------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Second Spring" by Angus MacSpon Based on "Ranma 1/2" created by Rumiko Takahashi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WARNING: This story is a sequel to "Autumn and Spring." If you haven't read the earlier story, what follows may not make a lot of sense to you. "Autumn and Spring," along with all my other fanfics, can be found at: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The tunnel seemed longer than Ranma remembered it. He flicked his torch from side to side uneasily as he walked, remembering the last time he had been here. It had looked very different then. Then, of course, he had been in the company of a monster that could control minds. The monster had given him the illusion of light; it had projected into his mind an image of what the tunnel looked like. To him it had seemed that he walked down a passage that was filled with a strange, directionless light. He had never realised that he had been in pitch-blackness the whole time, until after the monster was killed. Now he was back. He wished he was somewhere else. Anywhere. Ukyou walked a little behind him, carrying the baby. Maiko was fussing, uncertain and a little frightened by the strange surroundings. Ranma could not blame her. They upset him too. Further behind, he could hear the whine of Shampoo's float. Normally the sound would have been inaudible; the suspension engines, cut-down versions of those in an ordinary flitter, were designed to run almost silently. But the tunnel seemed to catch the sound and amplify it. It was beginning to give him a headache. "How much further?" asked Ukyou in a low voice. "I don't known," Ranma answered. "We've already come further than I remembered. I think." "You think?" "I had other things on my mind at the -- wait a moment." Ahead, his torch-beam seemed to vanish into blackness. "I think we're there." "At last," Shampoo said. With one claw-like hand she nudged her control pad, and the float rose a little higher and accelerated forward. Ranma and Ukyou stepped to one side to let her go first. She had a right, if anyone did. Ranma watched her as she moved ahead: the thin, lined face, its skin still pale, almost transparent; the hair, still as long and as full as when she was young, but pure white now; the withered, twisted limbs ... Sixty-six years imprisoned down here had left her a cripple. When Ranma and Ukyou had gotten her to a hospital she had weighed only twenty-two kilos; but starvation and malnutrition had only been the beginning of it. She could no longer straighten her neck, her arms or her legs. Her back was permanently twisted. Despite a number of operations, it was clear that she would never regain more than partial mobility. She would never walk again. She could not even dress herself unaided. Even picking up a glass of water was an enormous struggle. But she retained just enough flexibility in her hands to use the control pad of her float. She could still get around. For Shampoo, it had become a lifeline. That, and one other thing -- He shook his head and followed the others. Into the chamber where he had fought for his life, two years ago. His life? Possibly for more than that. For his soul. And those of Ukyou and Shampoo. It was strange to be back. Somehow he had expected it to feel different: some kind of evil presence, perhaps, clinging to the rough stone walls. But there was nothing; just a cold, empty lifelessness. He flicked his torch around the room, trying to get a feeling for the layout. Was it different from how he remembered it, when he'd seen it through the eyes of illusion? He could not tell. His torch rested for some time on a patch of empty floor, apparently no different from any other. His lips tightened as he remembered. Lying there, helpless, unable to move, seeing through too many eyes ... and then the sudden blow. He felt Ukyou come up to stand behind him. Her hand rested on his arm, squeezed gently. Then, respecting his need to be alone for a few moments, she moved away again. It had been a kind of release, that blow. It had given him a whole new life, one he'd never dreamed possible. But it was still the blow that had killed him. That killed one of his bodies. And Ukyou -- his wife, Ukyou -- had been the one who'd struck it. It had been hard to come to terms with that. Sometimes, he was not sure if he had. Moving a little closer, he saw marks on the floor. Blood? No, he saw a moment later; chalk, or some kind of paint. Of course; the police had come here, afterward. They'd been the ones who'd taken the body -- _his_ body -- away. "Ranma?" Shampoo's voice. Shaking his head, he turned away, back to where she waited. At the back of the chamber was a small hollow, little more than a cubby-hole carved out of the rock. (And as once before, he wondered: carved by whom? And when? No water had ever flowed through this cave.) Here was where she had lain for so long, curled into a foetal ball, unmoving. She hovered by it now, looking down into it with equanimity. He wondered if he could have been so calm, in her place -- There was still a chance for her. If they could duplicate the series of events that left Ranma cured of his curse, she too might be healed. When Ranma and Ukyou had come looking for her, Ranma had been eighty- five years old. But the monster that held Shampoo prisoner -- the creature that used Cologne's face -- had broken Ranma's curse by splitting him into two, male and female. Two _uncursed_ bodies that shared a single mind. The older, male body got killed, leaving Ranma permanently female. And young. A few weeks later, Ranma had visited Jyusenkyo once more, and bathed in the nannichuan, gaining a cursed _male_ form. And the Chisuiton locked him that way, made him permanently male. If they could manage to split Shampoo, they could do the same for her. Tests had already showed that her cat-form was still healthy. So splitting her, killing her maimed body, and then re-cursing her cat-form in the nyannichuan, might -- should -- make her a healthy woman again. And incidentally, give her back her youth. It was one hell of a gamble. But Shampoo was prepared to