Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Hi.  This is not my first fanfic, but it is my first attempt at
posting something to the FFML... due to the limitations of
Hotmail, I am unable to subscribe to the FFML, so if any C&C
could please be directed to me privately at my e-mail address,
I'd be grateful.  I'm posting this fic in the hope that I can have
comments on it to help me make it as good as possible before
posting it to RAAC, so any comments are not only encouraged but
very much appreciated.  

Chapter 4 : The Motive of the Deed (1/3)

     "We home, great-grandmother," Shampoo called as she slid the
door open with the edge of her foot and came into the restaurant,
a paper bag of groceries under each arm.  Mousse followed behind
her, staggering slightly under the heavy load of two bags under
each arm.

     There was no answer.  Shampoo put the grocery bags on a
nearby table and tossed her hair behind her head before calling
out again.  "We no able to find mandrake root at grocery store,
so we go to herbalist, but..."

     "She's gone out, Shampoo," Mousse said quietly from behind
her as he put his bags next to hers.

     Shampoo sniffed and looked back at him.  "You no know what
you talk about.  Great-grandmother just not hear us."

     "The old ghoul hears like a bat," Mousse said, taking off
his glasses and cleaning them against the sleeve of his robe.
"If she was here, she'd be down here by now."

     "Great-grandmother!" Shampoo called again, before shrugging
and acquiescing to Mousse's suggestion.  Cologne didn't often go
out during the day, but it wasn't an unknown thing.

     "Since Cologne's gone out, would you like to-" Mousse began.

     "No," Shampoo said, starting towards the back area of the
restaurant where the stairs to the second floor were located.
"Go and unload groceries, Mousse."

     "Aren't you going to help?"

     Shampoo didn't even respond.  Behind her, she heard Mousse
give a gentle sigh, but she didn't look back.  She heard the
crinkle of paper bags and the soft sliding of his feet across the
floor as he headed for the kitchen, but she was already heading
up the stairs.  They creaked slightly under her footsteps, as she
walked up to where the three of them had their rooms.  The
building, even the second floor, always smelled vaguely of herbs
and spices, the drifting scent of all the cooking done during the
day lingering on.

     She was past Cologne's room by a few steps before she
realized the door was open.  She frowned.

     "Great-grandmother never leave door open," she said quietly
to herself, stepping back and glancing inside.  After a moment of
hesitation, she stepped into the room.  The door was open, after
all.

     She frowned, sweeping her eyes across the open closet and
the bed, the desk and the discarded robe on the floor with the
wooden staff laid across it.

     Her eye picked up on the last object, and she took a step
forward and knelt down by it, feeling a cold pit open up in her
stomach and spread ice water through her arms and legs.

     The robe was the one her great-grandmother had been wearing
this morning.  Now it was in a heap, like a discarded cocoon of
heavy green fabric.

     That was not disturbing in itself, for it was the staff that
truly made her feel afraid.  An ancient piece of wood that her
great-grandmother had carried with her for all the time she'd
known her, serving alternately as walking stick, perch, reaching
tool, weapon and crutch.  It had always seemed a part of the old
woman, something inseparable.

     And now it lay abandoned, as if she no longer needed it.

     There was something very, very wrong.

**********

     "Miss Kuonji?"

     "Hmm?"

     "School's been over for an hour now for students.  You can
go home if you want."

     "I know."

     Hinako-sensei looked at the sad-faced girl for a moment,
then settled down beside her against the bank of shoe cubbies.
"Are you feeling okay?" the child asked, drawing her knees up to
her chest and hugging her arms around them as she peered at Ukyou
with wide brown eyes.  "Do you have the flu?"

     "No.  I'm okay," Ukyou said after a moment.

     "Okay!" Hinako said as she hopped back up.  "Well, you
should leave soon.  Wouldn't want to get locked in, would you?"

     "Guess not," Ukyou said as if she'd just realized it
herself.

     "Don't forget to do your homework!  Have a nice weekend!"
the teacher said as she skipped off.  When she turned a corner in
the hall and vanished from sight, Ukyou finally rose up and
adjusted the positioning of the spatula across her back.  It felt
as if it weighed a thousand pounds.

     Sighing, she trudged through the mostly-empty hallways until
she reached the front doors of the school, and from there stepped
out into the courtyard of Furinkan.  The waters of the early
morning rain still puddled in places, and overhead hung gray
clouds that promised still more downpour.  

     There wasn't much else to do but go back home, she realized
with a kind of dull acceptance.  Back to the restaurant, back to
Konatsu and his slight, feminine presence and gentle affections.

