Chapter 7: The Caucus Race

Mary Ann pulled the pig-baby out of the jug. "How did you know where he was?" Mary Ann asked Kuno.

Kuno blew out a big breath. "Lucky guess," Kuno answered. He stood up then and stated: "I must be on my way."

"Oh please don't say that! If the Queen hears that, she'll be terribly upset. She insists on everything being her way!" Mary Ann said quickly.

Again, something starting screaming in the back of Kuno's mind, but he couldn't understand it. "I mean I have to continue my journey," he explained carefully.

"Oh, I guess that's all right," she replied hesitantly.

Kuno laid 15000 yen on the table. "This should cover my expenses, but not my gratitude. I'm afraid it will have to do." The Waiter left to retrieve Kuno's coat, hat, and gloves.

"But it's too much!" the Chef cried. "I have to figure out your bill first!"

"Then the rest is a gift to celebrate your Opening Day," Kuno insisted. The Chef looked like she was about to object until Kuno cut her off by saying: "Please! You run a business, and you have done a good job. The food was excellent. If nothing else, consider it an advance payment for my next visit."

"Well…all right," the Chef finally accepted.

"Thank you. I wish you good luck on the rest of the day." With that, Kuno accepted his hat, gloves, and coat while noting that the hole the Heartbreaker had left was sewn up. Then he turned and left the restaurant.


Once outside, he looked around. The restaurant sat in the middle of a large field surrounded by woods. The woods were about quarter of a kilometer away on all sides. Somehow, the restaurant seemed larger on the outside than it did on the inside. "More madness," he thought. "Definitely time to leave." Kuno could not see a road leading from the woods to the restaurant, but he could see many trails disappearing into the woods themselves. He looked at the sun and quickly figured out where south was. "Nerima is that way," he said to himself. He strode away from the restaurant purposely.

About halfway there, he turned around to check his surroundings when something caught his attention. He stared hard at the ground, facing away from the sun. "What the hell?" he thought. He closed his eyes and opened them again carefully. It was still there – the second shadow he had seen at the restaurant was still with him. He was throwing two shadows – neither of which was placed properly given the location of the sun. Both of them were the same size, but one shadow – the left one – was slightly fainter than the other. "In the restaurant, the left one was also faded too. That's why I thought it was just the window light bouncing funny. But, there's no second of source of light out here, and the left one is darker now." He stared a little longer at his two shadows, but nothing else occurred to him, so he gave up, turned back to his chosen direction, and continued walking.

He was almost to the woods on the south side of the restaurant when a group of people emerged from the woods in front of him. Kuno counted fifteen people, two of which were leading horses. Most of them were men wearing red armor and the sole woman was dressed in royal robes decorated with hearts.

"Oh crap!" Kuno thought. Somehow, someway, some revelations were starting to leak into his brain. "That's not Akane Tendo, no matter how much she looks like her."

The woman saw him before her and screamed: "Off with his head!"

"Victory or Death!" the warriors yelled.

Kuno turned and bolted, heading not back to the restaurant, but toward the east side of the woods. He figured that since the men were in armor and the queen who looked like Akane Tendo was in a full dress, he'd use the terrain to put some distance between himself and the group. However, as he neared his goal, another group boiled out of the east woods. This group was all women, mostly dressed in white jumpsuits. In their midst was a woman dressed in a full red gown. "My Love comes to me! Test him my loyal subjects! Make him prove his love for me!" she exclaimed.

Kuno stopped and looked around to pick a new direction. Meanwhile, the first group came within shouting distance. "They're my subjects, Red" the queen dressed in hearts called out. "You just asked to borrow them for a bit. Well, a bit has passed. I want them back!"

"Very well, Hearts. I'll take my men back!" the woman in red called out.

"Wait," one of the women called out. "Does that mean we can't keep him" – She pointed at Kuno – "if we get him to surrender?"

"Oh, that's still on," the woman in red replied. "You just need your Queen's permission to chase him."

"Please Queen Akane!" the woman addressed the queen dressed in hearts. "Queen Suzume has promised that the one who defeats him may marry him!"

Kuno was stunned by the name 'Akane', but he tried to protest anyway. "Now wait a minute…" he started, but he had to dodge a mallet thrown by Queen Akane.

"Off with his…" Queen Akane yelled.

"NO!" her subjects cried. "Let us have him!"

Queen Akane stopped and looked at the Red Queen. "You're all right with this, Red?"

Red shrugged her shoulders and replied: "Only by defeating all of them can he prove his love to me."

"NOW SEE HERE!" Kuno shouted. "I AM NOT YOURS!"

