---
The Zu presents

black wind


a many-things-x-over (mostly Ranma/NGE/Nausicaa)
by Rain Man:

authorschtuppff:  This took a lot of time and work.  And missing classes.
You have no idea.  Really.  Apologies to all the folks who own these
series.  And to Stephen King, who is the source of a couple of the nifty
lines in this.  Frank Herbert too of course.


Chapter 4:  on black wings
---

      "No, General, still no contact from Commander Kaji."

      Misato sighed, too softly for the communicator to pick up.  "Keep
me informed, Hitomi."

      She was thinking about the past once more, and wished that she
could somehow stop herself from doing so.

      She remembered the storm.  One of the fiercest toxic storms in
history.

      That storm had only intensified, slamming into the buildings with a
howl.  The gutters overflowed with the black rain, and no one walked the
streets except for those with no place else to go.  When it rained this
much, the smell of the black rain seemed to soak into the very stone and
steel of the city.

      The air was filtered several times by machines before it reached
Misato's room, smelling at least stale and sterile rather than of the
foulness outside.  It helped that Misato made use of the luxury of the
wood fireplace - the fire seemed to cleanse the air further, and added a
slight smokiness to it that kept her apartment from smelling lifeless.

      As she rolled her hips, she breathed in deeply, now and then
allowing herself to let out a soft whimper.  He liked to hear that, but
not the guttural moans she sometimes felt gathering at the pit of her
belly.  He was funny that way, Misato thought, but his body was lean and
muscular and hard against hers, and that was enough for her.  Usually.

      When they did this, she always kept her eyes on his body, and not
his face.  She did not like to see the faraway look in his eyes, or the
way his lips would twist and he looked as if he were a stranger on the
edge of pain.  It was better to distract herself with the sharp lines of
his body, the skin soft and smooth and wet beneath her fingers.

      His body was without a scar, and it looked almost pretty next to
hers, the evenness of its well-honed tan a sharp contrast to the many
pale lines that crisscrossed her flushed skin.

      Misato did not like the cosmetic surgery so popular among the
officers.  She felt that she needed to remember each injury, each battle.
Sometimes she wished she could forget the faces of her dead men, but she
did not want her face to be so cold as... as say, Kaji's, and she felt
that she would not forgive herself if she forgot death as easily as her
fellow soldiers.

      She shuddered then, once, twice, three times, and so did he.

      "Congratulations, by the way," he said.

      "For what?"

      He slipped out of her and stood to get a drink.

      "For having the lowest casualty rate, despite your troops' refusal
to use the mercenaries as scouting fodder.  No one else could have taken
the First Temple of Ix in that fashion with so few losses."

      She stretched out languorously, pursing her lips.  "And I suppose,
Kaji, that once again you had the highest casualties among the armies of
Torumekia?"

      He took a long, slow sip of her wine, a strong, sharp thing from
the province of Zinnae.  "I get the job done," he said as he shrugged.
"The loss of troops is inevitable and expected, just more tools to be
replaced.  The Seventh Temple had an unusual set of traps in its
Labyrinth.  I still took the Temple in the least amount of time.  That
is, after you, of course, oh most brilliant and beautiful of strategists.

      "Besides, the ambitious ones still flock to my command - they rise
quickly, those who follow me."

      She did not like that tone of voice when he used it, and was
frowning when he returned to her, caressing her still stiff nipples.  She
leaned into it anyway, and was soon frowning no longer.

      "I don't like to lose any men," she murmured as he touched her.

      "You're just another greedy woman, Misato.  I guess I must like
that in you."

      Oh yes, she admitted, he was a good field officer.  Practical and
ruthless, and always effective.  In some ways, he was better than her,
for if it was necessary to send men to die, he never hesitated.  He was
the one to recommend the use of mercenaries to the generals of the other
armies in order to find out the locations of the secret guns set into the
walls.  He was the one who drove his soldiers into the ground in order to
reach that much farther than anyone else.

      And he was good at this as well.  He knew when to use a little
pain, when to go that little much too far.

