and more attentive and considerate of them
than they had ever experienced in their lives.  When a new quietness
sometimes stole its way behind his eyes, and he would look sad and afraid
but so very determined.  And all the while, they could feel his growing
power, the air of something huge hidden inside, building and building.
      Something throbbed between them, a heavy, buzzing feeling, as they
remembered him, each in her own way.
      "So we'll all be there, right?" Ukyo said, forcing her mouth into a
ghastly almost-smile.  When Akane put a hand on her shoulder, Ukyo bit
her lip and tugged at Shampoo and they found themselves holding each
other carefully, trembling and a little afraid of each other but more
certainly more afraid of other worse things they needed to face.  There
were choked-off sounds, maybe someone was crying but no one paid
attention to that.
      Fiercely, Shampoo said, "We all be there."
      Akane nodded.  "For Ranma."

      How he would have wanted to be there, if Ranma had known then!  How
he would have held on to them, begged them not to leave his sight.  How
hurt he would have been to have been kept out of it.  How much more hurt
afterwards that it was all, he was so sure, all his fault.
      But it was the night just before the return of the Devil in white,
and he was lying in bed, listening to the quiet sounds of nothing.  They
had all been there before him earlier that day.  Watching him.
      "I'll tell you," he had faltered.  "I will tell you tomorrow.
After the fight."
      Quietly, they each said goodbye and said that they would wait for
him to come tomorrow.  Afterwards.
      And how could he have known that they could see his indecision,
could feel his feelings for all of them.  Could sense the confusion, the
lack of focus.  And were each hiding the fear, the fear that without that
focus so vital to his new Art, finally, finally, Ranma might lose...

      "Good," the giant said, smile wide and sad.  "You are all here."
      "What is this about!" Ukyo yelled across the field of aged stone
tiles, hefting her battle spatula in guard position.  This night was
cold, cold and dry and an icy wind swept down about the temple, bringing
with it the promise of bitter rain.
      Oh, his smile, Akane thought, struck again by the similarity, by
the warmth and the sadness tempered by cruelty.
      "A challenge!"
      "Of what?"
      Shampoo had been silent the whole while, had not spoken since they
last ate together, only held a sword in one hand and a mace in the other,
her mouth a grim line.  "For Ranma's life," she said to the others.
      And Akane bit her lower lip as her hands nervously tugged at the
ends of the black belt about her waist, tugged the knot tighter and
tighter.  She looked at the others, Ukyo dressed in her usual tights and
blue top, and Shampoo in white silk pants and shirt, twin dragons worked
in gold and silver thread writhing up her legs and along her arms and
down her back.  Akane was clothed in her yellowed old white gi, barefoot
and sweaty with anxiety and cold.
      "All of you may come at me at once, however you should desire.
Hold nothing back; kill me if you can!  Win and Ranma will face nothing
tomorrow other than the decision of which of you he loves the most...
Lose, and I have your lives.  Lose, and..."
      Akane yelled, "Yeah, yeah, so we'll die if we lose!  Get on with
it!"
      The giant ran his fingers through his hair, eyes reflecting the
faint blue light in the air as he chuckled.  "If you lose, then the three
of you must swear to accept the bargain I have to offer."
      "Why should we accept that," said Ukyo, "you've told us you're the
Devil!  Why should we?"
      Thunder rang in the distance.
      He laughed again.
      "You have already accepted it by not telling Ranma.  You are here.
You have accepted it in your hearts because you are afraid of what I
might have in store for him tomorrow, and even if the three of you are
not sure if you could defeat me, you love him, love him so much that
you'll do anything now!  Perhaps even kill the Thing who caused him so
much suffering!  Because I gave him the curse, I charted his life!  I
sold my son to Genma Saotome in exchange for his pathetic little soul!"
      He was screaming the last of those words as his body moved through
the whirlwind of their attacks, and any other man (but he was not a man!
And that only made him laugh harder...) except perhaps his own son would
have been dead immediately.  Their attacks, uncoordinated as they were,
were guided by a fierce, focused protectiveness for his son that gave
them strength and speed and perhaps a little more as they each glowed
with faint red and blue streaks of power.  And then, almost miraculously,
the three of them began to fight as one, attacking in skilled concert as
though they had been meant to fight like this all their lives.  Their
eyes all shone with the same, gleaming fury of their hearts.  Sword blade
sparked as it skipped off the steel knuckles on his left glove and as he
parried a slashing spatula strike with his other forearm in a short,
twisting arc from belly level to shoulder, simultaneously kicking out a
curved leg to tangle it with an incoming front-side power kick.
      The Devil laughed even more as the first of their blows began to
slip through his defenses.
      And then the thunder rang loud and near.

