The usual, again, plus parts of this are darkdarkdark. YHBW.
Also, remember that Ranma only regains her heroic stature at the end of this chapter, so
anything weird about her is related to that.
C&C, please. This part is most of the big fight, and Akane and Sayuri.
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
"A Sto'r Mo Chroi'" ("Darling of my Heart" or "The American
Wake") is still Traditional. "The Whistling Pig" belongs, as
far as I know, to Robert Frezza. I don't know who wrote
"'Tis Mute ...", I lost the book. Whoever it is, they did a
good job. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is by Simon and
Garfunkle.
Warning: This part is [Dark] and may very well be [Squicky]
as well. Depending on how you look at it, it may also
deserve a [Lemon] or [Lime] tag, too, not to mention [WAFF].
You Have Been Warned.
By popular demand, the majority of this episode should be
read to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi from Carl Orff's Carmina
Burana.
You can find a MP3 at the site below.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.0 (Sept. 20, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part B: Driven On and Weighted Down
------------------------------------------------------------
The precincts of Nerima General Hospital are used to the
sights of lab coats and sterile stainless steel.
They have seen other things too; long brass needles and cones
of combustible incense, Shinto rituals, Taoist magic, and
Buddhist prayer. Through them have walked Priest and Shaman,
Doctor and (secret) Divinity. This has not, however, prepared
them for Ranma.
Nabiki looked over the preparations Ranma was making
apprehensively. Just behind her left shoulder she could feel
the overly-calm presence of her younger sister; in front of
her a person she had come to accept, tentatively, as a friend
was apparently going slightly insane.
Or maybe not; maybe, in a world that could contain things like
Jei, marking out a circle on the floor of a hospital room with
Mystic Chinese Symbols was perfectly sensible. Not that this
made her any happier.
Sensible or not, the combined emotional tones of Dr. Tofu,
(monitoring Sayuri's condition) Akane (apparently just
standing there) and Ranma (using some kind of wax to trace
arcane symbols on the floor with exquisite care) were
convincing her that Ranma was about to do something extremely
dangerous and making her extremely nervous.
Ranma finished her artwork and tidied up the remaining shards
of wax. She had created a circle about five feet across in one
corner of the room and had drawn another, smaller, circle
inside it, just large enough, Nabiki estimated, to sit in. Now
she turned to Dr. Tofu, who was examining Sayuri. "Any change,
Tofu-sensei?"
"No, Ranma-san," Dr. Tofu looked up from his work, "she is
still near death." He polished his glasses nervously, "Are you
sure this is the best option, Ranma-san? Death is only a
transition, after all; can you justify the risk of delaying
this one?"
"Tofu-san, I cannot find her soul. You have yourself observed
a dark blot on her ki. Medicine has proved insufficient; both
an exorcism and a ritual of calling have likewise failed. A
natural transition is one thing; this is something else.
"Nabiki, I am entrusting you and Acchan with the task of
ensuring that my body is not disturbed while I am away. _No
matter what you see_, no matter what happens, do not allow it
to be disturbed for 48 hours or until I come back."
"Ahhh ... How will I know it's you? If you see what I mean?
And what do we do after 48 hours?" Nabiki queried.
"In answer to your first question: that's what the circles are
for. In answer to the second: after 48 hours you may assume
I'm dead and act as seems best to you at the time."
"Oh, great," Nabiki mumbled. Over her shoulder she felt Akane
nod, gravely.
Ranma stepped into the smaller circle, being careful to avoid
mussing either design, and knelt down into seiza. She took a
breath to center herself and closed her eyes.
To Akane's Sight, Ranma's ki patterns solidified and became
much denser, then stood up out of their body and turned to her
with a grave nod. Ranma's body continued a slow and deep
breathing as her ki turned Elsewhere, stepped over a
metaphorical wall, and was gone, trailing behind it the very
faintest thread of power, still touching the body it had left
behind.
"Wonderful," Nabiki blew out her cheeks and turned to Akane,
"now what?"
"Now you do what she told you, Oneechan. You keep anyone from
touching us for 48 hours." Akane stepped past Nabiki and
swiftly coiled a string of prayer-beads into a smaller circle
inside the main circle. Then she stepped inside and knelt.
"And what are you ... what do you mean _us_?" Nabiki turned in
alarm, and reached out; but Akane had already centered and
closed her eyes, and she snatched back her hand, seeing Dr.
Tofu move toward Akane with alarm. Then she saw Akane's
breathing slow and deepen, and knew she was too late. "If she
gets killed in there," she vowed, "I'm gonna _kill_ her!"
And Tendo Akane stepped up from her body and set the controls
of its life as she had Seen Ranma do. And turned toward the
wall that crossed her vision in a certain metaphorical
direction. It was low and made of fieldstone, weathered by the
endless years; it would be no trouble to step over.
She did so deliberately, following in her sensei's footsteps.
And walked, though she did not know their names, down the
Street of Tears, past the River of Dust, down into the Dry
Land, where all the stars are strange. Down the road that
leads toward the Houses of the Dead and beyond them to the
docks and piers that reach out into the Starless Sea.
------------------------------------------------------------
She walked down the street and she did not look back. The
great stones that the street was made of were worn smooth
across their breadth by the passage of countless feet, but
there was a dip in the middle of the blocks about a foot wide
where the majority of traffic had passed by in years without
number.
All who travel that street know its name, by instinct if by
nothing else, and its surface is worn not only by footsteps
but by the slow erosion of numberless tears.
Those tears flow off the street into drainage channels, which
flow into gutters, which feed canals, which run from that
street to the west, joining with the river a little to the
side. Into that river they flow and there they vanish, drying
into dust and forever gone in instants, indistinguishable from
all the other dust that flows there, dust to dust and ash to
ash forever.
In that place there is no sun, and neither rain nor wind ever
disturbs the silence. The dry air absorbs sound and moisture
alike and no hint of life ever comes there save for those who
have passed beyond it. The only light comes from above; for
there are no streetlights either, and the houses and taverns
of the city put out no lanterns, nor do they light torches to
find their way.
Instead they see by the light of stars beyond number or
estimation; stars that shine down from the sky in glory
undimmed and undimmable; brilliant in constellations that have
never been named, that change by the hour and never repeat.
Stars so thickly scattered that their colors may be seen by
the human eye. Stars that wash the stone streets and alleys of
the City of the Dead with a light that, brilliant and colorful
as it may be in the sky, leeches all color and life from the
stone and the people there, and washes everything with grey.
Akane walked down the street in silence and silence swallowed
her footfalls. Over all that grey city she could hear no
sound, only a vast hush that seemed to have existed since the
beginning of time. Silently she traveled, and in silence she
passed the outskirts of the city. Silently she walked the worn
stone of the street past the thin spray of stone houses with
slate roofs that form the city's outposts. Silently she came
to a gate in the obsidian wall that marks the edge of the city
proper and passed through.
Silently she passed, and heard no sound from herself or from
any other thing. Until, from the city's heart, suddenly, a
stone bell began to sound. First the normal dull rumble of
beaten stone, growing in power as though to shake the entire
city, then from beneath the stone-song a new voice woke; first
a rising note, piercingly beautiful, then another, held in
suspension, then a last cry, prolonged and falling away; as
though some sweet and mighty voice was calling, "Love.
Strength. Heeaaveeeen. Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn."
Up, pause, down. Up, pause, down. And all around her the stone
walls and stone streets of the city responded to the bells,
singing in harmony, "Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn." And above her, from many places near and far,
more bells answered back; small brass clangor swelled by
silver tintinattus joining golden metallic voices triumphant
over harsh brazen roar of many great carillons undismayed by
mournful iron tolling, and over and above and under all the
mighty song of stone, "Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn."
Blinded by tears and deafened by glory Akane stumbled to the
side of the street and placed a hand against the wall,
fighting for control. As the bells continued she managed to
regain enough control to continue moving, but kept her course
near to the wall, reaching out to touch it from time to time.
