It was a long night, a very long night, Gosunki one of the very few who got more than a few winks of sleep throughout it’s dark hours. Even then he might have demurred had not his body pulled rank and commanded his eyes shut.

Of the others Akane was probably the next closest, spending most of the night, like she had spent most of the day before, curled up into a near catatonic ball of pain and completely oblivious to the world around her as she silently wept in the seclusion of the tent they had made for her.

Ryoga had tried to comfort her of course, had tried every method he knew, from soothing words to his cursed form, but the merest hint of a presence near her had sent her back into another fit of screaming. Whether that presence was male, female or porcine seemed to make no difference at all, the world was apparently a too terrible place to be and she had retreated as far from it as she could.

So they had used what Healing stuff they had left to try and make her better and Ryoga had stood as near a guard as he could, all night long.

Not that Ranma had been much different, his own demons driving him to the point where even being still seemed to take more effort than he had left in his battered form. It didn’t take a genius to see the guilt on his face, in his every motion, or to guess as to what he was feeling guilty about, but not one of the group could find any words to make it better.

In the end Nabiki had snapped at him, demanding he ‘stay damn still!’ and he had complied, sitting almost instantly into a lotus squat and starting to meditate again.

Nabiki had needed none of Ukyo’s extrasensory skill to guess that he was still doing anything but resting and was instead looking for some way to use his Ki to detect what he was no longer allowed to keep physically searching for.

“You killed them all” Ukyo had said, receiving an affirmative nod from her companion by the fire, “then I doubt there’s another living soul in fifty miles” she had asserted, and once more Nabiki could only nod in reply.

Mostly because even if she too thought the effort was pointless, was almost certain that tonight would be completely undisturbed from without, she appreciated the watch anyway. The night was very dark tonight, even with the stars.

She and Ukyo had sat up basically all night at the fire, not really talking more than was absolutely necessary, but sharing that silence in as supportive a way as ever a silence could be. They hadn’t ever exactly been good friends but that night they shared something that neither would have been without, considering the circumstances.

By the time dawn arrived the camp was already mostly packed, action being used as another balm for the hurts that lingered inside each one of them. All that remained in the otherwise forested glade was the one tent that they had not dared move, the one with Akane sleeping in it.

They all knew that it had to be done, all knew what would happen when they did, but all had a reason not to be the one to do it. With everyone basically volunteering silently to do their part this part had naturally been left to last. Even the horses had been saddled first.

Which had brought them to the debate of the extra wagon, the one that had all happened in. Technically they didn’t need it anymore, they had been talking about ditching some of their stuff anyway, and with the supplies they had just stolen off the slavers that was all a lot easier, not least of which because the slaver’s gear had been of a more expensive variety than their own.

Technically speaking the carriage that Gos had stolen was a good one, well sprung and nicely designed. But there wasn’t one of them that could honestly claim it was a welcome sight, and one or two of them that secretly believed it would haunt them for a fair time to come yet.

So they had decided it had to go, which had left the problem of how. On the flat lands this side of the hills the chances of a smoke plume that large not being seen were remote and Ukyo had been in the middle of, reluctantly, suggesting that they just leave it when Gos had come up with the solution.

“I can make it burn without smoke” he had announced, and all eyes had turned on him. “I learnt it to mask our fire yesterday” he explained, suddenly acutely self conscious, and ashamed of the fear that had prompted the learning.

“That was a good idea” Nabiki had offered and the others had joined in, “Are you sure it will work?” She asked, forcing herself to be responsible one again no matter how much she wanted to hide away like her sister.

Gos had nodded and that had been that, Ranma had wordlessly set to making sure that not a trace of the thing would survive the fire and that it wouldn’t spread to the trees around and thus negate all their efforts.

That had been an hour ago and now little at all remained of the scene of those horrible acts, but still nobody had talked about getting on the move, and every eye was still avoiding the last tent.

“Ill do it” Ranma said at last, as most had quietly expected him to, after all, rightly or wrongly, it had been his job for as long as most of them had known him. As the most physically injured of them all there was rather a risk in it but then once again he wasn’t thinking about that, just about looking after the others.

Nabiki could have kissed him, not only for the thoughtfulness, but for sparing her the job. She knew how fragile she was today, how much more like the glass queen she was feeling than the Ice queen, but she also knew that she was the only other person who was likely to have taken the responsibility. Which made Ukyo’s interjection all the more odd.

“No sugar” she insisted, “last thing she needs right now is a man helping her” the chef asserted, “I am the only one who’s likely to be able to take the hits and not cause more” she said, revealing her own logic and her own determination.

“But” Ranma objected.

