Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only swinging on
the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds cleaner than you found
them and please don't feed the Trolls.

"Annie's Song" is John Denver's, and John Denver's alone. (Of course he's 
dead, but ...).

This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/

Release 1.2 (Dec. 04, 2000)

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Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 4: A Tapestry of Shadows
Part C: Sonata for Flute

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tendo Akane woke very early, just before sunrise. She quickly dressed,
intending to get in some practice before breakfast. Going out of her
room, she first stopped in the kitchen. "Ohayo, Kasumi-oneechan; I'm
going to the dojo to practice; would you call me when breakfast is
ready please?"

"Ohayo gozaimasu, Akane-chan. Ranma-san is already in the dojo. She
asked me to make you this snack, to eat before you train." Kasumi gave
Akane a small plate, holding a pair of rice balls and a small filet of
fish.

*blinkblink* "Ranchan's _here_? _Already_? Augh! I'm late! She'll think
I'm slacking!" 

A wind blew through the kitchen as the screen *whooshed* with Akane's
passage, leaving the plate hanging in mid-air. It *whiished* as Akane
reappeared, catching the plate and gulping down the food in a blur. It
*whooshed* again as Akane vanished through the abused screen leaving
the now clean plate hanging in mid-air; only to *whiish* as she
reappeared, catching the plate before it could fall and placing it
gently in the sink before *whoosh*ing out the screen again; followed by
a *thump* as the screen was sucked off its track and fell over. 

A *shhhk* announced Akane's sliding stop, followed by a black-haired
head that slowly inched its way back into the picture. Akane gave
Kasumi a nervous smile before picking the screen up off the ground and
placing it gingerly back into place. She patted it timidly, then took
several cautious, silent steps away before vanishing dojo-wards again
with a dopplered wail of, "Auugh! I'm Late!"

Kasumi blinked at the screen slowly. It somberly toppled over with a
somehow triumphant *thud* and broke into several pieces. Kasumi blinked
again before lowering her face into her hands and shaking her head. "Oh
... dear."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

          We are brief Summer lightning,
          We are swift as swallows' flight.
          We are sparks that spiral upwards,
          In the darkness of the night.
          We are frost upon the window,
          We won't pass this way again,
          In the end only love remains.

Akane skidded to a halt as she entered the dojo and dropped her jaw in
shock. The formerly empty practice floor was covered by piles of
cinder-blocks in a similar manner to those she had used to practice
with, (was it less than a week ago, or was it a lifetime?) the first
morning After Ranma. 

Ranma was stacking them into tall piles and had apparently been at work
on a number of the piles she had already stacked, because they had been
shaped in some manner into vaguely human form. How she had managed it
Akane couldn't imagine, but she supposed that the trick of shaping
cinder-blocks must be a fairly simple one after some of the things she
had seen Ranma do.

Akane watched as Ranma finished stacking her latest pile and withdrew
her fan from her sleeve. Then Ranma raised her hand above the top of
the concrete pile and snapped the fan open.

     That pair in the corner,
     They're here every Tuesday
     They come when the market 
      first open its stalls.
     And it's got so that lately
     I'll wait just to see them
     Their heads bent together,
     As they come down the hall.

     And her hair has grown whiter
     His has grown thinner,
     And their pace has slowed down
     As the years have grown long.
     But they keep step together
     'Mongst strangers who hurry,
     These two old companions,
     Walking slowly along.

Ranma's fan flashed around and through the pile of blocks as she sang,
and before Akane's eyes a pile of rectangular blocks was shaped,
flexed, carved and melted into another humanoid shape.

"Ohayo, Ranchan. How are you doing that?"

"Ohayo, Acchan. Let me finish a couple more so we have half of them
done and I'll show you."

"Let me help stack."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, now here we have a pile of cinder-blocks, right?" 

"Umm. Yeah. Looks like that to me, yep." Akane nodded happily, and
looked at Ranma with wide eyes.

"Stop that. Besides, for the purpose of this explanation, you're wrong.
What we have here is a pile of patterns of energy. A set of shapes
defined by ch'i and, in this case, mostly free of shih."

Akane squinted to slip into othersight, "That's the same thing though,
right, Ranchan?"

"Not quite, no. See, if it was a pile of concrete blocks, then there'd
be no way to do anything with it. Concrete blocks are concrete blocks,
ne? But! If it's a collection of patterns of ch'i, then I can use
_this_," she flourished the fan, "which is _also_ a pattern of ch'i, to
change what the patterns say. 

