The Spring Of Drowned Thief

A Terrible Itch

“Well I’ll tell you what it was, a bad idea that’s what. I suppose your next question would be to ask what just happened and I’ll tell ya. We were finally able to split meaning a hell of a lot of burden was coming off of Ranma’s shoulders, but there was something I took too lightly and that was that he’s susceptible to those accursed bastard heads because by some fluke or miracle they have figured out how to mind link. Whether it was done by accident or not, I’m not entirely sure, but I do know this, I had to combine our bodies again so as to act as a liaison to keep all those bad vibes out. Now you next inevitable question is probably going to center around what you all just saw and I shall explain this, but only in brief. I pulled Mary’s soul the hell out of her and threw it back, and before you ask if I could have destroyed her in that fragile position, the answer is yes, but I didn’t because I have no clue what that would do to either him or me. I’m an expert at twisting the knife, and not so much so at jabbing it in for a kill without thinking about little things such as this. Finally I suppose your last question will be what are we going to do about it and the answer my delightfully cheery friends is that we go back to bed and deal with this bullshit in the morning. Good night.” Kyva turned on his heel and started marching off, but Nabiki stepped in front of him as well as many others.

Nabiki whacked him in the eyes with a steely stare and said, “You talk too much and explain things horribly. Why were you splitting to begin with? What the heck is going on here!? And why don’t you heal Ryouga’s hands before you shove off!?”

Kyva snorted rudely and stuck his nose up at her. “Why we were splitting is none of your damn business, and I’ve explained what’s going on here too many times. And if I keep healing every tiny scratch on everyone you guys will never become independent. Besides wounds healing naturally is healthy for you, helps build up the immune system.”

Doctor Tofu scratched his head skeptically and asked, “Do you have any proof to back up this theory of yours?”

“…Well no…but it sounds like its true doesn’t it? I’ve always had a good… No, ‘strong’ feeling that it was better for you then my hocus pocus.” Kyva’s eyes seemed to look up at the ceiling and maybe through it and into his mind.

A solid ‘CLANG’ from Ukyo’s badly busted spatula echoed throughout the hall as it smoked Kyva across the back of the head. “His hands are cut to the bone you horrible man! Those ain’t scratches, their becoming life threatening wounds with that much blood pouring out of them! What if they get infected? He could lose his hands!”

With his face still embedded in the floor, Kyva’s arm came up with an open hand and he displayed a small, meager, puny band-aid. “How’s this?”

“WHY YOU-!” Ukyo brought her weapon up but Akane and her father grabbed her arms and restrained her.

Soun started prying the weapon out of Ukyo’s hand and shouted, “As much as I want to see this punishment upon this beast, we must keep our demeanor young lady!”

Kyva started laughing in what sounded like a forced cackle of some kind and spoke between breaths, “Some people just don’t know how to take a joke… but I wonder… Can you people really withstand pain?” He pushed himself up from the floor seeming completely unphased for once by Ukyo’s savage attack. “What if something so painfully terrifying happened to you that you’d want to die on the spot, you know, just give up on life and drop dead on the spot. What then? What if I wasn’t around to tend to your wounds while those beasts out there slowly tore you apart for all hours of the day? What then?” His eyes became distant again and he seemed to look inward on himself as if carefully watching a memory in the back of his mind. “Could any of you go through what I had to go through and survive?” His eyes then became crazed and he looked at everyone before him. “I just though of a great new training exercise for you guys…” He started lumbering towards them with a slow drag of his feet like a stiff zombie. “I’ll only make a few of you do it… Only the ones that can fight for their lives…” He put out a hand that forced everyone to take a step back in fear.

Happosia took a step back as well and looked at Kyva cautiously. “What have you got in mind? Whatever it is I’ll have no part in it.”

