This is more of my Ranma/Noir fic.  Another 31 pages!  It's now my longest fic, by 27 pages!  Almost twice as long as it's longest-fic predecessor!  Yay!

Warning: I consider this to be a very rough draft.  The previous section can be found on my web page, listed about... five lines down.  no, seven!

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.  Noir is written by Ryouei Tsukimura and directed by Kouichi Mashimo.
 
Gensou Rakuen
By Thermopyle
Thermopyle.anifics.com

Ranma woke, blinking uncomfortably in the sunlight that shone upon him
through the nearby window.  He turned to the side to look away, then
rubbed the crusty sleep out of his eyes.  Yuck.

He climbed out of bed and then looked out the window curiously.  It was
still bright, but his eyes were adjusting quickly, and he was able to
note the position of the sun in the sky.  It was much higher than it
should have been.

His stomach grumbled suspiciously.

He left the room Artena had showed him to the previous night and went
looking for the woman, hoping that she had something ready to eat.
Usually Ranma wouldn't have breakfast immediately after waking up, but
most mornings started out with sparring with his father at dawn, which
had been hours ago.  His stomach was on a certain cycle of eat, empty
quickly, eat again, and for some reason it had been disturbed this
morning.

After checking in the crude kitchen and dining room, he looked in the
room that Artena had been writing in the day before.  Once again, she
was there, scrawling out the weird symbols of some other language.
French, he guessed.

"Hey," he asked, "when is breakfast?"

Artena looked up at him, her pen stopping.  "It was over two hours ago,
Ranma.  Lunch will be ready at noon."

"What?  Why didn't you wake me up?" he demanded.  He was hungry!

"I sent Chloe to get you up," she said.  "She told me that you wouldn't
wake, so we let you sleep.  Chloe ate your breakfast for you, so the
food wouldn't go to waste," she added, almost as an afterthought.

"She ate *my* food?"

Artena nodded slightly.  "Yes."

He was really beginning to hate that girl.

Grumbling vague threats, he left Artena and headed outside, keeping an
eye out for Chloe as he did so.  Ranma didn't see her anywhere, but she
doubted she was hiding from him.  He walked to the coliseum again, more
slowly this time to give him an opportunity to eat more grapes and fill
his stomach as much as possible.  Once there, he began practicing again,
setting himself the same distance from the wooden post as before.

After gathering the knives again for the umpteenth time, he stopped.  He
was doing something wrong.  His throws, while hitting the target
consistently now, seemed to be completely random as to which end the
knives hit with: base or point.  They were also spread out where they
hit the board, more than he would have liked, anyway.  That they were
hitting it was an improvement but not enough of one to satisfy him, or
to beat Chloe when he challenged her to a rematch.

His right arm had gone beyond hurting some time ago.  It felt heavy and
awkward, and it was difficult to move it as adeptly as he normally
could.  There was an easy solution to this, however.

Ranma switched hands and resumed throwing, this time starting over with
his left.  He did even worse than he had started out.  He was right
handed, and while he had in training become quite familiar with the use
of his left arm, it was still a little bit less accurate, a little bit
less comfortable to use.  For what he was trying to do, that difference
in performance made quite an impact.

None of the knives hit the target.  He kept trying, though, picking them
up and then walking back to the throwing point and tossing again.  By
the time his left hand and arm were starting to hurt, to become even
more clumsy in comparison, he was only able to hit the target about half
of the time, and even then the knives were sinking into the wood at
seemingly random points.  One would hit near the base of the post,
another near the top, a few in between.  He just couldn't get them to
group together at about the same height, those that didn't just sail
past the post and into the sand beyond.

Deciding that his left hand was becoming too tired to continue, he
switched back to his right, which had had enough time to recover that he
was able to throw effectively with it again.

After letting one last knife fly, which missed as his arm was again
feeling completely dead, he collapsed to the sand, lying on his back and
looking up at the sky.  Each arm lay parallel to his body and felt so
heavy that they might have been of the sand beneath him rather than of
flesh and blood.  He would rest awhile, to recover, and then start
again.

So Ranma deliberately relaxed his muscles as much as he could, to the
point where his arms started to hurt even more.  He wasn't quite sure
why that was, but it was something he had become familiar with, when he
had the opportunity to relax after any kind of unfamiliar exercise that
his father would put him through.  He started with his arms, then worked
his way to his other muscles just for practice, letting his whole body
go as dead limp as he could cause it to.  His arms, having had the most
exercise, hurt the worst from it, but the rest of his body was
uncomfortable, too.

Satisfied that he was relaxed enough, he studied the few clouds that
passed high above him.  There was a light breeze, which brushed lightly,
strangely ticklish against his skin, relaxed as he was, and it pushed
the clouds slowly past.  The sky darkened slightly as one passed across
the sun, and the temperature dropped slightly with the sudden lack of
direct warmth.

As he stared up at the partially obscured star, he noted its position.
It was after noon, by an hour or two.

"Dammit!"

Ignoring his hollow stomach, which his noticing the time had called
attention to, he wondered what it was that he was doing wrong.  As far
as he could tell, he was throwing the knives in the same way that Chloe
had, so he should be able to hit the target perfectly.  That he wasn't
meant that there was still something he was doing wrong.  So what was
it?

After thinking about it for a while, he still couldn't figure out what
the problem was, and his stomach was beginning to get more insistent, so
he stood up and brushed off the little bit of sand that had stuck to his
back and head.  Then he went and got a few more bunches of grapes before
heading back to the coliseum, eating them as he walked.

Once he finished eating, he started practicing again.  His technique was
flawed somewhere, and he wasn't going to quit until he'd figured it out.

The next time he stopped, this time completely exhausted and barely able
to move his arms with any real dexterity at all, was when it was getting
too dark to see the post.  He had never gotten substantially better--the
whole day had been, for the most part, a waste of time.  Throwing with
his left hand had become slightly more accurate but still not even to
the mediocre level that his right was at.  His right hadn't improved at
all.

After spending a few minutes finding the knives, none of which had hit
because of the low lighting and his dead arms, he set off towards the
Manor.


Chloe was full.  Incredibly so.  She felt slow, sluggish, and she
definitely did not want to be involved in a fight in her current state.
Ranma's not being here, of course, meant that she wouldn't.  It was also
the cause for her stomach protruding so obviously.  She could actually
see where the food had caused her to expand, a lump in her middle being
easily visible.

Regardless, she was quite happy.  Ranma had missed dinner.  He'd also
missed breakfast and lunch.  That meant he should be starving.  Even if
Ranma had eaten a few of Artena's grapes, damn his rudeness, he would
still be disappointed when he showed up to find a lack of food waiting
upon his arrival.

Assuming he showed up at all, anyway.

She'd gone to the coliseum a couple of times during the day, being quiet
and careful as to not alert Ranma to her presence, and watched him
practice for a while.  His attitude towards the knife throwing had
changed completely from what it had been before.  Previously, he had
been calm, methodically throwing the knives and judging the results,
using small variations on the movements involved in order to refine and
improve his skill.  Today, however, he had been acting quite frustrated;
throwing the knives harder than necessary, not aiming as carefully as he
had before, and muttering curses regularly.  Ranma hadn't improved
substantially, either, unlike the day before, despite his spending much
more time at it.

Chloe herself hadn't been able to do more than low-level practicing,
just using her right arm, since she wasn't able to stress her body too
much.  Her wounds were healing quickly and there was a significant
amount of improvement after only three days, but she still had to be
careful to keep from making her injuries worse.  So instead, she had
spent much of her time in one of the sitting rooms, reading, completing
most of 'Alice in Wonderland' that day alone.  There weren't many books
at the Manor, but she was able to borrow others, like she had that one,
whenever she went into the village.  The villagers were always eager to
please her.

She wasn't sure what alerted her, but Chloe looked up from her book and
over to the doorway.  Ranma stood there, looking at her with an odd
expression on his face.  She wasn't quite sure what to make of it.  Was
he going to ask about dinner?

"You look like a pregnant cow," he said.  "Maybe you should start eating
less."

Before she could respond, he stepped away and was gone.

"Jerk."


The next morning Ranma woke himself in time for breakfast, and ate just
as quickly and noisily as he'd done the first time he was fed.  As soon
as he finished he left without a word of thanks to Artena, or even
bothering to wait until they had eaten their own meals.  They continued
in silence for several minutes before Artena spoke.

"Are you going to go see what he's doing again today, Chloe?" she asked.

Chloe finished chewing and swallowed.  "Yes, Artena-sama.  I don't
expect him to improve much if he's still acting like he did yesterday,
though."

Artena nodded, and Chloe wondered why the older woman was so interested
in the boy's training.  Ranma would be gone soon, so why did it matter
to her?  That he could avoid Chloe's knives certainly indicated his
skill, even if she was injured at the time, but that shouldn't have any
importance to Artena, except perhaps in that Ranma might be a threat.
If he was a threat, he should be killed.  Chloe would do it, if Artena
allowed her to.  If she could, which she wasn't sure about in her
partially healed state.