take the risk. She would have taken any risk. Ranma could understand that. In her place, he would have felt the same way. "Is nothing here," Shampoo muttered now, as she peered into the hollow. "Stupid. Shampoo should have known --" "Don't be so impatient," Ukyou said calmly. "If it's here at all, it'll be hidden. Otherwise the police would have found it." "Ha! What does spatula girl know --" Ranma tuned them out. Those two always bickered; he would have been worried if they'd been polite. But there was no animosity in it any more. Shampoo had finally had to accept it; she'd lost the battle for Ranma's hand, and Ukyou had won. The two's relationship now was more like his and Ryouga's: a prickly kind of friendship. Like family, in a way ... The thought of family made him frown for a moment. His own family had found it difficult to accept that their patriarch (horrible thought!) was suddenly young again, apparently immortal, and newly-married to boot. Many of them refused to acknowledge him at all -- He shook his head, returning to his work determinedly. His backpack held a set of high-power lamps; he pulled them out and began to arrange them to cover the cavern. A few minutes later, a clear, bright light filled the chamber. Ukyou switched off her torch with a sigh of relief. Ranma shot her a questioning look. She flushed a little and said, "Sorry. It's just ... I couldn't help remembering. The darkness. And, and ... lying there, listening to her mocking me ... I still have nightmares about it." "I know." He gave her a hug. She clung to him for a moment, and he could feel her trembling. He cursed silently. He hadn't been thinking. Cologne had never broken him, but Ukyou had been her prisoner for almost a day. "Do you want to go back to the --" "No!" She almost shouted it. Then, much more quietly, she went on, "It's all right now. The lights help. I can stand ... I mean, well, let's just get on with it, all right?" He looked at her for a moment longer, saw the determination in her eyes, and released her. Maiko squalled and suddenly the moment was over. As Ukyou fussed over the baby, Ranma returned to the hollow. Shampoo said softly, "Is Ukyou all right? I'd forgotten what it would be like for her to come back. I got hardened to it in the end, but she never had a chance ..." He eyed her, half-frowning. After a few seconds he said, "She'll be fine. _You_ need to watch out, though. Those language courses you think we don't know about are showing." She looked vexed for an instant; then she laughed. "Aiyah! Airen has found Shampoo out." She laughed again -- and then suddenly she looked surprised, and began to cough. She held her chest, writhing. The paroxysm became worse. And worse. He watched, tight-lipped, as her thin body spasmed. She would not welcome his assistance. He knew it, but it was still hard to watch her in pain. The fit ended at last. Ranma pulled out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the blood away from the corner of her mouth as she heaved for breath. When he spoke, he carefully ignored the attack. "Shampoo, you can speak perfectly good Japanese when you want to. So why do you keep up that silly pidgin?" "Force of habit?" she suggested. Then, ruefully, she laughed again: softly, very carefully. "No. I wanted it to be a surprise. A new way of speaking for a new body. A new Shampoo ..." "Oh." He could have bitten his tongue. "Sorry to spoil it for you." She shrugged. "It doesn't matter, really." It _did_ matter, he could see; but she would never admit it now. She would simply ignore it, and he would have to too. Shampoo never would admit to pain. Shaking his head, he turned back to the hollow. This was what they had come here for: to search for what might be Shampoo's last chance -- The problem in healing her was how to do the splitting. Cologne had said she'd used "a rare distillation from the waters of Jyusendo, the source of Jyusenkyo." But she had not said whether it was her own invention, or whether she'd gotten it from somewhere else. Ukyou had spent much of the last two years working with the people of Phoenix Mountain, and with the Jyusenkyo Guide, to try and recreate that distillation. To no avail. And it was becoming ominously clear that they were running out of time. Shampoo was dying. She was, after all, an old woman; and her health had been seriously damaged during her long imprisonment. The two combined had left her very fragile, and it was clear that she was deteriorating. She'd been in and out of hospital several times during the last year, and the visits were becoming more frequent. Recently, an unusually candid doctor had admitted that she would be lucky to live another six months. Their options were running out. This return to her prison was almost her last chance. The experiments at Jyusendo continued -- it was fortunate that Saffron's heir was inclined to be reasonable -- but privately, Ranma did not expect them to succeed in time. Their only other hope was that Cologne might have had more of the distillation, hidden somewhere down here. It would be very well hidden, if the police had found nothing. But he thought he had an idea. [There is chi in all things ...] He knelt by the hollow, resting his hands on the bare stone. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. [Relax ... let it rise, let it flow ...] Gradually, he felt his perceptions shift, spread, diffuse. He felt a gentle warmth on his skin; he could not see it, but he knew that his body was glowing, a soft golden light. [Like calls to like ... power to power ... chi to chi ...] He let the focus change. It was like sitting in a boat, and pushing off from the shore. He left his body behind, drifted for a moment ... and then plunged into the deeps. He felt the rock. He _was_ the rock. The deep, slow, patient rock. He felt the long years, the centuries, millennia; the ages rolling past, unnoticed. He felt the weight of mountains, the peaceful depths. The endless, cool darkness. The heartbeat of the earth. The dreams of quartz and granite ... (He is lost in the past, caught for a time in the memory of the aeons that have shaped this place. The Earth cools, slowly. The seas