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.. ,.
Indigo Smith clutched his chest. There was only
a little ways more to go, and the Doctor would
be punished for the sins he had committed
against the world. (Indigo Smith would be strong,
for the sake of justice and destiny.)
The world wavered; his resolve was strong.
Extended and blurred was the street to the
Doctor's residence, and the sun seemed to dim.
(Indigo Smith would be firm and unyielding, His
resolve would be as iron.)
Every breath burned in Indigo's lungs, but he
forced himself to take another step. And there
was the taste of iron. In his right coat pocket, the
familiarity of the firm iron grip of the MM-54 he
was handcuffed to had, he imagined, become a
sort of liquid strength. He held on to it tightly, as
if it were a lifeline. (Indigo Smith would become
an angel of justice, bearing the fiery blade of
judgment.)
[Go on,] said the MM-54. [Stains yourself in the
bloods of the guiltiest. Makes us happy and we
shall rewards you handsomely.] It was happy,
and he was happy. The sun shined brightly, and a
cat meowed. Heaven smiled.
Within himself, he felt the withering grow. He
could smell the iron-tinged odor of the Doctor,
and on his clock the second hands ticked away
the rest of his life. He would be strong.
Indigo Smith was death become.
, .... .. ... .. ... ., .,,.
.. soundS Heard In The street
. by fallacies o3/
,.,. a ranma I/2 fanfic I2/
. ,,, ..,. ... .... .. , 2oo6
:. ch.oI :: avowedLy T0 hurt
5:oo AM.
Tendo Kasumi closed the door to her father's
bedroom, smiling the smile of a girl who has just
recently witnessed something warm, fuzzy, and
cute.
Breakfast was still a few hours away, but she felt
for whatever reason inspired to start the day a bit
early. There were a few chores she had been
putting off for awhile ...
,.,. ., ... .
6:3o AM
Saotome Ranma opened her eyes and sat up the
moment the second hand hit I2. There seemed to
be something oddly wrong about something that
was something, and it made her hair stand on end,
like the fur of some small, sharp-clawed creature
from a dark pit.
Tense, she studied the room for signs of
disturbance. Noting in half-wakefulness that her
father's futon was missing from the empty spot
on the floor, she relaxed a bit: it was probably
his absence that put her on the edge
unconsciously.
Him being absent didn't bother her much. The fat
old panda was probably passed out like usual in
Mister Tendo's room from too much sake the
night prior. She would see him later in the day.
Closing her eyes again, Ranma slumped down
against the disarray of her bedding, ignoring the
brightness of the sun that came to cross her face
when she was fully on the floor. Winter had
begun to yield, and the interplay of the warm
light and the coolness of the air had planted in
her breast a seed of lingering drowsiness. It was
delicious, like a nap in the shade after a meal of
Kasumi's special fried fish.
There is a state that one passes through
somewhere on the road between wakefulness and
sleep, wherein conscious cognition ceases to
cohere. If the troubled reader were to somehow
gain privy to Ranma's innermost thoughts at this
particular moment, she might pause in wonder
that the red-haired girl had distinct memories of
a bowl of fish on the floor of a balcony in a giant
house, and a warm hand upon the nape of her
neck.
,.,, ,,, ..,
Tendo Akane wiped the sweat on her forehead
with a towel. Setting her weights down on the
carpet, she flexed her arms experimentally,
looking at her nude reflection in the mirror.
At rest, she was of average build for an attractive
Japanese girl, she supposed, but the slender
limbs and the smooth skin of her torso didn't
betray the hidden strength she possessed.
She watched as, in the mirror, the flex caused her
reflection to undergo a curious transformation:
The cut of her six-pack emerged from the
flatness of her abdomen, and in her arms and
legs the muscles bulged. When the change was
complete, she resembled a female bodybuilder.
(Perhaps it was a side-effect of the incident at
Jusenkyo? She didn't know.)
When Akane first discovered the phenomenon,
she found her altered appearance unfeminine and
quite grotesque. Over the course of the year,
though, she changed her opinion, and now
preferred the more masculine build.
The damage to her self-image caused by
Ranma's arrival was healed in the wee hours
morning, when she shed the girl and became a
woman -- a sort of dirty secret she kept from the
Ranma, which gave her confidence in the face of
her revealed poverty in the Art. Only Kasumi
knew. Nobody else -- not even P-chan.
Ranma, she observed, was relatively slight in
both forms. The body was lean, of course, but
the strength wasn't justifiable in a physical sense.
Akane had come to the conclusion that Ranma
was, in fact, using ki as a sort of a cheat. She
herself was incapable of performing the feats of
strength Ranma pulled off regularly, but the
knowledge that the strength wasn't real consoled
her.