      Sometimes, he made her scream with it.  But not tonight.

      He waited for her to gasp, for her quiet "O!" of surrender, and
stopped to tend to the slowly roasting meat in the oven.

      It was just ready to serve, and they ate well of it (but not too
much).  This was often how they celebrated the conclusion to a successful
battle, and it was a part of their friendly rituals for him to serve her
in bed.  Then he would turn off the lights.

      Soon after, he had taken her again, slowly this time, until they
both cried out with the need of it.  All too soon, the overwhelming
immediacy of touch and sensation was over.  Already, he was dozing
unashamedly beside her: the sleep of someone certain of his own
exceptional performance.  His semen still trickled, steaming, from
between her legs.

      Misato had again achieved her own substantial rippling satisfaction
from all of it as well, which is why she found it most curious that she
could not seem to fall asleep soon after, as Kaji had.  The slow
constancy of his breath was usually adequate for the task of inducing
sleep in her, but this time, she seemed incapable of even relaxing.

      As she sat upright and swung her somewhat sweaty legs out from
beneath her rumpled sheets, a restless energy seemed to permeate her
skin.

      Misato released a frustrated puff of breath.  Perhaps she needed a
drink?  But no, that was not quite it.

      She resigned herself to the pointless fatigue of a sleepless night,
and felt better for the decision immediately.  Misato cast about for a
convenient piece of cloth and did not realize that she was using the
sleeve of Kaji's scarlet shirt to wipe her sex clean.  She would have
laughed if she knew.

      Still pleasantly sore enough for the contact with the soft linen to
tingle, she nonetheless felt much improved, dry.

      Misato wondered then if Ranma was asleep, and if so, if the strange
boy knew how to have dreams.

      She waved a hand before a dim, smoky hemisphere of red glass set in
the wall.  As the lights in her ceiling flickered back on, Kaji turned
further until he lay on his stomach, face buried unceremoniously in her
pillows.  She remembered that he often took all the pillows for himself,
and Misato felt an unexpected affection for him welling up within her.
She ran her fingers lightly against his long, silky hair, and smiled as
he burrowed deeper into the cushions, grunting faintly in complaint at
that light.

      "I guess I like you, too," she whispered.  "Even if you are a
coarse, uncaring, obnoxious fop."

      She was then taken with the feeling that she should put on her arms
and armor.  Misato's life often depended on a certain finely-honed
paranoia, and when she felt urges of this sort, she always followed them.
She decided not to wake Kaji, as he would probably say something about
how such foolishness was just like a woman.

      She once more felt that unexpected tenderness when she watched him
sleeping, drooling onto her pillows.  She kissed him once, softly,
between his shoulder-blades, before she walked away, and closed the door
to her rooms behind her.  She wandered out of the residential compound,
not quite aimlessly, armored boots clicking against the concrete
walkways.

      The rain had stopped by then, and she could see the moon high above
her, still partly obscured by low, heavy clouds.

      Misato found herself walking down to the barracks of her troops.

      And then she felt the boy's voice in her head, and it said,
"Misato... they're coming."  There was an image of a giant descending,
gird with rings of light, holding fire in its hands.

---

      That first time a God-Soldier had come, she had wasted perhaps half
of all her Corsairs.  Even the newest guns they had hastily stolen from
the prototype labs were useless against it, deflected by a bright orange-
red field of light. Who could have known that the rumors of the AT field
were true?

      In the end, it had been Ranma, untrained, alone, and terrified, who
had destroyed the invader.  Misato had needed to kidnap him and take him
to Malkuth herself even as the God-Soldier was destroying the city.

      "Damn it, Captain!  Don't do this; we can't risk Ranma!  Not yet!
If we lose him we lose everything!" Ritsuko had screamed at Misato as the
Red Cross slaughtered the guards in the way.

      "Ritsuko, we are already losing everything.  Only the child can
stop it now."

      And so the Doctor helped them.

      The Dragon crushed the enemy with ease.

      But that first Ranma, the Ranma she had found beneath Ix, would
never see daylight again after that.  In the secret files, that first
Ranma was designated Ranma0.

