Let the Curtain Fall

by Mike2

Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored; Light dies before thine uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all.

6. Tokyo by Night

What has gone before:

A fight between Happosai and Ranma brought a strange book into Akane's possession.  Her use of that book made her a target for unknown forces.  Their search for her whereabouts led to the inadvertent death of innocent girls that resembled the youngest Tendo.  In putting an end to the violence, Ranma led the enemy to the Tendo Residence.  Allies were called in and preparations made.  The enemy attacked.  The fight was long and arduous, and destroyed most of the Tendo house.  In the end, the defenders held their ground . . . but at what cost?

***

The slow rise into consciousness came reluctantly.  He awoke to great pain.  The first thing the man realized, swimming into the upper levels of dim awareness, was that he was lying face-up on tatami.  Then the hurting filtered in though the numbness.  There was a stiff itchiness in his feet and hands, and a dull ache across his chest and breasts with each breath; finally an agonizing pounding started in his head.  Sounds of movement and labor slowly filtered in as he regretfully eased into full wakefulness.

              Ranma Saotome groaned and opened his eyes and wished he hadn't.  The ceiling above him was torn open, and water trickled from Nabiki's room above.  His left foot lay in a growing puddle, a rhythmic cold patter dripping against an ankle.  You'd think somebody would've moved me, he thought, grumbling.  He went to sit up and, strain as he might, found that he couldn't move.

              "Awake, Son-in-law?" asked a dry voice, and Cologne's withered visage filled his supine view.  "You have been unconscious for nearly twenty minutes."  There were bruises on her face, dried blood, but at the moment she appeared as concerned for his well being as he had ever seen her.

              "Yeah," he said, and winced at the effort of talking, his feminine voice raw.  "But I can't seem to move."

              "I know.  Do you feel well?"

              "Terrible," he answered, "but I'll live."

              "Good," she said, and nodded.  Then she stepped back, hefted her walking stick--and whacked him upside the head.  Bright lights flared behind his eyes, and he screamed at the redoubled thudding of his brain.

              "Why'd'ya do that, old crone!"

              "Idiot child!" she yelled, face centimeters from his.  "Arrogant, bull-headed youth!  Have you learned nothing?"

              "What the hell you talkin' about?" he yelled back, again straining to sit up.  "And . . . and why the hell can't I move?"

              "Because I paralyzed you, Son-in-Law.  I knocked you out with a pressure point before you destroyed yourself--and us in the process."

              Ranma blinked.  "Huh?"

              The expression of rage on the Amazon Elder's face softened slightly.  "You overextended yourself, Son-in-Law.  They say the brightest flame burns quickest, Ranma: and in the final moments of tonight's battle, you nearly extinguished us all."

              He struggled to remember.  "That thing, after it . . . my father, and I . . . Kasumi's room.  The c-c-cats were all dead.  Or half-dead.  But I picked them up, buried my face in them.  The Neko-ken came, I fought, that guy grabbed me, and I start to black out, and . . .".  His voice trailed off.

              "And then I knocked you out," Cologne finished.

              Ranma stared at her, caught between frustration and hope.  "But I got the guy first, right?  If you're talking to me, that means we won, right?"

              Cologne shook her head, eyes darkening with anger and sympathy.  "We survived the attack, Son-in-Law.  Bloodied and tired, but we held our ground and gave better than we received.  But for you, I'm afraid, the battle this night is far from over.

              "The final opponent fled, Son-in-law, and he took Akane with him." 

Let the Curtain Fall

by

Michael Noakes

(Started Sept 13/2001)

A fanfiction set in the Ranma 1/2 world of Rumiko Takahashi.

Previous chapters available at http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m

              Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored;

              Light dies before thine uncreating word:

              Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall;

              And universal darkness buries all.

              The Dunciad

Act One,

Chapter Five:

Tokyo By Night

Swiftly and ghostlike, tenebrous buildings briefly looming and dimmed lights sporadically flaring through misty darkness, the shadowed impression of Tokyo flowed past as in a dream.  How she wished it were nothing but a dream.  For Akane Tendo, the obsidian arm that held her within its powerful grasp was all too nightmarish, all too real.  The skin of her kidnapper was cool and smooth, glassy as it encircled her waist.  Blurred suggestions of the city rushed past and night winds pulled at her burnt and torn clothes; but all sounds came to her muted, as from a great distance.

              Her initial shouts had gone unheard.  Slamming her fists against the broad expanse of her kidnapper's chest had only bloodied her knuckles.  He ignored her, crimson gaze set forward, wearing the faintest hint of a triumphant smirk.  Akane squeezed her eyes shut against the growing despair within.  This can't be happening, she thought.  I've been kidnapped!

              Again, a cynical voice in the back of her head added.

              This time, however, she wasn't being used as a pawn against Ranma.  This terrible, strange man--she didn't even know his name!--wanted _her_--she didn't even know why!--and wasn't dropping convenient hints as to where they were going.  And what if he had?  All her friends, attacking in unison, had been effortlessly swept aside.  Even Ranma, ablaze in the fullness of his ability, had barely managed to scratch his opponent before being brutally knocked down.

              And then . . . .

              Akane swallowed.  And then . . . if it hadn't been for this man carrying her away, she might very well be dead.  Killed by her fiance.

              He had twisted and writhed and hissed, suspended in midair by wispy coils of darkness.  Feline yowls sounded across the house, and Ranma strained futilely to escape his attacker's bonds.  The obsidian man simply watched, eyes cruelly narrowed and taking in the weakening struggles with apparent great satisfaction.  The pigtailed martial artist's fierce aura dimmed, his body went limp, and he slumped, unmoving, held a full two meters off the floor.  The dark loops around him tightened further, coldly burning into the helpless victim, and the body twitched and bled in its unconsciousness.

              Akane ran forward, battering her fists against the last remaining attacker.  Her punches did nothing, the man's skin as smooth and cool as ice and far far harder.  "Leave him alone!" she screamed.  "Let him go!  You're killing him!"

              "Well, of course I am," the man said, voice tinted with amusement.  He finally turned flaming eyes towards her.  "I take great pleasure in it."

              "Don't!" Akane pleaded, powerful emotions swelling within as her fiance shuddered, his skin turning gray and pale.  "I'll . . . I'll do whatever you want!  I'll go with you, willingly, just--"

              "Willingly?  Do you think I need your permission, you stupid girl?"

              "You've already beaten him!  Don't--"

              "Be quiet," the man said, reaching for her.  He stopped, a fierce light blazing up behind him.  With a scream, Ranma tore free of his bonds, arms and legs lashing out and shredding the grappling darkness.  He dropped to the ground, landing in a low crouch.  Bright flames danced and crackled across his body.

              "Who are you, boy?" the obsidian man said, turning his full attention on the glowing martial artist.  Heat flowed from Ranma in palpable waves, and the light of his aura pushed at the swelling shadows of his enemy.  "What do you think you're doing?"

              Her fiance slowly stood, then stepped forward into an aggressive stance.   Arms snapped up and stretched wide, then slowly drew down, finally crossing at the forearms, held at waist level.  Curved fingers seemed to rake at his own aura, and as his hands flowed into a classic Mouko Takabisha position, thin jets of fire swirled into the gathering sphere of power.  But this was something new: the ball of charged air suddenly ignited and swelled larger.  Their enemy's eyes widened with surprise--and fear, she saw.              "Fool!" he cried.  "You'll destroy--"

              Blank-eyed, Ranma seemed beyond hearing.  Akane wasn't sure he was fully aware of what was happening.  Arms that trembled in restraining the energies he had called forth finally failed; his attack blasted free.  She suddenly found herself confronted with a gout of flame larger than she could have imagined, a rushing conflagration, it filled her vision, a wave of heat slammed into her; and then her enemy cradled her protectively, back turned towards her fiance's strike.  Flames flowed past the obsidian man's hunched form, punching a hole through another side of the house.  The heat was intense, her vision swimming, ears filled with a sizzling roar.  The man's shadows gathered close.

              With a final snarl, the obsidian man fled, carrying Akane with him.

              Akane's eyes snapped open at a sudden lurch.  Sounds and smells assaulted her in a dizzying rush as her surroundings emerged from the fading shadows.  The obsidian man alighted on the quiet street below, and carefully, almost delicately, put her down.  One hand still held her by the wrist.

              "I have waited so long for you to come along, girl," the man said, sounding annoyed, "but I never imagined your capture would prove so difficult."  Crimson eyes had faded back into stony impassivity, yet Akane imagined a faint redness still glimmered in the depths of the three parallel gouges running along his cheek.  "Nothing could have predicted that boy."

              She smiled, feeling a certain pride in her fiance.  "Yeah, and you just wait until he catches up."

              To her surprise, the man smiled as well.  "Oh, I most certainly hope he _does_ catch up to you, my precious Key.  I hope he finds you, and keeps you safe."  He released his grip.  "Now go, little girl.  Run away!"

              Blinking, rubbing at her wrist, she took a step away from the man.  "What?"

              Shaking his head, the man gave her a little shove.  "Are you stupid, girl?  Run away!  Flee, faster than you ever have before.  Time is short!"

              She trotted a few more hesitant steps away, keeping an eye on him over one shoulder.  He watched her expectantly and made a shooing motion with one hand.  Then he glanced away, toward her right.  She thought she saw something move there, a presence in the shadows.

              "Quickly," the man added, voice filled with urgency.  "They're almost here.  I'll delay them, but you must flee.  Now!"

              Akane needed no further urging.  Confused, scared, heart pounding in her chest, she ran away.  At full speed, down dimly lit suburban streets, darkened houses on either side flashing past.  Turning down back alleys, dashing around random corners, working her way in an unknown direction, her own desperate breathing and the pounding of her feet against the pavement the only sounds.

              Eventually she slowed, chest heaving, gasping for air.  She looked around and took in her surroundings.  With a sinking feeling, Akane realized that she had no idea where she was.  A residential area apparently, with narrow houses crammed together, occasional tiny balconies holding drying clothes, limp plants, satellite dishes.  A lone dog gave a forlorn bark somewhere; the faint sounds of a television drifted from a nearby house.

              Where am I? she wondered.  And how do I get home?

              She shivered at a sudden gust and hugged herself, feeling very alone.  It all felt so very surreal: just yesterday, she had been walking home with Ranma on a beautiful afternoon.  A visit to a park, print clubs made, cheerful conversation: a day free of worries.  They had gotten along better than in months.  The thought of that peaceful moment almost brought a smile to her face, but remembering her fiance just brought home how her own foolishness had almost gotten him killed.  It made her aloneness all the more painful.  She shivered again, and came to another realization: she was nearly naked.

              Somewhere in all the fighting, in Ranma's fiery strike, during the shadowy escape, her clothes had suffered grievous damage.  Her light pink blouse--stained dark by spattered blood--was fluttering shreds held together by a single tenuous button; the edge of her skirt was tattered, long rips running up to the waist.  Blushing deeply, she realized her every step gave indecent glimpses of her underwear.

              "This isn't fair!" she moaned, ducking into a narrow alley between houses.  Alone and lost.  Strange monsters chasing her.  Her friends and family hurt--Mr. Saotome dead.  She was penniless.  Nearly naked.  Tears sprang to her eyes and a sob rose in her throat.  It was too much--too much.  Holding herself tighter, she slumped against the wall behind and slowly slid to the ground.  The concrete was cold and rough against her skin.  Hugging her knees to her chest, Akane stifled a sob.  Why, she asked herself, why did I have to steal that book?

              Because--

              It doesn't matter, she told herself.  She rubbed the back of one hand across her eyes.  It doesn't matter, I did it, and I'm lost, and dammit, Akane, pull yourself together.  Get up and find out where you are.  Keep yourself alive until Ranma finds you.  Then she shook her head angrily.  No, she berated herself, find your _own_ way home.  You can't count on them: they don't know where you are, and this is all your fault, anyway, deal with it yourself.

              It took some time to fully accept her own words, but when the reality of what she had to do became unavoidable, it brought with it an unexpected calm.  Akane sprang to her feet, suddenly energized.  "I can do this," she exclaimed, pumping her arm.  "I'll show them all I'm a real martial artist, I can take care of myself!"  The final suffering button on her shirt gave way.  The tattered remains fell away, leaving her standing with one arm raised, wearing nothing but a dangerously torn skirt and a lacy white bra.  With a loud squeak, she hastily crossed her arms across her chest.  First, she added, I find some new clothes.

              "Let go of me!" Ranma yelled, struggling feebly.  Wounded and exhausted, his strength failed him, and between Mousse's chains and Ryouga's grip he couldn't escape.  "I have to find her!"

              The moment Cologne had released him from the pressure point, Ranma had jumped to his feet, ready to dash off in pursuit of his kidnapped fiancee.  That bastard had a full half-hour on him; anything could have happened!  Cologne, however, was having none of it.

              "Where will you go, Son-in-Law?  How will you fight, should you find her?"

              "Shut up!" he shouted.  "I have to save her!"  He twisted free of Ryouga's grip, his battered friend barely able to stand, let alone restrain him properly.  "Akane's in trouble!"

              "Akane?" Ryouga blinked, and turned to Cologne.  "She's missing?"

              Cologne sighed and nodded.

              "My dear Akane!" the lost boy cried, dashing outside.  "I'll save you!"

              "Why am I cursed to help such moronic children?" Ranma heard her mutter, as she turned to Mousse.  "Boy, chase down that idiot and bring him back before he gets lost."  Turning back to Ranma, she leveled her stick at him.  "As for you: stop struggling, sit down, and listen, or I'll knock you out again."

              Ranma glared balefully at the point hovering centimeters from his chest.  He had failed to protect Akane, he had to find her; but he couldn't deny the truth of the Old Ghoul's words.  Even standing was proving difficult right now, and even if he could run--where would he go?  Akane could be anywhere.

              Tiredly passing his hand across his face, he slowly sank to the floor.  Arms propped up on crossed knees pushed palms against eyes squeezed shut, and he struggled to hold back tears of rage and frustration and loss.  His fiancee, gone; his father, dead.  He had failed utterly.  What did it matter that most of the attackers had been killed . . . killed gruesomely, savagely.

              "Are you all right, Son-in-law?"  Cologne's voice was uncharacteristically soft, almost caring.

              "Yeah, sure," he answered, and then gave a dry, humorless chuckle.  "No."  He looked up at the wizened face balanced above him.  "How could it be, Cologne?  Everything went wrong.  I couldn't protect Akane; hell, I almost killed her myself.  Take a look around: we wrecked Mr. Tendo's house, and everyone nearly died."  He buried his face in his hands again.  "And Pop--"

              "Isn't dead yet," Cologne said.

              He stared at her.  "Don't play games with me, Old Ghoul," he growled.  "I saw him.  There was a hole the size of my fist through his chest.  You don't get up from that."

              "Maybe so, but I assure you: Genma Saotome still lives, though only barely.  Your mother is in an ambulance with him as we speak, if not already at the hospital."

              Ranma shook his head in denial.  "That's impossible."

              "But true.  Your father, Ranma, is a glutton and a coward--"

              "And an idiot," he added automatically.

              "--but I've rarely met a man with a stronger sense of self-preservation, or desire to live.  I would say his chances are very slim--but hope remains."

              For the first time since awakening, Ranma felt a stirring of . . . not hope, exactly, but at least a lightening of his despair.  He sat up a little straighter, drawing strength from his father's struggle.  If there's a chance Pop might live, the boy told himself, then I won't let him down by giving up now.  He took stock of his situation.

              He was in rough shape.  Exhaustion reached deep into his bones, his limbs feeling dull and lifeless, his insides dead.  His hands were badly burned, the palms puffy and blackened, the skin flaky; the underside of his feet were the same, and feeling past red locks he felt a similar burnt dryness on his scalp.  His chest hurt; pulling open his badly worn shirt, he found his torso crisscrossed with thin, pale bands.  His sinuous scar, winding from atop one feminine breast and under the other, stood out nearly dark against his palely discolored skin.

              Looking around, he saw his friends--those who were capable of moving--working hard at some task.  Repairs would come later, and take some time.  Ranma could not remember ever seeing the house in such rough shape.  Not even Tarou and Ashura's tangle a year ago had wrecked the place like this.  That he was responsible for much of the damage only heightened his guilt.

              The phone rang.  He was surprised it still worked.  Kasumi floated by, serene despite the night's events.  Cologne continued updating him.

              "Everyone is busy cleaning up the mess.  Unfortunately, you can't have an ambulance pick up a man with a hole through him without the police becoming inquisitive.  There are some official types arriving soon.  The last thing we need them to see are bodies scattered across the house."

              "Bodies?" he asked, unsure what the police would think of monster corpses.  Normally they avoided the Tendos.  Too many weird things always took place, and the martial artists were more than capable of dealing with them, anyway.

              Cologne nodded, and fixed him with an unnervingly serious, appraising gaze.  "Bodies, Ranma.  These monsters, it turns out, were all transformed people.  They all reverted back to their original shape--or what was left of it--soon after that obsidian man left."

              His heart skipped a beat at her words.  He flushed hot, then cold, trembling, the bottom dropping out of his stomach.  People.  He had killed--people.  Words came from far away, 'Son-in-law, you did what you had to,' but through a rising buzzing in his head they meant nothing.  People, not monsters.  Dead.  His father, Akane gone, too much, too much.  He wanted to sleep, wake up from all this, his fatigued body was drawing him that way. . . .

              Kasumi's clear voice sliced through his fevered thoughts.  "Ranma, there's a phone call for you.  It's Akane!"

              "AKANE?"

              Sounds of people, music behind her, cars.  Hard to hear her voice over the urban din.

              "Um, yeah, listen, Ranma, I can't talk long, I've only got about thirty yen, it's all I had in my shirt pocket, and--"

              "Akane, where are you?"

              "A phone booth in Shibuya."

              "Shibuya?  What the hell are you doing in Shibuya?"

              "How should I know?  That man, he just let me go, I think there were others out there, like him, so he let me go and I ran and--"

              "Just give me a landmark, Akane, where in Shibuya are you, I'll come and get you, and--"

              "I . . . I don't really know."  Her voice sounded hesitant.  "I've never been to Shibuya before, and--"

              Friends and family squeezing around the phone strained to listen.  A tired and dirty Nabiki, hands and clothes stained a disturbing pink, anxiously asked, "Where the hell is she?"

              "Shibuya," he answered, turning back to the phone.  "Akane, any, I dunno, stores or something?"

              "I passed a big bar or club or something close to here.  Umm . . . it was called Neo."

              The name meant nothing to him.  "Neo?"

              Nabiki's eyes widened at the name.  "Hey, I know where that is.  She's just off the main strip.  How the hell did she get there?"

              "Nabiki knows where it is.  Stay put, Akane!  I'll come get you."

              She sighed.  "Thanks.  I'll--oh, Ranma, it's been a horrible night.  I even had to steal some poor kid's uniform, I can't believe I'm wearing a junior high school outfit again, in Shibuya at night, people must think--"

              "Akane," Ranma said, "don't worry about it."  His throat tightened, the relief he felt at hearing her voice nearly choking him.  "Akane, I . . . I. . . ."

              "Ranma?"

              He suddenly remembered the people gathered around, eyes both expectant and disapproving watching him carefully.  "I'll be there soon."

              "I'll wait by the club.  I . . . I better go, I think there's a guy waiting to use the phone."  Sounds of movement, then her voice, frightened.  "Hey, what are you--he's got a sword!" she exclaimed.  She screamed.

              The phone went dead.

              Amidst a rain of shattered glass and rent plastic, Akane hit the ground hard.  She rolled with the impact and rose to her feet, twirling to face her attacker.  The booth laid cloven in two, the phone itself sliced open.  A rain of brown and silver coins clattered to the floor.  The green plastic receiver remained in her hand, the severed cord hanging limply.

              Two men stepped around the debris.  They were tall and dark, wearing long trench coats that billowed behind them in a sudden gust of wind.  They both carried swords: not refined, slender katana, but mammoth blades nearly as tall as their bearers, the metal gleaming dully under the neon wash.

              She backed away, heart pounding in her chest.  They advanced, separating as they tried to flank her.  Akane desperately looked around for help, but the Shibuya crowd simply flowed by, seemingly unaware of her predicament.  She grabbed at the nearest passerby.  "Call the police!" she screamed at him.

              The man, a drunken salary-worker stinking of beer and cigarette smoke, stared at her with bloodshot eyes.  He tugged nervously at the knot of his loosened tie, blanching slightly.  His gaze flicked to the two approaching men, and his eyes unfocussed.  "I . . . I have to get home, sorry," he mumbled, and pulled away from Akane's slack grasp.  He faded back into the stream of people.