      Ranma blinked, eyes filling with tears as he slipped deeper into
his father's memories...  Deeper, to a desert, an empty, empty valley
with nothing but sand and rock in every direction.
      The Devil had said so very reasonably to a much younger Genma
Saotome than Ranma remembered, "Ah, so your son died.  Tragic!  Very
tragic!  But what did you expect, bringing a five-year-old to this place
of death, a desert of bones bleached white by the sun and populated with
monsters from ancient myths?"
      And Genma shook his head, weeping over the little body at his feet.
      "It was supposed to be a good training ground," he repeated
helplessly, over and over, croaking with thirst and pain.
      The stranger was almost blinding to look at, his clothes painfully
white under the burning sun.  In those eyes was understanding.  Not
forgiveness, but...  At first, Genma had thought the man another
hallucination from the hunger, thirst and guilt gnawing at his guts and
heart and throat.  The heat caused the air to throb with blurry,
shimmering waves, and he felt sure that he must have been dead, and that
this stranger was perhaps an Angel.
      Then the man said to him, and it was a man, thought Genma, a tall,
muscular colossus of a man, "I have a proposition for you.  I am leaving
this dead place - the memories are too much for me."
      "Why?" Genma croaked, fallen to his knees, "Oh!  Oh, what am I
going to tell Nodoka!"
      "My wife died just a few days ago... and I have a son who I cannot
bear to look at just now, he is so much like his mother," continued the
Devil almost placidly as he pulled the smaller man to his feet.  "Listen
to me!  How would you like to have another chance at raising a son?  A
son whose heritage is strength and thunder and cunning?  What do you say
to that, eh?"
      After a few moments, Genma's knees wobbled and he pitched forward
to be caught by the white-clad giant.  And the Devil casually hoisted him
up into a fireman's carry on his back, not straining in the slightest
despite Genma's even then considerable bulk.
      "Isn't it a good deal?" pressed the Devil.
      Genma was fading in and out of unconsciousness.  "My son... can't
be dead... can't be..."  His heart beat so very slowly, a dull throbbing
in rhythm with the drumbeats of the sand sliding down the dunes just
beyond the mouth of the dead valley of broken rocks worn to smooth, sleek
lines by the howling winds at night.
      "Yes, I think you will do quite well, Genma," said the Devil.  He
passed a hand over the other man's eyes, closing them.  "I shall give you
my own son to raise in the Art, to call your own.  Nodoka need never
know... and this son will grow to be the greatest the world will ever
see.  Would you like that?  The greatest martial artist in the world!"
      "I... I..."
      "And you won't even remember that this happened, won't even
remember the death of your real son.  Who would want such painful
memories?  Don't you want to forget?"  His voice was kindly, his eyes
were merciful and seemed all-knowing.
      "F-forget..." muttered Genma, a sack of dead weight on the other's
back.  Oh but there was a part of him even then, the stringy, tough
survivor, hard and invincible all his life, that wanted to live, wanted
to survive.  It was that part of him that forced his eyes open, that
nodded limply against the huge stranger's neck.
      "Oh, I do want to forget..."  And since this was just a fever
dream, another hallucination, it was okay, wasn't it?  Wasn't it, Nodoka
dear?  I'd never hurt Ranma, not really...  "It is a good deal," Genma
whispered weakly.
      "Splendid," murmured the Devil as his footsteps brought them into a
hidden place opened like a gash in the cliff-side and the sudden darkness
was soothing, the air so cool and moist against Genma's parched skin.
"Splendid."
      "Ah, yes, but first I suppose I must nurse you to health.  It would
not do for my son's first teacher to die before the lessons had yet to
begin.  Only you must pay attention to the lesson plan I will lay out for
you..."
      And so Genma would have no memory of being taken into a deep, cold
cave where no light ever reached, and no memory of being told the places
and training grounds he would bring Ranma to, of being taught to follow
his instincts whenever there was the question of survival.  Of being
taught how to be cruel to his son who was not.  All he would remember
from the encounter was the vague idea that selling a son was not such a
bad thing after all...

