Disclaimer: Observe the carven image on Ngranek. That shall lead you to where your answer lies.
The Inner Demon
Chapter 17: The Engines Cannae Handle It!
Tofu rubbed his chin as he observed the writhing form imprisoned before him, "Well, that's two problems dealt with."
Part 1: The Woe at Nerima Ward
Tuesday... No word on what was to become of Nerima ward's Furinkan High School's students. The principal had gone (more) insane and somehow disfigured himself horribly. Rather, the student body claimed he had the horrific body of some kind of monster. Even teachers acquiesced that the Principal Kouchou (his legal name, redundant as that might be) Kuno was not himself.
Probably the inquisitive Inspector Togusa would have investigated further if a stange man dressed all in black hadn't claimed jurisdiction. The incident would sometime in future years vanish. That was the way things happened every few years when "the man in black" pulled jurisdiction in Nerima. Not that anyone believed the weird things that happened in Nerima anyway. "Just the people are strange is all"
Anyway, the school was left with a ruined tennis court and no principal. After the man in black and his mysterious cohorts were done with their investigation, there was little evidence other that the uncertain memories of the crisis. The man ceded jurisdiction back to the police, claiming that there was insufficient evidence to mount a case on their level.
The elder investigators knew it was fruitless to even try to bring charges of even tampering with evidence against the people in black. They were like the faceless extensions of some entity that merely allowed the people of Tokyo, no, the world to exist as they did. They had no permanent names and no residence. No identities to correspond with faces unremarkable, forgettable, and possibly only seen once in a given inspector's life.
Togusa, however, did not balk at such a thing.
Part 2: Tofu's Dilemma
Tofu only had this one last day to convert his crazed, writhing captive into the Magical Pretty Princess. He had brief periods of giddiness that almost caused him to run screaming in a random direction.
On top of this, Kodachi and Kasumi had been so drained from constant fighting that they'd finally been injured yesterday. Kuno was off God only knows where doing God only knows what and Haruko was no help at all. It was all he could do to keep her busy to stop her from wrecking his efforts.
Thank God no "Demonoids" had shown up. Quite frankly, he found that charade to be less than entertaining. He honestly had difficulty distinguishing whether any given monster was a "demonoid" or something cooked up by one of Ranma's devices. Really, Tofu didn't even see the point in all of this stupidity.
He'd come to understand that while these people were truly reincarnations of spiritually powerful people from the distant past, they were not slated to ever awaken in this life. Their "awakenings" were artificially stimulated for dubious purposes. Tofu privately wondered if all of the people he'd guided were no more than puppets of the Legacy.
"Ruurrggh!" the sailor's would be leader growled and thrashed, snatching Tofu from reverie.
Akane had walked to school that morning in vain. There was a small crowd of students and some police and strange people dressed like that man that had come looking for Mr. Saotome last Sunday. She walked up to the nearest one innocently enough and asked, "May I speak to Mr. Mousse?"
The man she'd asked turned to her with a fairly nondescript expression. His eyes betrayed no understanding of her question, almost as if something else had caught his attention. Akane realized he was blind.
"You..." The man gazed at her with his unseeing eyes, "I see you."
A cold shiver ran down Akane's spine and she backed right into another black clad figure with a start.
She turned, "S-sorry!"
She looked ordinary at first... then Akane realized that she had a strange birthmark on her cheek that was not immediately noticeable.
Akane gazed, transfixed by... something... no... that wasn't a birthmark... it was...
"Ms. Tendo."
Akane's trance broke and she immediately forgot what she'd been thinking.
Amon Mousse spoke to his subordinates, "Prometheus, Matrix, prepare our transport."
They made their way past the police and through the school entrance.
"Who.. What were they?" Akane asked Amon, grateful for a normal person.
"They?" Amon seemed faintly surprised by the question, "Ah. But of course, you're Soun's daughter. They are my... coworkers."
That explanation was enough for Akane, who would never forget...
"I don't suppose you know anymore about the dreaded Kamaitachi than your peers?" Amon asked with something approaching, but not quite reaching, curiousity.
"say, akane?Do you know what a kamaitachi is?"
"I-I can't say," Akane stammered. Amon looked unconvinced.
"Very well. I can not say for certain when your school will be reopening its doors," Amon spoke, "An unsavory infestation was found and we deemed it to be none of the police's concern."
"An infestation?" Akane was puzzled.
"Of sorts. In the walls," It sounded almost as if Amon were fishing for information.
"Well, I don't know anything about that, I've never seen a cockroach."
"Here is my card," Amon held out a rectangular card with nothing but a phone number and an odd diagram on it, "Call me if something jogs your memory, will you?"