              "He can't help you," one of the approaching men said, his huge blade held low and to the side.  "None of them can."

              "What do you want?" she asked.

              The man paused as his companion continued to flank her.  They stood in an open circle, the crowd somehow unconsciously avoiding them.  Closed shops formed a solid wall behind her, and beyond the people, traffic crawled by.  "I'm sorry," the man answered her, sounding genuinely contrite, "but I have to kill you."

              "For your own good," added the other man.

              "How is dying good for me?" she exclaimed.

              "You've become involved with forces beyond your understanding."  The man shook his head sadly.  "No doubt, those fools back at the Order would try to save you: altruistic idiots!  Your death brings this war one step closer to an end."  He gave a slight nod to his companion; the other one brought his weapon to bear; they were about to attack.

              Akane had no idea what he was talking about.  At the moment, she didn't much care.  They had her pressed against the storefront behind, the night security gate cool and rough against her back.  When she finally spoke, the fearful quaver to her voice wasn't hard to produce.  "Please," she pleaded, "Don't.  I'm just a young schoolgirl . . . I don't want to die."

              Maybe it was the tearful glimmer to her eyes, but the second man hesitated a beat as his companion charged.  The hefty blade, swung down with both hands, clove through the store gate and shattered concrete--but Akane leapt aside with ease.  Even as the man recovered for a second swing, she rushed in close.

              "Leave me alone!" she screamed, and kneed him in the groin.  This close, she caught a glimpse of some kind of stylized armor hidden beneath his coat--something hard and metallic arrested her attack and bruised her knee.  The impact lifted him off the ground and staggered him.  He punched wildly at her.  She blocked out and spun in, her hammerhand catching him in the back of the head.  He stumbled forward--

              --as the other man reached her, the flat of his blade catching her directly across the chest.  Akane flew back, pain flaring in her breasts and ribs, and bounced hard against the wall.  Torn and jagged gate links caught at her school blouse.  The man reversed his grip, the blade scything horizontally for her neck.  With a yelp she ducked, fabric ripping, and the man continued to twist, his blade again slicing in, this time low.  She jumped up, on the defensive and off balance, as beneath her the sword tore a massive gouge out of the sidewalk.  She grabbed the fence and hanged there for a moment, but weakened links suddenly snapped, and with a yelp she tumbled to the ground, landing painfully on her rear.

              "I'm truly sorry," the second man said, a foreigner, his Japanese heavily accented.  He didn't look any older than she did, bright blue eyes dotted with tears.  "But the Door must never be opened."  Words spoken by rote provided little comfort as he hefted the sword high overhead.  It shone with lurid greens and reds, reflected neon and something else, inscribed lettering she couldn't understand glimmering in the dull metal; and then the blade crashed down.  Before she could even scream or try to dodge, there was a loud clang of metal against metal.  Another weapon intercepted the blow.

              A man stood over her, dressed similarly to the others, though his sword was, in contrast, slim and narrow: a simple unadorned katana that gleamed brightly in the city lights.  "Not tonight, Yamashita," he stated, before slamming a gauntleted fist into her attacker's face.  The young warrior slumped to the ground, stunned.  "Not ever."

              The first man, Yamashita, fully recovered, glared at the newcomer.  "Takeshi," he said, and spat at her savior's feet.  "How dare you interfere?"

              "Since when does the Order destroy its own charge?  Eager to put yourself out of a job?"

              "You dare preach to me?  Dispossessed scum!  Your kind lost that right over a century ago."

              The man smirked.  "I remain truer to our purpose than you."

              "Don't you _dare_ take the high ground with me, Takeshi."

              "Why so defensive?  Still feeling guilty for betraying us?"

              Akane, meanwhile, scrambled away from the two men as they argued.  The younger man, the foreigner who tried to kill her, was slowly recovering, clutching at his gushing nose with one hand.  All she had to do was run by him.  By the time he hefts his blade to take a swing at me, I can be long gone, she thought.  Then what?  Between monsters on one side, and sword-wielding lunatics on the other, where can I go?

              "The girl dies tonight," growled the man called Yamashita.  "And with her, the Book."

              "I won't let you kill her," insisted Takeshi.

              The first man laughed.  "You think you can stop me?"  He lifted his massive blade with one arm, and held it there still and stable.  "You overestimate yourself."  He nodded towards Akane.  "And even if you should stop me--how long do you think the girl will live?  Word has it that the Children are on the move tonight.  And what if a few Truebloods show up?  Better a clean death than what _they_ would do to her.  How long, Takeshi, do you think this sad, unfortunate little schoolgirl can last against all that?"

              "Longer than you think," said a voice strong and clear, and much to her surprise Akane realized it was her own.  She glared defiantly at the unknown attackers.  "And I'm going to find out.  I don't understand what's going on tonight, but I'm not about to let you kill me."

              The older man, Yamashita, sneered and took a threatening step towards her.  He was immediately checked by Takeshi.

              "Out of my way," growled the attacker.  "Or die alongside her."

              "You underestimate me," answered Takeshi, and he held his thin blade with easy confidence.  "We may have lost the Sword, Yamashita, but we never lost our skill."

              The younger one, however, ignored the stalemate.  He gripped his sword with both hands and leaned into a mighty swing--and dropped his weapon, Akane's swift axe-kick catching him at the wrist.  He fell back with a cry of pain, clutching at his arm.  She rushed forward, landing a solid fist to his stomach--her attack thudded uselessly against metal again--and ducked beneath his desperate punch.  She twisted as she rose, snagged the extended arm, and tossed him over her shoulder in a classic throw.  The boy slammed into the corrugated metal of a closed storefront with a loud clang; before he crashed to the ground, she caught him with a swift sliding side-thrust in midair.  Her attack imbedded him in the wall and left him there half-unconscious.

              "I'm truly sorry," she said, smiling sweetly, "but I don't feel like dying tonight."

              She turned and ran, Takeshi's urgent cries for her to flee unnecessary.  The loud clang of metal against metal rang out behind her as she threaded her way into the swiftly moving crowds.  The sounds faded quickly, but an insistent buzzing in the back of her head convinced her that pursuit was close behind.

              Ryoho Wakashima was a fifth-grade primary school boy.  He liked the sort of things that many boys his age liked: Anpanman, and the Tokyo Giants, and role-playing games on his Playstation.  He didn't like school too much, hated going to bed early, and despised his older sister.  Sometimes, however, you made do with what you had.

              "Sis, please, there's something scary outside!" he pleaded, visibly shaking. 

              Manami Wakashima rolled her eyes as she slipped out of bed.  "You little worm," she growled.  "This better be good."  She trudged after her little brother, cursing the makers of games aimed at young boys that were filled with images guaranteed to give them nightmares.

              "It is, it is, just please . . . be quiet!"

              "Whatever," she mumbled, wondering how they could share the same genes.

              She gingerly picked her way through the minefield of scattered game cartridges and pointy-edged action figures that littered her brother's floor, keeping the trailing hem of her nightgown from dragging on the ground.  In a few years, she'd suspect this was all some perverted trick to see her in her underwear--she took some pride in her lithe teenaged body--but as it was, she knew her retarded brother was still firmly stuck in the 'girls are icky' stage.

               With unnatural dexterity, Ryoho had already dashed to the other side and was kneeling by the window, staring out.  He anxiously waved for her to hurry up.  "Yeah, yeah," she mumbled, reaching him.  She took one look outside--and quickly joined her brother in his furtive crouch.

              The Wakashima household was two-storied and stood at a suburban intersection, and her brother's room looked out from above.  In the pale streetlights abnormal figures faced each other, and the very night itself seemed to gather in thick coils about them.  The air was unusually warm for this time of year, and Ryoho had left the window open.  She could hear faint voices from below.

              "The pleasure is mine, really," said the tall, slender woman standing opposite a man who seemed, impossibly, to be smoothly cut from shiny black stone.  From this vantage point the woman's face was concealed, but Manami imagined she could hear the sneer in her voice.  "What an honor to again stand before the mighty Akuji!"

              "Enough pleasantries," answered the obsidian man, sounding unimpressed, if not outright bored.  "I have little time, Ryukiko, for either you or your pathetic brood.  Either come to a point, or get out of my way."

              There was a heavy pause, in which unnatural shapes seemed to shift from within the shadows.  Minami almost cried out at an unexpected tug on her nightdress: her brother, looking up at her with wide eyes.  "Who are they?" he asked in a small voice.

              Her only answer was a silent shake of her head.

              "Pathetic?" continued the woman below, her voice dangerous.  "Compared to what, Brother?"  The way she spat the final word, it sounded like an insult.  "To your own weakling Children?"

              "No," he answered, amused.  "To me, dear Sister."

              Another lengthy pause, and from the roiling darkness that pushed at the waving edge of the light, inhuman figures approached.  Monsters--there could be no other description for them.  Minami stifled a scream, hand flying to her mouth.  Her brother, however, almost jumped up at the sight.

              "This is so cool," he said in an excited whisper.

              "Idiot!" she hissed, slapping the back of his head.  "It's a nightmare!"

              "But don't you see?" Ryoho insisted.  "If those things are here, then it can't be long before some Magical Girls show up to save us or something, right?"  The optimistic idiot was grinning widely.  "Maybe we'll even get to see the Sailor Scouts!"

              "Everyone knows they hang out in Juuban, moron," she said.  "Now shut up."

              The horrific creatures--some parodies of the human form, others wholly alien--formed an aggressive semi-circle around the black-skinned man.  He seemed unconcerned, keeping his attention on the tall, slender woman standing before him.  She made a sweeping gesture that took in the four newcomers--her 'children', Manami guessed.  "Pathetic, are we?" Ryukiko snarled.  "You stand before us alone, bereft of your own offspring, and you dare call us 'pathetic'?"  She stepped back as her children tightened the circle around the dark man called Akuji.  His features, impassively black against the night behind, were unreadable. "Oh, yes, Brother, I am well aware of your losses tonight.  Your entire family slaughtered, yourself wounded, and yet you presume such arrogance."

              "And still you waste my time with words," he answered.  Manami shivered at the coldly mocking tone of his voice.

              "Only because I remain curious," the woman answered,  "as to how you could have lost your entire family, and yet failed to destroy the Key?"

             At that, the man took a step forward--the four creatures blocking him shifted hesitatingly backwards.  The night winds swelled violently around them.  Impassive stony eyes flared into brilliant crimson life.  "Now it is you who presumes too much, Little Sister.  Spy on me as you wish, but do not stand between me and the girl!"

              "You betray yourself, Brother!" answered Ryukiko angrily.  "Our Great Father mandated her death long ago!  You risk everything we have achieved by allowing her to live.  Your actions run contrary to the needs of the Family."

              "My actions are not your concern," he said, voice low and hard.

              "I question your motives, Brother."

              "Then you presume too much, Little Sister."

              "Not if they mark you as a traitor!"

              "Such accusations," he answered.  "You wound me."

              "I will have your betrayal exposed before the entirety of the Family, Akuji!"  She spun away, stalking off into the dark.  "Will you still smile, I wonder, when the Elders have ordained your death?"  Her four companions backed away slowly, never turning their attention away from the dark man.  They faded back into the night, beyond the reach of the feeble streetlamp.

              He watched them leave before turning away himself.  "Smile, Little Sister?" he said, softly and to himself, though somehow his voice carried to the watching siblings.  "Hardly.  I shall laugh and bathe in the blood of Father's bastard progeny."  Akuji looked up.  Suddenly fixed upon those crimson eyes, Manami Wakashima gasped, feeling hollowed and exposed before his glare.  "But such things," he seemed to whisper, words resounding painfully within her head, "are not yet for others to know, child."  There was a sudden wash of darkness, chilling and heavy, and then she knew nothing more.

              "I'm sorry," the man said, squinty eyes staring at her from beneath a bushy monobrow, "but I can't let you in."  He was huge and muscular, squeezed into an ill-fitting black suit, and effectively blocked her entry into the club.  Muffled cheers and pounding music filtered through the door.  "You've got the look, girl, but you've got to pay, just like anybody else."

              Akane bit back a growl of frustration.  Some instinct told her that she was still in danger.  Enemies were drawing close.  She needed to lose herself in the crowd, to blend in and shake off pursuit.  Desperation and chance had led her to this nightclub, a neon-lit bass-thumping dance spot called 'The Underground Lounge'.  The man at the door insisted she pay up the 2 500 yen cover charge (one drink included) before entering.  How do I explain, she wondered, that I lost my wallet to a late-night assault on my home, but that I really need to get in off the streets, because sword-wielding lunatics and stone-skinned monsters are chasing me?

              "Hey, hurry it up, will ya?" drawled a girl from behind.  Akane felt a poke from behind, annoying and insistent.  "You're holdin' up d'line, bitch," added a man's voice.

              Very slowly and deliberately, Akane turned to face the couple.  A girl decked out in 70s-styled clothes paired with towering superplatform boots sneered at her insolently; the man, bleach-blond-haired and wearing too-tight black leather pants, looked down at her through red-tinted shades.

              "Push off, yes?" said the girl, giving her a little shove.  "No way you're getting in free looking like _that_."

              After everything else, Akane thought wearily, now I've got to deal with this, too?  She calmly waited for the next push, caught the girl's slender, weak arm, and gave a sharp pull.  Eighteen-centimeter heels gave very poor purchase, and with a tiny yelp the girl tumbled forward into Akane's waiting grasp.

             "Listen, I'm having a very bad night, okay?" the martial artist pronounced, her tone neutral.  When the boyfriend approached, mouthing some kind of protest, she reached out with her free hand, picked him up, slammed him down and held him pinned to the ground.  She glared at them both.  "Like you wouldn't believe."  The girl pushed vainly against Akane's iron grip as the boy gasped for air; her inch-long tiger-printed nails scratched at the martial artist's wrists.  "So how about a little patience?"  She carefully placed the woman back onto her high-heeled perch and then hauled the man back to his feet.  For a moment it seemed like the couple might object, but after seeing Akane's harried expression once again, they chose to give quick nods and move a careful distance away.

              Satisfied, she turned back to the bouncer.  He, however, seemed unimpressed and no more likely to allow her to pass.  Akane quickly considered giving him a quick pounding, but decided it would be a bad idea.  She was trying to _blend_ into the crowd, after all--not start a bar brawl.  She hovered there for a moment, torn with indecision, nearly in tears from conflicting urges--not really wanting to go in, more convinced than ever that something horrible would catch her if she went back, unable to move anywhere, and she wished for another person to be with her, even one of her sisters: Kasumi could simply charm her way past the man, though the idea of her oldest sister in a dance club seemed ludicrous, and Nabiki could bluff her way past, she knew more about this kind of lifestyle, Akane having never even been in a place like this before, hell, she was still underage, and even with just a quick glance she could tell she was surrounded by perverts, and the bouncer was running out of patience, and the growing lineup behind was grumbling louder, and she didn't know what to _do_--when rescue came from an unexpected source.

              "Thanks, Ishi," a thin, well-dressed man said, cutting past the line and stepping through, "just needed some fresh air."

              The hefty bouncer nodded.  "No problem, Mr. Takahashi."

              The man hesitated at the threshold of the bar.  "What's with the holdup?"

              Ishi gave an awkward shrug.  "It's nothing, Mr. Takahashi.  Just a customer who can't pay.  I was about to ask her to leave."

               Mr. Takahashi gave her a brief look-over, and then patted the large man on the shoulder.  "That'll be okay," he said.  "I'll cover it."

              "You sure, Mr. Takahashi?"

              "Positive."

              The bouncer stepped aside.  It took her a moment to realize she could pass.  Mr. Takahashi flashed a lopsided grin at a bemused Akane, and waved.

              "Your name?"

              "A-Akane."

              He motioned for her to follow.  "Well, A-Akane, you coming in or not?"

              It was within the wreckage of the training hall, amidst unraveled tatami mats, torn wooden beams, and shreds of rice paper that Nabiki Tendo took her break.  It was her first since Cologne had assumed charge after Akane's kidnapping.  The moment Ranma's mother had left for the hospital, everyone had been put to work: rescuing her father and older sister from the roof; scrubbing down stained walls, picking up body pieces . . . .  Cologne said she would take care of the corpses--she wouldn't say how, merely stating that she would use 'Ancient Amazon Techniques'--and that brought a frantic thought to Nabiki's mind: What the hell am I doing disposing of bodies?  Exhausted beyond reason, she flopped to the ground and stared numbly up at stars visible through the collapsed ceiling.

              This wasn't how I imagined spending my time back home, she thought.  Then again, I wasn't expecting a late-night assault, either.  It's no wonder I have trouble relating to my friends at school.  They go home and deal with ex-boyfriends and estranged parents; I've got slavering beasts and sadistic snake-women waiting at my front door.

              And guilt, she added morosely.  She had seen Ranma's face when he heard of what happened to their attackers soon after the fight ended.  Just as she had expected, really.  Other people, just like that banker she read about in the newspaper.  Now splattered across her house.  And wasn't that exactly what she had wanted?  Ranma fighting free of his usual concern for others, unhesitant, savage.  Well, she'd gotten what she wanted, but having not told him the truth made the guilt all the worse.  She felt somehow complicit in the act.

              Don't be an idiot, she told herself.  Ranma killed them, not you.

              Heavy steps outside interrupted her thoughts.  She glanced aside and saw Mousse.  He nodded once as he struggled under the weight of a tightly bound figure.  With a final grunt he unceremoniously dumped the body to the ground.  It hit the wood floor with a dull thud.  "Cologne asked us to gather in the house," he said.  "The police should be here soon."

              "What's that?" Nabiki asked, sitting up.

              "Our captive.  I was told to hide her in the dojo closet."  He gave the body a rough shove with his foot, and it rolled over towards her.  The beautiful face wreathed in a silken cascade of blue-black hair, eyes closed in unconsciousness, was all too familiar: Ayumi Utada, who currently held the number one spot on the domestic pop charts.  Half the guys in her dorm had her picture up on their wall.

              Maybe it was the recent feelings of guilt, but the boy's rough treatment of the girl irritated her.  "Hey, careful!  She's already out cold, you don't have to go kicking her."

              Mousse stared at her coldly from behind thick glasses.  Nabiki had never seen the boy in such rough shape.  Wounds from yesterday compounded by the injuries of tonight left him looking haggard and bitter.  He turned his gaze down to the bound woman and looked at her intensely.  "You make me sick," he hissed, and then slowly and deliberately he cleared his throat and spat on their captive's face.

              "Hey!"

              "This bitch," the Chinese martial artist said, still watching the woman, "and her Family, nearly killed us all.  Do you really think that these. . . things, after what they did to Shampoo, deserve _any_ quarter from us?"  He eyes flicked back to Nabiki.  "I'd kill her now if Cologne didn't insist we might need her later."

              Chilled by his gaze but resolute, the Tendo daughter refused to flinch away.  "Tone it down, psycho boy.  She tried to kill me too, remember?  Doesn't mean we've got the right to knock her off in her sleep."

              The boy chuckled.  "Don't take the moral high ground with me, Nabiki Tendo."

              "Excuse me?"

              "When these _bastards_," he started, and he emphasized his point with another kick to the girl, his eyes daring Nabiki to protest, "changed back into people, do you think we were surprised?  You're not the only one who can read a newspaper.  It wasn't hard to put Ranma's fight of last night and today's news together."

              "You knew you were fighting people?"

              "We were prepared for that possibility."  He nodded.  "Did Ranma know?"

              She looked away guiltily.

              "Did you?"

              She sighed.  "Yeah."

              When she looked back, his countenance had lost some of its hardness.  "You did the right thing, Nabiki, by not telling him," he said.  After a short pause he added, "He's the strongest of us now," and his voice was soft.  He reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a wallet.  He tossed it at her feet.  "I found this outside," he added.  He spared a final glance at the unconscious pop star before walking away.

              Mousse's words did nothing to console her.  If anything, they brought a sharp stab of pain to her chest, an unpleasant churn in her stomach.  After a long moment Nabiki picked up the wallet.  Watching the unconscious girl, she flipped it open.  "Well, Ayu," she said, "let's see what you've got for us today."

              The man called Takahashi threaded his way through the tightly packed crowd with the ease of frequent passage.  He pulled an unresisting Akane along by the hand.  Many of the patrons seemed to know him, nodding or calling out his name as he passed.  More than a few gave curious, angry, or envious glares towards the girl trailing behind, but she hardly noticed: Akane was too busy staring in stunned amazement at the scene playing out before her.