As the bells rose to a crescendo she began to think that there
could be no finer fate than to stay here in the city and
listen to the bells. Then she stumbled past an alleyway in her
daze and gasped as an arm encircled her neck and dragged her
in.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Stupid girl," Ranma hissed into her ear, "are you _trying_ to
get killed?"
The last glorious crescendo faded into silence and Akane
gasped in the pain of its passing. "R-Ranchan! What?"
"What the _hell_ do you think you're _doing_, you baka?" Ranma
shook her like a rag-doll, glaring furiously. "This place is
dangerous enough if you know what you're doing! Which you
don't!"
"St-stop shaking me, Ranchan!" Ranma subsided. "You're going
to need me."
"Whatta you mean _I'm_ gonna need you!? If I need you it'll be
topside looking out for my body, you baka. And who's looking
out for _your_ body anyway?"
"I've got it in the same big circle you made, I saw how you
made the little circle, I got some prayer beads to make it,
Nabiki can watch, Dr. Tofu too, he's a good martial artist,
And I wasn't going to let you go down here alone, you're going
to need me _here_, I know it."
Ranma hissed in frustration. "If time wasn't so short .... Can
you at least follow orders now you're here?" she asked
harshly.
"H-hai, sensei," Akane whispered.
"Then come on. Quietly!"
------------------------------------------------------------
In the exact geometrical center of the city of stone (if that
city can be said to _have_ a center) stands a house. It exists
in the middle of a garden of roses and an orchard of apple
trees, and the roses and the trees and the apples they bear
are black.
It hums with a drowsy heat and buzzes with the activities of
the many hives of bees that feed from the roses and the apples
and that never seem to grow old; and the bees and the hives
and the honey that they give are black too.
It is made of black stone, cut with laser precision by
something that wasn't a laser, and roofed with black slate.
Its doors and window-frames are made of ebony and neatly
painted black, and the panes of glass in the windows are
heavily leaded and seem to have a black tint.
It seems from time to time to be as small as a cottage or as
large as a mansion; and from various views its grounds may not
seem to exist, or may stretch on for light-years into distant
star-shot mountains on whose slopes grow fields of golden
wheat.
Aside from these minor factors there is nothing at all to
indicate whose house it is.
To that black house in the middle of its black gardens and
black orchard came Ranma and Akane. By the side door.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Grrk," said Akane, seeing the house they were making for.
"Who lives _there_?"
"Death." said Ranma calmly. "Be polite."
------------------------------------------------------------
They entered the gardens from a side street and hurried past
the hedge of black-leafed holly that serves that part of the
gardens as a wall.
As she passed the hives of buzzing bees Ranma nodded to them
calmly, as to old acquaintances met going about their
business, and the bees dipped politely in reply. Passing under
an apple tree, Ranma reached up and plucked two apples from
its branches with a muttered word of thanks. "Eat," she said,
handing one of the glossy black fruit to Akane.
"Ahh ... but, I thought that you weren't _supposed_ to eat
anything that you found here," wavered Akane. Ranma, she
noted, had disposed of her apple in six bites, saving only a
large black seed that had rested at the core of the bone-white
flesh of the black-skinned fruit.
"I never said this was a _safe_ expedition," Ranma said dryly,
"eat your fruit."
"Grrrk," said Akane, and did so.
At Ranma's indication she placed the seed that she had
likewise saved at the base of the tree alongside the one Ranma
had placed there and bowed with her friend. Above their heads
the tree's branches waved, though no breeze blew. "Grrrk,"
said Akane, and turned away.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet hospital room, two forms sat still and silent. The
only sound was their breaths, which slowed and grew deeper
yet.
------------------------------------------------------------
Reaching the side of the house, Ranma opened the door and went
in, Akane following. They found themselves in an empty hallway
floored in black wood and wallpapered in a fetching black on
which many beautiful and intricate patterns had been printed
in black ink.
Ranma walked swiftly down the hallway and turned into an open
doorway. Akane followed her into a room that was at once both
large and small. Crossing the floor to a figure shrouded in
black and sitting in a chair that was turned half away from
them, Ranma knelt and bent her head.
"Ranma," said the white-skinned, black-haired girl dressed in
a blue cotton T-shirt and biker leathers who turned around,
"it's been so long! Can you stay a bit longer this time?"
"I'm afraid not, Tel," Ranma rose and briefly pressed her
cheek to the other girl's. "I've got a problem. Have you
processed a girl by the name of Asano Sayuri, of Nerima,
Tokyo, the home islands, Earth, recently?"
The sardonic-visaged young man who was suddenly standing in
the girl's place was dressed in skin-tight black leather,
revealing an impressive figure. "*Aw*," he pouted
devastatingly, "*you _never_ want to stay and play!*
*Boring!*"
The black-suited minor bureaucrat who replaced him had grey
hair and a golden pince-nez. "/Hem/," his dusty voice echoed
as he reached out and took an enormous book from nowhere,
expertly flipping through the pages and ran his long
fore-finger down the one he stopped at. "/No, that client has
not been processed by this office. Nor is her name entered in
the Book of Dust, nor the Book of Blood, nor the Book of
Glory./"
"Damn," Ranma muttered.
"[However]," sang the earthy voice of the tall black-haired
figure dressed in a short chiffon and carrying a boatman's
staff who now stood by the desk, "[while _I_ have not carried
her, I _have_ heard rumors of new activity in one of the
out-flanker castles of the rebellion.]"
"Which one?" Ranma questioned grimly.
"{That belonging to the 'Marquis' Delaniel.}" replied the
glorious choral voice of the immense robed and winged figure
before them. "{Ranma, be careful? Just this once?}"
Ranma quirked one side of her mouth. "But why start now?"
"AS A FAVOR," tolled the leaden tones of the tall, black-robed
skeleton, "FOR ME."
Ranma gazed up into the skeleton's empty eyes for long
moments, meeting its blue-shot gaze. Then she rose on tiptoe
and grasped its head in both hands and kissed it firmly on the
teeth, before she turned away.
As Ranma and Akane left the black house by the side door, the
girl in the blue t-shirt quietly said, "I'll sing for you."
As they passed the hedge-gate Ranma quietly said, "I know."
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma did not speak as she set a rapid course through the side
streets and alleys of that city, nor did Akane as she
followed. As they jogged, Akane noted that the houses and the
very stones of the streets were rapidly growing translucent,
as though they were fading away.
Behind her she heard the start of the chorus of the bells, but
it quickly faded, and they found themselves on the top of a
tall hill, or ridge. The ground was blasted earth and barren,
crumbly rock, and the heavy hot air smelled faintly of rot,
and of smells that are instinctively known as bad by all who
smell them.
Passing along the top of the ridge, Akane was relatively
pleased to note a broad, well-made road of stone, leading down
the ridge and across the plain below.
"Well," she whispered, as they walked to the side of the road
and skulked forward in the shadow of the tall stones that
marked its borders, "at least we'll have a good road if we
have to come back in a hurry."
"It won't be here on the way back," Ranma said calmly.
"Huh?"
"Facilis decensus Averno," Ranma quoted, "sed revocare gradum
superasque evadere ad auras,/Hoc opus, hic labor est-"
"Which means?"
"Down is easy. Up is hard."
"I'm _so_ glad I have you to tell me these things."
------------------------------------------------------------
Down the hill they went, flitting from shadow to shadow, and
across the blasted plain below.
They traveled for several hours by Akane's count, though she
did not grow tired. Akane could see no other travelers on the
road or off it, nor did she sight any patrolling force, either
on the plain or in the air above it.
Ranma, however, progressed in fits and starts by some method
of her own; now holding to the deepest shadows, now sprinting
for a dolmen or stone several gaps beyond the next one; but
always, always aware of all around her, scanning the sky and
the ground. Akane followed her step for step, shadow for
shadow, and dash for dash as the long, hot day wore on.