     She walked towards the open gates that led out onto the
streets of Nerima, and imagined as the sun hit her face that
perhaps she could still taste his lips on hers, though it had
been over four hours ago.  That the kiss had been by her efforts
alone was not the important thing to her mind.  That it had
lasted less than a second before Ranma pushed her away in shock
was not so important either.

     Only the memory.  One last thing to cling to.  Because she
had to cling to something.

     "Hey," someone said to her as she walked out the gate, and
it was so like how Ranma had greeted her a few hours earlier that
a small part of her thought for a moment it was him, and then she
realized the voice was wrong.

     "Hey Ryoga," she said, turning to look at the boy where he
leaned against the stone wall with the Furinkan nameplate on it.
His arms were crossed over his chest, and the look on his face
was like that of a soldier who had just realized the true horror
of war.

     He stepped towards her, with the easy grace that belied his
build and marked him as a fighter.  His shoulders seemed to hunch
slightly under the weight of his huge pack, although she'd seen
him carry it many times before as if it were a feather.

     The red bamboo umbrella was nowhere to be seen.  Noticing
its absence reminded her of what it had almost been used for this
afternoon, and she felt a cold anger rising in her towards Ryoga.

     "Where's that one-ton parasol you carry around?" she asked,
regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth.

     Ryoga's face looked haggard, bathed in shadows from where he
stood near the wall.  "I'm not sure.  I think I dropped it when
Ranma and I got drained.  I... I don't think I want it back
anyway."

     Ukyou inclined her head slowly to one side.  "Why not?"

     "I think it's a part of me I'd like to leave behind," Ryoga
said slowly.  "Something... I don't think I need any more."

     "You nearly killed him," Ukyou said.

     "Yeah," Ryoga said, and while there was no joy in it, there
was no guilt either, just a calm, mute acceptance of a fact he'd
realized long ago.

     "Shouldn't you be kicking yourself and moaning about the
next time?" Ukyou said, taking a step forward so that she stood
only a few feet from him.

     "No," Ryoga said.  "No, I don't think there's going to be a
next time for Ranma and I."

     Ukyou slowly nodded, and felt her anger begin to slip away.
"I'm... glad to hear that."

     "I wish I knew if I was," Ryoga said cryptically.

     "So you're giving up on Akane?"

     Ryoga closed his eyes, and tilted his head back to look at
the sun, still able to see the light despite blindness.  "I don't
know.  I know that I should, and yet..."

     His left hand came up and traced the side of his chest over
the heart.  "This knows only itself."

     "What about that other girl Ranma mentioned?" Ukyou said.
"Akari?"

     Ryoga nodded slowly, his eyes opening again.  "Yes?"

     "Do you love her?"

     Ryoga blushed and mumbled something, then started to walk
past her.  Ukyou reached out and grabbed his arm.  "Ryoga?"

     "It's not your business," Ryoga said hotly.

     "No, it isn't," Ukyou said, dropping her hand from his
sleeve.  "Forget I said anything in the first place."

     She drew a long, shuddering breath and walked quickly past
him.  Before she'd taken more than two steps, his hand was on her
shoulder, with that same gentle but impossible to resist grip
that he'd used to stop her from slapping Ranma again earlier this
afternoon, that same steel-soft strength that he'd moved her out
of his way with when she'd tried to stop them fighting.

     "Uh... wait... uhh..." Ryoga said, his hesitant voice an
utter contrast to the strong surety of his grip.  "You really
want to know?"

     "Maybe," Ukyou said, not turning to look at him.

     "Why?"

     "Just wanted to know if it's really possible for someone to
be in love with two people," Ukyou said quietly.

     "What is love?" Ryoga said musingly.

     "I wish I knew," Ukyou said with a small laugh, turning her
head back to look at his face.  There was a wistful expression on
it, and sadness in his eyes.

     "I do love Akari, I guess," Ryoga said after a few moments.
"I love her because she's beautiful, and kind, and devoted, and
because she loves me, and because I know she deserves my love."

     One side of his mouth quirked in a strange half-smile.  "I
suppose I love her, if that's what love is.  But it's not the
same way I love Akane.  Akane is beautiful, and she is kind,
but... I don't love her because of all those things."

     His hand left her shoulder, and again went to touch his
heart through the rough cloth of his black, sleeveless shirt.  "I
love Akane because I love her.  I... can't say anything other
than that.  Loving her... it makes me feel a greater person than
what I would be without loving her.  I..."

     He trailed off.  "Ukyou, are you..."

     "Yeah," Ukyou said, wiping at her eyes.

