“A deep wound, doctor,” said Cologne as she bound Tofu’s hand with bandages.  He clenched his teeth when she tied off the wrappings with a sharp tug.  He tried to reply that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but she placed both hands on the sides of his face and turned it to examine for any more wounds.  She grunted when she was satisfied he was hurt nowhere else.  “The bandage and the medicine will have to be replaced tomorrow,” she said, gathering up the various medical apparatus that was strewn over the table.  She placed them into a small bag and looked up at him before taking it back into the kitchen.  “You may stay here until then, but I will want to know what happened to you out there.”

            Tofu stared at his wounded hand and nodded, though he was sure she knew exactly what had happened.  He felt the urge to flex his hand experimentally, just to see if he could, but he knew it was foolish to do so.  For one who made his living with his hands, putting even one through unnecessary danger was enough to end his brief career as a doctor.  If he even had the right to the title when he was done.

            If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks…But it may also be in my power to take a life…I must not play at God…

            His oath.  While he may not be recognized as having the right to the oath by others, he considered it his.  It was a good oath and he earned the right to it.  At least he thought he did, until recently.  What was the use of a doctor who cast aside his solemn promise never to harm another, no matter the circumstance?

            I’m human dammit, not a saint.  It was the same argument everyday.  How could a healer knowingly kill and have the right to still consider himself a healer?  But then he would remember what awaited him when he arrived at the Amazon village.  Hollow eyed young warriors barely able to hold up their weapons in their grief over the deaths of their elders.  The bloody, unrecognizable remains of what might have been Lo-Hsin.  His old teacher Po-Hsin, whom he had not seen since he first became a healer, dead, holes in her hands and feet where the nails had gone through and her midsection cut open so her insides spilled out like some grotesque piñata.  His rage had not cooled since that day, nor through the better part of the year he spent tracking down the monster that had done it.  And always his trail was marked by corpses.

            How could they allow him to do this?  His thoughts always came to this question.  He knew it was a shallow way of relieving his guilt, but it was still justified in a way.  Why would they allow someone Agoge-trained to do something like this?  He might be a renegade, but that didn’t make sense.  He’s young, far too young to have completed his training; they would have brought him down easily a long time ago if he were a renegade, unless he was the next Yeosol.  And he definitely was not that.  If the boy was even half as dangerous as that maniac, their encounter this would have ended very differently.  So the only explanation would be that either they are staying out of the boy’s way, or worse, supporting him.  If it was the latter, then Tofu wouldn’t have to worry about his future career as a doctor if he killed the boy.

            He didn’t realize he was clenching his fists together until he heard the steady drip of blood from his bound hand.  He hissed in pain and eased it open until he could see stained bandages.  His newly opened wound throbbed.

            I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.  He smiled grimly.  There was no cure for the death the boy spread.  But it could be prevented.  He could prevent it.  One life for many.  He wouldn’t play at God, he wasn’t as arrogant as that.  But he would carry out his duty as a doctor, and prevent the disease the boy spread.  After all, he had an oath to uphold.

 

***

 

            Mousse was still unconscious when they arrived at Nabiki’s house.  She had hoped he would have come to by now.  It was late enough that everyone should be asleep so there was little chance of any embarrassing and potentially lethal moments, but she didn’t feel like dragging him all the way inside from the street.  So far he didn’t like he was breathing at all.  At that thought, her eyes widened in alarm and she quickly put her hand just beneath his nose.  She sighed in relief when she felt his breath going in and out in a weak but regular rhythm.

            She flopped back against the seat and shot his unconscious figure a venomous glance.  Idiot, she thought.  You should have listened to me.  Then you wouldn’t be in this situation and me with you.

            The car slowed and came to a stop.  “Here we are ma’am,” announced the chauffeur.  She could hear the slight fear in his voice, but it was much less than what it had been when Mousse convinced him to give them a ride.  It even sounded a little defiant.  He’s remembering he’s a man.  Her lips twisted in annoyance.  He could try something stupid.  She looked out the window at the closed gate to her house and cursed.

            She leaned over the seat until she was speaking directly in the ear of the driver.  “Wait here for me,” she ordered in her sternest, most business-like voice she could muster.  “Don’t try to drive off or do anything stupid.  If I’m not here when he wakes up…”  She let the threat hang in the air for a moment and then stepped out of the car.

