Well, am I on a roll or what?

As always, the Ranma 1/2 characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi.
Everyone else is mine. Mine, I say. Mine, mine, mine!



			The Passion of the Rose-Colored Sword
					Chapter Two



<This can't be right. This just can't be right!>

Machellian's hands throbbed dully, but he ignored the pain as he rifled
through the scattered notes and papers for the location spell.  He had
followed the steps of the spell perfectly. He was sure of it! So why did it
fail?

A faint groan made him abandon his search and return to the two youths
stretched out on the floor.  How they appeared in his spell-casting
chambers without the guards' knowledge stymied him.  Both appeared to be
young--no more than sixteen, by his guess.  The boy wore a large yellow
tunic--a color commonly found more on those poppycocks who loved to parade
about during the Lords' Councils--and black loose pants that appeared to be
bound with cloth strips to his shins.  To top it off, he wore a
black-spotted yellow scarf wrapped around his forehead, like he'd seen the
miners of Crystal Caves wear.  With a muscular build like that, the boy was
certainly built like a miner, but if he was, then what was he doing leagues
and leagues from the Caves?

He turned his attention to the girl.  Now here was something more
interesting!  Instead of a standard dress, the girl wore what appeared to
be tight-fighting hose--Hose! Like a pageboy!--and a strange one-piece
tunic that wrapped around her upper body and barely covered her thighs.  In
short, her clothes enhanced her curvaceous figure rather than hid it.  She
may as well be naked the way her clothes hugged her form.

He knelt down to get a closer look.  She laid on her back, her long,
chestnut hair fanned out on the floor behind her.  She took slow, easy
breaths that made her chest rise and fall steadily, as if she was in a deep
sleep.  Normally, he favored more fleshier women, and this one was too
thin, though there was some muscle on her which showed she didn't sit and
sew all day.  This one was definitely a worker.  However, with her limbs
splayed out, there was something vulnerable about her that made his breath
quicken involuntarily.  The fact that she had appeared from out of nowhere
made her all the more fascinating.

He reached down and gently drew a finger down her cheek.  "Who are you, I
wonder?" he whispered.

There was a faint gasp, a choked off cry, and Machellian recoiled, pain
suddenly flaring in his hands again.  He looked up to see the boy, wide
awake and sitting up, glaring at him.  He was holding his hand to the cloth
on his head, as if it was too tight, but the look in his eyes--Machellian
belated noted they were slightly slanted--was clear and very, very angry.
The boy slowly rose to his feet, spitting out a word that sounded strangely
chopped. "Yamatta!"

Machellian attempted to raise his hands appeasingly. "Now, now. No need to
be upset.  I wasn't doing anything to her.  See?  I'll step back so you can
look at her.  Go ahead. I won't move."

The youth cocked his head, puzzled, then let his eyes flicker to the girl.
After looking from Machellian to her several times, he swiftly knelt to
check on her, giving Machellian time to soothe his stinging hands with a
light healing spell.  The boy had thrown something at him, and he did it
with perfect accuracy.  <I have to keep a careful eye on him.>

After a while, the boy looked up at him again.  He appeared to think for a
moment, then said in a low voice something like "Nandokoda?"

Machellian sighed. "It appears that not only are you strange in dress, you
are strange in speech as well.  And judging from your blank look, I'd say
you don't understand a word I say, do you?"  He chuckled and  lifted his
hands.  "Well there's one way to fix that.  You're lucky I'm in a good
mood, after you've ruined the spell I've worked on for five years."

The look of wariness on the boy's face switched to alarm as a small, yellow
ball of light appeared over Machellian's hands.  "Now hold still," He said
soothingly.  "It won't hurt, but you will feel a bit uncomfortable at
first." He shot the ball forward.

What happened next was almost a blur in Machellian's eyes.  The boy spat
out something that sounded very much like a curse and leapt to his feet.
At the same time, his hand went to his temple and yanked off the cloth that
was surrounding his forehead.  He then *threw* the cloth at the light.  The
cloth spun rapidly until it connected with Machellian's orb, where it
dispensed the spell like a finger popping a bubble.

Pain burst in Machellian's mind.  He cried out and fell to his knees,
clutching his head, a move that actually saved him.  The spinning cloth
whirled over him, sliced through a candelabra and smashed into the far
bookcase, causing the huge shelf to topple and fall with a mighty crash,
spilling more books and scrolls upon the floor.  When Machellian looked up
blearily, the boy had scooped up the girl and was now studying the double
doors. Then he jabbed his index finger at the door and shouted an
intelligible phrase.