      And that was part of the reason why, years later, it was always
difficult for Misato not to touch Ranma28, afterwards.  Even when he
still dripped of the liquid life from the cockpit, smelling of blood and
looking like a bedraggled, wet cat coughing up the last of the fluid from
his lungs, she felt the need to touch him.  To remind herself that he was
still alive.  And to remind himself that he was still alive.

      They never looked at each other after he completed a piloting run.

      Not when a dozen technicians surrounded them and sharing that
glance might reveal to others more than it should.

      "What do you think the good doctor would think if she knew of the
link?" Misato had once asked him, over coffee.

      "She would have you," Ranma had said after a moment's deliberation,
"confined and studied.  With me.  To probe and ponder and manipulate the
link.  And the Princess Regent would allow it."

      She had nodded.  "I would be a lab rat."

      "Just like me."

      And so they did not look at each other directly while in the
presence of others.  Nor did they touch (especially, they did not touch!)
in front of her fellow officers and command staff.

      But there were times when it was difficult not to.  And it was
always worst right after a piloting run, with him almost glowing of the
moltron radiation, and in pain and needing her.  Misato always found
herself with her fingers clenched and an almost throbbing need to weep
during those times, and she thought about what it was like for him, to be
sharing the thoughts of the Dragon.

      After that his first battle with the second Angel, seven years
after the first one had been destroyed by his predecessor, he had fallen
unconscious, and the medical team had spent hours checking on him before
leaving him alone, sleeping in his chambers.  That first (second) time,
General Misato had waited and waited for the hours until he woke in that
sterile little room.  And she discovered with the little shards of power
she had left that he did indeed dream, and so she shared his dreams and
tried to share some of his pain as she held him.

      She would not lose Ranma this time.  Not like the first...

---

      Somehow, he had managed to land.  Had even managed to land just
outside of the Sea of Corruption, only a day's march from where he
estimated that the barge with their equipment (and with their friends who
were their squires who, were most likely dead) had fallen.

      By then, the pain of using the Gift had left him, and he knew what
to do.

      Shinji noticed that Akane was moaning as he gathered their gear
together.

      "The flames," she said.

      "Please," she said.

      "Mother," she said, and her tears were falling all the while as he
strapped her into a harness that he would wear on his back.

      Shinji merely grit his teeth.  "It's just not fair."

      "Oh, Ryoga..." she whispered last as she drifted into a deeper
sleep.

      He wondered how Ryoga was, and hoped that he and everyone else in
the Valley might yet live through this night.

      Shinji and slung his and Akane's rifles on his right shoulder and
their swords on his left.  Their daggers he tucked into his soft-soled
leather boots, and their satchels and water bottles onto the same harness
that Akane now rode.  The tent they would not need - and it was too large
for use in the Forest in any case.

      He fastened Akane's mask and then put on the one that Lord Tofu had
given to him long, long ago, before he pulled on the harness.  Her head
rested against his neck and her arms hung loosely over his shoulders.
Her legs were pulled up by the ropes of the harness, knees at the level
of his waist so that they would not get in the way of his movements.

      Even weighed down like this, he knew he could cover perhaps thirty-
five miles in a day - tonight, he would have to do forty, and deep into
the Forest as well, if they were to avoid the enemy patrols that had
already begun to scout in the area.

      He strode into the deadly forest, and wondered about the face of
his father.

---

      "That was a nice day, when we went swimming," he whispered slowly,
dreamily.

      "Ryoga, take this," his Mother said as she handed him his father's
sword.  "The hardening sickness has reached your father's arms.  It won't
do us any good, but it's been with the family for seven generations now,
may it bring you fortune."

      The weight was strange and unfamiliar in his grip, and it took him
both hands to even lift the point of the massive broadsword.  "Yes,"
Ryoga whispered, licking his dry lips.