            She ran up to the gate that led into the main yard and unlocked it with the spare she always carried with her.  She opened it a crack and cursed again at what she saw.  The kitchen light was on.  She stole a backward glance at the limo and opened the gate just wide enough to slip through.  She walked as casually as she could up the stone path leading to the porch, thinking of ways she could solve both herself and Mousse’s problem with their skins intact.

            “Nabiki?”

She nearly jumped at the voice that came out of the darkness.  “Don’t scare me like that Akane!” she cried, breathing hard to get her thundering heartbeat under control.  “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

Akane stepped out of the shadows from the porch she was sitting on, still dressed in the clothes she had been wearing all day.  She crossed her arms under her breasts and shrugged.  “Just needed some air,” she said distantly.

Nabiki’s _expression softened at seeing her younger sister.  She looked pale and tired, and the dark rings under her eyes stood out even in the weak light of the moon.  She hadn’t gotten any sleep at all since Ranma was brought back, but it was the worry that was gnawing at her.  “You should get some sleep, Akane,” she said with genuine concern.  She tried smiling reassuringly.  “Ranma will be alright.”

Akane yawned and nodded wearily.  “So what are you doing here this late at night?” she asked in that same distant tone.  She looked up and down the dress Nabiki was wearing and smiled slyly.  “Meeting with a new beau?”

Nabiki laughed nervously.  “Well, sort of, but I-“

The sound of squealing tires filled the night air suddenly, cutting off her response and making her stomach feel like it dropped to her feet.  He wouldn’t…

“Bosozoku?  Here?”  Akane asked the air, since Nabiki was already running back toward the gate.

Nabiki’s first reaction when she saw Mousse unconscious on the sidewalk where the chauffeur had dumped him was to make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt, but she knew better than to let her emotions run away with her.  So instead she turned and caught Akane just as she was coming up to the gate.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her weariness forgotten, straining to look over her sister’s shoulder.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Nabiki said in false cheeriness, trying to position herself between her sister and Mousse.  But when she heard her gasp she knew she had failed.  So instead she tried to prepare her for the coming shock.  “Akane, it’s not what you think…”

Akane shouldered past her easily and ran to where he lay and turned him over to face her.  “Sir, are you-?”  Nabiki sighed in resignation.  Too late.  She expected Akane to overreact somehow.  Maybe scream and punt him into the skyline, or call for everyone in the house to wake up.  Instead she slowly turned her head around to look up at her sister with an _expression of sorrow.

“Oh, Nabiki.”

 

***

 

“What a night, what a night.”  Happosai slurred to himself as he stumbled his way through the streets of Nerima.  It wasn’t everyday that he got to party like this and let off some steam.  Spirits above knew he needed it.  Not just anyone could shoulder the great burden of keeping the name of the school of Anything Goes alive.  And do it without help, nonetheless.  Two of his disciples were inept cowards who couldn’t fight their way out of paying a restaurant bill.  And while Akane was a pretty young thing, she was far too hardheaded to teach anything.  The only one who showed any promise out of the whole lot was Ranma, and because of that he took extra care to practice with the boy as much as possible.  And how does the impudent wretch repay his master’s kindness and patient training?  He deems him a pervert and says so out loud to his face at every opportunity!

“It’s enough to make an old man cry,” he sobbed to himself, scrubbing at his eyes with a pair of silk panties he pulled from his sack.  The owner of that particular undergarment only chased him for a block before giving up.  Not a lot of fun, but very generous on her part.  The women in Okinawa were so much more accommodating than the ones on the mainland.  It must be the tropical weather.  He would have to go back someday.

He tilted the jug of sake he carried with an elbow to let the last of the fiery liquid wash down his throat.  He frowned when none came and shook the jug around some and peered into it, as if some might have been hiding from him.  A ridiculous notion to some unlearned people, but he knew not to put anything past it.  Sake was a crafty drink.

He tossed the jug aside and stood as tall as he could without falling over backward.  Now was not the time to contemplate the sly nature of alcohol, for the month was still young and so was he.  There was only one thing to do at this time of night, drunk, with no good liquor stores open, and a sack full of silky darlings strapped to his back.  Sleep it off at Soun’s.  And maybe fondle Ranma.  Yeah.

