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"Autumn and Spring"
by Angus MacSpon

Based on "Ranma 1/2" created by Rumiko Takahashi.

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- 1 -

After the funeral was over Ranma stood for a long time in the cemetery,
alone.  He could sense that the others want to stay with him, offer him
comfort, but for now the idea of company was unbearable.

It was some time before the last of them left, casting concerned glances
back at the man standing beside the grave.  But at last a silence fell.

It was a warm day.  The sky was cloudy, but he could tell that there was
no danger of rain; over the years he had developed a highly-tuned
weather sense.  He stared upward for a long time, dry-eyed, before
finally lowering his gaze to the grave itself.

[Forgive me,] he said soundlessly.  [I can't cry.  Not yet.  How could
I?  You're not gone.  You're still with me.]

He dropped effortlessly into a cross-legged position, without taking his
eyes from the grave.

[Not bad for an old man, eh?  I haven't lost it.  Not like oyaji did,
before the end.]

The day was very peaceful.  The lawn in the cemetery had been cut
recently, and the scent of new-mown grass still hung in the air.  He
inhaled deeply, smiling.

[The children miss you, Akane.  I think they worry about me, though.
They've grieved, they've put your tablet on the butsudan, and now they
want to get on with their lives.  And that's good.  They need to do
that.  But they think I need to carry on, too.  They don't understand
... they don't really understand that _you_ were my life.]

Far off, there was birdsong.  He listened for a few minutes, still
smiling.

[How can they understand why I don't cry?  To them, you're gone, and
they grieve.  But me ... I see you everywhere.  I feel your presence.  I
hear your voice in the wind.  I hear you whisper to me at night, and
sometimes I can even feel you lying next to me.  So how can I grieve?
How can I cry?

[Sixty-six years together.  It's too short a time.  You'll be with me
forever.]

He sat for a long time, speaking to her.  His voice held no sadness, no
grief.  His smile never faded.  But at some point, he became aware that
his face was wet with tears.

The afternoon wore on, and the light began to fade at last.  Ranma
remained seated at the grave.  He felt no urge to move.  Where did he
have to go that was more important than staying with his wife?

Sooner or later, he realised, someone would come and make him leave.
The children, if nobody else.  They wouldn't let an old man sit in the
cemetery all night -- not, he thought sternly, that eighty-five was
_old_.

But all these thoughts were distant.  In the background.  Unimportant.
He was together with his wife, and that drowned out the rest.

[Oh, Akane ... why did you have to go first?  Women are supposed to live
longer than men ...]

He did not realise how firmly he had shut out the rest of the world,
until the hand on his shoulder startled him back to awareness.  Nobody
should have been able to get so close to him.  He had let his guard
down.  He felt a distant irritation.

He looked up.  To his surprise, it was not Seiji or Hisao, or any of the
grandchildren.  It was ... who?  Someone he didn't recognise, their face
invisible in the gathering darkness.

"Come on, Ranma-san," the someone said softly.  "You don't know it yet,
but it's bad for you to be here."

A woman, and one who apparently knew him.  Who?

"This is where I need to be," he said softly.

"No.  You're not the suicidal type, Ranma-san.  But you're trying to die
right now, whether you know it or not.  You need to come away."

"I'm not --"  Ranma broke off.  He thought about it for a few minutes.
The woman waited patiently.  "Is that what I'm doing?" he said at last.

"I'm afraid so," the woman said, nodding.  For a moment, her face caught
the light.  She was quite young; in her twenties at the most.  Not ...
who he had been beginning to think it was.

Ranma thought for a few minutes more.  At last he nodded.  "All right,"
he said.  Then, after a brief hesitation: "Who are you?"

The woman caught her breath.  "It's been ... a year or two since we saw
each other last," she said, in a voice that was not quite calm.  "You
may not remember.  Call me -- call me Pandora."

"Pa--?"  For a moment Ranma wrestled with the pronunciation.  "Odd
name," he said at last.  "Some ancient Greek legend, right?  Why not
just tell me your real name?"

Her laugh sounded nervous to Ranma.  "In good time," she said.  "Come
on, now.  It's getting cool."

Ranma got to his feet, ignoring her proffered hand.  His muscles had
stiffened badly in the hours he'd been sitting, but he was damned if he
was going to show any weakness to a stranger.  Even if she did seem to
know him.

"My flitter is out by the gate," the woman said.  If she was annoyed at
his refusal, she gave no sign of it.

They walked slowly toward the cemetery gate.  After a little Ranma said,
"You weren't at the funeral."

"No.  I've been away ... I didn't hear that Akane-san had died until
a short time ago.  I came as fast as I could."

Ranma shot her a glance.  "Sounds like you knew I'd be --"  He broke off
suddenly, embarrassed.

The woman laughed softly.  "Not exactly.  But I knew --"  Now it was her
turn to be embarrassed.  "I knew how much you loved her," she finished.
"I was pretty sure you'd be doing something stupid."

She was watching him out of the corner of her eye, he saw, as if she
expected a reaction to that.  Once, she'd have gotten one.  But half a
century of marriage to Akane had taught him to think before he opened
his mouth.

"Perhaps you're right," he said calmly.  They reached the gate.  "Which
one's yours?" he added, indicating the flitters parked there.

"The dark blue."  It was an older model, but in excellent condition.
The woman palmed the lock, and the driver's door hissed open.  She slid
in.  Ranma watched her through the window as she cleared the vehicle's
security systems.  Her face was lit up by the glow of the instruments.
It did seem familiar, somehow.

The passenger door opened and Ranma climbed in.  Pandora already had the
engine running.  To his dismay, he saw that she meant to drive the
flitter herself.

"Doesn't the autopilot work?" he asked.

"I never liked those things."  She shot Ranma an amused glance.  "Don't
worry.  I've never had a crash yet."  As she spoke the flitter began to
move -- smoothly, he was relieved to find.  They climbed to a hundred
and fifty metres and headed south-east.

"Wait a moment," he said sharply.  "This isn't the way home.  Where are
you taking me?"

"Relax," she suggested.  "I'm taking you home -- to _my_ home.  Just for
a night or two.  You need to have a little time away from your family,
somewhere where you won't be constantly reminded of ... her.  Somewhere
different, where you can rest, and start to get a little perspective on
things."

"And do _I_ get a say in any of this?" he inquired, half-way between
amusement and indignation.

She smiled mirthlessly.  "Of course.  If you really want to go back to
your dojo, I'll take you now.  Just think about it for a moment, though.
Is that really where you want to be now?"  He started to answer but she
interrupted him, adding, "I know you don't have any particular reason to
trust me.  But ... trust me anyway.  You won't regret it."

"I'll go with you," he said at once.

She looked at him without speaking, and for a moment he thought he saw
the sparkle of tears in her eyes.  But it might have only been his
imagination.

The flitter drove on through the night.

                **********

Ranma woke up with a start as the flitter dropped down toward a landing
pad.  The low, steady hum of the vehicle's cooling system, keeping the
engine at operating temperature, had sent him off to sleep.  He frowned,
annoyed.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"That would be telling," Pandora said, grinning.  "About three hours'
drive from the cemetery, that's all I'm saying."

"Three _hours_?"  That could put them anywhere between Darwin and the
North Pole.  He glanced out the window.  All right; not the Pole, then.
"I ought to call the children, at least.  Let them know I'm all right."

"Already done."  The flitter touched down with barely a jar.  "I spoke
to them an hour ago.  They were ... a little puzzled, but I managed to
explain things."

"Hmm."  Ranma would have given a good deal to have heard that
explanation.

"Come on inside.  Would you like something to drink?  I'll get the guest
bedroom made up ..."  The woman climbed out of the flitter and started
toward the building nearby.  Ranma clambered out and hurried after her.
Guide-lights followed them as they went.

The rest was a blur.  She gave him something to drink -- hot and spicy;
he did not recognise the flavour but liked it -- and put him to bed
briskly.  As the lights went out he thought he heard her say "Sleep
well," but his eyes closed before he was really sure.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 2 -

He awoke once more to bright morning sunlight.  The air was warm and
there was a faint scent of flowers.  He sat up slowly and looked around.

The bedroom was large and airy.  One wall seemed to be mostly windows;
some of them were open, letting in a cool, refreshing breeze.  Outside he
could see a lawn, immaculately-trimmed, and flower beds.  He did not
recognise the flowers.

He threw off the thin blanket that covered him and stood up, noting with
some relief that his hostess had not undressed him.  Then he toured the
room, examining everything carefully for clues to where he was.  To his
frustration he could find nothing.  The paintings on the wall (one of
them an original, he thought) were unsigned, and showed nothing that
suggested any particular location; the furniture seemed perfectly normal
to him -- though, he admitted to himself, he was no expert on art or
cabinetmaking.

For a moment he stopped to examine himself in a mirror.  Eighty-five
years old?  A lifetime of activity and constant training had left him
looking more like fifty-five.  Most of his hair was gone, though, except
for a few silver tufts at his temples.  But his body was still lean and
hard.  And he could still defeat opponents half his age.

He sighed, stretching, and turned his thoughts back to his situation.
It had been a mad thing to do, coming here with a stranger.  He had
known it even as he agreed to come.  But he had also recognised the
truth in Pandora's words: sitting there by Akane's grave, he had really
only been waiting to join his wife.  Any kind of action had to be better
than suicide.  He could not face going back to his children yet; going
with Pandora had seemed the only other choice.

Besides, if she meant him any harm she was concealing it very well.

Without really thinking about it, he dropped to the floor and began his
usual morning warm-up exercises.  But his mind was still on Pandora.
He'd had more than one reason for coming with her.  He had to admit it:
he was intrigued.  She was a mystery, and -- he suddenly realised -- he
was looking forward to solving it.

And so she'd been right about one more thing.  Sitting there in the
graveyard had been one kind of suicide.  But going back to the children
would have been another: the beginning of a long, slow slide into grief,
despondency and, ultimately, decay.  [You need to come away,] she'd
said.  And she'd been right.  Here, in unfamiliar surroundings, with a
new challenge to confront, his spirit was lighter than it had been in a
long time.

He stood and began a series of kata.  Before long he was sweating
freely; he had neglected his work-outs in recent weeks.  He'd had other
things on his mind.

From stylised, perfectly-rehearsed movements he shifted to a freer, more
unrestrained style.  Spinning, leaping, striking with all four limbs at
once, his every motion was an expression of eighty years' training and
experience.  He was an artist; a dancer; the wind given form.  This was
the Musabetsu Kakutou Ryuu; and in all the world nobody did it better.
There were plenty of young men and women who were faster.  But none of
them could approach his skill.

But at the height of his pride, his exultation, a dark thought returned,
and he stumbled.  He tried to banish the thought, to regain the
pinnacle, but it would not go away.

[Am I being disloyal to Akane?]

He continued to move, fighting his phantom opponent, but his
concentration was broken.

[She's gone.  I know that now.  Shouldn't I be grieving?]

His good mood of moments before, his pride and his anticipation,
bothered him.  It had taken him a long time to finally admit that he
loved Akane.  But in the decades they'd been married, that love had
grown and flowered.  She had been the centre of his world.  His life.
And she'd only been buried the day before.

[Why can't I grieve?  Am I so unfaithful?]

Then a new thought came: [I've been grieving since she got sick.  For
months now.]

He stood stock-still, his arms frozen in the act of striking at the air.

[Is that it?  I'm happy because it's _over_?]

The idea was breath-taking.  Horrifying.  Or perhaps ... liberating.

[Maybe it's time to start to live again.  Maybe it's _time_ to stop
grieving.]

And at that, it seemed that the floodgates were opened at last.  He sat
down on the bed and wept for his wife.

                **********

Some time later he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.  "Feeling
better?" Pandora asked him.  Had she seen him crying?  He found that he
didn't care.

He sighed.  "Yes, I am.  Thank you."

He was thanking her for more than just her concern.  Somehow she seemed
to know it.  "No problem, Ranma-san.  Would you like some breakfast?"

"Thank you."  He followed her out, watching her thoughtfully.  In the
morning light she looked even more familiar than she had the previous
evening.  She wore a simple western-style blouse and skirt; her feet
were bare.  Her strawberry-blonde hair was done up in a bun at her neck.
There was a fashionable silver mesh-like hairpiece on each temple,
linked by a simple band across her forehead.  Oddly, she also wore
gloves.

He knew nobody who dressed that way.  But ... there was something about
the way she moved, something in the way she spoke ...

There was a delicious smell of cooking coming from the kitchen.  He sat
down and looked around the room.  Something caught his eye.  He thought
for a moment, then asked, in a deliberately casual voice, "How long did
I sleep?"

"About ten hours," Pandora said, busy with the food.  "I didn't want to
wake you.  You looked like you needed it."

"Ah."  Ranma stood and walked to the window.  The house stood in a
mountain valley; the window looked out over a wide, gentle slope, alive
with lawns, gardens and trees.  A stream, clear and bubbling, ran
through the grounds.  He would have bet that the water was pure, and
that there were fish in it.  Everything, for hundreds of metres around,
was beautifully and carefully maintained.  It must have cost a fortune.

Far below he could just make out the fence.  Some effort had been made
to keep it inconspicuous, well-camouflaged by the landscaping within,
but Ranma knew what he was looking for.  There would be heavy security
at the fence-line: infra-red and other detection systems, and guidance
systems for the house defences.  Outside the fence, he knew, would be
rough, wild countryside.  His hostess had built a beautiful home, but
she had also taken great pains to shut the rest of the world out.  He
wondered what she was hiding from.

"I haven't been in China for a long time," he said.  "Lovely."

"It is, isn't it?" she said, lifting her head and smiling.  "I had it
designed by --"  She stopped suddenly, then laughed.  "All right," she
went on.  "How did you know?  What gave it away?"

He grinned back at her.  "The clock," he said, pointing.  "We left Japan
at sunset yesterday.  We flew for three hours, and I slept another ten.
We didn't go too far north or south, from the angle of the sun.  So the
time-zone difference means China."

"Damn," she said, grinning in return.  "And I even flew the wrong way to
start with, to fool you.  You've gotten a lot smarter over the years."

He blinked.  They _had_ started off flying south-east, and he'd
forgotten.  Whoops.

"If we only met a year or two ago, how do you know so much about what I
used to be like?" he inquired.

She hesitated.  "I --" she began, and then stopped, biting her lip.

Ranma snapped his fingers.  "I know who you remind me of," he suddenly
realised.  "Tell me, are you related to ..."  It was his turn to
hesitate.  "To a woman named Kuonji Ukyou?" he finished at last.

Pandora sighed.  "Yes.  She ... didn't want you to know --"

"Ucchan," Ranma said, shaking his head and smiling in reminiscence.
"She _is_ still alive, then.  I haven't heard from her in so long ... Is
she here?  I'd like to see her again."

"No," said Pandora firmly.  "She won't be coming here.  She ... didn't
want to face you again."

Ranma sighed.  "That's a shame," he said softly.  "I still miss her."

Pandora seemed to sense his change of mood.  "She loved you."

"I know."  He sighed again.  "It took me years to really understand.  It
wasn't a fair decision ... I think Ukyou loved me a lot more than Akane
did.  But I loved Akane more than I loved Ukyou.  And I was the one who
got to make the choice ..."  He shook his head.  "It wasn't fair at all,
but how _could_ it have been?

"Akane ..."  Her name still brought pain, but it was more muted now,
more wistful.  "It brought us together.  She may not have loved me as
much to begin with, but we grew closer.  I don't think she had any
regrets.  It was a _fine_ marriage.  Fine."  There were tears in his
eyes again.

"I'm glad," Pandora whispered.

"And Ukyou ... she was terribly hurt when I finally chose Akane," Ranma
went on.  "I think she'd known all along, how it would have to be.
Toward the end, she got pretty desperate.  But she ... she never gave up
hope."

"No."

"Then, at the wedding.  She stood there, and she smiled for us, and
wished us joy ... and I could see the pain in her eyes, and I knew her
heart was breaking.  And I shut it out.  I pretended not to notice.  It
was my wedding, and I didn't want to know."

"She never blamed you."  Pandora's own eyes were moist.

"That doesn't excuse it!" Ranma snapped.  "My best friend was in pain,
and needed me, and I wouldn't help!"  But after a few moments his anger
faded, and he sagged back.  "I _couldn't_ help.  What she needed ... I
couldn't give.

"When we got back from our honeymoon, she was gone.  Nobody knew where.
She'd closed the restaurant, taken a few possessions, and just vanished.
She ... she left all her spatulas behind.  I think that hurt me the
most.  It was like she was saying, she'd given up.  On everything.

"I never saw her again.  I was afraid she'd killed herself.  I searched
... we even got Nabiki to pay for a private detective ... but we never
found anything.  She was just gone."

He lifted his eyes to Pandora.  "And now, there's you.  Her ...
granddaughter?"

Pandora stirred slightly.  "Ranma ..."

"Can you at least give her a message from me?  Tell her I'm sorry.  I
never wanted to cause her pain.  Tell her ... I hope she's happy."

Pandora smiled gently.  Her eyes were bright.  "She knows that, Ranma.
She always knew."

"Tell her anyway."  His tone was pleading.  "I need ... to know that
she's heard.  That she knows I know she's all right."  He hesitated.
"She _is_ all right, isn't she?"

"Oh, yes ... she's ..."  Pandora stopped.  Her face was quite blank, as
if she were struggling to hold something in.  "Excuse me, please," she
said, then stood and walked quickly out.

"Pandora-san?" Ranma called.  He scratched at the thin hair at his
temple.  Something was wrong here.  Something didn't make sense.  After
a moment's indecision, he went after her.

She was in a living room not far off.  She stood looking out a window,
with her back to Ranma as he came in.  Her shoulders heaved as if she
were crying, but she made no sound.

"What is it?" he asked softly.  "Can I help?"

"No," she said without turning.  "I don't think that's going to be
possible."

"What's the matter?" he asked again.

"This ... was a mistake," she said.  Her shoulders shook again.  "I
should never have brought you here.  I should have known that it was
foolish to try.  But I ... I hoped ..."

Ranma laid a hand on her arm.  "What?  Please.  Tell me."

She looked up at him.  Her expression was pure misery.  "I thought I ...
I might be able to see you again.  Without getting involved."  She
closed her eyes for a moment; and in that instant, somehow, he knew.  It
was mad, it was impossible, but every instinct in him said it was true.

"You ..." he began.

She shrugged his hand off, lifted her arms and began untying the bun of
hair at her neck.  "I should have known better."  Her hair fell free.
She removed the silver mesh at her temples, and tossed it aside.  "I'm
sorry, Ra -- Ranma.  But it has to end.  You have to leave.  I just -- I
just can't do this."

"Ucchan," he said.

"No!  Don't call me that!" she shouted.  "Don't you see?  I can't go
through that again!"

She turned to flee again, but he caught her by the arms and held her.
"Ucchan," he said again in wonder.

"Oh, Ranma," she whispered.  "Why couldn't sixty years have been enough
to stop it hurting?"  And she fell forward into his embrace and started
to cry.

He groped for something innocuous to say, something to defuse the
moment.  "That hair-colour really doesn't suit you," he said.

And she laughed through her tears, and he knew that it was going to be
all right.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 3 -

Later, as they sat drinking tea and talking about nothing in particular,
Ranma found himself looking at Ukyou again.  With her hair let down she
looked even younger.  She looked like the teenager she'd been when he'd
seen her last.  Sixty-six years ago.

It was impossible.  No cosmetic surgery was that good.

"Can you tell me now?" he said at last.

She looked down, studying the teacup in her gloved hands for some time.
"I couldn't stay," she said finally.  "When I thought about how happy
you both looked at the wedding ... or the idea of facing you again when
you and ... she ... came back from the honeymoon ... it hurt too much.
I just couldn't bear it.  So I went home to my father."

"Where?  The detective we hired --"

"In Kochi.  He tended to move around a lot, but he always sent me his
new addresses."

"Shikoku," Ranma muttered.

"Yes.  He wasn't too pleased to have me back, but ..."  She shrugged.
"Anyway.  I finished school, went on to college.  I studied botany, at
first --"

"_Botany_?"

"Botany," she said firmly.  "But I found myself drifting into the
microbiological side, and after I graduated I went on to get a doctorate
in genetics."

He simply stared at her, mouth open, unable to think of anything to say.

She grinned at his expression briefly, then looked sad.  "I was _done_
with restaurants, Ranma.  Too many ... memories."

Ranma nodded, feeling sad himself.  The thought of Ukyou giving up her
okonomiyaki seemed tragic.

"Anyway," she went on, "I ended up working for one of the big biotech
corporations.  Made a name for myself, got a share in a few good
patents, made enough to retire at fifty."  She shrugged.  "And here I
am."

