"Think I shall leave for now," Kodachi said, standing up and walking to the mirror.
To her surprise, as she reached out to touch the item, nothing happened.
Behind her, Setsuna smiled silently and waited for Kodachi to turn around with a question ready.
"Your home is closer to the Nightlands," Setsuna explained simply. "To get there anywhere else, you will have to be in your other shape."
"I see," Kodachi said, grimacing and wondering just how she was supposed to change back.
The previous night's apparition flashed through her mind and she held it momentarily, feeling the change swing over her with an uncomfortable shiver. She only hesitantly opened her eyes from that and looked out into the world and the mirror to see that she had successfully changed.
Even her uniform had shifted to match the torn school girl outfit she had been wearing the previous night.
"I shall tell you when I have decided on a side, Madame," she said over her shoulder.
"I'll hope you choose to side with us," Pluto agreed.
Then Kodachi was walking into the Nightlands.
******
Once out the otherside, Kodachi found herself in the near endless expanses of dust and ruin. She scanned her surroundings and tried to remember where her house was in relationship to Juuban before taking to the air.
As she grew higher into the air, she caught sight, again, of the far-off blue of water somewhere. She hoped that that was somehow an indication that this desolation did not go on forever, but she couldn't say for certain.
Not knowing just how terrible the Nightlands could be in another alternate dimension, Kodachi steeled herself for the lonely jaunt across the dry dust, occasionally reading the etchings in the wall, ancient grafitti that she should not have been able to read, but somehow could.
As she walked, she found mirrors, many many mirrors. Each mirror represented a connection to one on the otherside of the barrier. Still, even with as many mirrors as she was seeing, there had to be a multitude more on Earth.
Pausing in front of one of the mirrors, Kodachi gripped the edges and looked out, letting the mirror's fluid surface shift to show her a view without forcing her to pass to the other side.
******
Ukyou flinched and looked toward the mirror in her bathroom. For a moment, out of the corner of her eye, she'd seen something...monstrous. A ghost or something, bloody and torn, and somewhat familiar.
Legends of fetches and dopplegangers came to her mind and she swallowed nervously before exiting the bathroom, after insuring that it was clean by her standards.
Business was not good at the moment.
People were scared, and they weren't going out of doors as often as they would usually. As a result, Ukyou's store was making enough to continue, but it wasn't enough to keep up with her savings the way she wanted.
All that and she was starting to get worried about security too.
And on top of all that, Ranma and Nabiki were floating through her mind.
"If Ranma were to become a vampire," Ukyou thought to herself. "Why couldn't he have picked me to be his first."
Ukyou paused and thought about what she had just said before shivering and shaking her head.
Vampires, the thought was chilling, and she hoped it was just another Neriman rumor blown out of proportion. Still, there were those blood bank robberies, and a few missing persons and given much of what she had seen, she couldn't just leave villains as something to just wave aside.
Which meant what?
She had to make a decision of some sort. At least she had to talk to Ranma, apologize for her part in the wedding, something.
Anything was better than just working day after day. Her cooking wasn't worth anything without somebody to share it with. She leaned against the counter in her momentarily empty restaurant, the rush of oncoming business men soon to begin, and collect herself.
"I can't just keep doing the same stuff over and over again," she said.
******
Kodachi let go of Ukyou's mirror and stepped away, considering what she had seen. She hadn't heard much, but it had been obvious that Ukyou was at least as confused about what to do with her life as she herself had been.
She walked on through the dust further, occasionally leaping and sometimes flying, but mostly walking. Mostly it was a sense of lethargy that kept her moving so slow, or maybe just a need to clear her mind, but that mattered little.
******
Shampoo shivered and looked over her shoulder as the definite feeling of being watched crept over her, but nothing could be seen save for the Nekohanten's decorative wall-mirror and their customers of the moment.
She was eager to be back after her husband to give up his pointless resistance and come back to her, like he was supposed to. Her patience was running thin, especially with even her great-grandmother telling her to wait it off.
Now she was hearing rumors that Ranma was doing something with Nabiki.
At first, she thought that was a good thing and she'd waited for the mercenary Tendo to call her up with prices for times to be with Ranma. When that never happened, she began to get worried. Especially about the idea of losing her husband to a worthless woman like Nabiki Tendo.
She moved to the wall mirror and checked her image briefly, trying her best to look cute. Then her face turned cold and bitter as she spoke to affirm what she demanded.
"Ranma must accept my right," she growled in Chinese. "There is no choice."
Then the cute charade was back and she turned to the customers.
******
Kodachi found herself shivering after encountering that cold stare of the Amazon's as she started walking again. As she stepped back, a flash of an image came to her mind of bloody sword, but then it was gone.
The wandering started again, but eventually, Kodachi grew tired of the landscape and the occasional flashes of other people's lives she could see standing behind their mirrors.
She came to her own mirror and, looking out to see that there would be no one there, she stepped out. Immediately, she let her other form fade, no longer needing it now that she was on the right side of the mirrors.
Sighing, and trying to avoid looking at the blood stain, she flopped down into her bed for a moment, before remembering that it was time to go feed the alligator.
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(Posted Sun, 18 Feb 2007 09:07)
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