“Akane!”
The black-haired girl looked up at the shout from the park bench on which she sat, her arms around the still weeping girl beside her. What do you know, Shampoo actually knows my name, she thought as her purple-haired would-be rival jumped out the the tree at her back to land beside her. “This is not a good time for a fight, Shampoo!” Akane growled out, nodding to the east, toward the leaping flames with the tail end of an airliner rising from their center.
“No here for fight,” her would-be rival responded, “Looking for you, Akane and friend must return to dojo, Great-grandmother says!”
“Cologne says? To the dojo? Why!?” Akane asked incredulously as Miyo lifted her tear-stained face from Akane’s shoulder, and Shampoo shrugged.
“Shampoo no know, sent to find Ukyo, Konatsu, Tofu, tell to gather at dojo with as much food as can carry.”
Akane simply stared, but Miyo sighed and straightened, gently disengaging herself from Akane’s arms with a tremulous smile of thanks. “It’s not over,” the brown-haired girl murmured as she scrubbed at tear-streaked cheeks. “What I felt — it was too big, too all-encompassing, to just be the plane that hit my .... my family’s apartment building,” she managed to get out as her voice broke.
Akane gazed at her schoolmate, then nodded and turned to Xian Pu. “Shampoo, can you get Miyo back to the dojo? I have to find Ranma and let him know — he went to help get people out of the way of the fire.”
“Shampoo already do,” the Amazon responded, “”find him and Tofu first, they go to dojo after Ranma help clear apartment building, Tofu finish with hurt child. Ranma tell Shampoo where find you.”
Akane’s eyes widened. “Dr. Tofu is actually leaving patients to go to the dojo?” she repeated, shocked to her core, and Xian Pu nodded firmly.
“He good healer, not want to, but Great-grandmother knew where find him, want him go to dojo anyway. He greatly respect Great-grandmother — if she tell him leave hurt people something very wrong.”
“You’re right,” Akane replied thoughtfully, then turned to Miyo. “Miyo, go with Shampoo, she’ll get you back to the dojo safely. I’m going to go see if Sayuri and Yuka are home, and try and convince them to join us.”
Miyo nodded, but Xian Pu frowned uncertainly. “Is Akane sure good idea? Great-grandmother say bring food, more mouths maybe not good.”
“You’re right, it probably isn’t a good idea. But Miyo thought the dojo would be the safest place to be, and they are my friends — I have to get them if I can.”
Xian Pu sighed, but nodded. “Shampoo no can argue that. But go fast.” Akane nodded and ran north across the park, leaping to the roof of a house across the street and disappearing from sight,.
“Shampoo here!” The sound of Xian Pu’s voice echoed through the house, to be ignored by Ku Lon in the upstairs guest room that Ranma and his father had used for so many months. The ancient matriarch sat in the middle of a circle of ash around a hexagon of chalk, scented candles and garnets at each point of the diagram. She continued to chant as she concentrated on the mirror before her and its reflection of the phone book set in front of it with ancient Greek symbols written in her own blood on the book’s front cover.
Then, as suddenly as the first time she’d sought guidance that night, the reflection disappeared, to be replaced with a vision of horror. Ku Lon gasped as she found her gaze focused down a rural road. To the side was a burned-out house, and the road and the fields on each side were littered with bodies of all ages and sexes. Then the image changed, to a mountain forest — and more bodies. Again, the scene changed, to a beach, and yet more bodies along the shore and bobbing in the surf. In all of the images, many of the bodies looked to have died by violence but most were skeletal, muscles shrunken, skin shrunk in around the bones, reminding the elder of pictures she’d seen of WWII concentration camp survivors. Most disturbing were the bodies that had had pieces inexpertly hacked away with a sharp tool of some sort ...
With a gasp and a toss of her head, the elder shook herself free of the visions and sagged where she sat. I was so hoping I was wrong ... Rising, she intoned a quick ritual of ending and dismissal, solemnly broke the hexagon and circle around her, snuffed out the candles, and slowly made her way to the window. For a time she simply gazed out across the street at the houses lit only by candle-light as she listened to the murmur of conversation drifting up from the family room below her.
Finally, she leap to the window sill and down to the ground, then made her way around to the front entrance and in to the family room. The buzz of conversation cut off as she walked in, and she gazed around the room. Nodoka, Soun. Mu Tse, Ukyo, Konatsu, good. Genma, Kasumi and Nabiki are back from shopping, Dr. Tofu and Xian Pu ... She paused as her gaze fell on an unfamiliar brown-haired girl, face puffy and red from tears, about the same age as the matriarch’s great-granddaughter. Hmmm ... there’s some power in this one, though she is no fighter. Putting aside the mystery for the moment, Ku Lon asked, “Ranma and Akane?”
“Ranma come when finish clearing apartment building in front of fire. Akane go try get two friends to come,” Xian Pu said, and Ku Lon frowned, then sighed.
“I could wish she hadn’t done that, but I can hardly fault loyalty.” Turning to Kasumi the matriarch asked, “The shopping?”
The eldest Tendo, her usual serene expression too firmly in place, responded, “It took several trips, but we emptied Nabiki’s entire cash reserve and brought home all the water and food she and I could carry — all dry food, as you advised.”
Ku Lon nodded and took a deep breath. “Good. From what I saw in my scrying, very good. The images I saw were much clearer than normal, and almost everyone in this city is going to die.”
Gasps of shock rose from all sides, but the unknown brown-haired girl shook her head. “But how can you be so sure? How could you cast a scrying involving the entire city?”
“Simple, child, I used a phone book to represent my subject,” Ku Lon responded, and the girl slumped and rubbed at her face.
“I ... I was beginning to hope my reading was exaggerated, that the other aircraft coming down and the fires, my parent’s deaths would be the worst of it,” she whispered, and Ku Lon’s eyebrow rose.
“What is you name, child?” the matriarch asked gently.
“Miyo,” the girl responded, looking up.
“Once we get to safety we need to talk,” Ku Lon said, then looked about at the confused faces around her. “We will need to leave as soon as Ranma and Akane return if we are to live. Everyone pack now, and only the most important and light of memorabilia — don’t forget that we will be carrying the food as well.”
“But why do we need to leave?” Nabiki demanded. “We’re surrounded by a wall, we have plenty of food and water, the fires are moving away from us, why can’t we simply wait here until things settle down and the power comes back?”
“Because the power isn’t coming back, at least not in time to do any good,” Ku Lon stated firmly. “I performed two scryings, one for the people staying here in the city, another for those choosing to try to leave. In both cases, bodies were everywhere. Many had died from violence, but many were also dead of starvation. I could not see a living soul, but ... some of the bodies had had pieces carved off.”
Most of the others looked confused, but Nabiki paled and nodded. “No power, whatever caused this was centered on Nantucket, so the entire world is affected.... Right — no help is coming, we’re out of here. But where do we go?”
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(Posted Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:45)
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