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. This is where I put the talking heads pieces of exposition. Just so you know. This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/ Release 0.1 (Sept. 24, 1999) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ranma and Akane: A Love Story Side Arc 2: Training Sequence Part A: Feeling Her Way ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Author's note: this section occurs around about chapters 3 and 4. That is, on the third day, and those immediately following up to the initial part of chapter 5. It therefore covers about a week and a half of time. Scene divisions indicate considerable periods of time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Tendo Akane circled, frustratedly. It wasn't so much that Ranma-sensei was better than her. One _expects_ o-sensei to be better, after all. It wasn't that she could not come close to beating Ranma, either. She had received a demonstration of just exactly how good Ranma was earlier that day, in the terror and exhilaration of the attack by the monster Ranma had called Jei. It wasn't even that she was getting thumped. No, the reason was, she knew she could do better, but she couldn't even make Ranma block her attacks. Frustrating. Akane narrowed her eyes and launched a series of feints, testing the extent of Ranma's defense. She detected a pattern (she knew that Ranma was purposefully allowing it, but that wasn't the point) and moved to engage it, only to find herself upended before her last feint had been launched. Akane *whuffed* as she hit the floor on her back and rolled upright, then sagged as she saw Ranma's upraised hand. "Hold up, Acchan, this isn't working." Akane nodded glumly, "I'm sorry, Ranchan, I just can't seem ...." "No ... no, I don't think it's you. I think I'm trying to tell you to do something that's wrong for your inherent style." "Inherent style, Ranchan? What's that?" "That's the ... the style of action, call it, that you are most capable of. The one you go back to if you're pushed, if you see what I mean." Akane nodded and Ranma continued. "I was thinking that your style was Water, and that you were Malleable; but now I think that you must be a Fire stylist instead, and Static besides." "Is that bad?" Akane asked worriedly. "No, the styles are equal if you know what you're doing. It's just that _I'm_ a Malleable and I'm not absolutely sure what the priorities are for a Static form." "Malleable? Static? I don't understand, Ranchan." Ranma appeared not to hear, pacing back and forth with her arms clasped behind her, looking at the ground, and muttering. She paced and muttered for five minutes or so before Akane asked again, "Ranchan?" Ranma started. "Uh! I'm sorry, Acchan. Did you say something?" "What is Malleable, Ranchan? Or Static?" Ranma had the grace to blush. "Errr. Hehehe. Malleable is .... Umm. Okay. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?" Ranma sank into seiza, putting her back to the dojo wall and indicating that Akane should do likewise. Akane chose a spot within arms reach of Ranma and likewise sat. Ranma cleared her throat, and began to speak. Okay, Acchan, let's categorize fighting styles for a moment here. First, there are two primary divisions between types of styles. Now a particular person's style will rarely if ever fall absolutely into a single category, alright? But certain factors will predominate. The first factor has to do with whether your style relies on perfecting a certain set of moves, such that ... okay, let's say that you can do a particular punch. Say that you can do an eagle-claw to the upper body. Now, if you perform that move the same way against _every_ opponent you face, and only change the target you aim it at, say, then you are being Static. If you vary the _way_ you perform the attack, change it to fit your particular opponent with every fight -- sometimes go in from underneath, say, or put power into the strike at a different point each time -- then you are being Malleable. With me so far? Akane nodded with the beginnings of understanding on her face. Okay, now, there are four main classifications of methods; what are called the Classical Styles. These are Earth, Air, Fire and Water. And Void, but that's a special case. Each classical style is marked by its own particular approach to opposition, meaning that each style moves in a particular way and chooses attacks and defenses by a particular method. Earth is unsubtle -- it relies on its power and resilience to either put its opposition in an untenable position and smash it, or simply to wear it down by attrition. Water is gradual --it takes its time and flows through its opposition, finding weak points or creating them by erosion, and then building strength to exploit them. Air is indirect -- it stays out of the way and draws its opposition into making a mistake, or simply overextends it by forcing it to cover more than it has resources for. Fire, lastly, is focused -- it gathers all its strength into a single burst that cannot be withstood. Now, most people, of course, don't follow a single style alone, just as the differences