As the Saotomes and the Moroboshis get to work exploring the strange ship they woke up aboard, back on Earth, two communities used to a lot of weird things were becoming fully aware of the sheer tragedy that befell them both...
Cologne shakes her head as she stares at the empty dojo. As great-grandmother of one of the victims of today's massacre, the legal guardian of another and would be great-grandmother-in-law of a third, she had as much right to be here as the police officers now scouring every square centimetre of this crime scene with their tried-and-true methods. Though she did understand and appreciate the determination Nerima's finest were showing today, their investigations wouldn't add much to what she had already discovered through her chi senses.
Son-in-law -- no, Ranma -- was still alive.
Oh, yes, there was the residue of his physical body still in the dojo, the atomised fragments which escaped whatever had attacked this place. But while she could sense the back-scatter of spiritual energy that marked a living soul, always prevalent whenever Death had struck, from everyone else who had been here today, Ranma's was missing. That meant one thing. Somehow, his very soul had been stolen from this place. His parents and everyone else had been eliminated in a pretty straightforward way as a warning:
We have him. Do not pursue or suffer the consequences.
That was a warning Cologne intended to heed. It didn't take her long to realize that if someone -- who it could be, she just couldn't BEGIN to imagine -- had done all this to obtain Ranma, what would happen if the village drew the wrath of Ranma's kidnappers? That was something Cologne intended to avoid at all costs.
"Elder?"
She looks over to see the chief inspector of Nerima step up. "Yes?"
"Find anything significant?"
Cologne blinks, then sighs. "Ranma is still alive, though now disembodied. That is not the case for anyone else caught here today."
The inspector, one accustomed to the weird goings-on in Nerima, gazes at her. That was a new one! "So what should we do?"
"Pray that Ranma finds some way to locate whoever killed those he cared for, then deals with them in a way that will ensure they will never do this again," Cologne closes her eyes. "And pray that whatever did this NEVER comes back."
He takes that in, then grimly nods...
In Tomobiki, another investigator with more estoric means of ascertaining what happened to her beloved adopted sister, her sometimes-rebellious husband and all their friends (including her adopted parents and cousin). However, unlike the Nyu-che-zuu elder in Nerima, Lieutenant Negau Renning-Redet of the Oni navy, concentrated more on technological means than spiritual.
And what she found out told her a lot.
Fact: sometime just after the Second Tag Race ended, some strange energy wave had passed through the local cluster of the galaxy. It wouldn't affect the primitive mechanisms here on Earth, but certain elements of Oni technology had been wrecked because of it. The one thing that mattered the most in this case was spacializer technology, which allowed Onis to travel through time.
Result: no one could, if it was allowed, go back in time to change this event. And heaven only knew, Negau was tempted.
Fact: the people killed by whatever hit this place were, one way or another, connected to both Lum and her husband.
Possible Conclusion: whoever this this was after either Lum and/or her husband. If so, they may have found a way to teleport their living essences out of this place to wherever they were now.
Question: why?
Why indeed...
"You are Lum's sister."
Negau gasps, then spins around to see a fortyish man in the white robes of a senior Shinto priest standing there, a walking stick in hand. Taking several breaths to calm herself, she glares him down. "You scared me."
"A habit I acquired from Cherry, I'm afraid," he sighs. "I am Chiezou Budou, Sakura's teacher in the ways of Shinto. If you are indeed Lum's sister, then please accept my condolences for your loss."
Negau blinks, then shudders. "Are you sure...?"
"I am," Chiezou nods, giving her a sympathetic look. "But never fear, my dear. Ataru is still alive and regardless of the many problems that haunted their relationship, he will not allow Lum's death to go unanswered."
Negau takes that in, then sighs. "Do you think he'll succeed?"
"He will," the Shinto priest nods, then gazes heavenward. "He will or die in the trying..."
"AH-CHOO!!!"
"Bless you," Kikuko and Tariko chant together.
"Thanks," Ranma and Ataru rub their noses, then exchange a look before turning back to the nearly endless row of man-sized glass cylinders lining both sides of this vast hall. "So what are these things again?" Ataru asks.
"Not too sure, but they do seem to be human chi-wise," Kikuko gazes on the -- well, not to mince words, incomplete! -- girl standing at attention in the glass chamber before her. "Just not finished, I guess..."