      Ryoga could still remember when his father had first noticed the
hardening sickness, the sign that he was dying.  Even with the mountains
of the valley and the strong, steady breeze that kept its air clean as
shelter, toxins still accumulated in the bodies of the unlucky, killing
them ever so slowly.  Dazed, Ryoga thought about the times Akane would
lecture to him about the poisons of the Forest of Corruption.  She would
hit him sometimes when he was distracted (and oh, he was easily
distracted when he was with her), but she never struck hard and she was
always so patient, so kind...

      Outside was the sound of men dying.  Explosions in the mist.  The
shrieking of gutted horseclaws.

      "Run, Ryoga."

      He murmured, "I should find Lord Tofu... he's fighting them at the
mouth of the valley, I should, I should - "

      She slapped him.

      "I won't leave your father, but run.  I don't want your father's
line to end with you.  The sword is for when there's no place else to
run.  Get out of here, now!  And never forget the glory that was the
valley, and that you are of royal blood!"

      Numb, he stumbled down the staircase and out the door as quickly as
he could, barely noticing as he fastened the mask on his face.  Just as
he made it halfway down the street, there was a roar passing overhead,
and then a whistle, and then he turned to look and his house was just a
burning hulk.

      He shambled with a sluggish aimlessness, he did not know for how
long.

      It was difficult to understand what was going on, it was impossible
to think with the thudding explosions in the distance.  Explosions so
loud that the noise thudded in his chest.  He tripped on something, and
got to his feet, not noticing that it was his mother's severed arm, a
band of whiter skin around the finger where the signet ring of his family
had rested for years.  The ring was in a pouch tied about his neck, and
its weight seemed even greater than the vast sword strapped to his back.
Time seemed completely meaningless and nothing made sense at all, not at
all.

      The smoke would have choked him if not for the mask, and visibility
was barely ten feet.  There were shapes in the darkness, large humanoid
figures demolishing everything, and when the screaming finally started to
fade, finally, Ryoga ran, ran as quickly as he could, through the night
of fire and smoke and death.

      He could imagine what Akane would say to him, in that voice of
hers, which was almost shrill when it was angry: "Dummy!  Don't stop to
think now!  Be strong!  You're a man now, right?  I'm not always going to
be around to take care of you!  Do you want to die?"

      He turned a corner and suddenly there was an armored footman in
front of him in with the mark of a silver swastika on his helm and an axe
in one hand and a shield in the other.  The blocky shape of the armor and
the slits in the visor for breathing that were shaped like teeth gave the
soldier a monstrous, nightmarish appearance.

      Ryoga's feet just stopped moving.

      "No, Akane," he said dreamily.  "I don't want to die, I want to see
you again."

      The axe drew his eyes as it arced up so terribly high, and began a
descent that seemed so oddly slow.

---

      She could not move her arms.  Or her legs.

      She could not feel anything, really.

      But she could see, and her vision was jarred up and down in a
relentless, continuous motion.

      "The feeling will return in a few hours," he said when he finally
noticed her waking (it was the change in her breathing that did it).
"Don't try to speak, you will not be able to, for a while yet."

      It was very dim around them, and most of her field of vision was
taken up by the sight of a strange man's neck inches from her face - less
when his loping stride caused her head to bump against him.  But she
could tell where they were, oh yes, could feel it even before she was
fully awake.  The telltale scent like almonds and cloves and other things
not quite like familiar spices faint in her nose - the barest hint of the
perfume that was the miasma - the killing air of the Sea of Corruption.
She could not quite feel the weight of her mask, but she could tell it 
was there by the slightly sour smell of its hollowed flux fiber filters.

      Was she a prisoner?

      She was the student of one of the greatest warriors of the age, she
reminded herself.  Akane willed herself to move, focused all her
concentration and strength of mind, thought of all the memories, the
years and years of training, since the age when she could walk.  The tip
of her right little finger twitched, ever so slightly.  And she
concentrated on that, trying to move a little more at a time.

      "I suppose," he said, huffing a little with the exertion of
carrying over two hundred pounds of equipment and girl on a long march,
"that you wish to know what is going on."