"No," Ranma said firmly.  "You can't stop there.  What about --"  He
waved his hand at her.  "This?  Why are you still young?  Is that some
new genetic technique you invented?"

"No.  Human genetic engineering is illegal in every country on the
planet.  You should know that.  If anybody's doing it, I don't know
about it.  I'd turn them in if I did."

"Then -- how?"

Ukyou sipped her tea, and made a face.  "Cold."  Then, looking over at
Ranma again:  "How am I still young?  If it comes to that --"

Without warning, she flung her cup at Ranma, splattering him with tea.

"-- I might ask you the same question," she finished, looking with
satisfaction at the young red-haired girl across the table from her.

                **********

"That's different," Ranma-chan said indignantly.  She mopped vainly at
her clothes with a napkin.

Ukyou nodded thoughtfully.  "Tell me," she said, "how is Ryouga these
days?  Still alive and well?"

Ranma-chan nodded, confused.

"Still turns into a black piglet?"

"I ... didn't know you knew about that."

Ukyou smiled.  "Do you know how long pigs live?"

"What?  No.  What are you talking ab --"

"Around twenty-five years, that's how long.  But Ryouga's still a
piglet.  You're still a young girl.  You must have worked this out for
yourself, years ago!  Your cursed forms don't change.  They don't age.
You fell into the spring of drowned girl, and a _girl_ is what you turn
into.  Not an old woman."

"But what's that got to do with -- _oh_.  You've been to Jyusenkyo."

Ukyou nodded, smiling wryly.  "About thirty years ago.  I wanted to
examine the pools, see if I could find any scientific explanation for
how the curse works.  I didn't really expect to succeed, but ..."  She
shrugged.  "Retirement was boring.  I did all my tests on the
nyannichuan, because I thought I was safe that way.  Turned out I was
wrong."

Ranma-chan laughed.  "So you're a woman ... who turns into a girl."

"Right."  Ukyou snorted.  "There was no way to cure it, either.  A dip
in the nyannichuan would hardly help --"

"There's no cure anyway," Ranma-chan said softly.

"Eh?"

"I went back there.  About five years after I got married, when they
opened up travel to China.  I found out --"  She broke off for a moment,
remembering the bitterness of that moment.  "There are no cures for
Jyusenkyo curses.  None of the springs work if you're already cursed."

"Oh."  Ukyou looked at her for a moment, her eyes sympathetic.  "I'm
sorry."

Ranma-chan shrugged.  "I got over it.  Eventually."  She sighed, and
then frowned.  "But you ... I'd have expected you to turn into a girl
who looks ... like me."

"I asked the Guide at Jyusenkyo.  He doesn't think it works that way --"

"'He?'  I thought Plum was the Guide now."

"Don't interrupt.  Plum's _grandson_ is the Guide now.  Plum died
several years ago, and her daughter refused to touch the job.  She
passed it on to her son instead."

"Oh.  Sorry."

"As I was saying, the curses don't seem to work that way.  The Guide
says the effect's more like an adaption to a shape, rather than a
cloning.  So, for example, your female form is the way you'd look if
you'd been born a girl.  Ryouga's cursed form is the closest piglet
analogue possible to his own shape.  And I ... become myself."

"But ..." Ranma-chan frowned.  "It sounds like you're talking about a
kind of immortality.  What's happened to all the people who've been
cursed in the past?"

"No, it's not immortality."  Ukyou smiled.  "Good point, though.  Your
original body continues to age, even if your cursed form doesn't.  For
example, you're ... eighty-five, right?  If you spend the next ten years
in your cursed form, then change back, you'll change back to a _ninety_-
five-year-old body."

"Oh."

"And the curse seems to act as a water magnet ... as I'm sure you've
noticed.  Sooner or later, you can't avoid changing back."  Her
expression changed suddenly.  "Unfortunately."

Ranma-chan chuckled.  "I can see why you'd prefer to stay like that."

"Can you?  _Can_ you?"  Ukyou seemed angry for some reason.  "No, you
don't see at all.  You don't know --"  She broke off suddenly.  After a
minute, she continued in a completely different tone: "No.  It doesn't
matter."  She looked up and smiled at Ranma-chan.  It seemed a bit
forced.  "I'm sorry, Ran-ch -- Ranma."

Ranma-chan studied her face, puzzled.  There was still something that
Ukyou wasn't telling her.  Something that worried Ukyou.  Perhaps even
frightened her.  What?

"So," she said, deliberately changing the subject.  "How long have you
been living here?  Since you retired?  And why China, anyway?  Just to
be near Jyusenkyo?"

"About fifteen years," Ukyou replied, obviously relieved.  "I found this
spot when I first came to visit Jyusenkyo, a bit over thirty years ago.
I fell in love with it then.  Later, I came back to China on ... another
project.  Eventually I realised that I might be here for years, so I
built the house."

"You spent your money well," Ranma-chan said, looking around.  "It's
beautiful.  Um, what was the other project you came back for?"

Ukyou chuckled.  "Money well spent ... you don't know the half of it.
But never mind that.  My current project?  That's ... a long story.
I'll tell you later, I promise."  She hesitated.  "Actually, I was
hoping you might be able to lend a hand with it."

Ranma-chan raised her eyebrows.  "If I can, then of course," she said.
A moment later she regretted it.  [Baka!  What have you let yourself in
for now?]  "Uhh ... what sort of hand did you have in mind?"

With a laugh, Ukyou stood up from the table.  "Don't worry.  Nothing too
arduous.  But for now ... well, you probably ought to get changed, at
least.  That tea's going to stain your clothes ... and do you want some
hot water, or ...?"

Ranma-chan got up as well.  "Yeah, some water'd be good."

Ukyou gave her a quizzical look.  "I'm surprised you don't spend more
time in your female form.  Youth has its advantages."

Ranma-chan shook her head.  "I guess it's different for you.  But I've
_never_ liked this body.  And ... well, being young is all very well.
But I've earned my years.  I'm not ashamed of them.  And I don't want to
start thinking of my curse as a crutch to lean on."

"Oh, Ranma ... nearly seventy years, and you still haven't accepted it?"
Ukyou sighed.  "Come on.  The bath is through here."

                **********

He bathed, relishing the long, slow heat of the water.  When he was
done, he found clean clothing laid out for him at the door.  He shook
his head in amusement.  Just how carefully had Ukyou prepared for his
visit?

Briefly, it occurred to him that she might still harbour some hope of
"winning" him.  Then he shook his head again.  A fine pair they'd make!
A man in his eighties with a girl in her teens?  Or -- if she changed to
her natural form -- with another eighty-five-year-old?  No, the idea was
ridiculous.

(As always, he refused to even contemplate the idea of intimacy in his
female form.  Some things were unthinkable.)

He emerged from the bathroom laughing at his own foolishness.  He
trusted Ukyou.  That was all there was to it.

He prowled the house for a little, looking at everything and searching
for Ukyou.  He found her at last in a small study, working away at a
computer terminal with a frown on her face.  To his surprise he saw that
she'd changed her hair colour back to its old, familiar dark brown.

As he watched, she sighed and shut down the terminal.  "Problems?" he
asked.

Ukyou started.  "Oh!  I didn't hear you, Ran-chan -- I mean, Ranma --"
She flushed scarlet.

Ranma laughed.  "I think I can bear 'Ran-chan,'" he said.

"I didn't mean --"  She stopped, looking flustered.  After a few seconds
she went on, "I suppose I ... just didn't want to start thinking of you
... that way ... again."

Ranma took her hand.  "Ukyou," he said.  "No, _Ucchan_.  We've known
each other for eighty years.  You are my oldest friend.  You can call me
whatever you want."  After a moment, smiling, he added, "Besides ... I
kinda miss 'Ran-chan.'"

She snorted.  "Don't get maudlin."  But he could tell she was pleased.

They shared a smile, neither of them speaking.  The silence seemed to
grow.  Then, clearing her throat, she said, "So ... you've looked over
the house yet?  What do you think?"

"Impressive," Ranma said, unaccountably relieved.  "Beautiful.  But it's
so large!  What do you do with it all?"  He hesitated for an instant,
then spat it out:  "There's no-one else living here?  No ... husband?
Family?"

She looked away.  "No.  I just like a lot of space.  The household mechs
keep it cleaned, so why not ...?"  She broke off.  Another silence fell,
uncomfortable this time.  Finally she answered his real question.  "I
never married.  No children."

"Oh, Ucchan," he breathed.  "Please ... don't tell me you ... I ..."

"'Ruined my life?'" she said mockingly.  She still didn't look at him.
"No.  It's not like that.  I ... chose how to spend my life.  I have no
regrets."

No regrets?  After having had to admit that the first sixteen years of
her life had been wasted?  After turning her back on everything she'd
built during that time?  He wondered if she believed what she was
saying.

"Ucchan ... why didn't you ever come back?  Or at least let us know you
were all right?"

She looked back at him, finally.  "For a long time I didn't want to.  I
just ... wanted to forget about you all.  But then ..."  She looked
guilty.  "After I finished college, I ... I did come back."

"_What_!"  Ranma was astounded.  "That's nonsense!  I never --"

"Ranma."  He fell silent.  "I came back.  Just for a day or two.  I
wasn't sure how to ... well, how to handle it.  So I spoke to your
mother."

"My --?"  Ranma stopped suddenly.  "I always wondered why she was so
confident you were all right," he muttered.

"I asked her not to tell you I was there.  I ... still didn't want to
see you.  Not face-to-face.  But Nodoka did call Akane over.  We ...
managed to keep civil.  I think she was relieved, actually.  But it was
pretty clear that she didn't want me around.  Nodoka told me that you
and Akane were ... having a few problems."  In a low voice Ukyou added,
"It seemed like the only thing I could really do was mess the two of you
up again.  So I left."

"Ucchan ..."

"I never thought they wouldn't even tell you they'd seen me.  But I
guess it made sense, to them."

Ranma's voice was bitter.  "They never said a word."

"I telephoned, a couple of years later.  Just to say hello.  Akane
answered.  We talked a while ... she seemed quite happy.  One child,
another one on the way.  But she told me she hadn't told you anything
about my visit.  And ..."  Ukyou sighed.  "Why fight it?  I told her how
to contact me, if anything serious ever happened, and she promised she
would.  That was all, really."

"That would have been just before Hisao was born," Ranma said distantly.
He wasn't sure how he felt.  Betrayed?  But he could understand why
Akane had done it.  After their tumultuous courtship, it had taken her
years to feel really secure in her marriage.  [Oh, Akane ...]

"I did try one other time," said Ukyou.  "About ... fifteen years later?
Twenty?  It was just a flying visit, but I dropped by the dojo.  As luck
would have it, you and Akane were both away ... some tournament, I
think.  But I met your children."

"You did?" said Ranma, astonished.

She smiled.  "They gave me tea.  We talked for a little, and then I had
to leave.  I suggested they not tell Akane I'd been there.  I suppose
they counted you in that as well.  But that was why I didn't have any
trouble convincing them that you were all right, when I called last
night.  They knew me."

"Heh.  I'll have to have words with those boys when I get back."  Ukyou
raised an eyebrow, but did not answer.  "What?" he demanded.

"Oh, nothing really ... I was just thinking how funny it sounds when you
call them 'boys.'  They're both in their sixties, Ran-chan.  They have
_grand-children_."

He huffed.  "Some habits are hard to break," he muttered.  She only
laughed.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 4 -

Time passed.  [Just for a night or two,] Ukyou had said; but those
nights became a week, then two, and then more.  By the beginning of the
third month, Ranma found he had grown quite accustomed to life in
Ukyou's home.

It was easy to do.  The house itself was large and comfortable; he had
all the space he could want.  And the scenery outside it was wonderful.
The mountains were steep and rugged, spectacularly beautiful, filling
the horizon in most directions.  But the valley where the house lay was
broad and deep; the grounds covered hundreds of hectares, all carefully
tended by the unobtrusive, omnipresent mechs.  He spent days wandering
through the gardens, relaxing and admiring the elegant landscaping.
Before long, though, it palled on him, and he had Ukyou enter him into
the border security system so that he could venture outside the fence,
into the mountains and the rough countryside that surrounded the estate.
It was as wild as he had expected out there, with a beauty all its own;
but when he returned once more, he found himself appreciating the
serenity and artistry of the gardens within all over again, as if seeing
them for the first time.  Which, he realised, was probably the
intention.

The time outside the fence, hiking up mountain trails, rock-climbing, or
simply tramping through the hills in peaceful solitude, gave him
much-needed time to come to grips with the loss of Akane.  Time to
reflect back on sixty-six years of married life.  He still missed her
more than he could say; but gradually he was coming to see that he could
make a new life now that she was gone; that her loss did not mean the
end of everything.

It was a time of purging; a time of laying her memory to rest.  He spoke
to her as he walked, telling her what he saw, what he was doing, where
he was going.  He poured out his soul to his wife, there in the empty
hill.  And if, sometimes, he wept, there was nobody to see.

At the same time as he was beginning to come to terms with his loss, he
began to notice how oddly Ukyou was behaving.

She seldom accompanied him outside the house.  At first he thought
nothing of it.  But when she made excuses, again and again -- and when
the excuses grew thinner and thinner -- he began to get suspicious.
There was something she was still hiding, and this was somehow
connected.

The more he thought about it, the more puzzled he became.  Ukyou seemed
to be a bundle of mysteries.  There was her reluctance to step outside.
Her clothing was strange, too; she insisted on wearing elbow-length
gloves at all times, even on the hottest days.  And, he noticed when he
entered the laundry one day, the rest of her clothing was also peculiar:
it had a strange, almost slick texture, though it looked normal enough.

And what of the mysterious project that she'd hinted she was working
on?  She'd told him she wanted his help on it; but since then, whenever
he brought it up, she grew evasive and changed the subject.  He got the
impression that she regretted having ever mentioned it in the first
place.

Then there was her cooking.  The Ukyou he had known in his youth had
been a fine cook.  Her okonomiyaki had been second to none, of course;
but she had been more than competent with other dishes, too.  Now,
though, she seemed tense, almost nervous, whenever she was in the
kitchen.  She took the most exaggerated care in preparing the simplest
food.  And when he offered to cook a meal for her one day -- he had, in
self-defence, been the main cook in his family -- she seemed absurdly
relieved.

Finally, there was her curse.  He could not blame her for wanting to
stay in her youthful form.  But she seemed to take it to extremes.  He
realised one day that he had never seen her in her older form at all.
Even after bathing, she emerged from the bathroom as a teenager.  Was
she finishing up with a bucket of cold water, every time?  But why?

Put them all together, and ... what?  Nothing seemed to fit.  He
discarded theory after theory; he could find none that explained it all.

In the end, typically, he solved the mystery completely by accident.

                **********

Several days later, Ranma was doing the dishes after lunch, and
reflecting on the strangeness of his situation.  [Here I am, living in a
cook's home ... and I'm doing most of the cooking!]  Admittedly, Ukyou
wasn't a cook any more.  But she still did it better than he ever would.

A week before, seeing Ukyou busy at work on her computer terminal, he
had offered to cook lunch for her.  She'd been surprised to learn that
he _could_ cook.  (But of course, he'd had little choice, though it had
taken Akane a long time to forgive him; and Nodoka and Kasumi had been
good teachers.)  And once she knew that he could do it, she started to
ask him to do it more and more often.

It was funny, in a way.  In his eighties, he seemed to be turning into a
house-husband for a girl in her teens.  But then, most of his life had
been pretty eccentric.  Why should he expect things to change now?

As he scrubbed away at a patch of congealed sauce, Ukyou came in.  She
seemed surprised.  "Ran-chan ... what in the world are you doing?"

He held up the plate he was washing.  "The dishes."

"But why are you doing them like _that_?  What's wrong with the
dishwasher?"

He laughed.  "Nothing.  I use it most of the time.  But ... sometimes,
it's nice to do it the old way.  It gives me time to think."

Ukyou shot him a look that suggested he was seriously insane.  But she
was interested in spite of herself.  "About what?"

"Oh ... anything.  It's easy to get philosophical over a sinkful of
dirty dishes.  You must remember that, from back when you ran the
restaurant."

"Mostly I remember wishing I had a dishwasher so I'd never have to stand
over a sinkful of dirty dishes again."

"Well, there is that," he admitted wryly.  "But simple, manual tasks do
have their merits.  Spiritual benefits, if you like.  That's why we
always clean the dojo by hand, instead of having a mech do it."

"I thought you had your students do that, actually."

He burst out laughing.  "Touche!  All right, I just felt like doing
something with my hands.  Satisfied?"

She pretended to consider.  "What I _don't_ see is why you had to try
and make out you were doing something noble and heroic, when you just
felt like getting your hands wet."

"Now look --" he began.

"Oh, never mind.  I know why."  She smiled sweetly at him.  "Because
you're a man.  And nobody in their right mind would expect a man to make
any sense."

"What?!" he said in mock outrage.  But to his annoyance he could not
think of a good answer.  So he settled for pulling the dish-brush out of
the sink and flicking warm soapy water at her.

Her reaction was startling.  She yelled and threw herself out of the
way, skidding on a spot of grease on the floor and almost falling.
Amused, he flicked her again.

"No, stop --" she gasped, dodging again.  This time she tried to jump
over the spray.  A few drops touched her skirt, but the rest missed.
Laughing, Ranma raised the brush to flick it a third time --

"NO!" she screamed.  "YOU'LL KILL ME!"

Ranma froze.  Ukyou ran out of the kitchen.  A long silence fell.

                **********

He left the rest of the dishes, and went looking for her.  She was not
trying to hide.  He found her in her work-room.  Her terminal was on,
but she was not paying any attention to it.  She was ... what was she
doing?  Scrubbing at her skirt?  Trying to get the dishwater off it?

He cleared his throat.  "Ukyou ..."

She looked up, unsurprised.  "I'm sorry, Ran-chan.  I ... I should have
explained.  Long ago.  But it's hard --"

"It would be easier if you'd trust me a bit more," he said levelly.

"I know.  It's just that --"

"Let me guess.  You're afraid to turn back to your older self."

He hadn't seen it until she screamed at him.  But it was the only answer
that made sense.  It explained so much.  Her exaggerated care to avoid
hot water when she was cooking.  Her gloves, and the odd texture of her
clothing -- all water-proofed, he was sure.  Even her odd moment of
anger when they were discussing her curse.

She looked startled.  "How did you --?  No, never mind.  It's more than
that, Ran-chan.  I ..."  She stopped, unable to speak for a moment.  At
last she said, "I'm afraid that my other self is dead."




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 5 -

Ranma did not know how to react.  He simply had no idea.  He stood
there, staring at her, and there were no words in his head at all.

"It was eight years ago," Ukyou said in a low voice.  "Or was it nine?
January, February, March ... no, eight, I'm sure --"  She broke off, and
sighed.  "I'm babbling.  Sorry."

She put down the cloth she had been using to mop at her skirt, brushed
the hair out of her eyes, and started again.  "Eight years ago, I had a
heart attack.  A major one.  I'd had a couple of minor episodes before,
and I knew the symptoms.  I also knew that ... well, you've seen how
remote this house is.  I didn't have a chance of surviving long enough
for an ambulance to get here.

"And then ..."

She stood up, and began to walk restlessly around the room.  He
understood instinctively.  She was reliving the moment.  The shock of
sudden knowledge.  The fear.  And --

"I stood there, feeling the pain getting worse and worse and _worse_.  I
knew that in a minute or two it'd be all over.  And quite suddenly I
thought, 'When I was young I didn't have a bad heart.  I wish I was
young right now.'

"And I realised that I _could_ be."

She stood with her back to Ranma, her hands clasped behind her back, her
stance tense, rigid.  Caught in the memory of that day.

"Getting to the kitchen was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I
thought I wasn't going to make it.  But I did.  And then I poured a
glass of water, and I tipped it over my head ...

"The change was incredibly painful.  Worse than anything I've ever felt.
I blacked out.  I thought I was dying ...

"And then I woke up.  Alive.  Young.  And I felt fine."

She fell silent.  Ranma said, "And you haven't changed back since then."

"I haven't dared.  I think -- I'm _afraid_ -- I'd die instantly."

"But ..." Ranma frowned.  "You're not sure?"

"No.  I've spoken to the Guide at Jyusenkyo.  He's never heard of a case
like this.  It's ... there's no way of telling, really.  Other than
trying it.  And I don't dare risk that."

"I'm sorry," he said softly.  "I wouldn't have -- I didn't know."

"How could you?"  She smiled, a little sadly.  "Fortunately, it's a lot
easier to avoid hot water than cold.  But still ... eight years,
Ran-chan.  I think that's some kind of record.  And I've had a number of
close calls."

"Like today."