and continents form, only to break apart and reform, again and again, ever adrift on a sea of hot magma. As they come together there is pressure, unthinkable pressure, and the stone is thrust up into the sky, and the mountains are born. They are assailed by wind and water and ice, but they, who were formed in the fires of the Earth, they barely notice. They are stone, and they endure.) (Then: so long ago, an intruder, a tiny thing, almost imperceptible, a pinprick ... invaders, worms, burrowing, burrowing, shaping a nest in the deeps of the stone. The touch of air, unaccustomed. Who are they, that dig at the rock? What do they build? A prison? But then it ends; the delving stops, and the silence falls once more. And if, long, long after, there is a shifting, a realignment, and the prisoner is freed to come and go and seek its prey, why, what is that to the stone? So the stillness returns; the vast, ponderous sleep of the mountains ...) He drifted, floating on the tides of the earth, lost in a sea of stone, caught in the weighty currents of the depths. Slow and bottomless, it went on forever. The heartbeat of the earth. The dreams of basalt and crystal ... And then [like calls to like] he felt it: distant, faint, [power to power] but very clear, an answering spark. [Chi to chi.] There, below his hands. A power that called to him, a power akin to that within him. The essence of shifting and transformation. There. _There_. He felt it, he _saw_ it. And with a sigh that seemed to last for centuries, he bade the mountains farewell and began his long withdrawal. He opened his eyes. "It's there," he said. Shampoo and Ukyou were both staring at him. After a moment he said, "What?" Ukyou shook her head. "Nothing. It just, well, creeps me out when you do that sort of thing." "Is like some of Elders at Amazon village," said Shampoo. Apparently she was still hoping to surprise Ukyou, at least, with her language skills. "Strange to see a man do it." Ranma nodded. Sometimes it made him uneasy, what he could do. Had he gone beyond the boundaries of the Art, and strayed into other realms -- other Arts? _Magic_ was a word he shied from. But even minor exercises of chi -- the Mouko Takabisha, for example -- seemed magical to some. His Art was skill and speed and perception, the harmonious exercise of the body and the mind and the spirit; and over the years he had found hidden depths to it that few others suspected. But where did his Art end, and other, more esoteric Arts, begin? Sometimes he thought that they were all merely different paths, different branches of a single, greater Art ... He had tried to explain it to Ukyou, but she had not really been able to follow what he was talking about. Perhaps the only way was to try and guide her down the same path, if she was willing. He looked forward to teaching her, and perhaps Shampoo as well, over the next few decades. Who knew what lay at the end of that road? Who knew if it ended at all? Someday, he meant to find out. For now, he had other concerns. "It's there," he repeated with a shrug. "Sealed in the rock." "Sealed in?" said Ukyou, frowning. "Then how did Cologne get it out to hit you with it?" That was an interesting thought. Ranma thought about it for a moment. Cologne had only been an illusion, an implanted memory coupled with an extension of the true monster's chi. So perhaps ... with sufficient control, it might actually be possible to _reach out_ with a portion of one's chi, and actually pass through solid rock ... He shut off the thought. It was a fascinating idea, a subject for later study, but not one he had time for now. "No idea," he said cheerfully, "but it doesn't really matter. Watch." He gazed at the rock for a moment, studying angles and cleavage lines. Then he reached out a finger and tapped lightly. It was a trivial exercise, one he could probably have done seventy years ago. Ryouga certainly could have. The stone split with a loud cracking noise. He reached down, brushed the rubble away. He'd only taken off the first couple of centimetres or so; he had to be careful not to damage what lay below. Better to take it slowly. It took another ten minutes. Then he held it up: the result of their search. Salvation for Shampoo. A glass ball, a few centimetres in diameter, filled with water. "Only one of them here," he said. "Pity. Or, well, actually it may be for the best." "What?" said Shampoo. "Why?" He held the ball up. "I don't like this stuff. You can break a curse with it, in a drastic kind of way ... but I can think of too many other ways of using it, and none of them are good. It might be for the best if we _don't_ work out how to recreate it." Ukyou raised her eyebrows. "Well, we can talk about that later. In the meantime, are you sure this is the same stuff Cologne hit you with?" "Oh, yes." He had _felt_ it with his chi. There could be no mistaking it. "Beyond a doubt." He looked up at Shampoo. "Can you wait? It would probably be better if we didn't split you until we get back to Jyusenkyo. It's ... not very comfortable." Shampoo hesitated, then nodded. "We go." Ranma handed the water-ball to Ukyou and quickly packed up the lights once more. Shouldering his backpack, he took the ball back; Maiko was trying to grab it. He wasn't certain what the water would do to an uncursed person, but he was quite sure that he didn't want to find out. Not with his daughter. They began the long walk back up the tunnel to the surface. Shampoo moved ahead, easily outdistancing Ranma and Ukyou on her float. Ranma glanced over at Ukyou and saw that the baby was asleep. He smiled. Ukyou looked up and met his eyes. "Something?" she said softly. He shook his head, still smiling. "I was just thinking that I love you." She reached out and took his hand. "Hold that thought," she murmured. "Maybe we can do something about it, later." He laughed softly, and they walked on together. After a while Ukyou said, "You had a funny look before. When you were searching for that ball thing." "Oh?" Ranma tried to remember. "Oh. Something funny I picked up, when I was trying to see through the rock. But I'm not quite sure what it meant." He thought for a few moments. "I