Ranma Half Moon Season Two, Phrase White: Cold opening, part 6.

Towa frowns. Why are the other members of White always making me do the hardest jobs?

Towa imagines the other group members in his head. He sees Zoiki and Kunochi light up. What can I do? They form a formidable power group within the gang. And it's not like Jadero has a backbone while arguing over assignments.

Towa imagines some of the harder assignments that the group had mastered after conquering the panty raid. He remembers sitting in a truck with some electronic equipment, both trying to capture the sounds inside of one of the trainer's house and trying to capture the wireless internet traffic. Zoiki seemed so happy doing the electronics part. Towa also remembers Zoiki's frustration doing lock picking. Maybe that's what being a team means, being able to share the tasks and keep everything within everyone's comfort range.

Towa exhales. It was time to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

Towa walks through the school library. He spots Nephuyu, a boy with brooding looks and wavy dark red hair, sitting by himself. Lucky. He usually is surrounded by a pack of admiring girls.

"Nephuyu, a word with you, if I may?" Towa points with his eyes to a study conference room.

Nephuyu looks at Towa with contempt, but Towa stares back at him, letting him know that Towa wasn't going away.

Nephuyu gets up and follows Towa. "Can't be helped."

Towa shuts the door of the conference room behind them.

"I thought I made it clear that I want no part of this."

Towa nods. "You did."

"So, why are you here?"

"Do you think I want to be here? Do you think I want to try to talk you out of doing all the things that you do? Don't you think that I would rather be doing those things?"

"You would rather be date girls? Wow, could have fooled me. However, it's not too late. I can set you up. I have way more than I need."

"I'm sure you could. But, you know why I can't accept."

Anger flashes across Nephuyu's face. "But, I don't. I know we're in exactly the same boat. But, think about our parents. Do you think that they want us to throw our lives away to fight something that probably can't be beaten? Don't you think that they would want us to be happy and have normal lives?"

"I feel the same way you do, Nephuyu."

"So, why are you going along with this insanity?"

"Because I know that if I don't, if I just go along with the flow, live my life, get married and have a family, that someday a son of mine might wind up in the same position as me. Because I didn't stop what I needed to stop."

"So, you're going to throw away your life because it could be taken away? That's not a good reason."

"No, I want a real life. Not one based on running away. Not one based on ignoring what happened to my family."

Nephuyu's expression softened. "I want one as well. But, I don't see that happening if I join. Zoiki talked to me yesterday. He talked about that incident last year, when the Snatchers killed that murderer."

Towa nods. "That was pretty intense. We acted as a team and trapped and disabled the guy."

"Admirable. But, you also gave him over to the Snatchers to be killed. You guys haven't killed yet, but you know it's going to come to that."

Towa looks away. It was one thing to think in terms of justice and vengeance, but another thing to think of killing someone in cold blood.

"Even if you guys win and dismantle this enemy that is only hinted at by the Snatchers, do you think that you can go from being a killer to having a normal life?"

"My father could. He was a police officer. He told me that he had killed people."

Nephuyu's expression grows more fierce. "You father was doing his job upholding the law. He wasn't an assassin. Do you think he would want you do be one?"

Towa walks out of the conference room, his heart racing like an engine motor. Wow, I guess I had even less luck than the other three.

...

Towa lies on his back on the steep slope leading to the cliff overlooking the bay. He looks at the ships in the bay lit by the half moon in silence.

Suddenly he feels a pebble hit him in the head. He looks up to see Nephuyu easing himself down the slope towards him.

Nephuyu lies down next to Towa. "I thought I might find you here."

"Why?"

"It's poetic in a way. You looking down on the lights of the ships, observing normal life but being forever apart from it. Also, being close to the area of the hill where it would be impossible to avoid being dragged down. Being close to the edge, so to speak."

"Is that so." Towa has no emotion in his voice.

"However, the real reason that I was able to find you was that Zoiki told me where you were."

"Do you feel pity for me?"

"No. I wanted to apologize, actually."

Towa looks sideways at Nephuyu. "For what?"

"Well, after school, I was hanging out with my main girl. She is everything that guys look for in a girl. She fawns on me, she is willing to do anything for me and forgive anything bad I might do."

Towa looks at Nephuyu, not knowing what to think.

"But, then the thought hit me like a ton of bricks. Now that I know that there are monsters out there, I know that the monsters who killed my family could easily one day go after my girl. And, it might have nothing to do with her at all. She just might be collateral damage, someone who observed the wrong thing or was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then, what would I do?"

Towa looks up at the stars in the sky. "So, you have decided to become a monster to fight these monsters?"

"I can't unknow what I know."

Towa smiles. "Neither can I. But, seeing you reminded me of what I could have been."

"I'm sorry to put you through that. I hope that you'll forgive me and help make me a good enough monster to make a difference."

"Zoiki and Kunochi have been good mentors for me. I hope I can do as well as they."

Nephuyu tries to get up, but starts sliding down the hill toward the cliff.

Towa tackles Nephuyu to stop his descent. Towa lies on top of Nephuyu, their chests bumping into each other as they breathe heavily in fear.

Finally Towa catches his breath. "The soil in this area is a little too loose to lie on. We'll have to get back to where I was laying. From there we can climb back up."

Towa notices that Nephuyu's face no longer shows an easy pretty boy's charm or his usual arrogance. He now looks very frightened and vulnerable.

"What should I do?"

"Put you right arm around me. We're going to roll back the way I came. Okay?"

Nephuyu squeezes Towa so hard that Towa can barely breath.

"Okay, one, two, three, now."

Towa and Nephuyu roll over and over back to where Towa started. Towa feels Nephuyu's body sticking to him like duct tape.

"Okay, you can let go and roll off now, but don't try to stand up. We'll have to shimmy up the hill."

Suddenly, a piece of cloth hits Towa in the head. Towa looks up to see Zoiki holding the back end of an improvised rope made of three jackets tied together.

Towa gives the jacket sleeve to Nephuyu. "Hold on, they'll bring you up."

Nephuyu is quickly dragged up the hill.

Towa is only a few seconds behind him, since Towa is very proficient in shimmying. Towa sees that the rest of White is there.

Zoiki puts his hand under his chin. "Fu fu fu. You two had me blushing like a beet."

Towa sees that Jadero and Kunochi are calming down Nephuyu. "Are you always going to have a dirty mind, Zoiki?"

"As long as you keep doing dirty things."

Towa gives Zoiki a play smack to the back of the head. But Towa wasn't really mad. He was happy that his family, as dysfunctional as it was, was growing.

To be continued