"How dare you speak to my Queen like that even if you are the King!" one of the man-at-arms said while drawing his sword. All his comrades followed suit and began stalking towards Kuno.

"Oh crap…" Kuno said in a low voice as he backed away from the soldiers. Then he turned and bolted toward the restaurant.

"God save the Queen!" the men shouted as they gave chase.

"Please your Majesty!" several woman pleaded to Queen Akane.

Queen Akane sighed. "All right, as you wish…" She waved her hand at the fleeing man.

"Thank you!" the women called out en masse as they gave chase as well.

Kuno ran to the restaurant. He had managed to keep his head start and increase his lead, but the two sets of pursuers were still coming toward him. He grabbed the door and tried to open it, but the door was locked. "Please!" he yelled out. "Please open the door!"

"Sorry," he heard the Chef's voice sing out. "We don't open for another hour or so! Please come back then!"

Kuno was about to yell again, but the crowd was getting too close. "Damn!" he said out loud and looked around desperately. Seeing nothing to aid him, he ran along the side of the building and turned the corner. Then he ran along the building again. He would swear the building was now the size of a soccer field.

Just as he reached the next corner, he heard behind him: "There he is!" Kuno looked back and saw a group of women who had just come around the corner themselves, but they were only about twenty meters behind him.

"What the hell?" he thought. "I ran a lot farther than that!" As he looked around the corner in front of him, the building seemed to be about a hundred meters long. Kuno ran around the corner anyway.

He sprinted to the next corner and again heard the cry of "There he is!" Looking back, the building side was now only twenty meters again. Kuno ran around the third corner to see another 100 meter length until the next corner. He also saw the last of his pursuers vanishing around the far corner. He debated running away from the building and making a break across the clearing, but as he looked at the distant woods, the trees seemed to recede even further into the distance.

"REALLY!" he yelled out as he turned the corner to stay away from his chasers. He ran another 100 meters along the building, and paused to look around the fourth corner. To his surprise, he saw no one in sight. As he turned to look back on his side, he saw the crowd again turn the corner and, again, they were only twenty meters away. He dodged around the fourth corner and, a little ways down, tried the door again, but it was still locked so he ran on.

And so it went. Kuno ran around and around the square building with his pursuers always just one building length behind him. In front of him, the building always seemed to be a hundred meters long; behind him, it was always twenty meters long. Occasionally, as he turned a corner, he would see the last of his pursuers run around the far corner. If he stopped, his pursuers closed in on him rapidly. As long as he ran, they stayed a little less than one building length behind him. "What the hell is going on?!" he thought desperately as he stopped to catch his breath.

Behind him he heard the cry again of "There he is!" Kuno groaned and ran around the corner again. As soon as he was out of sight of his pursuers, he felt something snatch him off the ground and throw him up on the roof, about five meters from the edge. Recovering his wits at the sudden intervention, Kuno looked back at the roof edge where he saw the great blue-black panther sitting and watching something below with amusement.

The cat turned and looked at Kuno. Then it grinned hugely. It faded out until only the grin remained, and then the grin began to sing:

"Backward, forward, outward, inward
Bottom to the top
Never a beginning
There can never be a stop

To skipping, hopping, tripping
Fancy free and gay
I started it tomorrow but will finish yesterday

Round and round and round we go
Until for evermore
Once we were behind
But now we find we are

Forward, backward, inward, outward
Come and join the chase!" (1)

Kuno's face paled. The part of his brain that had been screaming at him for the last few days finally made itself heard. "No…" he whispered. "No…" He got up and walked to the edge of the building and then stared down. The Red Queen, her men, the Queen of Hearts, and her subjects were all running around the building, which apparently was a square, 30 meters on a side – at least from Kuno's perspective now. The chasers formed a complete circle around the building, ever convinced their target was just around the next corner. The two knights' horses stood some ways back grazing and watching the festivities. The woods was now about half a kilometer away in a complete circle around the building. "No…" Kuno repeated once more.

The great cat gradually became fully visible once more. It looked down at the pursuers. "Don't say it!" Kuno said in a low harsh voice.

The cat looked over at him and smirked: "Oh look! A Caucus Race!"

"I. Hate. You," Kuno grated out at his companion.


Kuno looked longer at the Caucus Race and then sat down away from the edge of the roof. "Why did you pull me up?" he finally asked the cat.

"Because I used you as a diversion to rescue the Duchess," the cat explained. "Now we are even."

Tatewaki thought about that for a minute. Unfortunately, the grinning cat was all he had. "No, we're not. You know what's going on. You can tell me how to get out of here."

"Of course I can, your Majesty," the cat answered while winking. "I know how to create another diversion and you'll be able to leave. The question is 'Where will you go?' And 'Should you go?' You seem to fit right in here."