With a snort, she said, "Like today.  That was one way of changing that
I _hadn't_ planned for.  The rest ... you wouldn't believe how many
sources of hot water I have to plan to avoid.  I take cold baths, of
course.  My clothes are all waterproof, and I wear gloves most of the
time.  I try not to go outside if it's sunny --"

"Huh?  I'd noticed that, but ... _why_?"

Ukyou laughed.  "All too easy to slip and fall, outside.  And if I
happen to fall in a puddle, and the water's been warmed just enough by
the sun ... well, maybe I'm overdoing it there.  But I don't take any
chances.  This house, now ... it was designed to withstand a hurricane,
an earthquake, or an avalanche.  'Expensive' was not the word.  And you
wouldn't _believe_ the plumbing system.  The builders thought I was
insane."

Ranma grinned.  "I can imagine.  But ..."  He turned serious.  "Do you
really think -- I mean, how long do you think you can keep it up?"

Suddenly Ukyou looked unutterably weary.  She said, "I know.  I'm only
prolonging the inevitable.  Sooner or later I'll be caught out, and ...
that's it."  She shrugged.  "But really, I don't have anything to lose,
do I?  'I'm living on borrowed time.  Every day I survive is a victory.'
That's what I keep telling myself."  She forced a smile.  "My plan is to
stave it off for long enough that there won't be any way to tell if I
died of a heart attack or old age."

Ranma did not speak for a few moments.  Then he said, "I hope you make
it."

"Eight years, Ran-chan.  Shooting for nine."

He laid a hand on her shoulder.  She covered it with her own.  They
stood that way for a time, and the silence seemed to gather around them.
At last Ranma could bear it no longer.  He spun and left the room,
almost at a run.  Not wanting her to see the tears in his eyes.

                **********

That evening, in an odd mood, he cooked okonomiyaki for the two of them.
Ukyou's eyebrows shot up when she saw it, but she made no comment at
first.  She ate slowly, her expression unreadable.  When at last she
finished, she frowned for some time, fussing with her napkin, before
finally admitting, "Not bad.  Not bad at all."

Ranma let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

She cocked an eye at him, and grinned.  "Was this supposed to be some
kind of hint?"

"No!" he said, too quickly.  Then, a little reluctantly: "Yes."

"Hmm."  Ukyou stood up and went through to the kitchen, where she deftly
scraped the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.  "All right,"
she said at last.  "I admit it.  I've taken it too far.  I've let my
curse rule my life to the extent that I hardly _have_ a life any more."

"You do have a good excuse," Ranma pointed out.  "Better than I ever
did."

"Well ... yes.  But even so.  I managed by myself for eight years.  I
shouldn't be forcing you to do all my cooking for me!  I'm sorry,
Ran-chan."

"Accepted," he said quietly.

"As for ... for the okonomiyaki..."  She was silent for some time.
"It's been a long time since I made it.  Three or four years, I think.
I hardly even think about it any more.  That's not who I am, now."  She
shot him a look.  "Don't ask me to go back to that life, Ranma.  I
won't.  It's over."

"You don't have to justify yourself to me," Ranma told her.

"Who else?"  But she was smiling.  "Tomorrow, _I'll_ make _you_ an
okonomiyaki.  And we'll see if I've lost it, ne?"

"Uhh --"

"You've got a full day to prepare your taste buds.  Better start now."

He studied her face, a little nervously, trying to see if she was joking
or not.  He couldn't tell.  But she was still smiling.  That had to be a
good sign, didn't it?

                **********

During the night, Ranma was awakened by the sound of a bell ringing.  He
sat up, shaking his head groggily.  It was a regular chiming sound,
repeated every few seconds.  He could not make out where it was coming
from.

He heard running feet.  A little alarmed, he ran to the doorway and
looked out, just in time to see Ukyou disappearing around a corner.  He
followed.  The steady ringing of the bell was everywhere, filling the
entire house.

A few seconds later, it cut off abruptly.  In the sudden silence that
followed, he could clearly hear Ukyou swearing.  Her voice was coming
from her work-room.

He looked in the doorway, and saw her sitting at her terminal, pounding
away at the keyboard with what seemed like unnecessary force.  Her
muttering cut off as she looked up and saw him.

"Oh, Ran-chan -- I'm sorry," she said.  She added something else, but he
was momentarily distracted by the sight of the rather scanty nightdress
she was wearing.  By the time he could pull his eyes away and pay
attention once more, she was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an
answer.

"What?" he said, somewhat foolishly.

She rolled her eyes.  "Go back to bed, Ran-chan.  I'm sorry.  It was an
alarm I set a ... a long time ago, to alert me when a computer search
finished.  I'd forgotten about it, that's all."

"Oh."  He would have liked to have asked more, but she gave him a stern
look, and he turned away obediently and went back to bed.

But he had difficulty falling asleep once more.  A troubling thought
kept returning to him:  how long ago had she set that alarm?  She hadn't
wanted to tell him for some reason.  And ... what could she have been
looking for?  Most computer searches finished in a second or two.  A few
minutes at the outside.  What kind of search could take so long that
she'd actually _forgotten_ setting up such a dramatic alarm?

What was she working on?

                **********

His concern increased the next day.  He got up at his regular time to
make breakfast, but Ukyou never showed up to eat it.  After waiting for
some time, he went looking for her.  He took a tray of food with him.
He knew where she'd be.

As he'd expected -- as he'd feared -- she was still in her work-room.
She'd put on a dressing-gown, but otherwise she did not seem to have
moved since the night before.  There were dark shadows under her eyes.

"Ucchan?" he said softly.  She did not seem to notice.  She had
abandoned her keyboard and was now working with VR gauntlets, her
movements swift and sure.  The terminal field was a maze of shifting
colour; he could not make head or tail of whatever she was working on.

"Ucchan," he said again.  This time she heard him.  She started, then
cursed as the sudden jerk caused the terminal image to wheel crazily.
She disengaged the gauntlets and looked up at him.

"Ran-chan?"  She saw the tray he was carrying.  "Is it morning already?"

"Well and truly," he told her.  "You need to eat."

"Oh," she said absently.  "Yes ..."  But her eyes were already shifting
back to the terminal.

With a sigh, he laid down the tray and left her in peace.  He heard her
slipping her gauntlets back on as he went out.  She had already
forgotten he had ever been there.

He checked on her again after his morning workout and removed the tray,
its contents untouched.  In the hours that followed, he tried to stay
within constant earshot of the work-room.  He feared that some kind of
explosion was coming.

He was right.  An hour or so after lunch (which again she did not touch)
he heard her weeping.  He ran in, rather frightened now.  She was
staring at something on her terminal, the tears streaming down her
cheeks.  He caught a confused, blurred glimpse of some kind of mesh;
then she shut down the display field and rounded on him, shouting,
almost hysterical, and made him leave.

When he peeped cautiously into the room half an hour later, he saw her
sprawled across her work-bench, sound asleep.  He breathed a sigh of
relief.

Later that day he cooked dinner, thinking that she would be in no mood
to fulfil her promise to make okonomiyaki.  He was about to take a tray
through to her work-room when she walked into the kitchen.

She was bathed and dressed, and looked better-rested.  There was a hint
of tension in her eyes, but she seemed determined to act normally, and
he made no comment.

After they had eaten she set down her chopsticks and said quietly, "We
need to talk."

He nodded.  "Is this about --" he began.

She held up a hand to stop him.  "Yes.  I'm sorry.  After all this time,
I'd almost given up hope of finding --"  She broke off suddenly.  "No.
Let me start somewhere else."

She thought for a few moments.  "There's a ... project," she said
carefully at last.  "Something I've been working on for, well, the last
twenty years or so, off and on.  Last night, another piece fell into
place.  I ... think you need to see what I've found."

Ranma stirred.  "Is this what you talked to me about, a day or two after
I came here?" he asked.  She nodded silently.  "Then, yes, of course.
But I don't know anything about genetics --"

"Don't worry."  She laughed.  "It's not that kind of project.  Actually,
it's kind of a private matter.  Not related to my professional work at
all.  It's --"

She sighed.  "Well, no use beating around the bush.  The truth is, I've
spent the last twenty years trying to find Shampoo."




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 6 -

After a long pause Ranma said, "What?"

Ukyou grinned.  "That's all you have to say?  Somehow I'd expected a
stronger reaction."

"Find Shampoo?  Ucchan, that doesn't make any sense!  Joketsuzoku isn't
very far from Jyusenkyo.  It's on the maps.  How hard can it be --"

"Ran-chan."  He fell silent obediently and Ukyou said, "I've been to the
village.  Nobody there knows where she is, or what happened to her."

"But --"  Ranma paused, frowning.  "Well, they must know _something_.
How long has she been gone?  Where was she going when she left?"

She shook her head.  "That's the mysterious part.  Look, let me tell it
to you as I discovered it.  That's probably easiest."

Ranma sighed.  "Ok, go ahead."

"It started twenty years ago.  I told you I'd been trying to analyse the
springs at Jyusenkyo.  I wasn't having any luck, and I was about ready
to give up.  But it occurred to me that it might help to study someone
who was already cursed -- analyse exactly how the physical changes
happen.  I'd tried to study myself, and gotten nowhere.  But then I
remembered Shampoo.  I thought I might be able to persuade her to help
me."

Ranma snorted.  "Fat chance."

Ukyou shrugged.  "It was worth a try.  Also, well, I thought it might be
nice to see a familiar face again.  So I flew to the village, and asked
about her.  And ... Ranma, they'd never even heard of her."

"Huh?  That's ridiculous!  I met her there myself --"

"I know.  It didn't make any sense.  So I asked around.  Did I tell you
I've learned Chinese?  I talked to most of the villagers.  In the end, I
did find a few people who remembered her.  Ran-chan, they were the
oldest people in the village.  Nobody else had heard the name at all."

"Huh."  Ranma thought about it.  "She and Cologne went back there a few
months after Akane and I got married.  It sounds like she must have left
again not long after that."

"That's what I thought, at first.  So I asked when she'd left again, and
they looked at me as if I were mad.  Eventually, though, I got the whole
story.  It seems that Shampoo was fighting in some kind of annual
tournament, when a foreign woman showed up, stole the tournament prize,
and defeated her in single combat."

"What?  Hang on, that sounds like --"

"That was you, yes.  Shampoo gave the foreign woman -- gave you -- the
kiss of death.  When you fled the village, she followed you.  And ...
that's all they knew.  She never came back."

Ranma hesitated.  "That's not right," he said after a moment.  "She
_did_ go back to the village, after she gave up on killing me.  Then she
and Cologne went back to Japan."

Ukyou nodded.  "Now that's the other interesting thing," she said.  "You
see, none of the villagers had ever heard of Cologne at all."

"They -- what?  But they can't have just forgotten _her_!"

"A three hundred year old matriarch?  You wouldn't think so, would you?
But unless everyone there was lying to me, that's what they must have
done.  Or ... there's a more sinister possibility."

Ranma's voice was grim.  "You've been thinking about this for twenty
years.  Spell it out for me."

"Shampoo left the village and went to Japan to kill you.  You convinced
her not to do it, and she started back home again.  A few weeks later
she reappeared in Japan.  She said she'd been home, but the villagers
say she hadn't.  She was accompanied by Cologne, whom she said was her
great-grandmother.  But the villagers say there was no such person.

"So the question is:  Who was Cologne?  And where _did_ Shampoo go when
she returned to China, if not back to her village?"

"Cologne may just not have lived in the village," suggested Ranma.

"I managed to check that.  The Amazons keep careful records.  I was able
to build a family tree.  And none of Shampoo's great-grandmothers --
none of her ancestors at all -- were named anything like 'Cologne.'"

"So ... it must have been a false name?"

"Well, maybe.  That was my next thought.  So I started to check entry
and exit records, passport control, that sort of thing.  I found Shampoo
easily enough -- arriving in Japan, leaving, and arriving again.  When
she arrived the second time, she was alone.  No sign of Cologne."

"Maybe they travelled separately?" said Ranma, a little weakly.  "Or --
wait a minute!  Shampoo was _mailed_ to Japan the second time.  In her
cat-form.  I remember when the box arrived."

Ukyou shook her head.  "Mailing a live cat from China to Japan?  Not
likely.  The cat might not survive at all; it certainly wouldn't be
healthy when it arrived.  No, Ran-chan, that box was sent from within
Tokyo.  It may not have gone through the postal system at all; it may
have been specially delivered."

Ranma thought about it.  Come to think of it, he never had seen the box
itself.  He wondered what postmarks it had carried.  If any.  "But why
go to all that trouble?" he wondered aloud.

"Someone was trying to distract you.  And if they picked such a bizarre
method to do it, the truth they _didn't_ want you to see must have been
stranger yet, ne?"

Ukyou stood up.  "Come with me," she said.  "There's something I want
you to see."

She led the way back to her study.  There, she tapped at her computer
terminal briefly.  "Look here," she said.

The image was an old two-dimensional one.  The quality was poor, and the
picture somewhat faded, but the young woman it showed was unquestionably
Shampoo.  She looked tired, but at the same time there was such a look
of stubborn pride and determination stamped in her features that for a
moment, Ranma's eyes prickled.

"That's Shampoo when she arrived in Japan for the first time," said
Ukyou.  "Hunting you.  She didn't bring any luggage with her at all,
oddly enough; maybe she'd stowed away somehow.  I wonder where she got
the weapons she used when she attacked you?  Bonbori, right?"

"Yes.  She always was resourceful," Ranma said softly.  Odd, how time
could blur the memory.  After his wedding, he'd been glad to finally see
her leave.  Now, he was startled to find that he wanted to see her
again.  He had never wanted Shampoo as a lover.  But he wished he could
have had her as a friend.

"Right.  Now, this is when she went back to China."  It wasn't a photo
this time, but a short clip of video.  "Looks like the security systems
had been upgraded," Ukyou commented.  Ranma nodded, studying Shampoo's
face.  She looked unhappy.

Ukyou went on, "I've no idea why someone decided to archive all this
video, but it turned out useful.  Because --"  She tapped at the
keyboard again.  "Look at _this_ one."

It was another video clip of Shampoo.  "This is the second time she
arrived in Japan?" asked Ranma.  Ukyou nodded.  "I don't get it," he
said.  "It looks pretty much like the other one."

"Except that she's alone, when Cologne should have been with her.  But
there's something else.  Take another look."  Ukyou replayed the clip,
then raised an eyebrow at Ranma.  He shook his head, and she played it
through a third time, this time at half-speed.

"I still don't see anything," Ranma confessed.  "The picture quality's
not as good as the others, but after sixty years --"

"Oh?" said Ukyou.  "What's wrong with the picture quality?"

There was something odd about her voice: nervousness, or excitement, or
anticipation.  He shot her a suspicious glance before answering.  "Well,
it's blurred," he said.  "I mean, look!  Right there, where Shampoo --"

He stopped suddenly.

"Yes?" Ukyou prompted him after a few seconds.

"Play it again," he said.  There was a sudden cold feeling in his
stomach.  A creeping feeling down his spine.  Ukyou had been right.
There _was_ something wrong with the clip.  Something ... nasty.  "Play
it again," he repeated, and for some reason his voice was unsteady.

The clip played again, slowly.  This time he could see it clearly.  The
wrongness.  The distortion.  It was barely visible at first: a slight
blurring in the picture.  Nothing unusual.  To be expected, even, in a
clip that had been stored for years on film before being transferred to
video.  But the blurred patch didn't disappear, or flicker, or change in
any way.  Instead it moved, at a steady, deliberate pace.  Following
Shampoo exactly.  As if there were something there that the camera
couldn't quite pick up.  Mounted squarely in the centre of her back.

"_Riding_ her," he whispered.

He knew that feeling in the pit of his stomach, now.  It was dread.

"What is it?" he asked.  "Is it Cologne?  Using some kind of magic power
to make herself invisible?"

"I hope so," said Ukyou quietly.

"Yeah."  He knew she didn't believe it, though.  Neither did he.  What
use would an Amazon have for such powers?

The clip was playing in a loop now, over and over.  As it began again,
Ranma noticed something else.  Something that scared him even more, if
that were possible.  At first he had thought that Shampoo was simply
swinging her arms naturally as she walked.  But now he saw that one arm
was held slightly away from her body.  The fingers were curled gently
closed on empty air.

[What did you think you were holding?] he thought.  [Your great-
grandmother's hand?  How good was the illusion?  Did you see her?  Hear
her voice?  Feel her touch?]  But there had been no Cologne.  The one
that had truly been with Shampoo was elsewhere.  Clinging to her back.

[Did you know, Shampoo?  Did you ever know it was there?  Did you wake
sometimes, in the middle of the night, and realise what you'd become?  A
mount, for an unseen passenger?  Did you try to fight it?]

"I first saw that clip, twenty years ago," Ukyou said softly.  "Since
then, I've been looking for Shampoo.  Because I think that, wherever she
is ... if she's still alive ... she needs help.  Desperately."

"'If she's still alive'?  Do you think it's that bad?"

"It may be worse," she said.  As he looked at her, shocked anew, she
tapped quickly on the keyboard.  "This is what the computer found last
night," she told him.  "It took twenty years of searching, refining the
parameters, writing special detection routines.  What I was looking for
is very subtle.  But here it is at last."

The screen lit up and she added, "This is Shampoo, returning to China
for the second time.  A few weeks after your wedding."

A clip played.  Several people walked past on the screen.  Ranma did not
recognise any of them.

"Whatever the ... thing ... is, its technique has improved," Ukyou
commented dryly.  "No blurring this time.  Or maybe it found it easier
to avoid detection for ... other reasons.  But look there, against the
air-conditioning grille.  It's a nice, fine, regular mesh, handy for
spotting any distortions.  Watch ... now!"

Ranma thought he saw a faint flicker.  No more.

"It's so subtle that, even if you noticed it, you wouldn't think
anything of it," said Ukyou.  "That's why it took so long to find.  But
if I get the computer to track that flicker, and trace its outline ..."

The scene played again.  This time, they saw a ghostly outline moving
through the picture, irregular, indistinct.  But as it passed the
grille, it suddenly became sharp and well-defined.  Shampoo's profile
was very clear, and perfectly recognisable.

"Why is she invisible too, this time?" asked Ranma.

"I don't know.  Maybe it was stronger, for some reason.  Maybe it had
been ... feeding off her, somehow."  Ukyou looked sick at the thought.
Ranma felt queasy himself.  "Or maybe it had been doing something else
to her, while she was living in Tokyo.  Altering her somehow.
Gradually.  Making her ... more like it."

Suddenly Ranma understood why she had been so upset earlier.

He looked away from the screen.  His expression was grim, his voice
steady, as he said, "We have to save her."




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 7 -

"Finding her will be the difficult part," said Ukyou.

"Maybe," Ranma said glumly.  "We're still assuming she's alive.  _Is_
she?  Do you even know that much?"

"No," she answered quietly.  "But it doesn't matter.  After what I've
found out, how can I hold back?  One way or another, I have to know."
Her eyes burned as she said, "Do you think I could sleep at night,
knowing I'd abandoned her to ... to _that_?  Could _you_?"

Ranma stared at her, open-mouthed.  Then, slowly, he shook his head.

"No," she said, her momentary anger fading.  "Besides ... even if she's
dead, _it_ might not be.  We might be able to kill it."

Ranma's grin was vicious.  "Now that sounds like a good plan to me," he
said.

"Don't be too eager," she warned him.  "Think about what this ... thing
can do.  It controlled Shampoo's mind, making her think she had a great-
grandmother who never actually existed.  It controlled _all_ our minds,
made us see what it wanted us to see.  Feel what it wanted us to feel.
Now, maybe there's some way to fight something like that.  But _I_ don't
know how."

"Ahh, don't worry about it.  I'll find a way.  I always do."

"Typical," she murmured.

He grinned in reply.  Then, serious once more, he said, "What the hell
is the thing, anyway?  Some kind of demon?"

Ukyou raised her eyebrows.  "Who knows?  Call it that if it makes you
feel better.  Whatever it is, my guess is that Shampoo stumbled onto it,
somewhere, on her way back to Joketsuzoku.  It ... took control of her,
somehow.  She never reached the village.  Instead, it turned her back
toward Japan."

"That's another part I don't understand," Ranma complained.  "Why did it
make her go back to Tokyo?  Why was it trying to help her marry me?"

"You expect me to have all the answers?"  Ukyou sighed.  "We may never
know.  Or maybe you'll be able to ask _it_ that, when we find it."

"You seem to have theories about everything else."

She snorted.  "I've had a while to think about it.  Well ... I think
maybe it was actually trying to help Shampoo get what she wanted.  In
exchange for ... whatever it took from her, perhaps."

Ranma laughed bitterly.  "It'd have had an easier time siccing her onto
Mousse.  At least he -- hey!  What _about_ Mousse, anyway? Was he just
another figment of our imaginations?"