“Don’t worry gramps, you’re strong enough… There are just a few here that need a fine tune into the reality of what pain can truly be like. For instance…” Kyva pointed at Mousse and said, “You!” Mousse’s eyes went wide as a long rusty meat hook dropped from the ceiling and pieced its barbed point into Mousse’s fleshy back and carried him off into a black abyss. “And you!” He pointed at Shampoo who was surprised to find a painting of a musk warrior with translucent eyes reach out and pull her into unseen blackness. Ryouga never had a chance to move and when that finger pointed at him his eyes went wide as disembodied hand grasped at the back of his head and dragged him into the open floor. Ukyo was about to scream when a stone statue pointed its crossbow at her, but she was silenced by shear shock when she felt the head of a stone cold arrow pierce through her body just beside her spine and caused her to fall back through an open door that no light came out of with a look of helpless fear in her eyes.

Nodoka wrapped her arms around Akane thinking Ranma’s raven-haired love may be next, but no more went. Kuno jumped in front of Akane and Nodoka with his broken sword and demanded, “Bring them back cretin, or I’ll have your head like I had your hand!”

Kyva laughed like a mad man and started floating in the air in front of all those left, “And to the rest I give the greatest of my horrors…” He raised his arm into the air and a thick blackness of smoky, foggy nature poured out from him and started to devour the walls around them. “I’ll take away your light and leave you with nothing but blind fear to guide your way…” A wailing screech came from overhead and made everyone look up at all the bats that came with the black fog and hung from the ceiling. “Run… Run to the courtyard, it’s the only safe place… All the doors are locked and all that’s left is to feel your way along these damp and sticky walls… But remember there are more then your own lives to be worried about. Your friends are hidden and are slowly being ripped apart with shaky knifes set on machines with cogs and clockwork that do only god knows what with the human body…” He then smiled and pointed at a grandfather clock that started to chime. “I’d hurry if I were you, because at half past ten these bats, bugs and the unspeakable things lurking in this castle will start to grow hungry… They may eat you, they may eat your friends tied helpless to the torturous devises… Hell they’ll even devour each other, so be weary if you here the beasts howl in agony… Now go, the clock is ticking and when it chimes again all hell will break free from its bonds…” He started floating up towards the ceiling where the bats parted and a hole opened up. “Oh, and if I were you, I wouldn’t linger in the attic…” He smiled his evil smirk and sunk upwards into the black and hellish hole.

All light started to fade away leaving only the ominous shine in every ones eyes until it was nothing. They were all quiet and none could remember how close they were to their friends, but something in the dark turned and creaked like wood being twisted past its braking point. The sound of splinters shooting away from everything all around filled the air and below their feet they could feel the horrible rumble below their feet as the marble floors lined its self with small cracks and scars. The entire building seemed to groan in agony as its insides twisted themselves on their own. As the fearful sound started to subdue a torch was lit by Prince Herb sending an orange guardian to illuminate the room all around, but though the flame was strong at its core it came up weak against the walls and flickered frightening shadows across unrecognizable surroundings. Herb turned the torch slowly around the room and asked to all present, “Where we not in my halls just a moment ago?”

Nabiki looked around and it was true, they had been in a grand hallway just seconds ago, but now they stood in the entrance hall to a great mansion of an early Victorian era. She spun slowly around and as she did so her gaze lead upwards to see a great chandelier of shaped crystal hanging loosely from the ceiling and swaying slowly to an unfelt wind. She felt herself subconsciously lifting her hat away from her eyes as she looked up until she realized that she hadn’t worn a hat before especially that of a finely woven silk one with small decors of flowers. She then looked down at herself and saw that she wore a crimson maidens dress to match it and then looked at the rest. They seemed to be realizing the sudden change in attire as well, where the men all wore brown, black and gray gentlemen’s suits that looked as well traveled as their wearers.

The doctor stood in a black suit and bollard hat wearing a monocle over one eye and held a small black briefcase he’d never owned before in his right hand. Nodoka wore a dress similar to Nabiki’s but more elegant with a Kashmir shawl draped across her with many points of jewelry spread across her body. The ghastly little boy Hikaru shivered violently as he looked horrified at the dusty brown suit he wore complete with a ripped umbrella shoes with holes in the heels. “Wh-what is this? What’s going on?”