"Now watch. I take the fan, and I feed shih from my ki into it, see?"
Akane nodded. "Now, I use the shih to 'spread' the ch'i of the blocks.
And now that I've got them in shape to be changed ...." The upper
portion of the pile was quickly reduced to the shape of a crudely
fashioned head. "Now you try."

Akane dubiously took the fan from Ranma, and focused her othersight on
the concrete. Sinking into a trance, she sent shih rushing into the
fan, filling it with crackling tubes of light. She attempted to insert
the fan into the concrete but met with resistance. Withdrawing the fan,
she 'looked' at it, altering the shape and frequency of the power
filling it to something closer to what she had seen Ranma use and then
tried again. 

A few attempts later, the fan began to sink into the concrete, but
stopped less than an inch in, having apparently run into something.
Frowning slightly, Akane flexed her fingers, preparatory to changing
the shih flow one more time. The flex caused the fan to open slightly.
The pile exploded into dust, knocking her head over heels backward into
the wall of the dojo.

Ranma tapped her chin meditatively, "Well ... it's a start." 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


                 ...*boom* ... *boom* ... *boom* ... 

Tendo Nabiki was a heavy sleeper, particularly on Sunday. Nonetheless,
repeated muffled explosions could waken even her. Blearily she wandered
into the kitchen, where Kasumi intercepted her with a request to inform
Ranma and Akane that breakfast was ready. 

Not particularly in a good mood she wandered through the house to the
dojo and opened the door. Strewn about the once-polished dojo floor her
narrowed eyes observed a dozen or so piles of rubble, and the
accountant in her bemoaned the cost in cinder-blocks that rubble
represented. Meanwhile the sister in her was storing up a grievance,
and the observer was watching with dropped jaw as her sister went after
another pile of blocks in a seeming frenzy with ... a fan??!! 

A most puissant fan, she noted; it was carving pieces of cinder-block
off the pile like a ginsu knife slicing tomatoes. Akane finished
carving concrete with what passed for a flourish, and stepped back from
the now human shaped pile with a gasp of exhaustion and a whirl of
triumph. 

"Ha!, Ha!, See, Ranchan, I told you I had it this time!"

Ranma tapped her chin in silence and Akane turned to her in irritation,
"Well ... what's wrong with it?" 

She was answered by a sound as of flowing sand as the concrete gave up
its bondage to solidity and dissolved into dust, a few small pieces of
somewhat more resilient mien falling through the pile to *ping* off the
floor. Ranma raised an eyebrow in silence. Akane flushed beet-red and
slumped to the floor in a heap, putting her head in her hands.

"I don't think you've quite got that part quite down yet, Acchan." 

Akane *snff*ed from the floor. 

"Still. it _may_ be that you'll do better after a rest, ne? And I think
Nabiki-san is here to announce breakfast." Ranma raised another
eyebrow, at Nabiki this time.

"Umm, yeah. Oneechan says it's ready, yes."

Akane *snff*ed again and Ranma extended a hand to her. Akane grasped
the hand and pulled herself up. She started to walk after Nabiki, but
raised her head to where she could see the remaining uncarved, stacked
cinder- block pile. 

Her head snapped up, her jaw firmed, and her shoulders straightened.
She raised the fan and said, "No! I'm on the verge, I know it. Once
more, and _this_ time I'm gonna do it right!" 

Then, suddenly, she grinned, "Hey, Ranchan, watch me pull a dummy out
of a cinder-block!"

"Aw, Acchan," Ranma squirreled, "that trick _never_ works!" 

"This time for sure!"

Akane strode purposefully up to the untouched pile and stuck the fan an
inch into the space where the head would be. Then her shoulders hunched
and she gathered herself. The fan suddenly unfolded, and Akane seemed
to go into a frenzy of fan blows; blurring about the pile, now to the
left, now in back, as she stripped and melted concrete with each
strike. After a minute of frantic effort she stepped back, panting in
exhaustion and glaring at the shaped concrete, daring it to move in any
way.

Ranma stepped forward and flicked the dummy with her finger, nodding
when it failed to immediately disintegrate. "Yep, I think that's got
it." Then she pivoted gracefully, and caught Akane by the waist as the
taller girl fainted with exhaustion, swinging her up into her arms. She
carried Akane to the door and shrugged at Nabiki, "A little stubborn,
maybe." 

