She turned down the row. Ranma was a ways ahead of her, running
straight down the line. The line 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 it. She hastened in pursuit.
Ranma didn't slow down and kept a set distance ahead of her, depriving
Chloe of a chance to attack. She glimpsed 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.
straight down the line. The line 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 it. She hastened in pursuit.
Ranma didn't slow down and kept a set distance ahead of her, depriving
Chloe of a chance to attack. She glimpsed 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.