      The memories rushed forward again to the battle, to that moment in
time when he had woken up in the middle of the night screaming, knowing
he was too late.
      Now he was there, through the Devil's own eyes.
      The Devil had decided at last that the game had gone on long
enough.  He closed his eyes and the Chi sang in his ears, showed him the
way to move that his eyes could not see, through the storm of their
punches and kicks and slashing blades and crushing blows.  Time slowed,
everything slowed and he could see even the way the air swirled about
their limbs, agitated into swirling turbulence by their movements.
      Their coming attack was perfect: three different angles, three
different heights surrounding him.  Any one of those blows could kill or
incapacitate.
      And they could not touch him.  It felt to him as though he had all
the time to move against them; so slow did their motions seem.
      He spun on the ball of his right foot, pivoting backwards as he
spun and kicked out with his left leg, avoiding Shampoo's low, charging
slash that would have cut it off just above the knee.  There was a
metallic clang only a fraction of a second later, as the heel of his boot
slammed heavily against the broad side of Ukyo's spatula with enough
force to push her back a step.  The Devil continued the long arc of his
kick and crashed it down hard against Shampoo's shoulder-blade, sending
her to her knees as the suddenly useless arm released the sword.  The
motion had been rapid enough so that Akane had not been able to stop her
own attack, a power knee strike that, because of the suddenly different
angle of approach, only glanced against the giant's side instead of
shattering his ribs as she had shattered so many concrete blocks before.
      Akane did not see the perfect position of the Devil's right elbow
slicing back, and she spun in the air, flung back by the force of his
blow against her collarbone, which was surely broken.
      Ukyo was still backpedaling, trying to regain her balance when his
massive right hand closed around the center of her spatula's grip,
tightening painfully around her own right hand as he pulled her towards
him with all of his two hundred fifty pounds of solid muscle and bone.
The wrenching jerk bent her weapon slightly as he slammed his forehead
against her, crushing her nose and splattering her blood about over her
cheeks and mouth.
      He kicked out once more with his left foot, this time against the
ground to launch himself in an impossibly high somersault just one brief
moment before Shampoo's other hand would have brought her mace crashing
down on to his right foot and reducing it to powder.
      Twenty feet away from them, he landed gracefully, bleeding from
cuts along his ribs and right shoulder and neck that were all too shallow
to touch the muscles or arteries in those places, and only lightly
bruised elsewhere.  Oh yes, and his left boot was slowly filling with
blood - it would appear that he had not dodged Shampoo's attack quite so
perfectly.  But the trickle was much too slow and that injury mattered as
little as the others.
      He let go the flows of chi and time sped up once more, enough for
him to speak; enough for him to laugh.
      And he did laugh as his opponents scrambled to their feet, Akane
and Shampoo each with an arm dangling limply, Ukyo shaking her head,
dizzy from the pain that radiated all through her skull and ringing ears.
Even then his laughter was warm, comforting and not the slightest bit
mocking.  When the light permitted and they could see beneath the heavy
ridge of his brow, there was only kindly affection in those tired, dark,
dark eyes.
      "A splendid effort!  Splendid!  You have heart; all of you do!  But
you know that you cannot defeat me, not one at a time and not all at once
- no, you cannot defeat me at all!  Shall you not yield and hear my
bargain now?"
      He sounded like their fathers, like every father in the world, and
like their mothers, and grandparents and teachers and the kindly doctor
or medicine man that had treated their hurts and the secret little
imaginary friends that had comforted them when they were sad as children.
He sounded reasonable, he sounded loving, he sounded sad that he had
needed to hurt them so.
      The thunder cracked once more; was it closer or farther?  None of
the three young women could tell.
      They looked at each other, bloodied and steadily growing weaker,
and nodded.
      Dropping her large war spatula, Ukyo threw a withering two-fisted
barrage of her smaller sharp-edged throwing ones as Shampoo and Akane
charged him once more, their determined faces lit by the occasional
flashes of distant lightning.

      Ranma had stopped, curled up into a little ball atop some rooftop
somewhere, under a rain that had just begun.  Hands clutched to his eyes,
he whispered, "No more.  Don't make me see them like this..."
      "But you must see it, my son."
      It was his voice, yes, but Ranma knew enough magic to know that
this was not the Devil in white, just a construct to guide him through
those ageless memories.  Still he had to resist the urge to fling out his
energies and destroy it, still his hatred was strong and alive and it
needed a direction, a target to destroy.
      "No, please."
      "But you must.  You think you understand, but how could you?  Even
your Father did not quite understand himself.  You wanted to know what
really happened, well, here are the memories to show it.  You can even
feel it every time your fist strikes one of them, feel their blood on
your hands."
      "Finish it, damn you..."
      There was not truly that much more to see.  And yes, he did
remember the sensation of each impact against his fists, his feet - it
felt as though it was him who did those things to them.  For years
afterward, he would still dream of hurting them, and being unable to stop
himself, for it had all been done, it was in the past.  And he felt his
father's remorse too, and that only added to it.
      But what surprised him was the deal.
      Oh yes, it surprised him.
      And he truly did not understand how he felt after that.  Was he
glad?  Was he repulsed?  What did it mean if his life was planned that
far?
      Was he even his own self?  Or was that planned by his father, too?
      Did that matter?

