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“Do not ask, for I will not declare truce,” she stated flatly.
Xian Mao gulped, hoping that he was not about to die.
“But,” she continued after a brief pause, “as you have sworn truce with my great-granddaughter, I will choose not to remember our people’s feud… until such time as you cross my path.”
“May we pray that it never comes to that,” Xian Mao murmured.
The words echoed through his memory.
And now this…
The True Cat Fist
Chapter Nine: Amazon Enemy, Amazon Ally
Xian Mao stared at the piece of paper in front of him, waffling between despair and anger, hoping that some solution might come to mind. Again, he read Khu Lon’s missive, neatly caliagraphed in the formal script that denoted an ancient, mage, or well-educated priest:
[<To the Interloper and Would-Be Priest
Xian Mao
Your actions have interfered with my will and Amazon Law since the
very beginning. The situation has now reached a point at which your
presence is no longer tolerable. You have, at this stage, two options:
run very far, and very fast, and hope that I never find you, or quietly
accept your fate by coming to me for penance and punishment within a fiveday.
I hope you do what is appropriate
I do not wish to chase you
Khu Lon, Amazon Elder, Council Head>]
What could he do?
Not run, certainly; he could not abandon the people he had here. And not accept her sentence… Khu Lon had no rulership over him. He was now forced to face her. He would die, almost certainly… he would…
No. He would not die. Khu Lon had no right to take his life,
and he every right to defend it. The time had come for
things to change: he was Yin; he was Chaos; he was Xian Mao, Master
of the Neko-ken… all Nine Gates were his to open.
“Ranma!” Shampoo’s voice hit him like a brick, quickly accompanied by the door that had previously closed Akane’s room off from the rest of the house; the voices owner loomed in the doorway, foot still raised from kicking the portal open. “Akane! Shampoo need talk you now!”
Akane face faulted, and Ranma would have had he not still been pinned underneath the unhinged door.
“What’s this about Shampoo?” demanded Akane. “Ranma’s made his choice and it’s not you!”
“Shut up stupid girl,” Shampoo mocked, then dropped the sing-song
accent. “Ranma made his choice long before I even arrived.
I’ve known so for some time… now if you’ll both just SHUT UP for a little
bit, maybe I’ll explain to you why I still have to marry him…”
It was noon of the third day when Nabiki walked in on Xian Mao. She had knocked but he hadn’t answered, so she’d walked on in… not really expecting to find him there.
She certainly did not expect to find the blinds drawn and covered so that the only light in the room came from two candles; she definitely did not expect to find Xian sitting calmly between said candles as if the rest of the world had ceased to be… and she absolutely did not expect to see him floating a good foot off the ground.
The breeze from the opening door caused the candles to flicker, and a powerful gust from nowhere extinguished them and nearly pushed Nabiki back through the open door. With a crash, Xian Mao fell gracelessly on his butt.
Not yet aware of what had happened, Xian Mao rolled backwards faster than she’d ever seen anyone move—when had he gained such speed?--and came into a fighting stance wielding the bokken he’d stolen from Kuno-sempai.
“How on Earth did you manage to get that from Kuno-baby, anyway?” Nabiki asked nonchalantly overly used to martial artists.
Xian Mao shrugged. “I broke the Link that had Bound it to him.” He gave her a special smile, “How’re you doing?”
“I’m doing all right. I came to see if we were still on for tonight?”
“Of course… but that’s not all, is it?”
“No, it’s not… I… I heard about the letter from Cologne.”
Xian Mao blinked. “From whom?”
“Shampoo.”
“I… see…”
“What are you going to do? You can’t beat her… but… you can’t run, either, can you?”
Xian Mao set down the bokken and looked Nabiki in the eyes.
“If I run, she will find me, and the battle will be on her terms.
If I come to her, once again it will be on her terms. She
holds the cards, so I must change the rules of the game.”
Nabiki nodded. “That’s the way it works.” A pause. “So… what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue.”
“<Xian Pu!>”
“<Yes Great-grandmother?>”
“<You have disgraced me again.>”
“<How so, Great-grandmother?>”
“<You know how, child. You have been beaten twice… many
times now, actually, by an outsider: this Ranma
Saotome. By Law you should be wed to him and by now be big with
his child. Yet you constantly refrain! You hold back!