Nabiki shook her head and walked ahead of Ranma into the dining room. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

After breakfast Ranma and Akane returned to the dojo. Ranma considered
the dummies scattered about the room for a moment, and then turned back
to Akane, putting her back to the dojo wall. 

"Well, you've proved that you can do basic ki movement, and also basic
manipulations of other's chi. Now we move on a little. Using these
skills, you can extend your capabilities in several ways. The first
thing we'll talk about is an extension of what you just did with the
fan. It's called ch'i disruption. When Jei attacked, did you notice
what I did to the wall of the classroom he was in?"

"Yah, Ranchan, I'd been meaning to ask you about it. You sort of ...
waved at the wall? And it fell apart, is what it looked like." 

Ranma held up her right hand, outer fingers veed and inner fingers
curled. "It's called The Butterfly's Kiss. What you do is send out a
shih pulse from your hand. The pulse is set in a manner that disrupts
the ch'i of any inanimate object that it hits. And once you've
disrupted its ch'i of course, it falls apart."

"What about living things, Ranchan?"

"A good question, Acchan. Living targets are harder to affect. First,
because their ki will tend to resist you messing with it; and second,
because they have souls, which will keep them mostly intact even if you
_do_ manage to mess with it. That said, however, there are versions of
this move that will do nasty things to people, too.

"Now you hold your hand like this ... and you feed shih from your ki
like _this_ ... and you've got to keep in mind what the ch'i of the
thing you're trying to affect looks like, 'cause you have to send a
pulse that disrupts it, like so ...."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Now the next thing we're going to look at is called shih-sheathing.
This is a method of creating a sheath or shroud of moving or 'fluid'
energy from your ki, and having it exist _separate_ from your ki for
some period of time. 

"Now you've already done a variant of this with the fan, but the
essence of the technique here is to be able to apply a sheath not only
to yourself or something you're holding, but to things you've let go
of, or even to non-physical things like a ch'i structure. And also to
get the sheath to _last_ once you can't feed shih to it any more, of
course."

"You want me to use this set of throwing knives to practice on, right,
Ranchan?"

"To start with, yes."

Akane concentrated on the knives in her hands, turning them over and
over and watching the reflections. Slipping deeply into trance, she
concentrated on the task of covering the blades with a 'web' of shih
that did not immediately disintegrate when she released it. 

After several minutes of effort she had determined that the most
important step was insuring that the outer web was both self-contiguous
and anchored to a stable object and was attempting to work out a method
for doing so. Abruptly, a warning instinct she hadn't previously known
she had went off, sending her rolling sideways, away from the concrete
fist that *thudd*ed into the dojo floor where she had been standing. 

Akane rolled to her feet in automatic reaction and slid sideways,
dodging the blocky attacker's forceful rush and flicking a knife into
its throat. The knife *ping*ed off concrete and Akane cursed herself
for a fool, evading another cobra-quick attack by the animate statue
and jumping for increased fighting room. 

She desperately reached for concentration to empower a better weapon
and felt time slow as a sudden gestalt clicked into place. All at once
she _knew_ the feel of a properly made sheath, knew the sight and sound
and taste of it, and a sheath of shih set to penetrate solid rock
snapped down over two of her remaining knives.

These then flashed across the rapidly decreasing distance to her
target, thudding into its throat and heart and sinking deep.
Unfortunately, as her attacker was made of concrete instead of flesh
and blood, this accomplished nothing.

Akane threw off two butterfly's kiss strikes set for stone to no effect
before she skidded sideways from a combination strike that would have
pulped her like a rotten grapefruit and jumped over the return stroke,
pushing off from her opponent's back into a long dive that staggered
the towering bulk and won her twenty feet of space. Coming up from her
dive into a forward roll, she stood and whirled, mind still in
overdrive as she sought a way to deliver a ch'i disruption attack that
would destroy her foe without making the fatal mistake of coming into
its reach.

Her racing thoughts quickly pruned her decision tree to the only
possible solution and began to implement it as her opponent regained
its balance and turned to the attack again. Akane wove the sheathe
around the disruption pulse and anchored it to the knife, then set the
knife to throw. Dodging forward to close past the range at which her
opponent's speed would allow it to dodge, she threw the knife from just
outside the reach of its arms. 

The knife flew straight to its target and sank deep into the concrete
chest, but the desired result did not obtain. 'Shit! Ranchan _told_ me
you couldn't do that to a living target! What was I thinking?' Akane
folded into a forward roll under the closing arms, her mind still in
hyper. 'I need to set the disruption-ch'i off, but how do I alter ...?
I'll have to get close.' 