think ... that cavern wasn't dug by Cologne. By the monster, I mean. I think it was made as a prison cell, and that monster was the prisoner." Ukyou stumbled. "What? You mean ... how? When?" "Hard to be sure. Thousands of years ago, I think. Or, well ..." He frowned, trying to recapture the image. "Maybe more. Millions? But then, later, it got out and started ... well, you know. Feeding." "Millions of years?" Ukyou said. "But there weren't any people around then at all ..." "Weren't there?" Ranma shrugged. "Maybe I got it wrong. It was just, well, odd, you know? Unexpected." "Yeah." They walked on, silent once more. Ranma was sorry he'd mentioned it now. The romantic mood was ruined. **************** Shampoo was waiting impatiently when they stepped out into the open air again. She could do a lot with her float, but she couldn't get into the flitter unaided. "At last," she said as they emerged, blinking. Ranma lifted her into the flitter without comment, as Ukyou secured Maiko in the baby seat and adjusted the webbing. Loading Shampoo's float took another few minutes. By the time he was finished, Ukyou had the engine warmed up and the course for Jyusenkyo loaded. The flight only took a few minutes. Ranma called ahead, and the Guide was waiting for them when they landed. He was a young, slim man, very different from his great-grandfather, who had been the Guide when Ranma first received his curse. Thankfully, he spoke excellent Japanese. "You've found it, then?" he asked as Ranma got out of the flitter. Ranma held up the glass ball. "Ahh ... How many did you find? Just the one?" "I'm afraid so." "A pity." The Guide looked at the ball longingly. He had been devoting a lot of time to the project to duplicate the splitting water over the last two years. To see an actual sample of what he was trying to re-create, but be unable to examine it because it was needed for another purpose, must have been horribly frustrating for him. Ranma sympathised with him; but not enough to risk Shampoo's salvation. "Very well," the Guide said, sighing. "At least I will be able to see it working." Ranma shrugged, and turned back to the flitter. Ukyou was just lifting Shampoo out. Ranma went to check on Maiko. She was just waking up, and staring around. He bent to unstrap the webbing and picked her up. She promptly started to cry. He sighed. It was a good bet that she wanted feeding. He started to rummage through the kit in the back of the flitter; but then he noticed where she was looking. [Oh.] "Does she want a feed?" called Ukyou. "Um, no," Ranma replied. "I think she wants a bath, actually." "A ...?" Ukyou turned her head to look at the pools of water that dotted the valley. "Yes, well. No chance of _that_, anyway." "Definitely not," agreed Ranma. "We could just leave her in the flitter," he suggested. "This shouldn't take long." "No, it's all right. I'll take her." She took the baby from Ranma. To his annoyance, Maiko stopped crying immediately. Typical. "Ranma?" It was Shampoo's voice. He looked around, and saw her propped up against a boulder. Away from her float, lying twisted into the only posture that was comfortable for her any more, she looked like a rag doll that had been thrown in a heap. Like a broken corpse. But her eyes were alive and bright; and however weak her body might be, her spirit and her voice were still strong. He knelt by her side. "You ready for this?" he asked. "Almost. Ranma, make me a promise." She spoke quietly, dropping her fractured accent for the moment. "When it's time to ... end this body of mine, I want you to do it." "What?" For a moment he did not understand what she was asking. Then his eyes widened. "You can't be serious. We've got a Lethe dose for you here, you know that --" "Ranma. No drugs, please. Please. Do this for me. Let it be by your own hand." "You don't know what you're asking," he whispered. "I do know. In your life you have killed three people. I think I know what it cost you." She smiled, and tried to reach out to him. He took her hand, felt her squeeze. "Even if you had stayed female, you would never have made a good Amazon," she murmured. "Killing isn't in you. I know. I've spoken to Ukyou. I've spoken to Ryouga. I know how it hurt you to do what you did. Especially to ... the Rose. But please, Ranma. I need this gift from you." "She left me no choice," Ranma muttered. That moment, long ago, came back to him: the madness, and the grief. "I would rather have cut off my own arm, but she left me no choice." He looked up, into Shampoo's eyes. "Why? Why does it have to be like this?" "For two reasons." She coughed. It was painful, he saw, but she managed to suppress the spasm. All this talking was only making it worse. "Firstly, because I love you." "Shampoo, no --" "Hush, Airen. I know. You are my beloved, but you will never be mine. But you can do this for me. You can give me release. If all goes well, it will be a release into a new life, and I would rather have that at your hands than anything. And if not ... if something goes wrong ..." She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, he saw that she was crying. "Then I will die, and I do not want to die any way but in your arms. As befits an Amazon warrior. By the hand of the one she could never defeat ..." It was too much. He felt his own eyes prickling, and rubbed at them angrily. "What's the second reason?" he asked, his voice rough. Amazingly, she smiled. "Have you really forgotten, after all these years? We fought, long ago, and you beat me. And I gave you the kiss of death." She laughed, a laugh that was equal parts pain and genuine humour. "So today, you finally satisfy the law. Today, you will be free at last." Unable to speak, he took her in his arms and wept. He felt her embrace tighten for a moment. There was no strength in her arms, he could barely feel it; but he accepted the comfort of this woman who had so many reasons to hate him, but who wanted her last thoughts to be of him; and he thought his heart would burst from pain, and grief, and gladness. And when he could control himself again, he kissed her gently and said, "I promise." **************** "Ready?" Ranma