See No Evil By Kyokukou Disclaimer : I don't own the characters from Ranma 1/2 only the characters that I write myself . So please don't sue me ! But if you try to use my characters .....there will be ...unpleasant consequences if I find out . Do not repost or reprint this without my permission , however if you do ASK there is a good chance I will let you . She hated the rain . While she may not be the most outdoorsie person in the house she still hated the rain . It was depressing , everything was bleak , wet and clammy , or bleak , wet and humid enough to drink air . She liked things neat and orderly , that included being dry and warm . So on rainy days Kasumi usually found things for her to do when she ran out of activities and began to brood . Currently Kasumi had put her on a closet organization task . Organization she liked , closets she didn't care much for . " How long has this been here ?" She checked the expiration date on the pack of batteries . Four years past best . Ug . This was a waste of skill . She could organize businesses , corporations , this was beneath her . " Home videos , oh joy ." The box of inanimate video cassettes remained unimpressed by her dry sarcasm . Inanimate objects tended to be quite hard to impress . " 'Kasumi's graduation' , 'Wedding of Kasumi's friend' , another wedding of another Kasumi buddy , another one , yeesh ." Kasumi must have had eight friends marry in the last three years . " 'Akane Tournament' , another one , another one ... wait , the rest of the box is Akane tournaments !" She opened another . " 'Nabiki's Math Contest' , 'Family Picnic'... that sucks , I only get one tape out of the whole box !" Grumbling , she moved on to yet another box . This one of childhood tapes . " 'Nabiki+Akane's first belt test' , 'Kasumi's first tournament' ... enough of this nostalgic stuff ." She told herself , throwing the lids closed on the offending boxes . " What time is it ?" She poked her head out the closet door to check the stove clock . Seven forty , after dark . Turning her head to the kitchen window all she could see was water striking glass out from inky blackness . Snorting for no real reason she returned to the closet . Then the power decided it was time to stop being taken for granted . " Great ." She grumbled . Attempting to make her way out of the closet only got half of a shelf's contents dumped on her . Cursing under her breath , she gingerly felt her way out of the now hazardous closet . Once she managed to stumble out of the closet she found herself standing still , wondering exactly what to do now . Check the fuse box ? Where was the fuse box ? Kasumi had always done that , but she didn't know where Kasumi was right now . " Kasumi ?" She called uncertainly . " She went out to help the old lady across the street with some traditional thing ." Ranma's voice came from nowhere . Causing her to nearly jump into the ceiling . " What's wrong ?" Ranma chuckled . " A mouse startle you in the closet ?" She heard the closet door move slightly and a few boxes shift . " It's a total wreck in here !" Ranma's voice floated to her from somewhere in the closet before returning . " Not even a cockroach though , what's gotten into you ? You won't even move ." " Power's out . No lights ." She grated through her teeth , quite annoyed . He'd probably start laughing and dancing around her . " 'Being night outside adds up to mean I can't see my hand in front of my face ." " Oh , lemme go check the fuse box ." Ranma's voice receded out of the room . Carefully shuffling along she made her way to a counter . Then along that to the fridge , now knowing where she was she felt along the wall to the living room . Ranma's voice startled her again , suddenly 'appearing' beside her without warning . " Fuses are fine , must be a downed line ." " You really didn't know the lights were out ?" She tried to put a dirty look into her voice . " With all of your supersensory or whatever ?" " Sorry ," He didn't sound one bit sorry . " I really didn't know ." " Couldn't you sense the heat from the lightbulbs suddenly go out or something like that ?" " I'd have to stand still for nearly five minuets to check it like that . So no I couldn't ." " So how do you know ?" " I would have taken your word for it , but when I checked the fuse box it was already cooling down ." He continued before she could interject . " Touching the cover by hand for a few seconds is how I could tell after I reset the fuses ." They sat in silence while she strained her eyes to see something in the pitch black room . With the doors and windows closed against the night rain she couldn't even make out the simplest forms . A thought struck her . " I guess this is how you felt when you were first blinded ." " Yes and no ." His voice didn't sound like he took any offence . So she continued . " 'Yes and no' what's that supposed to mean ?" " At first my brain couldn't take the lack of visual input so I 'saw' black ." " Like I am now ?" " Probably a few shades darker . But after a week my brain finally admitted that my eyes weren't in working order and gave up on that ." " What ?" " Black is seeing something . Black is a neutral color , it's something your mind makes up like a placeholder in math or a space between characters in writing . But it's still something . After a week I didn't see even black . I haven't seen anything , not even stars when I get hit , since then . So I don't see