Chloe paced herself so that she finished eating at the same time as
Artena, and when Artena said nothing, Chloe thanked her for the meal and
went to her room.  After putting on her harnesses and cloak and making
sure that all her knives were accessible, Chloe left the Manor and
headed to the coliseum again.

On the way, she spotted a number of grape seeds lying scattered across
the ground.  That boy was definitely trying to annoy her.

When she arrived, she was careful to make no sound, slipping through one
of the huge arching doorways that so many people had once passed
through, so very long ago.  Now, she entered alone, and the only
participant in the games was a young boy her own age.  Chloe wondered
what the girl would think of Ranma, not that they were likely to ever
meet.  No doubt she would be more than a match for him.  Chloe herself
was certainly less skilled, more hesitant to strike, than that girl was.

Inside, instead of throwing knives, Ranma was running through various
kata.  She assumed them to be from his family school, which he had
mentioned when he introduced himself in such a rude fashion after waking
up sane two days previously.  He jumped about on the sand, throwing
punches and kicks and twirling around to strike at imaginary opponents
in all directions.  The sand underneath him, mostly hard like everywhere
else in the coliseum, was beginning to break up, becoming loose under
the repeated impacts and Ranma's shifting weight.

Ranma wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, the best she has seen.
She herself had had a number of instructors, teaching her knife throwing
and how to fight barehanded, with swords, spears, and a number of other
weapons.  Every lethal weapon she could conceivably be taught with had
been trained into her to some degree, to the point where she could now
use almost anything, no matter how innocent in purpose, to kill people.
Her instructors, however, had still been better in their specific fields
than she was.  Being able to recognize that difference in skill also
allowed her to realize that Ranma was better at unarmed combat than she
was, enough so that even if she was healed, she didn't think she could
kill him except by surprise.

She wasn't sure what his capabilities were, though.  As he danced back
and forth across the arena, leaping from place to place as he went, she
noted that he wasn't jumping near as high or easily as he had when they
arrived at the Manor.  His jumps, while impressive for a boy his age,
weren't at the same extreme as his jumping fifteen feet into the air as
he had done previously.  The effort he was putting into his practice was
easily visible, he was sweating profusely, making small grunting noises
before pushing himself into the air, sometimes a bit clumsily and
landing with awkwardness, and the difference made her wonder if there
was more to the feline behavior he had at first exhibited than his
simply acting as a cat.  The physical abilities he had shown before
weren't present now.  Why?

By now, Ranma was taking big, gulping breaths, his actions had slowed
down, and it was clear that he was soon to stop.  She watched silently,
and several minutes later, he did, and she could see that he was
literally shaking with the effort he'd just put himself through.  Rather
than taking a break to recover, however, Ranma walked over to the post
he'd been using as a target for the past two days, picked up the knives
he had placed there, then moved to about thirty feet away.

Taking a deep breath and then releasing it slowly, he threw the first
knife, and Chloe tracked it through the air as it sailed towards the
post--and then passed it.

"Shit!"

Ranma took another breath, held himself still for a moment, and then
threw the next knife.  It hit the target, but base-first instead of
point, and it bounced and fell to the ground.  The next knife hit the
post as well, this time correctly, and stuck with the blade sunk into
the wood by about half an inch, as best Chloe could tell.

Half an inch really wasn't enough, she knew.  The blades were four
inches long, the handle the same length.  That was enough to kill
somebody if the knife hit in the right location, but a half-inch
wouldn't do more than irritate and cause some hesitation or panic in the
target.  That could be effective, but it was still better to simply kill
the person, instead.

The next knife hit a few inches away from the previous one, this time
penetrating twice as deep.  An inch still wasn't enough.  The fifth
knife clipped the top of the post and then flipped end-over-end until it
landed in the sand several feet beyond.

Ranma stood still for a minute, fists clenching at his sides, then
relaxed slightly and breathed out.  Then he went and picked up the
knives, easily jerking free the two embedded into the post, and went
back to his throwing position.  He started over.

Three of the knives hit and stuck this time, the other two bouncing off
after hitting with the knives hit wrong.  Of the next five, only one
throw was successful, and the five after that, two.  In the next set,
none.

Ranma continued to get more and more erratic in his throws, repeating
his mistakes of the day before, until eventually Chloe couldn't even
consider what he was doing to be practice.  He wasn't at all in control
of himself, and the way his knives were missing was a clear indication
of that.  What was the problem?  He was obviously capable, physically,
of throwing better, his quick improvement of two days before showed
that, yet his current performance was simply abysmal.

Deciding that she was wasting her time, Chloe backed away from her
observation point carefully, until there was no chance that Ranma could
see her if he happened to look in her direction, then turned and walked
back towards the Manor.  If she and Ranma were to go into the village
and get him some more clothes the next day, then she wanted to finish
her book so that she could return it in exchange for something else.


By the time lunch was ready, Chloe had finished her book and found
herself with nothing to do, so she decided to help Artena by setting the
table.  Putting the silverware and dishes out, she wondered if Ranma
would show up today, or if, like yesterday, he would continue
practicing.  By the time she went back into the kitchen to help bring
the food in, however, Ranma had arrived.  Rather than helping, he simply
sat down and waited for the food to be delivered.  Chloe noticed that
his hands had dirt on them, which he hadn't bothered to wash off.

Once they sat down and started to eat, Artena asked, "Ranma, are you
still playing with Chloe's knives?"

Startled, Chloe looked at her, and then over at Ranma, who smirked back.


"Yeah," he said.  "They're a lot of fun!"

"I've seen your target.  It's not getting much use," Chloe shot back.

Ranma reddened at that and opened his mouth to retort, but Artena beat
him to it.

"Ranma, I'm going to send Chloe into the village with you tomorrow to
pick up more clothes.  You're going to be here a bit longer and I don't
want you to keep wearing those every day."

"Hey!" he said.  "I ain't staying much longer, and these clothes are
just fine!  I don't need no more!"

Artena sighed.  "They're getting dirty and you can't just keep borrowing
Chloe's outfits all the time when those need to be washed.  And you will
be staying until I can locate your father, which may not be for another
week or maybe longer."

Ranma looked down, obviously inspecting his garments, which had sand
stuck to them in some places, and sweat stains in others.  Chloe was
sure that would make a mess of his bed sheets, if he hadn't already done
so the night before.

"Fine," he said, after a few moments.  "I don't need HER to go with me,
though.  Just tell me where it is, and I'll make the trip alone."

"Do you know French?" asked Chloe, pausing with a forkful of food
halfway to her mouth.

Ranma glared at her.

"The people in the village don't speak Japanese, you know," she
continued.  "You'd just wander into town and start speaking gibberish,
and they'd look at you like you were mad.  Then you'd probably try to
steal some poor woman's clothes and get shot for it."

"I would not!" Ranma burst out.

Chloe just smirked, and resumed eating.

"I wouldn't!" he insisted.

"Chloe will go with you," Artena said again.

Ranma grumbled under his breath in response, but did so quietly, and
Chloe kept eating her meal with silent satisfaction, although she felt a
trace of regret as well.  Chloe wished that Ranma had refused to go
along with her; in that case, Artena would have had her pick up some
clothes for him, which she would have been delighted to do.  Most of the
villagers wore simple attire, however, and she wouldn't have been able
to get anything too embarrassing for him.  But she could have tried.

Once Ranma stopped muttering what Chloe didn't doubt were comments about
her, he quickly tore through his meal, finishing before she or Artena
were even close to being done.  Having completed, he stood and stepped
away from the table.

"I'm gonna go play with Chloe's knives some more," he announced, a smile
pasted on his face as he moved towards the door.

Chloe waited until he'd already exited the dining room and she could
hear Ranma walking away, then called out, "Try not to hurt yourself!"

When she heard the boy miss a step, she grinned over at Artena, who
looked back calmly, her lips curved slightly upwards.  Apparently Ranma
couldn't think of a response very quickly, however, and he kept going
after that brief pause.  Chloe sighed happily.  Life was good.

"He's going to try to get back at you for that, you know," Artena said,
still smiling.

Chloe nodded in response.  She expected that the boy would attempt to
retaliate in some way, but she was sure she'd be able to handle it.  She
was Noir.

Chloe ate a few bites more of her meal, then asked, "Artena-sama, do you
think Ranma will start trying harder, now that he knows I've been
watching him?"

"Maybe, Chloe.  If he did, would it matter?"

"...No."

She was Noir.  Someone like Ranma could be a challenge, but she would
always come out on top.  For Artena, and for that girl, she would
eliminate or overrun all obstacles.

"No, it wouldn't."

"Good."