No one answered him but Soun and Genma drew every ones attention to the large front doors of the mansion. Soun hardly noticed his tailed tuxedo and top hat as he peered through the crack of the door and whispered, “I think I can see something moving out there…”

Genma came in close to look as well but as he did the distant baying of a wolfish creature echoed through the dark and made his pull back slightly before swallowing the lump in his throat and looking through the crack as well. The instantaneous image of snarling jaws filled the terrible view and was quickly replaced with something even more terrifying. It’s dog jaws moved away and then a single eye of the creature looked directly at him, but it wasn’t the fact that it was an eye looking at him, it was the fact that the eye looked human, if not a bit apish, but it looked at him with coherent thought and recognition. It knew the clothes he wore and the walking stick in his hand and it’s general purpose. The beast knew exactly what it was looking at and seemed to smell the fear at the same time. The eye went away and it was Genma’s natural curiosity that prevented him from pulling his head away from the door. “Where’d it go…? Where did that terrible beast go?” His answer came to him in the form of piercing smash against the door he had his face to close too. He was knocked back to the floor making a mess of his gray pin striped attire and the banging of the door came over and over again filling the room with its one sound of terrible destructive intent. He shivered outwardly and pointed, “What the hell is it!?” His ears started to catch a faint yet reckonable sound that pierced his heart and filled his nightmares. He heard the wail and pant of a murderous dog, but at the same time, as if under its own malformed breath it seemed to be trying to force out words, real words, none of them understandable but most certainly parts and pieces of audible words. “It’s trying to speak… My god what it’s trying to say…?”

The insatiable banging and clattering at the door continued with fierce and frequent bursts. The thing outside seemed to scream with each thrust against the weakening door and all everyone did was watch in a state of paralysis, until a strange voice came from behind them. It was familiar voice to some because the thick English accent seemed to poke recognition into everyone. “Come everyone! This way, before all the locks change again!” A thin gaunt looking English man with papery skin had come from the dark and was now pulling at Akane’s arm. “You too miss, before its too late!”

She pulled her arm free of his grasp at the expense of losing one of her fine white gloves that went with her white, almost bridal attire. “Who are you!?”

The man shook his head. “No time to explain, that bog beast will break through that door any second now, all of you just have to trust me until we get to the next room, then I’ll explain everything! Hurry!”

Herb watched the door burst a seam in one of the panels and saw something that looked like an oversized paw trying to push its way in. He looked back at the man and said, “Ok, which way?”

The man ran to a door at the top of a set of stairs and opened it, “This one, and in about fifteen seconds this one will slam closed and it’ll be that one over there that’s unlocked.” He pointed to the door at the foot of the steps and then hurried into the door he’d left open.

It wasn’t even in debate; everyone just started to run up the stairs, but about halfway up Genma had missed a step and grabbed onto a little bald man wearing a housecoat and slippers, who turned out to be Happosia. They both tumbled backwards down the steps taking Kuno, Hikaru, and Kasumi with them. Once at the bottom Happosia gave Genma a set of knuckles across the face. “You buffoon! Look what you’ve done!”

Kuno pushed Genma off of him and started running to the top of the stairs, “The door’s closing!” Just as he got to the top he saw a pair of fingers desperately trying to keep the door open. The gap was no longer wide enough for any one to fit through, but it was enough for the butt end of the broken sword. He rammed it into the gap and for a moment the door stopped closing. “What’s with this insane door!? Why won’t it open?” He pushed with everything he had and then he heard the frantic yell of Soun.

“Kasumi! Where are you!?” Soun was the one on the other side desperately trying to pull the door open but it was like trying to pull a bolder from a mountain.

As Kuno pushed he saw that the back end of the sword he had jammed in was now bending slowly like it was being squished under enormous force. The doors and presumably the walls were unnaturally solid, “I don’t think this door intends to open sir!”

Soun had tears in his eyes and pressed his face against the crack of the door whilst pulling feebly. “My precious Kasumi! Don’t leave her out there…”

Kuno gave the door all of his effort but bore no fruit. “I’ll take care of her sir! I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Soun looked at Kuno’s eyes and searched for any lie or doubt. “She’s my little girl Tatewaki… I trust you…” With that the grip of the sword broke in half with a metallic snap and the door closed tight with a foreboding boom.