In the few instances that the martial artist fell
unconscious at the conclusion of a challenge,
Akane had -- following the revelation -- made it
a point to carry the prone form of the martial
artist home. The lightness of Ranma's lean frame
never ceased to amaze her, and she treasured the
softness of the girl's breasts against her back.
Akane knew that the way she regarded Ranma
was unnatural, and it troubled her greatly. In her
own thoughts, she had ceased to think of the
redhead as a boy.
She exhaled, and let her muscles begin to relax.
Kasumi would know what to do. Kasumi always
did.
When she dried her sweat, Akane put on some
clothes and prepared for a long, hot soak.
'Until the time comes,' she thought, 'this is a
mask that I must wear.'
.... ., ..., . ,. .,,,,. ,
7:oo AM
The alarm clock on the book-shelf beside the bed
went off.
Thirty second passed before a hand reached out
from under the covers and hit the snooze button.
Seemingly satisfied, the hand returned to the
warmth of the cloth.
7:o5 AM
The alarm clock on the book-shelf beside the bed
went off.
A hand reached out from under the covers and
turned the alarm off. Pulling back the covers,
Tendo Nabiki sat up.
7:o7 AM
Tendo Nabiki pressed the thumb and forefinger
of her right hand against her eyes and rubbed to
clear out the dried lachrymal discharge. Absently,
she scratched an annoying itch on the sole of her
foot before setting it down on the carpet and
walking over to take a seat at her desk.
With a keystroke, she brought her computer out
of sleep mode, and entered a password. When
her desktop appeared, she clicked the icon
marked [i_mode]. A window popped up,
displaying an array of low-quality security
camera images from all over the inside of the
Tendo compound.
Clicking open the image of the hall in front of
her father's bedroom, she pressed the rewind
button on the video window that appeared. The
timer turned backwards.
Noting a blur of motion at around 5:oo AM, she
replayed the sequence at normal speed.
Kasumi slid open the paper door of her father's
room and smiled. Shutting the door, she walked
down the hallway humming.
Nabiki wrinkled her brow.
Opening a text document named [mist_log.txt],
she wrote: 'she's been with father and genma
again.'
Returning to [i_mode], she clicked the image of
the hall in front of Akane's room. At about 6:38
AM, Akane opened the door, looking somewhat
flushed and sweaty. She was carrying a basket of
bathing supplies and a fresh change of clothes.
Clicking open the bathroom hall video: At 6:39
AM, Akane appeared again, walking to the door
to the bathroom. Kasumi passed her in the hall
and nodded.
Nabiki couldn't make out what Akane's reply
was from simple lip-reading, but wrote in the
text file: 'keep an eye out for sisterly talks.'
Saving and closing the document, she minimized
the window of [i_mode] again, and stood up and
stretched.
She sensed that it would be a long day.
,. ,,, , .. ,.,. . ,..
Mister Saotome turned out not to be in the room
when she arrived. It was just as well. She was
alone with Ranma.
Akane let her eyes roam across the curves of the
petite redhead, noting the bump of the nipples
beneath the girl's loose, oversized tank top. The
shape of the flesh where Ranma's sprawled legs
drew the cloth of her boxers against her skin
caught Akane's glance, and when she noticed
that the front of her own skirt had tented, she
closed her eyes.
It was alright, Akane rationalized. Ranma was
asleep, and if she could help it, the redhead
would never know. Both of them being very
nearly girls, it wasn't really even inappropriate.
As Kasumi said, most women appreciated
feminine beauty in others. It was nothing to be
ashamed of. Right?
Ranma smiled, murmuring something vaguely
related to fish.
The redhead, Akane thought, was wholly
oblivious of her own cuteness. The sickening,
puppy-eyed femininity she regularly abused for
the sake of a bite was at best a twisted parody of
womanhood, but there was to Ranma's normal
self -- male mannerisms and all -- an odd sort of
innocence and attractiveness. Perhaps it was the
lack of conscious female decency -- the absence
of the bodily guardedness that came with
womanly maturity. It made her feel guilty about
thinking of Ranma as some sort of sex object;
the redhead was, in some respects, still just a
child.
But Akane wouldn't have her any other way.
"I can't eat anymore," murmured Ranma.
Akane picked up the bucket of cold water she
had prepared.
"C'mon," she said. "Wake up, sleepyhead."
, .... .. ...
Ranma frowned.
"I'm sorry, Ranma," said Kasumi. "The boiler
was working perfectly fine earlier. I don't know
what's wrong, but I'll try to get someone to fix it
up. Is the bathwater still hot?"