Akane took the card and blinked when she examined the diagram.
Part 1: The Woe at Nerima Ward
Inspector Togusa was not a superstitious man. He was not given to believe in such rubbish as ghosts and demons and such preposterous junk. He had been transferred to Nerima only recently and had been regarded almost with amusement by the elder policemen in this respect. He'd known full well that Nerima was a haven for folklore concerning bizarre foreigners and mystics, but, as previously stated, he didn't believe in such rubbish.
That said, the people that followed the Man in Black were truly spooky. Sometimes he would see them here and there, flitting about without ever sprinting. Togusa reasoned that there were probably trap doors and such littering Furinkan High School that the criminal Kouchou Kuno had installed.
Kuno was well documented at headquarters. Togusa had often asked why he had never been brought up with charges. The elder investigators found the idea amusing. They told him that as long as Kuno didn't run for office, he was going to be ignored.
Nevertheless, Togusa continued to dig up evidence over the months since he'd been assigned. The Hinako thing, Togusa had thought, would surely bring the department into action. No such luck.
He had evidence dating back years into the police records. There wasn't even an attempt at a coverup. It was like no one with the power to bring the man to justice cared enough to do anything. The man had started out eccentric and become borderline psychopathic, and there were witnesses of all ages who would willingly corroborate.
Togusa took the initiative and interviewed these witnesses in the records. The teachers and most of the students still at Furinkan were easy to track, but most'd given into despair and accepted their situation. Since most of the students had bad discipline records at other schools, they really had nowhere else to go. The teachers seemed almost to be held hostage, themselves. There was no evidence that directly implied beyond a reasonable doubt that Kouchou Kuno had made any attempts at blackmail and extortion toward the teachers to make them stay, but it was clear that they were afraid to leave Furinkan.
Maybe if Togusa hadn't been so intent on busting Kuno, he'd take this bizarre disappearance as a blessing and be content. He just couldn't let sleeping dogs lie.
Part 2: Tofu's Dilemma
Akane looked up from the odd diagram. Everyone was gone and it had gotten dark all of a sudden. She looked down at the card and found the diagram gone. Odd... she couldn't even remember very clearly what it had looked like. She shivered and put the card in her satchel and headed home, uncertain of what exactly transpired.
Tofu had given up on conventional methods. He'd basically realized that there was no way he'd be able to undo the damage that the years had done to the woman. So he implanted a special microchip behind her left ear and called his work finished. Now he'd just have to find Hotsuma and vanish to London before he was missed. Piece of cake. But he'd never see Kasumi again. That might be a good thing, when he considered what they'd do to her.
He left the now sleeping form propped in a chair and opened one of the secret doors in his clinic. Inside that pocket dimension was Hotsuma.
The formerly battered ninja stood and nodded. The pocket dimension's time was such that anyone that entered spent an "instant eternity" in it. Effectively, they went about life normally and possibly die. However, if the door is opened at any point, the time periods containing healthiest versions (mentally and physically) of the people inside would merge into this time period. A useful tool when one is treating patients that shouldn't exist.
Hotsuma and Tofu left quietly, cloaked in the shadows of the night. If Tofu had timed his entrance into Hotsuma's pocket dimension earlier that day correctly, he ought to be able to travel back twelve hours and catch a plane out of Japan. If not, well, at least the Magical Pretty Princess (or a decent facsimile thereof) would be able to take his place as the leader of the sailors.
Haruko watched Tofu and Hotsuma exit the clinic and, her curiousity piqued, followed.
Hours earlier...
Hiroshi, Shin, Gosunkugi, Ken, Yusuke, Goemon, and Zarela stood in an immense cavern, roughly a mile under Furinkan. Big K stood motionless in the back of the spacious cave. The three junior members of Ranma's organization eyed Zarela with fear and distrust.
Zarela was a thing of nightmare, standing only at about human height, but he had cylandrical protrusions where eyes should be. His skin was a hideous shade of reddish pink and his gaping maw of a mouth made a toothless grin, even though the solemn voice was like that of the grave. He floated on bat wings which produced a slight, charnel wind. His other appendages protruded from that discolored wormlike body almost as if added in afterthought. They were skeletal.
"Some outside agency seized our base while we were down here," Shin reported with a salute to Hiroshi, who, for some unexplained reason, was wearing a cape and horned cowl. Shin had just taken the secret elevator from the spacious cave to an innocent looking birdbath to gather information.
This was the Big K's hangar.
"Indeed," Hiroshi nodded solemnly with a flourish of his cape.