And now you have not only ceased to pursue him, but you have given your
heart to another! Our enemy!>”
Shampoo was silent for a time.
“<Your enemy, honored matriarch, not mine. I will not forsake a friend—with whom I have sworn truce!—for a society that does not believe in love and uses honor to hide the fact that they no longer have a soul.>”
“<You have to the count of five to begin begging for the chance to retract that remark.>”
“<I will not! When I went home, I found that the people
I had loved as family and friends were but lifeless husks, walking carefully
through the daily ritual of life, the meaning of which had been forgotten
so long ago that they do not even know why they do it. I will not
abandon real, living people who have become my friends for those walking
corpses!>”
Khu Lon’s eyes grew cold.
“<Then you will die, child. You will die.>”
On the morning of the fifth day, Cologne was forced to open the Neko-hanten herself—since Shampoo was gagged and tied in the basement, and Moose was carefully watching her (Cologne had told him that Shampoo was under the influence of evil magicks cast by the would-be priest… nothing she did or said was to be paid any attention to, save if she tried to escape). She told the customers that both her assistants were sick—nothing communicable, mind, but enough to keep them abed for some days.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said one of the customers. “Oh, did you notice that someone scratched something on your door? Some Chinese and some American…”
Cologne blinked. “I should look into that… if you’ll excuse me…”
Sure enough, something was scratched into her door. Actually, “carved” would be a better word: the characters were gouged exactly halfway through the wood of the door. Cleanly etched and finely drawn, they were in the same style of script as the letter she had sent to Xian Mao… and too perfect to have been done by any hand save his, and only by using the Claw. On a certain level it frightened her that he could push aside the bestial mind of that technique to do this perfect calligraphy, and more so that the force of his Chi had not awakened her. But as she read the words, fear was burned away by anger:
[<I find your proposal offensive and degrading: in a word, unacceptable. Or, as the Americans say:> {fuck that}]
Cologne was, to say the least, enraged.
It was the afternoon of the fifth day, and Xian Mao sat in his room at Dr. Tofu’s meditating quietly, attempting to divine what would become of him and those he cared for now. He had no idea how Cologne would respond to his answer—although he was fairly certain she’d be very, very upset. The question was what would she be willing to do about it?
The proverbial butterflies filled Xian Mao’s stomach as he tried to calm himself with meditation. People as old as Cologne could not be properly considered sane; as they grew in power they became quite used to getting their own way, and more and more belligerent about seeing to it that that never changed. It was entirely likely that Cologne was already close to the edge because of the difficulties with Ranma and Shampoo… and now his interference, which by itself could have pushed her close to that edge, might well have pushed her over… far over. What was there that a four hundred year old Tribal Elder would not be willing to do to see to it that her will—the will of the tribe—was not crossed? Kill him? Those dear to him? Everyone in Nerima? He could hold her off—defeat her even—if he were willing to cross certain lines…
He’d already crossed one of them, in China [AN: see side-story “Into China”], when he’d opened the Sixth Gate… to conquer. But the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Gates still stood before him. In his meditative state, he could see them at the far end of the Corridor. The Seventh Gate, to destroy. The Eighth Gate, to defend his mate… if it came to that (or was Nabiki truly his mate? Were they that close?). The Final Gate, the Ninth: to avenge, or to destroy on a level that few could imagine. Could he bring himself to cross those lines? If he did, there was no guaranty that Cologne would be alive at the end of it… or that he would not kill out of hand anyone who tried to interfere.
Mere moments after he sensed the presences of several people approaching, Ranma bashed the door open.
“Xian Mao!”
The young man looked up inquiringly, putting on his best “I expected you to come, my child; how may I help you” Priest-face. “Yes?”
Something was horribly wrong, but their thoughts were too confused for him to pick out.
“Nabiki vanished this afternoon,” Ranma all but yelled, “and we found a note on her bed!”
Alarm bells began ringing in his head, but Xian managed to look calm. “And it says…?”
“We don’t know!” blurted Akane. “It’s in Chinese.”
No one in the room knew Xian well enough to read his face at
that moment; for all they knew, he had suddenly lost the ability to comprehend
Japanese, his face was so blank. But anyone from back at the Temple
would have noticed that his eyes had changed from silver to sapphire, recognized
the sudden tightening of muscles by his left eye, and along his jaw… anyone
from the Temple would be backing out of the room as quickly as humanly
possible.