said. Shampoo nodded. Ranma glanced around quickly. Ukyou and the Guide were both standing at a safe distance, Ukyou holding the baby. He took a deep breath, held the glass ball out at arm's length, and tapped it gently with his fingernail. It split cleanly into two halves. The water poured out, and hit Shampoo squarely in the face. There was a faint sound, a movement of the air. And a cat was lying by Shampoo's side. The two of them, the woman and the cat, twitched and writhed. He knew why, he remembered all too well: the shock, the confusion, the sudden rush of impulses from two bodies at once. It could be maddening. Guttural, ugly sounds came from Shampoo's mouth. The cat hissed and spat and yowled, and made noises that he had never dreamed a cat was capable of. He stared at it, his eyes wide. Somehow, in all their planning for this moment, he had never considered one thing. That he would have to deal with a cat. "Ucchan," he gasped. He held himself rigid, every muscle tense, willing himself not to run. It was difficult. The way the cat squirmed, the sounds it was making, only made it worse. His worst nightmare lay at his feet, and he could not do anything about it. Then Ukyou came to his rescue. She handed Maiko to the Guide, ran forward, and picked up the cat. It clawed her, drew blood; he saw her wince, but she held onto it, moving some distance away. Slowly, he relaxed. "Shampoo," he said clearly. "Try not to struggle. It doesn't help." For a moment or two, the twitching and thrashing continued. Then, slowly, it died down. Shampoo lay still. Glancing over at Ukyou, he saw that the cat was resting limply in her arms. "Strange," he heard Shampoo say. The word was indistinct, rather mushy- sounding, but quite intelligible. He was impressed. He had not been able to speak, when he had lain in her condition. He knelt by her side. "Just a moment now," he murmured. He saw her eyes move. "Yes," she said. He reached out, hesitated for one bare instant, and then touched the back of her head. She stiffened, shuddered once. Her eyes shot wide-open, staring up at the sky. Slowly, her chest fell. It did not rise again. He stared at the body for a few seconds, then looked down at his hands. Such a little thing he had done: so quick, so simple. Such a power he had. For a moment he hated himself, hated his father (gone these many years), hated his Art. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. After a little, he reached out and closed Shampoo's eyes. When he looked up, he saw that the cat had gone mad. It was struggling and yowling in Ukyou's arms as if possessed, lashing out with all four paws, scratching and biting and doing a fair amount of damage. He stared. He wanted to go and help. He did not dare. It had been so many years ago; but the sight of a cat still made him tremble. He took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and started toward Ukyou. Too late. As he took his first step, the cat leaped out of her arms, sprang away, and ran for it. He was much too far away to intercept it. It was going to escape. What was happening? What was Shampoo doing? Then he saw the Guide moving. The Guide stooped, put Maiko down gently on the grass, and began to run. The cat was streaking through the valley, dodging around the pools; but the Guide ran straight _across_, leaping smoothly and precisely over the pools like an Olympic hurdler. Ranma's eyes widened. The man was making superb time, he was actually going to make it -- No. The cat made a sudden turn to the left, and the Guide was left far behind, moving in completely the wrong direction. Ranma breathed a curse. They'd lost it. -- Except the Guide didn't seem to think so. He made one gigantic leap, caught one of the bamboo poles that stuck up out of the pools, swung around it, one-handed, and landed nimbly on the other side of the pool, moving after the cat again. The cat zig-zagged wildly, but he followed, gaining with every stride. And in one last bound, he was on it. They watched him coming back, holding the cat by the scruff of the neck. It was writhing and twisting, but was quite helpless. Thinking about it, Ranma decided that being good at handling animals must be a very necessary skill for the Jyusenkyo Guides. The Guide was still some distance away when he began pointing and yelling. Ranma couldn't quite make out what he was saying. "What did you say?" he shouted back. The Guide yelled again, making a peculiar gesture with his free arm that Ranma couldn't interpret. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and -- Ukyou screamed -- He heard her begin to run. He looked around, and suddenly he knew what the Guide was trying to tell him. Maiko was just crawling up to the edge of one of the pools -- his daughter, his baby child, oh no no no -- -- She was putting her hand out to touch the water, teetering on the brink -- -- And Ukyou snatched her up, just barely in time. Maiko squawked, and began to bawl. Ukyou hugged her close, breathing hard. Ranma let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. So close ... The Guide ran up a few seconds later, panting, still holding the cat. "Sorry," he gasped. "My fault ... I should have thought ... I didn't know she could crawl already ... I --" Ranma held up a hand. "I think she's all right," he said, for the moment too relieved to be angry. "She didn't change. What pool is that, anyway?" Ukyou joined them before the Guide could reply. "She got her hand in the water," she said, her voice shrill, her eyes wide with worry. Maiko was still howling. "I was too late. She put her hand in. Is she going to get the curse?" The Guide shook his head. "Don't worry," he said, his breathing slowing. "Just a hand isn't enough. For an initial curse, it almost has to be the whole body. You have to bathe in it, or get good and wet at least. She's going to be fine." He smiled faintly. "It wouldn't have been _too_ bad in any case. That pool is the one you came here for. The nyannichuan." "I'm glad you think it's funny --" began Ukyou heatedly. Ranma laid a hand on her arm. "Ucchan. Calm down. It's all right. It's over, and there's no harm done." "Our daughter nearly got cursed!" she