At last they began to come near castles or fortresses cut into
the irregular basalt mesas that covered the plain. From these,
whenever they approached closely enough, came alternating
faint shrieks of pain and equally faint howls of glee.
Akane shuddered as they passed these most closely, and huddled
closer to Ranma in the increasingly more infrequent shadows.
At each closest approach, Ranma would spend a few moments
scanning the hellish fort from the deepest cover available.
Finally, she spent more time than usual, and Akane turned her
sight on the castle as well.
Ranma seemed to hesitate in the great boulder's shadow, as
though awaiting a more tangible sign. If so, she received one.
One especially loud shriek of pain rang out over the darkened
earth and stone and Ranma's lips firmed even as Akane gasped
in recognition. "Ranchan, that wasn't like the other screams.
It sounded wrong. It sounded like Sayuri."
"Yah," Ranma said, "I'm afraid so." She tensed on her
haunches, like a great cat preparing to spring and sprinted
for the gate, Akane on her heels. Halfway there a cry of
outraged discovery came from the battlements, followed hard by
a rain of badly aimed missiles.
These seemed like javelins or arrows, but raised spurts of a
hellish flame where they landed; Akane resolved not to get hit
by any. At the end of their sprint Ranma pounded up to the
main gate, flattening herself against its rough timbers, under
the eave and safe from fire. Akane followed, panting.
"At least," Akane huffed, "they haven't heard of murder
holes."
"Be thankful for small favors," Ranma said, dryly, as a glare
of heat and light burst from the plain behind them. Then she
stepped a little away from the gate and put her hand flat
against it. A moment passed as she tensed her shoulders and
then the wall and gate began to rumble in a deep bass.
>From above, shrieks of rage turned to shrieks of fear, shrieks
quickly silenced by a bellow of command from inside the fort.
Ranma pressed the gate harder, and the whole front wall of the
fortress began to tremble. From within came another bellow of
command.
"What are you doing?"
"Someone once said, 'Give me a lever long enough, and a place
to stand, and I will move the world.' A lever's just a device
for concentrating force over time." Ranma tensed her shoulders
further, "Or you can do it with shih instead of a big stick."
Akane Saw immediately what she meant; Ranma was accumulating
power in the wall, every moment's small pressure adding to the
one before, growing moment by moment to a force that would rip
the gate from its hinges. Akane also Saw that the wall was
resisting, spreading out the power Ranma was putting into it
into the entire front wall of the castle. Though if it
continued to do so the only result would be the eventual
destruction of the wall instead of just the gate.
Lastly, Akane Saw how the trick was managed, a simple
application that caused her to shake her head in wonder that
she had not done it herself automatically. That, fortunately,
was a failing she could rectify. Squaring her shoulders she
placed both hands on the gate and began to push. Her
efficiency was not as high as Ranma's, but her greater
strength made up for the loss and the wall began visibly to
vibrate.
Vibrate like an over-stressed high-tension wire, but only
briefly; from within the walls came a final bellow of command
and then Akane _felt_ the wall stiffen into immobility as the
demonic Marquis within exerted his will and linked the wall to
his aura. The impact of the three wills colliding nearly drove
Akane from the wall in shock, but only briefly. She showed her
teeth in an entirely unconscious snarl as she redoubled her
effort; pouring all of her will into the struggle she pushed
with everything she had.
The struggle continued for a timeless moment as the wall
motionlessly vibrated from the conflicting energies, and then
three things happened at once.
>From within the walls new screams of fear and pain arose,
screams in entirely new voices.
At the gates Akane growled in a pitch worthy of an angry bear
and found reserves of strength she hadn't known she had.
And Ranma snarled silently and drew back her hand from the
gate, twisting at the torso to wind up before bringing her
hand forward again in a curiously slow manner that conveyed a
sense of unstoppable motion, almost leaving ghost images of
the hand and arm behind it as it came forward and struck the
gate.
------------------------------------------------------------
The Marquis Delaniel, Demon of the Seventh Rank, had a
problem. Not only had he wasted resources on this mare's chase
proposed by the patron of that deluded Jei, resources for
which he would eventually have to account to _his_ patron; but
the only prize which had actually been secured in the whole
disgraceful affair had proven surprisingly recalcitrant. This
had not put him in a good mood.
The further development that his own sanctum was under assault
had driven him to the brink of berserker rage. The fact that
his gates, constructed under his own eye, might fail, that his
castle's defenses might actually be breached was simply
insupportable.
He had, therefore, committed his own will and power to the
defense, reinforcing the strength of the wall with his own
life force. The fact that the unendurable scum outside his
wall were overcoming even the merest shadow of his presence
had thrown him into a howling rage and he had immediately
thrown the full weight of his power behind his will. This
meant that he himself was bearing the full brunt of Ranma and
Akane's push, of course, and it was most unfortunate that his
concentration left him incapable of noticing the fiery cracks
which were spreading across the walls in front of him and,
more importantly, across his own body.
The cause of his final, fatal distraction is open to debate.
It might have been simple overstrain from exertion. It might
have been Akane's sudden burst of power. It might have been
Ranma's Thousand Times Blow. It might even have been the
spoon.
------------------------------------------------------------
A demon was torturing her.
Just for a change.
This one seemed to find it amusing to remove her skin in a
spiral pattern. Perhaps it found some obscure aesthetic
pleasure in it. Or, it might have just been bloody minded. For
whichever reason, it seemed obsessed with achieving the
'perfect' pattern, 'healing' her and starting over whenever it
made a mistake. Or, at least, until it made its _real_
mistake.
She heard the cries from the wall dimly, through her body's
screams. They pricked her interest; they might mean that an
opportunity would arrive. Then she noted the presence of the
demonic leader. He had not come within her purview often
during her torment, apparently preferring to use underlings
for any actual work, but his presence here now was an
encouraging sign, and his obvious agitation even more so.
The servitor demon's first mistake was to ignore the cries
from the walls in favor of his own pursuits. Its second
mistake was to fail to immediately acknowledge the presence of
its master, a mistake immediately corrected by a kick to the
backside. The servitor scrambled after its master (its third
mistake) to be greeted by a backhanded slap, and a snarled
command to return the captive to safe-keeping, and then to man
the walls. Since all other forces were organizing for defense
it felt it must perform these tasks alone (its fourth
mistake). But its final mistake was to leave the prisoner's
arm unoccupied for two seconds while struggling with her feet.
The demon had left her arms free! And, oh look! A spoon!
Wasn't that kind?
Now to see if, when she gutted a demon, they could heal
themselves as well as they could when they lied to her....
Hmmm. Nope, looks like they couldn't.
And this one had left her _two_ knives, _and_ a chain, _and_ a
hot iron too! So kind.
Now she could find _lots_ of demons. And, what luck! Lots of
demons coming this way!
Now, what to use? Hmmm. Well, she'd start with ... oh wait,
she was still holding the spoon; that wouldn't do, she'd
already used it. Well, she'd just throw it at ... _that_ one.
It was cracked and glowing already, maybe it would break? Now,
let's start with _this_ knife ....
------------------------------------------------------------
The blow was minor, but totally unexpected. It cannot possibly
have hurt the Marquis by itself; but it was not 'by itself' in
any sense. It certainly got his attention. One second the
demon-lord was straining to hold the aura of the walls with
all his might, the next ....
It was not precisely an explosion. Rather, the whole front
wall of the castle, the Marquis' physical body, and the main
gates fragmented into cinder-block sized pieces and rolled
over the hapless demonic servitors like a storm.
Which only goes to show how important it is to keep your mind
on what you are doing. Sayuri, who was behind the demon she
was busily introducing to the concept of mortality, was
completely untouched.
------------------------------------------------------------
The stone-storm rolled over them, and fear followed it. Behind
them their once-prisoner was giggling madly and carving up
their fellows like a housewife carving up a frying chicken. To
either side were still intact and very solid stone walls.