Ranma: “Xian?”
Nor response, but his battle-aura flared silently to life.
Akane: “Xian?”
Still no reply; an acrid stench filled the room.
Tofu: “Xian-kun?”
“Show me the letter.”
Quickly Ranma handed the note to the other young man, who stood up calmly to accept it. Where he had been sitting, the wood looked corroded, as if someone had spilled acid on it.
Xian Mao read aloud and translated as he went:
“[To the Grand Fool and Dishonorable Xian Mao:
To you and all others whom this may concern, let it now be known that
by your defiance and interference, you have sentenced not only your friend
Xian Pu to death, but your dear Tendou Nabiki as well. You have stood
in the way of the Holy Laws of the Amazons, corrupted one of our precious
youth, and have laid insult in the face of an Elder Matriarch.
You may redeem your honor only by taking their place at the headsman’s
block I personally look foreword to severing your head from your
shoulders.
You have a fortnight.
Khu Lon, Amazon Elder, Council Head]”
Everyone gasped, as much astonished by Xian Mao’s cold, uncaring tone and comfortable posture as the letter itself.
What happened next surprised and frightened them even more:
Xian Mao punched at the wall without otherwise moving his body;
the wall exploded outward, hitting and doing considerable damage to the
building opposite.
Somewhere in the world, there was a man.
Not an important man, by many people’s standards, but a powerful one if you knew what true power was. He was maybe average height, with brown eyes and dark hair that fell to just below his shoulder blades; he wore a long overcoat covering ratty jeans and an old T-shirt. As he sucked down his cigarette, perhaps the only thing one might find extraordinary about him was that he was somehow too normal, too average.
They would, of course, be right. He was far more than he seemed.
As he walked down the street, empty at this time of night, he stopped for no apparent reason, and looked east, considering… calculating…
“Could it be?” he muttered to himself, lighting another
cigarette. “How old would he be now? Eighteen? By the
Gods… I think it’s time!”
Xian Mao spent an hour in prayer and meditation before packing the few things he would need. An hour or two wouldn’t matter, one way or the other… and if he did not calm himself, he did not know what might happen… but it was entirely likely that he would utterly loose control.
That was an idea that scared him, actually. Loosing control. He’d never lost control, before. Since achieving mastery of the Mao Fu, he’d been possessed of an almost preternatural calm. That calm was gone, now. He wasn’t capable of the fiery, thundering rage that Ranma or Akane or Shampoo displayed. In some ways, though, the soul-numbing ice of his fury was more frightening. As he packed his formal robes into the top of the backpack, and strapped Kuno’s bokken to the side, it was almost fascinating to feel the cold, economical precision that the rage added to his normal grace. So wrapped up in the new feelings of rage and bloodlust, Xian Mao never noticed that neither Ranma nor Akane had left. Out of the pile articles that he had discarded as excess weight, Xian Mao pulled a pair of candles, setting them on the altar he had built in one corner of the room. Breathing deaply, moving smoothly and gracefully, he lit them from the nearly gutted candle from the night before. With a commanding dignity, the young priest bowed before the altar.
“<Wang-Mao-Yue, my beloved Goddess, fallen in the Time of Mysts. Power of my Art, strength of my Spirit,>” he intoned in a voice that carried very well, given that he barely spoke above a whisper. “<Beloved Goddess, I have found myself set upon a path that I may never see the end of, and never return from. It is my own folly, this I know, and do not ask you to save me from it… only that you watch over those that I may have hurt in my pride and foolishness.
“<Wang-Mao-Yue, I beg the, hear my prayer, and when I die, take me home to thy breast, for know that I never meant wrong.>”
Xian Mao stood, and looked to the hole in the wall. In the light of the now-setting sun, his eyes seemed to glow. So suddenly that not even Ranma had known he was going to, Xian Mao dashed for the hole, almost seeming to run off the edge, but performing an incredible flip, backwards onto the roof rather than plummeting to the ground. Ranma followed almost the instant Xian Mao began to move, but as his feet landed on the roof, all that could be seen of the young man was a flea-sized speck.