"It's lukewarm," replied Ranma, dipping her
fingers into the water. "I could take a bath, but
the water isn't really hot enough to trigger the
change."
"Would you like me to prepare some hot water,
then?" asked Kasumi.
"It's no trouble," said Ranma. "I'll just change
out of these clothes and put off bathing till after
school. Didn't really feel like it anyways."
Kasumi nodded, eyeing the front of Ranma's
soaked tank top before leaving the bathroom.
When Ranma could no longer see her face, a
smile crept across her lips.
.. ...
7:2o AM
As the computer reentered sleep mode, the
taskbar and icons vanished, briefly leaving bare
the wallpaper of the desktop -- an image of the
dawn, taken from a snowy peak. Then that too
fell to the grey matte of the depowered flatscreen,
and the room was dark again but for the faint
sunlight that made it through the drawn curtains.
Picking up her schoolbag from where it stood at
the side of her desk, Nabiki turned her back to
the window and exited into the hall. When the
door was closed again, the lock on the knob
clicked, and all was silent.
A moment passed.
From a corner of the ceiling, there came a faint
buzzing -- a sound like the wings of an unseen
insect. The source descended to the desk, and the
monitor activated. A prompt appeared,
requesting that the user please enter her
password.
The buttons keyed themselves in sequence: a-o-i-
t-o-r-i, and then a push to the space bar. On-
screen, three black circles appeared in the
password field. The enter key depressed.
.. ,.
When the redhead got to the dining room, her
father was in human form, sitting on the porch
drinking a glass of warm water. There were rings
below his eyes, and it was apparent that he hadn't
gotten a good night of sleep.
"Up for a little sparring, Pops?" she asked.
He turned his head to look at her, and then
averted his gaze. Ranma had the vague
impression that he was looking at her breasts, but
dismissed it.
"Not right now, boy," said Genma tiredly. "The
old problem's acting up."
Ranma sighed.
It wasn't overly clear to her exactly what 'the old
problem' referred to, but during the training trip
Genma had opted out of morning sparring on a
number of occasions, citing the same excuse.
Usually, it followed a night of heavy drinking in
a nearby town while Ranma slept at camp, from
which the old man would return at some ungodly
hour smelling of cheap booze and cheaper
perfume. From the way he walked the day after,
she deduced that the hangover caused him some
sort of back pain.
To his merit, Genma hadn't shirked from
sparring since the two of them got to the Tendo
Dojo, and Ranma had assumed 'the old problem'
cured. Apparently she had been mistaken.
"I'll catch you after school, then," she said,
failing to mask her disappointment.
Genma acknowledged her weakly.
,, ,,, .,. ... .
7:34 AM
Her father didn't have any appetite -- one of the
symptoms of 'the old problem,' probably. Mister
Tendo was asleep still, and after her father went
to go bathe, it was only her and the sisters at the
table.
Nabiki barely touched her food, and spent all of
breakfast clicking through channels on the tube.
Ranma noticed that she seemed to be avoiding
Akane's eyes, but couldn't figure out why --
perhaps they had a fight? It wasn't the time of the
month yet. (She knew, because, embarrassingly,
she was synchronized with their cycles.)
Kasumi was as bright and cheery as usual. She
gave Ranma three servings of fish.
7:4I AM
After handing Akane, Nabiki, and Ranma their
lunches, Kasumi saw them off at the door. Her
expression changed when they were out of sight.
She walked over to the phone and picked up the
handset, dialing a number.
,.,. ,,, ,.. .
Before the derelict building that had served as
Onno Tofu's clinic, there was a gaunt, odd-
looking foreigner -- Caucasian, though his
scarred face was tanned to a dark cinnamon. In
the breeze, his trench coat billowed to the side,
revealing a clock-face planted in the bloodied
shirt-cloth at the center of his chest. There was
the outline of a rectangular shape in his pocket --
about the right size to be a pistol, Nabiki thought,
taking a step back.
Ranma cautiously placed herself between the
sisters and the stranger, preparing to act if he
made any false moves. The man didn't respond,
and seemed not to notice the approach of the
three girls.
Ranma was about to loosen her guard when the
man abruptly turned. He had been maybe five
meters away, but in a silent instant he crossed the
distance, stopping stone-cold five centimeters
from her face. She fell back, startled, but caught
herself and rolled upright. The ticking of the
clock was loud, and his eyes were crazed.
"The Doctor's babylons, Indigo tastes," he said in
a voice like sandpaper. "Our plans hasn't the
minutes to excess upon premium time with his
putrid babylons, no-no. Where is the Doctor, if
crimson bitch want Indigo to spares you the pain
of life? Tells us now, in the name of Harman!"
"Ranma!" screamed Akane.
