Author's Note: The 365 Project is an experimental multi-fandom project to write and post at least one short every day for the next year, not including my semi-regular bi-weekly updates. For more details, see the relevent section in my profile. This is The 365 Project, 10 October.

In the immortal words of Samuel L. Clemens... "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR."

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is the creation of Rumiko Takahashi and "The Shadow" of Smith & Street Publications, as written by 'Maxwell Grant', each being used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit.


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"Shadows of Men and of Horses"
'Delivering A Message'
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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As Tendo Nabiki started to move to leave the back room, Hijima snapped his fingers and two men stepped through the door that led down to the cellar.

"You were warned, Tendo-san," one of them began, "Not to involve yourself in affairs of those who send us."

"You did not listen," his partner continued continued, "We have been sent to ensure that this time you understand the message you are given."

The two men started to approach Nabiki, reaching under their sports jackets as they did so. Before they could remove anything, the lights suddenly went out and the back room of the bakery plunged into darkness. Two gunshots rang out as the men's hands cleared their jackets. While one might read about someone shooting a gun out of a person's hand or shooting their trigger finger off, it's mostly fictionalised. A person will, however, drop a weapon when they're shot in the hand, either from pain or by a 'knee-jerk' response. By the time the weapons had hit the floor, however, Nabiki had already passed out.

"Who's there?" The baker and front operator demanded of the darkness.

"Two wrongs do not make a right, Hijima Gai, nor does wrong upon wrong," a voice echoed in the blackened room, "Wrong upon wrong, crime upon crime, your sins multiply and judgement comes."

"Who are you to judge me?" Hijima demanded harshly, "Someone who lurks in the shadows afraid to show their face!"

One of the muscle muttered nervously, "I heard one of the gangs in the area got wiped out by an invisible man, they had the leader so scared that he ran to the cops for protection."

"You believe everything you hear," his associate sneered.

"What are you calling this then?"

"Just what Hijima said," the second man answered, "Someone too scared to-ah!"

Before he could finish his sentence, he felt something grab him by the wrist and swing him, causing him to slam facefirst into the wall and have the wind knocked out of him. The man wouldn't know it, but the one who had just slammed him into the wall no longer used the flashy and powerful techniques of his youth, the control and focus he had learned had taught him to prefer an economy of movement and merely enough power to deal with a situation without wasting any.

"Goro!" his partner exclaimed, only for his head to jerk backwards as though punched; then he bent over, feeling as if he had been punched in the stomach.

"Goro! Shimura!" Hijima snapped, "What are you two fools doing?"

A sharp, harsh laughter cut through the darkness, taunting Hijima.

"What's wrong, Hijima?" the voice taunted further, "Afraid of the dark? ...You should be."

"Big words from some guy who thinks he's shinobi or something," Hijima retorted, reaching behind him and fumbling for a drawer in the cabinet where he kept a weapon hidden.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the voice warned.

"Yeah?" Hijima pulled out the M1911 Colt automatic which he hid in the drawer and pointed it out into the dark room, "Well you're not me!"

"You dare pull a gun on me?" the voice growled and Hijima felt a powerful blow crashing into his hands and knocking the gun away. Hijima felt a pair of hands grab him by the collar of his shirt and lift him into the air, leaving him dangling there kicking his legs as he tried to find something to put his feet on.

"You fool," the voice sneered, "You have no idea who you're dealing with, do you?"

Before he could respond, Hijima found himself flying through the air to hit the wall on the other side of the room and slide to the floor in a crumpled heap, conscious, but barely. By this time, Goro had regained his breath and charged across the room in the direction that, as best as he could tell in the dim light that slipped in from the windows of the front of the bakery, Hijima had come from. Something in the shadows shifted and Goro was now sure that he knew where the voice was coming from.

"Got you," Goro growled intending to tackle whoever was there and run them right into the wall. He wasn't expecting for a solid object to suddenly form in his path and knock him backwards, causing him to land on his back on the floor.

"No, I have you," the voice countered and Goro felt something grab his shirt and pull, then he felt himself go sliding across the floor and headfirst into Hijima.

Shimura had used Goro as a distraction and retrieve Hijima's gun, the polished metal reflecting just enough light to make it visible, and pointed it at Nabiki with his uninjured hand as he knelt on the ground, "Enough, show yourself or the girl dies."

"As you wish," the voice answered coldly and fire suddenly roared to life in the bakery's stone oven, silhouetting a dark figure in a black cloak and slouch hat, a defiantly red piece of cloth wrapped around the lower half of their face.

Despite the fire, the temperature in the room began to drop as the figure laughed humorlessly. Shimura began to feel weak, never knowing that he was experiencing a combination of the 'Soul of Ice' and certain ki-draining techniques.

"Put the gun on the ground," The figure ordered.

Shimura instead raised the barrel from Nabiki to the figure, "Put-put your guns on the ground!"

The figure shook their head as though in resignation and flicked a hand towards Shimura. The gun in his hand, and in fact the hand holding it, dropped to the floor, severed by one of the Saotome Secret Techniques, the Vacuum Blade. It took a few seconds for the pain to register, then Shimura collapsed onto his side, clutching the bloody stump of his wrist as he screamed in agony. Without giving Shimura or the other two a look of care, the figure walked past him and bent down to lift Nabiki up onto their shoulder. They took another two steps towards the front of the bakery before stopping and turning back to the injured occupants of the back room.

"It is in your interests that we do not meet again," he informed them harshly.

"Wha-what about Tendo?" Goro managed to stammer out.

"The weed of crime bares bitter fruit, Sanzuka Goro," the figure answered, "I suggest you concern yourself more with your friend's life. He'll bleed out soon if you do nothing..."

The figure turned and, with Tendo's unconscious form still draped over their shoulder, vanished into the darkness as the fire in the oven went out as suddenly as it had come to life.


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'Go home, Tendo!' He projected sharply into Nabiki's mind from the shadows where the trees kept moonlight and lamplight alike at bay. Five years and she was still playing the same games; still thinking of herself as untouchable; still refusing to realise that the rest of Tokyo - of the world - was different than Nerima Ward, that people there played for keeps and wouldn't simply shrug her actions off as the antics of a girl whose mother died when she was too young and whose father simply couldn't handle disciplining his daughters. Tonight he had saved her, but he wouldn't always be there, he wasn't the heroic martial artist they always saw five years before, not anymore. He no longer possessed the limitless optimism and good nature that he once had, it had died when he'd been forced to kill Saffron; buried forever when the Tulku made him confront the truth of his actions and inactions over the years and what had came of them. He now knew the depths of selfishness, apathy, greed, cowardice; the measure of chaos and destruction that could lurk in the hearts of men, because he had been made to see what dwelt in his own heart. He had been charged with fighting the evil men did by using the same evil that he had always had but never acknowledged. He unleashed that evil every time he put on the mask and cloak that he wore, turn it towards purposes of good... but wasn't evil done for good still evil, that was a question that still, after all the Tulku had taught him, troubled Saotome Ranma at times. After times when he did his 'work', as he called it, he often found himself meditating to regain his mental balance and help restrain the darkness within until he needed it again - usually with a steaming hot cup of tea to help him focus. He couldn't help but feeling he would be meditating for longer than usual after the viciousness he had used tonight and how close to his old life the whole thing had brought him...


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Author's Note; To pre-empt certain reviews, no, it's not a misspelling, it's meant to be 'defiantly red' and not 'definitely red'. Defiantly as in the brightness of the red seems to be defying the grim blackness of the rest of Ranma's garb.