"This is Queklain's fault," Zarela spoke in his awful voice, "Do you want me to hunt him down?"
"No," Hiroshi spoke with a dramatic stare into the distance, "Queklain is finished. Adramelk ought to be on his trail as we speak."
"Adramelk is..." Zarela began.
"A traitor, just like Queklain?" Hiroshi gave a cold laugh, "Not exactly. Queklain has no ally now. Our enemies will catch him, and Adramelk will catch our enemies. Two birds with one stone."
"Then what do we do now?" Ken piped up.
"We wait for King Arthur, of course," Hiroshi turned away and headed for the secret bunker.
Part 1: The Woe at Nerima Ward
Wednesday... Togusa's investigation at Furinkan continued. He was present in every phase of the search, which itself was only pursued at his insistance, and performed some rather sophisticated search techniques himself. As wild as it seemed to him, he couldn't shake the notion that there WAS something there, somewhere, beckoning him. Taunting him to find it, it that couldn't be found.
Make no mistake, Inspector Togusa invested no belief in the occult and was not keen on "intuition", but when he did get hunches, he usually followed them almost compulsively, almost to justify the illogical impulses they inspired. If the hunch preceded evidence, that could be ignored as a failure in memory.
Every locker was opened, every door, every panel and wall was investigated. Nothing turned up. Indeed, some evidence that logically should remain, such as the ruined tennis court, was missing as though never acted upon or brought to exist. Some evidence clearly existed, but clashed with the evidence that was so apparent until the people in black arrived and did their own scouring. Sure, Togusa had to admit that the story that the new evidence told was much more plausible, but Togusa was not willing to believe that he'd had a stroke obscure his memory when he was not even yet middle aged.
Part 2: Tofu's Dilemma
It was late Tuesday evening when Tofu had pulled his "pocket watch" out while in front of the airport. He'd bought a ticket for the early morning flight after his notice to go stealth in three days. He'd made sure to be tending Hotsuma during the roughly three hours it would take to reach his destination.
If you don't care about the "physics" of Tofu's time travelling, skip the next two paragraphs.
Tofu's "pocket watch" was Legacy standard equipment for designated time travellers. Twelve hours into the future or into the past, maximum. It was powered by the interaction of two singularities. One was a black hole, and the other was an antimatter object that repulsed matter and light in the way the black hole attracted it. To avoid any messy consequences should the "watch" be damaged, the singularities were housed in a pocket dimension. The watch merely controlled the pocket dimension in such a way as to alter the forces to allow time travel twelve hours in either direction and establish an appropriate distance between the user(s) and the center of the Earth and the sun. By this way, one needn't worry about being imbedded in a mountain or in space or underwater due to rotation of the planet or movement of the solar system. Of course, the distortions in the timeline had to be carefully controlled. The watch was incapable of the manipulations required to excite the singularities' balance to the point of traveling more than twelve hours.
There were, of course, important rules to be followed in time travel. The consciousness of a given sentient can not exist twice in the same instant. The outcome of this is never 100 certain, but it often results in the destruction of the older version(although it is uncertain what actually happens, the entire mass of the older version vanishes, leaving nothing that did not already exist in the past. A past copy and a future copy can, however, coexist in the present, provided that the present copy is not currently in the same timeline.). Only sentient matter and closely thought of paraphenalia can be drawn into the flux that is created. Matter that time travels without passing through a singularity or rip (for instance, the flux around the agitated interaction of a black hole and a repulsion object is not really a singularity or rip) will leave behind "shadow matter" that warps light around it and is generally inert, indestructable, and partially lacking in inertia(it only moves when acted upon and will not continue to move when not actively being lifted or pushed). If the traveller (not a past self) is ever present at a time when his/her shadow matter exists, the shadow matter will become redundant and transform into a rip to the time destination that the traveller travelled to in the act that created it. This can be avoided by travelling via fifth dimensional space or a pocket dimension or alternate reality, but the watch circumvents this by the transport of extradimensional matter equal to twice the matter being transported. The shadow and extradimensional matter interact to produce a "goo" that evaporates and eventually returns to the space the ED matter came from. Half of the extradimensional matter (which is equivalent to the mass transported) remains in place until the traveller returns, at which point it evaporates harmlessly.
Summary: He can go forward or back in time 12 hours in a complex and dangerous process. The license is a bit harder to get that a driver's license, in other words.
Tofu and Hotsuma stood in position and the good doctor began to twist the hands of the "watch".
A bright flash of light dazzled their eyes as a whirling ball of red, black, and a spatula flew from a distant rooftop and opened up to land nimbly on two white booted feet.