She was Noir.  Which meant that she was going to have to figure out a
way to beat Ranma in more than a simple knife-throwing competition.  She
might be able to nail him with her knives, once her left arm finished
healing and she was able to use it properly, but there wasn't any way to
be sure without testing it.  The easiest solution she could think of was
to kill Ranma while he was asleep.  Greater skill meant nothing in the
face of willingness to make use of all means necessary.  The best
solution, however, would be for her to improve to the point where
surprise was no longer necessary.  But how long would that take?
Certainly more time than Ranma would remain at the Manor for.

So.  If Artena allowed her to, Chloe would kill Ranma while he was
sleeping.  Then she would train until, if Ranma had been present or
alive, she would have been able to kill him without the boy's abilities
being handicapped in such a manner.

"Chloe?"

She looked up, and saw that Artena had finished eating and was looking
at her in concern.  Chloe smiled.  "Sorry, Artena-sama.  I was
thinking."  She quickly started in at her food again, cursing her
absent-mindedness.

"I see," said Artena, before she went silent.

Over the next few minutes, Chloe was very self-conscious of the scraping
and clicking noises the silverware made against her plate.  She ate
quickly, but carefully, and she didn't look up as she chewed.  Instead
she kept an eye on her quickly diminishing food, until it was gone.
Finished, she raised her head, and saw Artena smile at her.  She smiled
back, relieved that Artena wasn't angry with her for becoming
distracted.

"Would you like to take a bath today, Chloe?"

"Yes!" she said, happily, and Artena gave her another smile.

"Very well.  Let's clean the dishes, and then we'll go to the hot
springs."

Chloe jumped to her feet, almost knocking her chair over, and began
taking the dishes into the kitchen.  It'd been a while since Artena had
given her a bath.


Chloe stepped into the steaming water carefully, not wanting to slip
this close to the edge of the pool.  Breaking her head open wasn't
something she'd like to do.  The hot water, calm and unmoving, crept up
her legs as she walked forward, the submerged areas of her body feeling
disjointed, almost cut off from the rest of her.  But pleasantly so.
She continued until she was deep enough, then ducked her head under the
water and held herself still for half a minute, relaxing in the
comforting heat that surrounded her completely.  With a sigh, she stood
again, and this time it was the revealed portions of her body that felt
uncomfortable, like they'd just been ripped from the womb and wanted
nothing but to return to their previous warmth.

"You enjoy this too much, you know.  I might have to begin rationing
your baths out more carefully."

She turned and looked guiltily towards Artena.  "I like the heat," she
confessed.  "Almost hot enough to hurt, but not quite.  It feels good."

The older woman nodded, stepping into the pool herself.  Rather than
moving further out into the water, however, Artena settled down onto one
of the steps.  Her hair was bound up safely to keep it from getting wet,
though she was submerged up to her upper chest.  She leaned back against
the edge of the pool, and Chloe could see Artena roll her shoulders.
Maybe they were slightly stiff from spending time at her desk, writing
letters.

Chloe also noticed the effect those movements had on Artena's body.
Artena was so pretty; Chloe hoped that she could look like that when she
was older.  That was a ways off, and for now, it was unimportant.
Still, Artena was her ultimate goal.  She wanted to be as good as that
girl was, true, and wanted to live up to the expectations that were held
for those who were Noir, but what she desired after that was to be like
Artena.  Beautiful, intelligent, and kind.  So very kind.

While Artena took a few minutes to relax, Chloe moved about in the
deeper area of the spring.  The floor where she was at was very hot,
where the water leaked up through the rocks beneath, so she was careful
to keep treading water rather than letting herself settle down into it.
The water was deep enough that she had a foot or two of freedom to move
around in, which was plenty as long as she didn't forget where she was.

The temperature was higher, here in the middle of the spring.  It was
borderline intolerable, and as Chloe swam around, arms and legs passing
through the water, each motion was accompanied by a surge of heat
running across her body.  The air she breathed in was hot, her lungs
feeling a touch scorched as she inhaled.  Her body felt heavy on the
exhalations, sinking into the water.  She closed her eyes, sleepy.

"Chloe!"

She turned her head to the side, somewhat dizzily. She was so hot.  It
felt good.  What was wrong?  Her breath came in short gasps.  "Artena-
sama?"  Where was she?

The heat felt different now, lesser. She was moving through the water
again.  Hadn't she stopped?  Her arms, legs, were limp, but she could
feel water passing over them, over the rest of her body.

She tried to slow her breathing, but it was hard.  There was something
across her chest, preventing her from breathing deeply.  It was one of
Artena's arms, she realized, and she was being pulled.

The water was cooler.  She shivered at the change in temperature,
uncomfortable.  But Artena was holding onto her.  Artena was warm, too,
she could feel, now that Chloe noticed she was pressed up against the
older woman, being held carefully in place as she was dragged towards
the edge of the spring.  But Artena still wasn't as warm as the water
had been.

Chloe felt herself being lifted and was shocked at the sudden coldness.
The abrupt transition caused her to shiver uncontrollably in Artena's
careful grasp.  She was out of the pool now and being carried, held
closely against her surrogate mother.  Artena was warm where they
touched each other, but Chloe was still freezing, the cool air ripping
away even that comforting heat.

She stared at her fingers in sick fascination.  They looked pink, redder
than usual, but she was sure they'd turn blue and black at any moment as
the blood within thickened and slowed and turned to ice.  Her toes and
feet would, too.  But no matter how closely she looked, they remained
the same.

Chloe wrapped her arms around Artena, clinging to the older woman, who
was trying to put her down.  She refused to let go.  Artena was warm.
"Artena-sama?" she murmured.

She heard a slight sigh, the exhalation brushing against one of her
ears.  A moment later Artena sat down, carefully keeping Chloe in her
lap.  Chloe smiled slightly and relaxed her grip, resting her head
against Artena.  She felt hands begin to run softly through her hair.
She liked that, it was nice.

"Sleep, Chloe," she heard.  "We have plenty of time still."


Ranma lied on his back, chest heaving and limbs stretched out in all
directions.  He gulped down great big lungfuls of replenishing oxygen,
his heart slammed in his chest and his blood through the rushing rapids
that were his veins.  He was covered in sweat, his eyes stinging
slightly at the saturated moisture, the taste of it upon his lips.  The
clothes he wore clung wetly, uncomfortable, heavy with his fluids,
stained through with his salt.

The oh-so-strenuous workout had accomplished nothing.  Ranma was no
closer to figuring out what his problem was than before.  His throws
were still completely off.  His mood was frustrated and irritable; he
was easily distracted and his wandering mind kept returning to the
question of what he was doing wrong rather than simply focusing on
practice as it should.  His father had trained him just as hard as this
on previous occasions and Ranma had had no such problems.  Usually he'd
already have gotten a solid, sometimes near-perfect grasp on whatever
the technique was by this point--Ranma had been trying to learn knife-
throwing for four days with no significant progress.  Why?

His breathing began to slow as his body cooled down, no longer required
to run like an overworked steamboat boiler.  The heart slowed, its beats
becoming less the pounding of a fleet of drummers and instead a slow,
easy pace, eventually inaudible.  Ranma's muscles, previously masses of
well-done, cooked beef, changed to the sleepy lethargy of a lazy young
calf.

Ranma's eyes glided across the sky until he looked upon the brightly
shining sun.  Just a couple of hours after noon.  He had plenty of time
before dinner.  Plenty of time to get more practicing in, to figure out
what his problem was.  Plenty of time.


"Ranma."

He opened his eyes to see that the sun had moved unexpectedly and that
it was now late in the afternoon.  Ranma blinked again, but this time it
stayed still.  How odd.

"Ranma," said a quiet voice.

He stretched, curling his feet and balling his fists as he pushed them
as far apart as he could.  Breathing out in a sleepy sigh, his eyes
clenched shut again.  He felt his muscles ripple deliciously as he did
so, bringing a smile to his face.  That always felt good.  He peeked
upwards to find that nothing had changed.  Then he sat up and saw that
Artena was standing in front of him.

Her hair was damp and dark and uncombed, no longer hanging straight at
her back with any available illumination making her light-brown tresses
shine.  In Artena's arms Chloe slumbered, her torso wrapped around with
towels, the girl's arms draped over Artena's shoulders and her head
resting against one side of Artena's neck.  Chloe's hair, too, was wet,
the normally fluffy reddish-purple substance instead pressed closely to
her scalp.

Ranma stood and yawned, stretching his arms upwards this time as if to
grab at nonexistent clouds.  When finished, he looked towards Artena
again.  She was still standing there holding Chloe.

"What?" he asked.

Artena leaned backwards, changing the position of Chloe's weight upon
her, and adjusted one of her arms under the girl to better support her
weight.  With her other hand, which had been pressed against Chloe's
back, Artena held some clothes out towards him.

"Please carry these," she said, in the same low tone of voice.