a thing , no black , no nothing ." " Until you learned all those things ?" " Different part of the brain ... well for the most part ." She heard him snort in what could have been humor . " The tests the docs have run on me always say that my visual processing section is more than fully functional . In fact as far as they can tell it's constantly hard at work . My guess is that's where the curse keeps itself , or maybe some info it wants to hide , or something like that ." She blinked in the darkness . " So your nerves are fine , and your brain is too , but your irises lack a pupil ." " Yup , and the patterns they get from my visual center haven't ever been recorded before ." " Weird ." " Yeah ." Ranma replied . " Remember , at least half of my condition was caused by magic ." Again silence followed the apparent end to the conversation . Being alone was something she liked now and again . However , one thing she never liked was being alone in the dark . " So how did you learn all that stuff you use ?" She began . " Last I checked , even among the martial arts community there aren't any blind Dojos ." " Nope ." He confirmed . " At first Oyaji thought , magical cause , magical cure . So we looked for a few months . Every time we were told that my problem wasn't entirely magical in nature , and what magic there was , was ancient and beyond everyone's experience . So we turned to the doctors . They could tell us volumes about why things weren't working , but nothing about how to fix that ." For the first time she heard Ranma move , it sounded like he was standing . " It's a long story , why don't we go to your room or the guest room ?" " My room ." She said , standing . A hand took hers much as she did for him every school morning . Slowly he lead her up the path to her room . She was amazed , when they were only talking she couldn't feel a presence at all . Now his closeness was obvious , as if holding his hand allowed her to almost see him beside her . Her small hand seemed so fragile in his . It never seemed that way on the way to and from school ... All too soon they were at her bed and his hand slid from hers , again his presence faded . But his voice returned . " Where was I again ? Oh yeah ." She sat down on her bed and tried to face where he was . His voice lacked the soft purity that she envied in his female voice , but the smooth tenor tones were almost as comforting to her as his hand had been . " So after magic didn't work , and doctors just shrugged . Oyaji just gave up on me about then . He announced we were going back home one night after we left a Tokyo specialist . Before that temple I would have been overjoyed to see Mom . But not only wouldn't I be seeing her , but I knew he had more than given up on a cure , he had given up on me . I had stopped being a son and become a liability , a burden . I couldn't take it . " Looking back on it , it almost seems funny . A blind eight year old kid attacking his father in the middle of a shouting match . But that is what happened . I wanted to continue training , he was trying to get it into my skull that it was impossible to now . So I attacked him . For a newly blind eight year old I did pretty good against a sighted near-master . Of course , in the end he pummeled me into submission and tied me up so I wouldn't run away or attack him in his sleep . I would have if he hadn't . " But something about that fight gave him cause to think . I pressed my advantage and argued with him until my voice would give out . Finally he agreed to teach me to fight by sound and see how I did . " I learned everything he knew in a week . I mastered it in two . So long as there wasn't any loud noises nearby I was able to fight at nearly my old skill again . That was enough for Oyaji . He reversed his decision and proclaimed that I would be even more famous for becoming a master despite my disability . " It was enough for Oyaji , but not for me . I insisted he teach me more . Fighting by sound is too limited , all it takes is a firecracker or a loud whistle and you're back to blind . I didn't want such an obvious weakness . " The answer found me rather than me finding it . Apparently , news of me got around from nearby Dojos . You see , other martial artists sometimes watched me and my dad , and the other way around . News of a blind eight year old able to take on an adult blackbelt tends to travel fast in Dojo circles . " Another blind martial artist showed up at our camp one morning . He was amazing , Oyaji couldn't even touch him in a sparring match . I don't think I've equaled Toshi even now . Toshi told me about a woman who taught certain blind people how to experience the world in ways the sighted couldn't dream of . He said that she would probably accept me as a pupil . I was overjoyed . All Oyaji could think of was me becoming better than Toshi . " We followed Toshi's directions . Even now I'm sworn not to reveal the Cloister's location . I remember jumping at practically every sound . The Cloister sounded so huge and ancient , everything echoed for what seemed like forever , but you could still tell where it came from somehow . It was like being inside some reverberation chamber . A servant took me to her room and prodded me inside , alone . That was the first time I heard Loren speak . Even though she was born in America she speaks perfect Japanese , but her voice has this quality to it that makes you almost feel the