Akane came out of her roll inside the reach of her opponent's arms and
launched herself immediately into a jump that put her in a position to
be crushed by their rapidly closing grasp; but also in a position to
touch the hilt of the knife, into which she channeled all the shih she
had, funneling it directly into the disruption-web which drove the
animating shih before it as it expanded. 

And then the web collapsed inward into the creature's chest, exploding
it with sufficient force to knock Akane back into the wall of the dojo,
smacking herself on the suddenly disconnected arms as she went by.

From the side of the dojo, Ranma chuckled, "Well, that's _one_ way to
do it ...."

Limping slightly, Akane moved to the crumbled remains of the practice
dummy and retrieved her knives. Giving the redhead a glare, Akane
replied in a dangerously mild voice, "What were you expecting?" 

Smiling, Ranma put a hand on the dummies to either side. As they
rumbled into life, she said, "Look at these two. What do you See?" 

Akane looked at the lumbering figures, and tried to see what Ranma
might be referencing. All she saw was a tracery of shih. layered and
interwoven, providing the energy necessary for the dummies to move. 

Suddenly she saw what her friend meant, and sent a knife winging into
each dummy, hitting, and cutting, the 'knot' of energies that anchored
the shih-web in stability. The loosed energies fled back into Ranma's
ki and the suddenly inanimate dummies stopped moving.

"Very good, Acchan. Now we'll try that a couple different ways...." 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

As Kasumi walked toward the dojo she worried, briefly, about cleaning.
The training activities Nabiki had described sounded very messy to her,
and she concerned herself with the question of just who was going to
clean the result. It was important that the dojo show itself in good
condition, after all; it reflected on the face of the dojo. And hence
on her own honor. 

Not that she was eager to have to expend _yet more_ time in keeping up
the condition of the Dojo and its constituents, mind you, but ....
Honor was honor, after all. Still, it might be that there was _some_
help to be had from ... other sources. Like Nabiki and Akane, for
instance. Or even Ranma-san. It is part of a sensei's duty to insure
the proper condition of the dojo, after all.

Walking in through the door to the dojo proper she stopped abruptly and
gaped. The alteration in the dojo's countenance had been ... extreme. A
half-dozen concrete or stone statues loomed menacingly around the dojo
wall. A wide selection of dark spots, scorches, dents and holes now
decorated the dojo's walls and floor. And a large pile of dust and
debris was growing in the center of the floor where Akane and Ranma
were sweeping it with brooms. 

Well ... Akane was sweeping with a broom; Ranma was ... shooing the
debris along, _and it was moving!_ 'And to think,' she despaired, 'all
these years and _I've_ been doing it the _hard_ way!'

"Ohayo, Kasumi-san," Ranma chirped, "we're almost finished here. I'm
just giving Acchan a lesson in practical magic." Ranma crossed her arms
and leaned against the dojo wall next to the door to the house. Akane
finished sweeping the floor and turned to Ranma questioningly. 

"Okay, Acchan, now we have two things to do to return the dojo to good
condition. First, we must remove that pile of trash. Second, we have to
fix the walls and floor."

"Umm, yeah." Akane flushed guiltily and looked about at the damage. "I
guess we did kinda trash stuff didn't we?" She looked at the pile of
concrete shards. "I dunno about this pile, though, Ranchan. I could
disrupt it piece by piece, but there's gotta be thousands of pieces in
there."

"No problem. Watch what I do, here. First you treat the pile as a
single thing, with a single meaning. Then you use the butterfly kiss on
that one thing." The pile dissolved into a looming cloud of fine dust;
Ranma waved her other hand at it, fingers rotating. Kasumi's eyes went
wide in shock. "Then you take the dust cloud and gather it together and
run it off." The cloud was sucked into a small tornado that formed on
the former location of the pile and blew out the outside door into the
yard.

"Now, for the next problem we rely on the fact that the inner meaning
of the dojo is not particularly related to holes in the walls. That is,
the natural state of the dojo is to be in good condition. What you need
to do is find the dojo's 'right state' and Imbue reality with it." 

"Fffff." Akane blew out her cheeks, dropping into seiza in the center
of the floor. "Okay, I _think_ I can do that. Let's see." She knelt
forward onto her knees and put one hand onto the dojo floor, almost
caressing it before stilling herself completely, almost ceasing even to
breathe. 