Ranma looked at them for a minute, then up at Artena, who simply smiled
at him, holding Chloe's weight steady with no apparent trouble while
using only one arm.  He shrugged and took the clothes from her grasp.
"Okay."

"Thank you."

Artena adjusted her grip on Chloe again, this time able to use both
hands to hold the girl up.  The position looked more comfortable, but
Ranma couldn't help but wonder if it had been necessary since Artena
hadn't seemed to be having any trouble to begin with.

"If you'll come with me back to the Manor," Artena said, "dinner will be
ready soon."

Ranma yawned again then nodded, and Artena started walking towards the
arena exit.  He followed, trudging slowly through the sand.  Chloe's
face peeked at him from over Artena's shoulder, but her eyes remained
closed.  Her face was flushed and pink, for some reason.

He looked down at the clothes he now held.  They were Chloe's, and what
she had been wearing earlier that day.  Where had they gone swimming?
He'd have to search the area around the coliseum later on, to see.  He
liked swimming.

For now, though, Ranma followed Artena back to the Manor.  Swimming
could wait until later.


Dinner was quiet.  Ranma, still nappish, ate his food slowly, without
effort.  His lack of real hunger or enthusiasm caused the meal to be
bland and tasteless.  Picking at it was about the limit of his energy.
He had no doubt that if his father were present he would not be able to
eat even the slightest bit of the food on his plate.  Ranma just wasn't
up to holding a defense right now.

Chloe, too, was quiet and subdued.  Her face was still pink and her
motions drowsy and slow as she slowly used her fork to break up her food
before sending it to the abyss one tiny load at a time.  Even the
clicking of silverware on plate was dull and muted.

Deciding he'd had enough, Ranma push his chair back and rose to leave.

"It's your turn to help with the dishes, Ranma," Artena said.

"...What?"

"Somebody needs to dry and put away the dishes as I clean them."

Ranma stared at her.  "Have Chloe do it."

"Chloe has been helping me in the kitchen even though she's injured.
Now it's your turn."

"But you're making me stay here!  I shouldn't have to help!"

"That doesn't matter.  You should still make yourself of some
assistance.  And I'm not forcing you to stay.  You can leave at any
time, even if you don't know where to go."

"That's not fair!" he protested.  He hated doing dishes!

"I'll do it," Chloe said quietly, speaking for the first time since
dinner began.

Artena frowned and started to speak, but Ranma beat her to it.

"Okay, Chloe will help you!  I'mgoingtobednowgoodnight!"

He ran away as quickly as possible.

After he had turned a couple of corners he slowed back down to a
lethargic, dragging walk, once again drained of energy.  Even his room
seemed like a long trek.  Maybe once he got back to Japan he could make
his father teach him some kinda teleporting technique, like in that
Dragonball manga.

Ranma was sure that'd be easier to learn those stupid knives, too.

He didn't mind doing chores, at least some stuff.  Setting and packing
up his and his father's tents, making a fire, scrounging for food and
then helping cook it, those were all things he had to do whenever they
went on the road.  He hated the boredom and senselessness of the
repetition but knew it was necessary.  And his father always did his
share of those tasks.

Cleaning dishes, though, was a chore Ranma absolutely detested, and one
that he'd always get stuck doing himself.  When they were staying
somewhere Ranma would arrive home after school to find a massive amount
of dishes scattered across the kitchen counters and dining room table.
Every day.  Even when he washed the dishes before heading to school, and
his father both left for work before Ranma exited the house and arrived
home hours after Ranma himself returned, there would still be dishes
delivered by a mysterious grunge fairy that Ranma could never seem to
spot.

When they were on the road for a training trip Ranma and his father
would end up trying to steal each other's food until it was gone or
scattered about their campgrounds.  Afterwards the battle would move on
to a full-fledged sparring session that gave plenty of time for the
leftover bits of food to fuse completely with the plates and cooking
utensils they remained on.  Trying to scrub dishes clean in the always-
cold water of a nearby stream or pond, or worse, having to use a canteen
or some other kind of water bottle that made rinsing almost impossible,
was a hell Ranma was quite familiar with.

So no, he wasn't doing dishes.  Not a chance in the world.

What he was going to do was sleep.  Arriving at last at the room he was
a guest in he collapsed onto the bed, and, ignoring the dirty sheets and
the sand stuck to his clothes and hair and skin, he did just that.


"Wake up."

Ranma eyes opened stickily and he blinked, trying to figure out what the
problem was.

"OW!"

He started rubbing at his eyes carefully, moisture running from them now
after the sand got in.  There was gunk all in the corners, stuck to his
eyelashes, rusting his doors to the world shut.  Cleaning it out wasn't
pleasant.

"Are you done yet?" Chloe asked quietly.

Ranma finished and looked over at the girl.  She was dressed again in
clothes similar to his, but hers were noticeably cleaner, and there was
a distinct lack of sand and dirt stuck to them.  Chloe stood patiently,
looking at him calmly, but he was sure there was something dismissive,
condescending, about her deigning to wait for him.

"What?" he asked.  This was the first time she'd ever bothered to wake
him up in the morning.  "Is it time for breakfast?"

"Yes.  Artena-sama is waiting."

Ranma shoved himself out of bed.  Sand and dirt fell to the stone
beneath him, grinding painfully under his toes and heel.  He ignored it.

Chloe turned away and exited the room, and he followed her.

Breakfast was simple, same as it was every morning.  Artena cooked for
the purpose of satisfying stomachs, not greedy taste buds.  Even Ranma's
father spent more time than she did in preparing a meal.  But it tasted
well enough despite that and it filled him up just as he liked his food
to do, even if he would have liked more than what she gave him.

Once again his plate was clean and his glass empty before Chloe and
Artena were even halfway done with theirs.  Today he was going to the
village, though, which meant he couldn't just leave--he didn't know
where to go.  So he continued to sit there and watched the two of them
eat.  Neither seemed to notice him doing so, or care.  They just used
their forks to separate a bit of food and then scooped the stuff up and
lifted it into their mouths.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  So slowly.

Ranma wished his father were present.  He would have ended up hungrier
for it but at least the meal would have gone faster, taking place during
a chopsticks duel that was the trademark of Saotome eating.  He could
try to steal food from Chloe or Artena, but he was sure it wouldn't work
out.  Forks just weren't designed properly for the quick, unnoticed
theft that would be required.

The clicking of silverware on china came to an end, the sudden silence
catching his attention.  They were done at last.

"Ranma," said Artena, who was looking at him now.  He noticed that Chloe
was, too, and that the hint of a smug smile twisted her lips and colored
her eyes.

"What?" he asked, a bit suspicious.

"Chloe will take you to the village to get some new clothes," she
continued.  Her face was serious now, none of the friendly warmth she
had looked at him with before present.  "Somebody there will give you
some food.  After that you are free to go wherever you wish, as long as
you don't return here or bother the people in the village."

Ranma stared at her, his heart thumping audibly in panic.  He didn't
know how to get to Japan!  She said he'd help him!  "You told me I could
stay here until you found my pop!  You lied to me!" Ranma yelled at her.

Chloe gripped her knife tightly, glaring at him, the soiled, dull blade
pointed in his direction but her fist surrounding it stayed at table
level, in a neutral position.  He ignored her.

Artena didn't deny his words at all.  "Yes, I said you could stay here.
But I never invited you to come to this place, never invited you to show
up requiring food and clothing and expecting a made bed and someone to
pick up after you as though it is your right to be here.  You are owed
nothing.  I have no obligation towards you, to put up with an unruly,
ungrateful houseguest.  I have every right to ask you to leave."

Ranma looked from the cold expression on Artena's face over to the
mostly happy, somewhat angered expression on Chloe's, then back again.
"You're going to make me leave because I wouldn't do the dishes?"

"Yes," Artena said.

"Fine, then!  I will leave!  And I'll leave right now!"

He stood, his knees thrusting backwards and knocking down the heavy
chair.  Then he marched to and out the door to the dining room, down the
hallway leading to the front exit, and then outside.

Ranma stopped in front of the opening, the grape fields sprawling out
before him, hills and mountains within his view in all directions, the
sky blue and cloudless and the sun marching across the horizon, and
tried to figure out which way to Japan.  No heading seemed obvious.

Chloe's voice came from the dining room, saying something to Artena that
he couldn't make out, and he scowled.  Very well.  Any direction would
do.

He started walking south.


Then sun was directly above by the time he cleared the hills and started
working his way into the rockier, more jagged upthrusts that lay beyond.
He was glad for it, because it was just a little bit windier out here
with no real shelter.  The relatively motionless air inside the coliseum
and Manor had been chilly enough to make his skin feel a touch cold, yet
out in the open the air was constantly in motion, waves of coolness
making the chill a little bit more insistent, a little bit more than
skin-deep.

It made him glad that he wasn't wearing his torn gi anymore, with the
gaping holes leaving large areas of his chest and back and sides and
legs uncovered and exposed to the elements.  Girl clothes or not, being
covered with even a small amount of overall insulation really did help.

