Nabiki's gorge rose as she saw Akane. Her sister was sitting on the couch, curled up in a fetal position and staring straight forward, oblivious to reality. She dragged the finger tips of her left hand down an imaginary right forearm with a maddened intensity which quickly forced Nabiki to look away.
Cologne, following Nabiki's gaze, spoke. "Akane was fairly lucky in a physical sense at least. Not only did she survive the attack, but merely lost an arm in the process. Her mind, however, is another matter entirely. I'm not sure if she will ever recover from this experience, even though she can barely remember it. Your father's mind was likewise torn asunder, so much so that his survival is now in question. I know not what horrors Genma may be suffering as he has disappeared." Cologne snorted. "Of course, knowing him, he may just have high-tailed it to a bar when things started going bad and we'll have to deal with a drunk panda in a few hours."
Nabiki swallowed and braced herself for the anser to her next question. "And w-what about me?"
"You're coherent and not injured, if that's what you mean. I'd sleep with someone for some time to come though, the Xia Fang Gao does nothing to the subconscious and your dreams are bound to be bad ones for some time to come.
Kasumi, who had left for the kitchen some time earlier, returned bearing a tray and distributed the cups it held to the three self-aware people in the room before taking one herself. Nabiki gratefully latched on to the distraction and focused herself entirely on her tea.
The four sat in silence for a time, nursing their drinks and and inevitably and invariably thinking about things best left unsaid. Finally Ranma broke the quiet.
"I wonder where that thing came from."
Cologne shrugged. "Who knows? It could be anywhere I suppose."
Ranma shook his head. "No, it couldn't have. I recognized the spell Ryouga used and it's not used for summoning. It's used for breaking seals and is only effective on things a mile or so away, no farther."
Cologne raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You've run into it before? If you don't mind sharing, I'm curious as to when."
"A few years before I got to Nerima me 'n the panda stopped at a place called the Cave of Caer Bannog. The spell pops used to open the cave was the same one Ryouga used to summon that... thing."
Nabiki's eyes widened. "So it's been trapped in Nerima this whole time!? And... and... oh my god. If it's been trapped and Ryouga released it, then where is it now?"
Cologne set her tea down and thought it over for a few moments before responding. "I don't know where it is, but I think I know where it came from."
"Where?" Kasumi asked, vocalizing for the first time in a while.
"Think for moment. Merely seeing it was enough to cause Nabiki to try to blind herself and both Akane's and Soun's minds snapped. You and Ranma have both been unusually shaken and withdrawn and you were the lucky ones. Given this we can safely say that it's presence induces madness and mental instability, which leads us to conclude what?"
All three teenagers responded simultaneously. "The Kuno's."
"Exactly. Perhaps the insanity that inflicts them runs not in the family, but in the estate."
"Just peachy," said Nabiki, voicing the group's sentiments. "What do we do now?"
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(Posted Fri, 21 Mar 2003 07:42)
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