“On my best day, I could never move half that fast…” Ranma whispered
in awe. “Is that what I’m missing? Is that the Neko-ken?”
Ranma and Akane told Dr. Tofu what had happened in as much detail as they knew how to, before dashing home, trying to figure out how they were going to catch up with Xian Mao.
Akane’s mind reeled at Ranma’s description of the young priest’s speed, but for once didn’t doubt… Ranma would not exaggerate… if anything, he would play it down. Admitting that someone could move ten or twenty times as fast as he was not something Ranma would do easily… since that was the number given, Akane mentally bumped it up to thirty or fourty… could a human body survive that kind of speed?
Reaching the Tendou residence, they instantly began packing, calling
to Kasumi to make them some trail rations—there would be no time for Akane
to try to cook for Ranma…
Immortal Cat skidded to a halt as he hit the coastline, snarling defiance
at the obstacle. Knowing that there was no faster way, Immortal Cat
plunged into the frigid water, swimming for all he was worth. His
blood did not boil, Immortal Cat was not yet upset enough to loose that
last vestige of dignity… he was just very, very annoyed. And the
Shriveled One would pay for taking the females. The Shriveled One
would pay in hearts blood, so he swore.
Two hours later, Ranma and Akane stormed down the stairs to see their fathers also bearing backpacks. They shrugged, knowing that they’d need all the help they could get for this one. If Nabiki hadn’t been kidnapped, they’d have gone so far as to ask her to squeeze Kuno into helping.
As it was, however, they had their feet, and the little help they could get.
The only way they could get to China was by plane, therefore, they would take a plane. Resolved, if somewhat resigned, the Nerima Wrecking Crew set out.
“You’ll never get there in time, that way.”
Everyone facefaulted.
Just inside the front gate stood a gaijin man. A very ordinary man in a ratty coat and jeans.
“Who the hell are you,” demanded Ranma, “and what would you know
about it?”
The ordinary man smiled, in a very ordinary way, and spoke in
such a way that you couldn’t fail to understand him… it might or might
not have been Japanese.
“I know everything about it. I know Xian Mao better than he knows himself.”
“So what?” demanded Akane. “And who are you?”
“Right now, he’s after blood. The only way you’re going to catch up is with my help… and maybe only just barely, then. He’s already halfway there.”
“He WHAT?” the two teens demanded in unison, their fathers behind them deciding to find somewhere else to be.
“Almost halfway there. He’s going to Jhusenkyou, right?”
Ranma shook his head. “No, to the Amazon village.”
“Ah. Lovely.”
“What?” Akane.
“The village is protected… I cant go directly there. We may just be late,” his eyes narrowed. “Do you really need those two?” The gaijin pointed at Mr. Saotome and Mr. Tendou. The two youths shook their heads.
“Then let’s go, now. I don’t remember how far from the Springs
to the village, but I think it might just be too far…”
**********
Xian Mao’s last great leap landed him at the edge of the Joketsuzoku Tribe’s territory. He’d managed to conquer the animal within, but the icy rage still held. Pausing to catch his breath and draw in more energy, Xian Mao crossed the invisible line that marked the home of the Amazons. Two full weeks early, there was no one there to greet him. A very fortunate thing, for them.
Xian Mao got as far as the village gates before someone finally tried to stop him.
“<Halt! Who are you, and why do you come to our village?>”
“<I am Xian Mao. I have come for Khu Lon. Tell her if she releases Tendou Nabiki and Xian Pu, now, I will consider letting her live.>”
The Amazon was too stunned to respond, so he simply walked through the gates. He’d been here before… twice before, he realized, though the first time had been four hundred years before his own birth. Calmly, he walked directly toward the Hall of the Council—a grand title for a glorified hut. Before the doorway, he clapped three thunderous times.
“<I call upon Khu Lon to answer the ancient call of challenge.
She has dishonored herself before me, cast insult where it is blasphemy
to cast, and called myself before the headsman’s block using two bystanders
as bait. I call upon the Elder Matriarch to answer the call of challenge.
If ‘yea’, then stand before me at the setting sun, or ‘nea’ then know that
I name the enemy, and will chase you unto the ends of the earth.
Know that I stand to end the Feud of Wang-Mao-Yue, for it is the hand of
this village that shed first blood…>”