"Oh no," Tofu groaned.
"Hiya," Haruko unslung her spatula, "Goin somewhere?"
Wednesday Again.
Akane checked the school again. The police were still blocking the entrance, but the weird men were gone. She thought for a moment about the various calamities and other weird events that had hit recently. Both Ranma and Genma had vanished and now things were just too calm. It was like the wake of some horrible natural disaster.
The worst part was probably that it still felt like the disaster was hitting. Like this was all a part of it. She suddenly felt an impulse to examine Ranma and Genma's room. Granted, Genma had slept downstairs whenever he'd felt that Ranma was no danger, as absurd as the thought of Ranma being a danger to anything except himself, possibly.
She raced home as though that basically abandoned room was going to vanish suddenly or something.
Part 1: The Woe at Nerima Ward
Togusa had basically given up at this point. There was nothing in Furinkan high school to suggest that anything other than what the people in black had reported had happened had happened.
He thought for a moment as he surveyed the final cursory sweep and decided to order a wider search under the ostensible reasoning that the Furinkan students that were missing could well be hidden in the immediate area. It was a long shot, since Nerima was a place of such random activity that kidnapped students could scarcely be held in one place for very long. Furinkan was, after all, known for its problem students.
It happened that as he was examining an oddly placed mailbox that a secret panel gave way and he found himself hurtling into a dark abyss. The rectangle of daylight shrank and then vanished as he soon lay sliding at a downward angle against a slimy, wet passage. Looking over to his right, he noticed in an inexplicable dim phosphorescence that there was another, much larger ramp that could concievably accomodate a titan.
Looking back to the end of his ramp, he saw an opening of reddish light. Ghastly laughter echoed from it as he slid into crimson oblivion.
Part 2: Tofu's dilemma
Akane tried to gently open the door. It was locked. Odd. Why would the door be locked? She slid her eyes to the left and right, to make sure that none of the others were near, then broke the locking mechanism with an abrupt turn of the wrist.
"If Kasumi ever shows up," Akane thought with a grimace, "She won't like this."
She opened the door slowly and peered in.
The room looked perfectly normal. No damage at all. No evidence that it had ever been damaged. This peculiarity, however, was of little consequence. An unfamiliar woman was bent over and apparently searching through something.
Akane entered the room as quietly as possible.
The woman turned.
She had piercing red irised eyes. Not so strange by color as by the way they seemed to see more of you than could be seen.
The woman grimaced and vanished with an electronic buzzing.
Akane was momentarily startled, then she looked down at the object the woman had been observing.
It was that dirty gi that Ranma had worn when Genma and Ranma had arrived.
Akane took a deep breath.
Waves of expectant terror washed over her as she approached it through the sparse room and bent down to look at it more closely.
What?
She was being PULLED IN!
Some force took hold.
A starry vacuum of nebulous color reached out and grabbed her as she fell out of existance.
Haruko leapt at Tofu just as the man hastily pressed the button on the watch, "Yer not goin anywhere, bud!"
She grabbed him at that instant. She, Tofu, and Hotsuma hurtled flailingly through a multicolored span, laden with images of the past few hours.
"You fool!" Tofu choked the words out, "Idiot! You've caused an imbalance! We're going to die!"
Hotsuma thrashed in helplessness.
Haruko, "What?"
"The sudden change in mass! We'll fall short of our destination, and we'll die!"
The cascade of colors stopped abruptly with a flash and the trio stood in front of the airport in broad daylight. Another Haruko happened to traipse about, stopping in time to witness a scene she'd take to her grave.
Somewhere, Dr. Ono Tofu stepped out of a pocket dimension. That dimension equalized with the current time stream.
"!" Tofu reached out as if warding some horrible beast. Then the color of his body and clothing drained and he stood stark still. He become fibrous and inert, then simply unravelled into threads that evaporated in the wind.
Haruko, in panic, turned to Hotsuma. There was no Hotsuma.
The other Haruko was being pulled toward the distortion that hadn't yet closed.
Then everything went black.
Part 3: Angelus Errare
Togusa witnessed the winged monstrosity and was consumed in ululant noncomprehension.
No eyes? Gaping blasphemously smiling maw! Skeletal appendages? AND the hideous bat wings that beat with an unholy and unknown impetus that endlessly compelled them to flap and send a deathly breeze of horrid odor by his senses! Stench was visible! Wind had taste!
Akane came to her senses in a subterranean nightmare cavern in which a monster of some kind seemed to prey upon a helpless, screaming man.
