"People can hardly change the world, while the world
has no trouble in changing people."  Cologne said with a
heavy voice as she continued to walk away.

     "Wait."

     Before Cologne could have turned around in annoyance,
Happosai had darted forward . . .

     . . . and hugged her tightly from behind.

     "Col-chan . . ."  Happosai buried his face in her white
hair as he breathed out in a voice crackling with age.
Tears steamed down Cologne's wrinkled face.  At that very
moment, she genuinely despised the knowledge that her 118
years have given for: the knowledge that this moment was
purely impulsive, a product of the mere ghost of what they
once had.

     "Your Col-chan was long since gone," Cologne said in a
soothing voice as she tried to hold back her emotions,  "and
so was my Happy.  They are now up on the stars, enjoying
their remaining days together . . . within our fondest
dreams."

     Suddenly, she felt something cool sprinkling over her,
soon followed by a strange sensation.   She looked behind .
. .

     . . . and saw a wavy-haired young man flamed by the
stars, just as he was in that night a century ago.

     "Instant spring of youth . . ." The young man, who
seemed to be stretching his ninja robes to a limit,  said as
he stared into Cologne's once again beautiful and heavily
lashed eyes.  "Something that can give us . . . a temporary
dream."  He traced his hand across her now ivory smooth
cheek as he brushed off the pearly tears off her now
strikingly beautiful face.

       "Happosai, you hopeless old dreamer . . ."  Cologne
wanted to tell him that what was gone was gone, and that
they shouldn't dwell on faded dreams.  But the sight of
Happi, looking exactly like the night he was at Jusenkyo,
had robbed her of the strength to voice out the truth.

     "I live on dreams: panties, bras, a feel of beautiful
women . . . but Col-chan remains to be my ultimate dream."
Happi said with a light tremor to his voice.  "I don't have
much time left, Col-chan: don't let this broken old man left
this world without even a night of living out this dream."

     Those same kind of words again . . . those beautiful,
flattering words that had given her such short-lived
illusions from so long ago, is now coming back to offer the
same thing a second time.

     One night of illusions . . . just one night  . . .

     Surrendering to her now unleashed emotions, Col-chan
turned around and rested her face on Happi's shoulder.   A
particularly strong breeze blew over, tossing her mile-long
dark tresses all over the two of them, encasing them in a
web of shared fantasy.

     Framed by the illusory silver of the star-dotted sky,
Col-chan and Happi savored their fondest dream for the first
and most likely the last time.  The morning will come, and
the dream will fade.  But for now, their bodies were young
and the night was deep.

     And dreams are irresistible at night.

*         *         *         *         *         *

     Inside her bedroom, Shampoo stared out her window at
the stars outside.  Soon, very soon she would be back at her
village, reuniting with friends and relatives that she
hadn't see in over a year.

     . . . just as Ranma would be leaving all of his friends
and relatives behind.

     Shampoo reflected upon the events of the day and
sighed: it felt like ten years had past by in between the 24
hours.  Ranma had just been struck down mercilessly, and she
had to force herself to grow up if she was to be there for
him.

     And the effort of glowing up has been worth it: Ranma
was now put in awe of her concern for him, and is beginning
to look at her with genuine emotions in his eyes.

     She could almost hear him asking himself: how can that
childlike girl have the strength to stay as my friend while
even my best buddy Ucchan had ran off from me?

     The answer was quite simply actually, but it was one
that she didn't think Ranma could have handled at the moment
of his ego collapse.

     Ukyou had run off because she was hurt: hurt by the
fact that she was still in love with Ranma despite his
confession.

     Shampoo didn't run off despite the fact that she was
hurt: for her love had already been successfully shattered
by Ranma's confession.  All that was left was the heartache
of a friend turning away, something that she had already
been prepared for.

     Shampoo still admired his good nature, and was still
attracted to his looks.  But Shampoo was no longer in love
with Ranma Saotome anymore.  Right now, she just wanted to
be his friend.  For the first time since they had known each
other, Shampoo wished that Ranma would continue to see her
only as a friend as well.

     Somehow, the look in his eyes had told her that might
not be the case anymore.

     Closing her eyes and turning away form the stars, the
emotionally exhausted girl fell into a deep, dreamless
sleep.


END PRELUDE

Nov 2, 1997.

Special thanks to Susan Doenime for her work Poison, without
which I won't even be writing this fanfic in the first
place.  Also, she had given me some valuable info on the
burakumin situation for the story, for which I am eternally
grateful.

Also, thanks to the people on the FFML who had C&C on this
fic's original version: they have all helped me in making
this version a little bit better than the original one.

Till next time.

Adrian Wong

Jan 20, 1998

Well I origanlly read this when Adrian first posted this
and asked when he was going to post the next part.  I was
slightly upset when I found out that due to time concerns 
he would not be able to do any more work on this.  I 
therefore offered my services and he gladly accepted.  I
hope I can live up to this story's potental.

See you on the flip side,

Rabbit