"No," Ukyou said sadly.  "He was real enough.  When I visited
Joketsuzoku twenty years ago, I met him there.  He didn't recognise me.
He didn't even recognise Shampoo's name.  The whole time he was in Japan
had just been ... erased."  After a moment she added, "He died about
fifteen years ago."

Ranma nodded, but did not reply at once.  At last he said, "I'd always
hoped he'd married Shampoo.  I mean ... it seemed like she did like him,
even if she didn't want to admit it.  But this -- to make him forget all
about her, after everything he went through -- it seems like such a
waste."

Ukyou nodded.  "He asked me if I knew what had happened to him during
his missing years.  I didn't know what to say.  It seemed ... in the end
I told him I didn't.  It seemed kinder.  But ... it had been preying on
his mind for so long ... I'm not sure if I did the right thing ..."

"I --"  Ranma hesitated.  "I'm not sure what I'd have said either," he
admitted reluctantly.  "Ucchan, I wish to hell you'd called me about
this twenty years ago, when you first found out what had happened."

Ukyou flushed, looking ashamed.  "I've thought about that, many times,"
she said.  "But until I found that new clip this afternoon, I thought --
I still hoped -- that I might be deluding myself.  But even so --

"Ran-chan, we still have no idea where to find the thing."  She sighed.
"At first I hoped that, if it came from China, it might have returned to
China.  That's why I settled here.  But the truth is, after sixty years,
it could be anywhere.  Anywhere at all.  America.  Africa.  Atlantis.
Even one of the Lagrange colonies.  Without some idea of where to look,
what good would calling you have done?"

"Well, you've got a good starting point, at least," he said.

She blinked.  "I do?"

"Oh, for -- you must have seen it!  Look, we _know_ one place Shampoo
visited on her way back to Joketsuzoku.  And she must have gone there
before she met the ... demon, or whatever.  It'd hardly be likely to --"

"Ran-chan, what are you talking about?" said Ukyou sweetly.

"Jyusenkyo!  She fell into the spring-of-drowned-cat, remember?  And it
almost has to have been _before_ she met the demon.  But remember,
Jyusenkyo is --"

"Only a day or so from Joketsuzoku on foot," finished Ukyou.  She sat
stock-still for several seconds, her face quite blank.  Then, to his
dismay, she burst into tears.

Afterward, he did not remember moving.  One moment, he was sitting on
the floor, on the opposite side of the table to her.  The next, he found
himself holding her in his arms, as she sobbed on his shoulder.

"Shh ... shh ..." he whispered, as if he were soothing a child.  "It's
all right ..."

"No it's not!" she wailed into his shoulder.  "What if Shampoo _is_
dead?  What if she died nineteen years ago?  It'd be my fault ...
because I thought I knew all the answers ... because I was too damn
proud to call for help when I needed it ..."

Ranma did not answer at once.  He suspected that this was at least
partly true.

"What if she died _twenty-one_ years ago?" he said at length.  "Or
thirty?  Or fifty?  Without you, nobody would even know she was
missing."

"What if she's still alive?" Ukyou insisted.  "She's been ... enslaved
... by that thing for twenty years longer than she needed to be ..."

It was no good.  She could not accept comfort yet; she needed to blame
herself too much.  Unfortunately, he thought, she was right.  Pride had
driven her away when he'd married Akane; that same pride had kept her
from calling him when she needed help.  And perhaps Shampoo had paid --
or was still paying -- the price.

It wasn't comfort that she wanted from him, he realised.  It was
punishment.

He forced harshness into his voice.  "Maybe so," he rasped.  "And at
this rate, it'll be another twenty years before you actually do anything
about it."

She stared up at him in shock.  Her tears were forgotten.  Hating
himself, he wondered just how real they'd ever been.

"I mean,  is this all you can do?" he demanded.  "Play with your
computer for years, looking for hints like this was some kid's game?
Then sit there and cry about how bad you've been, when you find out you
made a mistake?"

"What -- what are you --" she stammered.

"The Ukyou I used to know wouldn't be cowering in her fancy house,
afraid to go out and get things done," he spat out.  In spite of
himself, he was beginning to feel genuinely angry.  Friend or not, she
did have this coming.  "But then, the Ukyou I used to know wouldn't just
run away and leave her best friend not knowing if she was alive or
dead."

"Damn it, that's not fair --"

"Not fair?  What's 'fair' got to do with it?  Was it fair, what you did
to me?  Leaving me wondering for years?  One phone call is all it
would've taken!"  He seemed to have strayed somewhat from what he'd
meant to say, but somehow it didn't matter.

"I tried to let you know --" she burst out.

"Tried hell!" he roared.  "One little chat with Mom and you were off the
hook, right?  And when you found out I still didn't know, you just give
up!  Some friend!"  He stopped for an instant, then hissed, "You were
_relieved_ you didn't have to see me again."

"Yes I was!" she exploded.  "I had better things to do than wasting my
life mooning over a baka who only cared about fighting and never knew if
he was coming or going!  Getting away from you was the best thing I ever
did!  Without you I built a _life_, and a damn good one!"

"So good, you felt inspired to spend twenty years searching for someone
you never really liked in the first place," he jibed.

"You go to hell, Saotome!  At least I was looking!  Where were _you_?
Where do you get off, blaming me for not calling you, when you just sat
back for _sixty_ years and never even _thought_ about Shampoo?"

"At least I'm ready to do something about it," he snarled.  "I'm not the
one who wants to sit back and cry about it all."

She stared at him for several seconds, her face white with rage.
Finally she said, in a queerly calm voice, "Fuck you."  Then she turned
and stalked out.

He watched her go, and slowly let the anger drain out of him.  What had
he done?

He had intended to provoke her, to make her forget her self-pity.  But
it had gone further than he'd intended.  Much further.  He had attacked
her with an old bitterness he had not known he felt.

Did he really blame her so much for running away?  For having been able
to build a life without him?  For achieving so much more than he ever
had?  [Am I really that selfish?] he asked himself.  It was a sobering
thought.

And then, finally, she had struck back.  He shook his head.  Her words
had hit hard.  He had never seen it that way before, but it was true.
He _had_ failed Shampoo.  Turned his back.  Been glad she was gone.  And
tried to forget all about her.

True, she had been a nuisance.  Her dogged pursuit of him, her
relentless determination to win him at any cost, had caused him grief
and pain more times than he could remember.  _And_ she turned into a
cat.

[But that's not the whole picture, is it?] he thought grimly.  [There
were other times, too.]  Times when Shampoo _hadn't_ been chasing him.
Times when he'd seen a completely different side of her: a sweet, good-
natured, friendly girl, devastatingly pretty, and with a deceptively
sharp intelligence.

[She was my friend,] he thought.  [All that time, and I never saw it.]
She had stood by him, fought for him -- even sided with him against
Cologne.  [She was my friend ... but what sort of friend was _I_ to
_her_?]  Not a very good one, he had to admit.  He had used her, more
often that he cared to think about.  But been her friend?  Seldom.

He found now that he even had to admire her pursuit of him.  It must
have been extraordinarily difficult for her: following him all over
China, surviving somehow on her own, and even to Japan -- where, despite
barely knowing the language, despite the racial prejudice she must have
met, she had somehow tracked him down yet again and (he had to admit it)
brought him to bay.  Could he have done the same?  He wasn't so sure.

But after she gave it up and went back to China ... had he ever even
thought about her again?  Not often.  And only in terms of how glad he
was that she was gone.

It was not a pretty picture of himself.

He scowled.  [I'll have to talk to Ukyou.  Patch things up somehow.
Tomorrow, when she's had a chance to cool down.]

Perhaps it was fate.  Perhaps it was just a meaningless coincidence.
But that was the moment when he heard the whine of the engine starting
up outside.

[Oboy.  I made her madder than I thought.]

He ran for the door, but he knew as he started that he was too late.  He
made it outside just in time to see the running lights of Ukyou's
flitter as it climbed into the air, circled once, then headed west.  In
less than a minute it was gone, one more speck lost among the stars.

He watched for some time, hoping that she would change her mind, return
to the house.  But he knew she would not.  Ukyou could be very
determined, too.

[I'll have to follow her.]  But somehow it was only at that thought that
the true extent of his predicament dawned on him.  He was alone in a
house in the middle of the wilderness.  There were no other vehicles.
He could call for help -- but where would he tell them to come?  He had
only a rough idea of where in China he was.

[Oh, Ryouga ... I never knew what it was like before ...]

He was lost.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 8 -

Ranma thought about it for a long time, discarding alternative after
alternative.  He could simply set out on foot; he was confident that he
could find a town eventually, and there was plenty of food in the house
that he could take with him.

But he knew there were no towns nearby.  If there had been, he would
have seen their lights at night, reflecting off the clouds.  So a walk
to find a town could take a long time.  And he was beginning to be
afraid that time was something he didn't have.

He slept on the problem, in the end, and during the night a possible
solution came to him.  The next morning, he phoned home.

"Hello, Seiji ... Yes, it's me ... I'm fine ... No, really, I'm fine ...
I don't know when I'm coming back, there's a problem with that ...
that's what I'm trying to explain, if you'll stop interrupting! ... I
understand you know where I am? ... Yes, she said she'd called you.
We're going to have to talk about that when I get home, you never told
_me_ you knew Ukyou ... Well of course I'd've wanted to know! ... Look,
we can talk about that later; this is more important ... Listen, how
_often_ did you talk to her? ... Uh-huh, that's what I thought ... Well,
she told me just the once, but I _thought_ she seemed a bit too familiar
with my affairs ... No, not that soft of affairs, don't be stupid ... So
tell me, did she ever give you her address? ... Well, a nav reference
then ... Ask Hisao, would you? ... No, I don't mind waiting ... Hello?
Took you long enough ... She did?  Excellent! ... You're kidding, that
close? ... All right, look, this is urgent, I need you to fly out here
... Yes, now! ... What sort of repairs? ... Well, can't you borrow a
flitter? ... Look, I told you, this is _urgent_ ... Possibly life or
death ... No, I'm not exaggerating, dammit ... Look, if I don't find
Ukyou soon something horrible might happen to her ... Just get out here!
Fast!"

He was breathing hard when he clicked the vid off.  Somehow Seiji always
brought out the worst in him.  Perhaps he was similar to his mother in
that.  Shaking his head and sighing, Ranma went to get himself
breakfast.

Ukyou had said that her house was three hours' flight from Tokyo.  It
was more like six hours before he heard the faint whine of an
approaching flitter.  He spent the time trying to work out; but he was
too jumpy and irritable to do a satisfactory job.  Instead he ended up
sitting cross-legged, sipping tea, and worrying about Ukyou.

[The truth is, after sixty years, it could be anywhere,] she had said.
But Ranma did not believe it.  He could not have said why.  It was
simply a gut feeling, an intuition that he had learned not to ignore.

The demon was there, back where Shampoo had stumbled on it all those
years before.  Waiting.  And Ukyou was heading straight into its grasp.
Worst of all, she was going with a mind clouded with rage.  Maybe she
could withstand whatever it would assault her with.  Maybe.  But he
doubted it.

[Is it a demon?  "Call it that if it makes you feel better," she said.
Well, I've fought demons before.  But what if it isn't?  What if ...]

He shied from the thought.  But it kept on returning, and at last he had
to face it:

[What if I'm too old?]

It was a relief to hear the flitter approaching at last.  He stamped
outside to watch it land, intending to bawl out Seiji -- or Hisao -- for
taking so long.  As it drew near he saw to his amusement that it was a
police flitter.  Seiji had probably 'borrowed' it from the station pool.
He hoped he would not get into too much trouble for it.

When he stepped up to the vehicle, he was surprised to see it was empty.
All that way on autopilot?  What were those idiot boys playing at now?
He tried the door but found it locked.  Fuming, he recited his personal
access code, and the door clicked open.

Inside, he found a note stuck to the controls.  [Sorry, couldn't take
time off work.  Hope it works out with Kuonji-sama.  Seiji.]

He sighed.  He'd completely forgotten what day it was.  No, of course
Seiji couldn't get away.  But ...

[Hope it works out with Kuonji-sama.]

What did they think he was doing?  Having an affair?  With a sinking
feeling he realised that that was probably exactly what Seiji _did_
think.  When he got back to Tokyo he would take that boy and --

(Is he wrong, though?)

The thought was so unexpected -- so _alien_ -- that for a moment it
seemed as though someone else were there, speaking to him.  He stood
stock-still, his mouth hanging open.

[What?]

(I mean it.  You always did like her.  Are you sure that an affair isn't
exactly what this is turning into?)

He recognised the other voice now.  It was his own.  The voice he heard
when _he_ was a _she_.

[Shut up!  Shut up!  That's impossible!  Akane is the one I love!
Akane!]

(But Akane is gone.  Ukyou isn't.  She was right here.  And looking
pretty cute, too --)

[Don't be ridiculous!  She's only a teenager!  The idea is absurd!]

(She's not a teenager.  She's as old as you are.  You may have forgotten
that ... but do you think _she_ has?)

[Yes! ... No.]  Ranma shivered.  [But she ... she can't still be in love
with me.  After all these years.  She _mustn't_ be.]

(Oh?  Felt pretty good in your arms last night, though.  And she didn't
seem to mind a bit.)

[It wasn't like that!  She was crying!  I was just comforting her.]

(Sure you were.  Admit it.  You're lonely.  Akane's gone, and you can't
stand being on your own again.  You're looking for someone to fill the
gap.)

[Hey, I didn't go looking for no-one!  _She_ came to _me_!]

(Oh, yes, she broke you out of your self-pity.  Found a better way to do
it than you managed for her last night, too, eh?  But after that -- you
made yourself right at home here.  Didn't waste much more time mourning,
did you?)

[That's not true.]  He was calm now.  [I have mourned my wife.]

(Ahh ... the long scenic walks, the soulful monologues ... yes, very
touching.  But at the end of every one, you came running straight back
to Ukyou.  You're as bad as P-Chan slinking into Akane's bed.)

[_Not_ the same thing at all.]  But the idea was troubling.  [Am I so
disloyal to Akane, then?]

(Who mentioned disloyalty?  You loved Akane.  You still love Akane.
That was never in doubt.  But if you think you didn't love Ukyou too,
you're deluding yourself.  Not as much, maybe.  Differently, sure.  But
love.)

[I ...]

(Is it so shameful to admit that you need someone in your life?  That
you don't want to be alone?)

[No.  But even if I accept that ... that I might ... care for her, it's
not right to -- to just go jumping into bed with Ukyou as soon as
Akane's gone.  It's indecent.]

(I'm sure Tatewaki would be quoting from _Hamlet_ right now.  But what
does love have to do with right or wrong?  'Love is blind.'  I'm not
suggesting that you just go jumping into bed with her.  You're right;
it's much too soon for that.  But isn't it time you admitted that you
care for her?)

[No!  I ...]

He froze.  If he couldn't be honest with himself, then who?

[Maybe.]

(Well, it's a start, anyway.  At least you know that _she_ cares for
_you._)

Ranma sighed.  [Not after last night, maybe.  I was pretty harsh on
her.]

(Your capacity for understatement is amazing.  You held her in your
arms, you tried to comfort her after she'd done something horrible ...
and then you suddenly attacked her without warning.  Did you really
expect her to _like_ it?)

[What?  But that's not -- I was only trying to --]

(You know that.  But does she?)

"Oh, no," he whispered aloud.

And so, believing herself guilty of whatever had befallen Shampoo, and
thinking Ranma had rejected her yet again, Ukyou had fled.  Running away
again, from a pain she could not bear to face -- but this time she was
also running _to_.  To face a demon, she undoubtedly thought.  But which
demon was waiting for her -- Shampoo's, or her own?

"And here I stand, wasting time arguing with myself!"

He flung himself into the flitter.  A few seconds later he was high in
the air, following Ukyou's trail.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 9 -

The flitter's nav display showed him exactly where he was.  Ukyou's
house was in Qinghai, of course, in the Bayankalashanmai.  He had
guessed that much; but that covered a lot of territory.  He had assumed
that he was on the southern side of the range, somewhere near Yushu.
But it seemed he was considerably further north and east that he had
thought.

It hardly mattered, though.  [About twenty minute's flight from
Jyusenkyo,] he thought.  [That's what counts.]

The flitter's nav computer did not have a reference for Jyusenkyo.
Ranma was not surprised.  He had it link to Ukyou's house computer and
download the reference.  As an afterthought he had it copy a reference
for Joketsuzoku as well.

[About thirty kilometres apart.  Quite a lot of ground to search.  If
I'm lucky Ukyou won't have found anything yet ...]

He knew she would have.  It was a trap.  Somehow, it was a trap.

He considered landing in Jyusenkyo to ask the Guide if he'd seen Ukyou,
but rejected the idea.  There was only one easy route from Jyusenkyo to
Joketsuzoku; he should be able to spot her flitter with one sweep.

Besides, he did not want to return to Jyusenkyo.  There was no cure
there for his curse.  He knew from experience.

He punched the new course into the automatic pilot, setting up a slow-
speed pass along the route.  The flitter banked, coming onto its new
heading; and for one brief second he saw the ground, a hundred metres
below, dotted with pools of water.  His lips tightened and he looked
away.

It took half an hour to reach Joketsuzoku.  He spent the time glued to
the window, watching for a familiar, metallic shape.  He saw nothing.

He sat, frowning in thought, for some minutes.  [How did I miss her?
Could she have gone somewhere else?]  If she had, he stood no chance of
finding her at all.

[Wait a minute, though ... this is a police flitter ...]

He tapped at the computer panel, hoping that Seiji had had to 'borrow'
the flitter in a hurry.  Sure enough, the restricted functions had not
been locked off.  He breathed a sigh of relief, and started asking the
computer questions.

He had to link through Ukyou's house computer again to get enough
transmission range to query the vehicle registry centre in Xining, but
eventually he managed to pull up her flitter's transponder code.  He fed
that into the police flitter's traffic-control Detection & Tracking
system.  A bare instant later, a tracking map popped up on the screen.
The direction and range of Ukyou's flitter were clearly shown.

[What?  I flew right over it!  How did I miss it?]

He headed back toward Jyusenkyo, watching the tracking map as he flew.
He slowed as he approached the spot indicated, watching carefully out
the window.

Nothing.

After a minute or two he checked the screen.  He'd passed Ukyou's
flitter again.

[What, is she invisible or something?]

Then it hit him.  _Invisible._  The demon had made Shampoo invisible
before.  Could it do the same to Ukyou?  To an entire flitter?

He turned back once more and told his flitter to land right beside
Ukyou's.  [What I should have done in the first place,] he thought
sourly.  Two minutes later he was touching down.  In an apparently
unremarkable spot on a rough track.  With no other vehicle in sight.

                **********

He got out, looking around warily.  It was only mid-afternoon, but
the sun had moved behind the mountains; the track was in shadow, and
a cold wind was blowing.

He took a deep breath.  "Ucchan!" he shouted.

Silence.

Again: "Ucchan!"  But the wind was his only reply.

Impatiently, he turned back to his flitter.  There was nothing here.
The tracking system must have a fault.  That wasn't surprising; Seiji
probably got the flitter out of the repair pool at the police station.
He started the engine once more and started to punch in a course back to
Ukyou's house --

[Seiji wouldn't send me a faulty flitter.]

The thought bothered him for a moment; but then he shook his head and
dismissed it.  Seiji had probably been in a hurry and didn't realise
what he was doing.  He reached for the autopilot to start it and --

[He wouldn't.  He's careful.  Always.]

He hesitated, frowning.  What was the matter with him?  Going senile?
Hearing voices?  He ought to have his ears checked.  Maybe see a
psychiatrist.  Even have himself committed.  He reached out to program
in a course to the nearest hospital --

[No, dammit!  I'm not mad!  And there's nothing wrong with this flitter!]

His hand froze in mid-motion.  He stared at it, fascinated, terrified.
It was as if he had split in two: part of him, the rational part, could
see that there was nothing here, and was simply trying to leave; but
some other force, a wild, rogue part of him, was trying to make him
stay, make him waste time when Ukyou might be in trouble, and if he
could only move his arm he'd be able to get out of here and silence that
maddening voice for good --

And caught in between, some calm, detached fragment of him watched, and
wondered which of the two would win.  And at that moment one of the
forces seemed to give up, because his hand was snatched back.  But then,
as he watched, still transfixed, it started to move again, upward,
up toward his face, and two of the fingers were stuck out, just the right
distance apart, and they were coming toward his eyes, and they

[no]

were coming closer, and he could feel them now, a faint pressure on his
eyelids, and something inside him was fighting but it wasn't strong
enough, and he

[No!]

could feel the pressure increasing now, the fingers digging deeper, and
it was starting to hurt but the pain was good, yes the pain was
excellent and in a moment everything would be wonderful and he'd never
have to worry about anything again

[NOOOOOOO!]