Velius urged Gosunkugi into the Big K's hanger (Hiroshi and Shin were having Big K tuned in a special backup lab). Gosunkugi was puzzled to see his crush, Akane and some strange man with Zarela.
Zarela was in a fury of flaps and screeching quasi laughter. He felt as though he were being torn in two, "No! It is a logical impossibility! An error!"
"Calm down, Zarela!" Hiroshi commanded with a flourish of his bat cape as he made a dramatic entrance. Shin followed grudgingly in a Robin costume.
Zarela instantly ceased motions and sounds and turned to Hiroshi in utter calm.
"Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah!" Togusa continued screaming between breaths.
"Will someone shut him up?" Hiroshi, irked, pointed at the hysterical man.
Gosunkugi shrugged and padded toward Togusa and gave him a hard slap.
Togusa quieted for a second with a shocked expression, then, "Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah!"
Gosunkugi looked at Hiroshi, who simply shrugged. He turned back to Togusa and repeatedly kicked him. Eventually Togusa curled up into a ball and started crying softly.
"That's enough!" Akane took a determined step forward, consciously ignoring Zarela.
"Akane!" Gosunkugi's eyes glazed over and he began mumbling incoherently.
Akane turned to Hiroshi, "And what are you supposed to be?"
Hiroshi spread his cape and exposed the extremely detailed batman costume, "Isn't it obvious?"
"No."
"..." Hiroshi tromped away dejectedly.
Shin sighed, "Zarela, what's the matter?"
"I...," Zarela spoke with a tone of the utmost gravity, "Had a bowel movement!"
"..."
"And...?"
"Look at me!" Zarela gestured with his skeleton arms, "Does this look like it should have bowel movements?"
"Point taken. Is that all?" Shin deadpanned.
"Oh, well, there is a temporal disturbance," Zarela spoke with what might be called a yawn, "The world is ending, some such thing. I wasn't going to bother you with such trivialities."
"Oh. Well," Shin produced a sheet of notebook paper that was covered in insane scrawlings and diagrams, "The Kamaitachi left instructions in case of the Apocalypse. Evidently we need a chocolate cake, a length of hose, and three cats covered in duct tape... wait, this's upside down..."
"You know the Kamaitachi?" Akane's heart skipped a beat as she pointed furiously at Shin.
"Yes," Shin answered before turning to Zarela, "Does this apocalypse taste more puce or loud?"
"Who is he?" Akane shouted impatiently.
"Ranma," Shin answered with exasperation.
"Tell me now or so help me, I'll...!"
"Ranma is the Kamaitachi."
"What about Ranma?"
"He's the Kamaitachi."
"Who's the Kamaitachi!"
"Ranma."
"If you won't tell me, then I'm gonna clobber you!"
"... You're really sick, you know that?" Shin spoke before turning back to Zarela and trying to ascertain the taste of the apocalypse.
Akane lunged at Shin, but was stopped dead still when Gosunkugi somehow managed to grapple and check her.
"Sorry about this, Akane," Gosunkugi muttered.
"?"
Zarela pointed at Akane, "She is the only one left that can go where she is needed to go and prevent this from happening."
"Are you sure?" Shin asked, doubtfully.
"Absolutely. She is several hours younger than she should be. Judging by her impressions, I'd say that this aging stasis took place yesterday. No doubt. None," Zarela the abomination approached the Akane, "Let her go."
Gosunkugi complied, even as he deftly stole a lock of Akane's hair.
"I am going to send you back in time to the point in space-time in which you temporarily vanished from the four dimensions as you humans know them. You will find yourself in a semi dissolved time stream. Some sort of paradox has been created that is gradually eating time. Sooner or later, this might be corrected, but there is no telling what will be absolutely destroyed in the meantime. I suspect your friend, Haruko, is the first casualty," Zarela explained.
"Haruko?" Akane asked incredulously, "Who is Haruko?"
"Exactly," Zarela continued, "If you don't hurry, it is possible, nay, likely that most of Nerima will be annihilated from time as though it had never existed."
"What do I do?" Akane asked, not sure of herself.
"You must find the source of the disruption. And quickly," Zarela spoke gravely, "When fifth dimensional 'time' runs out, it will be too late. All that will be consumed will have been consumed."
"Well, what do I do about the 'disruption'?"
"That is a tricky question, normally a paradox will not result in things such as this. I would suggest finding and killing Haruko prior to the instance of the paradox. Failing that, you must enter the distortion at ground zero and hope for the best."
"How will I recognize this 'Haruko'?"