His feet, however, were nowhere near comfortable.  They were colder than
the rest of him, as he stepped over and onto sharp-edged rocks that had
been sitting out in the wind all day, and felt like they'd spent days,
not hours, being ground under a millstone.  Each time he put a foot down
a new rock would join its brothers and sisters in the assault, trying to
find another chink in the armor, to work its way in deeper and more
painfully than any had before.  Ranma was beginning to hate those rocks,
but stomping on them in revenge was out of the question.

"This sucks," he said to himself, keeping his eyes on the ground
immediately before him.  Careful steps seemed to help somewhat, if not
enough.  Sometimes he could go a few paces in a row without his feet
have to leave the patches of dark, hard, flat earth that were spread
thinly among the rock fields.  But not often.

Was this the way to Japan?  He couldn't tell.  He could turn around and
see the Manor from where he was, he'd climbed high enough that he cold
peek over the hills between his present location and the place that had
been a temporary home only earlier that morning.  The Manor was a tiny
thing from this distance, the coliseum being bigger but not that much.
It was almost a half a day's travel, now.

By the end of the day he should be twice as far.  How far was that?
What lay on the other side of the mountains he was trying to pass over?
The village Artena and Chloe had talked about couldn't be too far away-
-maybe he could see it when he got to the top of this peak?  That was
just a couple more hours away.

Ranma clenched a fist around the knives in his pocket.  He'd tried to
juggle them a little bit earlier, while walking, wanting to keep
handling the things, increasing his familiarity with the tools even
though he'd never see Chloe again to get a chance to beat her.  It
hadn't worked, he kept getting too focused on tossing the knives around,
catching and flipping and throwing them back up again, and then he'd
step on a rock and suddenly lose his rhythm, knives falling everywhere,
right by his face, right by his toes.  So he'd stopped.

Now the sun was overhead and looking up at the knives, if he tried it
now, would probably cause one to fall into his squinting eyes.

Instead he studied the ground, searching for particularly vicious
looking rocks that would not take being trampled upon lightly.  There
were many of those, and he was quite sure that he was finding each one.


Ranma looked south and concluded that maybe this was the wrong way to
go.  He'd already been traveling for six hours and the village wasn't
just on the other side of this peak, as he had hoped.  The trip was only
supposed to take a bit over half a day, which meant that whichever
direction the village was from the Manor, it wasn't south.

The other directions he couldn't see very far in.  East and west both
had treacherous looking mini-mountains of their own to stand against
him.  If either of those were the right way to go, he couldn't tell from
here with his view blocked.  North lead right back to the Manor, and if
the village was in that direction he didn't want to go there anyway.
Ranma couldn't tell where Japan was, relative to him, but he knew it
wasn't north--it was already colder here than it had been in Japan.  No,
north wasn't the way to go.

East or west it was, then.  And that meant he was going to have to head
back to the Manor, which he'd been traveling away from for a good six or
seven hours.

"Dammit!"

Ignoring the cold pit in his stomach and the loudly protesting,
slaughtered remains of his feet, he turned around and started retracing
his footsteps.  Surely those rocks would be a bit softer this time
around.  His feet were.


His feet, formerly cold and abused, were now masses of over-tenderized
meat that had been left in the refrigerator for too long.  They weren't
blue, not really, but they definitely weren't the healthy looking color
they had started out being.  At least, he didn't think so.  It was hard
to tell, when his ability to see color had passed away with the sun who
sponsored that ability.

He couldn't quite tell what color they were, because he couldn't quite
see very well of anything.  He'd reached the little hills surrounding
the Manor but they, too, had plenty of rocks strewn about, hiding
beneath the sparse, mostly dead grass.  By that time it had gotten
fairly close to being dark.  The sun had gone down and the moon was
missing its shift.

Ranma was a couple of hours from the nearest source of food, the grapes
he'd been stuffing himself on so freely over the past few days, he had
nothing to sleep in or on, and his feet were no doubt an ugly color
underneath the monotone shading everything took on at this part of the
evening.

He laid down on the dead grass and tucked his feet as best he could into
the pant legs that they didn't quite fit in, curled himself up into a
ball, and tried not to think about how long it was until morning.

It was a long, long time.


He shivered, the rocks below him digging their way into his flesh like a
fleet of assorted-sized drill bits, spinning madly.  His hands were
cold, and his feet, too, the temperature having dropped with the sun
hours and hours ago.  The warmth had quickly drained out of him, seeping
into the ground and fading into the needy air, each puff of exhaled heat
abandoning Ranma for greener pastures.

It started at the roof of his ceiling, the black turning to a dark and
then gradually lighter shade of blue.  The barely-remembered hills
around him took on definition, separating themselves from the sky as
color began to trickle over the edge of the world in a slow flood.  Soon
his existence began taking on a wider range of shades, skin and clothes
becoming more than just dark in imperceptible darker.  Faded paints
sprang into existence like the coming of spring, winter's death of color
reversing in a resurrection of light.

And then Ranma could see.

His feet were a pale reflection of the sky that almost, but not quite,
overwhelmed the normally light-brown sun-toned skin that covered them.
His hands were better off, having been held clutched against his chest,
trapped between his torso and his tucked-up legs.  Clutched against his
stomach, attempting to succor by osmotic cannibalism.  A failure, but
they'd stayed warm.

Ranma stretched, his feet running away from the pants they'd been
trapped in as his legs extended beyond their confining reach.  The pants
hadn't been quite big enough and he could feel the buzzing of a thousand
mosquitoes underneath his skin, burrowing through the flesh and bone
that terminated at the end of each leg.  Then the stinging began, and
went on and on and on until he had to move, had to make it stop, tucking
his feet back under him in defense.  They touched with an orgasmic burst
of sparkles, every deadened nerve celebrating at the renewed stimuli.
He gasped in pain and froze, unwilling to try and stand, to let the
reviving blood flow faster, forcing himself to wait it out.

A few minutes later it was gone.  Ranma moved his feet experimentally.
They were tender and very sensitive and still cold, but they were
usable.

He stood, and stretched again, this time his fists thrusting into the
treacherous air and waving about slightly in a vengeful attack.  He
sighed, dropping them again.

Ranma looked around.  The hills rose to the sides and behind him, and he
could see where he'd walked the previous day.  Ahead of him lay the
Manor at another couple of hours travel, a trek made possible only by
his returned sight and the revival of his transportation method.  It was
still a rocky voyage that he wanted nothing to do with.

His stomach made a valiant attempt at setting a marching beat, which
soon devolved into a noise quite, like that of heated shrink-wrap
sucking itself down for long transit times.  It went on and on and Ranma
could feel his insides becoming more compact and streamlined starving
Afghanistan with every rock-hitting step that he took towards the
Manor's grape fields.

It was a long few hours.


The ripped earth that was the grape fields had been meticulously cleaned
of stones.  It was soft and compressed comfortingly beneath his feet,
the coolness somehow being soothing as it squeezed between his toes.
The gentle massage made his abused feet feel like they might actually be
worth something in a few hours.

Reaching what he deemed an invisible point in the grape fields, Ranma
sat down.  Wooden posts wrapped about with green grapevines, splashes of
tasteful purple hanging heavy, surrounded him.  If Artena or Chloe
hadn't spotted him approaching they wouldn't have any idea that he was
here, among the grapes, a wolf among sheep.

Only sheep do not die so quickly.

He popped the things into his mouth as quickly as he could, spitting out
the pits and then replacing the remains with a new grape.  Several seeds
were swallowed but were quickly dismissed after the sweet flesh of the
next plump fruit washed away the feeling of the previous rough passage.
He had to move three times in order to keep the grapes within easy reach
as he decimated everything his greedy mouth-guided hands could snatch
up.

Ranma collapsed onto his back, bloated belly making him top-heavy enough
to justify the sudden laziness.  The sun was making its presence known
and he was warm despite the surrounding vegetation and the cool earth
pillowing his entire body.  He glimpsed down and saw that his feet had
regained normal skin tone, although the scratches and generally beaten
appearance was still present.  They looked like they could use some
rest, so he gave it to them.


Ranma opened his eyes and winced.  The sun was past its equinox and was
in the exact position for over at him from where it was falling to the
earth.  It was late afternoon.

The juices on his face had dried and become a sticky mask, its glue
painful as it clung to the skin and tried to prevent the movement that
his yawn entailed.  He wiped it off with his hands, using his shirt to
clear away as much of the stuff as he could.

That done, he sat up.  Corpses of grape bunches lay everywhere.  Here, a
severed stem that looked raw and painful where the flesh of the grapes
had been ripped from its nurturer, there a plundered post that not one
of the grape bunches attached to remained free of rape and slaughter.
Seeds were scattered everywhere, the heat of the sun already causing the
sticky remains to be rotting at a rate that would have required bodies
to immediately be carted off to the morgue.  That a killer had been on
the loose could never be more apparent.