And he wrenched his head away, screaming, his eyes burning, and through
a mist of tears he saw it.  He saw it.  The flitter, Ukyou's flitter,
parked right next to his own.  And, just a few metres away, the cave
entrance.

A voice spoke in his head.

* COME IN. *

He climbed out of the police flitter, rubbing his eyes, weeping
helplessly at the pain.  He wanted to go to Ukyou's flitter and look
inside, but his legs did not seem to want to obey him.  He found himself
walking, willy-nilly, to the cave.  And inside.  And he saw his enemy at
last.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 10 -

"It's been a long time, son-in-law," said Cologne.

She looked just the same as when Ranma had seen her last: a tiny,
wizened figure in a green robe, holding a long wooden staff.  Almost
comforting in her familiarity.  Except --

There was something else there, just below the surface.  Something that,
sixty-five years ago, had hidden beneath a mask of humanity; but which
now needed to hide no longer.  Something inhuman, staring out at him
from those ancient eyes.  Something hungry.

"Don't give me that," Ranma spat.  "I know what you are!"

"Do you indeed?" she said, unperturbed.  But there was a glint in her
eye, a flash of mockery.  Glee.

"Now what might you be here for?" she mused.  "To fight me?  But if I am
what you think I am, then what makes you think you can possibly win?  On
the other hand, if I am simply what I appear to be, then why are you
here at all?"

"Are you sure I can't win?" he snarled.  "I beat you once before."

"Beat me?"  She cackled.  It sounded like a buzz-saw.  "Well, perhaps.
But there are no cats here to trigger your neko-ken.  How do you propose
to do it again?"

"Any way I have to," he retorted.  "What have you done with Ukyou?"

"Oh, your chef sweetheart.  She's here, of course.  Odd that she looks
so young ... but let that pass."  She smiled.  Long ago, Ranma had
thought that smile the most horrible thing he'd ever seen.  It was no
prettier now.

And he thought to himself: [She doesn't know!  She doesn't know why
Ukyou is young!]

And, a moment later: [Did she have so many teeth, back then?]

"Oh, son-in-law, what a gift you sent me!" Cologne went on.  "She was
even easier than Shampoo was ... and her taste is so sweet!"

[_Taste_?]  Ranma stared at her in horror.  "You ... you haven't --"

Again he had to listen to her high-pitched laugh.  "Come with me," she
invited him at last.  "See for yourself."

His legs started to move again without his volition.  He tried to fight
the will that bound him, but could find nothing to set himself against.
His legs were simply moving, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He marched deeper into the cave.  Cologne hopped along beside him on her
ever-present staff.

"Why are you bothering with this charade?" he demanded.  "Why not show
me your real self?"

"Don't worry," she said.  She licked her lips.  "You'll see me soon
enough ..."  But the hungry look faded a little.  "For now, I have
little choice.  This body was Shampoo's creation, and I am bound to it.
Not that I mind!  After all, it's quite a formidable shape ... as
perhaps you've noticed before."

He bristled, longing to strike at her now, while she was talking.  But
the force that held him would not let him deviate from his path.  He
wondered for a moment how far they had come.  How deep the cave could
be.  If it was a natural cave at all.  Or had it been shaped, centuries
before, by something ... less natural than water?

"Shampoo's creation?" he prompted her.  [Encourage her to keep talking!]

She shot him a glance.  "Patience, son-in-law.  I'll explain everything.
As you'll see, talking serves me better than it does you ...

"Shampoo?  Ah, yes.  Now, she was a catch!  The first one in centuries
to radiate strongly enough to wake me.  She came stumbling down the
road, crying, half out of her mind, fairly reeking of it ... ahh!"  She
_hissed_ -- a drawn-out, sibilant sigh of pleasure; eerie, disturbing,
utterly inhuman.

Ranma's gorge rose.  He tried to swallow; his throat was dry, though his
forehead was beaded with sweat.  "Reeking of what?" he managed to say at
last.

"_Despair_," she said.  For an instant her face was a mask of greed:
avid, hungry.  Gloating.  He had to look away.

"And I have you to thank for that, too, son-in-law!" she crowed.

He looked up in shock.  "Me --"

"You!" she mocked.  "You rejected her.  You gave her a choice of killing
you or marrying you ... and then made both choices impossible.  You made
her an oathbreaker.  You made it impossible for her to ever regain her
position in the tribe -- and then left her with nowhere to go but home.
Home, where her failure condemned her to a lifetime as the lowest of the
low.  A servant to the other Amazons.  A virtual slave.

"And to cap it all off, she lost her way and ended up falling into one
of the springs at Jyusenkyo.  Oh, she _reeked_ of despair, son-in-law!
And I was so hungry ..."

Ranma closed his eyes.  [Did I do that?  Was it my fault?]  But he
hadn't known!  It was Shampoo's own fault!  If she hadn't wanted to kill
him or marry him ... if she hadn't followed him ... [If she hadn't given
me the kiss of death in the first place ...]

But no, he was avoiding the issue.  Shampoo had simply been following
Amazon law.  Perhaps it was a stupid law, but that was almost
irrelevant.  ["Ignorance of the law is no excuse."]  If he hadn't
defeated her in combat, none of this would have happened.

And why had he fought her in the first place?  To save his own neck,
because of a stupid mistake he and his father had made.  Eating the
first prize in that contest, of all things.  It had been an innocent
mistake.  He could have accepted punishment, or simply run.

But that wasn't all, was it?

No.  He had to admit it.  He'd fought Shampoo because he'd seen she was
good, and he wanted to prove he was better.

Arrogance and pride.  That was the root of it.

[It is.  It's all my fault.]

Despair.

And the shadows in the cave seemed to deepen, and twist, and surge
around him, and Cologne moved closer ...

[No!]

He raised his head.  "No, dammit!" he rasped.  "No!  It wasn't all me!
Shampoo was part of it too!  We could have found another way, if she'd
been prepared to bend a little.  But she wouldn't!  She had to have it
all!  I may share some of the responsibility, but _I am not to blame_!"

He looked Cologne in the eye.

She grinned, and said, "Come on.  We've a long way to go yet."

They moved deeper into the cave.

                **********

"I made a mistake when I bound Shampoo to me," Cologne said.  "Perhaps I
was over-eager.  It had been a long time, after all.  I was careless.  I
bound us a little too closely.

"Can you imagine what it's like to be utterly subject to the will of
another?"  She glanced at Ranma.  "Well, perhaps you can.  Shampoo took
hope again, and it weakened me.  I was driven to fulfil her dreams.
And ..."  She shrugged.  "What she dreamed of was you.  So she went back
to Japan, and I went with her."

"I saw," he muttered.

She paid no attention.  "You know what happened.  I constructed a memory
for her, a great-grandmother: the embodiment of her idea of the ultimate
Amazon.  The illusions I had to spin!  Concealing myself from her, as
well as the rest of you.  She never suspected I was there."  She frowned
for a moment.  "I think that old fool Happosai knew.  I gave him false
memories, but I was never sure if he believed them.  He had a one-track
mind, but his will was very strong.  But he didn't care about me.  He
knew I wasn't going to interfere with his ... habits ... so he simply
ignored me.

"Ah, but Shampoo!  She was persistent, that girl!  Really quite
remarkable.  After that time on the beach I could see that you'd never
marry her.  But she wouldn't give in."

Ranma blinked.  _Cologne_ had wanted to give in but _Shampoo_ wouldn't
agree?  That was a switch.

She must have sensed his surprise.  "Don't think I'm saying that I
couldn't have beaten you," she cautioned.  "But marry Shampoo?  That, I
could see you'd never do.

"In the end, of course, she failed.  I got the upper hand again, and
we came back home.  Here."

She _hissed_ again.  "And here I have fed well, Ranma.  Very well
indeed.  And now, just when Shampoo is beginning to fade at last, you
send me another gift!"

He understood immediately.  "Not Ukyou," he rasped.  "You're not taking
Ukyou."

She grinned.  There were _definitely_ more teeth in that mouth than she
had had before ...

"I already have her," she said mockingly.  "Eighty years she's loved
you, boy!  And again and again, you reject her.  For most of that time
she's tried to pretend she hated you, or tried to forget you.  And what
do you do when she finally thinks that at last, she might have a chance?
You do it again!  And send her straight to me, brimming over with
despair!  Son-in-law, you couldn't serve me better if I were paying
you!"

"No!" he shouted.  "It wasn't like that!"

"Oh?"  She cackled.  "You'll never get a chance to tell her.  She's mine
now.  And to make it all sweeter, I've got a bonus extra ...

"I've got you.

"I would have passed you up, son-in-law.  I would have let you go.  But
you forced yourself on me.  You rejected my illusions, you bulled your
way through -- and now, well ... why should I look a gift horse in the
mouth?

"And what a gift horse, son-in-law!  You're _much_ stronger than she is.
Or than Shampoo is, for that matter.  You've never been defeated in
your life.  Oh, you've lost battles ... but you've always won the war.
Your spirit has never been broken.  Oh, it will be _so_ good when you
shatter at last!  You won't last half as long as Ukyou, of course ...
but while you do -- Ukyou will be a meal ... but you'll be a feast!"

He stared for a moment.  And then laughed.  "Me?  Good luck, old ghoul.
I'm not despairing.  Nothing for you to eat here."

"Not yet," she said.  "But consider --

"You cannot possibly beat me.  You must know that.  You couldn't match
my speed when you were young, and you certainly can't do it now.  And
you can't leave.  So ... how long will it take, I wonder?  Before you
begin to weaken.  Before thirst and starvation begin to bring you low.
How long will it take?

"And if that isn't enough ... there's always your sweetheart, isn't
there?  What will you do, I wonder, when you see what I do to her, right
before your eyes ... with you unable to do anything but watch?

"How long until you despair at last, Ranma?"

He looked into her wide grin -- into those bottomless eyes, full of
greed and malice and anticipation -- and shuddered.  Without his
volition, his legs continued to move.  They went deeper into the
mountain.

                **********

He had lost track of how long they had been walking, how long they had
gone.  The temperature had fallen; he found himself shivering.  There
was a puff of condensation each time he exhaled.  (But not for Cologne,
he couldn't help noticing.)

The air was still seemed clean and breathable.  But there was an odd
smell coming from somewhere.

"...Easier than you'd think to build an identity," Cologne was saying.
She seemed to have fallen into a boastful mood.  Perhaps it was intended
to impress upon him how impossible it was to resist her.  If so, he had
to admit that it was having an effect.

"Take Herb and his friends, for instance ... you do remember?  Of
course.  They'd never heard of me; they never intended to come anywhere
near Nerima when they visited Japan.  But I saw a chance to make you
permanently female, and break off Shampoo's affection for you, so I
intercepted them and ... influenced them a little.  There were a few
other similar cases ... but I think you get the idea."

Ranma gritted his teeth.

"Or there was the Nanban mirror episode ... but I'm sure you realise
that not everything you saw then was real."

One foot in front of the other.  Step.  Step.  Don't answer.  Anything
you could say would just make it worse.

That smell was closer now.  What was it?  Something familiar ... He
screwed up his nose.  It was the scent of decay.

"And you still think you can defeat me?  I could make you believe the
tunnel had collapsed on you ... and you'd stand here, unhurt, and starve
to death, thinking you were trapped by rubble."

Ranma was not so sure.  He'd broken her mental domination earlier, at
the cave mouth, when she'd tried to drive him off.

Perhaps she perceived his thought somehow.  She shot him an all-knowing
glance and said, "Oh, I am _so_ looking forward to tasting you ..."

And as she spoke, they finally reached the end of the tunnel.

                **********

The cave opened out into a low, round chamber, dozens of metres wide.
The light was dim, but clear -- the same light that had filled the
tunnel: pale, colourless, and with no apparent source.  The walls were
uneven, jagged; the roof, equally rough but mostly flat.  The floor was
bare stone.

Ukyou was there, lying flat on the floor, near the rear of the cavern.
He ran to her, realising only as he reached her side that his legs were
free again.  Her body was stiff, rigid, though her flesh seemed warm.
She did not appear to be breathing.  Her eyes stared fixedly upward.
For a moment he could not tell if she saw him; but then he saw her
pupils react to the change in light as he leaned over her.  He let out a
breath he had not realised he was holding.  She was alive.

The first glimmerings of a plan began to form in the back of his mind.

"Let her go!" he demanded, looking back at Cologne.

Her only reply was a smirk.

Something else caught his eye.  Near Ukyou, at the very rear of the
cave, there was a hollow in the wall.  And there was something inside --

He moved closer to take a better look, then recoiled.  It was humanoid
in shape, the thing that lay there, curled up into a foetal ball.  But
there seemed little human about it.  Its limbs were twisted, bony
things, shrunken and distorted; its hands (if they were hands), withered
claws.  Its flesh, where he could see it through the layers of almost
solid filth that covered it, was pallid, almost transparent.  Its head
was horribly misshapen.  He was glad he could not see its face.

It stank.  The whole cavern reeked of it: of years, decades, centuries
of corruption.  Ranma tried to breathe through his mouth, but it did not
help; the stench was so thick he could taste it, like a thick, slimy
layer coating his tongue, indescribably foul.  He almost gagged.

And then it moved.  Slowly, its head lifted, turned toward him.  Its
face came into view.  It spoke.

"Airen," it said.

His jaw hung open.  He wanted to rage, to shout, to weep.  He was too
shocked, too horrified to even move.

He had found Shampoo at last.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 11 -

Ranma backed away slowly from the look in those eyes.  He saw the light
of recognition in them dull; he saw the momentary look of hope on
Shampoo's wizened face fade to a vacant imbecility.

"How long?" he asked softly.

"You know that already, son-in-law," Cologne answered.

He knew.  Sixty-six years, Shampoo had lain there, her body wasting
away, her anguish and despair feeding the monster that controlled her
mind.  Sixty-six years.

It was queer, the way he felt.  He had passed beyond anger, beyond rage.
Far beyond hatred.

He was ice.

"Is there anything more that we have to say to one another?" he said.
His voice was quiet, almost gentle.

"I think not," said Cologne.

He nodded.  His heart was pounding.

Oh.  One more thing.

"If you don't mind," he said diffidently, "one thing I've learned over
the years is never to fight with a full bladder ..."

She snorted, but nodded assent.  He did his business against a wall of
the cavern.  It only took a few moments.

"Very well, then," he said when he was done.  "Shall we begin?"

                **********

At first he had thought that fighting her would be a waste of time.
What good did it do to strike at an illusion?  What was the point in
trying to defeat a phantom?  As Cologne had said, the struggle was
pointless.

Now, he was not so sure.  The creature itself -- the centre of the evil
-- was not here facing him, he was certain of that.  Possibly it was
with Shampoo, mounted on her spine.  He knew he'd never get a chance to
check.

But Cologne herself had to be more than an illusion.  He'd seen her
apart from Shampoo too many times in the past to have any doubt about
that.  He could not believe that the demon (call it that) could control
minds at such a distance.  If it could, he had no hope at all.

What was she, then?  Some kind of golem?  Or an extension of the demon's
own chi?  He suspected the latter.  A shape formed only when needed; it
would explain why it had not been present on the video clips Ukyou had
found.

And if Cologne was formed out of the demon's chi, then maybe striking at
her would affect the demon itself.

Maybe.

It was all he had to pin his hopes on.

                **********

And so, finally, they came down to it.

It was a pity they were fighting underground.  It ruled out so many of
Ranma's best tricks; an explosion here could bring down the roof on the
lot of them.  But there were still alternatives --

Cologne's body began to glow.  To burn.  To expand.  She raised her
battle aura, and it was immense.  Daunting.  In moments she loomed above
him, and still she grew.  Her head passed through the roof of the cavern
as if it were not there; but somehow he found he could still see her, as
if the rock were transparent.

And then she came to a halt: a vast figure, dozens of metres high,
sneering down at him.  She glowed a cherry-red.  She was sheathed in a
web of pale red flame, flickering about her, casting an eerie dancing
light through the chamber.

* SUBMIT. *

He felt the pressure of her will beating against his mind.  The demand
to surrender.  A cold, remorseless force, dwarfing him, like a tsunami
about to break.

* YOU WILL SUBMIT. *

He closed his eyes, ignoring her.  [My turn ...]

He reached inside himself, felt the strength there.  The reservoir of
determination, of will, of _self_.  Of chi.  He allowed it to expand, to
fill him to the bursting point.  And then further, pushing it outward,
calling it forth, summoning, evoking ...

He swelled.  Gradually, hesitantly, his body filled out, inflated.  It
burned a dull, coppery red, barely visible.  Then the expansion slowed,
faltered ... and stopped.  He was no more than a few centimetres taller
than his normal height.

* IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO? *

He sensed mockery.  Contempt.

And he smiled.  [That's all I need ...]

And then he drove his will outward again.  Focusing it to a hard edge,
increasing the pressure.  Pouring all of his strength into his aura.
Driving the energies higher.

The light in the cavern changed.  The shadows receded.  Ranma's aura
brightened.  He glowed a fiery orange.

He thrust again, beginning to strain now.  Narrowing the focus.
Tightening his will.  Higher.

The cavern was ablaze with light.  Ranma was a brilliant yellow.  He
burned like a star.

Higher.

Green.  Blue.

Higher.  Distantly, he was aware of Cologne, her eyes screwed almost
shut, one hand raised against the blinding light.  She was not sneering
now.

Higher.

He burned violet.

He was drawing the energy around now, channelling it, directing it all
toward Cologne.  It would not do to subject Ukyou and Shampoo to this.

_Higher_.

For a few moments longer the light continued, almost too pale to see.
Then it seemed to fade.  About Cologne, the shadows seemed to gather
together.

Ranma burned ultra-violet.

And higher.  And higher.  And higher.

The energies grew.  The frequency soared.  He was shaking, fighting to
control it now.  Higher.

And then: the ultimate test.  He drove his will as never before.
Focusing down to a pinprick.  Driving the energies down to a single
point.  Aligning them.  Aiming.  And releasing.

Letting it all drive outward, in a single burst.  A single pulse of a
beam of coherent radiation.

An x-ray laser.

                **********

The beam was completely invisible.  But his inner sight saw it burn like
the spear of God.  It shot forth and struck home.  And, too late, he saw
what Cologne had been doing.

She glowed no longer.  She looked like a photographic negative.  Her
aura was a cloak of night.  It faded from dim and murky shadows at the
edge, to a clot of blackness at the centre, so deep and intense that the
darkness itself seemed alive.  Like a hole in space.  A black hole.

His beam struck her and vanished.  Silenced.  Absorbed.  Consumed.

Darkness filled the cavern.  There was a sharp smell of ozone.  Ranma's
aura was gone, utterly drained in the production of that levinbolt.  He
could not see.  He could barely stand.  He waited for the blow that
would end it all.

It never came.  Slowly, haltingly, light returned to the chamber.  It
was dimmer than before, but there was enough for him to see Cologne, a
little distance away.  She was leaning on her staff; she looked dazed.
[One blow would end it,] he thought; but right now he was not sure he
could walk, let alone strike a blow.

"Son-in-law," Cologne began, and then broke off to cough.  At length she
continued, "You never cease to amaze me.  I have absolutely no idea what
that was you just hit me with."  Her eyes narrowed.  "Happosai never
taught you that."

Ranma snorted, then regretted it.  His nose was bleeding.  "Happosai was
more than two hundred years old," he mumbled.  "He was using most of his
chi just to keep his body going.  He still had some good moves, but most
of what he had left was tricks, like those happo-daikarins."

"Yet he was still able to show an astonishing battle aura," murmured
Cologne.  "His strength must have been incredible when he was young ...
a pity I didn't find him then."

"I agree," said Ranma blandly.  He added, "Even he couldn't keep it up
forever.  About forty years ago he finally gave out."

Cologne nodded.  "So you developed your party trick on your own.  It's
most impressive, son-in-law.  Another one of those would seriously
inconvenience me.  But then ..." she grinned maliciously "... you can't
_do_ it again, can you?"

Ranma sighed.  She was perfectly correct.  He could not have dredged up
enough aura to light a match.

So it would be the traditional way, after all.

Ranma attacked first.  He leaped: not directly toward Cologne, but
angling slightly past her, his hands arcing out to strike, his feet
flicking toward her head.

She _moved_, almost too fast for him to follow.  A sudden hop, a twist
in mid-air, her staff lashing out -- and then she stood motionless once
more, and he was rolling across the floor.  He came to his feet
immediately, rubbing his arm.  The pain was astonishing.  With one blow,
she had hurt him worse than anyone had hurt him in years.

"Pretty solid for an illusion," she commented.