A hum began to resonate throughout the dojo as Akane concentrated and
began to glow herself, faintly. Then the walls and floor of the dojo
began to blur, to seem as if seen in double-vision, overlaid by an
image similar, but not exactly the same. The hum fell in pitch and rose
in volume and Akane's glow shifted quickly towards the red, brightening
as it did so and giving off heat. Then the walls seemed to snap into
focus as the hum peaked in a sudden squeal of high-pitched sound.
Akane's glow faded and revealed, when the light level had stabilized, a
dojo not merely repaired, but polished 'til it shone.

Ranma tapped her chin. "Not exactly the way I'd have done it, but it
worked nicely."

Akane wobbled to her feet, and put her hands on her knees as she gasped
for breath. "How'd *gasp* how'd I do, Ranchan? *Pant* Harder than I
thought. *Wheeze*"

Ranma gave her a thumbs up, and turned to Kasumi. "You did great,
Acchan! What's up, Kasumi-san?"

Kasumi heard herself say something about dinner, and furo, and heard
Ranma's reply. Internally, however, she was focused on one thought
only, here was a product of the martial arts that _she_ could use.
Domesticity Martial Arts. Plans and half-formed wishes volleyed back
and forth in her head as she wandered away.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Akane leaned back into the heated bath-water and considered her friend.
Ranma had delayed a moment to speak to Nabiki which gave Akane a chance
to watch her undress and wash, a chance she was making the most of. 

From an aesthetic standpoint, she mused silently, Ranma's body left
something to be desired. Oh, her _form_ and _figure_ were certainly
acceptable enough, in an abstract sense; not quite as 'developed' as
hers, but certainly acceptable. But the overall presentation ... while
not ... uncomely ... nevertheless was distinctly lacking. 

Partly, she thought, due to the sheer unconventionality of it. 

Conventional standards, after all, definitely emphasized smoothness.
Skin should be soft, or else taut and tanned, muscles sculpted and
well-defined. Body fat should cover and enhance to sleekness those
areas possessing it, and some areas, particularly those most feminine,
_should_ possess it. Eyes should be large and expressive, and open to
the world. The structure of the face should be smooth and sleek,
flowing in curves strong or heart-shaped as circumstances indicated,
defining that feature regarded as the emblem of the soul. The whole
structure and carriage of the body should harmonize into the presented
image, blending the soul and the body that carries it into one, unitary
whole.

Another part was carriage and attitude. 'So much of how you perceive a
person comes from how they move and are still,' she thought. A woman
may mince, or skip, or even prowl or strut, but nonetheless she moves
in a certain manner. With grace and style, or at least with an attempt
at them. Forever conscious of how other will see her. A man may move
forcefully or timidly, claiming the limelight or evading it, but always
dealing with the space to be seen _in_. A normal man, a normal woman,
she thought. But not Ranma.

Muscles like steel cable and whipcord. Skin seamed with thin white
scars and tanned into a semblance of well-cured, soft leather. Face
close-laid over strong bones, but without more than a pittance of body
fat, eyes as often half-closed as open. Attitude most of all. 

Ranma, she thought, rather than being concerned with seeing or being
seen, more often exuded a combination of complete relaxation
unconcerned with its surroundings and utter steel-spring readiness for
action that you would ordinarily have to be a mongoose to pull off.
Lastly, and that which was first noticed, movement; no concern there
with being seen, no concern with space. Ranma simply moved from one
space to another, utterly unconcerned with what might be going on
outside the spaces she was moving _in_. 

Idly, Akane wondered if she would end up looking like that, and how
long it would take. Idly, she thought that Ranma wasn't conventionally
pretty, but was certainly beautiful. Idly, she wondered why she had
thought that, but lost the thought amidst heat-induced relaxation. Then
she remembered another idle thought, and acted on it. "Hey, Ranchan!
Tell me about the other one."

"Which other one, Acchan?" Ranma replied, slipping into the tub. 

"The other one who used to call you Ranchan."

"Huh? Oh! Oh, sure, Ucchan. Ukyou that is. Ko-something Ukyou, my first
friend. 

"Ucchan lived in Osaka when I was six; still does, I guess. His dad
owns an Okonomiyaki shop there. He and I always used to scuffle over
food. 

"Well ... that's not _quite_ right. What happened was, Ucchan would
make a couple of okonomiyaki, I would 'steal' them, then I'd give one
back and we'd eat lunch."

"Made you lunch every day, hmmm?" Akane teased, "Sounds like _some_one
liked you a lot."

"We were _six_, Acchan." Ranma said wryly, "Don't construct a great
romance from nothing, here."