between Malleable and Static get a bit blurred in real life; but the differences are real, regardless, and you need to respect them. Akane nodded again. "You're an Air stylist, aren't you." Ranma nodded in her turn. "Mostly, yes." Now the _other_ thing to remember is that, just as each style has its own methods and strengths, each also has its own weakness. Earth bets it all that its opponent can't hit harder than _it_ can; Water bets that it _has_ time to spend; Air bets that the attack _can_ be evaded, that the defense _does_ have a hole somewhere, and so on. Fire, in particular, is an all-or-nothing proposition. It concentrates its power, so if the attack hits, if the defense blocks, it packs more power than anybody else; _but_, at the same time, if it _doesn't_ work then the warrior is left overextended, without any reserve. Also, it doesn't generally have a lot of endurance, so it also has to win _quickly_, before it runs out. "Okay, I can see that. So what's the fix, Ranchan? What do we _do_ about it?" "There isn't a _fix_, Acchan, exactly. Nothing's _broken_, it's just that we -- that is _you_ -- have to consider a different range of things when you're training. Specifically, in your case, _control_ and _restraint_." "Saying that I'm uncontrolled, are you?" Akane quirked an eyebrow teasingly. "It's nothing that anyone else wouldn't tell you, Acchan," Ranma patted her on the knee. "But, to return to being serious, what you need to concentrate on is the _control_ of your strength." You need to hold yourself in check until you _know_ that your attack will hit; until you _know_ where the other guy's attack is coming. Then, you need to only use the right _amount_ of strength; keep as much of yourself as you can in reserve, centered, so you can move in any direction to match any opportunity. Also, you need to concentrate on controlling the actual strikes and defenses you use; on not letting them over-commit, and on bringing them back into center as fast as you can. And also, I think, I'd better start your training on the paths of Breath and Spirit. I think, for you, that _integration_ of all the paths you travel will be a key thing. ( She frowned, looking down. ) Which, come to think of it, I could have deduced from how good you are at Void naturally, if I'd thought of it. *Sigh* My fault. "It's not as if you've ever done it before, Ranchan." "What would _that_ have to do with it, Acchan?" "Umm, err." Quickly, "But, about control ... how am I supposed to use my strength if I have to _not_ use it all the time?" "You don't want to _not_ use it, Acchan. You want to use it _precisely_. After all --" Her hand shot out, suddenly appearing at Akane's throat holding a knife just touching the skin. "-- you only need to use enough strength to break the _defense_. After you get through, you've got any number of options that don't need strength at all." The knife vanished into jacket space, and Ranma quirked an elegant eyebrow, "Ne?" Akane gulped. "Ahh. Yeah. That's right." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, I've started you working with what we're going to be doing in the realm of external training; strategy and tactics, and kata and moves, and such. Now it's time for me to tell you about the _internal_ part. Specifically, there are at least four major areas in which a warrior must be accomplished. These are divided into Mind and Body along one axis; and into External and Internal along another. External and Body gives you the category of Martial Practice; that is, kata, the maneuvers that make them up, and general training in physical capability. External and Mind gives you the category of Strategy; which also includes tactics and military theory, and also the mental exercises like meditation. Now _Internal_ and Body give you the category of Breath. This is Ki, of course, but many people get confused by it, because the word itself only refers to _one_ of the many types of energy that you have to learn to use here. Finally, Internal and Mind creates the category of Spirit. This path involves growth in several areas: moral inquiry, the worlds of ghosts and spirits, the celestial courts and the supernatural balance, death and why -- and why not -- to avoid it, alchemy, and magic. The internal areas are the tough ones, because, by their nature, just what's _happening_ in any given area of them is terribly obscure. Normally, you would have to go through years and years of failure and perseverance before you gained entrance to them, but we don't really have the time, so I cheated, a bit. "Remind me to kill you for that, later. So how'd _you_ learn about these things, anyway, if it takes 'years and years'?" "Oh ... I cheated. A bit." (Grin.) "Why does this not surprise me?" "It's because you've become old and cynical, Acchan." Anyway, to start at the beginning, both the Internal Paths involve the manipulation of energies. These energies exist throughout the world, and because all the forms of these energies are pretty similar, it is possible to use one kind of energy to affect another. For instance, you can use your own energy of motion to grab onto and drag in the energy