He did not bother to reply.  He leaped again, coming in low this time.
Again she blurred into motion: one arm flashing up to strike him in the
face, a leg catching him in the belly, and a smooth pivot, spinning him
away, out of control.  He hit the ground, rolled, and was back on his
feet in an instant, already launching a new assault.

She dodged smoothly, and her staff shot out to strike him in the ribs.
He had expected the move this time and deflected it, using the same move
to launch a kick to her head.  Somehow she arranged to be somewhere
else.  The momentum of his kick sent Ranma stumbling, and an instant
later he saw her staff blurring toward his face.

It was the move he'd been waiting for.  He brought his hand around in
one quick chop.  There was a splintering sound, and then a clatter as
the upper two-thirds of the staff hit the ground and rolled to a halt.

Ranma straightened up and stood watching Cologne warily.  She seemed
surprised, staring at the wooden stump in her hand.  After a moment she
dropped it.

Then she laughed.

There was a flicker.  The strange, directionless light in the cavern
seemed to pulse for a moment.  And then Cologne was holding a fresh
staff.  And laughing at him.

"That's cheating," he accused.

"'Anything-goes martial arts.'  That's what you boast, isn't it?" she
cackled.

"That's not what --" he started to argue, then thought better of it.
All right.  No rules.  Anything can happen.  [And it probably will,] he
thought bitterly.

Then he remembered Ukyou and Shampoo.  This was no simple contest.  This
was for everything.

He stood facing Cologne and bowed once.  Silently.

"This is really all unnecessary," Cologne told him.  "Face it: this is a
fight you can't win.  Give it up now and save yourself a lot of pain,
Ranma."

"I never give up.  Ever."

They became whirlwinds of motion, bodies arcing and flying, striking,
blocking, counter-striking.  Feet and hands seemed interchangeable.  All
the years of training, the skill, the strength, the effortless intuitive
flow of body in motion, came pouring forth.  Ranma had never fought
better.  Never.

He was losing badly.

Foot-strike.  Block; counter-strike.  Duck, leap.  Knee in face.  Dodge,
swing, kick.  Faster than the eye can follow, each move made purely on
instinct.  Jab, counter, twist, punch.  Dodge, dodge, dodge.

When he was young he might have had the speed to keep up with her.  But
no longer.  He was far more skilled than he had been then, and usually
that gave him the edge.  But Cologne had the skill _and_ the speed, and
she was killing him.

Her staff was everywhere.  He could not avoid it.  He was taking dozens
of hits, and landing almost none himself.  Each of her blows was light,
precise.  Painful, bruising, but not enough to break bone.  His skin
was slick with blood and sweat, but he still had no serious injuries.
She was playing with him.  Exhausting him.  Bringing him down by inches.

He tried an old trick -- the kachuu tenshin amaguriken -- and it didn't
work.  It was beyond him.  He was too tired, too drained, and too old
for it to be really effective anyway.  Not limber enough.  He was going
down.

[I never give up.  Ever.]

The staff clipped him on the forehead, hard.  He reeled; the world went
black for a moment.  When he came to he was lying on the floor; Cologne
was standing over him, her staff raised.

There was no pleasure in her eyes, no gleam of victory; just a
remorseless, implacable determination.  Another kind of battle aura, he
thought muzzily.

She struck him again in the belly.  He curled around it, moaning,
retching.  Another blow to the ribs.  The neck.  He writhed, twisted,
but the staff was everywhere.  His back.  His ribs again.  And flicking
toward his face --

He caught it, somehow.  They strained together for a moment; then he
twisted it, heaved, and Cologne flew across the cavern.  She spun in
mid-air and landed on her feet, facing him, ready to fight; but by then
he was standing again, hands ready.

Hands ... not ready.  Shaking.

"You can't win," she whispered.  Soft, but the words seemed to fill the
cavern.  "You can't win."

No.  He could not.

So.  The last, desperate gamble.

He judged the angles carefully.  Shifted, getting his balance -- and
attacked.  At the last moment his feet left the ground and he flew at
her, hands and feet flashing, roaring a kiai.

Her counterstrike was instant, devastating.  He did not try to block it
at all.  He moved _with_ it, taking momentum from it -- the pain, at
this point, was incidental -- and hurtled through the air, spinning.  On
a precisely-calculated trajectory.  Landing exactly where he'd wanted.

In the little pool of urine he'd left against the cavern wall earlier.
Urine that had had a chance to grow cold.

Urine is 98% water.

And Ranma-chan spun to her feet: dirty, reeking, bruised and bleeding.
But young again.  And fast.

And _that_ was a whole different ball game.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 12 -

Cologne was motionless.  Still with shock.  Ranma-chan bared her teeth
in a broad, vicious grin.

"Surprise."

Cologne's mouth worked.  After a moment, words came out.  "Son-in-law,"
she said.  "What --?  How --"

Ranma-chan leaped at her.  This time, the kachuu tenshin amaguriken came
effortlessly.  She struck, and felt the blow hit home, again and again
and again.  When Cologne finally broke free, her face was bloody.

"Jyusenkyo," she whispered.

"That's right, old ghoul," Ranma-chan taunted.  "You didn't know, did
you?  All this time, right next door, and you didn't know!"

"You don't age?"  Cologne's voice was gaining certainty now.  "And the
chef, that's why she's still young too.  I never saw it --"

Suddenly she whirled, her face dark with anger, a bony finger levelled
at Ranma-chan.  "It changes nothing!" she shouted.  "You still cannot
hope to win!"

"I can always hope," said Ranma-chan.  "Always."

And then she too was shouting, and her voice filled the cavern.  "Do you
hear me, Ucchan?  Do you hear, Shampoo?  There's hope!  She doesn't have
to win!  Not if you don't let her!  She can be fought!"

As the echoes faded, she attacked once more.  Cologne came to meet her.
And the tunnels rang with the sound of their battle.

                **********

Leaping and kicking, hands and feet mere blurs.  The air sang with the
sound of their motion.  Cologne's staff was a maelstrom, a deadly
spinning arsenal.  Ranma-chan had thought the old ghoul was moving fast
before.  Now she saw how much she had been holding back.

But she met the challenge.  Somehow, barely, she met it.  Every bit of
speed she had went to match that assault, but match it she did.  The
blows were turned, the jabs countered, the sweeps avoided.  She had
never been so exhilarated in her life.

She had never been so scared in her life.

It was a time for doing, not for thinking, but the thought would not go
away.  [Why is Cologne fighting normally?  She said she could stop me
with a thought.  Why hasn't she?]

Her momentary distraction had its price.  A sudden flick of the staff,
which she missed blocking by a bare millisecond, sent her sprawling.
Her attention snapped back to where it belonged.  She rolled smoothly,
knocking the deadly follow-through aside, leaping back across the cave
to gain a second to recover, and went on the attack again.

Another stray thought, just beneath the conscious level of her mind:
[Weren't Ukyou's eyes open before?]

They fought on.

                **********

It was stalemate.

They paused briefly.  Ranma-chan's chest was heaving.  If Cologne was
out of breath (if she breathed at all), she did not show it.

"You're tiring," Cologne observed.

"Just getting ... my second wind," Ranma-chan returned.

Cologne nodded slowly.  "Your prowess is really quite remarkable," she
said after a few seconds.  "I would not have believed ... but of course,
in the end it makes no difference.

"I'm afraid this has gone on for much longer than I expected.  I'm going
to have to finish it off.  Now."

"In your dreams!" jeered Ranma-chan.

"It's funny you should say that ..."

Cologne vanished.

"Hey!  No fair!"  Ranma-chan ran forward, sweeping out with her arms,
feeling for Cologne.  She found nothing.

"And what does 'fair' have to do with it?"  Cologne's voice was a fading
echo, a ghostly whisper.  It seemed to come from all around Ranma-chan.
Then it was gone.  Ranma-chan held still, listening intently.  The
cavern was silent.

Silent?  But shouldn't she have been able to hear Ukyou and Shampoo
breathing?  She looked around hastily.  The two of them were gone, too.
She was alone in an empty chamber, far underground.

"Damn!"  More mind games.  [But I beat your tricks before, old ghoul.  I
can do it again.  You're still here, somewhere, and I'll find you.

[Somehow.]

But the uncomfortable thought kept returning.  [Mind games.]  Like that
damned trick at the tunnel mouth.  But here, she could expect it to be
much worse.  Much worse.

She closed her eyes, trying to recapture that inner vision she had used
so effortlessly before to track her chi-laser.  But there was nothing.
No trace of any of the others.  She was alone.

The light in the cavern was dimming, fading.  Slowly.

[Mind games.]  How much of what she saw here was real anyway?  When she
couldn't trust her eyes -- when she couldn't be sure she trusted her
_memory_ -- what was left?

Had Ukyou and Shampoo ever been there at all?  Or was that just an
illusion, or a false memory, or something else entirely?  What about
Cologne herself?  She'd seen her, spoken to her, fought her -- but she
was certain that she wasn't real, or not completely real at any rate.
[But she bled when I hit her.  What does that mean?]

For that matter, what about the cavern where she stood?  What did it
really look like?  Did it exist at all?  Or was she actually somewhere
completely different?

What if ... she was still sitting back in the flitter?  Possibly with
her eyes clawed out, but not even noticing the fact?

Or was she still in Ukyou's house, perhaps?  The possibilities were
endless!  The demon might have taken control the previous night ...
perhaps that was why Ukyou had run out; the demon had been controlling
her, and it was not Ranma-chan's fault at all ...

Or even earlier?  What if the whole story of Shampoo's possession was a
fabrication?  Just a plot to draw her in?  Was Ukyou herself real?

Or maybe Ranma-chan was still sitting in the graveyard, back in Tokyo.

Or maybe --

Maybe --

_Maybe Akane was still alive_ --

Ranma-chan began to weep.  Silently, hopelessly.  She was alone in the
dark, and there was nothing to believe in.  No-one to turn to.

Nothing.

Despair ...

And about her, the shadows around her shifted and gathered together; but
her eyes were filled with tears, and she saw nothing --

[I can always hope.  Always.]

Those defiant words.  When had she said that?  A lifetime ago, perhaps.
But the memory was thin and weak, and the darkness around her -- and the
darkness _within_ -- were too strong.

[I loved Akane.  But she went away.  I thought I loved Ukyou too, but
she ran away from me.  I am alone.]

Despair ...

And the shadows surged, and the darkest night covered all.

"Don't leave me!  I don't want it to end like this!"

It was a wail of purest desolation.  A cry of loneliness, of grief, of
betrayal -- the cry of a baby torn from its womb.  A cry of Despair ...

[I never give up.  Ever.]

But what about when there's nothing left to fight for?

Nothing?

A distant memory.  Fading, almost gone, but:

(Somehow, it's Ukyou facing him.  Her hair colour is different, and
she's impossibly young -- but there is no room for doubt.  "Oh, Ranma,"
she whispers.  "Why couldn't sixty years have been enough to stop it
hurting?"  And, weeping, she falls forward into his embrace ...)

And:

(It's Shampoo's face, ravaged by time and unspeakable usage, but quite,
horrifyingly unmistakable.  And through the decades of suffering stamped
there, she recognises him, and the momentary hope in her eyes transforms
her face.  "Airen," she whispers ...)

They loved her.  They depended on her.  That was something worth
fighting for.

("Now, maybe there's some way to fight something like that," Ukyou tells
him.  "But _I_ don't know how."  But he only grins and says, "Ahh, don't
worry about it.  I'll find a way.  I always do.")

That was true, wasn't it?  She always did.  Somehow.

[I never give up.  I can always hope.]

But what was she doing now?  Crying because she was afraid of the dark?

She opened her eyes.

Cologne was there, her hands around Ranma-chan's throat.  Her mouth hung
open, full of pointed teeth, and in her eyes burned a dark, savage
hunger.  She drooled; she slavered.  The mask of humanity was off; the
beast was out in the open.

Ranma-chan acted without thought.  "MOUKO TAKABISHA!"

The chamber rang with the force of the blast.  Cologne flew backward,
her arms and legs flapping like a bat's wings.  She struck the cavern
wall with a _crack_ and actually bounced, slamming into the floor and
rolling over and over.

Ranma-chan took a single, tentative step toward her --

Then Cologne was up and shrieking toward Ranma-chan like a whirlwind.
Her attack was like nothing Ranma-chan had ever faced before: wild,
frenzied, bestial, but there was intelligence there as well, and vast
skill, and oh such speed --

And Ranma-chan realised that for the first time, she was facing
Cologne's ultimate strength.  Had she thought the old ghoul was fast
before?  As well compare a hound to a cheetah.

She put her best efforts into her defence, and it was not enough.  She
was taking damage again -- but at least this attack could not last; such
energy, such speed and viciousness, could not possibly be sustained ...

But it was; it came on and on and on; and yet again, Ranma-chan realised
that she was losing this fight --

Then there was a sound of impact, and Cologne twitched, and grunted, and
stared down at the objects that had struck her.  The handful of mini-
spatulas, embedded in her chest.

Ranma-chan turned.  Ukyou was on her feet.  Her face was pale and
strained, but her eyes were clear.  The bandoleer across her chest was
loaded with spatulas, and she held more in her hands, poised to throw.

"I heard you fighting," she said.

[I can always hope.  Always.]  Ukyou had heard.  Ranma had come for her.
Fought for her.  And she had taken hope.

Somewhat inanely, Ranma-chan said, "I thought you'd given up spatulas?"

"Oh, well ... for old times' sake.  Look, shouldn't we ...?"

"Right."  As one, they turned back to Cologne.  And Ranma-chan smiled,
and said, "Shall we dance?"




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 13 -

This time it was different.  This time, at last, there was no question
about who was winning.  Cologne fought silently and grimly, but against
multiple enemies she was at a serious disadvantage.  Ukyou was an
accomplished martial artist: far below the standard of the other two,
but still a presence that Cologne could not afford to ignore.  And
Ranma-chan left Cologne no chance to strike at Ukyou and remove the
problem.

[We're winning,] thought Ranma-chan.  [I don't believe it.  We're
actually winning!]

Still, she gritted her teeth and waited for the blow she knew must come.
Why was Cologne waiting so long?  When was she going to try her mental
tricks again?  Ranma-chan was not sure that she could defeat a third
such attack.

But the mental assault did not come.  It did not come.  They fought on
and on, and it did not come.  Steadily, they drove Cologne before them.
She was too canny, too experienced, far too skilled to let herself be
trapped in a corner; but they drove her back continuously.  And still
Ranma-chan waited for a new mental attack.

Then it dawned on her.  _Cologne could not._  She had limits after all.
And while all her attention was on fighting hand-to-hand, she could not
spare the effort to attack mentally as well.

"Ucchan!" she shouted.  "Don't stop, whatever happens!  As long as we
keep her too busy to use her illusions, we can win!"

She heard Cologne mutter something vile.  And she laughed as she fought
on.

She was winning.  _They_ were winning.  It was inevitable.  ["I'll find
a way.  I always do."  With a little help from my friends ...]

In other circumstances she would have said that Cologne fought
magnificently.  Even now, even here, she had to admit that the old ghoul
was superb.  But against two, and one of those two very nearly as good
as she was, she was simply outmatched.  She fought on -- how she fought!
-- but she was taking damage steadily.  She was inflicting plenty too --
Ranma-chan had a number of new cuts and bruises, and one of Ukyou's arms
was bloody -- but the tide had turned against her, and this time it was
going out all the way.

So they drove her relentlessly, and she continued to withdraw, somehow
eluding every effort they made to trap her, but always having to pull
back.  Around and around the cave they pursued her --

Ranma-chan's eyes widened.  Around and around?

They weren't driving Cologne back; she was _manoeuvring_ them!

But ... the Hiryuu Shouten Ha?  In a cave?  Underground?  That was
suicidal!  Or ... could that be what she intended?  To make sure she
took Ukyou and Ranma-chan with her?

No, something was wrong.  The path she was leading them in was not a
spiral.  It was ... Ranma-chan frowned.  It was leading them to --

"Watch out!" she shouted to Ukyou.  "It's a trap --"

Too late.  She was just too late.  Cologne had been one step ahead of
her all along.  Even when she was on the run, the old ghoul always had a
backup plan ...

So it was with a sense of inevitability that she watched Cologne duck
under a barrage of spatulas from Ukyou, flip to her left, and land
directly beside the little hollow in the wall where Shampoo still lay.
She reached in, behind Shampoo's body, pulled something out and threw
it at Ranma-chan --

And Ranma-chan blocked it automatically; but at her touch it burst,
covering her with droplets of a clear liquid --

And
        suddenly
                  Ranma-chan
                           felt
                             dizzy
                            and   and
                  she couldn't     he couldn't
          seem to stand up             seem to stand up
       any more and                           any more and
  she fell over.                                   he fell over.

                **********

It was the most extraordinary        It was the most extraordinary
sensation.  She seemed to be seeing  sensation.  He seemed to be seeing
everything twice over, and from      everything twice over, and from
slightly different angles.  It made  slightly different angles.  It made
her feel nauseous for a few moments  him feel nauseous for a few moments
and she shook her head to clear it.  and he shook his head to clear it.
The effect was horrible: the whole   The effect was horrible: the whole
cavern dipped and swayed around her  cavern dipped and swayed around him
like a mad roller-coaster, and she   like a mad roller-coaster, and he
pitched to one side, retching; but   pitched to one side -- and there,
at the same time somehow she was     impossibly, he saw his female half,
seeing _herself_ from another angle  throwing up.  But somehow he seemed
-- as if there were a mirror behind  to feel the vomit coming out of his
her, a perfect mirror, clear as the  _own_ mouth, and he almost retched
air.                                 himself.

She groaned and tried to stand up,   He groaned and tried to stand up,
but her limbs would not seem to      but his limbs would not seem to
respond, and she found herself       respond, and he found himself
lying on the floor, thrashing about  lying on the floor, thrashing about
uncontrollably.  One elbow skidded   uncontrollably.  One elbow felt
in the pool of vomit.                mysteriously warm for a moment.

She closed her eyes.  It seemed to   He closed his eyes.  It seemed to
help slightly.  But before she       help slightly.  But before he
could try to move again, she heard   could try to move again, he heard
Cologne's voice.  The old ghoul      Cologne's voice.  The old ghoul
sounded very self-satisfied.         sounded very self-satisfied.

  Cologne:  That went even better than I expected.  I think this little
     charade is over at last.
  Ukyou:  What have you done, you old witch?  There ... there's two of
     him ...
  Cologne:  Something I prepared a long time ago, when Shampoo and I
     returned here.  I actually intended it for use against Ryouga, if
     he ever found his way here ... his Shishi Houkoudan could have been
     dangerous to me.  But it's just as effective against Ranma.
  Ukyou:  _What have you done to him?_  ...  To _them_?
  Cologne:  It's a rare distillation from the waters of Jyusendo, the
     source of Jyusenkyo.  Simply enough, it splits a cursed form apart.
     In his case, the male and female are now separate.
  Ukyou:  You ... you've _cured_ him?
  Cologne:  Don't be foolish, child.  See for yourself!  Ranma now has
     two bodies ... but only one mind.  He can't cope.  He has no idea
     how to control two bodies at once.  No human being could.  It would
     be a miracle if he even managed to stand up.  He certainly can't
     fight.

Was that it?  It sounded horribly    Was that it?  It sounded horribly
possible.  Ranma-chan tried to sit   possible.  Ranma-kun tried to sit
up, but failed again.  She moaned.   up, but failed again.  He moaned.
It was difficult to think straight.  It was difficult to think straight.
Everything was _doubled_ in this     Everything was _doubled_ in this
weird way.  Sounds came from more    weird way.  Sounds came from more
than one direction.  Even her        than one direction.  Even his
thoughts seemed to echo somehow.     thoughts seemed to echo somehow.

She felt a cool hand touch her       He felt a cool hand touch his
forehead, and blinked.  There was    forehead, and blinked.  Ukyou knelt
nobody there.  But as before, she    at his side, looking down at him,
found herself seeing from another    her eyes bright.  "Oh, Ran-chan,"
angle at the same time: the face of  she whispered softly.  It was odd,
Ukyou, starting down in concern.     really: the first sound he'd heard
Whispering to her softly.            that _wasn't_ doubled.

  Cologne:  And now, I think it's time to put an end to the nuisance.
     I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill him after all.  He seems to be
     able to fight off my mental control, now that he's aware of it.
  Ukyou:  He's not the only one, you --
  Cologne:  Oh, hush.  You know better than that.  You only broke free
     before because I was occupied with him and Shampoo as well.  Once
     he's gone, you'll fall to pieces again the way you always do.  And
     I'll have a new mount ... and a perpetually-young one at that.
     Two of them, actually, if I douse Shampoo as well --

She heard the shrill sound of        He heard the shrill sound of
Cologne's laughter, and gritted her  Cologne's laughter, and gritted his
teeth.  Through shared vision, she   teeth.  And then, above him, he
saw Ukyou's eyes widen suddenly.     saw Ukyou's eyes widen suddenly.
And then harden in resolve.          And then harden in resolve.