The door exploded in a shower of splinters.  The boy spared an unreadable
glance at the mage crouched amid the scattered papers.  Then he was gone.

Machellian stumbled to his feet.  Pain rippled in his head and he had to
catch himself from succumbing to unconsciousness.  Instead, he forced
himself to go to the ruined doors, where the two guards outside were still
standing, staring down the castle corridor in disbelief.  They turned to
Machellian, eyes widening at the condition of the mage.  He wanted to slap
the both of them.

"Well, what are you gawking at?" he snarled, nearly reeling from the new
wave of pain.  "After him!!!"

=========================================================================

Ryoga ran.

This in itself was nothing new.  It wasn't abnormal for Ryoga to find
himself running for his life in a place that was absolutely foreign to him.
 He'd even been in places like he was in now: torch-lit stone corridors
that went on forever except when they were interrupted by wooden doors or
sharp turns.

But there was something about that blond guy learning over Ukyo that
unnerved him--really unnerved him.  No one should have called up a Shi Shi
Hokoden so easily, especially since he barely looked depressed.  He looked
more--curious?  It didn't matter; he wasn't going to take any chances.

So Ryoga ran.

Draped over his shoulder, Ukyo bounced loosely, still out cold.  He had no
idea what the man had done to her, but he was certain it was nothing good.
The way she flopped about as he ran made him think of some movie he watched
a long time ago--something to do with cavemen or a huge gorilla or
something like that.  The way people stared at him as he ran past, they
were probably thinking he was some kind of madman. Ryoga squelched a
hysterical urge to grunt.  

"Excuse me," He called out to a young woman who had just entered the
hallway through one of the doors.  "Can you tell me where I am?"

The woman, dressed in plain brown dress, looked from him to Ukyo and began
backing away, babbling words that made no sense. When Ryoga took a step
towards her, she screamed and ran back into the room she left, slamming the
door in his face.

<Well, that helped.> He thought bitterly as he resumed his run.  <Boy,
Ukyo, you sure picked a fine time to take a nap. I could use your help
right about now.> Something bothered him about the situation. He just
couldn't put his finger on it.  

Shouts behind him spurred him to go faster.  The corridor was growing more
crowded, as women wearing the same nondescript dress gasped and men dressed
in what appeared to be rough homespun shirts and tight pants quickly
cleared a path for him to run through.  To his relief, he found a staircase
and dashed down it, thinking, <When in doubt, always go up.>

He was therefore surprised when he suddenly found himself in broad
daylight. Several men, clad in strange breastplates, looked up at him from
a dice game they were playing.  For a moment, all stared at each other
silently.  Then, with a cry, the men dove for their spears leaning against
the ramparts.

Ramparts? Ryoga spun about, confused.  He appeared to be on the lower level
of a stone battlement. Behind him, black stone rose up to form the high
tower of a castle.  To his right, he could see between the ramparts' gaps
the greenery of a heavy forest, spreading out in all directions. And
directly in front of him were the men, spears lowered as they began to
encircle him.

He settle Ukyo more comfortably against his shoulder.  "I could really use
your help right about now, you know."  He said to her.  When she didn't
respond, Ryoga sighed, shrugged, then, with a large bellow, charged the
nearest armor-clad man, whose eyes widened before he was bowled over,
literally.

Hit. Whirl. Uppercut. Shift. Ryoga's mind, which was usually on autopilot
when he fought, worked furiously.  How the hell did he and Ukyo wind up in
a castle?  The last memory he had was being in Ukyo's bedroom, and her
mirror turning black and all those weird lights encircling her.  Duck.
Spin. Kick.  But that was just a dream, wasn't it?  There was no way what
happened in Ukyo's bedroom could've happened.  People just didn't get
sucked into mirrors in real life.  Well, there was that time with the Naban
mirror, but no one was sucked in against their will.  Ranma, perhaps, but
he didn't count. Dodge. Pull bandanna. Fling.