      Then she recognized Shinji's voice and, if she could have, Akane
would have shrieked at him.  The Valley was in danger!  That was what she
had heard before everything had turned dark.  It was somehow worse that
this man - no, little more than a boy - it was worse that he spoke so
slowly, so carefully.  With a hesitant pause behind and in front of every
reluctantly escaping syllable from his mouth.  And his voice was rendered
even more irritating by the effect of the mask he wore - it sounded as
though it were too large for him.  She needed to do something, her people
needed her!  There was no time for this, she needed to do something!

      He felt the movement of her breath puffing angrily through the
filters in her mask against the small hairs on the back of his neck.
"Yes, I must tell you.  I wish I knew where to begin."

      "I wish I could make amends for the debt I owe you.

      "I, well."

      When he chuckled, it was a pained, empty sound.  It sounded to
Akane like an animal caught in a trap just before it might chew its leg
off in order to escape.  Or maybe after that.

      "Your Lord Tofu is masterful.  You should believe in his power."

      She discovered that at least she could blink at will.  And was
further agitated by the crusty sensation at the corners of her eyes.  She
willed her head to dip forehead, and fluttering her eyelashes, fiercely
imagined those slender hairs stabbing into this Shinji's neck.

      "I was never good at speaking - it was always my worst failing.
I've been thinking of what to say to you for hours and I just don't know.

      "So, I guess I'll begin with my name.  I should have done this the
first time we met, when you saved me."

      Get on with it already, she screamed in her thoughts, thinking
about the sound she had heard over the communicator - the sound of war
machines in flight.

      "My name, Princess of the Valley of the Wind, daughter of Zamir, is
Shinji Ikari.  I am the last son of a little known farmer named Thol.

      "I know how you feel, Princess."

      He sensed the indignation in her.

      "It's true, Akane.  I never told you how you came to find me
crashing through the forest in a fancy-looking Melef.

      "You and Lord Tofu and everyone at the Valley so kind...  I...
wanted, needed to forget what happened.  Lord Tofu knew.

      "Akane, once there was a people who, like those of the Forest in
the old stories, watched and preserved and struggled for a better future.
Who knew of the goodness of the insects, and of the dangers of
technology.  They stood for honor, and law.  Once, they saved my life.

      "Now, I am the last," he said in that slow, sleepy, shy voice.

---

      The siege had lasted for weeks.

      At first, it had seemed to be an attack by common mercenaries, just
another band of foolish men lured by the rumors of the treasures of Ix.
Motley raiders in pieced-together suits of rusty armor with perhaps one
or two creaking Melefs.  Nothing to fear, the walls of each Temple were
thick and high and composed of a secret that did not burn and would not
shatter.  There were gun emplacements hidden and hardened at strategic
locations atop those towering walls, guns unlike any other in the land.
Guns that spat energy and fire and the humming soundless sound that was
death to men in armor.  Guns that never needed to stop firing to be
reloaded with shells.

      Life had gone on as normal inside the Temple, where the students
woke at the usual time for their studies and children played in the
underground gardens and everyone took a turn at cultivating the farms in
the caves.  Only the Knights of Steel had anything to do with worrying
about the siege, and they seemed merely bemused by the way the raiders
smashed themselves again and again against the walls without success.

      "What a waste of men," the philosophers would say.  "Truly foolish
are the ways of men."

      That is what they communicated to the other Temples with their
machines: just another group of fools, no need to worry.  The enemy did
not seem terribly organized nor did they even have minor air support -
not a single sighting of a gunship at all.

      The only strange thing was that this group was so persistent.

      "Shinji, I will not approve of this plan of yours.  It is egoizing,
what you wish.  Self-advancement.  Acolyte of Steel, you take too much
upon yourself."

      "But, sir," there were times when he hated how slowly he had to
speak, how poor and weak his arguments seemed because of his stutter, "we
should find out what it is they want, surely, if they keep on coming like
that.  It would only take one knight dressed as they are to scout and
find out - "

      "Acolyte, we do not even know what tongue they speak.  They have
never attempted to communicate, they only attack.  A spy might get torn
to pieces out there, perhaps by our own guns.  We are safe here and they
shall give up soon enough when they realize how pointless it is to attack
the House of Ix."