Ranma's belly had recovered during his nap and was once again ready to
go to war.

A short time later he was once again sated, though he stopped before the
bursting point.  It was time to get moving again, to find out where the
village was, and then from there, which direction to Japan.  It couldn't
be as far as Chloe had said.  A year's travel?  Ha!  Ranma doubted it'd
take even half that long.

He stood and then walked to the edge of the row, to the open area at the
edge of the field he'd slaughtered, and looked around.  Artena wasn't in
sight.  Chloe was right behind him.

Well, not that close, but he could see her about a half-mile off,
heading from the very same set of hills that he'd nearly frozen himself
to death on the night before.  She was a tiny splash of dark green
trickling rolling away from the mostly-dead slopes.  She probably had
shoes on.

What had she been doing over there?

Ranma turned around and headed back into the field, following the path
between rows until they had curved enough that Chloe wouldn't see him
when she walked by.  Then he sat down to wait, munching on a few grapes
as he did so.  Not many, since he was still pretty full.  Just as a
snack.

Chloe had been headed south, and was now returning.  Why?  She had shoes
on and could walk faster than he could over all the rocks.  Had she had
enough time to go to the village and then come back while he was
sleeping?  He hadn't seen anything when he'd gone that way...but what
else could it be?

Ranma scowled at the ground in annoyance.  If he was going to go to
Japan he needed to get moving.  So which way was it?

Chloe would know.  Maybe he could trick her into telling him.


Chloe marched back to the Manor.  Ranma hadn't been there, hadn't been
anywhere that she could see when she headed south just like he had.
She'd worked her way up the hills, getting ever higher as she got
further into her pursuit, and when they turned to solid rock jutting
into the air, she had had a view of miles around.  Within that view was
a distinct lack of Ranma.

So she turned around and headed back.

After finally getting permission to kill Ranma, he managed to escape her
entirely.  The only consolation was that he'd headed in the wrong way
and would probably starve to death before figuring it out.  The boy had
all the brains of a boiled turnip.

Chloe rubbed a hand through her hair in irritation.  Something bounced
off it again.  She stopped and looked down to see a grape seed to the
left of her feet.  A couple of paces behind her was another one.

Again, something bounced off her head.

Ranma was at the edge of a row, smiling cheerily at her.  He spat
something into his hand, then threw another seed.

She responded by reaching beneath her cloak and stripping her harnesses
as fast as she could manage, emptying their contents in Ranma's
direction.  He dodged each one, running back into the field and out of
sight.  Chloe followed, hands once again filled with metal death and
itching to make good use of it.

She turned down the row.  Ranma was a ways ahead of her, running
straight down the line.  The row curved with the arcing growth of fruit
and she had no way to nail him in the back while running and him being
shielded by vegetation.  She hastened in pursuit.

Ranma didn't slow down, keeping at a set distance ahead of her and
depriving Chloe of any chance to attack.  She saw the edge of a grin
whenever he glanced to the side to peek back at her.  He was so going to
die.

The row ended, opening up into a wider pathway that separated the small
fields.  Ranma turned left.  She did the same when she reached it, and
he was gone.  The Manor lay another half mile ahead, grapes extending
half that distance on each side.

She ran forward, trying to look down the rows both on her left and her
right.  Ranma was gone, probably hiding just a little ways down one of
the rows, laughing silently at her.  She hadn't thought he'd know to do
it quietly.

Chloe stopped and listened, just to be sure.  No sound, so he really was
keeping his mouth shut.  She waited a moment longer and then turned left
down one of the rows, walking slowly back towards where she'd been
attacked, listening.  Nothing.

She arrived at the end of the row and turned left again.  Ranma wasn't
going to show up so she should head back to the Manor.  She still had
something to do, first.  She kept walking, searching the ground to her
left where the grapes began.

Again, Chloe stopped.  She frowned and then looked at her surroundings.
There was a seed next to her foot.  Two more were close by.  There were
marks on the wooden post at the end of one row, and on it a few bunches
of grapes that had sustained some form of attack.  The blood of the
casualties dripped down.

The marks in the post were where the knives had hit, the slaughtered
grapes the unfortunate victims of her attack on Ranma.  But the
instruments themselves were gone.

Ranma had stolen her knives.  Again.


>From where Ranma lay watching, Chloe looked really pissed.  Her hands
clenched for a second before she swept her cloak open and tucked the
knives back into their sheaths.  He couldn't tell how many she had left,
but there were plenty of empty spots in the harnesses he'd been able to
see.  He'd picked up eight of the things.  Scary how fast she'd gotten
them off.  He could do it as quickly, of course, but not with any
accuracy.

But he couldn't do it with accuracy even while throwing one knife in the
time she'd tossed eight.  That definitely needed fixing.  If he could
just figure out what his problem was...

It didn't matter.  Soon he'd be back in Japan and he could get his
father to show him how to do it, show him the training method that'd
make him much better than Chloe was.  Wouldn't be long now, nope.

Chloe turned and started to walk back towards the Manor.  She was
walking quietly, slowly, obviously trying to spy or hear him.  Ranma
stood up and moved out onto the pathway behind her.  He opened his mouth
and she twisted around and ripped two knives through the air, aimed
right at his face.

Ranma ducked and two more were on the way, spaced a foot apart and
centered on his chest, one trailing the other slightly.  He rotated
right and quickly sucked in his breath.  The knife on the right went
behind him harmlessly.  The other skimmed his chest, the tip trapping
itself in his clothes and causing the handle of the knife to flip away
from him, digging the point into his chest before the knife continued
moving past, flipping end over end now, drops of blood spraying from it.

Ranma yanked his hands out of his pockets and whipped two of his
borrowed blades in Chloe's direction, then dove forward to evade the
ones she'd already tossed.  They missed, but his did, too, by a wider
margin, and two more knives were already headed at him.

Ranma rolled forward into a row of grape vines to escape.  He continued
to his feet and then took off running.  So he had six of her knives now.
Damn.  She was faster than he'd thought.

He peeked back and she wasn't there, so he kept moving.  He crossed out
of that field and then turned right.  He went a short distance down the
pathway and then turned left into the next field, running to the end of
that one before turning left again.  He turned back into the field
shortly before it ended, then went almost to the other side, staying far
enough away from the field divider that he had to peer through grapes to
see it clearly.

After about ten minutes Chloe passed by, once again holding a knife in
each hand and her eyes all over the place.  Stepping softly, quietly,
carefully, and listening.  Ranma grinned.  Ukyou hadn't been near this
much fun.

He looked down at where his shirt was sticking to his bleeding chest,
because he'd pushed it up against his wound, holding it there as he
waited.  Ranma didn't have to hold it anymore.  The shirt had a red
stain the size of his hand that was literally soaked through.  As
bandages went, it sucked.  But it was better than nothing.

Still, it'd be healed in a day or two.  He was just surprised that she'd
gotten him there.  For her to detect him when Chloe was ahead of him,
and he knew he hadn't made any noise walking barefoot and listening to
his clothes, was impressive.  His father had done a good job teaching
him to sneak.  Who had taught her how to listen?

Ranma waited until she was past.  This time he didn't approach her from
behind, instead deciding to let her go back to the Manor for now.  He
could find out later where Japan was.  It was probably too late in the
day for him to get to the village by dark anyway.  Sleeping here rather
than out on the hills again sure did have its appeal.  Plus there were
grapes.

Ranma slithered out to the end of the row and peeked around the corner.
Chloe was almost to the Manor now and walking at a normal pace.  She'd
given up on finding him for the day, which was fine with Ranma.  They
could play again tomorrow, only then he wouldn't let himself be
surprised.  They could play every day until she told him how to get to
Japan.  Or until Chloe ran out of knives.

In the meantime he might as well get some practicing in.


Chloe stomped into the Manor and headed for her room.  Six knives, the
imbecile had taken.  Plus the five he'd already swiped before.  She had
plenty of knives but none of them did she want to give up to some
grinning little catamite who couldn't have even used them to cut butter,
sharp though they were.

So Ranma had figured out that south wasn't the way to go.  Or maybe he
just wanted to spare his uncovered feet the pain of the route he saw.
Either way he'd come back and decided to pick a fight.  If it was
because he didn't know where to go, well, she'd soon send him on to his
final destination.  If not she would anyway.

Her leg had healed well enough.  So had her arm.  She'd seen the
surprised look on Ranma's face when she first threw at him, seen that he
was unprepared for her uninjured speed.  And so she'd tagged him, but
not good enough.  Not good enough to slow him down or at least leave a
bit of a blood trail for her to follow.  Too bad.

Maybe next time.

For now it was time to get back to practicing.  Her left arm had been a
bit off and though the speed was mostly there, the accuracy was down a
bit.  When she'd nailed him the two knives were supposed to have been
slightly closer together.  If they had been the knife that hit him
wouldn't have been just a slash-by.  It'd have stuck to his chest long
enough to be joined by companions.