But actually finding the dojo proved to be more of a challenge than he thought it would.  He found himself going in the wrong the direction twice and around in a circle once.  He tried asking the tall, thin men with lights on their heads directions but they stubbornly refused to acknowledge his existence even after he knocked a couple of them down.  And it didn’t look like they were going anywhere, lined up along the street like that.  Uppity bastards.

But he did find the house eventually, and with the lights on.  “They left a light on for me,” he said to himself in wonder.  A strange feeling welled up inside him.  There was a moment of sheer panic for him at the thought that the alien emotion might be something akin to gratitude.  So he sighed in relief when he realized that it was actually heartburn from the spicy fish sausage the restaurant owner had generously provided him with earlier that day.  Thank goodness.

He decided not to go in through the kitchen.  Though they may be waiting for him, maybe even worried for him, he knew that the moment they saw how utterly wasted he was, they’d lose all semblance of compassion and move in for the kill.  They were weak, but they were opportunists, every one of them, and he knew they’d try to bury him somewhere for another ten years.  Well, not tonight, no sir I’m have too much fun, he thought, and pulled down his lower eyelid with his free hand and stuck his tongue out in the general direction of the kitchen.

He jumped onto the eaves on the second floor and with a little work, opened the window to one of the rooms.  He jumped in, and after a moment of bleary-eyed examination he saw that he was in Nabiki’s room.  What he didn’t see was the boy lying unconscious on the floor.  Until he saw that he was standing on his chest.

Happosai froze, expecting the boy to awaken immediately.  But the boy didn’t even react.  His breathing barely changed even with the added weight.  So Happosai sat down, legs crossed under him, to ponder the boy’s presence and to wait for the room to stop spinning.

He set his bag behind him on the boy’s legs and scratched his bald head.  The first thought that came to mind was suitably lecherous.  Here was a suitor for Nabiki that was a bit more successful than the rest.  Successful enough that he’d be stripped to the waist and passed out in her room after hours.  The thought made him grin, but unless Nabiki had some truly exotic hobbies, that still left the question of why he was wearing all those bandages and looked like he was beaten like an unruly stepchild.  Then perhaps Ranma had a go at him.  But that didn’t make sense either.  It wasn’t Ranma’s style to beat an opponent half to death unless it was absolutely necessary.  Or to use poison which, judging from the boy’s aura, was a very potent one.  And it was an interesting aura, too.  It was very weak now, but he could see that it would be incredibly powerful once he got his strength back.  And the patterns the chi made as it flowed through his body were truly rare.  So rare he had seen patterns like those only once.  In one man.

            An image cut through the drunken haze in his head.  A man, wreathed in swirling chi energies which shone with a light that rivaled that of the sun.  Heat radiated from the man like a bonfire, so much so that getting closer than ten paces became unbearable.  But the man didn’t seem to feel any of it, and indeed he seemed to be smiling in the knowledge of his own power.  At that moment he could have been a god or a devil.

            Happosai didn’t realize he was backing away from the boy until his back hit the far wall.  His stomach was roiling, and suddenly all the sake he drank over the past couple of days turned sour.  He groaned, but it wasn’t because of a sour stomach.  The boy on the floor wasn’t the man-god, but someone connected with him in some way.  A student perhaps; intense training can alter chi patterns in a body to resemble someone else’s.  Good spirits forbid the boy is his son.

            He took a deep breath and forced himself away from the wall until he was by the boy’s side.  He knelt and puzzled over the situation.  He didn’t bother thinking about why the boy was here or how.  Those questions would answer themselves in time.  The boy was here, and his master may not be far behind.  He had only one thought:  How do I keep my school alive?

 

***

 

“What’s going on, Nabiki?”  Akane demanded bluntly.

Nabiki winced at the tone of the question.  It meant Akane wanted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  No discussion.  And Nabiki was too tired to mince words.  Too much had happened for her to even think straight.

She stared into her tea for a while before beginning.  She told her sister everything; the phone call, the dinner, the hotel, and Tofu.  When she stopped she gulped down her drink in one draught.  She only rarely had to confess like that.  It always made her feel vulnerable.

There was quiet at the other end of the table for a moment.  “You went on a date with him?”  Nabiki winced again.  This time there was accusation tinged with incredulity.  “He almost kills Ranma and you go on a date with him?  He could have hurt you!”