              Strobing lights two stories up cut bright swaths of green and blue across the wildly dancing throng.  They bounced and twisted in time to the body-shaking bass pounding out of giant speakers suspended from the ceiling that were barely visible through the wafts of smoke roiling overhead.  Laser light cast flickering images across the clouds above and the people below; a projector flashed stock war-footage against a screen--and the broad chest of the mostly-naked man dancing in front of it--set above a booth where an intense-looking little man listened intently to a set of puffy headphones; neon gleamed through transparent panels in the floor; cigarette tips flared red in darkened corners.  People moved in a constant stream to and from the dimly lit bar removed from the dance floor, or sat at the counter on crystalline stools illuminated from within.

              I've seen ghosts, dragons, phoenixes, giant animals and bird people, Akane thought, but I've never seen _this_ before.  Everywhere she looked, sweat-drenched bodies swayed to an unrecognizable beat she could hardly call music.  Arms and legs everywhere seemed interlaced, and some people were even . . . Those people are making out on the dance floor! Akane thought, quickly turning away and blushing bright red.  They're kissing in public!  She guiltily glanced back but the couple was gone, swallowed by the shifting crowd.  A sudden fear gripped her and left her hot beneath her collar, familiar yet very different from what she had felt for most of the night.

              I'm surrounded by perverts!

              A tall, skinny man, wearing nothing but a white high-cut metal-studded leather bikini, sat sprawled on a plush bench alongside the dance floor, with a tiny girl wearing the shortest of black mini-dresses perched on his knee.  She had one arm thrown around his neck and tugged playfully at his beard as Akane passed.  A few steps further, two long-haired girls kissed with a passion that made Akane distinctly uncomfortable--when they came up for air, she realized they were both men.  The bizarre costumes and confusing androgyny wasn't all that shocking to her--when your fiance changes into a girl on a daily basis, you gain some resilience to the whole thing; and Ranma and his entourage had worn their share of stupid outfits over the years--but the whole setting and blatant exhibitionism placed everything in a disturbingly sordid light.

              A well-dressed man held a glass door open, and Takahashi brought her up a curving stairwell into a far quieter section of the bar.  The heavy beat filtered in as a distant thrum, and the youthful cries were cut out by heavy windows that looked out across the dancing crowds below.  The man slid into a luxurious booth next to the window, and after a hesitant pause Akane sat in a chair opposite him.

              "Welcome to the Underground Lounge," he said, and smiled slightly.  "Can I get you anything to drink?"

              Akane just stared at him.  She couldn't think of anything to say.  She sank deeper into the softness of the chair and felt a warm comfort seeping into her legs.  The pane of glass next to her head vibrated slightly.  The reality of the night--the unreality of the night--was catching up to her.  The night? she thought.  Hardly.  Only an hour, if even that, but it felt so much longer.  From the safety of her home to--this.

              "Hey, you okay?" the man named Takahashi asked.

              She gave a quick shake of her head to help clear it.  Focus, she told herself.  You're not home yet, girl.  Putting aside thoughts as to how Ranma was going to find her, she tried to relax and gain some strength from this brief moment of apparent calm.  "I'm. . . ."  She realized she didn't know what to say.  'Fine,' certainly didn't cover it.  'Beyond terrified' didn't make for good conversation.  Akane didn't know what to say and somehow that struck her as terribly absurd at the moment, and much to her own surprise she laughed aloud at her own confusion.  "I'm confused!" she said, and giggled.

              Takahashi grinned.  "I'm sure you are."  He made a brief sweeping gesture that took in the room.  "First time in the Lounge's VIP room?"

              "You--you could say that, yes."

              "It's a bit quiet now, I'm afraid, though some foreign rock band is supposed to come by a little later.  Normally there's a pretty refined crowd up here."  He shrugged apologetically.  "Sorry.  Why, we even had Ayumi Utada a few nights ago."

               "Um, that's okay," she absently answered, thoughts wandering back to the siege on her household.  It was only then that she recognized the face she had punched.  "I already saw her tonight."

              "I'm sure you have."

              "She wasn't as, um, beautiful in person as I'd expected."  Her face bruised my fist, she thought, rubbing absently at her knuckles.

              "People rarely are."

              The man made a subtle gesture, and a waitress appeared at their side.  She was professionally and sexily attired, and quite beautiful, with perfect makeup.  Something about the woman didn't seem quite right, and though Akane couldn't immediately put a finger on it, she kept a discreetly wary eye on the girl as the man placed a drink order.

              "You like our staff?" Takahashi asked, as the waitress walked away.

              Akane frowned slightly.  "That was a man, wasn't it?"

              "I'm impressed!  Most people can never tell--it's a bit of private joke, I suppose." His smile broadened.  "How did you know?"

              "I'm not sure," she answered, and shrugged.  "I hang out with a lot of perverts, I guess."  She wasn't really thinking about what she was saying, her eyes sliding across the room and its sparse population, finally settling on taking in the dancing crowd below.  "My friend's got this transvestite ninja waiter who's really good at. . . ."  She suddenly realized what she was saying and trailed off.  "Um, that is--"

              "Transvestite ninja waiter?"  He leaned back into the sofa, arms thrown wide across the back.  He smirked, eyes dancing with amusement.

              Nice one, Akane, she thought.  "Would you believe I hang out with an interesting crowd?"

              "Yes, I believe I would."

              The waiter returned and placed two drinks on the table.  Her host took a small sip from his, and gestured for Akane to accept the other drink.  After a brief hesitation she accepted, suddenly realizing how thirsty she was.  And tired.  She wasn't physically exhausted, despite running for so long, but she felt emotionally and mentally drained.  It felt surreal to be sitting in the VIP lounge of some bar with a man she didn't know buying her drinks.  She had no doubt that under different circumstances, there was no way she'd accept.  I wouldn't normally even walk _into_ a bar like this, she thought.  And even if I did, this guy would probably be buying drinks for Ranma instead.

              She took a tentative sniff of her drink.  "What is it?"

              "Nothing too strong," he said with an absent wave of his hand.  "Enjoy."

              Akane took a small gulp, grimaced, and put it back.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "I can't drink this."

              Takahashi looked surprised.  "Why not?"

              "Well, there's alcohol in there, right?  I'm only eighteen, I'm underage."  She gave a small chuckle.  "I probably shouldn't even be in here."

              The man leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked at her speculatively over steepled hands.  Akane took her first good look at him, suddenly realizing that, with the overstimulation of the dance floor below, and the distraction of her first moment of relaxation and the feminine waiter, she had all but ignored the man.  He was quite good-looking and probably only a few years older that Kasumi; his clothes were stylish and expensive, even to her undiscerning eye.  She didn't fail to notice the latticework of fine spidery lines tattooed across the back of his hand, briefly glimpsed as his cuffs pulled back.  Takahashi was young and in good shape, and Akane finally noticed that behind the quick grin and bright eyes, something steely and hard glinted as well.

              "Maybe not," the man mused.  "See, now you have _me_ confused."

              "I do?"

              "What are you, Akane?" he asked, though his tone was rhetorical.  "I _thought_ you were just another role-playing little bitch trying to get in cheap.  The way you're dressed, I thought you were looking for a pickup, and I had to admit, you played the part well and looked fantastic, so I let you in.  I pride myself on picking the right people to create the right atmosphere here, and you fit in nicely; and later, I knew you'd go down on your knees easy, just like all the other silly cows that roll through here.

              "But you kept the wide-eyed innocent schoolgirl thing going in the club, and then I _thought_ you were just another silly little girl looking for a spot of naughty excitement.  Which was fine, too.  I'm young and rich and good-looking, I don't give a shit that you're underage, and the challenge of getting you to spread your legs would've made it all the sweeter.  I get my fun, and you've got a wild little story to tell your idiot friends at school, and life goes on.

              "Then you sit here and ignore me, you _refuse your drink_, and you keep a careful eye on the place and people.  But what I took for the amazement of an overwhelmed kid isn't, is it?  You've got the eye of a professional, girl, you saw right through poor Momoko, and though this is _my_ bar and these are _my_ people, somehow, you've got even _me_ feeling edgy.

              "So I wonder, A-Akane," he said, and the contemplative tone slipped away and his eyes turned dark, "who the hell are you?"

              Akane met his hard gaze unflinchingly, leaned forward, and answered in even, measured tones: "I _am_ just an innocent schoolgirl, Mr. Takahashi, and I've been having a very, very bad night, and though I appreciate you letting me in and buying me a drink, if you so much as try anything the least bit perverted, I don't care who you are or how tough you think you may be, I will grab you by the throat and toss you through that window."

              The man smiled coldly.  "Is that so?"

              "Yes, it is, Mr. Takahashi."  The chilliness of her own voice surprised her.  She had no fear of him, and an excited thrill ran through her at the realization.  After the events of the last few hours, this man seemed almost laughably mundane.  The situation was menacing, and she had no doubt that this man knew how to fight, and she was acutely aware of the other men and women hovering nearby, ready--yet all she felt was an exhilarating anticipation of what might come.  Between her own martial skills and Ranma's recent training, Akane had no doubt that she could handle whatever this man threw her way.

              But to her surprise, the man's expression softened, and he even gave a small chuckle as he relaxed into the softness of his seat.  "Well then, I suppose I'd better not try anything!"

              Akane nodded, a little confused--and maybe even a little disappointed--that the situation had been so easily defused.  Takahashi smiled.  "I don't know what your story is, Akane, but you've added some unexpected fun to my evening, and for that I thank you."  He again summoned a waiter over, this one an ordinary looking, if quite handsome, man.  A quick whispered exchange, and then he returned his attention to her.  "You've got the full run of The Underground Lounge tonight as my guest."

              She blinked, unsure if she had heard him right.  "Really?"

              He nodded.  "Really."  He gestured towards the dancing crowd below.  "I get so bored, sometimes, of the usual crowd passing through here.  Like you wouldn't believe.  These disillusioned kids and their silly little fetishes, so mundane in their need to try and shock and stand out in a crowd.  So pathetically desperate in their chase of something they don't understand--so frantic to forget themselves for just a night."  Shaking his head, he turned away from the sight.  "I've had many eager little bitches pass through here and I've hit them with the same sad routine; but you, Akane, are the most genuinely interesting woman I've met in a very long time."

              Takahashi shrugged and stood up and straightened his blazer with a sharp tug.  "Here, maybe this will help," he said, and pulling his wallet from an inside pocket he tossed a few crisply folded bills onto the table.  "One day, you'll have to tell me why you're having such a bad evening."  He stepped away, but at the threshold of a door marked 'staff only' he paused and looked back.  "In the meantime," he added, and grinned, "I simply ask that you try and enjoy yourself.  Go and dance, Akane, and have a drink.  Relax!  You're so tense, you're making even me nervous."

              Withered hands carried the simple unadorned cup to a face lined with decades and worries.  She took a long, slow drink and sighed appreciatively as the hot tea sent tendrils of soothing warmth to exhausted limbs.  Cologne closed her eyes, the subtle taste lingering in her mouth briefly recalling half-formed memories of another place, another time; and then she brought herself back to the moment and nodded silently in approval to the tall woman kneeling opposite her.

              Kasumi gave a small nod of her own, a half-smile that suggested genuine pleasure at her tea being well received.  The girl seemed blissfully untouched by neither the night's events nor the aftermath's bloody cleanup; even the authorities' cursory visit left her unfazed, and somehow her clothes remained unstained.  Yet to the Amazon matriarch's knowledgeable eye, there was the slightest of shadows across the Tendo's daughter's features suggestive of an unchallenged faith newly tested.  In a few moments her rest would end and she would return to tending after her wounded father.

              "You must be tired," Kasumi said, gently placing her cup down.  "It has been a long night for you."

              Cologne smiled wryly.  "For all of us."

              "Indeed," added Nodoka.

              The Amazon matriarch kept her features carefully neutral.  "But especially for you," she said.  "I did not expect you to return so quickly from the hospital."

              The redheaded woman--Cologne could see where Ranma's cursed form got its appearance--gave a slight shrug.  "After they took him into the operating room and I filled out a few forms, the staff said there was nothing I could do."  A sudden far-off look overtook her.  "I had forgotten how masculine a man Genma is," she said wistfully, and then smiled broadly.  "I'm sure he'll be fine!"

              "I hope so as well," the older woman said, and nodded.  "Indeed, by all accounts your husband's heroism may well have saved many of us."

              "And my son's heroism as well," Nodoka insisted, eyes gleaming with a hard light.  "The way he avenged his father's defeat: truly a manly vengeance!"

              "Of course," she agreed in an even voice.  A disturbingly violent vengeance by everyone else's telling, Cologne thought.  There would be a terrible reckoning for his actions.  Ranma was not the type to indulge in such bloody deeds and not feel remorse afterwards.  She saw the savage pain that briefly seized him upon learning their enemies had been human.  Only the interruption of Akane's phone call had saved him from that guilt.  No, not saved: distracted.  Once everything quieted down, the boy would have an entirely new battle to face.  And if women like his mother were the only figures he could turn to. . . .  The old woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes against an unexpected stab of pain and sadness.

              "Are you okay?" asked the eldest Tendo sister in a tentative voice.

              Cologne nodded.  "Yes."

              "Are you wounded?"

              The Amazon smile was self-deprecating.  "A little."

              That obsidian man: whoever or whatever he was, she had never fought an enemy quite like him.  His strength and speed were formidable--beyond hers, she had to admit ruefully.  Sitting in quiet contemplation with a cup of warm tea cradled between her gnarled hands, she had to accept that he had toyed with her.  In moments of bitterness she could blame her loss on age, on the ravages of time.  Held balanced between the elation of hard-earned victory and the despair of near-loss, as she was now, she enjoyed a brief moment of thoughts crystalline clear, devoid of egotism and self-lies--and she accepted that even at her physical peak, she could not have challenged the obsidian monster.  Her opponent had enjoyed playing with her and, like a cat soon bored with a mauled mouse, tossed her aside in the end.  Only his arrogance had allowed her to escape a far worse fate than a mere battering of body and ego.

              But Son-in-law!  Her lips twitched into a smile of reluctant admiration.  Ranma!  The power the boy had exhibited there in the end!  She had heard from her granddaughter of his deeds in China against Saffron, but how the telling paled compared to the reality.  How many warriors had she met, capable of such feats?  Very few.  At his age?  A handful.

              And to think that some of that handful was asleep in this very room.  Her granddaughter and her friends, truly among the best martial artists of their generation.  Their accomplishments went beyond anything she could have hoped.  That thick-headed boy, Ryouga: by Mousse's account, he had exploded the chest of their enemy with the same Blasting Point Technique she had taught him so long ago.  An impossibility!  Dead tissue wasn't 'dead', not in the way cold stone was: the Amazon technique should have done nothing.  Yet it had.  And Ranma: that idiot, stupid boy had had the temerity, the arrogance, the strength of will to try and emulate the technique of a god--and succeed!

              For a moment the old woman felt a shiver of fright.  These youths, these _children_: so young and immature, and yet running around with such power.  But then her fear subsided and she felt an uncharacteristic swell of pride.  She had trained these martial artists, and in some way their accomplishments were her own.  She had abandoned her own village and people to be here, yet knew this was where she was needed.  It was where she wanted to be.  Cologne sensed she was poised at the cusp of something momentous: and these undisciplined, prideful, idiotic, beautiful children were at the center of it.

              "Will you be okay?" Kasumi asked.

              "Yes," Cologne answered.

              The girl in the bathroom mirror was tired and dirty.  Too-tight school uniform ripped, face smudged with sweat and grime, expression harried, eyes dull: I look terrible, Akane thought, and sighed.  She made some nominal efforts to straighten herself out.  After running some water in the sink she splashed her face, then tried to straighten out her stolen clothes.  With a few attempts she even managed to tie the ribbon in front into a proper bow.  But when she checked herself in the mirror again, little had changed: she was still tired and depressed, and still didn't know what to do next.

              Akane stared deep into her own eyes and asked, "What do I do now?"  The brown eyes reflected back held an answer she didn't want to accept.  The realization of what she had to do had been brewing for some time now in the back of her mind, ever since she had broken away from the dueling swordsmen.  No matter how much she poked at her hair or preoccupied herself with tying her ribbon perfectly, the harsh truth was becoming impossible to deny.

              "I can't go home," she whispered to herself, staring sightlessly into the mirror.

              Her knees felt weak, and she leaned heavily against the bathroom counter.  Dampened music made itself dully heard from beyond in what seemed, at the moment, an entirely different world.  There were the rooms outside, filled with perverts and couples and people having fun--whether relaxed or out of desperation, as Mr. Takahashi suggested, seemed irrelevant.  Their lives were ordinary.  After the initial shock of the crowd wore away, Akane recognized how normal these people were, beyond the bizarre surface trappings they wrapped themselves in when they came to this place.  Once the sun rose and they staggered out into the brightly lit rubbish-lined streets, reality would forcefully reassert itself.  Whatever illusion they had crafted around tonight would fade along with the night's chill, and they would wander back to their jobs, schools, boyfriends. . . .

              But for me, Akane thought grimly, it's all horribly real, and if I wander back home I'll just be putting my friends and family in danger again.  The youngest Tendo stared deep into the mirror and beyond it she saw her friends, wounded; her family, bloodied; and Ranma, wrapped in coils of darkness that burned coldly into his skin and carried him to the threshold of death.  What frightened her most at that moment was the realization that he _would_ die to protect her; it was more responsibility than she could bear.  She had to flee, as much from these things pursuing her as from her friends who wanted to defend her.

              "Where can I go?" she asked herself.

              "Back to the dance floor," answered an amused voice, snapping Akane out of her introspection.  A tall, attractive girl stepped up to the counter next to her, and flashed a quick smile.  The sound of flushing water rang from an opened stall behind them.  "You don't want to spend the night staring at yourself, right?"

              "Um, yeah.  I mean, no," Akane stammered.

              The girl opened her purse and leaning towards the mirror, and started touching up her makeup.  "No worries, no worries," she said.  The woman glanced aside before dabbing at her lips with a small brush.  She pursed them, gave a small nod of satisfaction, and shrugged.  "You on mushrooms?  No offense, but you look it.  Some fresh air might help."

              "No--I haven't eaten anything," she answered, wondering why she'd want to eat mushrooms.  She didn't trust them: you never knew when a piece of fungus might revert you to the age of a six-year-old.

              "Fair enough, fair enough."  The woman patted at her face a bit, carefully examining for minor imperfections.  She was sexily dressed, but nothing too outrageous; Akane could imagine Nabiki wearing something similar (though not herself) and looking just as good if not better.  Akane watched her for a moment longer then turned back to the mirror.  Her own attempts at improving her appearance now seemed pathetically ineffectual.  The stranger's hair fell in sleek, straight lines; when Akane tried to smooth down her own, it sprang back into matted coils, held there by sweat and dirt and caked blood.

              "I hope they appreciate the effort," the girl said, smiling as if they were sharing some conspiratorial secret.  "I have to admit, you sure went all out, didn't you?"

              Akane blinked.  "Me?"

              "Oh, don't be so modest!" the other girl said.  "You did an awesome job!  I mean, sure, the school thing is, like, so passe, but what you did--wow.  Perfect.  I've never seen the 'anime ravaged schoolgirl' thing done with such style.  You smudged your makeup just right!  And those rips in the sleeve--le coup de grace!"

              The ravaged schoolgirl looked in the mirror again and thought, I look like crap.

              "You'll be fighting them off with a stick," the girl said, snapping her purse shut and stepping away.  "Just one piece of advice: you want to _look_ like you've just run through an animated hell, fighting for your life," she said, and gave a small sniff.  "But you don't want to _smell_ like it, too."  The bathroom door, after giving way to a short blast of bass-intensive music, swung shut behind the woman.

              Shaking her head in bemusement, she returned to her contemplation at the mirror.  Try as she might, she couldn't think of what to do next.  She should call home--she had the money now, the crisp bills handed to her by Takahashi adding up to a very generous forty-five thousand yen--but was reluctant to do so.  She so wanted to go home, and her tenuous resolve to stay away might easily break.  I have to run, Akane decided, it doesn't matter where right now, I've just got to get out of Shibuya and find somewhere isolated, somewhere I can't be found.

              "Don't you just hate them," another girl next to her asked, her tone rhetorical.  Akane glanced aside, and was surprised to see that the girl next to her was pregnant.  Painted-on tight black Capri pants fell far short of covering her swollen belly, and the silvery tank top, stretched taut across voluptuous breasts, also proved far too short and merely accentuated the belly that bulged out the remaining gap.  Short spiky bleached hair, brightly colored make-up, platform heels: the girl seemed set for a fun night out, though Akane had trouble imagining her dancing at such an obviously late stage of pregnancy.