Chloe refilled her harnesses using the box of knives in her wardrobe.
She stuck a few in her shorts pockets, too, just in case.  If she ran
into him again, she wanted plenty of ammunition.  If not she could spend
more time throwing and less time retrieving.

Fully stocked, she set out to turn a target board into toothpicks.


Ranma continued to lay down at the end of the row of grapes, thinking.
Where could he practice?  Chloe already knew about his going out to the
coliseum, she might think to check if he was out there again.  Was there
anywhere he could go that wouldn't allow her to sneak up on him?  He was
going to have to do some more exploring of the area.  Maybe a spot in
those ruins behind the coliseum...

His wondering was interrupted when Chloe came stomping back out of the
Manor.  Ranma grinned when he saw what she was up to.  Throwing
practice?  Was that a challenge?  She was just a little ways away from
the Manor, tossing at her usual target.  It was a little in front of the
left edge facing the building, and she was throwing from close to the
center.

Ranma was about a quarter mile away but he could still see that she kept
looking in the direction of the fields, towards him.

He was going to have to do something about this.


Sneaking over to behind the Manor took a lot longer than he thought it
would.  First he had to go west a half-mile or so, to make sure he was
completely behind Chloe, then he had to cross the quarter-mile between
the edge of the grape fields to where the Manor was.  That part of the
trip was filled with slow movements and dropping to the ground whenever
he could see more of Chloe than her hair and back, when she looked to
the sides or turned around after going to fetch her knives.  Then he had
to travel the extra half-mile to get to the left side of the Manor.

Now, though, he quickly crossed the length of the backside of the Manor.
He crouched down to put his head at a less obtrusive height and then
slowly, slowly glimpsed around the corner.  Nothing.  Just the rightmost
edge of the building.

He went around the corner and then began to work his way towards the
front of the building, thinking quiet thoughts, sneaky thoughts filled
with an intent to deceive, to evade, and to slip by unnoticed and
unheard.  He could hear impacts now, the sound of Chloe's knives
thunking into her target.  And sticking, of course.

But he couldn't see the target.  It was in front of the building, just a
little left of where he snuck.  He couldn't see it quite yet.

He moved closer to the next corner.  From where Chloe stood the
difference in distances between him and her target would be negligible.
Sneaky thoughts, quiet thoughts, unseen thoughts.

His eye floated past the edge of the building and he saw Chloe.  She was
standing where she had been before, about thirty feet in front of the
Manor.  The target was the same distance from the building, almost
directly in front of him, just five or so feet to his left.  The
distance between Chloe and the target was twenty feet.

Damn.

Ranma settled down to watch.  Chloe continued to throw and he studied
the way she held her body before beginning the throwing motion, the way
her stance shifted and her weight was balanced as she made the movements
that gave her throw its force, the way she held her arm and wrist and
fingers as the knife was given its direction and purpose and left to
streak through the air and sink into the wood that her violence was
directed at.

Only she did it with both hands, throwing two at a time, which was
giving him fits as he tried to watch.  And each knife hit in the center
of the board, right where she was aiming, penetrating side-by-side
without any difficulties.

Ranma continued to watch.  After a couple of minutes Chloe ran out of
ammunition and then began to approach the target.  He retreated to the
back of the house.  When the sound of the knives hitting wood resumed he
again moved forward to watch, keeping track of how many she threw.

Thirty-two, he counted.  The board was a pincushion.

He kept studying her throwing style, trying to memorize what she was
doing.  His accuracy with one knife at a time sucked, but if he started
practicing with both arms, wouldn't that be twice as efficient?  He
thought so.  He could hardly get worse.

After several repetitions of this same sequence, he was ready to make
his move.

Chloe threw her last knife and he leapt around the corner and threw two
of his own.  She dodged just in time and he was already halfway to the
target board.  By the time she moved forward he was there.

He threw the first knife back at her to cause another dodge, to slow her
down.  It went wide and he cursed, then pulled the rest as quickly as he
could.

Ranma threw his body to the left, dodging the knife that hit the target
right where he'd been standing.  Chloe had picked up his knives.

He hit the ground at a roll and then used his momentum to get to his
feet and start running.  After a few steps he leapt into the air and
twisted himself around, flying backwards, and tossed two more knives at
Chloe.  Her knives flew under him and she was out now.  She caught one
knife with her cloak and the other went nowhere close.

She threw the knife to where he was about to land, would have landed if
not for his aerial techniques, and he dodged and then took off when he
hit the ground.  After a couple of seconds he dodged to the side.  A
knife went by and he glanced back to see two more on the way and Chloe
getting too distant to continue throwing.  She sure did look mad.

Ranma easily evaded the blades and kept heading towards the grape
fields.  He needed to count how many of Chloe's knives he had now.


Chloe glared after the pigtailed boy as he ran away.  He'd made off with
almost half of her knives.  She was going to kill him, yes she was.
Soon.

"Chloe."

She turned to see that Artena was standing just outside the Manor
entrance.  How long had she been there?  Artena's expression was
pleasant, she didn't seem upset or disappointed.

"Yes, Artena-sama?"

"It's time for dinner."

"...okay, Artena-sama."

Chloe slipped the remaining knives into their harnesses.  The ones she'd
thrown at Ranma took a few minutes to locate.  She wasn't going to leave
them out here for the boy to come and retrieve while she wasn't looking.

Chloe followed Artena inside.


Ranma watched from halfway to the grape fields as Chloe went back
inside.  Artena had called her off.  He had been expecting pursuit and
having the game cut early was a bit of a disappointment.  His heart was
thumping and his feet and hands were wide awake and tingling and ready
for anything.  But Chloe had skipped out.

He sighed and crouched down, pulling out the knives he'd stuck in his
pockets.  Nineteen, and the pockets were completely full.  He'd had to
carry some in his hands because he couldn't get any more to fit inside
his pockets, as rushed as he was.  Running with masses of sharp steel on
each hip made him nervous, too.  He'd have to do something with them
before too long.

Maybe he could steal a couple of Chloe's harnesses?

Ranma carefully replaced the knives inside his pockets and then started
walking towards the fields again.  He could eat some grapes while
considering the problem.


Chloe ate quietly.  For some reason Artena was watching her.  Artena
hadn't said anything, but Chloe wasn't surprised.  She had asked what
was wrong but had gotten no response.  She knew what the problem was,
though.

She was a disappointment, she knew.  That girl would have killed Ranma
in the first meeting.  Chloe hadn't been able to do it after a number of
attempts.  If Ranma was an assassin instead of an imbecile he would have
killed her already.  That he hadn't was from no accomplishment on her
part.

Chloe wanted to be as good as that girl was.

She set her fork down, finished, and looked up at Artena, who placed her
own utensil on the table.

"You failed again," Artena said.  Her voice was pleasant.

She nodded.  "Yes, Artena-sama."

"Do you wish me to bring the other girl here?  To help you with this
problem?"  Understanding.

Chloe bowed her head.  "No, Artena-sama.  I will do it."  Tears dripped
from her chin.

"You can have two weeks, then.  After that it will no longer be your
concern."  Kindness.  A reprieve.

She breathed in through her mouth because her nose was blocked up, its
tip wet.  "Thank you, Artena-sama," she said.

She would kill Ranma.  She would kill Ranma so that she could be Noir,
just like she should be.


Ranma spat out another seed, tossed it over to the next row where it'd
not be in his way.  They always felt a bit slimy afterwards, the
combination of his saliva and the fruit's juices mixing unpleasantly.
Plus they were hard if the decided to lay down.  Better to just keep
them out of the way.

So, he had two pocketfuls of knives, a belly full of grapes, no shoes,
and no idea how to get home.  Maybe his dad would hunt him down.  That'd
solve his problems quickly enough.

If Chloe and Artena had been telling the truth about where he was,
though, that seemed unlikely.  He'd done enough traveling around Japan
with his father to know that even his country was a big place.  His
father probably wouldn't even have a clue where to begin looking.  First
he'd check the nearby villages, and if nobody had seen him, then what?

Ranma didn't know how he'd gotten here.  He didn't pay enough attention
in class; France was a country but he knew no more about it and had no
idea how far it was from Japan.  Artena had said it'd take most of a
year to walk the distance.  Had he arrived in a plane?  Maybe he could
hitch a ride on one to get back, as well.  He didn't know how easy it'd
be to find the airport, though, or to figure out which plane went to
Japan.

Ranma sighed.  It was going to get dark before too much longer.  He
needed to figure out where to sleep, if staying in the fields would be a
good place.  Also, some of the knives needed to be ditched, and he still
had to figure out where he could practice without Chloe finding him and
making a nuisance of herself.  Not that she could ever be otherwise.

Ranma stood and started walking.