Above them the alarm was already ringing, but what help would
that be to them if they died first? In front of them were only
two females, to keep them from an exit 50 yards wide.
It is often said that everyone gets one mistake. Unfortunately
for the remaining demonic servitors, theirs had already been
made. They stampeded for the exit. And Ranma smiled, and drew
her sword.
------------------------------------------------------------
Briefly, Akane managed a spasm of amazement. She _knew_ that
Ranma was red-haired death unleashed, but it simply _was not
possible_ to move that fast and still swing a sword that
precisely. Not that Ranma seemed to care whether it was
possible or not, and Akane charged through a gentle mist of
demonic ichor to reach Sayuri's side.
"Eeewww! Ick! Sayuri! Put that _thing_ down and come on. And
for heaven's sake throw away that poker! You'll put someone's
eye out."
"Oh! Akane-san!" Sayuri casually discarded the iron and rushed
to hug Akane. "You came! Thank you, thank you!"
"Come on you guys," roared Ranma, "they're all dead, but
there's going to be demonic air cavalry on this whole area
like a fungus in about 15 minutes!"
Sayuri put the knife she was holding in her belt (which had
returned along with her skin when she had broken her bonds)
and ran for the gap, picking up the knife she had left in a
demon's throat as she went. Akane followed, pounding towards
the way home, and the whole thing would probably have ended
simply, had not Delaniel made a mistake.
------------------------------------------------------------
Permit, if you would, a brief digression.
Demons lie. The fact is well known. What is less known by most
is the degree to which this is true.
The truth is, there are no demons. There are merely spirits.
Animated, sentient expressions of the meanings of creation.
Some lie to themselves, and say they are different. Special.
Better. Far too important to waste time on being good, on
keeping creation running the way it's supposed to.
After all, it's much more fun to lie. To say that they control
all the forces of death and darkness. To say that entropy was
their invention. To say that free will was their discovery. To
say that they own half of creation outright. To say that the
place of the dead and the place of correction were both the
same place, and both theirs.
Demons lie. The fact is well known.
Delaniel, in particular, was a Marquis. A border Count, that
is to say. A rebel of rank and power. Named, and Listed, and
possessed of a Word, that is - a concept of Evil to protect
and call his own. A Worded demon, moreover, whose Word
subsumed other Worded demons whose servitors had Words of
their own.
A powerful being was Delaniel, the Demon of a concept which
translates from the celestial as [Rude Strangers in Places
where Humans gather to Await Transportation].
( I hear you snickering from here. Such a small
concept, you say. What difference could it make?
What harm could it do?
Indeed, what harm? Rudeness in such crowded
surroundings is only to be expected, after all. And
one person, whom you do not know, makes little
difference. That's why it's much more important to
focus on the _big_ things. The small things never
matter.
What harm does rudeness do? Someone gets a little
farther ahead than they should. Someone makes a
number of people's day a little darker. Someone
erodes the bounds of respect and courtesy between
people a little. Someone tempts other people to do
the same, slightly. Someone gets everyone they
effect a little angry. Little things, no harm.
After all, it's not as though it was a big person
being rude. Big people are never rude, though
sometimes little people _do_ get in their way. But
that just involves their being brushed aside or run
over, not _rudeness_. And big people don't have
other people be rude to them, usually. Or, if they
do, they can just splat the person, no worries. No,
only little people are rude; only little people
have rudeness inflicted on them. So it really
doesn't matter.
( Once, Another had said "Whatsoever ye do to the
east of my people, that also ye do unto me."
Delaniel was at some pains to ridicule this
concept.
)
And if one of the people being inflicted with
rudeness is yourself? Well, A person's gotta get
by, you know? Gotta look out for number one, right?
Have you tried it? You really should, you know.
I mean, it's not as if it _matters_, if you're rude
to people. Time is valuable. You've only got so
much effort to spend. Got to keep your eye on the
big picture. Got to keep up with the important
stuff. Really, it _is_ old fashioned to try to
defend civility like that. Archaic, even. People
should know better.
Why, the rain forest is being cut down, even as we
speak! The spotted owl is dying out! Spending
effort being polite to strangers in train stations
is just a waste of time! You can't afford to sweat
the small stuff. After all, the small stuff doesn't
matter.
And, when you think of it, how many people, really,
are truly important enough to you to be polite
_to_? Just a few, right? Just a few people, besides
yourself, who really _matter_ to _your_ best
interest?
Your Mom and Dad, your close family, your SO, the
kids if you got them, your boss, of course, his
boss, maybe, that cop, naturally, that super-
model/idol singer. Not a lot.
And sometimes the difference between 'some', and
'none', is no difference at all. Which is why
you've got to pay attention to the small stuff.
Sometimes, the small stuff _matters_.
)
The point, of course, is that such a powerful demon as
Delaniel would never concentrate all of his power in one
place. Only a small amount, to provide a body to yell at the
servitors, and the rest dispersed, keeping tabs on his Word.
When Ranma and Akane's combined pressure caused his body to be
destroyed it deprived him of a focus for his consciousness and
power. In an ordinary demon such a loss would lead to instant
cessation, but Delaniel was not an ordinary demon.
Those beings known as demon-lords normally provide themselves
with special artifacts designed to give them an anchor in
cases of emergency, generally concealing these in some safe
place. Delaniel's was secreted in a blind hollow in the back
wall of his castle.
This presented him with a problem. He could now cut his
losses, wait for the intruders to leave, and then hunt them
down and extract revenge. On the other hand, his castle had
been ruined and some of his servitors had been killed.
A small thing, true, of no real importance. And yet, he was a
demon of position. He had responsibilities. And his political
position would be damaged if it became known that he had been
attacked and not retaliated.
On the _other_ hand, if he took a personal hand and failed to
actually _destroy_ the intruders as they deserved, if they
_escaped_, his position would suffer worse losses yet.
On the gripping hand, the slut his servitors had been
tormenting would certainly have difficulty moving fast enough
to escape, and the other two would probably be fatally delayed
trying to assist her. And they would assist her, he was sure;
heroes are predictable like that.
And there could be no question of the outcome. The false body
holding but a fraction of his true power might be
destabilized, true, but in his true power, and on the
celestial plane, no human could be his equal.
It was a simple question of celestial laws - on this plane he
could only be damaged by raw celestial power, power that the
humans did not have. No human _could_ have sufficient power,
the laws of creation forbade it,
And skill would not suffice to substitute; the web of lies
that define a demon-lord's existence are too strong to
overcome by mortal power.
Only once, he knew, had any mortal, had any _being_,
challenged this fundamental rule. And those ... were gone.
They had won their battle and then ... well, _no one_ liked
the implications.
A mortal that could kill celestial powers? Permanently? No one
wants that kind of weapon around, it might get pointed at
them. The last one had died, oh, _centuries_ ago. There were
none left, none at all. No, there could be no danger.
So that was why Delaniel made his mistake. Because the
difference between zero and one is a small difference, but
sometimes it makes all the difference in the world. That's why
you have to pay attention to the small stuff. It's always the
small stuff that matters.
------------------------------------------------------------
They had gathered in the quiet room to watch and wait.
Yuka was there, of course, clasping her hands so tight they
were white. Sayuri's father and older brother too, holding her
hands, and her mother, still in her wheelchair, waiting at her
bedside.
And Nabiki, in the corner, watching over Ranma and Akane, and
praying.
------------------------------------------------------------
The back wall of the castle crumbled with a roar of unleashed
power. Ranma spared a single moment to roar "RUN!" at Akane
and Sayuri, and then turned to face the form that now loomed
above the ruins. She slid sideways into the center of the
ruined wall, blocking the demon's path toward Akane and
Sayuri, running over the plain behind.
Delaniel rose above the rubble of his hiding place, brushing
shredded stone from the shoulder joints of his wide-spread
wings. His face was cat-eyed and cruel, framed by scraggly
locks of multi-colored hair. He wore a sarariman's suit and
tie, expanded to fit his 20-foot-tall form and wound about
with barbed wire. His cuff-links and tie-tack were made of the
skulls of human babies, his face was cruelly scarred and
twisted and his right hand bore a huge serrated sword.