      But some of the younger Knights took his side, and that bode
poorly,  because then the debate took on a sided-ness, with the "hot-
headed" young against the "obstinately slow" old.  And all the power and
rank belonged to the most experienced officers, so the resolution to do
nothing held fast, even as more and more of the other Knights grew
curious as to why they still came, after weeks of continuous failure.

      Then, they were gone.  The raiders stopped and the blackened lands
just beyond the walls were still smoking.  Empty of life.  After the
prolonged, constant fire, the silence of the guns was beyond eerie, that
last morning when the debate had finally tipped in the younger knights'
favor.

      With the communicator machines, the Knights conferred all over the
lands at once, from the Second Temple outside Tepes, to the Seventh
Temple at the border with the Dorok lands.  And they discovered that,
simultaneously, all over the provinces of Torumekia, the raids had
stopped.  Except for the First Temple of Ix, which had never been
attacked at all.

      Then the bombs fell, guided with a precision and technology the
Ixians had thought lost outside their secret vaults.  The guns of the
Seven Temples were targeted all at once, from the least armored angle of
approach, and all destroyed within moments of each other.  Then the
towers for the communicator machines were smashed by long shells guided
with unseen light, and for the first time in centuries, the lines of
information between the Temples were silenced, and the Knights of Ix knew
fear.

      Shinji had been watching on the eastern wall when the first troops
appeared on the horizon, troops in disciplined formation, dozens of
black, unmarked Melefs that moved with a discipline and grace that was
beyond that of common mercenaries.

      The Knights of Ix were perhaps the finest-trained and best-equipped
soldiers in all the world, but they numbered at less than a hundred full
Knights with only twelve melefs and a single GuyMelef at each Temple.
They had always depended on the secret guns for defense.  And though they
had all performed in active service in the border disputes of Torumekia,
it was as small groups of highly specialized teams, not in open warfare
on clear, flat ground.

      The Knights lost the walls in moments, but the fight in the tunnels
dragged on for days and weeks.  The secret guns underground still worked,
and the cramped corridors and bottlenecks in the dark were ideal combat
conditions for the Knights of Steel, who killed dozens for every one of
them to fall.  But fall they did, one after the other, in the darkness of
those lonely tunnels lit by the brief flashes of rifle fire.  The unknown
enemy came on and on and on, death after death, as if they did not care
despite how many they saw slaughtered in front of them.

      The young, the scholarly and the elderly hid deep in the secret
vaults, sustained by the gardens and farms about the underground rivers
that linked all the House of Ix in the very deepest levels of the
labyrinth, where the light came from the walls made of the ancient
technologies whose understanding was lost even to Ix.

      "It seems... young Shinji... that we should have listened to
you..."

      Yad Harald was Grand Master of the Seventh Temple, and Shinji's
mentor.  He was a friendly, bearish man with a heavy, imposing head.  His
fine white hair fell in a mane of snowy locks down his neck, and his
weighty brow shadowed the beady snake's eyes deeply set in his skull.  A
Torumekian footman stabbed him in his broad back as Harald had killed two
more in front of him.

      Shinji was just that moment of time too late, but his rifle shot
was clean and it took the stranger's head off.

      He was cradling the powerful old man's head in his hands, and felt
more than helpless as the blood soaked into his pants.

      Shinji's family were farmers at the edge of the Dorok province of
Gratha.  They were killed by raiders, but Shinji was spared, hidden by
his mother in a hole in the wall, where Harald had found him days later.
He had been seven years old then.  Harald had Shinji at his side when he
tracked down the raiders, and he was watching the way the young man (not
a boy, not with those eyes) stayed motionless, watching him, too, as
Harald himself slaughtered the men with his wicked, hook-curved axe.

      "Foolishness.  Shinji.  Did I not tell you to always be aware of
your surroundings?  It seems I fall now because of that."  The young man
would never forget that lesson in all the years after.  And he would
remember how he tried to talk Harald into returning to the healing vats.