"I have to go rescue my Love!" Kuno insisted.

The panther dropped its grin, but raised an eyebrow. "You don't have a Love," it said bluntly. "If you did, the Heartbreaker would have had no chance against you. You don't know how to love anyone but yourself."

"I love Akane Tendo!" Tatewaki said in a low harsh voice. "And she loves me!"

"No, she doesn't – she told you herself. Or at least her shadow did," the cat replied.

"Her shadow?"

A cry came back over the roof edge: "Find him! Off with head!"

"Her shadow," the cat reiterated. "Queen Akane, the Queen of Hearts – as you finally figured out – is a shadow of Akane Tendo in this realm."

"So, I'm not in the real world!" Kuno demanded.

The cat shrugged. "Who is to say what is 'real'. I'm quite imaginary after all…"

"No! You're not!" Kuno fired back. "The Cheshire Cat in 'Through The Looking Glass' represented imaginary numbers in complex mathematics – you're not him."

"The name of the story was 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'," the cat explained patiently. "The sequel was called 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'. The Cheshire Cat appeared in the first story only." The cat shrugged again and continued on: "So if I'm not him, who am I? I do seem to be able to fade in and out though. I know a Duchess and a Mary Ann…"

"That's not who they are either!" Kuno said standing up. "If the Queen of Hearts is the shadow of Akane Tendo, then the Duchess is the shadow of the Amazon Cologne. And Mary Ann is the shadow of that girl that hangs around Ryoga and …" Kuno stopped short with his mouth open. After a few moments, he sank to the rooftop again. "They're all shadows…" he whispered. "I'm lost among shadows…"

"You're not lost, your Majesty. You've finally come home," the cat said with amusement.

"No – I am Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High!" Kuno yelled. It was amazing no one on the ground heard him.

"Really?" the cat challenged. "You graduated from Furinkan High – you're not from there. Right now, you are from Hokkaido. And no one but you has ever called you the 'Blue Thunder'."

"I rule Furinkan High!" Kuno insisted.

"For a while there, you were the lead jock – that's it," the cat said. Then it started to grin again, and added: "At least until Ranma of Nerima arrived."

"Ranma Saotome is nothing but a trickster and a playboy!" Kuno snapped back. "He is nothing compared to me!"

"No," the panther disagreed. "He is exactly like you. He is nothing but a shadow – although in his case, he's a shadow of Ranma of Nerima. And just like the Blue Thunder, Ranma Saotome does not exist in the Real World. Indeed, his shadow has vanished from all of Japan – it only exists here now."

Kuno stopped in confusion. "Ranma Saotome is dead? Am I dead?" he asked.

"There is no death here. This realm is where shadows go when they can no longer exist in the Real World. They can live comfortably with the other whims and flights of fantasy here. You are the Blue Thunder, a shadow of Tatewaki Kuno. However, you have also been declared a King – something that should please you. A Queen awaits you – the Red Queen. Declare your love for her and you will remain here a King forever immortal."

Kuno's eyes opened wide and he whispered: "A king? The Red King? All of this is a 'Dream of the Red King'?"

The cat laughed: "My, my, you did pay attention in 'Western Literature' literature, didn't you?"

"I'm dreaming?" Tatewaki asked.

"Yes and no," the cat answered. "This is a shadow realm and dreams can exist here indefinitely, but you are actually here – all that you are is here. All your emotions, your thoughts, your very sense of self. You can sleep in this realm – and dream. The others cannot; they are dreams."

"NO! I AM REAL!" Kuno screamed.

The cat gave him a direct look. "The shadow of the Blue Thunder was denied by Akane Tendo, Ranma of Nerima, Toshio Kuno, and many others. For a while, it was supported by Nabiki Tendo who did it for her own amusement. Then the shadow became too much of a nuisance for her and she denied it. Finally, Toshio Kuno became fed up and banished it. Unfortunately, while the Living usually cast many shadows, Tatewaki Kuno only cast one – the Blue Thunder. Tatewaki Kuno had nothing else to hold onto when the shadow was banished, so he followed it here. You've followed it here, your Majesty, and so here you are. And now the Blue Thunder is the Red King as well."

"If that is so, all I have to do is wake up!" Kuno shot back. He pinched his arm hard. "Not hard enough," he stated. He slammed his fist into his gut hard enough that he fell.

The panther chuckled. "Won't work your Majesty," it said. "You're not dreaming. Your state of consciousness has been permanently altered. No matter how hard you hurt you or someone else hurts you, that will not allow you to escape from here."

"Who are you?" Kuno demanded.

"You already know my name. The Waiter told you," the cat answered.