“He wouldn’t have hurt me,” Nabiki retorted.  She hated the defensive tone of her voice.  “And it wasn’t a real date.  Not really.  We were just there to get information out of the other.”
            “Uh-huh,” said Akane skeptically.  “And what did you find out?”

Nabiki sighed.  “Not a lot.  He’s clever, and he tried to hide as much as possible.  I think he might be an Amazon himself, but he also says the Amazons killed his family.”  She frowned.  “I don’t know why they let him live, but I think they did something to him.”

“Those scars,” Akane said softly.

Nabiki bit her lip at the memory.  They had carried him upstairs, Nabiki carrying his feet with Akane on the other end, to Nabiki’s room to let him sleep when she accidentally dropped him.  There was a moment of breathless terror while they waited for someone to wake up.  But no one did and they hurriedly picked him up and placed him on the floor inside her room.  When they took off his shirt to check if any of his wounds reopened, they saw the scars.  They were everywhere, criss-crossed lines of white scar tissue.  It was as if someone had tried to decorate his body with a whip.

“Yeah,” Nabiki replied.

“So what about-,” Akane began, but stopped mid-sentence.  She looked up.  “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Nabiki asked, but stood up, nervous.  Akane was looking up where her room was.  The last thing she needed was someone finding Mousse here.

No more words were exchanged and the two hurried as quietly as they could up the stairs.  When they reached the second floor, they slowed down and crept along the wall until they reached the door to Nabiki’s room.  The door was still closed, much to Nabiki’s relief.  They waited for a moment, listening for the slightest sound from inside the room.  But all they heard was deafening silence

She let out her breath in a huff and smiled shakily at her younger sister.  Akane smiled back and opened the door.  Nabiki closed the door behind them while Akane turned on the lights.  For a moment Nabiki thought she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned her head she saw nothing.  The window was open, which made the curtains flutter.  The only thing in the room out of the ordinary was an unconscious boy laid out in the middle.

What am I going to do with you?  She thought at him.  Akane’s hand on her arm brought her out of her thoughts.

“I guess we’ll have to leave him here until we can think of something,” she said.  She looked at Mousse lying on the floor and at her pointedly.  “I’m going to bed now, Nabiki.  And I don’t think Dad and Mr. Saotome would want to be disturbed at this time of night.  But in the morning….”

“He’ll be gone by then, I promise,” Nabiki replied, grateful for her sister’s confidence.  But she wished she felt as sure as she sounded.  She pulled Akane in for a hug.  “Thanks.”

Akane squeezed her back.  “Don’t get involved with him, Nabiki.  He’s dangerous.”  And she left.

Nabiki stood at the doorway for a moment longer until she heard Akane’s door close and then shut her own.  She leaned back against it and sighed.  At least it wasn’t a boring night.

She quickly and as quietly as she could, crept into the bathroom, gave herself a quick wash, and then crept back.  She pulled her clothes off, keeping an eye on Mousse in case he should wake up at that inopportune moment, but his eyes remained closed.  She quickly pulled her pajamas on and went to turn out the light.  She hesitated for a moment and then pulled an extra blanket and a pillow out of her closet.  She draped the blanket over him and placed the pillow under his head.  She stood up, satisfied with her work, and then flipped the switch.

She lay awake in the dark, unable to sleep.  The only sound in the room was Mousse’s shallow breathing.  She caught herself staring at his darkened form, so she turned over on her other side so she faced the wall.  It didn’t help.

He’s going to panic when he wakes up.  He won’t recognize where he is and he’s going to panic.

Finally, with a huff, she threw her legs over the bed and stood up.  She picked up her blanket and her pillow and walked the two steps to where Mousse lay.  She threw the pillow down and lay down beside him, draping the blanket over them both.

She pushed herself up on an elbow so she was looking down on him.  “I hope you’re happy,” she said softly and settled down facing him.  It wasn’t so bad, she told herself.  As long as he was comatose and kept under that blanket, he really couldn’t do anything unseemly.  She reached out an arm and settled it over his chest.  She could feel his heartbeat, slow and faint.  Don’t get involved with him, he’s dangerous.  I know.
 
Review
Next
Previous
Ranma Fics
Ranma 1/2
Home