The girl nodded, tugging ineffectually at a bracer of her own. "Hai, sempai -- she's in the cell next to mine."
When the girl stopped tugging at her bracer long enough to point, the redhead glanced at the door, then took Shinobu's bracer into her hand and strained, breaking it with no small amount of effort -- the second she touched it she could feel her strength ebbing. Once the metal was sundered, it clattered to the floor in two pieces. The girl kicked them away, rubbing at a discolored patch of skin beneath where the bracer had sat.
"Been here long?" Ranma asked, frowning.
"Yes," she answered slowly, not meeting his eyes. "A few months. Can you open Otohime-sempai's door, please?"
The redhead nodded, and turned back to the door, slamming her fist into it a few times before it buckled, and fell to the floor in a twisted heap, revealing a chamber identical to her own, save that there was a girl sitting on the bed and smiling. Check that, a woman, and she seemed almost expectant of her arrival, by the way she nodded, unsurprised, and then strode into the hallway. "Thank you, Ranma-san."
"How did you know my name?" she asked dumbly.
"They can't block out all of the powers we possess... just the ones that effect the world physically," the woman offered, holding her own bracer-clad arm towards the redhead. "If you could, Ranma-san?"
Shaking her head, she destroyed that bracer, too. "I really want to understand what's going on here," she growled. "This isn't where I went to sleep."
"Ah..." the woman -- Otohime, by Shinobu's explanation -- sighed. "That's not going to make you happy to hear, Ranma-san."
Ranma shivered, and glanced at Shinobu, who was watching the pair warily. "Well, tell me," she demanded. "I want to know."
"We're being kept as breeding stock," Otohime whispered. "She's too young, yet, and they haven't had time for me, but...."
"Why me, then?" Ranma asked, repressing a shudder.
"That was my doing... I clouded their minds to let your curse help us all escape," Otohime said apologetically.
Ranma blinked in surprise, but was cut off suddenly by Shinobu's startled yelp, as a wash of searing flame suddenly leapt from her fingertips to flood the corridor, incinerating the guards that Ranma had been too distracted to hear coming.
Ranma's jaw dropped, but Mutsumi patted her on the cheek with one hand to reclaim her attention, wavering slightly on her feet. "I've been straining myself," she said weakly, "and will need your help to escape, Ranma-san. Will you help us?"
"Yeah," Ranma mumbled, shivering. "I think so. Is there anyone else here?"
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(Posted Thu, 24 Oct 2002 06:36)
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