Chloe stepped outside of the Manor.  It was dark out and had been for a
couple of hours now.  It was time for the search to begin.

First she waited until her eyes adjusted to the moonlight present.  The
fields were visible, rows of graduating blackness off in the distance.
Empty ground spread ahead of her before terminating in the dark, bloody
maliciousness of the purple grapes.  The grapes were a dark horde eating
at the land.

She crossed to the black.  Here it was broken, uneven.  Up close the
moon's light filtered through, exposed the space between each row.  The
places she had to look, had to search, were revealed.

She walked down the first row of this particular field, from one end to
the next.  Then she turned and went back using the next row.  Then the
next, then the next, until she lost count, until she got to the end of
the last row.

Then she started on the next field.

Chloe was quiet as she could be.  Her hands were empty; she had no wish
to make a mistake simply because she got so accustomed to holding a
knife that she didn't try to throw it right away if necessary.
Familiarity brings it's own problems.  Inertia is a killer.

She stepped silently through the grapes and her eyes were everywhere as
she forced herself to look about continuously.  It wasn't enough to just
walk down each row--what if Ranma heard her coming somehow?--she had to
keep an eye out for her will-be victim to ensure that she caught the
rabbit.

So she stalked through the fields, row by row, field to field, searching
for the boy she had to kill.


Ranma woke suddenly to find himself staring up at blackness.  He
listened, still, trying to figure out what scared off the sandman.  His
surroundings breathed quietly, the wind rasping as it scraped over the
stones above and all around him.  But nothing else sounded.

He sat up and looked about.  The sand below was empty of spectators, a
white glare at the sky, the focus of the coliseum harshly blank and
lonely.  The moon was low on its arc over his nighttime, but there were
still several hours until the sun began its own trek.

His head smacked softly against the stone beneath and he winced.  After
putting his hands to the back of his skull as an inadequate pillow, he
closed his eyes and went back to sleep.


It was morning and the moon's cheerful wake had commenced.  The sun was
now alive, the newborn weak and small, soon to grow in position and
power.  The fall was forever away, but it would come.

Ranma yawned and stretched.  After a couple of minutes he could feel his
hands again, so he used them to prop himself up to his knees.  He stood,
then climbed up the few remaining steps.  A leap gained the top,
outermost ring of the coliseum walls.

The drop was two feet away, death waiting at a distance below.  The edge
of the stone was smooth from years of triumphant wrinkles that ruled
dominant and then faded into each other over the course of centuries.
The theatre screen that was the rest of the world stretched forever in
all directions, starting at the ledge before him.

One small smudge on that screen was a fluff of bright, purplish red,
under which a creature in green carried it about.

Ranma stared.  Chloe was already out looking for him?  Talk about
dedication!


"Chloe!  Hiiiii!"

She stopped, looked around.  Blinking made the universe smear slightly.
She'd stay awake, though.  She would.

Ranma was a couple hundred feet away, waving at her from outside the
grape fields, in the clearing east of her that extended towards the
coliseum.  He had a big smile on his face.  He opened his mouth.

"Which way to Japan?" he shouted.  Casual tourist asking for directions.

Chloe pointed south.

When Ranma turned to look she was already on the way, running as fast as
she could.  She exited the row she was in and quickly covered the empty
ground between them.  But not quickly enough.

He turned towards her when she was halfway there and she saw his
surprise.  Ranma's grin returned quickly, though, and he, too, pointed
south.

When she looked back at him, the pigtail was bouncing around on his back
as he ran ahead of her to the coliseum.  He was only slightly faster
than her and the distance remained mostly even, though by the time they
arrived he had gained a little.  The arc of the stone entranced pass
overhead.

The sand inside was cluttered with junk, as usual.  Ranma's practice
post still stood near the center of the arena, though it listed heavily
to one side.  The boy must have tried using it as a stationary target
for something other than the knives he'd stolen from her.

Chloe watched the stands carefully as she moved towards the post,
turning in all directions as she went.  There was no sign of Ranma, but
with the angle and height of the seating she couldn't see the spaces
behind the upper benches.  That had to be where he was.

Still keeping an eye out, she moved to the nearest staircase and began
to ascend.  She was quiet, and listened for sound other than that of her
shoes scuffing noisily with each step on the stone.  Her breath was slow
and relaxed like moving gently through hot water.  She was ready for
this, ready to get it over with.

Each step came with the expectation that she would hear him break for
cover, his hiding spot discovered.  Each step was an exercise in
alertness, her eyes and ears remapping the coliseum a thousand times.
Each step came unaccompanied by anything but the next.

Chloe arrived at the top step and looked around again.  Nothing.  She
could see every part of the coliseum, now, except for the tunnels
leading into it.  Ranma hadn't had enough time to get to one of those
before she arrived, so where was he?

Behind her was the last ring of stone that made up the outer wall of the
gladiator pit.  It was eight feet taller than the highest step, the
highest benches.  Ranma could be hiding up there.

She jumped and caught the ledge with her hands, pulled herself up after
seeing that Ranma wasn't immediately before her.  Once stable on the
stone shelf, she looked around.  It was bare the entire length of the
wall, and she still couldn't see Ranma within the coliseum.

"Chloe!  Hiiii!"  His voice was faint, but she could tell where it came
from.  Outside the coliseum.

Chloe twisted about and looked over the edge.  Ranma was several hundred
feet away from the building and she briefly considered throwing herself
off of it to at least have a chance to catch up.  But even that wouldn't
be enough.

"Which way to Japan?" Ranma shouted again.  Then, when she didn't
respond, "I'm going to go get breakfast!  Seeya later!"

She said nothing, and after a minute he turned and started walking  back
to the Manor, and to the grape fields, where he would eat the breakfast
she had skipped in order to hunt for him.

She watched from above, defeated once again.


Ranma popped another grape into his mouth as he observed Chloe passing
by.  She was going slower than he'd seen her walking before, no doubt
embarrassed at having been tricked so easily.  She'd get over it quickly
enough, as soon as she next saw him, he was sure, and be attacking him
again in no time.  She seemed excitable like that.

She headed for the Manor, so he waited until she was inside, and then
started walking in the opposite direction, back towards the coliseum and
the ruins that lay beyond.  He wanted to see what was over there.

Twenty minutes later and he was inside some ancient stone city.
Corridors of giant bricks formed roads twenty feet wide for him to walk
down, the buildings and walls on each side thirty feet tall.  Doorways
were cut intermittently, and when he looked inside one it contained an
empty, echo-laden room that responded eagerly to his yells.  He played
with that for a few minutes before moving on.

It didn't take long to figure out that there wasn't much of interest
here.  Lots of old stones making up empty old rooms.  Maybe if Chloe had
been chasing him around with those knives of hers it would have been
more fun, but as it was he felt like he was taking a slow, in-depth tour
of a boring museum, like his father had forced him to go on before.  The
tours were a good scouting method for his father to use before sneaking
back in and stealing stuff later.  Since his father had never taken him
along on those "Saotome School of Acquisition Liberation" expeditions,
Ranma would usually fall asleep on a bench while everybody else walked
around going "ooh" and "ah" while gawking at old stuff.

That's what this city felt like; old and dead and having nothing to fun
play with.

After exploring for a little while he came across a big indention in the
ground, a circle inset so that a number of rows of steps lead down to
the center, which was about a hundred feet across.  Pillars forty feet
high were spaced evenly throughout the circle.  Ringing the outside
edges were benches that were built into the slope.  Ranma guessed that
the circle was some kind of theatre.

The rest of the city, which really wasn't all that big, was just more of
what he'd first seen when he'd arrived: boring stone buildings in
various stages of falling down.  Most of it didn't seem to be falling
down very well, though.

When Ranma was just about at the end of his exploring limit he found the
hot springs.  They were really, really hot, but he still had fun
swimming around for a little while.  While doing so he kept an eye out
for Chloe to show up, but she never did.  She could have nailed him
pretty good if he was in the middle of the spring and no quick escape.

The springs would probably be a good place to sleep, he figured, since
the heat rising off of the water and surrounding stones kept the area
nice and warm.  The theatre would have been useful for practicing if the
whole place wasn't made out of stone with no way to set up a grape post
to use as a target.  He'd find something else.  Maybe he could still use
the coliseum, as long as he was careful.

Those knives were really sharp, after all.

Deciding that was what he would do, Ranma headed back to the coliseum.

#####

end for now.

heh.  as you can probably tell, i desperately need to sit down and make a map of the whole valley, where everything is in relation to everything else, where the town is in relation to the valley, etc.  need to get all the weather details consistent... basically, this is a ROUGH draft.  i'll go back and fix everything later on after i have the story worked out, as well as clean up all the sentences, etc.

pointing out errors would be appreciated, though, inconsistencies, characterization problems/questions, things you think i should have handled better, whatever.  if you think anything while reading this, other than 'wow, this is great!' (and even then), email me!  :)


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