"You mean to tell me," Akane arched an eyebrow, "that you never thought
about it before? Not even a little? No dreams of going back to Osaka
and, you know, looking him up?"

"First, we were _friends_, Acchan. Not boyfriend and girlfriend.
Second, he's a well-favored guy who stands to inherit a restaurant of
his own; maybe more than one. So he's already got girls hanging off his
arms, drooling. He may be engaged already, in fact. 

"Third, and most prominent, _he_ cooks Okonomiyaki. _I_ kill people.
There is a severe disconnect in job prospects here. 

"I mean, what is he supposed to do, sell food at exhibitions or
something? Or does he need, you know, armed guards and assassins to
protect his Okonomiyaki Empire? No, it'd never work." 

"Oh well, it was a thought."

"Ha! You can't get out of getting beat on by interfering in my love
life either, slacker!"

"Hmmmmf. Baka! You would think that." Akane focused her eyes dreamily
on the scarlet braid floating free past Ranma's shoulder. Another thing
different, she thought. Normal people's hair stayed where it was put,
or flowed with the person's movement. Ranma's braid as often moved
_against_ the motion of her body. 

And then there was the ring; made of ivory, carven into the shape of a
pair of dragons biting each other's tails, and set with glittering
gemstones, it was not the type of hair ornament you would typically
see. "Why do you always wear that hair ring anyway, Ranchan? Don't you
even take it off to bathe?"

Ranma grinned slightly and unfastened the ring from her braid, placing
it on the edge of the tub. 'Yes!' Akane enthused internally, 'I'll get
her to unwind yet!' Then her mind began to gibber at her. 

Ranma's hair was unwinding of its own accord! Spreading out from its
braid into a floating fan even as she watched, (Ranma unconcernedly
sank her head beneath the water momentarily) tapping and touching the
side of the tub, reaching out in all directions. And _growing_ she
noted in amazement, lengthening visibly as she watched, stretching out
to run along the surface of the water like a million tiny, questing
snakes. 

Reaching, she noted with distant concern, towards her as well; it would
cover the short distance in less than a minute. "Ah, ah, ah ...
Ranchan? Ah, your hair ... ah ...."

Ranma rose up from the tub momentarily, shaking her head; her hair
whipped about briefly, then was returned to its braided state by a
twist of her neck and blurring hands. She returned the ring to its
place of honor, about a foot up the now-extended braid, then her hand
briefly flashed light and she sat back down in the tub and handed Akane
a neatly braided foot-long length of her hair.

Ranma grinned crookedly as Akane looked up at her and down at the braid
several times in shock. "Once upon a time, I was in a position to help
out a dragon," she said, reminiscently. Akane blinked at her. "He had
this problem with an infestation of parasites."

Akane blinked again. "Dragon fleas?"

Ranma raised her right leg above the water of the tub and regarded it
pensively. "Yeah, sorta." The leg was patterned with scars that looked,
to Akane, like something with a bunch of sharp claws had climbed up it
and then dug in and tap-danced around the calf. "By the time I'd dealt
with them I was pretty chewed up and one of the damn things had eaten
off my hair."

"Your hair, Ranchan? But why ...?"

"Well, Huan Huang Hu Hu Ti Shen Sheng Long-Wang isn't such a bad guy
for a dragon, and he Owed me for the help anyway, so he fixed up a bowl
of soup. I don't know what all it had in it, but after I drank it, I
started healing a lot faster and my hair ... well, you saw. Now I have
to keep this ring on to keep it from doing that."

"Huan Huang Hu Hu Ti Shen Sheng Long-Wang?!" Ranma nodded. "Jolly
Yellow Fierce Tiger Emperor Spirit Scholar Dragon-King???!" Ranma
shrugged. "Yeeesh. But why does it work?"

"'Cause its carved from one of his teeth." Akane blink-blinked. "Like
my knives."

"He gave you his _teeth_?"

"Well, the original offer was 'half my horde and my daughter's hand in
marriage' and his daughter already _was_ married and a dragon without a
horde is a truly pathetic thing, so-ooo ...."

"Oh." Akane sank back into the bath-water again. "My sensei, the
weirdo."
 
"Biiidah!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tendo Soun was not, contrary to popular opinion, entirely incoherent. 

It was true that his nerves were broken from the stress of his life and
its many tragedies, but he did work towards his daughters' well-being.
He worked all the time, actually, though it might have been more useful
had any of the work consisted of more than dreams, schemes or tears. 