shouted. "But she didn't," Ranma insisted. "I -- look, she's still crying. Let's talk about this later, all right? Please?" Ukyou stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched tightly. Then she stamped away, still holding Maiko. Ranma watched as she opened the flitter door and laid the baby down inside. He sighed. "All right," he said. "What the hell happened to the cat? Why did it go mad like that?" The Guide shook his head. He seemed calm, almost untroubled by what had just happened. "I've no idea," he said. "You'd be in a better position to know than I would. Maybe the sudden shock ... who knows?" After a few seconds he added, "The easiest thing would be to change her back to human and ask her." Ranma looked down at the cat in distaste. "Yeah," he said shortly. "Wait a minute." He walked up to the flitter. Ukyou stood by the door, not looking up as he approached. He put his arms around her. She was stiff, unyielding. "Are you all right?" he asked gently. "She almost fell in," Ukyou said. "My daughter was almost cursed." He winced inwardly at the _my_. "It was an accident," he told her. "It was an accident, and you got there in time. You did it, Ucchan. You saved her, and she's fine." "But what if I hadn't?" she burst out. "What if she'd fallen in? She would have got the curse, and he -- and he was _laughing_ about it!" "He wasn't laughing about that at all," Ranma said. But dammit, the man _had_ been. He must have seen the curses often enough that they no longer bothered him, but that didn't excuse it. "And if he was, so what? He's an idiot. But that doesn't change anything. You still saved her. You're her mother and she needed you and you _did_ save her," he insisted. "And that's what counts. That's what I love you for." She stared at him for a moment. "Damn you," she said without heat. "Stop trying to cheer me up." He kissed her. After a moment she sighed, and kissed him back. Suddenly it seemed very quiet. Ranma looked around, confused. Then he looked down. Maiko had stopped crying at last. She lay there on the flitter seat, staring up at them. As he watched, she smiled. Involuntarily, he smiled back. Ukyou laughed. "So," she said. "Shall we go and deal with the cat?" "You go," Ranma said. "I'll stay with the baby. I ... wouldn't want to get too close, anyway." Ukyou glanced down at Maiko. "Don't be silly," she said. "It'll only take a minute. Maiko will be all right for that long; we'll be able to hear if anything happens. And ... you know Shampoo will want you to be there." Ranma shrugged. It seemed like a silly thing to start an argument over, especially when he knew who would win. He followed Ukyou down to the poolside obediently. The Guide was holding the cat in his arms. It seemed quite calm now. It was purring. Ukyou held out her arms and he handed it over. It went quite willingly. "I _am_ sorry," the Guide said to her. "I wasn't thinking. I never dreamed she could get to a pool so fast --" "You've probably never dealt with children before," Ukyou told him. Her voice was cool, but not cold. "It's always safest to assume that if there's any mischief they _can_ get into, they _will_." Ranma listened, amused. He had told that to Ukyou, just a few months ago. He was the one with child-raising experience, after all. Then, suspicious, he glanced up at the flitter. But he could see Maiko, still lying there. She looked like she'd gone to sleep again. Well, good. He'd locked the controls, in any case; there wasn't much mischief she could get into. "Come on," he said. "Let's do this." He and Ukyou stood at the water's edge. Ukyou stroked the cat once more. Then, moving slowly and carefully, she held it out over the water and dropped it in. It sank like a stone. For a long moment, there was silence. Then a shape broke the surface. A human shape. Young, female. With purple hair. A very familiar face. And perfect, untwisted limbs. He reached out and caught her hand, pulled her to the edge. She climbed out and lay on the grass for a few seconds, coughing and choking. At last she looked up. Ranma held out a hand to help her to her feet. "Congratulations," he said, grinning. "Welcome to a new life." She stared at his hand for some time. Then she miaowed. Batted his hand with her head. And began to purr. **************** "I don't understand," Ranma said, some time later. They were sitting in the Guide's house. He had Maiko in his lap. Ukyou had Shampoo in her lap. She was stroking Shampoo's back. Shampoo was purring. Looking at her, he felt queasy. The Guide shook his head helplessly. "I don't understand either," he said. "We saw that the split was successful. Her mind was definitely shared between her two bodies, because the cat was doing everything the human was. But then ... when you, er, killed her human body, it all changed somehow. It's as if somebody had substituted a real cat for your friend. This" -- he indicated Shampoo -- "is absolutely typical of what happens when an animal falls into one of the human springs. I've seen it dozens of times. It's an animal in a human body. There's no human mind there at all." "But why not?" demanded Ranma. "You're the expert; you ought to know! How can this be? Where can she have gone?" The Guide simply shrugged, watching Shampoo. He was frowning, but he did not seem terribly upset: merely curious, puzzled. "It is very strange," he admitted. "_Strange_? It's insane! It doesn't make any sense!" "It makes perfect sense," said Ukyou. They both looked up at her sharply. "How?" said Ranma, when she showed no sign of going on. "It makes perfect sense," Ukyou repeated. Her face was quite blank. She looked down at the woman/cat in her lap. "We should have expected it, really. How could we have been so stupid as to think it would work?" Ranma closed his eyes. Suddenly he didn't want to hear any more. It was going to be bad news. He could tell that much already; he could hear the certainty in her voice. He didn't want to hear it. No. He opened his eyes once more. He had to hear it. He owed Shampoo. "Please explain," said the Guide politely. She levelled a cold stare at him. "You _certainly_ ought to have seen it," she snapped. "You