"He said you were called 'Oh no'. That's nonsense. If everyone is a shadow here, who are you a shadow of?" Kuno demanded again.

"You thought the Waiter was speaking English," the blue-black cat shot back. "What if he wasn't when he said my name?"

"Oh no?" Kuno puzzled. Then his face firmed. "No… not 'Oh no' …. You're Tofu Ono."

"Close, your Majesty, but no prize," the cat laughed.

Kuno struggled with it for a moment, and then remember something Kodachi had told him. "You're the younger brother."

"Actually, I'm one of the shadows of the youngest brother. There are four brothers now," the cat teased as it began to fade again. (2) "Or at least, I was. He generates a new shadow now."

"And he's going to marry Akane Tendo, isn't he?" Kuno asked angrily.

The cat laughed again. Now there was no teasing in its voice. Instead, there was joy as it said: "No, your Majesty. He has already married her; she has already married him. Soul-to-soul they are one now!" (3)

"NOOOO!" Kuno screamed. Again, it was amazing no one on the ground looked up. Kuno ran at the great transparent cat. The cat snapped back into focus sharply and swung a massive paw at Tatewaki. The paw connected solidly, but fortunately for Kuno, it had sheathed its claws. The blow knocked Kuno back toward the center of the roof.

The cat shook its great head with mock sorrow as Kuno struggled to lift his head and look at it. "At your peak, you were never a match for me," it said. "Or any of his other shadows. Certainly, you are no match for his new shadow now." The body faded away now, leaving only the head bobbing in mid-air.

"This is nonsense! What other shadows?" Kuno demanded as he tried to clear his head.

The cat's head suddenly split in half and two new shapes formed. Tatewaki mouth dropped open as he instantly recognized both pig-tailed shapes, both dress in identical red tunic shirts with black pants and a black martial arts belt.

"Shall we tell you…" the male said.

"The story of the…" the female said.

"Carpenter and…" the male said.

"The Walrus?" the female finished.

"NO! You're real too! You're not shadows!" Tatewaki screamed. "My father was lying! My uncle was lying! My sister is lying!"

"Ah, yes," the female answered.

"Everyone is lying," the male continued.

"To you," the female finished. Then they continued to alternate:

"Had it…"

"Ever occurred…"

"To you that…"

"There was a…"

"Much simpler…"

"Answer? That…"

"You were…"

"Lying to yourself?"

Kuno screamed, "NO!" as the two flowed together and then flowed apart. The male and female reformed again, but they had switched sides.

"Once we were shadows of Ranma of Nerima," they said together. "But our time has passed – as has yours. Now we are shadows of Ranma Ono who is the newest shadow of Ranma of Nerima."

Kuno seemed to gather his wits together as he said in a more controlled voice: "This is madness! You're both mad!"

The two pig-tailed people laughed and flowed together to form the head of the panther again. "And what did the cat say in the story? We are all mad here?"

"I'M NOT MAD!" Kuno screamed.

The head split again into the pig-tailed couple. "Oh yes," the male started.

"You are," the female said. Then they started whipsawing Tatewaki again with the male leading:

"Quite mad."

"You've lost touch…"

"With reality…"

"And have joined…"

"Us here."

"Welcome…"

"home."

Kuno charged at the two in his rage and despair. Once he closed in on them, they both shoved him in the chest, one arm each. The action threw him back toward the center of the roof again. He landed hard, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Tatewaki lay there for a few minutes, trying to compose himself. The shadows of Ranma of Nerima said nothing.

Occasionally, he heard sounds of his pursuers, still racing around the building. The yell "Off with his head" sounded every now and then. It was that yell that finally brought him around. There was no love in that voice – just anger. "That is not my Akane. This is not my world. I need to go home. There is a connection between my world and this one. There is a way to move between them. I have to find it." He sat up and looked at the twins. They looked exactly like Ranma Saotome and Ranko Tendo. "Help me get to Nerima," he asked them.

"Why should we do that?" they asked together.

"Because Ranma Saotome – Ranma of Nerima – always said he was an honorable man. Prove it," Kuno answered. "If you're his shadows, prove it or admit you're lying. Help me."


A/N: Footnotes:

(1) The song is "Caucus Race" from the movie "Alice in Wonderland". Music and Lyrics by Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard. Copyright held by the Walt Disney Company.

(2) The Ono Brothers in birth order are now: Tofu, Ryoga (unofficially adopted), Mousse (officially adopted), and Ranma (officially adopted). Their birthdays were never assigned in the Manga or Anime, but they were assigned for this set of stories to aid the narration.

(3) Happened in "The Final Binding."


A/N: Next up - "The King of Hearts"