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History did not repeat itself, and for that Xian Mao was grateful. It had been a proper challenge, this time, and in the eyes of the Joketsuzoku, there was nothing to avenge. Exhaustion was claiming him, and his control wavering… Xian Mao released the Cat Fist, for the first time wondering what lay behind the forbidden Tenth Gate. He staggered to the Council Hall, from where Shampoo and Nabiki were being released, and returned the two girl’s fierce embrace, though he had little strength left. Shampoo and Nabiki soon found that it was they supporting him, rather than the other way ‘round.
This amused them to no small degree.
Hell, right now, everything amused them. Maybe it was hysteria, maybe it was relief of tension, maybe it was just one of those days. Naw, it was hysteria.
Shampoo guided them toward her old hut, the one that she’d shared with Cologne, once. She wasn’t sure how to cope with what had just happened…
Xian Mao did not awake for three days. Shampoo and Nabiki had much time to talk, and they took full advantage of it.
Xian Mao came to with a shriek: "{Where am I? What's happened?}"
Instantly, the two girls were by his side. In his pain and fear, he'd cried out in his own dialect, which neither could speak any more than Xian Mao could speak the Joketsuzoku dialect. They still understood the meaning; better, perhaps, for lack of words.
"You're safe," Nabiki told him. "You won."
"<You're in my home,>" Shampoo assured him, at the same time. "<You were victorious.>"
"<I won?> I won?"
Events came back to him, and he desperately clutched to the support the two girls offered.
"I... I won. I... Khu Lon..." his voice cracked. "Oh, Shampoo, i'm sorry. I'm so sorry... I..."
"Is okay," she whispered, falling back into her old speach patterns. "Great-grandmother Xian Mao defeat not Great-grandmother Shampoo love. Great-grandmother Shampoo love die when Ranma beat Shampoo. Just is body dead now, too."
"I... I..." maybe he had heard her, maybe not.
The girls shared a look.
"Xian Mao... what yous said, at the beginning... before fight..." Shampoo faltered, and Nabiki took over.
" 'I am Xian Mao, I was Zhai Ku, who destroyed your village. I have been Thamdrin, Klaidro, Mathrig, Sholai, Mali, Mikara, and more. I am the Mao Fu...' "
Xian Mao was quiet for a bit.
"I... I will try to explain, as best as i understand..."
His eyes became distant, and his voice took on the tone of someone quoting oft-read text.
"-Each of us is a soul born into a body, forming a balance between the soul's Nature and what the body experiences... the balance we call a mind. These three things: mind, body, and spirit, existing over the course of a mortal time, are a *life*. Each soul has lived ten thousand times before and will live ten thousand times again...-"
He paused, eyes twitching as if skimming over text for another passage.
"-Each life we are born, we live, and we die. When we are born, we have nothing but Dharma--a duty that must be fulfilled through life--and when we die, we take with us only Kharma--the energy of how we performed our duty.-"
Again, he pasued... serching, perhaps, for a third excerpt.
"-There are some souls which are singled out, blessed and damned for eternity... bound to a single Dharma. Blessed, they are, with memories, of what they have learned before. ... Damned, too, with memories, of what they have done. ... These souls are bound forever, and while they will grow to greatness and Perfect Knowledge, they will forever be denied Nirvana... forever denied rest.-"
There was silence,
for a time, as the three youths thought that over. Xian Mao had been
there, before, but never quite as powerfully as now. Knowing is one
thing, being shown is another. Shampoo wasn't sure what to do with
this knowledge--she only knew enough to suspect a meaning. Nabiki
only now suspected just how little she really knew.
The four marched on. Two youths and their fathers, walking across the hills of China. They realized, now, that they could never reach the villiage by the appointed time, but could only hope that when they reached the Joketsuzoku, it would not be too late. There was hope: that Xian Mao had lived... that humiliating him would be enough for Cologne; that Nabiki was all right; that maybe Xian had seen wisdom, and begged forgiveness of the Matriarch... and that she had granted it.
There was little that they could do, really, until they got there. When they did, there would be a reckoning... one of placation and relief, or one of death and vengeance, they did not know, but there would be one.
Driving hard,
barely pausing to eat, not even pausing to train, the Saotomes and the
Tendos drove foreward. What would come would come, and what needed
to be done would be done.