of all people. Why didn't you --?" "Ucchan," Ranma whispered. She glanced over at him, her anger fading back into that same, empty blankness. "I should have seen it," she murmured. "I'm the scientist. I should have. I should --" She took a deep breath. "Think! We split Shampoo into two bodies, human and cat. _Uncursed_ bodies, remember. Perfectly normal bodies in every way, that was the whole _point_, except that they shared a single, human, mind. And then we killed the human body." She looked up at the two of them, and Ranma was shocked to see the tears pouring down her cheeks. But her voice was still flat, unemotional. "We expected her mind to shift into the cat," she went on. "After all, it worked for you, didn't it? But _your_ other body was human. And ... Ranma, you can't put a human mind into a cat's brain. Not an ordinary, unmagical cat. You can't. It just doesn't fit." "No," whispered Ranma. "No. Please." "Of course the cat had a brainstorm," Ukyou went on remorselessly. "It panicked, and ran. But it didn't last long. It couldn't. A cat brain doesn't have enough complexity, enough connections, enough storage -- I don't know, whatever the hell you want to call it. A cat brain _can't_. So everything that didn't fit ... was lost. Faded away. And we were left with ... a cat. An ordinary, perfectly normal cat. And nothing more." "No," Ranma whispered. It was too big, too vast a crime for him to really comprehend just yet. He felt bewildered, lost. Frightened. The Guide was nodding. "Yes," he said, sounding pleased. "It makes sense. It explains what we saw perfectly. Really, I should have seen it myself --" Ukyou shot to her feet. "DAMN YOU!" she shrieked. "Don't you even _care_? A woman just _died_ out there, and you just sit making smug remarks? How _dare_ you!" Shampoo, dropped to the floor, gave one startled yowl and hid under the table. The Guide eyed her, unperturbed. "Shouting won't help," he said calmly. "We still have to decide what to do about your ... cat." "And what would be your recommendation?" Ukyou hissed. He raised his eyebrows. "Our normal procedure with humaniform animals is to deliver them to the Musk Dynasty. After all, they have several centuries' experience in dealing with --" "The _Musk Dynasty_?" She stared at him in horror. "You mean it, don't you? Yes, by all means, hand over all the -- what did you call it? 'Humaniform animals.' Very nice. Very cold. Very scientific. Of course, we all know how they deal with them, don't we? What they _do_ to them." "I see no reason to be upset." The man was unflappable. "They are extremely well treated --" "Oh really? The male ones as well as the females?" The Guide did not reply. "Right. 'No reason to be upset.' Damn you. Your grandmother was one of the warmest people I ever met. How can you be so cold? Why don't you _care_? You were so excited about this experiment --" She stopped suddenly. Her eyes widened. The Guide looked back at her, his expression set. "Is that it?" she whispered. "You _did_ know what would happen. You knew, and you let us go ahead anyway. You had to see it with your own eyes ..." "You're being quite unreasonable," he said. Ukyou stared at him, her expression ugly. "I can't believe I worked with you for two years. I can't believe I never saw what you were like, under that shell of yours. She turned away from him. "Ranma, come on. We're going." Ranma looked up vaguely. "What?" he said. He had been listening to what the other two were saying, but little of it really registered. The enormity of what he had done blocked out everything else. He had killed Shampoo. Killed her. Killed. He was a murderer. "We're going," Ukyou told him again. Her voice was gentle. "Come on. Bring Maiko." "All right." He stood up, lifting Maiko automatically, and started for the door. The Guide watched him go, expressionless. Behind him, he heard Ukyou calling, "Shampoo! Here, kitty, kitty!" **************** Ukyou led Shampoo outside. She didn't bother to close the door behind her. She certainly didn't look back. The thought of seeing that man again made her want to vomit. Shampoo pranced along beside her. If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought she was dealing with a dog, not a cat. It couldn't have been comfortable, running around on all fours like that, naked; but Shampoo -- no, she had to stop thinking like that, this wasn't her -- but the _cat_ didn't seem to mind. When they got to the flitter, she opened the rear door, rummaged inside for a moment, and pulled out a bottle of water. She poured it carefully over the cat. A moment later, she stooped and picked up the bedraggled, furry creature and held it in one arm. With her free hand she picked up something else out of the flitter. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She heard Ranma come up to stand behind her and turned, hiding what she was holding behind her back. "Shampoo's dead," he said. He looked shell-shocked. His voice sounded like a child's: bewildered, lost. "Yes," she answered softly. "I know. Go sit in the flitter for a moment, Ranchan." "What are we going to do with -- that?" he said, nodding toward the cat. He didn't seem afraid of it at all. After a moment she realised: he was too shocked to be feeling _anything_. Later, perhaps, there would be room in him for fear again. