Chapter Ten: An Intermission Before Untruth

The voices spoke from seemingly nowhere. That is, they definitely had a source, and there was definitely a place in which those sources currently existed, but to normal eyes that place and that source seemed like nothing. If put into terms of what the closest analogy was to what the typical mind could process, it would be an almost laughably mundane scene.

There were two people, one of whom was a tall, well-built young woman with short, slightly frazzled blue hair. The other was almost the total opposite; a gnarled, wrinkled woman shrunk tiny with age. True, these perceptions would be distorted from the truth by the expectations of the viewer, but the comparison was one of the closest possible.

The young woman sat in a comfortable-looking office chair, leaning back as far at the seat would go and with her feet propped up on an ornate but largely empty desk in front of her. The desk was not normally empty, as the objects strewn across the gray carpeting suggested, but that oddity was easily explained by the presence on said desk of the old woman with whom she was talking.

The old woman was shaking some sort of cane at the girl, clearly threatening to hit her with it. She spoke.

“You botched it! You completely botched it. Why did you give them that clue? You know that all need not be revealed yet… best that it all be shown at the end so that no unneeded details are given! We need this to be as clean cut as possible. You know the rules!”

The blue-haired woman sighed and rolled her eyes. Clearly this was an ongoing argument. “You know as well as I do. It was either they get a hint about sis or they find out about the virus. Which one would you prefer?”

“That they find nothing! There were other options. You merely refused to take them!” She wasn’t your sister… why do you keep calling her that… you, I think, need to get over your own troubles.

The younger woman scowled and stood. “I don’t have to listen to this anymore. Look, I did the best I could to minimize the damage. With luck it won’t matter much, you know they’ll probably find out about both eventually. This way they only got a hint… not any real information, I’ve made sure of that.” She started fiddling idly with a branch of one of the several plants decorating the room, and pulled a book out of the single bookshelf in the office. Flipping through it, she searched until she apparently found the page she was looking for and laid it heavily on the desk.

“Look. It says right here that there are occasions when *some* leaks of information are impossible to stop. And that trying to minimize the flow of information in such cases will usually only increase the damage later. I’ve tried to do what you’ve said, but frankly you’re not my boss.”

“I was put in charge of this project. Don’t throw the rulebook in my face, girl.”

The other just made an angry face. “Look, your stubbornness led to Ritsukyo’s death. Don’t think for a moment that I’ll forget that. This project will likely amount to nothing unless you’ve screwed us up again.”

The old woman glared at her penetratingly. “Don’t dare to assume that you know everything. Ritsukyo was going to die anyway, it was only though my personal effort that her soul was captured to go with these four. They could not possibly succeed without her.”

“If she had never died she would be on this mission! We could trust her more, we had no secrets from her! She could know almost everything, minimize the damage. But these four… they’re dangerous. Too chaotic. And Ritsukyo’s spirit is only contributing to the chaos, you know that. It makes them even more dangerous, as if they weren’t before! That boy Ranma could throw everything off with a bit of water, and it wouldn’t even be his fault, it’d be yours!”

“Enough!” the woman bellowed, her voice loud enough to echo in the small room. She looked furious. “You will not speak of me that way! Do not think that you are privy to all the secrets yourself and presume to lecture me on responsibility! Leave now, and mend your error, if such can be done!”

The young woman turned and opened the door to leave, calling over her shoulder as she did so, “You say I don’t know everything. I say… are you so sure that you do?” she shut the door behind her with the remarkably final-sounding slam.

The old woman kept of the glaring for a few seconds after she had left, then suddenly grinned widely.

Something analogous to an intercom speaker was visible on the wall, but the analogy wavered as if not sure of its identity. You’re a cruel, cruel person, Kon. A voice spoke through it. But be careful that you are not too cruel, she is more important than she knows. Besides, do you really want to give me ideas?

Kon grinned even wider and looked up. “When it comes to the art of being a manipulative bastard, I am a mere child at the feet of you, my master.”

Flattery will get you nowhere.

***

TBC...

AN: In case you’ve forgotten, Ritsukyo was the previous nexus before Ran-kun. It was said that her spirit was with them, apparently they meant it literally. And if you don’t remember the old lady, I'll give you a hint... reread the prologue. You met the younger one in Chapter 4.

~Mordain    

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