              "Excuse me?" Akane asked.

              "Those pathetically vacuous girls.  So self-absorbed, so snide and venomous and hurtful, so focused on their appearance, so devoid of depth--poke a hole through their expertly made-up faces and they're empty inside, you know, nothing but dust and shadows."

              "Um, if you say so," Akane answered.

              "But you know better, don't you?" the girl said, staring coolly at her.  "You've got depth, I bet.  You've got something beautiful hidden inside, don't you?  I could waste all night tearing those others open--I could rip those gorgeous faces off and slash those perfect breasts and pull out coil after coil from their bulimic guts, and you know what--there's nothing there!  Nothing nothing nothing!"

              "I think I better be going now," Akane said, backing away slowly.

              "But you're not empty, are you, girl?" the woman insisted, her voice rising in pitch as she took a heavy step towards her.  "You've got something _wonderful_ inside, something precious, don't you?"  As the woman advanced she changed, her skin graying and drooping, eyes sinking deeper into her emaciated face; and even as her body shrank and withered and arced as her spine curved back on itself, her belly swelled grotesquely huge.  "You're like me!  We both have something beautiful inside!"

              The bloated stomach ripped and burst open like a pus-filled boil suddenly lanced; and Akane had a brief glimpse of gray-fleshed fetuses leaping at her, sharp fangs gnashing wetly.  With a terrified scream she turned and ran, the wailing of newborns following closely.

              "Are you still at it?" asked Mousse.

              "What do you care?" Nabiki answered, stepping lightly around her prone captive.  She eyed the new angle speculatively.  No good.  It was hard to capture the passive charm of the unconscious pop star without accentuating the massive quantity of rope binding her.  Sleeping beauty: yes.  Languid sexuality and minor bondage: sure, why not?  Seventeen-year-old girl battered into unconsciousness and wrapped in ten kilos of rope: not most people's idea of a turn on.  Nabiki allowed the camera to drop to her side.  She pinched at the bridge of her nose and sighed.

              Mousse stepped into the dojo.  "I don't," he said, but then began to circle the incapacitated model, his eyes half-concealed behind the moonlight gleam of his lenses.  He cocked his head once, took a few steps back, and then moved a little to the side.  He crouched.  "Here.  Try it from here."

              Nabiki frowned.  "Why should I?"

              "I have an eye for this kind of thing," he answered in a dry voice.

              She allowed a bark of laughter to escape.  "You?"

              Mousse stood up.  "Don't, then."

              Nabiki shrugged and assumed his position.  She cast a critical eye at her subject, and then again through her camera.  After a brief hesitation she snapped a few pictures.

              "You'll find," the Chinese martial-artist said, "that you're better aligned with your secondary light source--that florescent lamp dangling from the wall opposite you.  It's a bit flat and unflattering, like all your Japanese lights, but the moonlight shining in through the broken ceiling helps soften it a bit.  Along with that softer light over _there_, you've got some crude three-point lighting going."  He chuckled.  "Well, not really, but it will do.  You _are_ using black and white film, I assume?"

              She arched an eyebrow.  "Er, yeah.  Special occasion, right?  Of course I am."

              "Good."  He stepped in behind her and joined her crouch.  "See, from here the sweep of her hair helps conceal most of her bonds.  Along with the hard shadows from that light, it's more hinted at than obvious.  True, the angle is from the rear and we mostly see her back, but there's a flash of bare shoulder there, and her cheekbone is also highlighted in profile _there_, and a nice sweep of her neck as the head lolls back.  See?"  He pointed out the areas as he mentioned them.  "Framed right, you can even catch a glimpse of her tied hands.  The tight ropes at her wrist are a nice touch for the proper audience."

              Nabiki slowly lowered her camera.  "Since when did _you_ become an amateur photographer?"

              "I'm not," he said, standing.  "I prefer to paint."

              "To paint?"

              "Does that surprise you?  Unlike someone we both know, I feel a martial artist needs to be a rounded individual, expressing himself creatively through more than a single form."

              "I didn't know that," she said, regaining her feet.

              "There's a lot about me you don't know, Nabiki Tendo."

              "I bet Shampoo loves your paintings."

              "Sadly," he said, a hint of misery creeping into his voice, "she's broken every single painting I've made of her over my head."

              "A pity."

              "She doesn't appreciate the effort and timing required to paint her while she's asleep and unmoving for any length of time," he said, shaking his head sadly.  "My beautiful Shampoo is a very energetic girl."

              "I bet she is," replied Nabiki dryly.

              "Why do you take all these photos, anyway?" he asked.  "I've noticed you doing it to others, too."

              "Well. . . okay.  Take Ranma.  You've seen some of the calendars?"

              "Yes.  Shampoo's got one," he said distastefully.

              "The money off that's decent and all, but that's not why I do it.  The family's not _that_ hard off.  But the boy is just _way_ too full of himself.  I figure I'm helping him by toying with his ego a bit."  She smiled; her first, she realized, since everything had gone crazy.  "Besides, he's good for _endless_ hours of amusement."  Then she smirked and added, "And the pocket change is nice, too."

              "I bet it is."

              "But in this case," Nabiki continued, gesturing towards the unconscious Ayumi Utada, "I'm doing it for money.  My house was flattened, Mousse, worse than any of Ranma's psycho friends--and that's including you, psycho boy--ever managed.  That's just not cool.  I might be playing way out of my league here, but I don't care: I've got one of the hottest stars in Japan tied at my feet, and even if it sinks her career, some quality 'unauthorized' photographs should go a long way towards paying for these damages."

              Mousse nodded but didn't answer, impassively staring at the unconscious girl.  Nabiki remembered him kicking their prisoner earlier.  Most of his bitterness and anger now seemed gone, leaving only bland curiosity.  He swayed slightly as he stood, and she realized the boy was far beyond exhaustion.

              "You should get some sleep," she suggested.

              He nodded again but continued watching the girl.

              "Mousse?"

              "Aren't you curious?" he asked.  "She's an attractive enough girl.  You say she's very popular here across Japan.  Why would she choose to turn into one of the things we've fought tonight?"

              "Who knows?  We don't even know if it's something she 'chose'.  I was hoping to find something in her wallet, but no luck."

              "Nothing at all?"

              "Hey, what do you want?  Her 'Evil Fiend Registration Card'?  The best I got was her driver's license.  That and some money, a few receipts, credit cards--pretty ordinary stuff."  She slipped the license out of her pocket.  "She's twenty years old, 54 kilos, and 160 centimeters tall, for what it's worth, and born in Tokushima prefecture."  Nabiki chuckled.  "Sounds like the farmer's daughter's done good for herself--well, aside from the whole ravenous-demonic-spider thing, that is."

              Looking up, however, she realized Mousse wasn't listening.  Instead, he was roughly pulling the girl across the floor.

              "What the hell are you doing?"

              "I heard her moan," he said.  "She's coming to."  With a final shove he propped her up against a wall.  The girl released another soft moan, and her eyes fluttered.  Nabiki quickly joined the Chinese boy.  They waited for their captive to wake up.  She hoped they might finally receive some answers.

              Ayumi Utada's eyes opened.

              Akane Tendo ran hard and fast through the crowded streets of Shibuya, knocking alcohol-slowed salarymen and fashion-crippled teenaged girls aside as they blocked her way.  When she glanced back she still imagined gray-fleshed abortions scrabbling along the ground in pursuit, bloated little arms carrying them quickly forward, withered legs trailing uselessly, slimy glistening umbilical cords, unformed lips curled, sharp-pointed teeth, and their cat-like yowls echoing like the wailing of a feverishly-starved litter.  Again, her heart thudding against her chest; a pulse-pounding dash through snaking back streets, pachinko parlor flashing lights and love hotel neon wash a luminous cascade across her vision, slow warm burn growing in thighs and chest as she rushed past multitudinous blurred faces that briefly loomed--surprised, shocked, amused, dazed--and slid past, gone, left behind as she raced deeper into the heart of the ward.  The city was utterly silent, the people voiceless, the cars mute, the shops quiet.  All she heard was the furious beating of her own heart and the hot heaving of her own breath, and the incessant twisting of her inner voice as frightened desperate thoughts turned in on themselves.

              She burst onto a main road into an even thicker throng of people surging past, a nonstop flow of cars beyond them; and with a sudden deafening roar sound returned to her, slamming into her with all the physicality of a concrete wall.  She stopped and gasped and, momentarily stunned, stumbled over to a building and clutched at the corner as if trying to keep from being swept away.

              Shit shit shit shit, Akane thought, gasping for breath, blinking against tears springing to her eyes.  That woman!  Those things!  I can't do this--I can't, not alone, where's Ranma, those things were _babies_, they were. . . oh shit, fuck!  She felt like retching, she couldn't remember ever being so frightened in her life, she felt like curling up into a tight ball and hiding at that street corner, she wanted to squeeze into a crack in the pavement and disappear until morning, when the bright sunshine would banish these dark things and friends would come save her and everything would be fine, like they were yesterday, just Ranma and her at the park talking. . . .

              Except that even then Ranma had been on guard, watching for enemies by day; and Mousse and Shampoo had almost been killed in broad daylight; and the park was on the other side of Tokyo; and the stupid jerk was _never_ as nice to her in person as she liked to imagine; and, and . . . .  And the absurdity of her indignant anger somehow cut through the fear, and she giggled--though with a ragged, desperate edge to her laugh that somehow brought Kodachi Kunou to mind.  The thought of the lunatic gymnast--whatever happened to her, she wondered, I'll have to ask Kunou--also struck her as funny-- leotard and ribbon against these monsters chasing her--and that carried another laugh to her lips, and another, except now it sounded more like wracking sobs than laughter. . . .

              Akane lost track of time as she struggled between tears and laughter and gasping for air, leaning heavily against the side of the building, still lost, still alone.  But she quickly caught her breath, and the tears dried, and the urge to giggle subsided.  I'm okay, she told herself.  I can still do this.  Akane took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

              A large crowd surrounded her, staring with a mix of concern and curiosity.  A young girl of around her age tentatively reached out.  "Are--are you okay?"

              It was amazing how quickly one could go from 'deathly afraid' to 'embarrassed to death'.  Akane flushed a bright fiery red and smiled nervously before her unintended audience.  "I'm. . . ah, I'm fine, thank you!" she exclaimed, her voice squeaky.  "Um. . . and you?"

              The girl looked at her oddly.  "I'm fine."

              "Good!  Then we're all fine!"

              "Ooookay," the girl added and, shaking her head, she drifted away.

              People resumed walking, and soon Akane found herself standing alone at the corner.  She looked around in an attempt to orient herself.  Buildings reached high around her, steel and concrete fingers stabbing at the murky sky overhead; and brilliant signs everywhere sent shadows scuttling into the narrow alleys between buildings.  Skyscrapers loomed against the night, imposing brethren to the commercial fashion outlets around her.  To her surprise she recognized one of them.  To her left and further along the road, the massive Tokyu Department store sat where the way split in two.  She heard a sudden roar and clacking sound--a subway rushing into a nearby station--and Akane suddenly oriented herself: this was Bunkamura Street, which led to the main Shibuya train station.  In less than an hour she could be home!

              Without further hesitation she stepped into the flow of people and let it carry her forward.  She took comfort in the bustle and press of people around her.  Moving with the crowd, she followed the road toward the JR station.  She walked quickly, eyes alert, trying to blend in while remaining attentive to her surroundings.  Surely the crowd would react if someone or something tried to attack?

              With her heart pounding in nervous anticipation, Akane stopped at a red light.  She was directly across from the train station.  She scanned the mass of people but saw nothing that struck her as suspicious.  Five roads met and released their human traffic at this single intersection, the busiest in Tokyo.  The sound and bustle of so many people was nearly overwhelming.  She felt a light buzzing across her brain, like a prelude to a headache.  A solid wall of people waited across the road, impatient as the flow of cars and taxis roared by.  Akane glanced up, distracted by a giant video screen set above a second-floor Starbucks; she smiled without humor at the latest Ayumi Utada video being played there.

              The light before her changed.  Green: go.  She resisted the urge to run across the street.  The human swell poured out across the half-dozen pedestrian crossings simultaneously.  Akane moved with the flow.  I'm almost there, she thought.  I'm almost there.

              A sudden movement to her side, aggressive.  Flash of metal, neon gleam: by instinct she twisted aside.  Too slowly.  Someone slammed into her, and the jarring impact knocked her out of the comforting stream of people.  She stumbled into the street.  Recovering with desperate speed, she tried to keep space between her and her surprise attacker.  Akane stepped back, into the very center of the intersection.  Everywhere she looked, unseeing people walked quickly in straight lines across the streets, forming shifting walls surrounding her.  She turned desperately but saw no escape, and even the towering buildings stabbing upwards seemed encircling, entrapping.  From the flow of people stepped tall men bearing large swords, and their armor glinted as dark cloaks fell aside.

              "This is as far as you go, girl," pronounced the lead man, and she recognized him from before: Yamashita.  Three men followed, forming a semi-circle behind him.  "There'll be no escape for you this time."

              "Why don't you leave me alone!" Akane screamed at them.  Somewhere deep inside, a deep fury suddenly ignited beneath the overwhelming fear she felt.

              "You should listen to her," a dry voice called out, and from behind another man she recognized stepped from the crowd: Takeshi.  Others walked behind him, weapons drawn.  They waited protectively at his side, mirroring the men standing opposite.

              "You won't stop me again," Yamashita spat.

              "Really?"  Takeshi gestured toward the encircling wall of pedestrians.  "In just over sixty seconds the lights are going to change.  Your little sorceries might blind these people to our presence, but they won't do much against a Honda Civic.  I don't have to beat you, Yamashita, I just have to hold you off for a single short minute."

              The men glared at each other across the open space.  The cacophony of voices seemed almost subdued here in the middle of the intersection, the unexpected eye of an urban tornado.  A strange calm settled over Akane as she watched these men argue over her fate.  Her fear abated slightly; her anger continued to grow.

              "There's a statue over there," Yamashita began, the tone of his voice nearly conversational though he spoke quickly, each word pronounced succinctly.  "It's called Hachiko, and it's in honor of a dog.  The story goes that a foreign teacher used to live here, and would take the train to work every day.  His dog would accompany him to the station, and loyally await his return at night.  One day, the man died while away.  He never came back.  But Hachiko waited.  He waited for days and weeks for his master to return.  But of course the man never did, and eventually the dog died, loyal until the end.

              "Trust us Japanese to reward such blind faith with a statue.  But we of the three Orders, we're no different, are we?  We're no better than some stupid dog.  For centuries we have loyally fought for and awaited the return of something long dead and gone!  Those to whom we're pledged are dead, Takeshi!  Our Orders are enslaved to a dream and an impossibility.  We've kept our promises for long enough--it is time for us to break away from the past and embrace what we've forged for ourselves here in the present!"

              Akane braced herself.  She could see the men opposite her tense for a charge.  Less than thirty seconds before the light changed.

              "Still trying to justify your betrayal, Yamashita?" Takeshi shouted back.  "Who are you trying to convince: yourself or me?"

              Yamashita's visage twisted in rage.  He shouted in a language Akane couldn't understand.  With a fierce yell he charged, his men closely following; Takeshi and his companions echoed his cry as they leapt forward to meet the attack.  Caught in the middle, Akane awaited her chance to break away.

              An unearthly shriek from above rang out.  Akane leapt aside as something grotesque and spider-like landed where she had been standing.  She scrambled away and recognized her attacker, and her stomach tightened in renewed fright: the pregnant woman from the Underground Lounge.

              "For the Father!" it shrieked, and its swollen belly burst open and disgorged its hideous offspring.  Tiny gnashing figures snarled and wailed as they leapt at the men.  Akane lashed out with a kick and her foot impacted with something soft and fleshy; and even as she stepped down she was pushing away, rushing towards her human attackers.  An enormous blade whistled overhead as she ducked and slipped past an unknown young man, and with a deft step she hooked his rear leg and sent him sprawling.  She ignored the man's scream as a gray bloated figure latched onto his head.  Akane fled into the crowd.

              She spared a glance back.  Yamashita and Takeshi were standing back to back, fighting in unison against their monstrous fetal attackers.  There was another creature in their midst, something tall and gangly with far too many limbs, against whom the armored men were combating together.  Maybe they'll take each other out, she thought without much hope, turning away and resuming her run toward the station.  She shoved her way past protesting people.  A tall, freckled young schoolgirl yelled angrily at her, the brown skirt of her school uniform flaring out as Akane knocked her down.

              "Watch it!"

              "Sorry!" Akane muttered, pushing her way through the girl's friends.  She emerged from the crowd onto the street on the side of the station.  Only then did she realize that she hadn't seen the pregnant woman when she'd first glanced back.

              Instinct again saved her as she dove forward and slid across the concrete floor.  With a hiss the woman landed, body still curved impossibly back, bulging abdomen held high, spider-like, head hanging down between claw-like limbs.  This time the crowd reacted: with loud screams of terror and fright, people scattered and fled.  The creature hissed as Akane flipped to her feet.  Its belly pulsed and squirmed unnaturally as it crept towards her.

              Instead of fleeing or freezing up in terror, Akane suddenly felt her anger overwhelm her fear, and with a loud scream of rage she charged.  The creature spat something wet and green at her, and Akane leaned aside and narrowly avoided it; and rapidly closing, she slammed one fist down with the power of a sledgehammer into its bulbous stomach.  "Leave!" Akane shrieked, kicking one foot into its dangling head.  "Me!"  Another punch, and another, her full strength thudding into the creature's side with shuddering impact.  "Alone!"  With a final yell she unleashed the strongest kick she could muster, and the woman went flying back into the wall.  Breathing heavily, she watched as it slumped to the ground. . .

              . . . only to quickly rise again, unhurt.

              Akane smiled wanly.  "Um, sorry about that?" she stammered, and turned and ran, the creature scuttling quickly after her.  People scattered out of her way, screaming as they caught sight of the thing behind.  In desperation Akane slowed enough to knock display stands and vending machines over in her wake, and was briefly rewarded as it halted to avoid the crash of machinery.  Then it leapt to the wall and continued its pursuit, effortlessly sticking to the vertical surface.

              A loud roar overhead: the sound of an arriving train.  Akane dashed deeper into the station.  Chaos erupted as the monster followed.  There: an exit leading up to the train's platform.  Without hesitation she ran for the stairs, hopping over an obstructing turnstile.  She took the steps four at a time.  She could feel the thing snapping at her heels.  Her breath caught in her throat, heart hammering an impossible beat.  She reached the top of the stairs with a final jump.  Planting her feet solidly, she twisted, arms held high.  She hammered a blind, fierce double-handed blow down at the monster.  Her fists connected solidly even as it leapt at her with reaching claws.  With a squeal it fell back, hitting the stairs hard and tumbling back down.

              Akane ran for the train.  It waited with open doors.  She was vaguely aware of a whistle ringing out, of an amplified voice calling for final boarding.  With rapidly dwindling energy she dashed onto the train.  The doors remained open behind her.  Back at the platform, she saw her pursuer emerge at the top of the stairs.

              "Close!" Akane screamed at the doors.  "Close!"

              The monster rushed the train.  The doors slid shut.  The woman slammed against them.  There was a brief moment before the train jerked into motion in which her opponent uncurled, standing up on two feet and returning to an almost-human appearance.  The same spiky-haired face that had spoken to her in the bathroom pressed up against the Plexiglas window.

              "I want you," the woman mouthed, and though her face was human, wildly rolling eyes over bared teeth revealed an animalistic hunger.  The train pulled away.

              Akane collapsed onto a seat.  Only once her hurried breathing and pounding heart subsided did she realize that she was shaking, and that blood pooled at her feet.

              Ranma stormed out of the bar, angry and frustrated.  His chest was still heaving after the rooftop dash south from Nerima to Shibuya.  There hadn't been time to change his clothes.  No time for hot water.  He'd even forgotten his wallet.  Only time for Akane.  Every moment counted, he had to find her before it was too late.  Back at the shattered phone booth there hadn't been any signs of where she had gone, but nor had there been any blood.  The last he had noted with considerable relief.

              Without any other ideas he had checked the bar she had mentioned, Neo, in the hopes that she had doubled back.  Nothing.  In desperation he had started to raid every other bar and club in the area.  There were too many of them.  He was on the verge of giving up his frantic search and switching to another tactic--though he had no idea of what that might be--when he stumbled across the Underground Lounge.