The man vanished and reappeared next to Akane,
holding a pistol to her forehead. Her eyes
widened as he kicked her in the stomach and
flung her into a brick wall. Nabiki stared, unable
to move.
"Indigo hate screamer," said the man, his back
turned to Ranma. "Babylons assists great justice,
or Indigo shall feed MM-54 whoreflesh."
Ranma lunged at him, but overextended as her
fist passed through thin air. It took her a fraction
of a second to get her bearings, but when she
glanced over at where he last stood, there was
nobody there. Something hard bumped her in the
back of the head.
"Crimson not a good little girl, Indigo tastes?"
said the stranger, his head beside her. Not
waiting for her to respond, his tongue extended
from his mouth like a snake's and licked her
across the cheek. The smell was rotten.
Something in her mind clicked, and without
choosing to perform the action, she swiped her
arm at the stranger, fingers bent like a claw.
Where they passed, arcs of distorted air streamed,
expanding forward from where they were issued.
('The Neko-ken?' she asked herself in
afterthought.)
The stranger barely ducked out of the way in
time, but a corner of his coat was cleanly
removed. Three diagonal cuts formed across the
canal fence where the distortion connected, and a
section of wire fell to the water.
The man snarled.
"The crimson tore our patience, she do," he said.
"Projectile blades of prana? Desire we to raise
burning hell, his putrid bitch?"
Yet again his image blurred, but in the scant few
moments that Ranma's eyes continued to track
him, it occurred to her on some barely conscious
level that immobilizing him might be possible --
with a sweep of her right index finger she sent
out another blade-arc.
She had expected the sound of the impact to be
clean, or soggy, or possibly metallic, but down
the canal street it rang like so much thunder and
on instinct she flinched. When she looked again,
the stranger stood a short distance from her,
unphased, but the gun he held before his chest
crackled with electricity. There was a deep gash
across the metallic surface, and from it there
oozed a scarlet liquid that splattered on the
blacktop. His face was a mask of cold fury.
"We's be but mighty Gentlemanly to Crimson in
deference to his bitch having been a wisp of a
bleeding fish," he said, almost calm. "But
Crimson has to MM-54 turn the knives of
castration, and Harman has left the building. No
more play." Bringing the MM-54 to his face, he
spoke to it: "Cast off."
The gun had to this point seemed designed as an
automatic, but here it changed; the metallic shell
fell to the blacktop, revealing beneath what
looked to be a strange, modified Colt
Peacemaker, with a longer and thicker shaft. Its
lines were fused and organic, and the 'meat'
pulsed to a heartbeat.
With dramatic sluggishness he lifted his free
hand to the gun and released the safety.
"Clock up," he said.
Then he vanished entirely. He hadn't made any
preparatory action, or tensed his leg muscles
perceptibly. He was simply gone, leaving behind
a small cloud of dust.
'Turning invisible?' Ranma asked herself.
"Goshin Dai-Ryuusei-"
She was interrupted with a whisper to her ear:
"Indigo Kick."
And suddenly he was before her, swiftly
delivering a leather loafer to the parting of her
legs. His residual image lingered in her percepts
after the contact registered in her awareness, but
his physical body vanished again. She felt a
roundhouse kick to the back of her head, and her
face met the pavement.
She writhed as the pain exploded across her body,
drenching her nervous system from the nether
regions outward in nociceptive bliss. She could
make no crying sounds, but tears nevertheless
dripped across her face.
"If hears opponent slowly say attack name, carpe
jugulum," spat the stranger. "And say attack
name neverywhere, makes sound his putrid
whore watch too much yellow dog specialty."
He clicked back the gun's safety. The metal
exterior slowly rematerialized, surface edges
glowing a radioactive green as it hid the
nakedness of the flesh-toned pistol. When it was
done, the weapon looked as it had, lacking even
the scar Ranma had made across the side.
"Indigo retires," said the stranger. "MM-54 is out
of ammo, and only say Indigo can take young
lolita. The Doctor will be find yes-yes next us
meets."
He walked past the place where Nabiki had been
huddled, but didn't notice that she was no longer
there. Akane stirred ...
, .... .
8:oI AM
Nabiki propped her arms against her kneecaps
and panted.
There were a few more streets till the
intersection of the Nekohanten, but three years of
no exercise extended meters to kilometers, and
the act of blackmailing her way out of gym
seemed more and more like a folly committed in
misguided youth. She would have to rectify that
if she survived.
She caught her breath somewhat and watched the
sweat drip off her face and hit the pavement.
Then, ignoring muscular protest, she pulled
herself to an upright gait and pressed onwards.
The old woman owed her ...
8:o5 AM
There was something wrong up ahead -- a trail of
black smoke in the sky.