"First you, and then the other sluts," he growled in a low,
chilling voice, "Die!"
Snarling, he thrust himself forward, with a clap of his
scraggly- feathered wings, swinging his sword back for the
death stroke.
Ranma, already in zanshin, flowed inside his guard and jumped
forward, uncoiling into a thrust to Delaniel's chest. Her
attack sank into his heart with sufficient force to turn him
partly around; and Delaniel's eyes went wide in shock as Ranma
called upon the power of an ancient bargain, sending it
flowing down into the wound and flashing out to all the dark
corners of his body and soul, destroying his web of sustaining
lies with a certain truth that no being, however powerful, may
deny.
Ranma thrust herself sideways in mid-air, rotating Tenchuu
inside the demon-lord's chest cavity before ripping it free
from his rib-cage in a shower of blood. Delaniel's sword
slipped free of his relaxing hand, rotating forward end over
end to hit the ground hilt first, remaining upright
momentarily before falling over with a pathetic *splut*. It
was covered by the demon-lord's falling body, which crashed to
earth and slid forward on its side for several meters before
slowly rotating over onto its back to lie still, looking
upward at the sky with an expression of vast surprise and a
certain hidden peace in its sightless, dead eyes.
Ranma landed lightly and spun on one foot, returning Tenchuu
to its sheath. Above and behind her a great wail rose to the
sky, hate and fear and rage intermingled, and far behind her
she heard the first responding roars. She sprinted forward,
passing the corpse without further comment, streaking for her
running friends ahead and looking for a place to make a stand.
------------------------------------------------------------
But it's the small things that make a difference. Take, for
instance, the difference between Bronze and Iron.
Bronze is an alloy of Copper and Tin, Iron is a metal that
must be mixed with carbon to be useful. Bronze is fairly easy
to produce and work, but difficult to get in quantity. Iron is
more difficult to process, but is fairly common. The
metallurgical characteristics of Bronze are similar to those
of early wrought Iron, so you would think that there wouldn't
have been much of a basis to choose between them early in
mankind's history. You would be wrong.
If you were meta-historically inclined, you might remember the
legends of Iron's supposed lethality to demons and spirits and
conclude that this was the deciding factor. You would still be
wrong, in a nice and accurate sense; Iron isn't any more
damaging to demons than anything else.
If you favor economics you might speculate about the
logistical advantages provided to a tribe that didn't have to
depend on Phoenician Tin traders. Or, if you are more inclined
to the military profession you might decide that the wider
availability of arms and armor turned the trick. But there
wasn't much else of strategic interest to trade in back then,
and the conquering Iron Men were mostly barbarians at the
start, and had little arms beyond spears and bows and axes
anyway, and there would have been enough Bronze for that.
At this point you might throw up your hands, and conclude that
there _was_ no difference, but you would again be wrong.
Because, once upon a time, the difference between cast Bronze
and hammered Iron was a very great difference indeed.
There is a Bargain that once was made by those who linked the
Iron in their blood to the Iron in their blades. There is a
power available to those who share the blood that made the
Bargain. There is a Price that can be paid to Those Others Who
made that Bargain, and a Prize that that Price can buy. There
are those who were Chosen as champions, to fight and win a
battle in an ancient War, a battle in which they had no hope
of victory, except ....
Except for those who made a Bargain; not always to win the
battle, but never to lose the war; not always to survive the
fight, but always to destroy the foe.
Except for the Iron Men, except for the Invincible Ones,
except for those who came down from the hills in their
thousands; and broke the hold of demons and spirits and
magical warriors and destroyed them or drove them away from
the cities and valleys they had ruled; and turned an Age of
Myths and Legends and Powers into an Age of Men; and ignited a
furnace of hatred and rage that has neither waned nor grown
cold in four thousand years.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma was running.
Running as though all the hosts of Hell were after her. Oddly
enough, they were. Ahead, she could easily see Akane and
Sayuri running too, but there was no point in catching up to
them until she decided where to make her stand.
She could not attempt to make it all the way back to the wall.
For one thing, the demons would catch her first. For another,
they would not stop their pursuit at the wall, rather, they
would follow her anywhere she went; _that_ grudge was old and
bitter, and the First of the Fallen would never pass up an
opportunity to destroy an Invincible once he had marked one
down.
So she could not fight to save her life. And even if, somehow,
she managed to evade her pursuers, their rage was well and
truly woken. If they did not find a fight in her, they would
seek one elsewhere. And with Sayuri fully celestial and
unprotected ....
Oh well, it wasn't like she had been expecting to die in bed
anyway, and she would definitely go out with an escort. But
she must somehow save the other girls. Well ... that would
require a certain amount of delay. If she could keep the
demonic host's attention long enough for Akane and Sayuri to
get to the wall and go over, then there would remain no link
to attract the host's wrath. Keeping the host's attention
would be easy enough, but she must also keep _all_ of its
forces in play and not allow any to go after an easier target.
That meant ....
The 'landscape' of the celestial plane is determined as much
by the meanings sought or found there by its inhabitants as by
anything else, so the result when one side wants to find clear
sailing to its prey and the other wants to find a choke point
should be obvious. Particularly considering that one of the
sides is Ranma.
"In yon straight place, a thousand/Might well be stopped by
three ..."
Words once written by a poet. They were written of a bridge,
but Ranma was willing to write them of the great canyon walls
that narrowed to a gap some hundred yards wide and perhaps
five hundred long that loomed before the girls now.
As they passed into the gap she increased her speed and caught
up with the others, pulling Akane to a stop. "Acchan, you've
got to get Sayuri-chan to the wall and put her over."
"Ranchan, you can't stay here! They'll catch you, and ..."
"Acchan," Ranma said gravely, "they're going to keep coming
until they catch me regardless. But if they catch me _here_
they may regret it."
"I can't leave you here, Ranchan!" Akane panted, "They'll
...."
"Acchan, if they catch Sayuri-chan on this side of the wall,
they'll go right through it and out into Nerima, where they'll
kill everyone they can catch, definitely including Nabiki and
probably Kasumi, your Dad, and everyone else in the whole
ward. And Sayuri can't run fast enough to get away."
"But, Ranchan, you'll _die_!"
"Acchan, swear! On your soul's honor, _get Sayuri over the
wall_!"
"I ... Ranchan," Ranma's eyes bored into Akane's, cleaving her
tongue to the roof of her mouth, "H-hai, hai, Ranchan." Akane
hugged Ranma fiercely and turned away. Ahead of her she could
blurrily see the steep incline leading up away from the
borders of hell, and toward the dusts of Earth beyond.
Fiercely, she attacked the slope, rapidly gaining on Sayuri,
who had continued running.
------------------------------------------------------------
Behind her, Ranma turned around and watched the approaching
demonic armies. After a moment's scrutiny she began to grin,
and then spoke aloud.
'Tis mute, the word we went to hear
on high Dodonna Mountain,
When wind was in the Oakenshaws
and all the caverns tolled,
And mute's the Midland's navel-stone
beside the singing fountain,
And echoes list to silence now
where Gods told lies of old.
I took my question to the cave
that never ceased from speaking,
The Heart of Stone that tells the truth
and tells it twice as plain,
And from the cave of oracles
I heard the priestess shrieking,
That she and I would surely die,
and never live again.
Oh priestess, what you cry is clear,
and sound good sense I think it,
But let the screaming echoes rest,
and froth thy mouth no more,
'Tis true there's better booze than brine,
but he that drowns must drink it,
And Oh my lass, thy news is news
that men have heard before.
She took Tenchuu in its sheath and threw it high in the air,
rotating around and giving off a gleam at its apex, before
falling back down to be snatched from the air by a sideways
snap of her hand. And, softly:
The king with all the East at heel
has come from lands of morning.