              Akane had been here.  The dance club was a chaotic disaster.  People were gibbering about giant furless rats and screaming babies.  Judging by the rest of the night, it sounded like something his fiancee must have left in her wake.      That was less than twenty minutes ago, Ranma thought.  Where would she have gone?  If something had been in close pursuit, she would have had to flee on foot, which meant he still had a chance to overtake her--but which way?  He scanned the surrounding streets.  Which way, he asked himself, would an uncute thick-headed tomboy go?

              Please be okay, Akane. . . . .

              He noticed a phone booth across the street and, with no other ideas, jogged over to it.  A moment's searching didn't turn up any coins on his person.  With a shrug, he popped his fist through the hard plastic casing of the phone and ripped the side open.  Coins showered out.  He snagged a couple, slipping them into his pocket, and slid a hundred yen into the slot.  He called the Tendos.

              "Hello?" answered Kasumi after a few rings.

              "Kasumi, it's me."  He nearly winced at the sound of his own female voice: weary, desperate.

              "Oh, my!  Ranma?  Where are you?"

              "I'm still in Shibuya.  I haven't found Akane.  Has she called or anything?"

              "I'm sorry, but she hasn't.  Oh, I certainly hope she's okay."

              Suddenly feeling guilty for further worrying the oldest sister, he tried to soften his voice.  "I'm sure she is, Kasumi.  Akane's a tough girl.  Listen, I have to keep. . . ."

              "One second, Ranma.  Mousse wants to talk to you."

              There was a sound of the phone being passed along.  Ranma wondered why the Chinese boy would want to talk to him.  He looked around as he waited, watching the people as they passed by.

              "Ranma?  This is Mousse."

              "Hey, man, what's up?  Listen, I'm in a bit of a hurry--"

              Mousse cut him off.  "Our captive is awake."

              "We have a captive?"

              "Shut up, will you?  She had interesting things to say.  About who she is, and the man she follows.  This is important.  These people, there are a lot of them, they are part of some kind of family calling themselves--"

              But Ranma wasn't listening.  Eyes wide, he stared across the street at a man staring back at him.  The martial artist recognized the man; he had seen him twice before.  Standing outside Akane's door the night all this began, and again after defeating--no, killing--the first of these creatures.  The man stood a full head taller than most of the people who walked by, hands sunk deep into the pockets of his long coat.  Long blond hair made him conspicuous among the crowd, as did the dark round glasses he wore; yet nobody seemed to take notice of him as they flowed around and past.  When the man seemed assured that Ranma had noticed him, one side of his mouth twitched into a smirk.  He nodded once and then turned away and disappeared into a side street.

              "Hey, idiot, are you listening to me?" came Mousse's angry voice.

              "Gotta go," Ranma said, dropping the receiver and leaping after the man named Gabriel.

              This, Akane thought, is embarrassing.

              The sound of ripping fabric sounded obnoxiously loud to her ears as she tore another strip off the skirt of her stolen uniform.  Not that anyone reacted or said anything.  The other passengers sharing the late-night train kept their attention fixedly elsewhere.  Well, almost everyone.  One foreigner kept taking surreptitious wide-eyed glances at her, and she thought she'd glanced a camcorder in the rolled up magazine of a nearby salaryman.  Perverts, she growled to herself.  Aside from her covert audience, heads buried into newspapers or oversized manga magazines pointedly ignored her as she formed makeshift bandages for her injured side.

              When I clobbered that thing, she thought, it must have slashed me with one of its claws.  A jagged line across her ribs bled insistently, pain lancing across her chest if she twisted too quickly.  That thing almost got me, she realized.  Somewhere deep inside she knew she ought to be chilled by the fact, but Akane somehow felt numb to the reality.  I almost got killed, she told herself, and then shrugged.  It's hardly the first time.

              And I doubt it'll be the last time, she added morosely.

              Akane tried to preserve a modicum of modesty but her clothes left little to the imagination.  She tore off the bottom part of her blouse--leaving her midriff bare--and wadded it up into a rough compress.  A crude bandage made from the shreds of her skirt kept it tied securely in place.  She gave the knot at her opposing side a final tug and nodded in satisfaction.  Letting her shirt fall back--and trying to ignore the way it draped off her breasts, falling far short of her navel--she flopped back into her seat.  There.  That'll do.  It'll have to.

              Once she had a moment to relax, she realized she had no idea where the train was headed.  It didn't really matter, of course: anywhere was better than being on the train platform with that swollen-bellied monster.  The map over the exit told Akane that she was on the Yamanote line.  It circled through the heart of Tokyo, and if she waited long enough it would eventually bring her right back to Shibuya.  A glance out the window confirmed she was moving clockwise and heading north.

              What a night, she thought.  Akane wondered if she was slipping into shock.  She felt curiously numb and relaxed inside.  Aside from a slight buzzing headache and the pain in her side, she was fine, the burn of exhaustion draining from her legs and chest even as she rested.  With that rest came the freedom to think about her situation.

              Where am I going to go? she asked herself.

              If she got off the train on one of the northern stations along the loop, she could catch a separate line that would bring her closer to home.  She was minutes away from Shinjuku station--she could make the connection there and take the Toei Oeido line into Nerima.  But, she forcibly reminded herself, I _can't_ go home.  My friends and family are there and I can't--I won't--put them in danger again.  Whoever these people and things fighting over me are, at least some of them know where I live.  They could be waiting for me at my house.

              Then her thoughts grew despondent and she added: but if I don't go home, where can I go?  I've been running all night, and I can't keep this up forever!  A day, a week, how long am I supposed to stay hidden?  Years?  Alone. . .  I can't do this alone.  I'm not strong enough.

              Akane's face burned at her admission of weakness.  _Shampoo_ wouldn't be sitting half-naked on some train whining about her future, she thought.  She'd be ready to make the sacrifice.  Ukyou had _already_ made the sacrifice, giving up ten years of her life, femininity and family in pursuit of a childhood oath.  And here I'm faced with giving up my family, friends, and school--with people's lives hanging in the balance!--and I hesitate.  All my life I've waited for a _real_ challenge, that moment when I could show everybody that I _am_ a martial artist, a true warrior; but faced with the reality I've become a coward.  Her headache subsided as hot, heavy tears sprang to her eyes.  She struggled to stifle a sob but it escaped, loud and racking, and she buried her face in her hands.  I'm so weak, I'm crying again, I'm alone and useless and I can't make it on my own. . . .

              But you're not alone, a suspiciously unsympathetic masculine voice interrupted, you stupid tomboy.  Like, didn't I say I was comin'?

              You jerk, she told the voice in her head.  _You're_ the reason I have to stay away.

              Now what kinda stupid talk is that?  Like anything's gonna happen to me.  I rock!

              But you almost died tonight!

              Oh, you are _so_ uncute.

              Idiot!  Pervert!

              Akane found herself grinning despite herself, her tears already subsiding.  I can't believe it, she thought, we even argue in my own imagination.  She wanted him with her so much at that moment; she had to keep him away before he did something to get himself killed trying to protect her.  I couldn't live with that, she told herself.  I've already cost him his father. . . .

              A sudden image of Mr. Saotome leaping past her and interrupting the charge of the creature behind sprang up in her mind.  Ranma's father, standing frozen with an arm speared straight through his chest.  There had been less blood than she would have expected.  He had had a curious smile on his face.  A familiar mischievous glint to his eyes.  Slumping to his knees and falling back.  And then: Ranma's tortured scream of loss and rage, as he tore his enemies apart.

              Enemies, like that bloated woman from the club.  Who erupted from apparent normalness into the monstrous form that chased her through the streets of Shibuya.  She remembered the hungry, hateful eyes that stared at her through the subway's window.  Had the attackers at her home been ordinary people as well?  Ordinary people that Ranma had--

              How can I ever face him again?  I've taken his father from him; I've forced him to kill.  There hadn't been time to fully appreciate what had happened until this very moment.  Guilt welled up within as the train continued to speed its way through the outer edge of Shibuya.  She stared out the window watching the urban landscape blur past, wishing for the familiarity and peace of a time not long ago.  The train slowed and halted at the next stop along the line, but no one boarded her car.  Preoccupied as Akane was, she hardly noticed.  Ranma told me to stay back, she thought.  He said it was too dangerous, that I was out of my league.  He was right, but I didn't listen.  I tried playing at martial artist and look what it cost him.  And now I'm doing it again!  Are more people going to die because of me?

              Why are these people after me! she wanted to scream, angry frustration rising up through her guilt.  What do they want?  What the hell makes me so important?  Guilt, Genma Saotome, loneliness and fear, sacrifice, three girls dead already, nothing normal, university dilemma, martial arts and failure, other people's bravery, fathers, Ranma. . . .  a sudden flurry of desires, needs, fears assaulted her mind, a tempestuous rush of thoughts through which she saw no solution, no end; and she gasped at the sudden redoubling of the hammering in her head. 

              The pain caused her to raise her head, the heel of one hand pressed to her forehead.  The other people on the train quickly looked away, avoiding her gaze.  All but one: a tall man with dark flinty eyes.  He stared back at her from across the length of the car.  A tight-lipped smile split his long, narrow face as he noticed her attention.  He slid the door shut behind him without breaking eye contact.  He took a moment to straighten his tie and adjust his suit blazer, and then with measured, unhurried steps he walked forward.

              Somehow Akane knew she didn't want this man to reach her.

              Here we go again, she thought grimly, regaining her feet.  Which one is he?  Does he have a blade hidden under his blazer?  Is he about to change into something hideous?  And how the hell did he find me?  The man noticed her reaction but didn't break stride.  Akane took a hurried step back to maintain distance.  It didn't take long for her to bump into the door behind.  The man's smile widened at her retreat.

              Akane threw the door open, and the next, and moved into the next car.  She was heading toward the back of the train.  She ran down the car's near-empty length, checking over her shoulder for pursuit.  The man maintained his steady walk, though his pace quickened slightly.  The end of another car: she passed through into the next, and with a sinking sensation saw that it was the last.  She moved to near the back without knowing where to go next.  Her pursuer slid the final door shut.  He stopped several meters away.  A scattering of uninterested people barely even glanced up at their entrance.

              "My, my," the man said, his voice deep and smooth.  "Little kitten, you've led us on quite the chase tonight."

              Akane didn't answer.  She watched him carefully.  Was he a normal man?  If so, she felt some confidence that she might be able to hold her own.  But if he was like the woman from the club, and something terrible lurked beneath his calm facade. . . .

              "It would seem that you've run out of places to run."

              Akane's eyes darted to the door.  She noticed the emergency stop button next to it, covered under glass.  The man must have noticed, for his smirk grew.  "Go ahead.  It won't do you any good."  He took a step toward her.

              "Stay away," she growled, stepping back.

              "I don't think so," he answered.

              Their exchange caught the other passengers' attention.  One young couple, lost in a passionate embrace, didn't look up; a disheveled salaryman, passed out on his seat, released a loud snore; but a young, rough looking man with 'Harajuku Dragons' painted across his leather jacket suddenly stood and interposed himself.

              "Oi, buddy, what's goin' on here?"

              "This doesn't concern you," answered her stalker.

              Akane was thankful for the interruption, but knew that if she couldn't handle it, the odds are this guy couldn't either.  "Maybe you should listen," she spoke up.  "I don't want you to get hurt."

              The wannabe savior glanced back incredulously.  "Excuse me?"  he exclaimed angrily.  "Are you telling Akira Nobuyaki he might get hurt?  No little girl tells Akira Nobuyaki that he might get hurt!"  He turned back on the other man.  "And the day some suit-wearing jackass pansy tells Akira Nobu--"

              "Akira Nobuyaki," the man interrupted, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.  "You're not a hero."  He gave a one-armed shove, sending the young man hurtling back.  He crashed into a side window of the train, cracking it, bounced off and slammed into the floor.  The boy called Akira Nobuyuki struggled briefly to stand.  He managed to raise his head, pronounced, "that hurt, you know," and passed out.

              The man turned back to Akane.  "Right.  No more interruptions."

              There was a loud clang and thud overhead.  Akane glanced up, as did the man opposite her.  She saw through the window what looked like enormous mottled arms clutching at either side of the train.  Suddenly the ceiling overhead collapsed inward, and Akane had a glimpse of long claws piercing through the roof.

              "No!  It can't be!" the man yelled, jumping back.

              With a fierce screech of tortured metal the top of the train was ripped wide open.  The subdued sound of the train's passage became a howling wind in the exposed car.  The other passengers shrieked and cowered at the massive, bestial head that peered in.  Opalescent eyes flickered and focused on Akane.  The jaw dropped open, revealing rows of jagged teeth--and it roared, a high-pitched reverberating yowl that stabbed at her ears and set the windows trembling.

              Akane jumped at the door, her fist smashing the emergency stop button.  The train jerked and shrieked as it decelerated.  She grabbed at a pole and kept her feet as others were tossed forward.  Her pursuer stumbled, one shoulder clipping a seat and sending him crashing painfully into the floor.   The thing clinging to the top of the train seemed thrown off balance, momentarily disappearing from the hole gaping in the ceiling.  Even before the train had come to a complete stop, Akane tore the emergency escape window open.  A fearful cry escaped her lips as she leapt from the still-moving train.

              She hit the ground hard, tumbling head-over-heels before coming to sliding stop in a heap of gravel.  Pain flared everywhere; she felt trickling wetness across her body.  Akane ignored it all.  She jumped to her feet.  Her immediate surroundings were cloaked in darkness, but in the distance a multitude of lights glimmered and flashed.  She stood in the middle of the train yard outside Shinjuku station.  Dozens of tracks ran on either side of her, many disappearing into the underground passage leading to the station.  Even as she regained her bearings a train rushed by mere meters away, the wind of its passage tearing at her torn and tattered clothing.

              Not far away, the Yamanote-line train shuddered to a final stop.  Against the darker backdrop of the tunnel and over the flickering internal lights of the vehicle, she saw a hulking shape squatting atop the train.  The cars shook and trembled amidst the sound of creaking metal, and suddenly the silhouette was gone.

              It just jumped for me, Akane realized, and she broke into a run.  A moment later the ground shuddered behind her.  A shower of stinging rocks pelted her back.  In the gaping openness of the yard, she headed for the only object that seemed to offer any protection: the train itself, and hopefully the tunnels beyond it.

              The wind howled in her ears as she dashed for the train.  Any moment she expected to feel one of those awful claws tear through her.  She heard something heavy and terrible loping after her.  The doors of the train loomed open, welcoming as the other passengers fled.  Heavy breathing sounded directly behind her.  Some instinct led her to dive forward; she hit the ground and rolled back onto her feet and kept running, and she heard the earth being rent asunder in her wake.

              A final effort: she dashed into the train and dove behind a seat.  A second later the immense head of the thing pursuing her filled the door.  It's huge! Akane thought, peeking from her cover.  What the hell can I do against this thing?  Its massive distended lower jaw drooped open, and flared nostrils sucked in the air.  The stench of its breath stung her nose.  The head withdrew, and Akane felt the ground shudder as it stepped along the side of the train.

              She scurried along the floor of the car, keeping low.  A moment later there was a terrible crash as one massive paw tore through the wall a few meters from where she'd been.  Glass showered the inside of the car and the lights erupted in sparks.  Another fist crashed in, and with a resounding roar the thing outside tore the train in two.  Metal buckled and every window shattered as the car cracked open, and Akane sprang from her crouch and hurled herself through the sliding doors further along the train.

              The wall behind her was ripped off and the monster outside stared in at the martial artist.  It pulled away--but only so it could reach in with one giant fist.  She scrambled back, barely remaining out of its reach.  It stretched deeper--without thinking, Akane reached back and wrenched a pole from its fixture.  She slammed it down across the knuckles of the grasping paw.  The metal resounded loudly and vibrated madly in her grasp.  She heard its animalistic cry, and the fist withdrew.

              Akane turned and fled for the next doors.  Before she reached them the entire car shuddered.  She fell forward, her jaw banging painfully against the hard floor.  Her escape suddenly seemed to draw further away; and she realized that the beast had just body slammed her car away from the rest of the train.  I'm trapped! she thought wildly.  I have to get away, into the tunnel!  She hoped it was too big to follow her deep into the station.

              The young woman rose into a ready crouch.  Her heart hammered inside her chest.  She waited for it to make its next move.  Much to her surprise, she heard a voice call out:

              "She's mine, Trueblood!"

              Akane risked a glance out the window.  She saw the man from earlier standing outside the train.  Crouched opposite was the mammoth newcomer.  Even in its squatting dog-like pose, it was an easy three meters in height.  It resembled a massive canine, but with mottled hairless flesh and a disproportionately large head.  Claws the size of her forearms dug troughs in the train yard earth.

               It seemed to observe the man curiously for a moment, then a deep thrumming resounded from within its throat--laughter, Akane quickly realized.  Its mouth dropped open and to her surprise it spoke, though its speech was nearly incomprehensible to her ears.  The jaw didn't move and she wondered where the voice came from.

              "Traitor's child," it growled.  "The Key.  Is ours."

              "You won't stop me," the man answered.  "_I_ will kill her."

              Again that deep, mocking thrumming.  "Too weak.  Too human."

              "Won't Mother Ryukiko be pleased," the man said, "when she learns that I tore out the throat of a Trueblood?"

              Akane stifled a scream as her earlier pursuer suddenly exploded in a gout of flesh and blood.  But once the gore cleared from the air, she saw the man had changed into something lupine and hairy, with claws and teeth that glinted in the light.  Tiny in comparison to the other beast, it nevertheless tilted its head back and released a howl that sent shivers throughout her body.  The transformed man charged the massive beast.  It responded with a shuddering roar of its own and lunged forward.

              But the martial artist was no longer watching.  Without waiting to see the outcome, Akane Tendo dashed from the train and ran as hard as she could for the tunnel into Shinjuku station, all the while wondering, what the hell is going on?

              "Alright, buddy," Ranma snarled, stepping into the back alley, "what the hell is going on?"

              The tall man stood staring into the display window of a store.  The shifting electric light of a big-screen television set the glass aglow and sent flickering shadows across the narrow street.  The hum of vending machines filled the alley.  He turned at Ranma's approach.  "Ranma Saotome," he said, smiling, "it's good to see you again.  My name is Gabriel."

              "Yeah, I know," Ranma answered, stalking up close.  "I've been meaning to give you something."  Without hesitation, he cracked a punch across the man's jaw.

              Gabriel's head snapped back; he stumbled a few steps.  Ranma kept close, grabbing the man by the front of his long coat.  He hauled the taller man down to his feminine eye-level.  "I don't like games, asshole.  You were there when this shit started.  You were there at my first fight.  Didja watch the whole friggin' show tonight too, you sicko?"

              The man looked back at Ranma, his eyes still enigmatically hidden behind small dark glasses.  He rubbed at his chin and nodded.  "I saw everything."

              "Yeah, I bet you did," Ranma yelled, growing angrier.  "Didja see our house get torn apart?  Didja see Pop nearly die?"  He gave the man a hard shake.  "How about when I tore those guys into shreds, eh, you see that too?"

              The man reached up and gently pried himself free of the boy's suddenly unresisting fingers.  "Yes," Gabriel answered softly, "I saw it all."

              "Where's Akane?" Ranma asked, his voice nearly catching in his throat.  "Where is she?"  All the frustration and exhaustion of the night came bubbling up through his body, threatening to overwhelm him.  He sagged against the smooth glass of the window.  He felt near the point of collapse, but he knew he couldn't rest, not yet, not until he found Akane.  "Please," he whispered, rubbing one hand across his eyes, fighting back sudden tears, "tell me."

              The strange man's features softened into something resembling sadness--though with his eyes hidden, it was hard to tell.  He straightened to his full height and looked past the martial artist.  The alley opened up onto the main street, the throng of people passing by; but the man's eyes seemed fixed on something less substantial.  "I should have come sooner," the man said, though he seemed to be speaking less for Ranma's benefit than for his own.  "It's not easy, you understand."  He turned back to Ranma.  "I told you the night we first met: it's my duty to watch--not to intervene, not to act--only to watch.  It's what I do.  I'm unable to directly get involved."

              "Yeah, well, that's just great," Ranma mumbled, taking a deep breath.  He pushed back his fatigue, locking it away somewhere deep inside.  "Then you just keep on watching.  If you're not gonna help, what use are you?"

              "That's for you to decide."

              "Where's Akane?"

              "I can't tell you that."

              "Can't?  Or won't?"

              The man shrugged helplessly.

              "Then fuck you," Ranma spat, and turned away.  He headed for the main street.  "I'll find her myself."

              "Ranma Saotome," Gabriel called after him, "your fiancee is in great danger."