,... .,.. .., .
Using her ki to superheat a handful of moisture
collected from the wind, Cologne released a
small blast of steam from her palm, forcing her
opponent to back off. Satisfied that she had a few
seconds to spare before he attacked again, she
fell into a ready stance and prepared herself.
Her staff left a line of residual flame as she
quickly traced a series of symbols in the air,
suspending before her an intricate weave of
luminescent markings. When it was done, she
thrust her weapon through the center of the
design, channeling her energy into the wood.
The gnarled knob drew the light into itself,
untwisting into a three-pronged lancet tipped in
violet fire. Immediately, the temperature of the
air dropped, and on the surface of the street a
circle of sheet-ice crackled into existence.
Directing the business end of the weapon at the
man before her, she waited for him to make his
move.
The enemy was a bespectacled Asian man of
indeterminate age and average height, possessed
of rather bland, unmemorable features. In his
clean, pressed suit and tie, he looked every inch
the salariman but for the pair of fingerless leather
gloves he wore and the long red scarf around his
neck. At the moment, he was smirking, and
Cologne was reminded of the many tax
collectors she had encountered in the course of
the century. It annoyed her greatly.
"Knocking out Mister Part-Time, I can deal
with," she said. "Torching my property and
having your companions make off with my great
grand-daughter, I can't. Who are you, and why
are you doing this?"
The man bowed dramatically, holding forward a
business card. In bold, black print on white card
paper, it read: 'Jiro Yamada, Special Acquisitions
Division, K-A Enterprises.'
"Yamada Jiro at your service, Madam," he said.
"I'm here as a representative of Kurosaki-Argent
Consultation Services. My client has requested
that I appropriate materials for a certain ongoing
project of his, and as such I beg your pardon for
any inconvenience. Rest assured that your great
grand-daughter will be placed in the care of
capable hands."
The flames at the blade-tips joined to form a ball
of energy.
"And who, pray tell, is your client?" she asked
icily.
Yamada pushed his glasses up the bridge of his
nose, still smirking. The card had mysteriously
vanished.
"You may refer to him as 'the Doctor,' Madam,"
he said, "I'm afraid it's against regulations to
disclose any personal information besides, but
for the duration of the appropriations process,
I'm authorized to address any other grievances
you may have. Note that this session is being
recorded for training purposes."
"I do indeed have a few issues to take up with
you then, Mister Yamada," said Cologne,
bracing herself for recoil. "How about this, for
starters? Twilight Breaker!"
The blazing inferno at the end of her staff shot
forward, freezing the ground as it sped towards
Yamada. Just before impact, he extended an arm
and produced as if by slight of hand a red
pinwheel, which he planted into the blacktop
with a strong throw. The orb crashed into a
shimmering hexagonal field a decimeter short of
incinerating his fingers.
"A distortion field?" whispered Cologne.
"The Twilight Breaker," said Yamada, reading
from a notebook that was suddenly in his hand.
"The famed final attack of the 'Tasogare no
Majokko,' Symphonic Sephora -- widely thought
the last of the legendary Mahou Shoujo of the
pre-modern era."
Cologne narrowed her eyes.
"Believed to have returned to her home in the
Star Kingdom of Veneraea as of the First Opium
War," he continued. "Current whereabouts and
status unknown." Slipping the notebook into an
inner pocket of his suit, he glanced back at her
and his smirk widened. "To think that a humble
businessman like myself might have the honor of
crossing paths with a living legend -- the gods
must smile upon me indeed."
"I don't need you to remind me of ancient
history," replied Cologne, snapping her fingers.
The ice on the street shattered and lifted into the
air, compacting into lense-shaped objects of
various sizes. Directing her staff at Yamada, she
shouted: "Arsenal Snare!"
Yamada moved to evade, but to his surprise, the
swarm of disks overtook him without striking.
Two or three meters further and their trajectory
suddenly curved back, sending them whirling
about him in orbital revolution.
"An absolute territory enclosure," he said,
adjusting his glasses for a better look. "Probably a
kekkai that provides context for some sort of
dead-angle attack involving ice. Ninpou Makyou
Hyoushou?"
Animated with a charge of her energy, the wood
of Cologne's staff arched slightly and rapidly
lengthened, forming the bladeless pole grip of a
scythe. Golden ki blasted forth from the far end,
casting itself into a cutting edge that completed
the weapon.
"The Chinese endorse no piracy of cultural
export and partake not of these cheap Japanese
imitations," she said dryly. "And placed against
four thousand years of Amazon lore, Ninjutsu is
but the wailings of a spoiled brat."
