The woman pulled out a small locket from the front of her armour and kept glancing between Akane and the bit of jewelry.
"W-who you?" the stranger asked, the shock on her face plain to see.
"Tendo Akane." Akane answered automatically.
The strange woman asked something in what Akane assumed was Mandarin, then switched to a anguage she could not make out. Finally, seeing her incomprehension, the woman took the direct approach.
Before Akane could react the warrior grabbed her by her blouse, shoved the locket in her face, and commanded "_Where_!"
******
The age of the photo was not quite obvious. The camera was rather old fashioned when it was taken, but it was obvious the photo of what she guessed to be a seated Chinese woman and her household was at least twenty five years old.
If she were in a far more analytical mood Akane may have noted the close family resemblance between the older of the two girls standing behind the seated woman and the barbarian manhandling her. A closer look would have revealed the man seated at the older woman's feet bore the features more akin to one of Japan than anything... and was clad the reminants of an IJA uniform. If she examined it closely enough the fainter resemblance between the seated woman herself and, oddly enough, her own sister Nabiki would have been clear.
But it was the youngest person in the photo, the young teenager Akane did not need the Amazon's fingernail to direct her attention towards that the entirety of her attention upon. She saw that face at almost every day, and not only in the mirror.
"Mommy?" whispered the youngest daughter of Tendo Yamako.
******
Akane looked up from the old compact into the red-brown eyes of the girl wearing it.
"Is... you blood." the Amazon explained haltingly as she released her, "Is... me blood. Where?"
"I... follow me." Akane choked out as she stood, her head spinning at this piece of her mother's mysterious past appearing through a wall.
She had walked several paces before the heard the rush of motion and impact. Akane turned in suprise to see the Amazon trotting up to her. At her apparently obvious look of inquiry, the stranger taved a fingertip about while making a droning sound.
"Bug?" Akane asked.
The Amazon nodded, cheered by her minor communication breakthrough.
The two girls left, apparently forgetting about the one that had brought them there in the first place.
******
Ranma sat folded within the locker, frozen in shock.
Cenimeters from his... or rather at the moment her head was the point of a blade that was hurled straight through the side of the steel locker... with exactly enough force to punch half the length of the blade through the metal. She knew deep in her bones that, had the weilder put a bit more force into the throw that blade would have been in his brain, but that was not what truly terrified her.
Ranma and his father had been hunted by that madwoman for several months and over two thousand kilometers. They had little ready access to hot water during that time, and escaped the homocidal Amazon many times by only the narrowest of margins. Genma had been releived to know that his skill had hiding far surpassed thier hunter's skill at ferreting them out, and Ranma could not help but agree at the time.
That blade however, could only be a message that the Joketsuzoku known as Shan Pu had been humouring them... and the fact that Ranma still lived was due entirely to her sense of sportsmanship.
The small girl sat in the locker, and shook.
******
Meanwhile, Akane had led the Amazon to....
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(Posted Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:43)
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