emotion it carries . She made me feel right at home by saying just that , 'make yourself at home young one'. " Loren sat me down in front of her and just walked in a circle around me three times before telling me I was the best potential student she'd had in a long time . Then Oyaji was led in , and she began talking to him . I was so excited that I was going to be accepted that I only vaguely remember what they talked about . " But I was accepted , and that means many things . Despite what I may seem like to you , she doesn’t run a school for blind fighting . Accepting me meant many things . Some of which I can't tell even Oyaji . But I can tell you that Loren is my legal godmother , and by honor I am an adopted son of hers . " I was lead to my room and Oyaji was allowed to stay at the Cloister as long as a servant watched him . But , Oyaji wasn't even allowed to be present for the majority of my training at the Cloister . Which lasted more than four years . " In the beginning I was frustrated , more frustrated than you can imagine a eight year old could be . Day after day I was made to sit in a room with no warmth to feel , no sound to hear . All I was told was to sit and not to move , but to repeat a mantra silently . Every day I tried my best , but an eight year old can't stick to something like a mantra in an environment like that for more than an hour at best . So I failed each time to reach a goal that I wasn't even told about ." " What was the mantra ?" She interrupted , surprised at the hushed tones she used . " Something that didn't make a lick of sense until one day . 'Shine so bright in the night . Burn through the dark and the light .' " " I don't understand ..." " Neither did I . Now let me get to that ." " Each day I bathed , ate , and was led to that room of nothing . I sat down in the center and repeated the mantra for as long as I could before my mind wandered . However , after weeks of this the mantra had ingrained itself in me to the point that my mind could repeat it at the same time as I thought about other things . That was when I had a short glimpse of something I now take for granted . Ki . " It was so soft in the beginning that I wasn't even aware of it drawing my attention . It was when I felt my head turn to face it that I realized something was there . But how ? I am blind , I heard nothing but my own breathing , the room was the same temperature as everything else . Yet , something was there in a way that I could not dismiss . I felt it in the same way you feel that a day is good or that you feel at home in a place . Undeniable , but undefinable . Being a child , I didn't bother trying to define it . I just knew that I felt something there and it felt good . Soft , calm . " I got to my hands and knees and crawled to it . The closer I got the stronger the feelings became until I thought I could reach out and touch it . Touch a bundle of emotion . Imagine my feelings when my outstretched hands felt something underneath them . A mix of that emotion and the soft shape of an orchid . My fingers could feel soft pedals , but I could also sense the epitome of softness ... flowing through it . " I don't blame myself for losing concentration . An experience like that tends to have an effect on an eight-year-old . One moment both experiences were mixed , the next all I could feel was the flower in my hands . I should have been elated , happy at least . But all I could see was that what little I had had just been taken away from me . I let my hands drop from the flower and I sat there and cried until someone came for me ." " Is that how you see people ? As packets of emotions ?" She interrupted again . " Not really ." He didn't sound like he minded her interjections . " That's only the tip of the iceberg . Emotions are only part of it , like color is only part of what you see . Saying something is red isn't the give all end all is it ? What shade of red ? What texture , shape , size , depth , and so on ." " Oh ." " I guess you could compare it to seeing a firefly blink in pitch darkness . That's what I experienced ... I guess ." " So you can detect what someone's emotions are ?"" No ." Ranma sighed . " The brain has to interpret things on it's own . If you were to get the same training then you'd get a different experience . It's slightly different for everyone . Variations on a theme of life , Loren once called it ." " Anyway , after that day I knew what I was supposed to be really doing . It took nearly a week to reproduce the experience , but once I did I held it until someone came for me again . In the following month I zipped along faster than even some of their most driven students . But that's just how I am . I'm more than a little obsessive when it comes to learning something I wanna learn . After two months I was using my newfound sense to navigate when I walked around , and I was well into learning six other techniques . Sensing magnetic fields , feeling where inanimate objects were going when thrown , and lots of other things you'd never think your brain or body could do . " But , despite my Oyaji's loud protesting , I wasn't allowed to continue my old training except for a maintenance regimen . Loren taught me for more than a year before I was deemed ready to fight again . By then I had less than a quarter of my current arsenal of sensory techniques and tricks . But I began to progress under the teachings of my Oyaji again . " This