So how did they wind up here anyway?  And who was that weird guy leaning
over Ukyo? And why hadn't she woken up yet?  And why did everything feel so
*wrong*? Ryoga realized that the questions required heavier thinking,
something he couldn't do battling scores of spear-poking men.  And though
he was doing just fine, even with Ukyo slung over his shoulder, Ryoga knew
the value of a strategic withdrawal; it helped saved his butt many times
when he was fighting with Ranma.  Plus, he was running out of rampart room
and if he needed to do something, now was just about the time.

Look over rampart. See moat. Judge distance from moat to dry land. Duck.
Grab spear. Yank. Swing into other spears. Run. Hold out hand. Grab
returning bandanna. Look. See flagpole. Judge length, thickness. Compare to
relative span of moat seen earlier. Sidestep. Push. Punch. Grab belt off
waist. Snap once. Jump. Slash belt through flagpole. Land on man's head.
Leap off. Land on flagpole toppling over rampart. Steady Ukyo. Run.
Balance. Run. Balance. Look down. See end of flagpole. Gulp.  Leap off end
of flagpole. Pray. Land on other side of moat. Dodge water from flagpole
splashing into moat. Heave a sigh of relief.

For some, living a swashbuckling life is stuff to be watched in a movie
theater and sighed wistfully over.  For Ryoga Hibiki, however, it was a
lifestyle that did nothing but wear him out.  The feat he just performed
had already left his mind as he turned to stare up at the castle he just
escaped.  The ramparts were crowded with faces, peering silently down at
him as though they were in awe of what he just did. Somewhere in the silent
wall of people--Ryoga was certain--was the blond man who had been leaning
over Ukyo when he awoke.  And he bet all his possessions that the man was
not very happy right now.  

He glanced at Ukyo, who had remained unconscious throughout the hoopla.
"Thanks a lot for your help." He said dryly. Then, with one last glance up
at the silent castle, Ryoga leapt into the nearest tree.

The air was slightly cool and unnaturally still as he went from limb to
limb.  In the distance, the soft trilling of birdsong reached his ears.
Had not the memory of tumbling head over heels in a rushing void kept
returning in his head, Ryoga would've thought that through his many
sidetrips, he had gotten lost in England or Scotland.  However, the memory
kept playing over and over, and the niggling concern at the back of his
head was threatening to blow into full-grown worry.

Whether he wanted to or not, Ryoga thought himself more of a traveler than
anything else.  He had been to places when boys his age were just learning
about those lands in history books.  With all the traveling he did, it was
hard *not* to pick up anything as far as language, customs, and money went.
 He could speak a variety of languages, including several accents of
English and a weird version of Latin he had learned while visiting some
monastery that he had stumbled upon.  Contrary to popular belief, Ryoga
wasn't stupid.  His ability to learn these languages swiftly and adapt to
his surroundings was quite astonishing.  Perhaps this was because Ryoga
never really thought of different countries as *countries*.  To him, the
whole world was one gigantic Japan. It just had different parts to it,
that's all.

No, Ryoga wasn't stupid. Dense as a rock, perhaps, but not stupid.

But as he hopped among the treetops, with Ukyo flopping bonelessly at each
light landing, Ryoga was forced to realize that the place he was at did not
resemble Japan at all.  For one thing, the air was a lot clearer here,
smelled sweeter, unpolluted by smoke or exhaust.  The sky was too blue.
The sun was too warm on his face.  It was as if the Industry Revolution had
skipped this area.

Then there was all those people.  Even if Ryoga had recognized the strange,
babbling language they spoke, he was hard pressed to identify the clothes.
It reminded him of a thick book he saw once at a bookstore, a thick
treasury by someone written by the name of Shakespeare.  Hey, maybe all
those people were related to this Shakespeare guy.  Those men were shaking
spears at him.  The dresses, the drab colors, the coarseness of the
materials, all added up to not part of Japan as Ryoga knew it.

And then there was the weird way they wound up in this place. How often did
people get sucked into mirrors anyway? Ryoga didn't know, but Ukyo didn't
say she was going to pop over to the Tendo's and then take a magical ride
in the Mirror Express.  No, something happened, something that Ryoga had no
idea how to resolve.

All this wound up to only one solution.

"RANMA! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!" He yelled, eyes screwed shut.

Funny, that should've made him feel better.

With a sigh, he opened his eyes and gasped.  While yelling, he had, of
course, closed his eyes for effect.  This had caused him to miss a gap in
the trees and now he was dropping quite nicely towards a small pond set in
a clearing in the forest.  He managed to let out one squawk before hitting
the water.
====================

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