     "I'm sorry," Ryoga said.  "I'm really, I didn't mean to..."

     "It's not your fault," Ukyou said.  "You... do you know
where they went?"

     Ryoga shook his head.  "I didn't want to."

     "I saw them out the window," Ukyou said quietly.  "While I
was sitting next to your bed.  You'd fallen asleep after Akane
left..."

     She sucked in a breath.  "They were holding hands."

     Ryoga's eyes slowly, slowly closed.  "I see."

     When they opened again, there was something gone from them.
Ryoga's mouth was set into a straight line, and his hand dropped
from being held over his heart to falling at his side like the
broken limb of a tree.

     "Come on," Ukyou said finally.  "Let's go have some
okonomiyaki.  My treat."

     Ryoga slowly nodded, because something that was not in her
eyes matched something that was not in his.

**********

     Happosai was feeling particularly good today.  Perhaps it
was the sun, or the air, or how full his sack of underwear felt.
Perhaps it was the large crowd of pretty schoolgirls in track
uniforms chasing him through the streets, as he dodged and weaved
through the crowds of the late afternoon.

     The fun of collecting wasn't just in the possession; it was
in the acquisition, the anticipation, the categorization, and, of
course, the inevitable pursuit by those to whom his new treasures
had belonged to.

     Still, he sure felt a lot better than he usually did.  He
hadn't been this fast or agile in years.  He wasn't really sure
what it was.

     And then suddenly he knew.  All his energy today had been
going towards this moment.  Finding her.  The grey cloak
accentuated rather than concealed her figure, which, to his
experienced eye, was quite perfect.  The face that occasionally
flashed from between the folds of the hood was quite beautiful,
but he wasn't too concerned with faces these days.

     She was carrying what looked like a rake over her shoulder,
and that and her odd dress should have made her stand out among
the conservative Japanese crowds, but there was something in the
way she moved, a kind of humble grace, that made no one give her
more than a second glance.  Even he was having trouble keeping an
eye on her.  It was an obvious mark of a martial artist.  Funny,
he vaguely remembered a girl with a rake from somewhere long ago.
Probably a story he'd heard.

     "SWEETO!" he said, casting thoughts aside and springing from
the rooftop he'd been resting on for a moment towards the woman
walking through the crowd.

     He never even saw her move.  There seemed to be no interval
between when the rake was resting casually on her shoulder and
when its sharpened tines were a hair's breadth from his neck.  

     Her other hand had gone from straight-arming him with a flat
palm under the chin to gripping him by the collar in the space of
less than a second.

     The five razor-edged blades at the head of the rake
glittered in the sunlight.  "Hello, Happy," the woman said.  The
hood fell back, and he realized whose face this was.

     "Cologne?" he whispered disbelievingly.

     "You've never listened to me before," Cologne said, in a
voice that was becoming as familiar as yesterday, although he had
not heard it in decades.  "And I doubt you will now.  But the
best thing you could do now is get very, very far away from
here."

     Happosai licked his lips, the sight of Cologne as she had
been in her younger days momentarily stunning him out of any
thoughts of lechery.  The rake was also rather persuasive towards
that.

     "I don't suppose I could have a quick grope for old times
sake?" he finally said, giving her his best smile.

     Cologne's impossibly young face twisted in a combination of
revulsion and pity, and she flung him away from her.

     Directly into the large mob of angry schoolgirls.  Leaving
him to their not-so-tender ministrations, she strode off quickly
into the crowd.

     "You always did have a habit of showing up exactly when you
weren't needed, Happy," he heard her voice say amidst the sound
of fists and feet pounding on him.  There was kind of weary
sadness in it.

**********

     "Welcome home, Ranma, Akane," Kasumi said as the two of them
stepped through the broad gate and into the walled confines of
the house and dojo.  Akane's older sister was at work on one of
the shrubs lining the walkway to the front door with a pair of
small shears.  Her hair was pinned back into a bun, and the tips
of her fingers were tinged a pale green.

     "Hey Kasumi," Akane said.  Kasumi was looking at them, an
odd, knowing smile on her face, and they realized they were still
holding hands.  Akane yanked her hand free with so much force
Ranma winced as her nails dug into his skin.

     "How was school?" Kasumi said, making a few precise clips
with the shears.  Green shoots and small branches littered the
ground around her feet like drops of emerald rain.

     "It was okay," Ranma said after a moment.  "Ryoga's back in
town."

     "How nice," Kasumi said as she worked.  The clippings were
piling up around her feet like sand at a beach.  "I hope he'll
stop by."