was fine and good until he got tired of waiting for someone or something to reveal the secrets to the invincible defense Toshi had demonstrated while fighting Oyaji . Loren gave her consent provided I take an oath never to reveal their secrets , even to my father . I swore and Oyaji was forbidden to be present when I was taught ." The power flickered on as Ranma paused . " Power's back on ." She announced . " Musta been a downed line or something simple then ." Ranma nodded to her . " Yea-" The power cut off again . "-h..." " What ?" " The power is out again ..." " I hear a 'but' in there ." She carefully moved to the window , light was coming through . She looked out to see power freely functioning everywhere else . " But , it's only here this time ." " Shampoo ." Ranma jumped to his feet . " She's pulled this kinda stunt a few times before ." " Sounds stupid if she's taking you on ." She turned to watch Ranma's dim form cautiously head for the door . " You'd think so , but Shampoo's a truly resourceful hunter . She also is still blissfully ignorant of my condition . However , she always has something new up her sleeve and something newer in her boot ." " Like what ?" " Dunno until she uses it ." Ranma opened the door and silently slid out into the darkness . " Could be magic , a new weapon , who knows ? This may be a cakewalk or a fight for survival ." She'd get the bitch yet . That damned red head . This time she would finally kill her . This night . Then it would be nab the husband and off to China ! No more lonely nights , no more foreign foolishness . She would finally be able to show her trophy hubby off to everyone ! The dim light reflected off the mirror polished surface of her twin swords . She had studied the girl's fighting style endlessly , yet she could never seem to defeat her . Sometimes it was as if the girl knew every move both of them were to make even before the battle began . Not this time though . This time the amulet of the tiger's eye would let her eyes pierce the dark while that damn red head would only be able to see the flashing death in her swords . So while that bitch was watching her swords she would get her down with legwork . Once down she could finish off red any way she wanted to . Perfect . " Hello ." The red head's female voice came from behind her . She whirled to see the red head standing down the hall from here looking perfectly calm and confident . She even had her blasted shades on . The fool ! " Idiot red . Wear sunglasses at night ." She grinned behind her swords and began a silent advance . " I guess that means that you have some sort of night vision on right ?" Red just stood there , unconcerned or unaware . " Tiger's eye ." She held back a laugh of victory . The end was so close . " Then this is gonna hurt ." Red smiled in a very evil way . Her prey raised both hands over her head and began a slow and complex gesture . " Wha-" " Sorry 'bout this ." Red didn't sound one bit sorry . The flash from between the other girl's hands would have been annoying in the day time with regular eyes , at night , with the Tiger's eye it felt like lava had just been injected into her eyes with a white hot syringe . She heard herself screaming so loud that she could not hear her swords hit the floor after she flung them at the red head . All she could do was hold her palms to her eyes and try to head where she remembered the exit being . Gods ! The PAIN ! A small hand stopped her . " Sorry 'bout this too ." The next five seconds consisted of random spots on her body exploding in pain before one final impact sent her high into the air . She had still been in the upstairs hallway when the flash , well , flashed . But it still gave her vision spots . It was as if the sun had decided to peek in on their living room for an instant . 'Hi , I'm about five giga candelas in your face , do you mind ?' She made it down the stairs just in time to watch Ranma's blurry form boot another , more buxom blur off into orbit . " Was that Shampoo ?" " None other ." Ranma did not bother to turn around . " Alright , now what the hell did you do ?" " A move I was taught by Loren herself . She called it 'Say Cheese' , I prefer 'God's Flashlight' ." " If I'm seeing spots , Shampoo must have two smoking holes for eyes ." She made her way downstairs to stand beside Ranma's shorter form . " Naww , she was using magic to boost her sight . The item will have absorbed most of the damage , but it was still painful . Not to mention I only used God's Flashlight at a quarter strength ." " That was a quarter ....what's full power , a nuke ?" " I once gave myself a nasty sunburn with it at full ." " Must be nice to tan with ...." Ranma thought for a moment before laughing and throwing a sisterly arm around her shoulders . " I never thought of it like that . We need to try it sometime ...sun tan at night , huh ." " Two things . Where did those swords in the wall come from and how does that flash thing work ?" Ranma’s arm around her shoulders stirred a emotion in her , but what that was she couldn’t say . It was confusing whatever it was . " Shampoo threw them where she thought I was ." Ranma slid her arm off and walked over to pull the Chinese swords out of the wall . " It's essentially two parts . Getting your opponent to look at your hands and simply using a ki pulse to cause a small pinpoint of air to incandesce . The rest is chemistry and lots , and lots of light ."