Lately he seemed to have been especially pressed, he felt. First, there
had been the reluctant realization that the long-held dream he had
based most of his hopes on would never come to fruition. No doubt the
vagaries of a martial artist's life had overwhelmed Saotome; just the
thought of Genma and his son's sad last moments could bring a renewed
wail of grief. 

Yes, the realization had been hard, but he must face facts. It had been
more than twelve years and he had no word for the last eight. No, he
had to be realistic for his daughters' sakes; Genma would never return,
and his son ('What had been his name, now? Lan-something?') would never
marry one of Soun's precious children. He must forget the dead past; he
must go on. But it was hard.

He realized that he, himself, was almost useless now. He had almost
been destroyed by Kyuumu's death; and he still could find no joy in the
martial arts that he had put so much of himself into. They had not been
able to save her; his skills had failed him in his supreme need, and he
had done no more than teach desultorily since. 

It was a sad pass for a master of the Musabetsu Kakutou Tendo-ryu to
come to, but there it was. Still, he was not _entirely_ dead yet, and
the news that his beloved daughter Akane had nearly been killed
fighting a monster, that many of the students at her school _had_ been
killed or injured, _while he could do nothing to aid them_, had undone
him entirely. 

Even days later the thought of what might have happened brought him
almost to collapse; but he knew he must not dwell on it. He had a more
pressing responsibility, one so urgent as to even overshadow his many
fears and griefs. Akane was in training under another. 

In itself, this was no bad thing, Kami knew _he_ could no longer
instruct her properly. But the fate of the school was at stake! He must
assess _for himself_ the skill at the Art of her new sensei, this
Bushiko Ranma. Not that he had any reason to distrust Ranma-san, no.
But he must appraise her skills for himself; in the end, the
responsibility was his, however inadequate his ability to meet that
responsibility might be.

At dinner, therefore, he had raised the question. Most properly,
Ranma-san had immediately agreed, and so now he must do something he
had not done in ten years. He must spar, all-out, with an opponent that
he was uneasily coming to be aware might well his superior. 

He based this assessment partially on the relaxed flow of Ranma's
movements as she evaded his attacks and insinuated herself past his
defenses. It was the hardest sparring he had done since he and Genma
had dealt with that old pervert Happosai, he had pulled out every trick
he knew, and he was losing. But mainly he based the assessment on the
fact that Ranma, moments after the match had started, had kicked him
gently in the head. From behind. And he hadn't even seen her _move_.

Akane watched the match intently. This was only the third time she had
had the opportunity to observe Ranma in action without interference and
the first where her sensei had been sparring rather than actually
fighting. Ranma was obviously spending energy in performing her
techniques rather than going for the win; Akane did not fool herself
into thinking otherwise. Yet sparring also teaches an observer much
about a fighter's style and Akane was almost in a trance as she drank
in what the two in front of her were teaching. 

She had erred, she realized. She had assumed that her father's
incapacity was due to inability. The match was disabusing her of that
notion. He was still a great martial artist; rusty though he might be
his moves were fluid and correct, his attacks precise and powerful, his
defenses firm. 

Yet, even so, she could see the difference. Precise as Soun's motions
were, each spent a small portion of effort achieving that precision;
Ranma's did not. Powerful as were his attacks, firm though his defense
might be, each took effort to achieve, attention to complete, focus of
mind and body to continue; Ranma's did not. Ranma simply _was_: grace
in motion, calm in mind, composed in mien, as though she had found
satori, not in the stillness, but rather in the storm. 

Deep in her heart and soul, Akane could feel the storm-winds blowing.
Far off she could hear the thunder, far off she could smell the rain. 

At the core of her heart a fire was building, flickering from candle-
flame to campfire, rushing from campfire to bonfire, roaring in its
power as it grew to an inferno that would consume her whole. An inferno
that sought the storm and the rain it brought; that would run before
it, and delight in it, and grow stronger by it; that would give back to
the storm that would rise up into the rain, and make them greater and
richer in their own turn. 

As from afar off and faintly she seemed to see from the corner of her
mind's eye a sword, traced out only by its edge, limned by fire,
defined by sea-wrack, born up on the wind. 

Farther yet she could sense the presence of a mighty tree; the
storm-winds ruffled its branches, the rain nourished it, the sword
warded it from harm. And the fire would blaze upon it, would leap from
branch to leaf, would run up and down the trunk till all was ablaze,
yet did not burn, but grew and thrived and was warded from harm by
friendly flames.