“You don’t even like her” Ryoga finished, his own feeling of guilt for not volunteering written all over his face.

“That was two days ago sugar” Ukyo supplied, and once more that was that, nobody needed to ask what had changed, the lingering smoke was there to remind them.

In the end it hadn’t been as bad as that, Akane had screamed and she had lashed out, she had punched and she had kicked but she had quickly worn herself out and collapsed back into a boneless heap that the chef had simply lifted and lugged onto the flatbed so they could finally move again.

Midday saw them once more back at the edge of the waste and once more trekking out over it’s barren, sun beaten expanse. Ranma and Ryoga, both individual reasons, had both proven rather knowledgeable about the necessities for crossing a desert and as a result the lot of them were doing a fair impression of faceless mummy’s in the train that began to slowly care it’s way across the ground.

“If anyone is following us” Ukyo observed, looking back at the tracks their wagon was leaving in the flat earth, “then we might as well leave directions” she said, her tone far from approving, and just hinting at the worry that lingered at the edges of her consciousness. She might be far from a delicate princess, having spent a decade battling the sea, but recent events had affected her a good deal more than she was trying to make out.

“Uh?” Gos replied, looking up from the book he had his nose buried in and around the landscape, apparently noticing for the first time that they had left the greener lands behind. In fact he had barely seen a word since they had set off, his mind far more occupied with the quiet tension that still pervaded the little group; the book was just his version of a defensive wall.

“Never mind” Ukyo offered in return, with a shake of her head, her tone still harsher than was really necessary but then it didn’t take a genius to see how defensive that was either.

Gos just shook his head and went back to his book, rusting the doubty drays to follow on after the other horses and leave him to his ruminations. Intellectually he knew that the girls were all hurting, indeed he more than most of them could empathise with some of the darker thoughts of impotent helplessness they were fighting just now. But he couldn’t bring himself to say much, talking had never exactly been his strongpoint and everything he had thought of to say had just sounded trite and hollow.

“If you can’t say anything good” he muttered to himself “then your mouth’s better used for chewing” he quoted, reaching into his pocket for another of their recently acquired strips of good jerky.

It was a long way from the foods of the land of his birth but he wasn’t about to complain, at least it stopped him grinding his teeth.

Meanwhile Ukyo had found another subject to bristle at, pulling alongside Nabiki she had nodded at the distant figure of Ranma, riding up ahead of the column ostensibly to ‘scout the way.’ “So much for the new Ranma” Ukyo offered, the barb evident in her voice. Her mood had been dipping since the morning and she knew it, talking was about the only thing she could think of to do to keep from thinking, and even though she knew that every word coming from her mouth was an attack she really wasn’t caring all that much, it was better than being alone with her thoughts.

“Huh?” Nabiki replied, obviously near as distracted as Gos had been, and only just now looking up from the book she had been reading as her mare had plodded along in the wake of Ryoga’s. “New Ranma?” she asked, blinking a little at the sunlight.

Like the others she was swaddled almost head to foot in wrappings to preserve that precious layer of moisture near her skin, unlike the others she had also added a crafted sun visor to diminish the reflected glare of the sun off the pages of her own magical book.

“Caring, sharing and thoughtful” Ukyo sneered, completely unaware of how much she was sounding like Akane had before the ‘events.’

It took Nabiki a few more moments to catch up then her expression, such as it was darkened considerably. She knew exactly what Ukyo was doing, had even studied briefly some of the stages that they were likely to go through enough to identify the ‘anger’ stage that Ukyo was now in, but she also knew how dangerous that could be if the cycle wasn’t corrected.

“Because he’s not here to comfort us?” Nabiki asked, her tone a frosty warning. The truth was she had actually asked herself the same question this morning, had wondered very briefly if Ranma was treating her like so many other Japanese might have if they were made aware of her ‘fallen’ status. The difference was that Nabiki had almost immediately buried that thought.

“Treating us like we’re the ones who failed” Ukyo replied, unmeant venom dripping from her words. She was hurting and looking for someone to blame, now that Ohlmin and his crew weren’t breathing apparently part of her was shifting onto Ranma.

“Because he should have tried harder to save us?” Nabiki offered, her tone still frosty, “because he always has before?” she added, and Ukyo should have taken the warning, Nabiki might be coping remarkably well but there was little she could do to completely quench that simmering anger inside herself.

“Yes” Ukyo all but spat, internally hating herself for the unworthy thought. As a youth she had been content to join the others in expecting miracles form the center of their little circle, but she had thought herself beyond that.