"And there're two empty chambers at the heads of both rows," Tariko points to where they came into this chamber.
"Which means...?" Ranma blinks.
"We're probably not in our original bodies, Ranma-kun," Tariko stares at him. "I mean, I expected something like this for Kikuko-chan and myself, but for you and Ataru-niichan, too?" she points to him, then her brother.
"So why do all this, then?" Ataru's forehead furrows, an expression that was quite uncommon to him but understandable now. "I mean, killing everyone we love and care for, bringing us here, giving us new bodies, splitting us into girl and guy forms...? I don't get it!"
"Whoever's behind this is REALLY confident, guys," Kikuko warns.
"What do you mean, sis?" Ranma asks.
"I mean, look at us now. We're exploring this place, discovering all these things about what's happened to us and all that..." Kikuko looks around the chamber. "I mean, we all intend to find out who did this to us and do what has to be done, so..."
"Someone's having fun with us, you mean," Ataru scowls.
"I think so."
"So let's go have some fun with him, then," Ranma smirks.
"I can dig that," Tariko nods...
Elsewhere...
"Why did you do all THAT?!"
"That was your order, Mistress."
"You bloody idiot! I told you to get rid of those people, not KILL them!"
"You required their elimination to ensure this project's success. They are eliminated."
Silence falls for a moment, then a sigh escapes the shadowed woman on the screen. "Yes, you can say that, eh? Very well, then. I've a new task for you to perform."
"That being...?"
A scream echoes through the hallways of the spaceship, making the Saotomes and the Moroboshis look up in shock. "Where's that coming from?!" Tariko wonders, sliding closer to Ranma.
Ranma's eyes narrow, then he charges at the the closed end of this vast chamber. "Hey, Ranma, what are you...?!" Ataru blurts out.
"MOUKO TAKAIBISHA!!!!"
BOOM!!!!
The wall is shattered by the chi blast, then Ranma leaps through to find himself in a circular control room. His nose flares instantly on sensing the nauseous stench of a burned body, then he focuses on the central chair in the room. Walking up to it, he winces, then looks away on seeing the smouldering mass of charred flesh and melted bone there. "Oh, damn...!"
"Um, Ranma...?"
He looks back to see Ataru and their sisters standing inside the hole he made in the wall. "You know, all you really had to do was say 'Door,'" Ataru holds up a finger.
Ranma blinks, then chuckles, rubbing the back of his head...
A couple hours later, Tariko sighs, sitting back in her chair. "Oh, man, I can't figure hide nor hair of any of this!!"
"Ditto!" Kikuko wipes her forehead, she seated beside Ataru's sister. "You know, even with these new bodies..."
"Without new knowledge, we're stuck here, wherever 'here' is."
"Got that right."
Silence falls over the control centre as the girls gaze on the darkened control panels before them. The girls had chosen to try to make sense of this place while the boys had gone out to find what else was aboard this ship. "Maybe we should just call out 'computer' and see what happens?" Tariko proposes.
"There's an idea," Kikuko laughs, then calls out, "Computer."
Nothing. "That blows that idea," Tariko mutters.
"Got an idea?" Kikuko gazes on her.
Ataru's sister considers that, then calls out, "Ship?!"
"Yes?"
Both girls scream out...
"This has got to be the engine room," Ataru muses.
"What type of engines, though?" Ranma wonders as they walk into the long chamber lined by things that wouldn't be out of place on Star Trek or Star Wars. "You've got the advantage here, man. You've seen this before."
"Truthfully?"
Ranma looks at him. Ataru gives him a wan smile. "I've never seen the drive sections of any ship I've been aboard. Not Lum's scout, not Captain Invader's battleship, not anything else," he shrugs. "This is as new to me as to you, Ranma."
"GUYS!!!"
Both spin around to see Tariko run up. "Tariko-chan, what is it?!" Ranma wonders.
Ataru's sister skids to a halt before him, then breathes out. "We just got into the ship's computer!" she points behind her, then looks up. "Hey, Ship, get us back to the bridge."
"As you wish."
The three vanish in a shower of transporter energy...
Now what?
(Posted Thu, 16 Jan 2003 01:46)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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