      The huge man lay there, a relaxed, bemused expression on his face.
"Can't leave a trail for them to follow, Shinji.  You know that."

      He did but he needed to try something, he needed to.  But he would
follow orders.

      "Now listen," his voice faltered briefly before resuming its deep,
powerful tones as he said:

"Fallen children
where are you?

      less than perfect
      more than divine

fallen, strong, evil

where are you?

The Black Dragon, Malkuth -
      the kingdom of Man,
      its strength and power

God's anger
man's ambition
man's selfishness
man's strength

The Blue Dragon, Tiphareth -
      the beauty of Man,
      its heart and compassion

God's anger
man has created abomination
man has spilled blood
man has Fallen

The White Dragon, Kether -
      the crown of Man
      its soul and glory

God's anger
man will remember
man will survive
man will be evil

always

fly children

fly or be burned

burned when come the Judges
flying on rings of light

ashes we were born from
ashes we return to

God is angry

God is angry"

      His voice rasped, "Shinji, destruction is coming...  The Sea of
Corruption will burn... for forty days and nights... our chance at
salvation.  Don't let the Nazis destroy it... the Nazis, the Chosen of
God...  F-find the Dragons... Shinji... remember the f-face of your
father.  You have a Gift, Shinji.  I should have taught you more..."

      Then his mind touched Shinji's, and the secret ways were made open.

---

      "I still wonder, sometimes, how he had the strength to recite the
words of prophecy.  Then the voices came, the voices in my head...
You've heard them, the sounds of a people dying.  Part of the opening of
the Gift... well, I could feel my people dying, too.

      "And I could feel the life pouring out of him in my arms."

      Akane's arms, clumsily, clumsily closed about him.  Softly.

---

      He coughed, spraying bloody spittle across Shinji's white linen
shirt.  The young man's face looked much like it did when he had been a
child, but no, he was not a child after that, not when Harald had found
him then.

      Harald was staring into those eyes that were still the same, all
these years later, as he said, "Sh - Shinji. I knew that, even then,"
blood trickled from his lips, from his nose, "you had the eyes of a
Knight of Steel...  I Knight thee... Full Knight of Steel... brother
Ikari... of Ix... your foresight might have saved... us...  Take the book
of prophecy, and never forget these secrets - your destiny will be... a
great one."

      And his voice faded to nothing, as the old man pressed a book into
Shinji's hand.  The symbol of his authority as Grand Master.  There was a
cross of shining black crystal on the cover - it looked like mol-crystal
but a fragment that large could not possibly exist, and Shinji would have
asked about it.  But Harald had already breathed his last.

      Shinji closed the eyes on that massive, leonine head, eased it
gently to the ground.

      And ran.  Trying to ignore the horrible cries of pain in his head.
It was so hard to think!

      He needed a Melef if he was to break through the encircling lines
of troops.  He knew the late Grandmaster's armor was concealed in one of
the surface buildings - there had been no time to bring much of the heavy
machinery down to the tunnels.  He would need a small team with him to
get back to the surface - Touji was good at night, and a decent pilot.
And Kensuke for his marksmanship with the heavy armor-piercing cannon.
They were not full knights, they were his classmates just moments before,
but he knew them and he doubted that he could convince any of the
remaining full Knights of what he needed to do anyway.

      Or perhaps through the underground river?  No, in the event of an
attack like this, they were rigged to collapse at specific locations to
prevent invaders from continuing on to the other Temples.  It took days
to reach an opening from those twisting tunnels, and he did not wish to 
be buried there when the House of Ix finally lost completely and
detonated the explosives.

      It would have to be the surface.

      As he made it to the deeper caves, the caves where his people were
hiding, he heard the sounds of gunfire, and smelled the distinct smell of
burning flesh.

      Shinji fell to his knees, skidding to a halt as he heard children
scream.  They were being cut down like wheat before a scythe.

      "Timothy," he whispered as he moved to the door, slowly, not
himself.

      The sandy-haired child whimpered at the top of the stairs, knife
handles protruding from his tiny back.

      "Shin... san..." the little boy said as he smiled up at Shinji,
"you came back.  Nobody, buh... buh... nobody else did..."