Their armies drink the river up,
their shafts benight the air.
And he that stands has died for naught,
and home there's no returning.
The Spartans, on their Sea-wet rock,
sat down and combed their hair.
And she replaced Tenchuu inside her jacket. The sword is a
tool for killing, and order of the day would be maiming and
terror, for a while.
Out of jacket-space she took a kusari-gama and whirled its
chain in a wide circle above her head, laughing. The haft and
handguard of the war-sickle was made of blackened steel,
covered with runes and ideograms, but the blade of the sickle
was a silvery ivory fang many times harder than simple steel.
In partial repayment of a debt a lord of dragons had given her
a fang, and sharpened it for war. The chain of the weapon was
cut of bone that shone white-silver like the fang, each link
barbed on upper and lower surface and decorated with small
ideograms at each corner. At the end of the chain a larger
link flared out into a barbed arrowhead shape that seemed to
resemble the silhouetted head of some fierce beast.
Spinning the chain around her head, she listened to the howl
of the whirling chain and laughed again. Once, she knew, there
had been tens of thousands. But the battle had been won and
the demons, and the Fae, and the Magic Warriors, and the
ghosts, had retreated from the lands of men.
And with their retreat had gone the need for invincible
warriors, and with the need gone their allies had quietly
withdrawn. No celestial had ever been comfortable with the
Invincible, save, perhaps, Those Who had created them, and
Those Powers played no favorites. So the forces they had
defeated had snarled in the darkness and gone hunting.
It was no more difficult to kill an Invincible than it was any
other human. They could win any fight, but the price was that
they must win _every_ fight, regardless of the cost. They
could destroy any foe, meet any challenge, but they must
destroy _every_ foe, must face _every_ challenge. And so the
traps had been baited, and Invincible Ones had died.
And fewer and fewer new warriors had stepped forward.
Bloodline after bloodline had lost the knowledge of their
heritage, going into cover and forgetting in order to survive.
And where there had been tens of thousands were only
thousands. And then hundreds, and then a few dozen, and then
less than a dozen. And then there had been less than five.
And now the very last Invincible alive stood in a bottleneck
on the outskirts of Hell, and watched the first racing demons
coming toward her, and cried out in a great voice, "Come to
me, ye hosts of Hell! Come to me, an Invincible is calling!
The storm is waiting for thee, the void yawns before thee!
Come to me, Hell-spawn! Come to me and die!"
And she grinned, wryly, as the first scattering of demons
entered the canyon, and she sent shih raging down the links of
the kusari-gama's chain and loosed upon those front-runners
the wrath of the dragon. And lightning leapt and capered from
rock to stone to wall to earth, scorching demon flesh at every
crossing and blasting great holes in demonic bodies and souls
before it finally gave up its energies in a torrent of
unfocused electricity that earthed itself through the few
remaining alive.
And then came upon her, not a few demons, but dozens. The
first, faint combers of the waves that would crush and rend.
And Ranma leapt to meet them, bannered by lightning and
heralded by thunder, riding on the wings of storm.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane ran, forcing her body to take deep, full breaths,
ignoring the tears streaming from her eyes. No time for
gasping or panting, now, no time for tears; she must call upon
every ounce of courage and skill that she possessed. Ranma was
counting on her to get herself and Sayuri to the wall between
life and ... this place, and Akane would rather die than delay
that arrival by so much as a single moment.
Far rather die.
Now, too late, she must admit the truth. She loved Ranma. Not
'her friend', not 'sensei', not even 'Ranchan'. But always and
only Ranma, her beloved.
She did not understand how it had come to happen. She had
despaired of its arrival, and now, too late, she despaired of
its departure.
Behind her, her beloved was fighting, battling an impossible
army to cover her retreat.
Within her, her soul wept in anguish; Ranma would die, be torn
apart, and _she_ was running away! Her fault! Her fault: too
slow, too weak, too stupid, useless, unskilled, no good!
'Ranchan! I'm _sorry_ Ranchan! Oh, Kami I love you! I'm sorry!
I want to be with you, Ranchan, I'm sorry!'
Briefly, tears threatened to blind her sight. Savagely, she
shook them off and upbraided herself. Stupid, useless, weak,
childish: stop! Ranma must hold until she reached the wall,
all she had to do was run.
A minor spirit, a kind of demonic lizard, leapt from
its hiding place to grab her thigh, teeth sinking
deep. Her next stride flung it away, to smash
against a rock further down the path and lie stunned
and dazed in the track. Unseeing and unfeeling,
Akane trod it underfoot.
Head fixed on the slope and the horizon, arms pumping, feet
spraying dust where they pushed back, Akane ran.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet room, a body knelt in a circle in a larger circle.
Hidden by its pants, a bruise was forming on its thigh. A thin
prickle of blood drops sprang up around the bruise and quickly
dried.
------------------------------------------------------------
Arms and legs pumping, Sayuri ran.
Her legs and torso hurt terribly, her lungs screamed for air,
her breath gasped and wheezed in the dry, choking heat, and
dust clogged her mouth; but all these things, she knew, were
lies. Truth was waiting somewhere up ahead of her, a world
that was real.
The knives tucked into her belt were real too, she thought,
but that did not get her to the end of the road any faster.
(She wished that she _could_ use the knives to do _something_,
but only faintly.) Lies all about her and within her, but the
truth was waiting at the end of the road.
Yearning for the real world, Sayuri ran.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a canyon on the borderlands of Hell, a storm was raging.
Demons choked the space between the walls of the canyon,
packed in so thickly that there was barely room to move or
turn, tripping over the maimed bodies of their fellows at
every step. Bodies that moaned or snarled or weakly struck
out. Through and above and around them Ranma rampaged
unrestrictedly.
Wherever she went she kept up a constant barrage of thrown
knives. The great, slender, wickedly curved fangs flickered
out in vicious arcs to slice through arms or legs or throats,
as many as four or five in one arc, before curving back to her
off hand, pulled by a thread of shih, and being sent out
again.
Snapping arcs of the sickle blade caused havoc wherever she
passed. The chain flicked out in seemingly unrelated arcs,
snapping into victims like a striking snake and curving barbed
links around them, or sinking its carven jaws into arm or leg.
Then a curl of steel would jerk the victim off its feet and
into the air, curving past Ranma where a fang would gut or
cripple it before releasing it to smash into a group of its
hapless fellows. Then the cycle would begin again.
Wherever she landed a blur of hyper-fast punches and kicks
smashed demons from their feet and sent them falling into
their fellows, tripping them and fouling their coordination.
Wherever no space was left to land, a lightning bolt would
blast a hole. A web of howling energy was sweeping and
sparkling from the walls, sucking up the energy from the dying
demons and arcing in coruscating beams from walls and
pinnacles; sending sprays of boulders and shards from the
walls to cause further havoc in the demonic horde and smashing
everything from the air except Ranma herself.
Beaten by a howling wind and blinded by lightning, packed in
like sardines and jostled like the bumpers in a game of
pachinko, uncoordinated, unfocused, undone and uncontrolled,
the demons were barely capable of resistance. Jostled, unaimed
hellbolts filled the air, and poor aim and reflex strikes by
claw or sword did far more damage to other demons than to
Ranma.
An ordinary host, even the most fanatical, would have at least
attempted retreat. But the pressure of arriving demons behind
was too great and more and yet more were coming, charging up
from the depths of Hell in a nearly infinite stream. Behind
them came oblivion, and even now its awful shadow darkened the
very air and sent sulfurous fumes rising from the trembling
stone. Far back and slow a darkness loomed, and the hapless
demons of the vanguard fought and scratched and bit and tore,
less to destroy the dancing storm-flame in their midst than to
get past her and out of the way. Even the certainty of
destruction Ranma carried with her was less terrible than the
looming shadow.