              The martial artist paused.  He slowly turned back, incredulous.  "Hey, thanks for the news flash, nimrod!"  He stormed back.  "You think I don't know that?"  Without breaking stride he walked up to the man and grabbed him by his lapels.  He slammed him up against the storefront window.  It nearly cracked from the impact.  "These things have been trying to kill her all night!"

              "No," the man answered, "they haven't."

              Ranma stared at the man for a long moment.  The reflection of his own face in the windowpane--still female--was nearly unrecognizable to him: gaunt, haggard, and bloodied.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

              "And when night darkens the streets," spoke Gabriel, his voice grim, "then wander forth the Children of Belial, flown with insolence and wine."  His voice quickened as he continued.  "So spoke a blind poet long ago.  To the few who know of their existence, these creatures you have fought these last two days are called the Children of Belial."  Something in the way he pronounced the name sent an unpleasant shiver through Ranma.

              "Hey, they've got a name, great.  Listen, I'll be honest, I don't really give a shit.  All that matters is--"

              "Finding Akane.  But others seek her as well.  The Children, though they often fall to fighting among themselves, are now united by a single purpose: the death of your fiancee."

              "Hey, you said they weren't trying to kill her!"

              "The Children are divided into clans.  Those you have thus far encountered were led by Akuji--the obsidian man you fought.  He is among the strongest and most enigmatic of the Children, though his clan itself was among the weakest before their defeat at your hands.  He has betrayed the entire Family tonight.  He seeks to use your fiancee to his own ends.  He sought to capture her, not destroy her."

              Ranma loosened his grip on the man without releasing him.  He took small comfort from the fact that this man insisted that the attackers tonight hadn't been trying to kill Akane.  "Why the hell would anyone want _her_?"

              "Contained within her body is something . . . valuable.  It threatens the very existence of the entire Family.  They fear and despise her more than anything.  Her death means their survival.  They will stop at nothing to kill her.  Even now another clan draws close to her.  But as for why Akuji wants her, even I can not say."

              "Fantastic," said Ranma.  "Stupid tomboy."

              "There's more," added Gabriel.

              "I can't wait."

              "Your fiancee has encountered others in her flight across Tokyo.  Those originally sworn to the protection of the object buried within your fiancee now seek to reclaim it.  They would lay down their lives to ensure the Children never achieve their goal."

              "Nice.  Allies are good."

              "However," Gabriel continued, "Even among these men, dissention has forced a split.  While some would take the girl alive, a splinter group calling itself the Imrah seek to end their pledge through her death."

              "You're just full of good news, aren't 'cha?"

              "Fortunately, their dislike for each other is only surpassed by their hatred of the Children."

              "Yay for us."  Ranma let the man go.  He still felt exhausted and numb, but knew he couldn't waste any more time in talking.  He had to resume his search for Akane--although he still didn't have any idea where to look.

              "My words are to be taken seriously," the tall man said gravely.  "You and your fiancee have stumbled into a war that has been waged in secret for millennia.  You have no idea of the enemies you face, nor of the stakes at hand."

              "The stakes at hand?" Ranma answered incredulously.  "The life of the woman I. . . ."  He cut off, voice suddenly hoarse.  "Akane's life is at stake.  That's all I care about."

              "Some things are more important than a single person's life."

              "Not to me," said Ranma.  "That single person's life is the most important thing in the world to me.  I'd die for her."

              "Mark my worse, Ranma Saotome.  There are worse fates than death"

              "Yeah, well," he said, shrugging his shoulders and turning away, "Akane'll never have to know that, and that's all that matters.  Now if you'll excuse me, I don't got time for this."  He went to leave but paused.  "You know," he said, "you could've told me all this at the beginning."

              "I saw no reason to," Gabriel answered.  "Few have encountered the Children and survived."

              "Yeah, well, you can add another to that list.  You're not gonna help?"

              The man shook his head.  "I can not intervene directly."

              "Then you just keep on watchin', 'cuz I'm gonna find Akane and--"

              His voice trailed off as he focused past the window.  The image on the television bounced wildly--live news footage of ongoing chaos.  Dozens of people ran screaming mutely across the screen.   Flashing text proclaimed: Outbreak of violence across Tokyo!  People wounded!  Escaped animals!  Sudden fighting in Shinjuku station!  Ranma's eyes widened.

              "How the hell did she get to Shinjuku?" he exclaimed, and ran off.  A moment later he jumped back into the alley, popped a coin into a vending machine, and grabbed a hot coffee.  "Hold on, Akane!" Ranma cried out.  "I'm coming!"  He leaped to the top of the building and dashed across the skyline.

              The man left behind smiled briefly before stepping away into the shadows.  A moment later, the television screen flickered and died.  Empty, the alley grew dark once again.

               The roar of another passing train drowned out the sound of her hurried footsteps.  Akane ran down the narrow concrete walkway that lined the tunnel plunging into Shinjuku station.  She clutched at the tatters of her borrowed school uniform against the rushing winds left in the train's wake.  The air felt dirty and heavy.  The thin pools of orangish light cast surreal wavering shadows against the opposing stone wall.

              Earlier reverberations of bestial roaring and combat had dwindled with distance.  Akane took little reassurance from this.  They've been catching up to me all night, she thought desperately, how the hell are they keeping up to me?  _I_ don't even know where I'm going, but they keep finding me!  The tunnel curved ahead and she stuck to the left branch, and ahead saw the bright lights of a boarding platform.

              The walkway ended.  She could see a scattering of people waiting for their late-night train home.  Not wanting to jump down onto the tracks, she turned instead to the metal door set into the wall.  It was locked; a quick kick dented it, and another crumpled it nearly in two--with an easy yank she ripped it from its hinges.  Up a cast-iron stairwell, her steps ringing loudly in the narrow space; down a short passage, and another door: without breaking stride she bashed it open with a flying kick.  She tumbled out onto the platform.  The half-dozen people there turned at the noise, surprised.

              "Er, sorry about that," Akane said, brushing herself down and catching her breath.  They goggled at her, especially a young man standing close.  She glanced down and suddenly realized just how little her clothes covered.  At least my bra has held out this long, she thought wryly.  With the immediate pursuit apparently left behind, she had a moment to take stock of her situation.  The trains didn't seem safe; beside, the time on a nearby clock read 1:02--the lighted display above showed that the final local train for the Odakyu line would be arriving in precisely two minutes.  Maybe I could take a taxi, she thought.  The ten-thousand-yen bills given to her by Takahashi sat wadded in her breast pocket.  The same problem remained, though: where could she go?

              These thoughts flashed through her mind as she pushed past the young man ogling her.  She had just reached the stairs leading up to the station when screams rang out behind.  With a sense of grim foreboding, Akane glanced back.  The transformed lupine man of earlier stood at the edge of the platform.  It staggered on a bloodied leg as it recovered from its leap out of the tunnel.  Blood seeped from numerous wounds across its body, and great clumps of fur were missing.  Torn and mangled flesh showed beneath.  One arm hung limply, and its left eye was swollen shut.  Nevertheless it took several heavy loping strides towards her, and its jaw yawned open in a toothy growl.

              Terrified commuters rushed the stairs, but Akane stopped and turned around as they flowed past.  She faced her pursuer.  The same dull anger that had been smoldering beneath her fear all night returned.  Her fists clenched at her side as she resolutely squared off against her enemy.

              "I've had enough of this!" she yelled at the creature.  "I'm not running from you anymore!"  It's easy to feel confident, she told herself with unexpected dryness, when your enemy's already half dead.  But her heart still hammered against her ribcage as she warily eyed her opponent: she had seen what these things were capable of when they attacked her house, and even injured it was probably way out of her league.  But as her rage grew and the creature approached, the thought of flight became more and more remote.

              The gangly lupine beast leapt at her, terrifyingly quick despite its wounds.  Akane danced aside, barely dodging as it lashed out with its good arm; its bad leg suddenly took some of the weight from its landing, and it stumbled slightly.  She charged close.  A flurry of punches slammed into its wounded side.  It twisted, hindered by its injuries, and she followed, keeping to its damaged arm.  Relentlessly she kept near and attacked, aiming for open wounds whenever possible, her battle cry challenging its outraged wolfish howls of pain.  I'm almost there! she thought, her elbow catching the monster in the neck; just a little longer!

              Sudden deadness flared across her left thigh, and she instinctively threw herself away.  Hot white pain lanced through her leg and she cried out, and fell, sliding to a stop a single meter from the drop-off into the subway tunnel.  She numbly stared at the jagged lines seeping blood.  The wound looked deep. Akane tried to move her leg but it refused.  A second later her entire leg throbbed, and she cried out as the pain resounded through her body.

              The creature grinned wolfishly as it approached, long crimson tongue lolling from its jaw.  Its good eye blazed with hunger.  Akane struggled to focus through the pain but barely managed to stand on her healthy leg.  Her body felt dead to her, yet angrily alive with pain: the fire in her side and in her leg, the pinprick lacerations of glass and gravel across her back, the massive bruising of her chest; and finally a mind-numbing pounding in her head in which every beat of her heart was loudly echoed.  This is it, she thought, and in a sudden moment of lucidity the entirety of her pain seemed to drain away: she was left in a state of thoughtless clarity unlike any she had ever known before; everything momentarily accentuated; and she watched with almost clinic detachment the play of muscles across her opponent's body as it tensed for the attack.

              The world sped up.  The creature leaped at her, howling.  Akane accepted the attack with her blocking arm.  Claws raked through the meat of her forearm.  Her wounded leg crumpled beneath her.  She fell.  Her other hand latched into its armpit.  Fingers dug vice-like into thick cords of muscle.  Her good leg kicked up as she tumbled back.  Her foot slammed into its abdomen.  Akane rolled back and heaved with all her might, snapping her opponent away.  Yowling with fury it flew past her and tumbled into the tunnel.  She twisted and watched it hit the ground hard.  Sudden light flashed across its crumpled form.  The 1:04 Odakyu train came rumbling into the station.  With speed born of desperation her opponent leapt for the platform.  Without hesitation Akane jumped, her good leg pistoning her straight up from her collapsed position.  She met her opponent in mid-air.  With a fierce kiai that seemed to reverberate throughout the tunnels and dwarfed even the sound of the approaching train, she caught the wolfish man in the jaw with a massive haymaker.  It released a terrified howl as it plummeted back into the tunnel.

              The train caught it before it hit ground.  With a sickening crunch and a shattering of glass the creature was carried away.

              The martial artist landed.  Her leg gave out and she fell backwards, landing on her rump.  The heady pleasure of her victory momentarily drowned out the pain.  I did it, she thought grimly.  I took one of these bastards out.  Then the exhilaration from that brief flash of martial transparency--in which the entirety of her training seemed compressed into a single technique, and her opponent reduced to a single possibility of attack--drained away; feeling returned and she cried out in agony, tears springing to her eyes.  She stared at her bleeding arm and leg and wondered if they were going to scar.  She tried to stand and collapsed; after a moment of gathering her strength she tried again and managed to shakily rise to her feet.  Behind her the train screeched to a stop.  The doors flew open and people poured free, screaming madly.

              Oh crap, Akane thought.  She limped over to the train and looked in.  Through open doors she could see down the full length of the train.  The front of the train crumpled inwards, and amidst broken glass and pooled blood the creature laid in a crumpled heap.  Even as she watched it stirred, one leg scrabbling for purchase and slipping in its own blackish blood.  The lupine face turned jerkily towards her.  Pathetic doglike whimpers of pain reached her ears, but the skin over its teeth curled back and it snapped at her.  It lay a dozen meters away, but with impossible determination it began to pull itself toward her with one arm.

              Oh, come _on_, Akane thought, I hit this thing with a friggin' _train_!  She turned and fled, and her limping pace carried her awkwardly up the stairs into the station proper.  Overly bright fluorescence stung her eyes as she staggered across the low ceilinged passage.  She moved between the numerous white-paneled columns, continuously glancing over her shoulder for pursuit.  Of course, she thought grimly, it's just as likely something's waiting ahead of me.  The pain threatened to overwhelm her at any moment, but resolute, she struggled forward.  She pushed past the ticket station, ignoring the harried looking station attendant.  Down a narrow corridor.  Felt fresh air and turned a corner. She saw stairs leading up.  She painfully hobbled up to the surface.

              The young woman nearly collapsed at the sudden overwhelming press of people and loud activity.  Despite the late hour the street was packed.  A small park across from the station exit held a rock band pounding out live music for passing pedestrians.  Flickering neon everywhere, constant buzz of walking conversation, street-side vendors hawking porno magazines or yakisoba, drunken babble, high-pitched delight, a young girl in a short skirt and tall boots sauntering by, the shattering of a bottle, a matronly woman standing serenely nearby in an elegant kimono: Akane had stumbled into east Shinjuku's infamous Kabuki district.

              Fighting down a wave of nausea, she forced herself to keep moving.  On the verge of collapse, Akane barely made it to the street.  Before her rapidly tunneling vision, a welcoming door yawned open.  She tumbled into it.  Something soft met her fall as blackness overwhelmed her.

              The sound of water trickling into a shallow bowl.

              Kausmi stared with unseeing eyes at the drops of water tumbling from the twisted material: the mesmerizing play of light, the purity of sound.  Arms that seemed disconnected from her body brought the freshly wrung cloth down to the man lying next to her.  She followed the motion of her own limbs, from washpan to her father's forehead.  Excess water beaded and ran along the wrinkles and creases a decade of worry and single fatherhood had wrought.  She nearly expected the water to evaporate on touch, to rise in small wisps from his burning and fevered flesh.

              That nice Ryouga boy had helped carry her unconscious father down from the roof.  While the other had been frantically cleaning before the arrival of the authorities, she had tended to her father.  Residual guilt twisted within her stomach: I should have helped them clean, Kasumi thought.  But some things were more important than a spotless house.  Family was more important.  Why else keep the house clean?

              So she had laid out a futon and Ryouga had placed the moaning figure of her father down, and now as others recovered from their efforts, she continued to wipe the sweat from her father's brow and trickle cool water down his throat.  Occasionally he moaned, and his head thrashed from side to side; but mostly he lay there gasping silently, eyes squeezed shut.  The poison coursing through his system seemed painful, but not fatal: his temperature had already lowered considerably over the last hour, and she preferred the over-heated flush of his features to the deathlike gray clamminess he had exhibited when Ryouga first found them.  Her father was fighting the venom, and winning.  Kasumi held his hand in silent encouragement.

              Not in encouragement, she finally admitted to herself, but for comfort.  Kasumi felt afraid; Kasumi felt guilty and ashamed.  She remembered the moment on the roof:

              _Kasumi stood and turned and fixed both the clustered eyes and the single human one with a strong, cross glare.

              "Leave him alone!" she demanded.

              It stepped forward and right up to her.  Kasumi could smell the stench of its breath, her father's blood still staining those human lips, its breath rattling with a strange clicking noise within a distended throat.  It stared at her, and Kasumi stared straight back.

              "This is my family," she said.  "Please.  They're my life."_

              The creature had embraced her and stared at her and after a long, tense moment, withdrawn, leaving Kasumi alone on the roof with her unconscious father.  She had shivered in the warm breeze.  After minutes of standing there enveloped in complete silence, she had sunk to her knees, slowly, and buried her face in her hands and wept.  She had never felt so happy to be alive.  A single thought had echoed through her mind: "It's not too late, it's still not too late."

              Even now the guilt consumed her, for in that first moment when she realized the spider-woman was not going to kill her, her thoughts had not been for her father, or for her sisters, or their guests--but for herself.  While cradled in the creature's grasp, when death seemed all but certain, all she had felt was a profound sadness and regret--for all the things she had never had the chance to do--for the fact that her _family_ was her life--that she didn't have one of her own.  Underlying the guilt was an unpleasant bitterness she had never known before.  She knew it was directed towards her family, even towards the unconscious man she loved lying at her side.  It was because of him, and her sisters, that she had placed aside her dreams and been left open to that terrible regret when she thought her life was over.

              As much as she hated that bitterness, she also knew that this newly awakened emotion would not simply leave once things quieted down.  Things could not go back to the way they had been before.

              With her head bowed, Kasumi griped her father's hand tightly and cried tears of guilt and happiness as she vowed to resume her own life.  "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

              Her words returned to her in a hoarse gasp.  "I'm so sorry," her father moaned, and she felt his hand squeeze hers back.

              "Father?"

              He smiled feebly.  "Kasumi," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  One hand fluttered at his side before falling back weakly to the futon.  "I'm . . . I'm so sorry."

              She hurriedly attended to him, wiping away her tears before dabbing at his brow.  "You shouldn't speak, Father," she said.  "You need your rest."

              For a long time he didn't speak, and she though t he had slipped back into unconsciousness; but then his eyes snapped open again and stared at the ceiling.

              "I failed," he said, and though his voice was no stronger, it held bitterness and self-loathing.

              "You didn't," Kasumi said softly.  "You were very heroic."

              His eyes turned to those of his eldest daughter.  She found she couldn't match his gaze and looked away.

              "I understand," he sighed, and closed his eyes.  His breathing deepened.  But as he slipped back into sleep, she heard him mutter, though it was so low that couldn't be sure of having heard him properly, "Things won't be the way they were before."

              Akane awoke with a start.  She forced back vertigo and opened her eyes and stared up at the surprised face of a sandy-haired foreigner looking down at her.

              "Having a good night, eh?" the man asked in fluent Japanese.

              Akane gaped at him before realizing she was lying in the back seat of taxi.  She struggled into a sitting position, and the door closed automatically behind her.  Among all the weirdness and terror of the night, a foreign cab driver in Tokyo seemed pretty tame.  His car, however, compared to those of the normally immaculate Japanese drivers, was a disaster.  She gingerly picked her foot out of a pile of cheese- and sauce-covered french fries congealing on the floor.

              "Drink too much?" the man asked as she looked around in confusion.  She did a double take as something caught her eye: two men approaching the car from behind, scanning the area attentively.  A sudden wind tugged at their long coats, and she saw a glint of metal beneath.

              "Go!" she shrieked, ducking low in the seat.  "Drive!"

              Unfazed by her voice, the man shrugged.  "Hey, I'm not a tour service here.  You got anywhere in mind?"

              "Home!" she cried.  "Nerima!"

              "No need to get snarky, little lady," the man said, turning away.  "Nerima it is."  The taxi jumped forward.  Akane sat up and looked back and saw the two men directly behind the car.  Breastplates gleamed dully on their chests, and large blades half-concealed by their clothes reflected the car's brake lights in lurid reds.  Pulling onto the street, the men were quickly left behind.  Akane breathed a sigh of relief once they were out of sight.

              "The name's Dave," the driver said conversationally, arm thrown wide across the front seat.  He turned to talk to her, one eye on the traffic, the other eying her speculatively.  "You're looking kinda rough there.  You okay?"

              "No," Akane said.  "You have any bandages?"

              "First aid kit under the left seat," Dave answered blithely.  "Try to keep the blood off the leather, eh?"

              She pulled out the small white box with the green cross on it.  A lifetime of martial arts--and two years of having an injury-prone fiance--had given her not insignificant skills at treating wounds.  But quickly examining her own injuries, she knew she couldn't manage much more than temporary and superficial treatment.  I need a hospital, she thought.  She wasn't like Ranma, who seemed to bounce back from critical injury within minutes.  True, she was past the days when a minor sprain might force her to skip a tournament--at least she liked to think she was--but some of her cuts would require stitching.  Especially the cuts across her forearm; she had a feeling she'd be bearing the mark of the wound for the rest of her days.

              Hopefully, she thought morosely, those days aren't numbered in the single digits.

              The backseat quickly became a mess of gauze, tape, and cotton compresses as she tended to herself.  Shinjuku crept by, cityscape nightlights mirroring across the windowpane.  Dave the taxi driver took a right, and the car slowed in traffic as they passed over a bridge.  To her right loomed the massive Lumine One and Keio Department Stores that sat atop Shinjuku station; to her left she saw Time Square, its large cube shape a sparkling blackness against the night sky beyond.  Below the bridge the JR train tracks twisted and merged and disappeared into the night.  Red and white lights flashed from atop emergency vehicles gathered near one of the train lines: the Yamanote line, she realized, and looked away.

              "Quite the night, eh?" continued the cab driver, as she pulled the bandage tight around her forearm.  "You wouldn't believe the stuff that's been coming over the radio."

              "I bet you I would," Akane muttered under her breath,

              "Everything from escaped animal attacks to Sailor Senshi sightings.  Can you believe it?  And the crap going down in Shibuya!  I mean, hell, that place is _always_ kind of weird on weekend nights, but, like--wow!"

