Ryouga's stomach closed in a fit of homesickness. It had been nearly two months since they had left, and it would take them another month to return home. I'm thinking much more clearly now, he thought, must be all the silence and activity of the last few days. Maybe, Ryouga considered, when I'm back home I could have something fixed. I must not forget it again. That thing with Ranma isn't right - I must go there and try to make him reconsider the situation, and make peace with Ucchan. Maybe she doesn't care anymore, but maybe not. I know I can make it - Ranma will listen to me, if I use the right words. And even Akane will agree. It would be a little bit like the old days...
In a couple of hours, they had arrived at the serac barrier. Their pace was agonisingly slow - Ukyou was evidently spent. Slowly, the grey sky above them wasn't grey anymore. Like an immense ceiling, the big serac closing the top of the Bottleneck was growing upon them, with all its volume.
"OK - there's a fixed rope here. Must be a leftover of the Spanish expedition last summer." Ucchan carefully considered the anchorage: a group of steel, L-shaped pitons all tied together with a long runner. "Looks like it can hold. What do you think?"
"Don't know - to me it looks really decrepit and moreover, I hate fixed ropes. Better than downclimb all the way to the Shoulder with that thing aiming at our heads, anyway." He pointed at the serac. "I'll change the runner and I'll go down first. Try to rest a bit." Ukyou smiled wearily.

The last throw of the dice

Once he rearranged the anchorage, Ryouga clipped a Stitch plate (they had left their Jumar handles on the opposite side of the mountain), and slowly applied all his not inconsiderable weight on the rope. Then he started the descent. In a few seconds he was immersed in a grey wall of clouds. He stopped to check Ukyou's position. She was up there, sitting on a rock lump, her features blurred by the swirling clouds. Ryouga focused again his attention on the descent.
At the end of the rope - that was anchored as well with a large hexentric into a crack - Ryouga sat waiting for Ukyou to come. The temporary solitude was oppressive - and he couldn't wait to get out of the serac chute line. Incredibly, the terrain below seemed to decrease in verticality: it was, with all probability, the upper border of the Shoulder. Well, with a bit of fortune we'll get to the Black Pyramid this evening - and tomorrow, or the day after, down to Godwin-Austen. Then, a quick stroll to the Savoia base camp, and after that the long trek back to Askole. Ryouga felt, for the first time, that they were going to make it.
A noise came from above, like a mattress hitting against a remote obstacle. The serac is coming down, he thought casually. He looked around for a shelter, but the snow slope seemed uniformly featureless. Ryouga stood rigid, waiting for something to come out of the upper mist and crush him where he was. He felt no fear, only a vague sense of disappointment.
Nothing came. Minutes passed. Ukyou, he thought. He was disoriented. If she had fallen, the couloir would have channelled her fall, and then the slope isn't so steep... Oh, damn it! She must have collapsed on the rope, she was too tired... I must get up and see what's going on. Once he had made a decision, he grabbed the rope and started the long haul to the upper stance. The storm, as Ukyou had predicted, was intensifying fast, and Ryouga had to break trail in two feet of freshly deposited snow. The climb up was a torture. His muscles, already tender from the compression on descent, were now simply refusing to cooperate. Suddenly, he recognised the place where he had stopped to check Ucchan's conditions. Reluctantly, he looked up. The small platform was now covered again by some inch of snow, and the small boulder was still there, but Ukyou was nowhere to be seen.

The Kyoto Stone Gardens

On the belay stance, Ryouga Hibiki thought of Mick Burke, the British TV operator vanished near the top of Everest in 1975. They had discussed his fate in a smoky tea-house at Askole, on their way to Baltoro. He could remember Ukyo's hooded eyes as she explained her theory:
"You can be on the top of a mountain, at the centre of a vertiginous space completely empty. My father took me to the Fuji in pilgrimage when I was 12, and I sat there on the top, as the horizon just grew and grew again. My breath was condensing in visions, in complete, utter indifference. I felt it again only another time, just after Akane and Ranma's wedding. I was in Kyoto, at the Stone Gardens - I stared at the boulders emerging from the white sand and I imagined them as islands in the sky, the way I see big mountains. I just couldn't leave - the empty space was the same as the top of Fuji, the empty space where all sorrows are nothing but forgotten. I think that Burke did the same. He didn't die on his way up, because the top, as the garden's stones, would have attracted him irresistibly. And he didn't die on the descent, because the consciousness to have reached the top would have given him the strength to come back. I think he just sat there, on the summit, oblivious of everything."

How wrong I was

The certainty that Ukyou was dead fell on Ryouga. Knelt on the snow, he remembered the first time they had meet, a morning long passed, in a faraway place.. He sat there, thinking about the restaurant, the school, the Wedding Fiasco, trying to control himself. I did not imagine it would end that way. I'm always supposed to be the one making a dumb mistake, dying in some stupid way. It's not fair.