of motion in your environment, thereby enhancing your own supplies. "You're confusing me, Ranchan." "Alright, take a look at my hand," Ranma held up her hand, and drew power into it. "Now, carefully, look at, and then _into_ the hand. See the energy fields, the glowing shapes?" Cautiously, Akane attempted to regain the distancing of perception she had felt earlier. "Yeah ... kinda." "If you look closely, you'll see that there are two types of energy there. First, there is the inherent energy that makes up the _reality_ of the physical structure of the hand itself. You should be able to see it lurking _inside_ the skin." "Okay." "Next is the energy that allows the hand to live and move. It pools and flows through and around the hand, depending on how the hand itself moves. See it?" Ranma turned her hand around and about under Akane's gaze. "Ye-ees. Is it supposed to look sort of like a glowing liquid?" "Yep." Now the best explanation of what you're looking at comes from Chinese Classical Alchemy. Basically, the energy of any given object is divided into Ch'i or 'stable energy' and Shih or 'motion energy'. Now there's also another way to classify physical energies, and it doesn't help that one of the words you use for it got stolen from the Chinese and then had its meaning altered. Chi, of course, means 'earth' and refers to the energies of _everything but you_. Ki means 'breath' and refers to those energies that are specifically yours. The reason that this is important is that _your_ energies are influenced by your spiritual and emotional state, so that what you can use your ki _for_ gets set by what kind of influences you've given it. And everything else's ki gets influenced by its spiritual balance too, of course. "What does that mean in plain Japanese, Ranchan?" "Hmmf. Unenlightened slacker." What it means is that you can use one type of energy to manipulate another. You could use your own shih, for instance, to pull in shih from the area around you. Then you could transform that shih into ch'i which you could then move into, lets say, your hand. "Watch how I do it here." And, indeed, Akane saw flowing energy spread out from Ranma's hand to touch energy flows in the dojo at large. These, then, flowed back into Ranma, gathering around her upraised hand, to coalesce into a complex shape of rod-like structures, glowing brightly to the inner sight. Now you've got a power source. The ch'i here will stay in this shape for some time without effort on my part, because it is _static_ energy. Now, remember that I said that the Path of Spirit also affects this process. This is because energy that you have made your own, that has become your ki in other words, is affected by your _spiritual_ state. Ranma moved her hand to just in front of Akane's face, so that she could see closely. "What I mean by that is that magic, which is what you're doing when you use energies outside yourself, is absolutely defined by the purity of soul of the person using it." "You mean, like, evil people can't use magic, then?" No. I mean that _unfocused_ people can't use magic. Magic depends on focus; focus not just in mind, but in soul. Your soul must be pure from distractions to speak clearly enough to the universe for what you say to be heard. This is what meditation and the like is for; to remove or suppress pieces of your soul that don't fit what you are trying to say. What is going on when you do magic, you see, is that you are taking an amount of energy and speaking to the universe, telling it to treat that energy as something else. The more pure your soul is, the more softly you can 'speak' and still be heard. The more softly you can 'speak', the more complex and precise a change you can create. Also, the more the universe 'likes' you and so the more 'real' the changes you make are. "That doesn't really make sense, Ranchan." "Look at it like this: when you do magic, which is what this is, you have to start with your ki. You use your ki to 'speak' to the ... to the Tao, I guess, and the Tao responds. Okay?" "Okay ... I guess. Still sounds weird though." "Can't help that. It _is_ weird. But you see that your ki is influenced by what you're doing inside, right? That is, if your soul is angry, your ki is angry." "O-Okay...." "Now, you're trying to use _your_ energy, your ki, to 'speak' to _something else's_ energy. _Or_, you're trying to tell some _part_ of your ki to do something it wouldn't do naturally." "This is where you're losing me." "Ahh. Ummm .... Okay! Start from the top, and look at the hand. "Now, _first_, I take some shih from my ki. See it?" A glowing fluid seemed, to the inner sight, to gather itself in Ranma's hand. "Okay." Now this shih is a part of my ki, which means it is attuned to the state of my soul. Which means that if my soul is angry then the shih will take on the characteristics of anger; that is, it will be aligned towards anger or to things _like_ anger. The fluid changed color, and seemed to begin to fizz, then calmed. "Okay." And if the shih is 'angry', so to speak, it will affect what it can do, and how it acts. Likewise if I have any other overriding emotion or need in