And she saw that she had wronged her father yet more; she saw how he
loved the art, how he gloried in its practice even now. 'How much he
must have been hurt,' she thought, 'to give it up.' She resolved to be
nicer to him in future, and to appreciate him more. 

Appreciate him, as she appreciated the match before her. And she stood
back and drank it in like pure water in the desert, that quenches
thirst in delight and coolness, and reignites it again. And her muscles
began to twitch minutely as she committed everything she could to
muscle memory, and her eyes went wide as she desperately strove to see
everything she could. 

And within her a voice began to chant, 'That! That, I want that! That!
Just like that! Just like her!'. And Soun strove to give a good account
of himself and Ranma flowed by, calm as a summer breeze, ferocious as
the storm.

At last Soun called a halt and admitted defeat. Ranma smiled and bowed
to him. "Good match, Tendo-san." 

Akane and Nabiki nodded, enthused, and Kasumi smiled distractedly, her
mind far away. 

"Yes. Yes it was, Ranma-san. Almost like the old days. If only ...."
And he sighed, and said no more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun was setting in a blaze of fire and light. Ranma sat on the
porch of the dojo and watched it. After a time she drew a rude-looking
bamboo flute from jacket-space and began to play. 

Akane stepped to the edge of the house behind her and listened. "That's
a shakuhachi isn't it, Ranchan?" Ranma nodded and continued playing. 

Shortly Nabiki and Kasumi appeared from the interior of the house,
drawn by the music. Then Soun turned from the place where he had been
sitting, watching the TV, to regard the porch as well. After a few
moments more Akane chuckled, "Hey, I know that one ... that's Bach. The
Art of the Fugue. Do I want to ask how you learned it?"

Ranma shook her head and continued to play, and Akane began to see a
weave of shi passing with the notes of the flute out into the yard.
Then the threads began to draw up butterflies from their resting
grounds in the bushes and trees surrounding the koi pond. The
butterflies began to dance to the flute notes, turning and fluttering
in time to the rhythm of the song Ranma was playing (she had shifted
from the Bach to another tune - one Akane did not know). 

At the climax of the tune Akane saw a thread dip gently into the pond
and bring up a koi, which leaped high into the air as the last gleam of
the setting sun illuminated it in a flaming shroud of gold.

Kasumi laughed in glee and clapped her hands. Nabiki surreptitiously
wiped away a tear. Ranma turned to Akane and winked casually. And the
sky boiled up into violet and scarlet glory as the Sun went down. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nerima after sunset is a quiet place, normally. Except for the Ginza,
there is very little activity late at night, and most of the people who
live here at least pretend to keep normal hours. 

From the window of Akane's bedroom the streets seem empty and still as
she watches a red-headed, white-scarfed figure turn a corner and
disappear from sight. Emptier after she is gone, certainly, she thinks,
as most places are. 

And she prepares for bed and smiles in affection, she will see her
again in the morning, there is no reason to worry. Already the thought
of _not_ seeing her seems absurd for some reason. And as she moves
quietly from one place to another in pursuit of the goal of
'ready-to-go-to- sleep' she begins, also quietly, to sing. A song she
remembers from somewhere, that seems for some reason to remind her of
Ranma. Though just why, she cannot now seem to bring to mind.

     You fill up my senses 
     Like a night in a forest,
     Like the mountains in springtime, 
     Like a walk in the rain,
     Like a storm in the desert, 
     Like a sleepy blue ocean,
     You fill up my senses, 
     Come fill me again.

     Come let me love you, 
     Let me give my life to you,
     Let me drown in your laughter, 
     Let me die in your arms.
     Let me lay down beside you, 
     Let me always be with you,
     Come let me love you, 
     Come love me again.

     You fill up my senses
     Like a night in a forest,
     Like the mountains in springtime, 
     Like a walk in the rain,
     Like a storm in the desert, 
     Like a sleepy blue ocean,
     You fill up my senses, 
     Come fill me again.

'Now why is it,' she thinks sleepily, 'that Ranma always makes me think
of love songs?' And she rolls drowsily into sleep. Briefly. Then she
sits bolt upright in bed. It couldn't be! ...Could it? No! She wasn't
... she didn't ... well, she just didn't, that was all. 

But it seemed very hard to get to sleep suddenly, and she knew that she
would spend a lot of time tonight laying on her side, and looking out
into the dark.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Next:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part A: Hateful Life

'Til next,
Eric Hallstrom, 01/16/2001