"Ssh! We have no more time to waste!" Zarela clasped his hands such as they were and raised them to his hideously smiling maw and began to chant in some unholy language, "Tulips, dedsilop, SOCCER MOM! I Beseech the Radical Bunny of the lesser artillery!" Zarela put a rabbit doll hand puppet on his skeletal hand and danced around spastically.
A fairy evil glow emanated from him and the entire world seemed to melt away into waves of energy. Only Akane and Zarela existed in the energy field.
"Remember these words and the dance, for they might be your only savior," Zarela said before handing the bunny to Akane.
"..." Akane took the bunny from the abomination's hand even as it faded away, "I hate Nerima so much."
The energy cleared, leaving Akane standing holding her books and the strange card with the diagram. It was night... this was the moment she'd awakened yesterday! The diagram on the card shifted and she noticed that everything seemed to move backward. There was also a strange white fog drifting that definitely wasn't there last time. She reached out to touch some, only to find it hard and seemingly statically charged.
"Too strange," Akane looked around to see the sky gradually lightening.
",cinilc s'ufot fo edistuo si okuraH" a voice echoed in her head.
Akane glanced around and thought she saw Ranma running backwards toward her from the direction of Tofu's clinic. He passed through her harmlessly and further down the sidewalk. His eyes, however, watched her as he passed.
"I understand," Akane nodded as she dashed toward Dr. Tofu's, dropping her books and the strangely diagrammed card.
In mere moments she arrived to see nothing particularly unusual. Then she saw Dr. Tofu and some strange man walking backwards rapidly, then entering the clinic.
Akane was about to follow when she heard some kind of shuffling. It was at this moment that Akane realized that she hadn't actually "heard" anything until now. She leapt to the roof of the clinic's building and saw an image of a red head with strange yellow irises edging backwards stealthily to a passage into the building.
"That must be Haruko," Akane muttered to herself as she pondered how she could dispatch a seemingly non-corporeal being.
Haruko's eyes suddenly seemed to lock onto Akane. Time literally stood still.
Haruko stood and spoke directly to Akane, "So, you're a time traveller of some sort, eh? I guess that explains why you disappear all the time." She looked friendly enough.
"Do we know each other?" Akane asked innocently enough.
"Hah!" Haruko laughed abruptly, "I should hope so, since we're livin' in the same house."
Akane blinked.
"Yeah, I got a claim on yer buddy Saotome, but I'll let you have 'im when I'm done," Haruko chuckled.
Time seemed to start slowly going forward again.
"I'm here to stop you," Akane took a fighting stance. She'd be damned if this nut was going to lay a hand on Ranma.
"Yo, you serious? Arright," Haruko drew an overlarge spatula and also took a fighting stance. She rushed at Akane with a furious volley of swipes, which Akane managed to just barely dodge. Then, as Akane chambered a fist, Haruko slapped her upside the head with the flat of the spatula.
Akane stumbled back as Haruko made a celebratory guitar motion with the spatula.
"Arg!" Akane made a reckless charge for Haruko.
At the last instant, Haruko seemed to hear something strange in the distance and her expression turned feral, "That SOB is going to skip town!" Haruko gut punched Akane and let her slump to the ground before leaving to follow the emerging figures of Dr. Tofu and Hotsuma.
Akane came to in only about a minute (seemingly) after the punch. She was seething with rage and leapt from rooftop to rooftop in hot pursuit, ignorant of the gathering static white clouds.
In only the span of minutes (Now time seemed almost to speed up) she arrived at the airport. Tofu was fiddling with a watch or something and Haruko was leaping at him. Akane growled and followed suit.
Akane found herself floating in some kind of corridor or conduit flashing with every color of the rainbow and laden with images of the past few hours. She was alone.
"What?" Akane looked around fearfully, "I was right with them!"
Zarela appeared as almost a spec in the distance in the direction opposite her motion, "Their consciousnesses in this conduit passed through a day ago in fifth dimensional 'time'. When you arrive at the destination point, STOP ALL MOTION! Find the paradox and eliminate it."
"Easier said than done," Akane thought as she looked away. There was a flash of light and she found herself standing in the clear day. She was at the airport. Time was still moving faster than it should be. A seeming moment passed and there was another flash of light.
She looked around and saw Haruko, Tofu, and the guy in the ninja costume had appeared the same way she had. Another Haruko arrived in the distance, rushing toward the scene.
Everything stopped.
"You'd think that she'd never have come here, since she obviously could not both come here now and follow Tofu then," Ranma's voice echoed in her mind, "Please remember that someone is altering temporal events to intentional cause a paradox, whatever else happens."