Ukyou's voice was a whisper, barely  Ukyou's voice was a whisper, barely
audible.  "Ran-chan, I'm sorry,"     audible.  "Ran-chan, I'm sorry,"
she murmured.  "It's the only way."  she murmured.  "It's the only way."

And then Ranma-chan heard Cologne    And then Ranma-kun heard Cologne
cry out in surprise, and she closed  cry out in surprise, and he closed
her eyes, and heard Ukyou begin to   his eyes, and heard Ukyou begin to
move, and felt the sudden impact.    move, and felt the sudden impact
Pain flared for an instant, then
cut off, leaving an oddly dead
feeling behind it; and then the
cave seemed to swim around her, and
blur, and for an instant nothing
made sense --

And then Ranma rolled to her feet, smoothly and easily, flexed her arms
and legs experimentally, and looked around the cavern.  Cologne was
staring off to one side, eyes wide, mouth open, at where Ukyou knelt by
the side of

[Don't look]

a body, its head clasped in her arms, weeping silently.  Ukyou's hands
were bloody.  Ranma took a deep breath.  Just one body again, and she
could worry about her male side later; she had only a moment to act --

She shouted and leaped, striking with all the speed she could muster. It
was just barely enough.  Cologne was starting to recover, to dodge, even
as the blow connected; but she was a millisecond late.  She flew through
the air, spinning end-over-end like a baton, and struck the cavern wall
with a sickening crunch.  As she stirred and opened her eyes, Ranma
landed by her side, grabbed her by the hair, pulled her head back, and
held one of Ukyou's sharpened mini-spatulas to her throat.

"It's over," Ranma said softly.

Cologne's eyes blazed, and for an instant Ranma felt the force of her
will, the strength of that inhuman mind, beating against her.  But she
knew that force now, knew what to expect.  Resisting it was effortless.

"It's over," she said again.

"It's never over," said Cologne.

Ranma heard Ukyou give a startled cry, and risked a quick glance over
her shoulder.

Akane was standing there.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 14 -

_Akane_.  Ranma simply stared at her for several seconds, eyes wide,
unable to breathe, unable to take in what she was seeing.  She felt
unsteady, and there was a pain deep in her chest that she'd thought was
finally over. This was impossible.  Akane could not be here.  She could
not.  She

[Akane.]

could not.  And oh, she looked so young.  Young, and innocent.  She
looked the way she had when Ranma had first met her.  The way she had on
the day Ranma finally told her he loved her.  The way she had on their
wedding day.  Ranma thought her heart would break.

But it could not be; she was dead, Ranma had seen her die.  The memories
were all too vivid.  He had been by her side, throughout her final
illness.  He had held her hand and smiled for her, stroked her brow and
comforted her when the pain was too intense, and he had never ever let a
hint of his own pain show.  And later he had kissed her lips as the last
light faded from her eyes, there in the hospital bed; and he had wept as
he held her cooling hand.  Oh, Akane.  [Oh, Akane.]

The spatula slipped from Ranma's hand, unheeded.  Tears were pouring
down her cheeks.  She did not notice.  Her mouth worked soundlessly for
a moment.

Too much.  Too, too much.  This, this she could not deny.

"No," she whispered.  "Oh."  Oh.

[Akane.]  It was just one more illusion, she knew somewhere inside; just
another lie.  She knew, but it hardly mattered.  Nothing mattered except
that Akane was back, Akane, her wife, the one she'd loved with all her
heart and all her soul, mother of her children, life-long companion,
friend and lover [oh, Akane], and what else could matter except that she
was back?

She stood.  Her legs were unsteady, not wanting to take her weight, but
somehow she walked to Akane's side.  Behind her Ukyou was saying
something, shouting, but the words were distant, unimportant.  Ranma
touched her wife's cheek, stroked her face.  Then took her in her arms,
held her close, and cried like a baby.

Akane's body was stiff in her arms.  Lifeless.

And so.

Ranma turned back to Cologne.  Here at last, at the end, there was a
terrible kind of peace.  An inevitability.  When she spoke, her voice
was calm and steady.

"All right.  What do you want?"

Cologne smiled.  "A trifle.  A nothing.  The merest touch to your back.
You'll never notice a thing."

[Akane.]

And so.  This, at the last, she could not deny.  Could not refuse.

Ranma drew a deep, shuddering breath.  This was defeat, then.  After so
long, and so much, it came surprisingly easily.  She opened her mouth to
speak the words, the irrevocable surrender.  To give her soul for what
she could not bear to lose again.

"Ranma, no!"  Ukyou was shouting again.  What did the silly girl want?
Couldn't she see that Cologne had won?  A meaningless victory.  Akane
was coming back, and everything else was unimportant.

"Ranma, she's not real!  She's just another illusion!"

Ranma looked at Ukyou, and tried to smile.  It came out horribly wrong,
she could tell.  Like a rictus.

"I know," she said.  "But I can't, Ucchan.  I can't do it.  I can't lose
her again.  I can't.  I'm sorry."

"Ranma, she's not here.  She's dead.  If you do this, it'll be a lie.  A
lie, and you'll be living the rest of your life enslaved to that damned
ghoul!  She can't bring Akane back!  This isn't Akane!"

"But look at her," Ranma whispered.  As she spoke, Akane moved; she
turned her head, and smiled at Ranma, and held out her hand.  It was
flawless.  It was Akane.  Ranma remembered.  Oh, she remembered.

"Damn you, you witch!" Ukyou shouted.  "Ranma, it's a fake!  Cologne is
reading your memory and bringing it to life!  It's not real!"

"I know," whispered Ranma.  She could not take her eyes off Akane.  A
living, breathing Akane.  Smiling at her in welcome.  Like the way she
had smiled on their wedding day.  "I know.  It's not real.  But I --"

"She _is_ real," said Cologne softly.  "As real as you want her to be.
Touch her, Ranma.  Touch her hair.  Hold her hand.  Feel her heart-beat.
She can be yours again."

"Ranma."  Ukyou was pleading now.  "You can't.  As soon as she has you,
she'll take Akane away again.  You'll be giving it all up for nothing."

"No," Ranma said.  "I can -- Shampoo could control her, make her give
her what she wanted.  I can do it too.  I can ..."

"She's deluding you!  No, she's helping you delude yourself!  You can't
even think straight right now, but you're going to try and control a
demon?  Ranma, you can't!  You're throwing it all away for _nothing_!"

"Ucchan ..."  Ranma's voice was very soft.  "Remember when I married
Akane.  How you felt.  If Cologne had come to you then, and offered you
_me_, could you have said no?  Even knowing that it was an illusion?
Could you?"

"I --"  Ukyou's eyes opened wide.  She suddenly looked very vulnerable.
"Ran-chan, I -- I don't --"  She could not finish the sentence.

"I can be with her again, Ucchan.  I'm sorry."

"Don't leave me again," Ukyou whispered.

Ranma took her face in both hands and kissed her softly on the lips.
Then she released her and turned to Cologne.

"I'm ready," she said.  She took one last glance at Akane --

And she heard Cologne shout in sudden anger --

And Akane turned her head and said clearly, "This is the biggest crock
of bullshit I've ever heard."

                **********

For an instant, there was total silence.  Nobody moved.  Nobody could
speak; nobody could even breathe.  It was a cusp, a turning point, a
moment so pregnant and so impossible that it was timeless.

Ranma fell back, stunned.  "What --" she began.

Somewhere behind her, Cologne roared, "Shampoo!  Damn you!"

Ukyou said something incoherent.

Akane paid no attention to any of them.  As if she could not see them at
all.  She strode toward Cologne, and reached out with a familiar gesture
and pulled her giant mallet out of nowhere, and swung it.  There was a
heavy, meaty sound of impact, and once again Cologne flew through the
air.  She landed heavily on the floor, rolled over twice, and came to a
stop.

There was complete silence for a moment.  Then Akane vanished.

A moment later, so did Cologne.

Slowly, the light in the cavern began to fade.

Ranma stood, staring in total incomprehension at the spot where Akane
had stood, and then at the place where Cologne had vanished, and back
again.  Her thoughts were awhirl, as if a great load had suddenly
vanished from her mind.  None of this made any sense at all.

Then Ukyou sprang forward, as if galvanised.  "Yes!" she shouted.  "Come
on!"  She leaped toward the hollow at the back of the chamber, where
Shampoo lay.

She always had been quicker on the uptake than Ranma.  She had evidently
worked it out.  Ranma shook her head and followed her.

Shampoo's eyes were open again.  Her face -- what was visible under the
decades of filth that covered her -- was pale and beaded with sweat, as
if from some gigantic effort; her breathing was quick and shallow.  She
looked like she was dying, Ranma thought sickly.

But as they knelt at her side, she looked up at them and said, in a weak
and thready voice, "What stupid spatula girl doing with Ranma?"  And
Ranma almost laughed.

"Turn her over," said Ukyou flatly.

Ranma obeyed, trying not to cringe.  Shampoo's hair was a great, matted,
tangled mass, almost solid, and so thick with grease and muck that it
made her head and shoulders look distorted, misshapen.  There were
insects living in it: lice, and worse things.  Ranma had to reach under
it, lift it away, _touch_ it to turn Shampoo over.  She did it quickly,
without complaint.

"Quickly, pull up her dress."

"What?"  Suddenly Ranma realised what Ukyou was doing.  She fumbled at
Shampoo's clothing for a moment, then snorted and simply tore the dress
apart.  The ancient, filthy fabric ripped easily, leaving Shampoo's back
bare.  And they saw the true enemy at last.

It was small and grey and wrinkled and _alive_, about the size of
Ranma's fist.  It nestled at the base of Shampoo's spine, looking for
all the world like a giant, misshapen wart.  [No, not a wart,] Ranma
thought.  [Like a growth.  Like a cancer.]

Ukyou stared at it for a moment, revulsion clearly showing on her face.
Then she reached out, took hold of it carefully, and pulled it off
Shampoo's back.

Shampoo gasped, a thin, high-pitched sound.  Her body spasmed once, then
went limp.  At the same moment, Ukyou cried out in fear and disgust as
the thing in her hand came alive.  It stirred, twisted, and pulled free
of her grasp and began to slither up her arm, shockingly quickly.  Ranma
lashed out without thinking and knocked it off just as it reached her
shoulder. It fell to the ground, twisting and undulating, and seemed to
orient itself, gathering itself as if to spring --

Ukyou stamped on it.  It splattered, with the sound of an overripe fruit
bursting --

And suddenly they were elsewhere.

                **********

It was a void, vast and grey and formless.  Timeless.  Endless.  With the
three of them there, it seemed quite crowded.

[What the hell --]

<Where are we?>

{It's another trick.  She always has more tricks.}

[Shampoo?]

{Ranma? ... Beloved.  You came for me.  I heard you.}

[What's happened to the way you talk?]

{This is the way I always talk.  When did you learn Chinese?}

<Wait a moment.  I don't think this is a trick at all.>

{Stupid spatula girl.  What else could it be?  She -- it -- always has
tricks.  I know.}

<Can we leave the insults for later?  This 'stupid spatula girl' just
killed the enemy for you, remember.>

{She's not dead.  Sometimes she makes me think she is.  To play with me
for a bit.  But it's always a trick.  She always comes back.  Always,
always, always.}

[Wait a moment.  If it's not a trick, where are we?]

<That thing was telepathic, remember.  I think, when it died, something
was released.  Some kind of mental outburst, or shock-wave, maybe.  It's
pulled our minds together.  I'd guess it probably won't last very long.>

[That's why Shampoo speaks perfect Japanese?  I'm hearing her thoughts?]

<It'll do for a working hypothesis ...>

{I'm not speaking Japanese.  You're speaking Chinese.  And I still think
it's a trick.}

<Shampoo -->

{But even if it is ... I'm glad you're here, Ranma.  Even you, Ukyou.}

[Careful.  You used her name.]

{Whoops ...}

[So where is this place, anyway?]

<What, am I an expert on telepathy?  I don't know!  Some kind of mental
plane, or something.  Your guess is as good as mine.>

{Half-way between death and life ...}

<Let's not be melodramatic.  Hey, that was quite a trick you pulled,
Shampoo.  Taking control of the illusion of Akane like that.>

{Yes, it was, wasn't it?  Wait a moment, I didn't mean to say that.
Damn this telepathy!  I wanted to sound modest.}

[What?  Is _that_ what happened?]

{Ranma, you dummy!}

<Of course it was.  Hope defeats despair.  I wasn't the only one who
could cast off her 'influence.'  But Shampoo wasn't exactly in fighting
condition -->

{I can hardly move these days.  Not that I get the chance to try very
often.}

[*Pain*  Yes, I remember now.  Cologne said she'd linked herself to you
too closely.  So _you_ were able to override _her_.]

{Not for long.  But just long enough.}

<Long enough to give a knockout blow to Cologne that stunned the
creature as well.  It couldn't keep the illusions up any longer.>

[Yeah.  Nice work.  I guess.]

<Oh, poor Ranma.  Your pride is injured.  Shampoo and Ukyou had to
win your battle for you, is that it?>

{Don't be silly, Ranma.  We couldn't have done anything without you.}

<It really was a team effort.>

[Well --]

<Wait.  I think it's starting to fade again -->

                **********

The other two voices seemed to drift away.  The void was beginning to
break up; the dull, endless background shimmered and roiled.  Ranma
thought she heard phantom voices, odd fragmentary sounds.  The greyness
was shot with hazy images and blurred scenes.  Most of them were too
fast, too disjointed to make any sense of.  But a few lasted long enough
to recognise.  She saw:

-- Ranma-chan chased after her father, shouting in rage, and never even
noticed as she knocked Ryouga into the springs far below --

-- In the cave, the giant egg cracked open and Saffron emerged, fully
adult, his wings resplendent --

-- Ranma ran away from the yatai, okonomiyaki in hand, and Ukyou gave
chase --

-- Akane cried out again and gripped Ranma's hand as another contraction
hit her --

-- Azusa Shiratori let go of Ranma's legs, and he and Akane spun free
over the skating rink --

-- Ranma stood by a pool in Jyusenkyo and watched as Ukyou carefully
dropped something into the water --

-- Herb shouted in triumph as the crack slammed shut on Ranma's last
chance of becoming male again --

The scenes followed one after another, seemingly at random.  They were
beginning to slow now, taking longer and longer.  It was almost over,
Ranma realised; soon she would be back in the cavern.  Then another
scene came, and she gasped inwardly as she saw --

-- The old man stood by the flitter, staring at the note in his hand.
Ranma could hear "his" thoughts clearly: (What does that boy think I'm
doing with Ukyou?  Having an affair?  Oh, man, I bet he does ...)

She could not resist "speaking" to him.  [Is he wrong, though?]  And
somehow, from his startlement, she knew he had heard.  [I mean it,] she
added.  [You always did like her.  Are you sure that an affair isn't
exactly what this is turning into?]

The scene played itself out exactly as she remembered it from -- had it
only been a few hours ago?  Giving herself advice.  And as it proceeded
she tried to contain her disgust at what she was saying.  It had to be
said, to close the circle that led to Cologne's defeat.  But she no
longer believed her own words.

At last it was finished, and the scene faded back to the void.  [What
arrogance,] she thought morosely.  [Advising myself to chase Ukyou --
but just a few hours later, I betray her again at the sight of a mere
_illusion_ of Akane!]

"Ranma no baka ..."  Akane's voice was affectionate.

There was nothing visible.  Just the greyness of the void, now fading
slowly to blackness.  But her presence was unmistakable.

[Oh, great.  Shampoo was right.  This _is_ just a trick of Cologne's.]

"Ukyou will forgive you," Akane said.  "You know that perfectly well."

[Akane?]

"She understands.  Probably better than you deserve.  The only one
blaming you for what you did is yourself."

[Who are you?]

"Baka!"  Ranma almost thought she could see Akane's smile.

[Akane, you're dead.  You can't be here.]

"Where do you think 'here' is?  Half-way between death and life, Shampoo
called it.  That's close enough.  But yes, I'm dead.  And you're not.
And Ranma, I don't mind."

[I don't understand ...]

"When did you ever?"  She sounded amused.  "Ranma, I'm saying it's all
right.  Nothing is forever.  We'll be together again, in the end.  In
the meantime, you still have a life to live.  And ..."  She sighed.  "I
do owe Ukyou."

[So do I.  Maybe more than I can ever --]  Ranma hesitated.  [Wait a
moment.  Are you saying --]

"Baka."  Ranma felt her smile again.  "It's time for you to go now."

The pressure of Akane's lips on hers.  The warmth of her love, like a
benediction.

Then the void was gone, and she found herself in total darkness.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 15 -

"Hello?" Ranma called.  It was very cold, and there was an unpleasant
smell in the air.  The darkness was absolute.

"Ranma?"  It was Ukyou's voice, not far away.  Ranma realised where she
was now.  Back in the cavern.  But the light that had filled it before
was gone.

"Ranma," said another, weak voice.  After a moment she realised it was
Shampoo.

She cleared her throat nervously.  "Ucchan, I don't suppose you happened
to bring a torch down with you?"

There was a long pause.  Then Ukyou, showing remarkable restraint, said,
"There's one back in my flitter, I think.  I didn't get a chance to grab
it when I landed."

"Great.  All right, stay where you are.  Keep talking.  I'll find my way
to you."  Ranma began to grope her way through the darkness.  Trying to
ignore the knowledge of just how far underground she was.  Of just how
long it would take to get out.  Without a light.  Somewhere inside her
was a thread of panic that was trying to work its way loose, but she had
an idea that this was a bad time for it.

[Good.  Make jokes about it.  Don't give myself a chance to think about
it ...]

She crawled through the blackness, over rough, raw stone littered here
and there with tiny, sharp pebbles.  It seemed to take an eternity.  The
sound of her breathing was loud in her ears.  Then her hand bumped into
something, and she gasped.  For a moment the panic threatened to take
control.

The thing she had bumped, bumped her back.  She felt a hand on her arm,
and Ukyou said, "There you are."  She let out a long, shuddering breath,
grabbed Ukyou and held on for dear life.  It was amazing how comforting
another hand could be, alone in the dark.

They had only been a couple of metres apart.

"All right," Ranma said when she trusted her voice to remain steady once
more. "Shampoo now."

"I'm all turned around," Ukyou muttered.  "Shampoo, where are you?  Can
you talk?"

"Stupid ... spatula girl."  The voice was barely audible.

"Shit," Ukyou muttered.  "Ran-chan, that thing on her back might have
been all that was keeping her alive.  We have to hurry --"

"Right."  Hand in hand, they crawled.  It only took a few seconds.  Then
Ranma's hand touched something that was at once sticky, lumpy and stiff
-- later she realised it was Shampoo's hair -- and heard a faint sound,
something between a gasp and a moan.

"How should we do this?" she heard Ukyou ask.

Ranma thought for a moment.  "Best if I just carry her on my own," she
said at last.  "I'm stronger than you.  We don't want to try carrying
her between us, not in the dark like this.  If she gets too heavy we can
always swap for a while."

"All right.  Shampoo, can you move at all?  Ranma's going to pick you
up now."

There was no answer.  Ranma felt Ukyou's grip on her hand tighten.

She took a deep breath.  "Keep your hand on my shoulder," she said. "We
don't want to get separated again."  She fumbled around for a moment,
gauging the limits of the hollow and where Shampoo's body lay.  Then,
gingerly, she picked Shampoo up.  The body was shockingly light.
Lifting it was almost effortless.

"All right," she said after a moment.  "She's still breathing, at least.
Now ... the tunnel should be more or less behind us --"

"I know," said Ukyou.  "Better if we follow the wall, though.  I'll
guide you."

They started to make their way around the cavern.  Progress was slow at
first; it took a few minutes to find a rhythm, a way of walking so that
they did not keep on banging into each other.  Then, just as Ranma was
beginning to get the hang of it, she heard Ukyou gasp and cry out; and
suddenly she felt a wrench; Ukyou jerked forward, pulling her off-
balance and she was falling --

And all the secret terror, the fear of the dark that she had been
holding in, the dread and the horror of this silent black tomb, burst
out of her and she screamed as she fell --

She hit the ground and tried to roll, shielding Shampoo as best she
could.  She came to a halt against some unseen object, soft and
yielding.  When she thought she could speak again without screaming she
said, "Ucchan, is that you?"

"No."  Ucchan sounded very near.

"But ..."  She ran her hand over whatever she had landed against.  It
certainly felt like ...  "_Oh_.  It's me.  My ... other body."