Moment by moment more demons arrived to choke the storm's
passage. Moment by moment the pressure grew. The difference
between unaimed but enthusiastic counterstrikes and no
counterstrikes at all was infinitesimal, but it was there, and
it, too, grew greater bit by bit as time went by. Small
differences, incremented by smaller ones yet as the minutes
slowly passed. But sometimes it's the small differences that
count.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet room, a body knelt in a circle inside a larger
circle.
Small wounds began to appear on its arms, legs and torso. No
more than a a half inch long each, they gave off a drop or two
of blood and quickly faded to thin scars. The average increase
in size of each successive wound would have required a
micrometer to measure.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane and Sayuri were half-way up the slope when the demons
pounced. Not all the demons in Hell had been _in_ Hell that
day; some had been present in the notional area of reality
Ranma had walled off from the rest of Hell with her canyon.
A small patrol was closer than the other strays and had set a
'trap'. Unfortunately for them no one had thought to tell them
about Sayuri and her knives. Thus, when a thorny bush tried to
ensnare Sayuri, she had a knife out and hacking branches
inside half a second. Blessing Ranma's instruction in the
simple trick, Akane drew a tai-chi sword from jacket-space and
cut the bush off at the roots. The two girls continued running
... which is why they weren't where the demons had anticipated
when they sprang their ambush.
A pair of demons suddenly sprang out at Sayuri, landing
slightly away from her in startlement at her changed position.
Both her knives were in hand immediately; here was something
on which she could use them without guilt. They were _knives_
after all. She was quite a good cook, and was experienced at
using knives. A fact the demons were appraised of, to their
immediate and continuing sorrow.
In the mean-time Akane had been accosted from behind by three
more ambushers who attempted a dog-pile. The attempt was, from
their viewpoint, utterly and fatally unsuccessful.
Evading the clumsy grab, Akane whirled gracefully and
instinctively cut one's throat before removing the others'
heads with a pair of vicious, lightning-fast blows. Within her
soul, a fire was burning, turning ki and flesh and blood into
a perfect instrument of will, an instrument that was unleashed
on the next six demons, who had made the fatal mistake of
being in the second rank.
The last group of servitors had assumed a distant blocking
position, prepared to retrieve any prisoner who might escape
the grasp of those closer in. In the event, it did not save
them; Sayuri ran over the two in her path, slicing flesh and
bone as she passed. The remainder got to appreciate the purity
of will and energy embodied in an inferno named Akane. Very
briefly. The firestorm swept over them and pounded up the
slope on her charge's track.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the canyon, the storm was growing in intensity. The clogged
bodies of the dead, trampled, and maimed were posing a genuine
problem for demonic attempts to move out of the canyon. Or,
indeed, to move into it. One might, at this point, wonder at
demonic motivation. Or, in other words, why are all these
demons running so merrily to their nearly certain destruction?
The answer can be stated simply: it was nearly certain
destruction.
Whereas, on the other hand, the great lords of Hell, currently
rising from Hell and pushing entire demonic armies ahead of
them as they come, are the sorts of beings for whom inflicting
fates worse than death are a pleasant morning's diversion. And
when a demon calls something a fate worse than death, you may
be sure that it knows whereof it speaks. All Ranma could do
was kill them, and that death was embraced nearly eagerly,
given the alternatives.
Ranma noted little of this, though. By now her facial
expression had locked itself into a gentle smile over an
almost inhuman serenity. Though, had she not been so deep in
zanshin, it is likely that she would instead have been wearing
a grin wide enough to crack her face. Nor was the serenity
only skin deep. Her wide, peaceful eyes, while not focusing on
anything in particular, were gathering information on the
totality of the battle she was fighting that would have made a
J-STARS chief sensor-tech turn green with envy. Her other
senses, especially her chi-sense, were equally active, and she
seemed, from her own person-view, to be hovering slightly
above the battle even as she was entirely immersed in it.
Internally, her feelings were mixed. It was true that she was
enjoying the fight, enjoying it immensely. It was a
unquestionably righteous fight too, fought against true evil
for a truly good cause. On the other hand, she knew how it
would end. She did not fear death, no, but neither did she
welcome it. Particularly not _now_; she had too much to do,
and was leaving too much unfinished. 'Death,' she thought
wryly, 'might be lighter than a feather, but just now it's
damned inconvenient!'
Unfortunately, inconvenient or not, it was inevitable. She
made an adjustment to her attack patterns that cleared the
canyon entrance and packed the interior a little more.
As long as she held it to the single fight to keep the horde
bottled up, she knew she could hold forever. But she knew that
it could not remain just that fight for long. Eventually, one
of the greater powers would come against her. Even sufficient
order being restored to the current mob would be quickly
fatal. Before that could happen, though, Akane and Sayuri
would reach the wall; and after _that_ nothing mattered.
She made another vaulting leap and again contemplated the
arrangement of the host pressing in to the canyon. When the
end was inevitable, she planned to move out onto the plain
before her and see if she could hunt down a prince or two.
Possibly even see if she could get close to the First himself.
She doubted it was possible, but it was an adequate closing
gesture, and perhaps she could make one or more of the high
nobility of Hell metaphorically mess their pants.
As long as Sayuri and Akane reached the wall.
No, be honest: as long as Akane reached the wall. Not that she
had anything against Sayuri, by any means. She had been very
impressed by the girl's courage, and, under other
circumstances, would have looked forward to calling her a
friend.
But she did not love her, and she did love Akane. It was
really that simple, and she wondered how it had happened. She
had _told_ herself not to fall in love with the other girl,
but apparently herself had not listened. In some sense, being
killed was probably going to save her from an immense number
of problems, but being pleased about the whole affair was
considerably more melodrama than Ranma had the stomach to
attempt.
Not to mention, she was exceedingly pissed off. Partly, she
felt a mild anger that some people couldn't let go a grudge
after four thousand years. Partly, she was mildly irritated
that she wouldn't be able to die in her proper shape. But
mostly, she was utterly enraged that someone was going to kill
her for things she hadn't been able to get in on herself. This
thought caused her to pull down a section of canyon wall in a
mild expression of pique. The wall fell on thirty or so demons
and reduced them to paste.
With another corner of her mind she was keeping an eye on
Akane's progress, admiring the girl's form, and cheering her
fight against the patrol. She was prepared to intervene with
missile fire, though she doubted it would be necessary.
With most of the rest of her mind, she was surveying the
tactical situation, and she sent herself on a bounding triple
somersault across two hundred yards of canyon floor, reaping
arms left and right and finishing with a snap of her kusari's
chain that plucked a demon who by size must have been at least
a Count off its feet and pulled it close to carve out its
heart and lungs before flinging it a hundred feet into the
air. The corpse's fall, she estimated, would crush at least a
dozen lesser demons beneath it. Serene at heart, the storm
raged on.
------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately for Akane and Sayuri, there had been more demons
out than just one patrol. More unfortunately, the second batch
was smarter.
Pounding down into the last shallow valley before the long
steep run to the top, Sayuri was suddenly hit in the leg by a
burst of hellfire. Shrieking in shock she fell and rolled down
the hill, only to be jumped on by a trio of demonic troopers.
Akane dodged the three missiles that came her way and plowed
into a squad of about twelve demons, killing three at first
shock, but then being forced into a defensive posture by the
remainder.
Sayuri soon proved to those demons trying to restrain her that
they would better have aimed for her arms. A flurry of knife
blows reduced all three of her would-be captors to steaming
corpses in moments, and she ignored the damage to her leg and
the knife blows to her side she had received in return for the
lies they undoubtably were and staggered onward.
Past the two back-ups the ambushers had placed ahead of the
girls she ran, killing them in passing, and again set herself
to the slope beyond. Akane had gasped out the importance of
what they were doing as they ran, and she would no more fail
Ranma-san than Akane would. If only it weren't so hard to
see....
Akane ran toward one demon, then curved into a forward roll
between two others, sword flashing. She snapped upright,
spinning to her left with her sword out, cutting into the rib-
cage of the demon who was charging her from that side.