Akane looked around, but didn't see the source, "Argh!" She looked more closely at the scene. Tofu had an expression of pure horror that tugged at Akane's heart. Haruko looked confused. The other Haruko was frozen in a sprint toward that very spot. Okay. So the "paradox" must be the two Harukos? How on earth was she going to deal with this?
"Ah! Tis the fair Akane!" a woman's voice sounded.
A figure landed from some unknown point in the air directly in from of her.
The figure stood and brushed herself off. She had lengthy raven hair, intense eyes, and an ample figure.
Akane wasn't sure if she was more confused, angry, or jealous at this point.
"Wilt thou not at least acknowledge me?" the woman seemed almost pleading.
"Who are you?"
"Ah. This," The woman looked down at herself in disgust, "The pervert only agreed to train me like this." She looked up hopefully, "Yet surely even now I radiate an aura of manliness that overshadows these... disabilities?"
"...?" Akane took a cautionary step backwards, then, "Kuno."
"At your service, madam," the woman bowed, which, incidentally, gave a flash of breast under the kendo robes. Kuno-chan stood upright, "I hath dwelt hither for nigh unto three years, by my count. I neither hunger, nor do I thirst. Yet always do I practice my swordsmanship for the day when the pervert midget sees fit to come looking for me."
"Okay...," Akane shook her head, "I think I need your help. What is going on here?"
"Ah. Yes. I'm been to this moment in sixth dimensional time frequently, I don't have much to do, after all, being trapped in the sixth dimension. Did I tell you that I'm trapped in the sixth dimension, because I am," Kuno-chan gave a somewhat crazed laugh, "Ah yes, well. This is approaching the 'moment' when the timeline will be damaged by that girl over there," Kuno-chan pointed at the other Haruko, "And this girl here," Kuno-chan pointed at the first Haruko, "And you are going to try to stop it, but you'll fail. No matter what I tell you to do!" Kuno-chan gave another crazed laugh, "probably because I'm not manly enough yet."
"Pull yourself together!" Akane grabbed Kuno-chan, "Tell me what I tried the other times!"
Kuno-chan looked apprehensive, "Alright, you've tried killing each of them, breaking the watch, blowing up the airport, destroying the clinic, burning down Furinkan, trying to consort with monsters and even you have tried to jump into the distortion."
"Nothing worked?"
"Nothing achieved any result as to correct the paradox that will kill our Nerima, no."
Akane felt frustrated. Her life had been ruined for no good reason. She hated Nerima, she hated Furinkan, she hated Kuno, and she hated Genma Saotome most of all, "Wait! I jumped into the distortion?"
"Er, yes, after you restarted fourth dimensional time relative to the fifth dimension," Kuno-chan looked nervous.
"Oh? And how do I do that?"
"Why bother, when you can live with me for all of eternity?" Kuno-chan asked hopefully.
"You caused this, didn't you?" Akane narrowed her eyes.
"Hahahaha!" Kuno-chan laughed, "No, but I took good advantage of it, didn't I? Oh well, you'll fail this time too, then I can get more manly and woo you next time."
"I don't think so," Akane stated angrily. Time restarted as she grabbed hold of Kuno angrily. Kuno was pulled back into the fourth dimension along with her.
"Nooooo!" Kuno-chan seemed desperate to get away, "This isn't supposed to happen!"
Somewhere, Dr. Ono Tofu stepped out of a pocket dimension. That dimension equalized with the current time stream.
"!" Tofu reached out as if warding some horrible beast. Then the color of his body and clothing drained and he stood stark still. He become fibrous and inert, then simply unravelled into threads that evaporated in the wind.
Haruko, in panic, turned to Hotsuma. There was no Hotsuma.
The other Haruko was being pulled toward the distortion that hadn't yet closed.
Akane leapt into the distortion even as the other Haruko was snared, dragging Kuno-chan in tow.
There was a cascade of colors. Another Kuno, much more like the one she'd seen a few days ago was floating through the cascade and grabbed hold of the elder Kuno as the group flew through the cascade. They shortly landed in a white space.
"Where are we?" one of the Harukos asked.
"We're in the temporal oblivion," Tofu shuddered.
"Temporal oblivion?" the other Haruko asked.
"An extradimensional space into which dimensional 'garbage' is sent," Tofu elaborated.
"Well, shouldn't there be at least a few me here?" Akane kept the older Kuno in her field of vision.
Tofu blinked, "Akane?"
"Long story," Akane looked around. One Tofu, One ninja guy, Two Harukos, Elder Kuno,and Younger Kuno, "I'm here to rescue you."
"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?" one of the Harukos asked with a chuckle.
"What?" Akane looked at that Haruko as though she'd sprouted a second head.