my soul when I gather it. Now, if my soul is _muddled_, that is, if it's like _most_ people's souls, and concerned with many things at once, then it will not be able to do _anything_ easily. Whereas, if it is _tranquil_ then it will be _responsive_; it will obey more easily and can do more. "Makes sense so far." Now, even if I have a strong emotion, or a strong calmness, in the, the foreground, so to speak, of my soul, so that my shih gains the influences I want, it doesn't mean that there's nothing else in my soul at all. And this 'background' in my soul still has an effect on the shih; in a sense it creates static, like on a radio. "Still okay." Furthermore, all the influences in your ki multiply themselves as you express them. If your ki is angry, then what it affects will be angry too, or will be influenced towards anger. This, in turn, will rebound on you, and make you angrier yet, and so on. If your ki is staticky, that interference will show up in everything it influences, and will feed back into your soul and make it harder to retain concentration ... you get the picture. So the more _pure_ and free from contradictory impulses your soul is, the better you do. "Okay. I get it now." Now this influence extends to all facets of your being, and it goes both ways. That is, if your soul is troubled, it will rebound throughout your body and mind. Likewise, if your body is damaged, or if your mind is uneasy, it will rebound onto your soul. You can keep them separate, of course, but it takes effort and energy; and even the best don't have an infinite amount of that. If you're using energy on maintaining your soul's tranquility, you can't be using it to get yourself out of jams. This is why honor is so important, and why the most successful people are simple. "Huh?" Simple. Single, in a sense. Dedicated to one end, or one condition of being. If one thing is most important to you, then that thing must be the center of your existence. Which is easy if you're only talking about _one_ thing. _One_ thing you can handle. But if _two_ things, or more, are most important, then inevitably some of them are going to come into conflict. That is, to improve one thing you must sacrifice another. This destroys tranquility. Again, honor implies singleness. If you have honor, then you know _why_ you do things; you have a framework to act on. But again, the best honor is the simple honor: the one that has _one_, and only one, clear goal, and that sets how everything else falls into place underneath that goal." "What if you make a mistake?" Akane leaned forward, concentrating."What if you think that one thing is most important, but then you find out that something else is, instead?" Then you need to adjust your thinking. If you discover that you have mistakenly attached your loyalties, or that you have put something into a priority that it does not deserve, then you need to take the time to meditate and consider where your priorities rightly lie. Then you simply follow the correct way, since now you know what it is. Really, the only times you should have trouble are if you are acting on incorrect information or if you yourself are mistaken in what you think to be important. The first simply requires you to react to the correct information when you realize that the information you were previously acting on was in error. The second is more difficult, because you have to know yourself well enough to know what you really value. This is a matter of sorting out what your soul values; which, of course, is easier if your soul is tranquil, so it all circles back on itself, really. "I was right," Akane grumbled, "it is Zen." Getting back to the initial subject of discussion, from which, I note, we have digressed: using one kind of energy to influence another. Also, the kinds of things you can do. The easiest things are to enhance or degrade things that are already there; aiding someone's ch'i for instance, to help them heal, or aiding your own shih so you can run faster or hit harder. On the spiritual side this involves removing unnecessary influences from your wa, or someone else's, and aiding tranquility. And damaging tranquility in other people too, of course. ( Dryly ) Reducing your own tranquility is not something I recommend unless you're _trying_ to go berserker. Which is not something _you_, in particular, _ever_ want to do. "I wouldn't be a good berserker, huh?" "No, you'd be a _much too_ good one. You'd be so good at it that I doubt you'd ever stop. Which is not a fate I want for my best friend." Ranma punctuated this statement with a very stern look. Akane looked down. "No. I don't want it either. I'll remember, Ranchan." "Particularly since _I'd_ probably get the job of taking you down." Akane shuddered, and Ranma patted her on the shoulder. Now, more complex manipulations involve things like _changing_ energy into something that's _not_ there, or calling things from nothingness. And the better you get the more complicated the things you can do. But we'll get to that later. The final goal of all this is to gain in skill in all four categories at a balanced rate. Because, if you climb the ladder on all four poles at once you go up faster, and farther too. And at the top of the ladder lies zanshin. "Okay, _that_ I'm _really_ confused about." "Not surprising. Even the master couldn't speak about it easily. It's a lot like making love in that regard, really. 