      He showed a pistol, the long silver-handled one that Shinji last
remembered in the hands of Timothy's late father.  It was too heavy, but
Tim lowered it to the ground carefully, reverently.

      "I got one, for you... Shin... san."

---

      "I used to play with him some nights.  His mother was a scribe in
the library - she worked late at night, and I had to look after him.  He
was a good boy, you know.  He was the only one who never said anything
about my being from commoner stock."

      He was surprised when her gloved fingers brushed at his mask,
touching the lenses of his goggles.  He felt something on the back of his
neck.

      "You're crying," Shinji said.

      She wiped her hand across her eyes twice, almost angrily.

      "I," Akane cleared her throat a few times.  "I can walk now."

      He shrugged.

      "I can keep going."

      He felt that he could keep marching forever so long as someone
would listen.

      She swallowed.  "The Forest is thinning.  If... if you've been
heading west all this time, we can reach clean air in another hour.  Th-
there's a place free of the Sea just north.  A forest cave.  If we both
walk fast, we can rest without our masks and... rest for a bit, without
the masks.  If you'd like."

      He shrugged.  "I can keep going.  We can rest just as well when we
find the barge."

      "Shinji?"  Akane leaned her head against his neck.  "Shinji, I'm so
sorry."

---

      It had taken them a week of evading Nazi patrols before they were
picked up by a group from Torumekia's Third Army, the Dragon Army.

      The God-Soldier had descended just as they had arrived at the
SandRock fortress.

      Its battle with Ranma28 had lasted for all of fifteen minutes.
After being stabbed in the shoulder by the God-Soldier, the Black Dragon
had grasped the blade in those gigantic hands, and as its monstrous cries
echoed across the desert plains, tore the blade from its chest.  Then the
Dragon had slammed its black fingers through the barrier between them and
into the very neck of the God-Soldier.  And slowly, slowly wrenched off
that beautiful fair head.

      The Dragon landed afterwards, a majestic, demonic god-figure in its
man-like black armor, and teetered over, collapsing with a thunderous
impact.

      The shock and pain on Akane's face was mirrored on Shinji's, and
Misato wondered how much more intensely they felt Ranma's pain with their
Gifts.  Or perhaps, the General thought, she had simply grown accustomed
to it if she could hide how she felt that same pain as well.

      "This is why we brought you here," Misato said, "To fight, to
protect our lands from the Fuhrer and his creatures.  The same creatures
that brought the Seven Days of Fire of the old stories and would bring
them again.  The creatures that would destroy the insects and the Sea of
Corruption, our salvation as written by Nausicaa herself."

      "Why?" Shinji gasped.

      "The two of you are like him."

      She was gesturing at the picture of Ranma, now unconscious on their
screens.

      "You both have the Gifts needed to pilot a Dragon - the one thing
that can penetrate the Nazi God-Soldier's AT Field.  It is unlike
piloting any Melef or GuyMelef ever made.  It is difficult and," she
paused as the effects of Ranma's cry finally began to fade, "yes, it is
painful.  But we need you, our people and your people and all the peoples
of the land need you.  If you would stop what happened to your valley
from happening again everywhere, if you would stop the Nazis from
destroying all the world in their religious madness, then study here with
Ranma, at our New Babylon; help us find the other Dragons and fight with
us against all the monsters yet to come."

      The general had timed it so that they had just fully recovered from
Ranma's psychic intrusion exactly as she finished speaking.

      "Will you join us, Princess of the Valley, Knight of Steel?" she
asked.

      'Are you ready, Princess?' called the voices.

      'Are you ready?'

      'Fire burns, long memories.'

      'Are you ready?' and she remembered Lord Tofu asking her.

      And when they pledged themselves to the service of the Crown and of
all free men, Akane felt the keening wail of millions of insects dying,
and the fungi that composed the very substance of the Sea of Corruption
being burned by the atomic fire of God-Soldiers.

      And she wept for their deaths.


--- So Ends the Black Wind - To be continued in the Blue Wind

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