It wasn’t long before another splintering crack of the entranceway doors sounded across the room and brought Kuno back to his senses. His eyes focused on the dark shadow moving past the moonlight and all of a sudden his confidence seemed to wither away on him. His ever present sense of nobleness had left him and for some reason a building and what felt to be a forced fear seemed to be pressing its way into him mind. He was scared of what was going to come through that door if he didn’t hurry down the stairs, so he made his legs move but at the same time his mind raced. What was a beast to him? He’d seen strange things before, but for some reason this thing rattling at the doorstep gave off a hypnotic wave of pure and undiluted fear straight to his mind. He’d seen the eye peering in at them and for a moment it had locked its gaze on him and put him under that spell and judging by the others at the bottom of the stair case, it had looked at them too. They all shook with fear especially Hikaru who stood at the slowly opening door while scraping his nails across it to make it open faster. Both Genma and Happosia were struck with what ever it was that pierced their fortitude and they joined Hikaru in the attempt to open the door while leaving Kasumi behind and unconscious on the floor.

When he descended to the bottom he looked once at Kasumi and again at the door, the blue mannish eye was open wide and staring in and for a second Kuno almost left Kasumi there thinking that she might slow him down in his escape. He ever turned his back on her and took two hurried steps, but he willed his feet to stop and looked once more at the door. The eye looked hungry and it pressed its paw through with outstretched claws and screeched across the now wooden floor. The fear filled him again and the others were out of sight except Hikaru who held the door open and waved for him to come through. “Just leave her! Come on!”

He made a promise only moments ago and he was becoming more then willing to break it as that eye looked at him. “No….” Kuno forced himself to do the one thing his mind and body told him not to do, he closed his eyes and reached blindly for Kasumi. He felt the soft dress of a maiden and opened his eyes just slightly to make sure and it was. He gathered her up in his arms and opened his eyes again, but this time focusing only on the door. The wailing screams of the unseen beast breaking through the wood filled the area with such sound that it became impossible to ignore. He wouldn’t look back, never, not once. Even as the eerie sound of rushed panting and padded footsteps came nearer and nearer he focused solely on the door ahead of him and ran with every thing he had. He started to feel the hot breath of the unknown beast just a little ways away from his neck and knew that its toothy mouth had to be agape and attempting to take his head off. No he wouldn’t look back, not now, not ever, he had to push forward and get through that door before it got to them. Then a great black and yellow claw touched his shoulder and dug in deep with a tearing force, and in a last attempt to save himself and Kasumi he waved the broken behind him and felt the rough edge go through something tough and meaty and it must have left a deep wound because the claw released him and splash of deep red, almost black blood sprayed across the walls.

Kuno entered the doorway and swung the thing shut with a kick and just as the bolt slid into its latch a booming and banging came from the other side of the door and tried desperately to get in. The beast wasn’t dead even though its blood flowed with an endless stream from underneath the door. He neither waited nor stared, he just ran down the stairs and into the cellar where only god knows what lurked around in the dark, never once thinking where his dear forgotten sister may be…


Akane listened at the door with her father but no sound came from the other side, as soon as it had shut the howling beast’s cry vanished and they now stood in a cozy room with soft candlelight and fireplace burning brightly. She pulled her father away from the door and said, “I’m sure they’ll be alright…”

Soun caught the faint hint of doubt in her own words and wrapped his arms around her tightly. “Yes… You’re right… That boy will take care of our dear Kasumi…”

Herb wasn’t going to wait for tears or time to pass he wanted answers right away. He looked at the gaunt man and asked, “Who are you? You’re not Kyva in disguise are you? Take this all away! Now!”

The man looked down at the floor weakly and spoke with an obedient fear. “I’m not this man you say I am…”

Nabiki eyed him closely but Cologne came up to him wearing a flowered nightgown. Hey eyes looked at him with a deep watery piercing and she looked back at everyone. “No… This isn’t him… His spirit is different, but it does feel familiar…” She turned back at him and asked, “Who are you really?”