     Ranma sighed and walked towards the front door, Akane
following behind him.  "Nabiki said she had some business to
take care of," Akane informed her sister as they passed by.

     "How nice," Kasumi said, beginning to hum softly to herself
as they opened the door of the house and stepped inside.

     The two of them passed through the entrance hall, past the
hallway that led to the dojo, and then by the open door of the
kitchen and into the dining room that faced off into the
backyard.  Soun and Genma were seated at the table, the go board
between them and a small pot of tea on the edge of the table.
Both were silent, contemplating their respective positions with
the seriousness of military commanders.

     "Welcome home, son," Genma said without looking up.

     "Hello, Akane," Soun said, also without looking up.

     Ranma and Akane glanced nervously at each other, then gave
each other trembling, hesitant smiles.  Their hands touched, for
just a moment, and then they knelt and sat down at the table with
their fathers.

     "Hey pop, where's mom?" Ranma asked.

     "I'm here," Nodoka said, stepping out of the kitchen.  She
looked at Akane and Ranma, kneeling close to each other at the
table, and a small smile appeared on her face for a moment.  She
sat down, facing across from them.  "Is there something you want,
Ranma?"

     "Akane and I have come to you about my decision," Ranma
said, trying to keep his voice level, but feeling as if his body
would start to tremble at any moment.  The two of them had
discussed what they would say on the way home, in nervous,
hesitant tones that had still rang with the sincerity of the
words.

     Nodoka's smile lit her face.  "Yes?  You have discussed it
with Akane?"

     Akane nodded silently.

     "I am very impressed, my son," Nodoka said.  Ranma flushed
slightly and looked away from his mother's eyes.

     "Thank you, mother," he said.

     "What have you decided, son?" Genma said, but in his voice
there was some hint he already knew the answer.

     Ranma opened his mouth to speak.  The silence in the room,
the staring presence of the three adults, and even Akane's silent
support at his side seemed to press down upon him and try to
stifle his words, but he began to call them forth anyway.

     And then Kasumi's scream shattered that silence, irrevocably
and forever.

     They were all up and running in a second, Ranma in the lead.
He felt the fire begin to pulse in the back of his head again,
but this time there was little ice behind it.

     He turned the corner into the entrance room of the house,
and took in the sight, aghast.  The front door was shattered from
its frame, lying on the floor in splinters in a pattern that
inexplicably reminded him of the results of Kasumi's work on the
shrub outside.

     And in the centre of the remains of the front door lay
Kasumi, not moving and with blood running down the side of her
head.  The bun of her hair had come undone, and it spread over
half her face like a shadow.  It looked as if someone had picked
her up and thrown her through the door with enough force to
shatter it.

     Somehow, he didn't see her at first, and when he did it was
almost as if she emerged from the wall itself, until he realized
she had just been standing so still and giving off no sense of
her presence that she had been nearly invisible.

     "Hello, son-in-law," the slim, petite woman in the gray
cloak and green robe said.  The words were familiar, but the face
certainly wasn't.  Neither was most everything else about the
woman, from the large, razor-tined rake she held against one
shoulder to the dark hair pinned up at the back of her head.

     Only the eyes were similiar, because in that young face they
were impossibly old and depthless.  But there was something there
that had never been in Cologne's eyes before, if this young,
beautiful woman was Cologne.  There was a hint, a twitch,
something about the way her eyes would not seem to find focus.

     There was madness there.

     "Cologne?" he whispered.

     "Who else?" Cologne said, and laughed slightly.  She looked
down at Kasumi.  "A pity she got in my way."

     There was ice in his head now, mingling with the fire.

     "KASUMI!" Soun screeched as he came around the corner, and
took in the sight of his eldest daughter injured upon the floor
and the strange woman standing over her.  With a cry of pure
rage, he flung himself forward.

     "Mr. Tendo-" was all Ranma had time to say.  Cologne never
even seemed to move; there was only a blur as the rake came up,
and Ranma couldn't tell whether the head or the haft hit Soun, or
how many hits Cologne landed on him.  But the man flew back and
slammed into the wall, crumpling bonelessly to the floor without
a sound.  His gi was torn in places from the force of the blows.

     "Now, we shall settle the matter of this marriage to Shampoo
once and for all," Cologne said.  "There is a final option,
son-in-law, one that I never mentioned to you before."

     Ranma's body shifted, as the ice began to grow, and then the
ice retreated as Cologne angled the rake down and pointed the
razor-edged tines at Kasumi's throat.  "Don't make my hand slip,
son-in-law."

     "Why does she keep on calling you..." Akane whispered behind
him, but that question died as she realized the answer.