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll take care of it." Something came into his eyes for an instant. "Are you going to give it to Herb?" he asked. "No," she said patiently. Herb had died over ten years ago. Ranma had told her that himself. "Go get in the flitter, Ranchan." He nodded dumbly and stumbled off. She watched him go, and her eyes filled with tears. Ranma could face almost anything in the world. But not the death of those he loved. Not when his hand had done the deed. She looked down at the cat in her arms. What sort of life could it lead? Neither cat nor human, unable to comprehend what had happened to it? She held the tiny device to its neck. "Hand you over to the Musk Dynasty for their breeding games?" she whispered. "I think not." She did what she had to do. **************** Ranma sat in the flitter. He adjusted Maiko in the baby seat, fitted the webbing across her body. She gurgled at him, smiling. He tried to smile back, but failed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ukyou at the rear of the vehicle, raising her hand to the cat she held. Quite unconsciously, he lifted his hands to cover Maiko's ears. There was a faint hiss as the Lethe injector did its work. He heard Ukyou's footsteps heading away, but did not look up until he heard her returning, a few minutes later. She was carrying Shampoo's old, crippled body. "We'll bury them together," she said softly. He nodded. As she laid the body down on the back seat, he started up the engines and set a course for home. They held each other and cried all the way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EPILOGUE -------- Shampoo watched them both closely for the next few days. They were very quiet, mostly. There was more crying as they buried her old bodies, but apart from that they spent most of their time together, holding each other whenever possible. Seeking comfort, and giving it. She tried not to impose on their grief, but eventually of course Ukyou noticed. That led to a few tricky moments, but before long Shampoo got the hang of the way she was supposed to behave now, and then things went smoothly again. By the end of the first week, she had it all down pat. It was an unexpected new kind of life, to be sure. But she thought she could handle it. Actually, she was rather enjoying it, so far. -- It had been a bad moment, when she had been split. The world had been duplicated, as she'd expected, but it had been a mazy, chaotic kind of division. One pair of eyes seemed normal enough, but the other pair didn't _see_ things properly, and none of her eight limbs seemed to work right. She'd been on the point of panic when Ranma had spoken, calming her. Then he touched her head, killing her, and everything became even stranger. The world seemed to spin around her, and she felt herself thrust out, away, into a place that seemed much too small for her. There'd been a single, horrible moment when she'd felt herself crushed, cramped, forced down in to a tiny space where she couldn't possibly fit, but somehow she had to because there was nowhere else to go ... She was dying: struggling, thrashing, relentlessly crushed out of existence, desperately searching for another way out, any way, anywhere -- and then, at the last moment, the last extremity, she suddenly found the way, and the pressure vanished, and she found herself somewhere else. Floating. Cool, and peaceful, and serene. Like nothing she'd ever felt before. She drifted in nothing for a timeless period ... And it changed again. She had the momentary impression of a hand, breaking the surface of the void; and there was a sudden swirling sensation. And when it was over, she was seeing again, out of normal human eyes. And her body didn't seem to work right, again. And there was somebody else in her head. She tried to talk to the other one, but she didn't answer; she just cried, apparently terrified of something. So Shampoo reached out mentally to comfort her, and things changed again. For the last time. She felt herself _drawn into_ the other one. Or was it that the other one was _drawn into_ her? It was a little confusing. But it didn't really matter, now. There was only one of them left: one person, who was both. She was still mostly Shampoo, as it turned out. There hadn't been much to the other one; she'd been very young, after all. Just enough left, when she/they opened her eyes, to recognise the Big Person who was holding her. The old Shampoo thought that the Big Person was named Ukyou. But the new Shampoo thought that a better name might be _Mommy_. -- She worked out what had happened, eventually, after listening to the argument in the Guide's house. She hadn't fit into the cat's head, but she had found the way somewhere else. Into the power, into Jyusendo. And then, when a more appropriate body had presented itself, she'd been released again. She was of two minds about her new situation for a while. But the Maiko half of her accepted it as perfectly normal. And after all, she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. Besides, it was nice to have parents again. (Maybe that was Maiko talking; or maybe not. She didn't really care any more.) She'd decided that she rather liked having Ukyou as a mother. As for Ranma -- well, if she couldn't have him one way, she'd take him another. It wasn't quite what she'd had in mind, but she thought she could live with it. The only thing that concerned her was what they'd do when they found out. But really, there was no reason they had to know. Not just yet. She thought she'd give it a few years before she broke it to them. THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Author's Notes -------------- The question of "What about Shampoo?" was left hanging at the end of "Autumn and Spring" because I was already planning "Second Spring." (In chapter 14 of "Autumn and Spring," one of the visions Ranma saw was of he and Ukyou dropping something into a pool at Jyusenkyo: a scene from the sequel.) Initially I envisaged a short story where they tried to split Shampoo, but ended up killing her instead. It was going to be a bitter, tragic story, a complete contrast to "Autumn and Spring." But the idea of turning Shampoo into Ranma's daughter instead was simply too delicious to pass up ... I guess I'm not made for tragedy after all. Some other things forced their way into the story unexpectedly. There are new hints here about Cologne's distant past: a topic left unexamined in the original story. And it seems that a lifetime's dedication to the Martial Arts has begun to lead Ranma into other Arts as well. I didn't plan either of these; but they seem to fit. Perhaps there are other stories birthing here; someday, I may get around to telling them. In any case, I've said more than enough. I hope you enjoyed the story; comments and (polite) criticism are more than welcome. -- Angus MacSpon, 1 Feb 1998 Revision: 8 February 1998 macspon@tamaneko.org http://macspon.tamaneko.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------