"Idiot!" the other Haruko elbowed the first Haruko, "She's never seen Star Wars before!"
"Perhaps I am the more likely Hero?" the younger Kuno stood.
"Surely though, I am the man that deserves the title of hero!" the elder Kuno rose.
The younger Kuno gave the elder an appraising look, "I would not wish to cause harm to one so fair for jesting at my expence, but I must ask that you cease and desist."
"For one of such youth, naivete is to be expected," The elder Kuno puffed out her chest, "To any experienced eye it is clear that I am the superior swordsman!"
"Ah! Thou hast caught mine essence entirely," younger Kuno seemed enthralled, "Indeed, thou must adore me to emulate me so well!"
"Indeed, I do find thy manner most apropos for a swordsman of my stature," the elder Kuno seemed to appraise the younger.
"God, this is too weird," Akane turned to the Harukos, who were laughing uncontrollably, "Which of you is from Tuesday evening?"
Both paled and pointed at the other.
"Okay," Akane deadpanned, "Which of you is from the morning?"
Both paled and pointed at the other.
"I'm going to kill the one from the morning," Akane stated.
"I'm evening Haruko, great for fine dining!" One Haruko stood panicking
"No! I am! I'm great for nightclubs and bar hopping!" The other shouted.
"Wait, wait, wait," Akane waved her hands, "I'm going to ask you a question that only the older Haruko could know the answer to: What happened on the rooftop? Whisper the answer to me."
Akane listened to both answers, then konked one over the head with a loud crack, "That settles that."
"Incredible! You knew which one would be nonessential to the new timeline that would emerge as a result of the corrections that you can perform!" Tofu was deeply impressed.
Akane reddened at the attention, "Er, well, actually, I just hated the night one more because she gut punched me. And she spit in my ear."
The other Haruko had a fearful expression on her face, "You-you're a lunatic!"
"Yeah, that's right," Akane said as she grabbed the younger Kuno (without looking behind her for fear of what she might see) and gestured to the other Haruko, "I need you two to fix the problem."
"You know what you're doing?" Haruko asked as she looked around at the white void.
"Exactly," Akane nodded, "Kuno and I are the only ones that are here intentionally. If we go back to this morning and have Kuno make perverted remarks to you, he ought to get beaten repeatedly so badly that you won't have time to get to the time travel point. This will also erase that other Kuno back there, hopefully."
"But what about my training!" Kuno whined, "Master Happosai said he'd come back for me when he had enough panties!"
"Obviously, that never happened, because that woman back there was you after sitting around time for three years," Akane explained as the trio floated upward into a suddenly appearing cascade of colors.
Kuno blanched.
"As for us, we're gonna beat the 'evening you' up so that she can't chase Dr. Tofu," Akane told Haruko with a self satisfied smirk.
"Uh, what'll happen to me then?" Haruko asked.
"Well, I'm hoping that we'll have enough time to beat up the other you before you disappear," Akane smiled, deeply pleased with herself as she dropped Kuno off at the right time.
"Uh, doesn't that mean you'll disappear too?" Haruko asked as the two appeared on the rooftop where the other Haruko had just beaten down the other Akane.
"Damn," Akane took a fighting stance.
Akane looked up from the odd diagram. Everyone was gone and it had gotten dark all of a sudden. She looked down at the card and found the diagram gone. Odd... she couldn't even remember very clearly what it had looked like. She shivered and put the card in her satchel and started walking.
Ranma ran up to her and patted her rather obnoxiously on the back, "Yo! Long time no see, eh?"
"Ranma!" Akane gasped, "Where have you been? I was worried!"
"This yours?" Ranma handed her what looked like a bunny hand puppet.
"Hmm... Maybe?" Akane took it and looked at it closely, "Well, I feel like I've seen it before."
Wednesday...
Ranma entered his room to see a strange woman digging into his old gi, "Well well, time to play?"
AN 5/5/05: Don't worry too much about the temporal mechanics stuff, it's all sci-fi pseudo science. Well, I was halfway done with this chapter when I read the reviews that came out after chapter 16 was posted. There was more feedback than I expected (definitely a good thing). It kinda makes me want to actually go back and edit the old chapters. Of course, that brings up that problem with Ranma's thought balloons. Of course, future chapters 18,19,&20 are only kinda in framework right now. Several events and parts of the backstory have been planned since day one, but there is a LOT of leeway for changes in between the things that are set up. Basically, a lot of things are going to change, but it's not really going to be exactly like it was or has been. Obviously the Board is gone now, and... well... read the next chapter, willya?
Next Chapter: Crisis pt 1 of 1!