The rotation of the dome accelerated, and
Yamada was targeted with a hail of iridescent
spherules issued at random from the foci of the
lenses. His deflection field -- a smattering of
hexagonal shapes outlined in orange light -- met
the shots on impact, but began to visibly falter
after twenty seconds.
Observing a breach of defense -- a single
projectile that burned a line across the shoulder of
Yamada's suit -- Cologne dashed and swung at the
man, tearing his barrier wide open. Before
dissipating, it shimmered a final time, and then
the thrust met soft resistance. The ice-disks,
deprived of Cologne's attention, crashed to the
ground.
Yamada, breathing quite hard, held the crackling
fang of her polearm in the paper netting of a
goldfish scoop.
"I suppose I should have expected you to use an
undocumented attack," he said, pressing the
plastic ring to the sides of the scythe. "It was
unrealistic of me to assume that outdated
information would still be applicable. I'll have to
keep that in mind next time, as I'm rather low
reserves at the moment."
"You say that like you think I'm going to let you
leave," said Cologne. "You're not going
anywhere until you tell me where my great
grand-daughter is."
"Good day, Mistress Sephora," said Yamada,
disengaging the scythe. The scoop in his hand
was replaced with a plastic Tetsuwan Atom mask,
and he drew it over his face. In a barely audible
whisper, he said: "Ama no To - Hiraki."
At some point, Cologne decided, she must have
blinked. The mask -- unsupported by Yamada's
hand -- fell to the ground, and she was abruptly
alone in the street, accompanied only by the
sound of the flames and Mousse's collapsed form.
She bit her lip.
.,. . .,,. .,. . ... . ,. , ...
8:o7 AM
When Nabiki arrived, Mousse was being
attended to by an ambulance worker, and a small
crowd had gathered behind police tape to watch
the firemen douse the still-burning Nekohanten
with their hoses.
'I expected worse,' she thought. 'Did the freak
come through here before we met him?'
Next to a police car down the street, Cologne
was balanced atop her staff talking to an
important-looking man with an eye-patch -- a
detective, Nabiki speculated. She began to
approach the pair, but was blocked by a younger,
uniformed officer when she ducked under the
tape.
"I'm sorry, miss," he said. "This area is off-
limits."
"It's alright," called Cologne. "I know her."
Nabiki shot the officer a scowl. When he backed
away, she willed her body to proceed to the
squad vehicle.
"Tendo Nabiki," said the old woman. "This isn't
the best time for business, but from your
breathlessness, I gather that you're here to see
that I make good on the terms of our contract?"
"No questions asked or answered, and we'll
negotiate the specifics later," said Nabiki.
"There's a man trying to kill my sister and
Ranma down in San-chome, next to Tofu's old
clinic. Said he's looking for somebody called the
Doctor. I need you to neutralize him before
somebody gets hurt, and Ranma wasn't doing so
well the last I saw."
Cologne's expression changed.
"The Doctor, did you say?"
.... ,,, .,,. .
Akane was very scared and hurt and angry and
sad, and had begun to drown her sorrows in wrath
as cherries do their love and pop in maraschino
and frozen cranberries too.
.. ,.
"Do you know what a homunculus is, Mister
Saotome?" asked a male voice.
Genma had a certain horrified look that he held in
special reserve for his wife and the Master alone -
- a wide-eyed, unblinking pupil dilation, typically
followed by a flight response. The very short list
of people capable of evoking this had just been
appended by one: his current captor, who stood
over him with a shadowed face.
For whatever reason, Genma's vision was blurred,
and against the glare of the surgical lamp in the
otherwise dark background he couldn't make out
the man's features. Abruptly, he attempted to
struggle against whatever bound him within the
dentist's chair he was on, but found himself too
weak to move anything besides his eyes. His
throat refused to make a sound.
"I see what you're trying to do, but it's only going
to make things more difficult," said his captor,
pressing something sharp against Genma's neck.
"Cooperate with the anesthesia, and everything
will go much c easier."
Genma stopped.
"Good," he said, donning what looked to be a
surgical mask. "Going back to what I was saying,
though, the alchemists of the Nanban believed
that they could isolate the generative forces of the
Gods. To do so, they sealed an amount of male
seed within a bottle, and waited months to see if
they might observe the slime eventually
consolidate into a tiny human."
He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, which
snapped audibly against the skin of his wrist when
he let go.
"This entirely conceptual creature was called a
homunculus -- literally, a 'little man,'" he said,
pulling on the other glove. "Of course, it's silly to
expect that anything could have come of these
efforts. The term 'homunculus' fell to disuse with
the advent of modern science, and was virtually
forgotten until the rise of physiological
psychology."
He walked behind the chair, and adjusted his
bloodstained scrubs.