              Akane only half listened as the man prattled on.  She did what she could for her injuries, and then sank back into the comfort of the seat.  She watched the many-lighted urban splendor of Shinjuku west pass by, the cramped commercial buildings and tiny restaurants and retail outlets giving way to the towering structures beyond.  The taxi turned right into the skyscraper district.  On either side, seventy-story five-star hotels soared high into the darkness above.  Amidst them all, and towering over most, squatted the imposing Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, its massive bulk resembling the evil headquarters of some totalitarian despot.  She yawned and fought a losing battle against sleep.

              I shouldn't be going to Nerima, she thought sleepily.  I have to stay away.  But as exhaustion overtook her she couldn't think of a single reason why not to go home.  Her family and friends were there.  So was Ranma--no, wait, he was in Tokyo looking for her.  But he'd find her.  He always did.  She could almost picture him, as if in a dream, dashing across the Tokyo skyline.  She momentarily forgot her earlier fears for his well-being and yearned for him terribly.

              The taxi driver's voice became a monotonous background buzz lulling her to sleep.  The car stopped at a red light near the foot of some hotel called the Keio Plaza, and the slight jerk caused her to slump over.  She drifted into momentary sleep, as she felt the car pull forward--

              "Holy crap!" shrieked Dave, startling her awake.

              Akane instinctively hugged the seat, suddenly fully conscious.  There was a terrible screech of metal against metal, and sudden cool night air wafted in.  She glanced up and saw that the top of the car being cleanly cleaved off.  The taxi driver gave a scream of outrage and gunned the engine.  The car leaped forward several meters--and released a terrible groaning and clunking noise.  Sitting up, she saw men on either side recovering from swinging their massive swords, as the car spun out of control.  The vehicle gave a final wheeze and died.

              Great, Akane thought, these guys again.

              Two men and a woman approached the car, flanking it as they approached.  They held their weapons at the ready, all pretense of subtlety gone: the blades blazed with an intense blue light, scattering the street's quiet shadows.  By the illumination of their weapons Akane could see quite clearly: the damage a single swing had wreaked on the car's engine block; the stony determination set in their eyes.

              Akane stood in the back seat, shattered glass crunching beneath her feet.  "Why don't you leave me alone!" she yelled at them.

              The taxi driver looked up from his huddle by the steering column and asked, "You _know_ these guys?"

              Akane nodded mutely.

              "Look what they did to my taxi!"

              "Um, yeah.  Sorry about that."

              He stared at her.  "What say you just get out of my car," he said in a flat voice, "and we'll call it even?"

              Akane hopped out of the car onto the right side, facing the single swordsman.  She fell into a defensive stance, unsure of how to handle her three opponents.  They looked different from the others she had faced so far: more determined and sure in their movements, approaching with nearly feline grace.  Breastplates and greaves far more ornate she had seen before glimmered unnaturally with each step.  The confidence she felt in facing the other human fighters earlier in the night was now lacking--she saw in these three a martial skill to match her own.

              It's not going to end like this, she growled to herself, standing with her back to the car.  One hand tightened its grip on the doorframe as her anger rose once again.  The man nearest her held back, just beyond striking range and preventing her from easily running off.  She was peripherally aware of the other two circling the vehicle, one on the opposing left side, the other rounding the back. 

              "Why are you doing this?" she called out.

              Grim silence was their only response.

              A distraction came from an unexpected source: Dave, the beleaguered cabbie driver.  With a string of curses in a language Akane couldn't understand, he kicked his door open.  It cracked back, catching the other man across the shins.  The swordsman staggered, briefly; more important was the brief flicker of distraction in the first man's eyes.  With a savage cry and brute strength Akane tore the door from its frame and hurled it at the woman approaching from behind.  With a resounding clang it knocked her off her feet.  The nearest man lunged forward.  Akane rolled away along the car.  The blade narrowly missed, slicing through the taxi and straight into the pavement.  She jerked to a stop; her hands crumpled the metal beneath her grip.  She twisted back.  The rear door came with her.  The man reversed his grip.  He slashed up diagonally.  His sword cleaved unhindered through the side of the car.  Straight for her torso.  Faster than she was.

              Akane's blood ran cold.

              The martial artist leaned back at the waist; one shoulder dipped down.  It was a technique she had observed Ranma employ dozens of times against Kuno.  Her instinctive study was well rewarded as the blade whistled by.  Its passing was a breeze across her chest and face.  The moment seemed frozen, her attention seized by a tuft of hair, cleanly sliced from her forward bangs, puffing outwards in an expanding cloud.  The image was burned into her mind:  the wrecked car at the edge of her vision, the hazy night sky beyond, dual glinting towers of the skyscraper reaching skyward, shimmering azure afterimage of the weapon's radiance, her opponent's exposed right side as his attack failed--

              Those hairs, suspended before her eyes.

              Akane burned hot as she completed her swing.  The slab of metal in her hands shuddered with the strength of her blow, slamming the man to the ground.  "Leave me alone!" she shrieked, bashing the downed man again and again with the taxi door.  "I'm just an ordinary school girl!"  A dozen crunching blows later she noticed the crumpled metal in her grasp, and sheepishly tossed the impromptu weapon aside.  Her fury abated enough for her to remember the other opponents.  Something had prevented them from attacking.  With a sudden sense of dread she turned her attention back to the taxi.

              The man and woman were engaged in heated combat with something fleshy and bloated and only vaguely human-shaped, which Akane avoided looking at too closely.  They seemed to be holding their own--but only barely.  The woman performed a lightning quick block and riposte against the creature, tearing a bloody gash open; and in the spare moment she gained, she turned to Akane and yelled, "Run, fool!"

              Akane turned and ran as fast as she could.  It seemed she had been running all night.  The image of her near beheading remained fresh in her mind.  Within moments of taking her first steps something lunged at her from the darkness.  She ducked away without breaking stride knowing she had narrowly avoided the unseen strike.  The newcomer chased after her.  The pursuit was too close, a scant meter or two behind as she ran down the quiet, darkened street.  Her wounded leg began to burn; the pain quickly became nearly overwhelming.  Buildings loomed on either side.  The sound of her steps was echoed by those following; she could hear the steady intake of its breathing.  Looking forward she saw dark silhouettes against the curve of the road ahead.  Her flight had been headed off.  Akane made a sharp turn to the right.  She skidded against asphalt and nearly lost her footing.  She caught a glimpse of her pursuer--burnt flesh, protruding bones, too many eyes--and desperately threw herself out of its path.  One blackened fist slammed down where she had been, and with a bright flash an electric concussion shattered the road.  The smell of ozone assaulted her nose as, teary-eyed and half-blind, Akane scrambled away.  The road unexpectedly fell sharply into unknown space below.  Without hesitation or thought the martial artist tossed herself over the railing.

              She plummeted several heart-pounding meters before hitting ground.  She managed to catch herself with her good leg and absorb the impact, dropping into a deep crouch without falling over.  She blinked through her spotty vision and looked around, and momentarily thought herself dropped into some urban arena.  Akane quickly recognized the embracing arms of the sunken atrium of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.  At night a scattering of lights cast soft pools of illumination across the area, but most of it remained cloaked in darkness.  Open air and circular, the sunken plaza was considered by some the most beautiful--and least seen--aspect of the gargantuan edifice. 

              Momentarily free of pursuit, Akane limped towards the only light she could see: large glass doors leading into the main towers.  She saw movement within: cleaning staff, maybe, or even late-night security.  Somebody who could hide her, or provide a phone, and maybe even help.  A voice deep inside told her she was delaying the inevitable and grasping at straws, but she refused to acknowledge defeat at this point.  She had to reach the door before either the creatures or swordsmen from above followed her down.  Her dragging steps were the only sound in the open space.  A chill wind blew, carrying with it dust and debris; she shivered as it caressed her clammy, nearly naked body.

              A figure detached from the shadows opposite the plaza.  Though she was less than surprised, despair and fear swelled nevertheless swelled anew within Akane.  Her final avenue of escape was being closed off.

              "It's good to finally meet you," a woman's voice rang out, her tone amused and mocking.

              Akane came to a stop.  Her shoulders slumped, a final exhaustion overtaking her.  She drooped to the smooth ground.  The shadowy figure approached, a curvaceous silhouette against the bright light of the doors beyond.  The sharp click of the woman's heels echoed across the plaza as she approached.

              "How?" Akane tried to cry out, but her throat went dry and her voice croaked and died.  She swallowed and tried again.  "How?" she called out, louder.  "I've been running all night!  _I_ don't even know where I'm going, but you keep finding me!  Everyone gets there before I do!"

              The woman's chuckle rang clear across the plaza.  "You shine like a pillar of fire blazing high upon the horizon, girl!  To those of us attuned to your presence, you are a beacon casting its radiance across the entirety of Tokyo.  We could no more ignore than we could the sun!  Before the Key made itself known to us tonight, we could feel the beating of its unrealized potential; now it sings to us all, and I doubt there's a supernatural creature in this city unaware of your existence.  Even those unable to see you can feel you, your very movement stirs the air about you."

              That's just great, Akane thought.  I've been running around with a giant arrow on my head screaming, 'I'm over here!' all night.

              The hunger was palpable in the woman's voice, as was the hatred.  "You have no idea of the power that you carry within you, girl.  It draws us to you."

              "Yeah," Akane muttered, "like flies to shit." 

              "Terrible, isn't it?" the woman continued.  "To die, without ever knowing the reason, for a power you can not comprehend."  A shadow dropped from the sky, and then another; they fell into rank behind the woman as she continued to approach.

"Then take it!" Akane yelled back.  "Whatever it is, I don't want it!"

              "Nor do I," she said, dark amusement tainting her voice.  "I intend to destroy it."

              "Oh."

              Two more figures detached from the shadows and joined the woman's misshapen retinue.  Akane recognized the shape of one of them: bent backwards, bloated stomach, drooping head.  But something strange happened: as the woman grew closer and the number of her followers grew larger, Akane felt her own despair dwindle, her exhaustion rapidly ebbing as she crouched there in waiting.  Fear still gripped her stomach and her heart pounded loudly in her chest, but with an irritating buzzing beginning deep within her head she began to feel a cold detachment from what was happening.

              The woman paused a dozen meters away.  Akane could see her now in one of the pools of lights.  She was tall and slender and coldly beautiful, though that beauty was marred by the unconcealed cruelty that shone in her eyes.  Dressed like a successful corporate CEO--well-tailored clothes accentuating subdued sexuality, open-toed heels tightening the sleek line of slim calves--she contrasted sharply with her monstrous entourage.

              "You've done well, girl.  You escaped my young Daughter here," she said, one hand coming to rest softly on the quivering belly of the creature next to her.  "And you nearly killed my eldest Son.  But now it would seem that I claim the prize myself."

              "I'm nobody's prize," Akane growled.  Strength flowed into her wounded leg as the pain faded; her breathing calmed as she caught her breath.  A final effort, she told herself.  I don't know how, but this isn't the end, not yet.  Not at this arrogant bitch's hand.

              "Strange that Akuji let you go," the woman mused.  "What does he see in you, beyond our Father's demands?"  The woman eyed Akane speculatively.  One of her children leaned in close--Akane recognized the creature as the blackened man that had chased her into the plaza--and said in a low voice, "Mother Ryukiko, the foot-solders of the Order draw close.  Perhaps we should--"

              "The Order," a familiar voice called out, "is already here."

              Yamashita strode from the shadows behind Akane.  At his side walked Takeshi, and whatever animosity lay between the two men seemed buried for the moment.  Both their weapons shone brilliantly.

              Ryukiko's face twisted in a furious scowl.  "You have interfered too often tonight!" she said, and spat to the side.  "Do you think to stand against the strength of my entire clan?"

              "Just the two of us?" Yamashita answered, glancing aside at his companion, and smiling.  "No."

              Azure flares erupted in a staggered semi-circle along the rim of the sunken plaza.  Figures crouched overhead took aim with hefty crossbows cradled in their grasp; swordsmen poured into the plaza from the opposite end of the sunken atrium.  Within moments a small army had assembled behind her.  Akane found herself crouched in the center of what had suddenly become a battlefield.

              "But the thirty of us?" Takeshi added, and grinned.  "Yeah, I do."

              Ryouga Hibiki awoke with a start.

              He was lying on the floor of the Tendo's living room.  He couldn't remember drifting off, but figured it had to have been soon after Mousse dragged him back from chasing after Akane.  The martial artist was exhausted.  He couldn't remember having ever felt so tired before.  With a loud groan he managed to sit up, feeling a dozen sharp pains flare up across his body.  Finally he opened his eyes, and once the dancing spots faded away, looked around.

              "Glad to see you're still with us, sugar," said Ukyou in a low voice, sitting propped up against the wall a few meters away.  Her oversized spatula lay across her knees, and her hands never strayed far from its shaft.  "You had us worried there for a bit."

              "'Tis about time, varlet!" added Kuno, though he kept his voice soft as well.  He had switched back into his normal clothes, though he too kept a weapon cradled in his lap-- the Saotome family katana.  He absently polished it as he spoke.  "To think you slept as we warriors debased ourselves to the levels of cleaning servants!"

              "You can feel free to ignore the idiot," Ukyou whispered, glaring at the kendoist.  "He's just pulling your leg, anyway.  He's the one who brought you that blanket."  Ryouga glanced down and saw a blanket that had fallen aside as he sat up; and indeed, looking back at the taller man, he saw a glint of humor in his eyes that he wasn't accustomed to seeing.

              "Why are we whispering?" asked Ryouga.

              His two companions nodded towards the far corner, and he saw Shampoo curled up there, asleep.  Even in human form there was something feline in the way she slept.  The Chinese girl seemed swathed in bandages, and he remembered her injuries from the previous day.  She probably needs the sleep more that I do, he thought.  He shifted to get more comfortable and gasped at a sudden pain that lanced straight through him, and added, maybe not.  Trying to keep as still as possible and in a low voice, he asked Ukyou, "Where are the others?"

              "Cologne is with Mousse and Nabiki in the dojo," she answered.  "She's interrogating that Ayumi girl."

              "The eldest daughter tends to her father," Kuno added.  He paused to eye a smudge on the Saotome blade and continued to polish.  He didn't look up as he added, "Ranma has yet to return with Akane."  Almost as an afterthought, he added, "that vile fiend."

              "Akane's still out there?"

              "Yes, she is," Ukyou said, "and don't you get no stupid ideas about chasing after her.  You're in no shape to be running around."

              "And Ranma is?" Ryouga answered, his voice growing loud and angry.  He recognized both the bitterness and concern in his voice, and even the jealousy, but didn't care.  "He needs--"  He cut off  as he saw his two friends exchange clouded looks.  "What?"

              "You weren't there, sugar," said Ukyou.  "You didn't see what he did to those two monsters."

              "It was a slaughter," said Kuno softly, gazing even more intently into the mirrored surface of the blade.  "A bloody, violent massacre.  He tore the fiends apart with his bare hands--with his bare _hands_--with ease."

              "Then he blew away half the upstairs with some kind of ki-blast," Ukyou added.

              And he was also the one who chased off the leader of these things, Ryouga thought, even after it threw the rest of us around like rag dolls.  He dimly remembered the wash of energy that had nearly knocked him out--deathly cold, there had been a voice within, offering peace and rest and suggesting sleep, but promising pain if he resisted.  Then that cold, glassy hand against his brow; and darkness.

              Ryouga saw the fear in his friends' eyes--fear of one's fiance, fear of one's rival.  But then, they hadn't been there when he wrestled with a god a kilometer above the earth.  They didn't see the look in his eyes, Ryouga thought, when Saffron held Akane's life in his hands.  He nodded once to show he understood.  He didn't envy the enemies that stood between Ranma and Akane.  He took in the haggard, exhausted faces of his friends, and the hunted look in their eyes, and wondered if he shared the same expression. 

              We've followed you this far, Ranma, he though.  But how much farther will you bring us?  As much as it galled him, Ryouga could not deny the brief tremor of fear that ran through him.

              "Tonight we wipe another of Belial's foul brood from the face of the Earth!" exclaimed Yamashita, and he chopped his raised hand down.

              A volley of crossbow bolts sang through the air as the soldiers of the Order charged forward, their battle cry echoing loudly.  Ryukiko's children roared in pain and fury and charged into the fray.  Only Ryukiko remained behind, trembling with anger but seemingly undaunted by the interruption.  From behind, Yamashita and Takeshi strode forward purposefully, eyes set on Akane.

              Akane still crouched, frozen, staring at the crossbow bolt imbedded in the ground a few centimeters from her foot.  Only an instinctive tilting of her head had kept it from tearing her throat open.  These newcomers were not here to save her.  They wanted to kill her for themselves.  Takeshi must have joined Yamashita's side--whatever side _that_ was.  There was no rescue here, only more danger.  The martial artist began to tremble as she stood, her vision swimming red with an outrage that did not entirely feel like her own.

              Battle raged about her, inhuman screeches mingled with human cries.  Another flurry of projectiles flashed from above.  Ryukiko dashed for cover, one of her Children providing protection for her and absorbing a dozen bolts in its elephantine hide.  Akane rushed forward.

              She heard the approaching men cry out behind her, and ignored them.  She barreled into the fray, charging straight for the door she had seen earlier.  Swords flashed and cut on either side; claws tore the air and lightning burned across her vision and teeth gnashed.  Akane ran and jumped and wove between random attacks and errant strikes.  For every one of Ryukiko's brood she spotted, a half-dozen warriors engaged it; and through it all crossbow fire rained into the plaza.  As she twisted past a young woman and evaded her sword--only to see the woman bashed away by something's sinuous tail--she had an unexpected flashback: ducking and dodging the morning mass of perverted schoolboys who charged her every day in hopes of a date.  A snigger escaped her lips, then choking giggles that she couldn't repress as she shoulder checked a man from behind and jumped over his body.  She ran, laughing, through the fighting mob, her cheeks streaked with tears.

              An explosion rocked the rim above and lightning danced, and one of the crossbowmen fell screaming to the ground, stone and debris showering around him.  He landed with a loud crunch and didn't move.  Akane danced past the body and escaped the outer edge of the fray.  Her feet pounded the ground as she hurtled towards escape.  The door shone bright before her.  She didn't slow down.

              Glass smashed and metal snapped as, arms crossed before her face, she crashed through the door.  She landed running and found herself in the expansive reception area of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.  Behind her the battle raged on, though she spotted figures detaching themselves from the fighting in pursuit.  She hoped that she could leave them all behind her.  On the other side of the reception, large windows looked out into Shinjuku, and doors led back into the city.  If I escape them here, she desperately hoped, I'll shake them once and for all.  If I keep moving, maybe I'll get harder to track.  Maybe once the sun comes up they'll retreat.  Maybe--

              The opposite wall exploded inward in a rushing barrage of glass.  Akane screamed and ducked, covering her head with her arms.  Fragments flayed her in a sharp-edged rain, tearing at her skin and tattered clothes.  She opened her eyes and saw the gargantuan dog-like beast last seen at the Shinjuku Station train yards.  It crouched among the crumbling wall and released an ear-deafening roar that set the opposing windows to trembling.  Chunks of flesh had been torn from its hide and blood seeped from numerous deep wounds, but it seemed only slightly hindered by the damage.

              Great, Akane thought darkly, looks like everybody's showing up.

              She ran left.  With a single leap the giant beast crossed the distance and landed in front of her.  Akane screeched to a stop and threw herself to one side.  She scrambled towards the first escape she saw.  Brightly lit and sitting open, Akane didn't realize that she had thrown herself into an elevator until she rebounded hard off the wall, cracking the mirror there.

              "Please don't hurt me," a man moaned.  Akane stared blankly at the man cowering in the corner beneath the elevator controls.  He glanced up at her and started to shake.  "I'm just a cleaner, I don't got nothin' to do with this, I just wanna--"

              Akane ignored him.  The ground shuddered as the huge monster approached.  She jabbed one of the buttons; there only seemed to be a few of them.  Nothing happened.  She stabbed the button again and again, but the doors didn't close.

              The creature's monstrous face filled the elevator door.  It roared, and the force of its cry at such close range sent her stumbling back into the wall.  The scent of its breath brought bile to her throat, and phlegm and wetness from its throat spattered her body.  It pulled back, and a moment later reached in with a massive paw.  With a loud shriek Akane jumped to the ceiling and clung there desperately.  The hand groped blindly.  Her purchase began to creak beneath her weight.  The words 'thick thighs' pronounced by a suspiciously obnoxious voice floated through her mind.