The man looked away bashfully and put a hand on his opposing arm as to sooth himself. “My name is… well… I’m not sure anymore… It’s been so long since anyone has called me anything but…” He paused shortly and turned around. “I… I don’t like the name people gave me… But I guess my name is Jack…” He heard the gasp behind him and his head dropped as if he were ready to cry. “I knew it… You’ve heard of me…” He turned around with reddened eyes and tears down his face. “You have to believe me when I say I never did any of those horrible things of my own free will! I never meant to hurt anyone… All I could ever remember was that one night I would be in love and not with a single care in the world, but then I would wake up… far away from home and then there would be a paperboy shouting about a murder and on the front page would be a picture of the woman I fell in love with….” His eyes became distant and he looked up as his mouth opened and closed a few times. “Then… I would think to myself… ‘Did I do that?’ I’m a monster and I know it, but…” He looked at Nabiki and then at Nodoka and stepped towards her slowly with an outstretched hand. “But here… In here I don’t sleep, so I can’t hurt you I swear it!”

Nabiki came over and pushed him away from Nodoka, “And where is here?”

Jack looked around as if he’d been pondering the question all his life. “I don’t know… But I’ve been trapped here all my life, in this demonic clock tower floating in the middle of an empty abyss…” Nabiki passed him a strange look and he waved for her to follow him to the window. Everyone came over and he pointed outside, “What do you see?”

Soun gazed hard and was the first to speak, “Why… I don’t see anything… Just a distant moon and nothing more… No trees, or roads, just… black…”

Jack nodded and walked over to a large armchair and sat down. “I made it outside once and only once… I couldn’t see and I heard the hymn of a thousand of those horrid beasts all bellowing at once in a chaotic rhythm I could not comprehend… I… I was too scared to go any further and came back in… After that the back door never unlocked again…”

Nodoka was through being silent and she had to ask, “How come the doors keep locking and unlocking?”

Jack blinked again and thought again as if he had spent his whole life thinking about this very thing. “I believe that…” His eyes squinted and he dug in his mind for the answer he knew he had. “I believe that all the locks are connected to the clock tower… I know that in the hallway just past this room there are six doors that lock and unlock sequentially every ten seconds, while the door to the bathroom up on the third floor unlocks once every two hours and only stays open for half a minute…” Jack went into a deep thought again and came out with, “One time… when I managed to make it into bedroom on the first floor completely undetected, and no beast banged or scraped against my door, I thought I could hear the heavy ticking of the clock tower and… and in that silence I could hear the echoing of doors clicking open and closed on every floor on every second… This place is run on clockwork and we too must act like clockwork if we are to survive… We have about ten minutes until the next door opens, but do not be a fool and stand in front of it when it opens, you never know what’s on the other side…”

Akane thought hard for a moment and inquired to him something that had been on all their minds. “Excuse me, but… is there anything special about a half passed ten?”

Jack seemed to quiver under the faint light and he looked at her with pleading eyes asking her why she had to ask, “At a half past ten all the clocks will chime and then… That is when we must all stay very still and make it to the attic before they find us…”

“Who’s they!?” Herb shouted.

Jack jumped at him and put a hand over his mouth with putting a finger to his lips and making a ‘shhhh…’ sound. A groan from downstairs came through the floor and Jack’s eyes went wide. “It seems they are in the kitchen… You must always keep your voice down around here, that outburst of yours may have made that door unenterable for the next two hours. Do you understand young man?” Herb nodded slowly and waited patiently while Jack waited for the silence to come. “I do not know who ‘they’ are or what they look like, because all the light is gone when they enter this house, but I know they are terrible because of the feeling I get in the pit of my stomach… The only place they do not search is the attic, so when the clocks chime we must be up there before eleven, or else we will never make it alive…”

Nabiki looked at Jack and asked, “How long do we have?”

Jack pulled a gold pocket watch out of his badly tattered pocket and said, “An hour and a half.”

Herb looked at the door that would soon open and said, “It looks like we have to go through no matter what…”

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(Author’s Note: Sorry about the wait, I’m just putting the finishing touches on the other fics and once those are done I’ll be back on this with hopefully more frequent updates.)