"Just in this century, it was discovered that certain
parts of the brain correlate with the sensory and
motor aspects of bodily functionality. Scientists
diagramed the correspondence in humans as a
small, misshapen person, and called it the
sensory-motor homunculus."
Not being able to see the top of his own head,
Genma couldnft tell what exactly was happening -
- it felt like there was something pushing into an
otherwise numb region. The sound of watery
squishing was more than slightly disturbing.
"What's being injected into your brain right now
is a sample of seed taken from your son."
The end of a syringe entered Genma's peripheral
vision.
"Your daughter's ovum has already taken
residence in the warm recesses of your corpus
callosum. Within a short period of time, the
world's second true homunculus shall spring from
your skull like Athena from the mind of Zeus."
Genma tried in vain to move himself once more.
The squishing continued.
"Don't worry," said the man. "With a little
application of vital force, the child will grow to
term and beyond unharmed. You won't be able to
feel any pain, and your skill in the Art will be put
to a good use."
Saotome Genma could no longer scream.
, .... .. ...
In his own mouth, Indigo Smith smelled the sweet
stench of iron. Pieces of glass fell broken to the
ground from his lifetimer, and his breathing was
labored; perhaps a gear had pierced a lung, he
imagined (it bothered him that the sense of dread
in his mind felt so removed, but the MM-54 had
assured him that it was natural for those going
through a twelve-step program such as their own).
"Indigo Smith shan't became as light," he said,
aware of the icy coldness creeping into his words
from the steel in his hand. "MM-54 forgive not
fell Goliath who doth Indigo basely attacks by
dorsal as do thief under cast of nights. Indigo be a
gentleman, though, and drop our trouser to extend
his mercy into thou. Speaketh greeting and
salutation to spider goddess in Hades below or do
live long and prosper, far and away."
The hockey mask his opponent had manifested
appeared to be made of mother-of-pearl, and so
Indigo could smell beneath it the foul beast
twisting its lips into a smile as it flexed its biceps -
- a grotesque parody of a bodybuilder's pose; the
twitching of its pectorals emphasized its shirtless
masculinity.
"Twelfth Night," said Indigo. "Do not complain
that MM-54 has given thou no genuine
advantage."
Obtaining a fresh clip of lapis lazuli from the
leather holster on his belt, Indigo loaded it into the
MM-54 and spit the excess humors in his mouth
upon the ground beside the unconscious redhead.
He wiped his face clean with a ragged sleeve.
"Yon Goliath be seven cubits full-tall," he said,
unnaturally calm, "but Indigo come bearing
firearms. Africa shall never let us die."
The creature grunted, swinging its fist at him with
all the grace of an orangutan in heat (quite slowly,
thought the MM-54). The Doppler shift tinged the
world in the colors of a bloody sunset as Indigo
dodged backwards, and he smelled in his heart of
hearts the MM-54 laughing at themselves for
worrying that the creature might actually pose a
threat.
The distance between the face of Indigo's
lifetimer and the Goliath's gloved knuckle
suddenly closed, and Indigo felt the fist crushing
into his ribcage. Flying back, he broke through an
already damaged portion of the fence and
splashed into the canal.
[Impossibles!] exclaimed the MM-54. [Its wasn't
moving its fist fast enoughs that you couldn't
avoids. How's that we's be hits?]
"Directional space compression," said Indigo --
blood leaked from the edge of his mouth and
made a stain on his soaked trench coat as he stood
up, dripping. "The Bitch of Albion unload such
upon Indigo in Fuyuki before MM-54 did feast
upon her corpse, yes-no?"
Goliath jumped into the canal, and began to tread
slowly toward Indigo through the knee-deep
stream. With a deceptively slow swing of its fist,
it created a cut across the water surface, which
splashed maybe twenty meters down the length of
the canal. Indigo moved aside just barely in time,
bouncing off the canal wall and launching himself
at the creature.
The next punch came as he anticipated -- kicking
the air and altering his flight, he spun and grasped
the meaty fist before Goliath could deploy spatial
compression. With only slight force, then, he
redirected the attack downward and used the
resulting angular momentum to swing Goliath
into the wall. The concrete shattered behind the
creature's back.
Not giving Goliath a chance to recover, Indigo
pulled the safety on the MM-54 and let the metal
shell detach into the water. With a whisper of
"Indigo Blue," he vanished.
Stumbling forward, disoriented, Goliath grunted
and looked about in confusion as six red-tinted
images of Indigo enclosed it, standing atop the
water in an equilateral hexagon.
"Bon voyage," said the Indigos in unison, raising
their pistols in varied stances. "Lebanon shall be
named for yogurt."
,.. . ., ,..