              The ceiling of the elevator gave way.  Akane screamed and dropped, bouncing off the thing's outstretched hand and slamming into the mirror with her forehead.  Dazed, she had a momentary glimpse of herself there, fragmented and bloodied.  Rough-skinned fingers curled around her waist and legs, shocking her from her stupor.  Her hands scrabbled at the seams in the cracked mirror as the beast yanked her away; her fingers curled around the sharp edges of a shard the length of her arm and tore it free.  Akane felt the edge cut into her fingers as she lifted the triangular piece of mirror overhead.  The fist already held her high in the air, and she braced one edge of her weapon against her palm.  She plunged the glass down with all her strength into the hand holding her.  Ichors sprayed up in a crimson sheet, drenching her chest and neck.

              The creature's bestial howl was echoed by Akane's cry of pain as the edge of the mirror sliced through the meat of her hand and dug deep into her palm.  The giant hand spasmed open and she flew from its grasp; she hit the concrete corner of the wall outside the elevator with the small of her back and fell to the floor face down.  The mirror shattered beneath her.  Half delirious from pain and shock, she crawled back into the shaft.  To her surprise the door slid shut behind her, releasing a pleasant 'ding' as it quickly began to rise.

              The man crouched in the corner gave a little shrug and pointed at the key connected to his belt by a long string.  "After hours," he said, "you have to use the maintenance key before you press the button."

              Akane stared blankly at the man.  She rolled over and dragged herself to the wall.  She slumped against the edge of the elevator and turned her attention to the numbers above the door.  She watched them change.  They were already in the mid-teens.

              Right, Akane thought.  That's it.  I'm done.

              Her injuries were too extensive.  A life of martial arts had failed to prepare her for what she had been put through tonight.  Adrenaline and second winds and strange bursts of vitality are great and all, she thought, but I've hit a wall here.  She giggled when she realized that she'd hit a number of walls this night--usually quite painfully and not of her own volition.  Her voice sounded strained to her ears.  With a groan she lifted herself into a proper sitting position amidst the blood and broken glass and debris from the elevator's ceiling.  Akane absently noticed how she left sticky red handprints on everything she touched.  She wondered if she was slipping into shock.  The rhythmic thrumming of the elevator carried them past the twenty-fifth floor.

              "This elevator only goes to the Observation Deck on the forty-fifth," the cleaning man offered.  "Maybe we'll be safe up there?"

              I don't think so, Akane thought.  There were stairs and another elevator and for all she knew, one of the things chasing after her might just teleport to the top of the building or something.  She didn't know why these things were chasing her, and she no longer cared.  Splinters of glass in her chest, the deep gash across her palm, the wounds to her forearm and thigh, massive bruising across her chest and back, her face battered and bloodied: as Akane numbly took stock of her injuries, she felt a curious mixture of pride and despair.

              "I'm sorry, Ranma," she softly said to herself.  She imagined him dashing madly through the streets of Tokyo, searching for her.  Somehow she could picture him with startling clarity--bloodied and exhausted, but unrelenting in his pursuit.  "I don't think I can wait any longer for you to rescue me."

              With another pleasant 'ding' and a soft female voice announcing their arrival at the Observation Floor, the elevator came to a stop.  The doors quietly slid open.

              The cleaning man quickly left the elevator.  Soon after she heard the heavy slam of a stairwell door.  Akane reluctantly hauled herself onto her feet, whimpering from the effort.  She stood there for a moment, wavering, before taking hesitant steps onto the forty-fifth floor.

              The Observation Deck was dark and silent.  Large windows on all sides looked out onto the city.  Pale shafts of moonlight slanted across the floor.  The air felt heavy and stuffy without the background hum of an air conditioner.  The martial artist slowly staggered into the room.  Each step with her left foot felt slippery.  Her leg was slick with blood soaking through her bandage, and she held her wounded hand clenched tight and nestled beneath her other arm.  Akane stood haggard in the center of the room with the luminous sprawl of Tokyo spreading out in all directions about her.  Behind her the elevator dinged and closed and began its descent.  Here they come, she thought.

              She had never felt lonelier than she did at that moment.  With a sigh--not so much of despair as of desolation--Akane sank to the ground.  She leaned back against an informational display and took a deep breath.  The hard marble of the stand felt cold against her wet and injured back.

              The glistening urban splendor of Tokyo at night seen from above resounded deeply in her heart as she lay there, bleeding and devoid of hope.  Tears sprang to her eyes for this final appreciation of where she was; of who she was; and though she felt that this must be the end, she felt hollowed and free of fear.  Even her final sadness that she would never get to see Ranma again faded away as the room slowly grew darker.  Emotions and physical sensation seemed to drain away, leaving her aware of only the growing buzzing within her head.  She felt a profound insight hovering at the edge of her perception, ephemeral and elusive.  In reaching out the knowledge faded, and the emergent murmurs of her mind nearly overwhelmed her.  She was left with a final sense of pride.  I made it pretty far, she thought.  I bet even Shampoo couldn't have done this well.  Akane sighed and smiled and closed her eyes.  Akane waited.

              She felt his presence before she either saw him or heard his approach.  She opened her eyes and found her view of the city blocked by the tall silhouette stepping from the darkness.  His steps made no sound, and the shadows roiled and twisted about him.  From within that inky depth, two eyes flared a piercing crimson.  She recognized the voice immediately.

              "It seems I have caught up with you at last," said Akuji.

              Nabiki sat back, enjoying a much-deserved rest, as the old Amazon matriarch questioned their captive.  She could have left, of course, and enjoyed well-needed sleep back in her room--and in fact the thought of her bed, and of warm sheets and her plump pillow nearly made her ache with the desire to sleep; but she wouldn't have missed Ayumi Utada's answers for anything.

              "Now," Cologne began, in a far softer and kindly tone than Nabiki might have expected, "perhaps you can help us, yes?"  Mousse stood a little behind and to the right of Cologne, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his robe.  His shadow fell across the young girl, and his gaze never wandered far from her face.  The girl seemed terrified, and the middle Tendo felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her.

              Let's no be getting soft here, she told herself.  She _did_ try to kill me, and she took a chunk out of Daddy's shoulder.

              Ayumi stared blankly at Cologne, her features pale, her eyes wide.  She shook her head slightly, as if she didn't understand.

              "I understand you might be frightened," Cologne said, "but we need answers only you can give."  She hopped down off of her stick, which brought her eye-to-eye with the bound girl.  "Mousse here mentioned something about a name.  You spoke briefly before, did you not?"

              The girl's eyes flickered up to Mousse, and then squeezed shut.  She whimpered.

              Cologne sighed.  She raised her staff and gently touched the tip to Ayumi's shoulder.  "If you don't answer me, girl, I will truly give you reason to be frightened."  The Amazon's voice remained soft.  A shiver ran down Nabiki's spine.  "I can shatter your shoulder, girl.  With a single touch."

The girl moaned and tried to flinch away but the heavy ropes kept her immobile.  "Please," she whimpered.  "Please don't hurt me, please, I didn't mean to, I didn't, oh please, he'll _hear_, he'll _know_, I can't. . . ."

              "Who will know?" Cologne asked sharply.

              "You don't _understand_!"

              "My patience wears thin, girl," the Amazon said.  "You and your kin have attacked mine without cause."

              "And you nearly killed Shampoo!" added Mousse.

              Cologne fixed the boy with a withering glare before turning back to the girl.  "Don't tempt me, young one.  I have ample justification to kill you as it is.  Now: who is it you fear so?" 

              Ayumi opened her eyes.  They were red and teary.  She glanced up at Mousse, once, and then flinched away from what she saw there, turning her gaze to the matriarch.  "Akuji," she whispered.  "Father."

              "The obsidian man is your father?" asked Cologne.

              "He is now," their captive answered, and her words were bitter.  "He is my Father, as another is before him; and Belial is our great Father above all."  The young star's beautiful face twisted into an expression of mixed revulsion and reverence.  "We are the Children of Belial."

              "The Children of . . . ."  Cologne turned away, her features thoughtful.

              "Have you heard of them before?" Nabiki asked.

              "Never," the older woman answered.  "Though perhaps we know them by another name."  She returned her attention to her captive.  "What is it you want, then, Child of Belial?"

              "My name is Ayumi!" the girl said, sounding surprisingly petulant.  "I'm not a-- right now, I'm normal, I'm Ayumi, please. . . ," and her voice dropped to a near whisper, "call me Ayumi."

              Cologne eyed her speculatively before lowering her staff.  "Ayumi," she said, softening her tone once again, "what is it that that creature did to you?"

              The girl blinked at the unexpected tenderness.  Her gaze shifted between the three people before her--she seemed afraid of Mousse, but the eyes that met Nabiki's were those of a frightened child--and then she started to speak in a sniffling, halting voice.

              "He came to me, not long ago," she said.  "When I was weak, when . . . when something bad happened to me.  It's not important what," she quickly added, "but I was . . . hurt.  And angry.  And powerless--that was the worst, feeling so . . . weak, and useless, and, and pathetic!"  Her face became coldly beautiful in its sudden rage.  "I hated it, I hated always feeling so weak!

              "That's how Akuji found me," she said, and her voice became quiet once more.  "He offered me strength where I was weak, power when I had none.  He offered and I accepted-- I don't know if anyone could refuse-- he turned me and welcomed me into his clan."  She seemed ashamed of her own admission, dropping her gaze and hiding her eyes behind the inky veil of her hair.

              Cologne forced the girl to raise her head with her staff.  "He 'turned' you?" she asked.  Her voice remained stern but gentle.

              "There is a . . . ritual," she said.  She paled, and her lower lip trembled as she spoke.  "Please, don't make me . . . it's too horrible.  Even the others won't speak of it; no Child does, I think.  Those who survive . . . become one of the Children.  The ritual binds us together.  At the climax of the ceremony, the essence of Belial flows into us: his flesh becomes our flesh, his soul our own, his will, ours."

              "Is it this . . . Belial's strength you feel, when you become those beasts?" Cologne asked.

              "You can't imagine the power," Ayumi answered softly.  "The strength.  Everything becomes so simple.  All the doubts, the worries are put to rest.  Nothing remains but the purity of the Father's will.  You can always feel it, watching over you, out of sight but it's there . . . always _there_, even now!"  Nabiki instinctively glanced over her shoulder, and shivered, half expecting to see some slavering beast lurking behind her.  "It's terrible and wonderful," the girl continued.  "The rage and hunger carries me forward when Belial's taint is upon me."  She looked away again, and Nabiki was glad to escape the hungry gaze that had been turned on her.  "But it doesn't last.  It never does, and when I return to myself I always feel even worse."

              "Why not remain a monster, then?"

              "I can't," the girl answered.  "I can only stay transformed for so long . . . a few hours at most, and even then I'm left exhausted.  I'm still young, I only fully entered Father's clan a few days ago, when one of his sons were killed."  She glanced at her bonds.  "I couldn't change right now even if I wanted to.  But Father tells me that I'll grow stronger.  He promised me that I would be the strongest of his clan someday.  One day I'll be able to remained transformed for days on end!"  She seemed both excited and horrified at the prospect.

              Mousse gave a sharp laugh.  "Congratulations, bitch," he said.  "You're now the strongest of your clan."  He spat at her feet.  "All the rest are dead."

              Cologne barked something at him in Chinese.  The boy, after a long sullen glare at the withered old woman, silently stepped away.  When she turned back to Ayumi, the girl seemed stunned at the revelation.

              "My Brothers and Sisters are dead?"  Nabiki couldn't tell whether the girl was thrilled or dismayed.

              "And your 'father', fled," added Cologne.

              Ayumi stared back at the older woman for a long moment before slowly shaking her head.  "No," she said flatly.  "Impossible.  He may have left, but fled?  I don't believe that."

              "Are you that certain of his power?"

              "You don't understand," Ayumi said.  "You can almost take the length of time one of us remains transformed as . . .  I don't know, as a measuring strength of our power.  How quickly we bounce back as well.  Eldest Brother—he was the strongest of us by far.  He could remain beneath Belial's taint for a full day with ease, and within an hour or two, transform again.

              "But Father?  Ever since I've been accepted into the Family-- for the full week that I have been with the clan, and of Belial's flesh-- I have yet to see Akuji revert to his true form. . . ."

              "At last," he intoned in his deep, mellifluous tones.

              Akane tilted her head towards the obsidian man.  She watched his approach.  He seemed beautiful to her, somehow, in a dark, uncomfortable way.  Tokyo lights played across his smooth, creaseless skin.  The suggestion of powerful muscles rolled beneath the glassy surface.

              "You led us on quite the chase tonight," Akuji continued, though Akane was barely conscious of his voice.  Somehow she knew the man was no longer speaking to her.  "But I knew you would persevere.  Your host is strong and capable.  You helped her survive, didn't you?  I can feel you rising through the layers of her being, protecting her even as you seek to claim her at last."

              Something feather-soft and wispy brushed across her cheeks and forehead.  Her eyes flickered open--she hadn't even realized that they had closed--and saw the tendrils of murky blackness reaching from the obsidian man.  Akuji's touch was cool and refreshing across a brow suddenly feverish.

              "Yes," Akuji continued, "You can feel my touch, can't you?  Do you recognize it?  Is it familiar to you?"

              Akane felt detached from her own body.  She could still see, and hear, and feel; but these senses were subdued and hazy, dreamlike.  She couldn't move; she wasn't sure she could bring herself to _want_ to move.

              "You are so very close, Old One," said the obsidian man, still gently stroking her with tendrils of darkness as he stood several meters away.  "Though time grows short.  The others approach quickly.  They would seek to destroy you.  You are vulnerable while trapped within this female flesh.  Your ritual was interrupted.  I sense your hunger: how many centuries since you last tasted freedom?"

              Rising from somewhere deep within, Akane felt a presence roughly push itself past her fleeting consciousness.  There was a. . . bubble there, an entity dwelling within her she had not even been aware she carried.  It brushed against her as it strove for dominance;

__high vaulted ceilings groan and crack, ancient stone crumbling beneath the pressure of flooding waters, the idiocy of men, air burning and crackling with untamed energies, ice-cold waters flooding the palace, thronged with savaged corpses, final stalwart defender encountering the inevitable, ferocious roars of trapped brethren cut off from their home, walls shuddering with their panicked trashing, heady scent of blood, clashing of metal, high-pitched shriek of the Font, the stone itself sings, the Elder cast down, the Gate stopped, the Font sealed; these fools have destroyed themselves, end of their Age, the dawn of a millennium of chaos, we shall flay the land and the earth shall drink and weep of blood, yet these last fools remain behind, oppose us in their presumption, mere flesh restraining forces primeval, the waters overwhelm them, the power of the Font consumes them yet they persevere, arms high, voices shouting words of power, binding my brethren and I to this world, to the physical, linking us to their Door, our own power entrapping us; even as the last of these men succumb they cast us out into the untamed wilds of their collapsed world, entrapped, waiting, patient, hungry. . . .__

              A moan escaped Akane's lips as she fell deeper into herself, shuddering and shrinking back from that other presence, wholly alien and primal, seizing her flesh and control of her body, her consciousness submerging as incomprehensible images played across her mind.  As she felt herself devoured from within she flashed back to her own room, the ancient tome open in her lap, mucous tendrils wrapped about her chest and face, the same invasive manifestation quickly overtaking her until Ranma's intervention.  A panicked scream rose in her throat as she sank into darkness. . . .

              "You shall have to wait longer."  The smoothness of Akuji's voice turned to steel.  She felt the man approach.  His darkness coiled about her, enveloped her and lifting her from the ground.  The angry droning of her mind faded slightly, and with its retreat consciousness and feeling slowly returned.  The dark presence within pushed back and resisted Akuji's intrusion.  Pain wracked her body, her back arching in agony as two foreign psyches struggled within her own; but after the eerie nothingness of before the pain was nearly welcome.

              "Remain locked away within her mortal flesh, Old One.  Buried within her consciousness.  Your essence secondary to her own, your power enslaved to her weakness."  As Akuji spoke the thing lurking within her sank deeper into the unconscious reaches of her mind.  She regained minor control of her own body.  Fingertips tingled with release.  With something like an inaudible 'pop', she felt the primal force submerge wholly.  She felt herself standing, briefly, before the entirety of her body rushed back to her, the fullness of her pain and exhaustion; and with a whimper she collapsed to the ground, free.

              Dark, glassy legs filled her vision.  Akuji reached down and gently pulled her up.  After a moment she found the strength to stand on her own.  She stared up at the man in amazement.

              "You saved me," she said.  "That--that thing, it almost . . . _ate_ me."  She shuddered, suddenly cold.  "I would have been. . . dead.  Or worse.  You pushed it back."

              "Yes, I did," the obsidian man answered, sounding amused.  He brushed two fingers across her forehead and held them there briefly; the center of her brow felt hot.  "You must remain strong and focused if you wish to keep it at bay.  I can feel its rage.  It radiates from within you in waves.  Such power poised to strike at me, yet blocked by the feebleness of the flesh.  Restrained and trapped within a wretched schoolgirl."  Akuji smooth lips twisted in a wry smile.  "An ironic cage for such a being, don't you think?"

              Akane trembled as she stood before the man.  She couldn't understand what it was she contained.  The images she saw in brushing against that vile presence made no sense to her; but as she recalled her vision her stomach twisted in fear and revulsion.  I was _there_, she thought, I stood beneath vaulting arches and in freezing water and felt the air charged with magic.  The bodies floating and bumping against my legs.  Reptilian cold, scales.  Alien flesh.  Akane licked her lips and tasted phantom blood there, and remembered a terrible hunger, and nearly gagged.

              "Please," she pleaded, "If you can stop it so easily, just . . . take it out of me."

              Akuji threw back his head and laughed, cold and callously.  He grabbed her roughly by the chin and held her, fixing her with his burning gaze.  "Why on earth would I release it from you?"

              "But--"

              "Do you think I saved you out of pity, you stupid little girl?  Freed from you, the Old One could lay waste to this entire city!  It could destroy even _me_!  But locked away within your flesh . . . ah, _then_, little girl, it can be brought to heel and made to serve."  He leaned in close, until his burning eyes filled her vision.  "The fullness of its power lays within you, and yet remains enslaved to your puny human mind."  His hand caressed her cheek, and then gripped the top of her head.  She felt the strength of that grip; he could crush her skull like an eggshell.

              "This soft, weak mind, so easily manipulated, so easily twisted and enslaved.  Only once you have been made subservient to me shall I allow the Old One's return."  His hand stroked the side of her face and settled on her shoulder.  "I feel your trembling.  Your mind quailed at its touch.  Yes, girl, as it rises once again, your mind will no doubt crack and your essence will bleed away--but slowly, and painfully, until only the instinct to serve I shall instill in you remains."  He smiled cruelly.  "Though I would not be surprised if some awareness survived as well-- an awareness of what had been done to you, of the abuses your have endured-- for the eternity that the Old One dwells within your body."

              Akane stared up at the obsidian man in horror.  His smile widened at her expression, the fire of his eyes stabbing straight to her soul and dancing in glee at her fear.

              "There is no hope for you, little one," Akuji said.

"You'd be surprised," called a strong, mocking voice from behind.

              With a snarl, Akuji turned to the newcomer.  "You again!"

              "Akane's _my_ fiancee," exclaimed Ranma Saotome, striding arrogantly from the shadows.  His aura erupted into a fiercely bright corona about him.  "If you want her, you'll have to get through me!"

Continues in:

Chapter Six: The Nature of the Beast.

Chapter Notes:

The bar Akane passes through, the Underground Lounge (the Underlounge) is a real club, but in Osaka, not Tokyo--and it doesn't have a VIP upstairs, at least as far as I know.  If Takahashi giving her 45 000 yen (about $500 CDN) seems unlikely… well, on a night out early into my stay in Japan, my friends and I met some random guy who gave the owner of a bar 40 000 yen to pay for our drinks for the night--and then left.  We didn't know the guy, we didn't talk to the guy, but we certainly loved him after that.

Gabriel's quote, "And when night darkens the streets, then wander forth the Children of Belial, flown with insolence and wine," comes from Milton's Paradise Lost (I believe).

The description of the trainyards in which Akane flees from the Trueblood is hopelessly botched.  Many Japanese trains run off of overhead powerlines, so the creature would be electrocuting himself with each step--and would have to be smashing through all kinds of girders and the like.  If I ever attempt a serious revision, I'll fix it up.

Dave the taxi driver first appeared in a round-robin fanfic attempt way back when.

My description of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is also hopelessly fouled.  Going off of memory and maps of Shinjuku didn't work very well.  Again, I might try to fix it up some day.  Still, it's a pretty cool place, should you get the chance to visit, and offers what is arguable the highest and best view of Tokyo.