"Really?  Then --"

Ranma felt another hand patting her face.  She took it once more with a
sigh of relief.

"All right," Ukyou said after a little.  Ranma could hear her breathing,
now.  It sounded like she was just as scared as Ranma was.  "We have
to keep going.  Have you still got Shampoo?"

"I -- yes, but ..."

"Do you need help?  We need to hurry --"

"Ucchan.  Wait."  Ranma could barely speak for sudden horror.  "There's
something wrong.  My other body.  It's not -- not breathing ..."

There was no reply for a few seconds.  Then Ukyou said, "Ranma, we don't
have time for this now.  We can talk about it later --"

"But it's _dead_!"

"I _know_!  Ran-chan, it was the only way!  Two bodies, one mind, she
said! The only thing I could do was get rid of one of the bodies!"

"But I, I thought you'd just knocked it ... knocked me out."

"I couldn't risk it!"  Ranma heard her take a deep breath.  "Look, we
can talk about this later," Ukyou said after a few moments.  "Right now
we have to move fast.  Shampoo needs help."

"But --"  Ranma broke off helplessly.  It felt like a betrayal.  She
wanted to shout, to rage, to trumpet her pain and horror to the world.
[That's _me_ lying there!  That's _me_ you killed!  Murderer!  You
killed me!  And now you want to leave me behind!]

Then another thought occurred to her.  [Isn't that what I did to her?
Twice now?  Killed her dreams and left her behind?]

Quietly she said, "All right.  Later."

She felt an answering squeeze on her hand.  To her surprise, it felt
good.  Comforting.  Not like a murderer's handshake; like a gesture of
reassurance from a friend.  After a moment, still confused, still
bewildered by the sudden shock but no longer furious, she squeezed back.

She passed Shampoo over to Ukyou, then followed.  Climbing over her own
dead body -- having to feel the cold skin -- was an unpleasant
experience, and one that would haunt her dreams for years to come.  But
in that darkness, she did not want to risk being separated from Ukyou
again.  She endured it, somehow, and sat shuddering for a few moments
when it was done.  Then, together, they continued on, stumbling through
the black.

A few minutes later Ukyou said, "I think we're in the tunnel.  The wall
isn't curving any more."

Ranma nodded, forgetting that Ukyou could not see her.  "Were there any
side-passages?" she asked doubtfully.  "I don't remember seeing any ..."

"If there are, we ignore them," Ukyou responded firmly.

"Fine with me."

They walked on.  It was easier going now; the walls of the tunnel were
nearly smooth, and they could move in an almost straight line.  Their
pace picked up, but Ranma knew they were still moving painfully slowly.
Shampoo's skin felt cold, almost icy.  She could not tell if she was
breathing or not.

She had a sudden thought and stopped.  "What's wrong?" Ukyou said
instantly.

"Take Shampoo for a moment."  Ranma passed the limp body over, and
quickly took off her shirt.  It was ragged and filthy after the battle,
but still better than nothing.  "Here.  Wrap this around her."

"What is it?  Oh, I see.  Good idea."  Ukyou removed her own top and
wrapped that around Shampoo too.

Ranma took Shampoo back and they resumed their journey.  After a little
Ranma said, "I wish we had some water."

"I'm thirsty too."

"No ... well, yes, I am thirsty, but I was thinking we could change
Shampoo.  She'd be easier to carry."

"Excuse me?  You _want_ to carry a cat?"

Ranma shuddered.  "No!  But you could take her.  And I think ... I could
tolerate an unconscious cat, anyway."

"Huh.  Of course, if we had any water we could have changed her back in
the cave and triggered your neko-ken.  It would have made things
simpler."

"Then you'd have to worry about waking me up again."

Ukyou hesitated.  "Well, perhaps it's for the best, after all ..."

Ranma snorted, then laughed.  It was a small thing, at first, but it
grew.  And grew --

It felt odd, laughing like that in the dark.  Out-of-place, somehow, and
the blackness seemed all the heavier for it.  But in the end it was only
darkness; and the darkness no longer mattered, because with that laugh,
the shadow that had been on her heart finally dissolved, the last of the
bitterness seemed to fly away.

That was not _her_, that cold flesh lying back there on the floor of the
cavern.  _She_ was right here.  Alive, and laughing.  And not alone.
That had been her greatest fear, when Akane had died: the idea of facing
her remaining years on her own.  But now --

She had been through a great ordeal, and it was not quite over yet. 
There were still problems to solve, issues to confront.  There always
would be.  But she had a friend -- perhaps more than a friend -- who
would help her.  That made the whole thing possible.

                **********

Perhaps two hours later, they came to the mouth of the cave.  It was
night, and almost as dark in the pass as it had been in the tunnel, but
they could see the regular flash of the flitters' parking lights.

Ranma palm-keyed the police flitter.  It recognised her from before and
opened without demur.  The interior lights came on, blinding them both
for a minute or two.  Then Ranma could see to lower Shampoo's body
gently onto the rear seat.

"Ucchan, do you know anything about first aid?" she began.  "There ought
to be some kind of kit in here -- oh."  Ukyou was already busy with the
kit.  Ranma watched for a few moments, then took a hint from Ukyou's
irritated glances and got out of the way.

After a few moments she head Ukyou mutter something.  "What?" she said.

"I said, 'strong as an ox.'  She's alive, though only just.  Ran-chan,
we have to get her to a hospital as quickly as possible."

"Already on it," Ranma said, working at the nav computer.  Lanzhou had a
better hospital, but Xining was closer.  She decided that speed was more
important, and opted for the latter.  "Let me know when I can take off."

"Go!"

Ranma punched the controls.  Almost instantly, the familiar whine of the
engines filled the air, and the flitter lifted up, spun, and shot away
into the night.  Ranma had keyed for a minimum-time trip, and had
managed to override the speed governers as well.  Until they entered
Xining's traffic-control airspace they flew like a bat out of hell.

Nineteen and a half minutes after lift-off, they set down in the
hospital grounds.  Ranma had called ahead for an emergency team, and
they were waiting.  Shampoo was wheeled off on a stretcher.  Ranma
breathed a sigh of relief.  It was over at last.

She couldn't have been more wrong.  Then the questions started.

Ranma spoke no Chinese, so for a while Ukyou had to bear the brunt of
the questioning.  But it did not take long for the Xining police to find
an officer who spoke Japanese, and then both of them came under intense
scrutiny.  Especially until they managed to borrow shirts to replace the
ones they'd wrapped around Shampoo in the cave.

What were two half-naked women doing with a police flitter?  And a
Japanese one, at that?  They had both evidently been fighting.  With
whom?  And where?  The flitter logs showed they'd been near Jyusenkyo.
Did they know that that was a restricted, natural-hazard area?  Where
were their entry permits?  Who was the woman they'd brought to the
hospital?  What had happened to her?  Where had they found her?  And
the questions went on and on and on ...

Eventually, sometime after dawn, they were allowed to leave, though they
were strictly ordered to stay in Xining.  The police flitter was
confiscated, pending further investigation.  A young lieutenant drove
them to a nearby hotel.

The hotel was seedy-looking and none too clean, but both of them were
too tired to care.  They were also too tired to pick up the double
meaning when the registration clerk asked if they were together, and
thus they ended up in a single room with a large double bed.  Ranma
stopped short as they entered the room, goggling a little.  Ukyou simply
shrugged, collapsed on the bed and started snoring.  Moments later,
Ranma joined her.




------------------------------------------------------------------------

- 16 -

Ranma awoke late the following afternoon.  She yawned, scratched her arm
idly, and realised that Akane was snuggled up close to her.  She smiled
sleepily and threw an arm over her wife's shoulder, cuddling a little
closer.  That was when she noticed that she was female.  That was odd;
she never went to bed female if she could possibly help it.  She opened
her eyes, frowning slightly.  Then she realised that the woman she was
cuddling wasn't Akane.

[Whoops.]

The events of the previous day came back to her in a rush.  Moving slowly
and carefully, she managed to pull herself out of Ukyou's embrace without
waking the other woman.

She shook her head slowly, looking down at Ukyou.  They needed to talk
about this.  About a whole lot of things.  But in the meantime, there
were more urgent needs to attend to.

She found the lavatory and used it.  And the shower was right there, and
she was still filthy from the day before ...

A few minutes later, she screamed.

The door was flung open and Ukyou ran into the bathroom, eyes half-open,
evidently still half-asleep, but ready for action.  As long as the
action was half-asleep too.  "What? Where?" she shouted, blinking
and looking around wildly.

Ranma stood in the shower, pointing at herself.  "I'm not changing!" she
stuttered.  "The water's hot but I'm not changing back!"

Ukyou stared at her for a moment, then relaxed.  "Oh, that," she said.

Ranma's eyes narrowed.  "Wait a minute.  You sound like you expected
this," she accused.

Still blinking, Ukyou yawned and said, "Look, give me ten minutes.  I
can't think straight yet."  She closed the bathroom door, yawning again.
Ranma stared after her for a moment.  Then down at herself once more.
Then she finished her shower, wrapped a hotel bathrobe around herself,
and stalked out, glaring as Ukyou sprinted in behind her and she heard
the lavatory being used again.

"All right," a freshly-bathed Ukyou said a few minutes later, sipping
from a mug of coffee. "So hot water doesn't change you back any more.
Have you tried cold water?"

"Cold water?  But --"

"Humour me."

Glaring at her again, Ranma went back to the bathroom.  There was the
sound of running water for a moment and she returned, running a towel
through her hair.  Still female.  "So, talk," she demanded.

Ukyou grinned.  "Congratulations, Ranma.  You're the first person I
ever heard of to have a Jyusenkyo curse broken."

"But how?"

"Cologne did it.  She split you, remember?  Into your male and female
halves.  It looks like the split was pretty complete.  You ended up with
two _uncursed_ bodies.  One of those is ... gone now, and you're left
with a single, healthy, uncursed body.  You're normal again."

"But I'm _female_!"

Ukyou shrugged.  "Could be worse.  You're also young again.  That's got
to be worth something."

"Well ..."  But Ranma would not be mollified.  "Ucchan, I ... this just
isn't right.  I mean, I know I should be grateful, but this just ... I
mean, I'm just ... dammit, I'm a guy!  A _guy_!"

"Not any more."  But Ukyou was smiling.  "Relax, Ran-chan.  There's a
way out.  I said your body is uncursed, remember?  So you can go back to
Jyusenkyo and get a new curse.  The nannichuan will work for you now."

"I --?"  Ranma thought about it.  "I'll be a girl ... who turns into
a guy.  Hey, that could work!"

"There are other advantages.  As I think I've demonstrated, hot water is
much easier to avoid than cold.  Your new curse won't bother you as much
as your current one.  You'll probably hardly ever change at all if you
give up hot baths and showers."

"I won't even have to worry about those, if I track down the Chisuiton,"
Ranma said absently.  She was still thinking about the implications.  A
guy again!  And never having to worry about cold water!

"The what?" said Ukyou.

"The Chisuiton.  Remember, the Musk Dynasty relic?"  Ukyou shook her
head.  "Wait a minute.  You weren't involved in that one, were you?  But
I must have told you about it before ..."

"Maybe, but it's a very long time ago.  Why, what is it?"

"It's this magic dingus that locks you in your cursed form.  There's
another one that unlocks the curse again.  This guy named Herb came to
Tokyo looking for --"

"Wait a moment."  Ukyou was suddenly intent, her eyes wide.  "You're
telling me there's a way to lock me so I'll never have to worry about
changing back to my 'old' body again?"

"Well ... yeah."

"YEEEE-HAH!!!"

Ranma watched, astonished, as Ukyou danced around the room, yelling and
whooping.  Singing, stamping her feet, waving her fists in the air ...
Then she remembered what this meant for Ukyou.  Redemption.  For eight
years Ukyou had lived in perpetual fear of hot water.  Now, suddenly,
unexpectedly, she was being given a way out.  No wonder she was happy.

"Hot baths!" Ukyou sang.  "No more cold baths!"

[Then again ...]

                **********

Later, when things were calmer, they sat picking at a poorly-cooked Room
Service dinner.  Both were still wearing bathrobes, as their own clothes
(and their borrowed shirts) were down in the hotel laundry.

"The police want to see us again tomorrow morning," Ranma said.

"Have they managed to verify our story?"

"I dunno."  Ranma poked around in her food, searching for anything that
looked edible.  "They've brought your flitter back, and it was parked
outside a cave nobody's ever seen before.  That's all they'd say."

"I guess it is a pretty hard story to swallow."

"Yeah.  Well, we'll work it out in the end.  What did the hospital say
when you called?"

Ukyou shrugged.  "She's still in critical condition.  They think she'll
make it, but even so ... she's wasted away almost to nothing, her
muscles have atrophied ... she may never be able to straighten her arms
and legs again, after all that time curled up in a ball.  They're pretty
sure that she'll never walk again."

Ranma winced.  "She may be better off as a cat."

Ukyou eyed her for a moment.  "You have made progress.  You don't
stutter when you say that any more."  Ranma shrugged.  "Well ... she
may, yes.  We can ask her.  I guess if my old body had a heart condition
but this one doesn't, then her cat-form may still be healthy.  But being
a cat for the rest of her life isn't much of an alternative either."

"Sometimes there aren't any good alternatives," Ranma said glumly.  For
a moment she thought of a dead body, lying on the floor of a cavern far
underground.

"There could have been if I hadn't waited so long," Ukyou said softly.
Ranma started to answer but she cut her off.  "No, it's true!  You were
right, the night before last.  I waited for twenty years because I was
afraid.  Afraid of what I'd found out, afraid of facing Cologne.  But I
was also afraid of ..."  She took a deep breath.  "Of you."

"Ucchan ..."

"Yes!  _That's_ what I was afraid of!  Of 'Ucchan.'  I was afraid that
I'd hear you call me that and it would all start over again ... and it
would all end up the same way and I'd be left alone again, and Ranma, I
just didn't think I could take that again."

"But you did come back," said Ranma gently.

"Oh ... Seiji left a message to say that Akane had died.  He was worried
about you.  And I was pretty sure that you'd be making some grand,
stupid gesture.  I was worried you'd kill yourself, or something ..."

"And you hoped that with Akane gone, you might have a chance again."

"No!"  Ukyou looked furious.  Then her face sagged.  "Yes.  Well ...
maybe.  I don't know!  I wasn't thinking that, I swear it!  But I
suppose ... deep down, I may have hoped."  She bent her head, staring
down at her empty plate.

"I'm sorry," she added after a moment.  "It was wrong of me.  And I ...
I'm sorry I never told you I was all right.  I could have done it ... it
might have made things easier, in the end.  I was just afraid that I'd
only end up more alone that I already was ..."

"Ucchan," Ranma said.  She did not look up.  Ranma reached out, took her
by the chin, and pulled it up so that their eyes met.  Ukyou was crying
silently.  Ranma's own eyes were moist.

"Ucchan," she repeated.  "You don't have to be sorry.  Look, you got
scared, and you made mistakes.  Everyone does that.  I know I have,
often enough.  Look how crazy things got, back when we were teenagers,
all because I was scared to make a commitment!"  That wasn't a good
subject to bring up right now, she realised.  Hastily she went on, "What
counts is that, when it mattered, you were willing to admit you'd made a
mistake, and do something about it.  Without that, Shampoo would still
be down in that hole."

"But --"

"I mean it.  You messed up, sure.  But it's _over_, Ucchan, it's over.
You've done the best you can to make up for it ... and now it's time to
move on."

Ranma scowled.  "I'm the one who should be sorry.  I ... I said some
horrible things to you, two nights ago.  I was upset about Shampoo, and
I ended up taking it all out on you.  That was wrong.  I just ... well,
I'm sorry, okay?"

Ukyou stared at her for a few seconds.  Then her lips twitched.  "You
never did find it easy to apologise, did you?"

"What?" Ranma said indignantly.  Then she relaxed.  "Oh, man ..."

Ukyou reached out and touched her hand lightly.  "I'll forgive you if
you'll forgive me," she suggested, slightly mockingly.

Ranma didn't smile.  She looked down at their hands and said quietly, "I
think we both already have."

A companionable silence fell.  Ranma found herself thinking about what
lay ahead.  Had Ukyou realised yet the full implications of using the
Chisuiton?  Locking them both in youthful, unaging bodies?  It was a
rather daunting prospect.  Immortality was for the young; at eighty-five
years old, Ranma was beginning to appreciate how much pain there could
be in an endless lifespan.

And there was Akane.  Seeing her illusion in the cavern had been agony;
speaking to her in the void had brought a kind of peace.  But it had
also raised the issue again of what -- if anything -- there could be
between Ranma and Ukyou.  Ranma loved Akane still; and the idea of a
relationship (call it that) with Ukyou still felt like a betrayal.

But ...

["I'm saying it's all right,"] Akane had said.  ["Nothing is forever. 
We'll be together again, in the end.  In the meantime, you still have a
life to live ..."]

It was permission.

Akane had understood.

And maybe an ageless life could be filled with joy, too.  Ranma bowed
her head, and let the tears flow: tears of regret, and love, and thanks.
Ukyou, seeing them but not understanding, got up and came to her; and
Ranma clung to her and wept.  For what had been, and for what would be.
It was a beginning.

                **********

Their clothes eventually showed up again, and they went out for another,
better meal.  As they walked through the lobby, Ranma reached out and
stopped Ukyou.  Ukyou raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

"You said you were afraid of being alone again," Ranma said.  Ukyou
nodded, her expression serious.  Ranma went on: "To tell the truth, I'm
not too keen on the idea, either."

She took a deep breath.  "What I'm saying is ... that you don't have to
be alone any more.  If you don't want to."

Ukyou did not speak; she only stared at Ranma, her eyes bright.

"I won't abandon you again," said Ranma softly.  "If you won't abandon
me either."

Slowly -- almost hesitantly -- Ukyou reached out and took Ranma's hand.
Ranma did not try to pull away.

They walked out of the lobby, hand in hand.  For now, it was enough.

Outside, the streets were bustling.  People moved to and fro, intent on
their regular evening business.  The streets and the air were filled
with flitters.  It was an evening like any other.  An evening when
anything could happen.

"One thing you never did tell me," Ranma said as they strolled along,
looking for a restaurant.  "When you came to me at the cemetery.  The
name you gave me.  Why did you pick 'Pandora?'"

Ukyou looked down at their clasped hands.  "Because I kept hope," she
said.  And she smiled, and Ranma laughed softly; and they walked on.
Together.

                THE END




------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Notes
--------------
Well, that's the end of my second big fanfic.  It's about three times
the length I originally intended it to be; but I'm pretty happy with the
result.  I think I've found one or two new things to say about the Ranma
universe along the way.

Coming up with a convincing way to get Ukyou and Ranma together can be
tricky.  It's perfectly clear in both manga and anime that Akane is the
one Ranma loves; Ukyou wouldn't even be in the running if she weren't
also a childhood friend.  (It's also pretty clear that, out of all
Ranma's fiancees, Ukyou is possibly the one who loves _him_ the most.
At least, she loves him unreservedly, which Akane does not.)

In most fanfics, getting them together is usually accomplished through
either a change in the premises of the story (ie, an Elseworlds story),
or through some new factor that drives a wedge between Ranma and Akane.
But I wanted to try another way ...

The idea of Cologne's true nature is drawn from the tendency in many
fanfics to paint Cologne as a villain (which, in the manga, she is
_not_).  I thought it would be interesting to take the idea to its
logical extreme.  What if Cologne really _were_ an "old ghoul"?   Or
something worse?

A few other points:

1. In the anime, Cologne arrived in Japan in a rather bizarre, um,
vehicle that was towed behind a jet airliner and held up by trained
birds.  I have conveniently ignored this for the purposes of this story.

2. At the beginning of chapter 8, when Ranma contemplates setting out
from Ukyou's house on foot, confident that he can find a town, he is
deluding himself.  Qinghai province, China, is very mountainous and very
sparsely populated.  Ranma would probably starve to death.  Just thought
you'd like to know.

3. The idea that cursed forms might not age is taken from Richard
Lawson's series "Thy Inward Love: Magic."

4. The aura battle in chapter 11 was inspired by comments from Matthew
Campbell <mgcampb@clemson.edu>.  Note that Ranma rules out using any of
his more explosive attacks so far underground, and then goes and fires
off a powerful energy weapon at Cologne.  This is fairly typical of
Ranma.  It was probably lucky for him that Cologne absorbed the attack.

But enough from me.  Comments and (polite) criticism are welcome, of
course.  (As indeed are large wads of cash, but I suspect I'm going to
be out of luck there.)

--

Angus MacSpon
macspon@tamaneko.org
http://macspon.tamaneko.org/

------------------------------------------------------------------------