8:I5 AM
Nabiki tried to will away her vertigo, but it didn't
seem at all effective. Frustrated, she chose to
ignore it as best she could, and surveyed the
wrecked street from the car Cologne had opted to
make their landing upon.
"The long drop tends to disorient non-
practitioners," said Cologne, looking about. "If it
really bothers you, I'll give you a spot of herbal
tea once we're clear of danger."
"That would be good," said Nabiki, pressing her
fingers against her temple.
Cologne bounded her way over to Ranma, and
gave a dejected huff after briefly examining the
redhead.
"Is there something wrong?" asked Nabiki,
carefully stepping to the ground off the back
bumper. "Where's Akane?"
Cologne tore open the back of Ranma's shirt
without explaining, and, with a wrinkled hand,
followed the girl's spinal cord from neck to waist.
"What happened?" asked Nabiki, shakily
approaching the old woman. "Did the freak do
something to him?"
"There's been tampering, but it's not from just
now," said Cologne, tracing a hairline scar along
the redhead's skin for Nabiki's benefit.
"Somebody's operated along his spinal cord and
seriously altered his ki meridians. His healing rate
prevents me from determining exactly when this
took place, but I believe itfs from some time in the
last month."
"That doesn't make any sense," said Nabiki. "He
hasn't really been out of my sight for ..."
She trailed off. There was something that was
nagging at her, but she couldn't quite put it to
words.
"Have you thought of something?" asked
Cologne.
"No, it's nothing," Nabiki replied, shaking her
head. "Let's just get Ranma somewhere safe for
now, and track down Akane."
Cologne tapped the bottom of her cane against the
blacktop, and Nabiki briefly saw a thin ring
expand outwards across the ground.
"What was that?" she asked, turning as the old
woman leapt to a perch on the canal fence.
"En," said Cologne, narrowing her eyes as she
looked into the water. "A more sensitive ki
tracking technique than the passive scan I
normally use."
"Did you find something?"
"Yes," said Cologne. "Your maniac."
.. ,
The spoon dipped into the smooth surface of the
milk pudding and excised a small chunk,
surgically. In the background, there was the scent
of blood.
,, ., , , . .,. ...
It was the end.
He realized it when he woke up. The ticking in his
chest had come to a complete halt, and it was only
a matter of pained breathing before the prana that
fed his flesh depleted itself. The coldness of the
MM-54 no longer crawled across his skin.
He coughed some more canal water from his
flooded esophagus, and squinted his eyelids to
smell above. The prana circulating about the
shrunken figure checking his pulse was quite
strong. If she (he smelled that she was infact a
she) had wanted him dead, he would have been
dead. The lords above had cursed him to a
peaceful death.
Master Harman would be most displeased.
The other person standing over him had been
accompanying the whores, but in her eyes he
couldn't smell the taint of the Doctor. She wasn't
his type, after all. In the years that Indigo Smith
had been tracking the man, all the females altered
under the man's knife were young, pretty, virginal,
and innocent. This one was only two of four, and
she had about her the scent of a fresh mint. The
Doctor disliked mint.
Her greed made her trustworthy, thought Indigo
Smith, and so he said aloud after several coughs:
"Indigo Smith am dead become."
Indigo Smith wasn't particularly heavy, despite
his height; Nabiki lifted his torso by his shirt
collar, which was still soaked.
"What did you do with my sister and Ranma?" she
asked, evenly.
"Crimson be spared the angel of hearth and home,
as Doctor has her mind not stabbed," he said with
some difficulty. "Other is gone, gone, the form of
man. Treacherous Goliath taken her to the wood."
"Listen, buster," hissed Nabiki (Indigo Smith
smelled the coldness dripping from her words and
smiled). "If you're coherent enough to be making
random literary allusions, you're capable of telling
it straight. Where the hell is my sister?"
Indigo threw his head back and laughed
hysterically.
"Indigo Smith is dead-doom-defeated, Urameshi
and Kuwabara unavenged!" he exclaimed
between giggles. "Gods save the cold, long live
the bullet is dead! Take MM-54, dear girl, and
take our twelve-step plan!"
Before Nabiki could move away, the MM-54
appeared in Indigo's hand. He pushed the front of
the gun into her chest, and continued pushing
even as --
Nabiki screamed, and
Cologne's staff-strike was
deflected by a barrier
-- the metal shell
sank unobstructed beneath the surface of her
blouse.
When it was over, the girl collapsed, physically
spent -- there remained no evidence that the gun
had ever been there. Tears trailed from her face.
"What have you done?" she whispered, sobbing.
Indigo Smith was silent. He would remain that
way for a very, very long time.
,. ,,, ,
[end of ch.oI]