'Those who speak do not know. Those who know are silent.' ... Why _Acchan_, you're _blushing_." "You _hush_, you." Akane mock-threatened with a raised fist, and Ranma grinned. But to make an attempt; you could say that zanshin is like the heart of the Tao, it is a balanced melding of opposites, leading to a state of higher wa. If you wanted to you could speak of three stages between the lowest manifestation and the highest. The first is called Heijoshin, to fight 'Without Attitude'. This stage reflects the 'attitudes' of combat, or the 'attitude' in which you hold a sword. It deals with reaching the point at which you are always ready for combat, and always ready _in_ combat, so that you never are made unready or unprepared for any eventuality. You've already shown flashes of this stage, by the way, so it shouldn't prove to be _too_ difficult. The second stage is Munen Muso, the 'Mind Without Thought'. This means expanding your consciousness to such an extent that you don't need to think about what you're doing in combat, instead you just _react_. Or, rather, _act_; impressing the desires of the will directly onto the world without the interference of conscious thought. You showed this one too, that one time. The last stage is the hardest and the most profound. It is Shinku Ki, the 'Will of the Void'. When you reach this stage you will achieve satori in combat. Instead of attempting to impress your will on an opponent, who is also attempting to impress _her_ will on you, you will perform Zeiteki. You will cause 'the arrow to exist in the target'. When the arrow exists in the target, the fighter _becomes_ her victory and her opponent's defeat. Thus the basic intention of strategy is given perfect form, and, since its form is perfection, it _already exists_. Thus, the victory is won before the conflict occurs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, ( Ranma said ) I think we ought to go into the more spiritual side for a while. To keep your balance, as it were. First, a philosophical question; what would you say was the most powerful force in the universe? "Oh, Kamis. Philosophy. I knew there hadn't been enough Zen yet. I could just tell. Well ... philosophically I'd have to say Love." Well, you _are_ young, ne? But did all your father's love for your mother save her from death? Could it bring her back now? Could my love for Kai-oniichan save him? And love itself is often pretty fragile, too. Sometimes one word will kill it. It's _a_ powerful force, true, but .... Akane narrowed her eyes. "Are you making a case for Death, then? The old 'Everything Ends in the End' koan?" Ranma slouched over to the open dojo door, looking out on the yard and its garden. "I don't think that actually qualifies as a Koan, Acchan." She extended a hand and sent a delicate thread of shih wafting into the yard and carefully drew a butterfly to light on her hand. "And as for 'most powerful'," she turned to Akane, extending her hand, "even something as fragile as this butterfly can defy it. Does defy it, every second of every day. Most _patient_ maybe...." "Ki, then? No, wait, that can't be right. Honor?" Ranma simply raised her eyebrow. "Alright, sensei, your humble student awaits your most wise clarification." "Trick question." Ranma shrugged. There is no 'most powerful force'. Power does not reside in force; power resides in the relationships between forces. Nothing has power in isolation, only in relation to the rest of the universe. Akane blinked slowly. "O ... Kaaay. Which means what?" "When I 'opened your eye' the other day," Akane scowled in remembrance, "did you feel something like a blanket? Like something wanted to protect you, and when it did, you saw ghosts?" "You know I did." Akane said crossly, "You were there. You got me out of it. After putting me into it, I might add." Ranma grinned at her crookedly. That 'blanket' was you invoking sight in the celestial plane. What you could call 'spirit vision'. What you were seeing was a visual representation of the meanings and relationships imbued in your surroundings. That is, the spiritual environment of the dojo itself. "Explain the part about 'meanings and relationships' please, Sensei. Whose meanings, _what_ relationships?" Anybody's. Everybody's. Take the dojo. In here, ( she waved her hands around at the surroundings ) people have learned the art, made friendships, made enemies, changed their lives, lived their lives, done their jobs, laughed, loved, lived, for what, fifty years, a hundred? And all that is still here. Everything that has ever happened here has had meaning, everything has left strands of itself -- and all the thing it was related to -- in the spiritual structure of the dojo itself. Now, what that means. First, everything that ever happened here is still here, in some sense. So there's a link, if you're good enough. Second, all that meaning floating