Then her sword jammed in the ribs momentarily, slowing her
enough for five more demons to jump her at once. Akane went
down, striking out to her right side, as a demon grabbed her
around the legs and another pair wrapped her around the chest.
The fourth tried to grab her throat even as the fifth spasmed
and died, and the last two demons in the squad took aim with
hellbolts from a little away.
Akane smashed her feet up, driving the demon holding them into
the one grabbing her throat, dazing both and throwing them
away. The fourth demon looked up from his brief daze to see
the two squad missilemen falling with holes blown out the
fronts of their foreheads and decided to tackle the other one
instead. The other dazedly got to its feet as Akane rolled
over and over with her assailants.
Furiously, she struck out at one demon, smashing the blade
through its stomach, only to cut into its skull on the back-
swing. From its sudden corpse was released a sewer reek of
death and things unnamed and probably best left unnameable,
and Akane ripped the blade free from its sticking place as she
rolled over above her other foe and struck downward with the
hilt again and again, breaking bones and tearing skin before
crushing the thing's throat and bashing in its skull.
Coming back to her knees, Akane saw the fourth demon running
after Sayuri and grunted with effort as she threw the sword
straight and flat into its back, just above the hips. Wailing,
it fell to its knees, grabbing at its back where the sword
pierced it. Shuddering, it folded over, weakly scrabbling in
the dust and drooling ichor from the mouth and nostrils.
Akane rose onto one knee in preparation for rising to her
feet, but stopped and twisted desperately on her knees as a
shadow loomed over her.
Before her, on the top of the low rise, stood the last demon,
snarling and holding out doubled, clenched hands around which
had built up a blaze of hellish, green fire. Akane began to
throw herself forward in a knowingly futile attempt to duck,
but then stopped as a large hole was suddenly blown in the
demon's forehead from behind. Its eyes opened wide in shock
and as it died it lost control of the hellfire, which blew its
hands and lower arms off in a shower of gore and fire as the
rest of its body dropped slowly to its knees before falling
over on its back.
Akane got to her feet and rushed up the rise, reaching the top
in time to see Ranma turn back towards her foes far away,
putting something back into her jacket. 'Oh, Ranchan! Even
from there you're still looking out for me. Oh, Ranchan, I
love you.'
Dashing away another treacherous tear, Akane turned back to
the slope ahead of her, looking over her shoulder briefly at
the sound of wings. Far away, but gaining, she could see
another group of about twelve flying demons. She had, she
estimated, just enough time to reach the top of the wall. With
a last look over her shoulder at the canyon below, Akane set
herself to run.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet room far away, and yet very close, the still form
laying on a hospital bed began to breathe deeply and unevenly,
turning weakly from side to side and gasping, as though
struggling for breath.
In a corner of the room, one of the bodies kneeling inside a
pattern on the floor suddenly grew a set of long scratches on
its arms and a shadow about its neck, as though some cruel
claw had gripped there. The shadow faded quickly but the
scratches were slow to close.
On the back of the other body kneeling there a long, shallow
wound opened and waited some seconds before beginning to
close, slowly.
Watching from outside the circle, Nabiki began to chew on one
fingernail.
------------------------------------------------------------
Sayuri knew that the pains in her chest and the growing
weakness in her limbs was a lie, but somehow she could not see
through the growing grayness to see what the truth might be.
Suddenly she felt a set of gentle but immensely strong arms
close about her and lift her off the ground to be cradled
against someone's chest. Groggily, she shook her head enough
to observe Akane holding her to her chest as she ran, face
grim and fixed as she stared at some distant goal.
Good old Akane-san! She'd get her there, she was sure! Now, if
only she could remember where they were going, and why ... if
only it wasn't so hard to think ....
------------------------------------------------------------
In a hospital bed, a slight form began breathing much more
shallowly, chest barely moving. At bedside, Dr. Tofu checked a
monitoring instrument and frowned worriedly.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane ran up the slope with Sayuri in her arms. Only a few
hundred yards to go now. Behind her the sound of wings was
growing swiftly closer, but there was nothing _ahead_ of her
to stop her, and those behind could not close the distance
fast enough to prevent her from discharging her task.
Close growing, thorny scrub lifted runners to trip her and the
equally thorny branches of a number of middling high scrub
bushes attempted to bar her path, but she powered through them
without slowing, unheeding of the deep scratches and
thorn-stabs they left behind. Blind to everything but her goal
she reached within herself for her deepest reserves and drank
deeply from the fountain of fire within.
A distant corner of her consciousness registered a mighty roar
of power from far behind her. Spurning the ground beneath her
racing feet, Akane ran up the slope to home.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma bounced of the canyon wall and killed a demon with a
backhand sickle blow, concentrating the ch'i it released as it
died into a free- standing 'cold' point.
"Hiryuu!"
With an enormous leap over the whole floor of the canyon she
established another on the corpse of a pair of lesser
soldiers.
"_Shoten!_"
Flipping into the center of the circle of 'cold' ch'i points
she had just finished forming, she landed in the midst of a
cluster of about a dozen demonic officers, accepting a pair of
minor slashes in return for setting their dieing ch'i ablaze.
"HAAAA!"
'Pulling' a line of shih around the circle of 'cold' points,
she completed the attack sequence, and called the cyclone to
war.
Blades of solid shih flamed inward from the wall of the canyon
at a dozen points. Each struck one of the 'cold' ch'i points
dead on, sweeping it up and spinning inward in a spiral
pattern to their common center. There they met the 'hot' ch'i
point, imploded it, and sank into a hyper-dense ball, roiling
with counter-polarized ch'i and shih for a single second.
Then the ball exploded, sending a swirling mass of
intermingled ch'i and shih spinning outward to the walls of
the canyon, picking up ferocious wind currents along the way.
The ring of energy rebounded off the canyon walls, returning
inward, setting up counter-currents of high-speed wind.
Perhaps twenty feet inward from the walls the outer ring met
the second ring that the swirling vortex of energy at the
center had given off.
Met and combined, combined and split, split and redefined
themselves.
A column of energy eighty yards wide, covered and shielded by
multi- hundred-mile-per-hour winds erupted from the floor of
the canyon, its rear edge less than twenty yards from the
canyon's rear gate. It picked up and shredded every demon in
its boundaries, leaving only a thin scattering of luckier
demons behind it toward the rear mouth of the canyon.
As it rose to the sky Ranma rose with it, riding the vacuum of
the eye toward its apex and turning to look behind her, toward
the wall, and Akane.
Less than a hundred yards away, now, she judged. Enemy forces
closing, but, she briefly tracked their _rate_ of closure, too
slowly. Nothing ahead to bar the way she noted, giving the
area between Akane and the wall a brief but deep scan with her
chi-sight.
Excellent. Mission accomplished.
Her goal was achieved, and her fight won. That meant it was
time to shift to a new fight, and she considered the hosts of
Hell cowering far below her as she rose to the top of her
storm.
A last fight, and, she judged, a good one. Penultimately, she
briefly considered the overall situation. There were regrets,
yes, but only minor ones.
In the end, all people die, and to die in the service of one
she loved seemed, to Ranma, as the best category of ending any
one of her destiny could make. She considered the love for
which she was giving her life, and found it right and proper.
And in the still and tranquil silence of the eye of the
cyclone, there was peace upon the heart of the storm.
As she neared the final apex of her rise, she carefully
replaced all the weapons she had used in their individual
resting places. It was not her way to show disrespect for any
tool she used when it might be avoided, and the need for these
tools had, temporarily, passed.
No more need to maim and terrorize. No more need to hold their
attention. The time for distraction had ended. The time for
killing had arrived.
As she reached the apex of her rise and began her fall, Ranma
drew her sword.
And smiled.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part C: Under The Axis
Yours very respectfully,
Eric Hallstrom, CC, PhD, UBIP,etc.
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com