     "Get away from her," Ranma growled.

     "As you wish, son-in-law," Cologne said with a grim smile
that looked somehow too old on her face.

     Her body shifted...

     Blurred...

     Ranma stepped in front of Akane, and let himself begin to
fall within the embrace of the ice, let it lance through his
limbs and brain...

     Something flashed past him, and he heard his father scream.

     He turned, slowly, agonizingly slowly, for the world was
nearly frozen for him.

     His father was a twitching heap on the floor, his limbs
splayed out and locked into twisted positions.

     Cologne had her arm around his mother's neck from behind,
encircling it like a noose and cradling the other woman's chin in
the crook of her elbow.  She was shorter than his mother, and was
forcing Nodoka to half-kneel in front of her.  The rake was held
in her other hand, tines an inch away from his mother's throat.

     "I would have grabbed the girl," Cologne said in an
impossibly cold voice, cold as the ice inside his head.  "But
that would have been far too predictable, and she has a way of
messing things up and escaping."

     "Cologne... why are you..." Ranma whispered.  Seeing his
mother, so terrified she could not even speak, the fire and the
ice in his head were gone, consumed beneath his own feelings of
helplessness.

     "You ask me why?" Cologne hissed.  "You dare to ask me why,
boy?  You have disgraced my chosen heir before her tribe, held
her up to ridicule, and used her for your own ends so many times
that I have lost count.  In return for her sincere love and her
help in the many pathetic situations you find yourself in through
your own foolish nature, you have scorned her and treated her
like a tool for your own ends.  I have been patient enough,
son-in-law.  The time comes that we end this."

     "GET OUT OF HERE!" Akane screamed at Cologne.  "You... you!
You come into my house, hurt my father, and Kasumi, who's never
hurt another person in her life, and you... you..."

     "Shut up, girl," Cologne said lazily.  "You would not last
five seconds in the Joketsuzoku.  The training we put our
children through when they are old enough to walk would eat you
alive.  Your weakness sickens me.  You pretend to be a warrior,
but when trouble comes you do little more than wait to be rescued
by your fiancee.  Speak to me when you have learned the true
meaning of what it is to be a warrior."

     "That's not true," Akane whispered.

     "Cologne," Ranma said slowly, watching a bead of sweat fall
down his mother's pale, trembling face.  "Cologne, why?  You have
always..."

     "I have always waited for you to allow my great-grandaughter
to go back home," Cologne said.  "All that I have done for you
has been towards those ends.  I do not know what she sees in you;
Happosai in his youth was ten times the man you are.  You are an
arrogant, foolish boy who happens to have a kind of idiot-savant
relationship with martial arts and making women fall for you
despite your flaws."

     Ranma sucked in a breath.  "Cologne, let my mother go."

     "This is the final option," Cologne said, ignoring Ranma's
words.  "The option in our laws for a man who truly does not wish
to marry a Joketsuzoku woman."

     "What?" Ranma said.

     "Ranma, don't-" Akane said.

     "She has my mother, Akane," Ranma said, and his voice was
low and dangerous.

     "You will fight a duel with the oldest member of the woman's
family," Cologne said.  "This duel is to defeat by surrender,
unconsciousness, or death.  I do not care which of the three you
choose; I would as soon have that child free of you as I would
have you marry her."

     "I ain't obeyin' your stupid Amazon laws!" Ranma said,
momentarily losing the calm edge of control.  "Let my mother go!"

     "You will obey them, on the honour of your family, small as
it is, and on whatever honour you yourself hold, though I find
that to be even smaller," Cologne said.  "Or she will die."

     There was madness in Cologne's eyes, but it was a powerful
kind of madness.  Ranma felt as if he might weep.

     "If you somehow manage to defeat me, then you will be freed
of all obligation to Shampoo, and she will go back to the tribe
in disgrace, as will I," Cologne said.  "But if I defeat you and
you still live, then you will marry her and come back to the
village with us."

     "I won't-"

     "Then your mother will die."

     "Ranma, you have to."

     Those last were Akane's words, and Ranma slowly nodded his
head with acceptance.  "Yes.  I agree."

     Cologne nodded, a pleased look creeping onto her beautiful,
cold face.  "Well done."

     "Let my mother go," he said again.

     Cologne laughed.  "I think not, son-in-law.  I know all the
excuses you might use.  A promise sworn under duress; the laws
and customs of filthy outsiders that are not useful to honourable
people such as yourselves.  I believe I will get to know your
mother for the next while."

-Continued in [Ranma][Fanfic] Waters Under Earth - Chapter 4 (2/3)


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