about has attached some of itself to this place, and has given it a meaning of its own. The old texts would say that this meaning has become a Word. That is: the expression of an Active Concept, one that affects the world around it. Call it 'Tendo dojo'. And that Word has relationships of its own, too. For instance, 'Tendo dojo' is a subset of 'Dojo' isn't it? So this place has a relationship with the _idea_ of a dojo itself, you see, and through that relationship it also relates to every other dojo that's ever been built. _And_ 'Dojo', as a word, is related to the larger word 'Training place', isn't it? And 'Training place' is related to 'Training', which is related to 'Wisdom' as the state of being trained, and so on. Up at the top, you get a small group of concepts that have a _lot_ of things related to them. These concepts have a lot of power, _because_ so many other things draw on them for _their_ power. And _your_ ability to access that power is determined by A) how pure and uncluttered you can make a call on that power, and B) how closely related to it you are. "When we talk about 'accessing their power'," Akane said, scratching her chin, "just what do we mean?" Well, for example, take the dojo itself. Now, just on the most basic level, you can See things that went on here in the past. Or that are likely to happen in the future. Or you can See what the dojo means to someone, and what relationships it has attached to it. At a little higher level, you can Imbue something with the spirit, and the power, of the dojo. You can cause that thing to exhibit some of the characteristics of 'Tendo dojo'-ness, so to speak. Or increase the characteristics already manifest in the dojo itself. A little higher again, and you could Manifest 'dojo'-ness directly on the world, and, let's say, make yourself a roof and walls and floor in the middle of the wilderness. At the highest level I know about, you could Transfigure something to be more 'dojo'-like. Change its nature permanently. Now, just what happens with any of this depends a lot on just how good you are at embodying the virtue of the word you're trying to call upon; which is why having a soul that's uncluttered enough to do that is so important. _But_ ... the other thing that determines what happens is how much relation _you_ have to what you're doing. You, for instance, are closely related to this dojo; _which means_ that anything _you_ do about it, or to it, will be easier _for you_. And the more of you there is in it, the more you can do, and the easier it is. And also, the more that things that happen here will reflect _in_ you. "So," Akane said worriedly, "if someone tore down a wall, say, it could hurt me?" If they did it right, yes. This is _another_ reason to have a simple soul: it simplifies the things you have to keep track of. "So, how do I look and see what relationships might be that strong?" Well, first you go back into trance and empty your mind. Now you invoke that feeling you had, and you Look to See what's there. Remember that you're not going to See anything you're not looking for, so keep you're intentions focused. "Okay, now what?" Akane mumbled absently. Now, Look at something. Then See what it relates to strongly, then Look at _that_. Then look at _that_ thing's relationships, then .... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, now let's look at the basics of Imbuing and Manifestations. First, what you're doing in both of these cases is taking the essence of a Word and imposing it on the world. In the first case, you put it on top of something that's already there, and in the second you just call it directly. Now I said earlier that Imbuing was easier than Manifesting something, but that's not exactly true. More precisely, it is easier to Imbue the complex, and easier to Manifest the simple. That is, simple concepts -- like, say, Fire -- tend to be difficult to over- lay on complex things like real life, but they are easy to just call up and let go. On the other hand, complex things like 'Tendo dojo' don't really have enough relevance to affect anything else _unless_ they have something to anchor to, as it were. "So, what do I start with?" Akane queried. "Let's start with your element, Acchan. First, remember that you've got to clear your mind and spirit. Then slip into Sight and think about Fire. Don't try to get it to _do_ anything yet. Don't push it, just relax and call, like it was a friend." Akane relaxed, as she was already practiced in, and tried to empty herself while contemplating Fire. Warm fire, crackling in the fireplace, leaping from the wood yellow and white, giving off heat and light, flickering and dancing, you can see anything in the fire, she'd always liked fire, loved the smell of smoke, the crackle and pop of the flames, she could hear it now, smell it like a breath of Autumn in Spring, see the dance of the flame in her hand ... in her hand? "Hey! Ow!" Akane jumped up shaking her hand violently to put out the fire held there. Ranma put her face into her hands and shook her head. "Why me?" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- After: More to come, probably.