      "And now," he said to their broken, shattered forms.  "You will
listen to my offer.  And you will accept it."
      And the deal, it was too much to refuse - how could they refuse it
if this was to be the only way they would see Ranma again?  They were
desperate, they were so afraid of the darkness, and they were dying.
      "None of you were ever complete, surely you felt that," he said in
that even-toned, logical voice.  "Each of you was but a fragment of the
whole.  I needed you to be the three of you for what had to happen to my
son.  But now that it has happened, it is time for the three of you to be
one, once more."
      "Thou I took from thy mother and with water from my tears, the
tears of the Dragon, I made thee three.  Now with the water from the
tears that are thine three, I make thee one."
      He paused, smiling hesitantly.  "If thou wouldst accept the
bargain, of course, only then.  Just as thou accepted the bargain, all
those years ago when I resurrected thee from death and asked thee if thou
would desire not one, but a three-fold life."
      He touched their tears, each of them, and kissed their foreheads,
and gave them back the memories of an ancient witch's lifetime.
      "I knew you would grow to love my son.  It was not just the deal
driving that, yes?  Now I offer the bargain anew, that the three of you
might be whole again and love with a whole woman's heart."
      They knew that he was misleading them to an extent, that this would
not be nearly so simple as he made it sound.  That this would be painful
and unbelievably so - that much they remembered from when once they were
a powerful sorceress named Circe, brought low by time and chance.  As
painful as it had been the first time, when her soul was torn in three.
Because she had slain herself after the death of her one true love...
whose soul was captured by the giant in white, bargained away from death
with the promise of a service he would reveal to no one else.
      All this planning, across so very many years, just so there would
be someone to take his place when he grew too tired of the endless
centuries, tired of God's unending demands of him.  Someone strong and
wild and untamable, who would embody the spirit of man's rebellion.  The
source of man's constant driving hunger, the subtle need to break the
rules, the source of all the questions of "Why?  Why can't it be better
than this?"  A fountain of change and suffering.  He needed someone
strong enough to bear the duties, to fight off those who would influence
his place as humanity's wild unbreakable spirit of wandering.  And the
final test for this new avatar - why, what could be more elegant than to
see if the circle could close, if the child could slay the very giant who
begot him?
      There were other children, others in different circumstances and
different times, each a seed of his longed-for destruction.  Only they
had all failed, and now there was only one...

      And for Ranma, the guilt of loving again, at last, started to fade
away, as he thought of that young girl he could watch grow into the woman
an old, old, forgotten part of himself remembered.

---

      Now she was fourteen.
      It was dizzying, it was incredible.  Because Hitomi just started to
talk to him.  And talk to him.  It was so easy, it was as if she had been
waiting all her life for someone to listen just the way he was, with both
eyes on her, absorbed in what she was saying, and just truly listening,
with all his being.  At some point, someone, she was not sure if it was
herself or him, had grasped the other's hands and kept it in a soft, warm
grip.  And the whole time, she stared into the deep otherness of his
eyes.  Something about him was so familiar...
      She told him about being born in London to a Japanese mother and an
Irish father.  And about how she had been only seven years old when they
had divorced and her mother had brought her to Japan to live with their
family.  She had been sad, so sad, and needed escape somehow so - so
there was her mother's martial arts style.  Which she learned and studied
and poured herself into with a fury that never left her.  She talked
about being lonely, about having no friends - there was an unknown in her
that made it difficult for other children to understand.  She stood out
too much, was too outspoken, spoke with an accent, was gangly and too
tall and with red hair and green eyes and too fair skin that made the
incongruity of her almond-shaped eyes the focus of her appearance.  She
had gotten into fights often without knowing why, had needed to transfer
schools over and over.  Until she had transferred to her current high
school.
      Then the dreams had begun, dreams from three different points of
view, and she could bear anything, do anything necessary to stay in that
school.
      Waiting for him.
      It was sunset before she noticed his tears and she touched his
cheeks, marveling at the softness of his stubble.  His short, black hair
looked so soft, and she had to touch that too.  And the rest of his face,
feeling the shapes and lines with the soft contact of her fingertips.
She tugged his head down and briefly pressed her lips softly against his.
Shyness did not matter anymore, embarrassment did not matter anymore.
      She was rotating her thumbs slowly over his knuckles, gently,
tenderly, when she whispered, "Your turn."
      Slowly, gently, he withdrew his hands so that he could embrace her.
"I've been waiting too.  I've been waiting so long."
      He hesitated, shoulders shaking.
      "Tell me your story," Hitomi pressed him gently.  "I will listen."
      She kissed him once more, and slowly, slowly, Ranma began his
story.  "There was once a creature dressed in white, long, long ago."  He
paused again, unsure if the thread of memories was not worn a little
thin.  "He asked God a question, the first question of all; and the
question was this..."  And he went on and on.
      Yes, the memories were there, the memories were his, so many
memories...  And nothing mattered so much as this, to have someone who
would listen.
      Who would listen to his story.
      And might perhaps love him for just a moment, as he loved all
humanity, and give him just a brief moment of rest from it.

---

THE END