“You saw what he went through” Nabiki offered, her tone less cold but still steely hard, “They beat on him for hours” she insisted, a hint of the horror and revulsion she had felt then lingering in her voice, “they loaded him down with enough restraining magic to pollute the air about him and still he found ways to fight them” she asserted, remembering the awe on the face of the slaver mage as Ranma had once again shrugged off the spells to stand and bait his tormentors. She didn’t add that the rest of them Ukyo and Akane included hadn’t managed to fight back nearly as effectively, even under a lot less restraint, that would have been going too far.

“He even decked Ohlmin once” Nabiki added, remembering the shock on the group’s face as the pigtailed warrior had stood on trembling limbs and managed to get within reach of Ohlmin despite the magically induced weight of elephants bearing down on him.

“And you know why” Nabiki added, remembering the one moment of fear she had seen on Ranma’s face as he had seen the girls being held at bladepoint, separated up so that there was no way even he could reach them all before the first knife did it’s fatal work. Ohlmin had told the bound martial artist what he had planned for the girls and that had been what had cued Ranma’s plan.

“Ohlmin told him that he was going to make Ranma beg before…” Nabiki said, not quite strong enough herself to finish the line, “So Ranma didn’t beg” she asserted, remembering screaming herself that he should, should do anything at all he could to stop them hurting “They beat his bloody eye out” Nabiki added, unable to stop the welling of her own anger, “and he spat at them”

“Pride” Ukyo retorted, even though she deep down didn’t believe that, “Ranma Saotome doesn’t lose” she sneered, feeling her guts twist in self-loathing for the low blow.

Nabiki paused “He lost then” Nabiki replied, “he only bought us a few hours, for the mere price of his pain, blood, hand and eyesight all he got was a few hours less of them raping us” Nabiki rebutted, her unseen mouth curling into a sneer of it’s own. She could still remember the hot tears that had run down her face, the harsh rasp of her own screams as she had watched Ohlmin take that bar to the young man and beat it dripping red.

Ukyo’s mouth opened to argue, to retort with more venom, but she couldn’t find it, even hurting as she was she couldn’t deny the supreme efforts or hideous cost that Ranma had paid to buy them a few hours less.

“I deserved that” she said instead, hanging her head as Nabiki’s words tore the wind from the chef’s sails.

“Yes he is avoiding us” Nabiki offered, her tone sliding to softer as she looked back towards the figure up ahead, “Yes he’s finding it hard to look at us” she added, “because yes he does think he failed” the middle Tendo told her friend, “right now he’s working himself to exhaustion” she insisted, “and all the while thinking up a thousand different ways he could have just bought a little more time, wishing that he had been able to give more and just maybe have saved us altogether”

Ukyo couldn’t help but nod, knowing Ranma well enough to know that much at least was true, right now her former fiancé would be, far from looking down on the girls, hating himself for failing them, the facts completely irrelevant to a man who had always carried the burden of others on his shoulders.

“Yesterday he killed people” Nabiki continued, “broke all sort of promises he had made on his honour, to avenge us” she said, “I doubt his pain even occurred to him as he took those slavers apart” Indeed the truth was even though she had been there to help Ranma had done the vast majority of the work himself, a furious angel of death wreaking terrible retribution onto the people that had wronged those he cared about.

Nabiki hadn’t been at Phoenix mountain, and hadn’t really ever seen Ranma at his best, but that night she had seen him at his worst, the terrible, lethal force of destruction that only his honour prevented him from becoming full time. It had scared her almost as much as it had secretly comforted her.

For the girls Ranma had forgotten his own honour, his own pride and done what he felt needed to be done, never even thinking of the cost to himself as he had made good on his promise to make sure that they never needed to be afraid of Ohlmin and his rapist friends ever again, that nobody would need to be.

“He’ll be feeling like shit” Ukyo offered aloud, summing it up in her own way and receiving a nod in reply.

“Yup” Nabiki agreed, “and for the life of me I don’t know a single word to say that’s going to come close to making him forget the sound of Akane’s screams.”

Up ahead Ryoga had heard most of the conversation, his initial reaction had been to agree with Ukyo, to once more seek the comforting lie and blame Ranma for it all, btu along with the chef he had been forced to put that aside. The truth was he would right now trade all he had to have been the one taking those hits but he couldn’t honestly say he would have been able to stand up as well as Ranma, breaking point or not. That had been an effort not of physique but of sheer will and Ryoga didn’t delude himself any more that he came that close to the pig tailed warrior in that regard.

As the girls fell silent Ryoga made himself another quiet promise, not only would he do all he could to help the girls, all of them, but he would find a way to help Ranma, his former enemy and the best of them all.