He didn't really knew what to do. Try to find her? She must have taken the wrong direction, and she's fallen through the external border of the ridge, all the way down to the mountain base. Or maybe, she's just lying ten meters from here, and I can't see her because of all this fuckin' mist. He started shouting her name. But the storm's howl was deafening: it was difficult for him to hear his own voice. Breathless again, he stopped. He tried to look for footprints, but the snow had cancelled everything He opened his rucksack, looking for something. There it was, in a lateral pocket - Ukyou's ribbon, that she had given to him before they started the ascent. It used to be green, but through the tears Ryouga thought that now it seemed to be of a bleached white.

I can't remember as well as I can't forget

What's happening to me, Ryouga thought while opening his way once again down the mountain, is nothing special. It's something that has already occurred to billions of people. We're all bound to lose our beloved ones. It could have happened ten years ago in a car accident, or thirty years in the future from a sudden illness. It's happened today - it's just a matter of statistics. Why do I complain? Why something so banal as the death of a human being, my Ucchan, should matter to anyone but me? The mountain doesn't care, though.
The depth of the fresh snow deposit was increasing. Ukyou died less than one hour ago, Ryouga thought, and things are already changing - the snow that I'm seeing now, in less than another hour, will be buried by other snow that now is forming one mile above my head in some cloud, and will melt once this storm ends. The storm, the snow, the wind, the mountain - they don't care about Ucchan. I'm the only one. As long as I live, as so long as I believe she's alive and I wait for her, she'll be alive somewhere.
But I won't live much longer - he thought bitterly - I need to get out of this storm soon, and I'll never found the way alone. "Ici Michel, Ici Michel...": a confused memory of a documentary he had seen ten years before. It must have happened here, Ryouga thought. That French guy who was radioed out of the Shoulder in whiteout conditions, only to die two years later over Everest. You see? It's just a matter of being ripe for it. Just a matter of statistics.
For hours, he walked trying to keep a straight line. Several times, he arrived on the icy perimeter bordering the abyss. He was terminally tired and, what was worse, he didn't care. Weariness is like fear, Ryouga thought, something that's in your stomach. But there's a point after which you don't listen to your body anymore; your stomach wants to live, but your mind doesn't care.
Maybe I should stop and wait for the storm to cease. But I've not the strength to dig a snow cave and, in the open, I wouldn't last enough. And all our remaining gas cartridges were in Ucchan's rucksack.
He fell in the snow. I feel so tired, he thought. I could probably win a weariness championship. He laughed hysterically. He laughed again, in anticipation, when he felt the dampness of the chunks of snow that had sneaked through his altitude dress, and were now inexorably melting.

A Very Fragmented Picture

P-Chan waded through the mass of bottomless snow, in an extreme and futile attempt to find his way out of the storm. Almost weightless, he swam over the sugary mass, but the snowfall was now so intense that he was in danger of being literally buried alive. Everything was white - uniform, sickening white. He couldn't discern the sky from the ground. His lungs were burning like hell, and his sight was slowly going out of focus. P-Chan laughed again. And laughed more and more listening to his piglet voice imitating a laugh. What an odd thing. Seconds ago everything was white; now I'm into a jet black curtain. Oh, it doesn't matter; because now the curtain will open, and in a few hops I'll be in the back of the Tendo's dojo. Kasumi will offer everyone tea and brownies, and Akane will hug me and sing something for me. And then we'll go in her bedroom, and she'll allow me to sleep on her pillow, and no, Akane, I don't feel like playing, I'm so tired, so bloody tired. And there's too much snow, and I feel so cold - please, Akane, let me sleep a little more, just a minute more...
But Akane was gone - and the curtain had lifted. Just for a second, Ryouga glimpsed another image. In front of him, beyond a river, stood a great city. It was burning - and he knew that he, and the other people shivering from the cold as he was on the river bank, had to ferry across the river and go into that city, because, at their back, there was no more space to retreat.
"Ne sagu nazad", not one step back, Ryouga Hibiki thought in a language he didn't knew. The line has been penetrated at several points. We're the last reinforcement and we'll get there and try to hold the beach-head across the river. What a strange thing - to be here, and I'm not even P-Chan anymore. He clenched his fist, and prepared to cross. Miles above him appeared, immense, the face of Ukyou.

She was pining to go back home

My, I can't control my limbs. My hands are shaking so much, and I can't stop crying, and if I do the wrong move, I'll lose all the hot water I've prepared. And it's not even really hot, just warm - God please help me, hope it's warm enough. And simultaneously I'm pumping pure oxygen into P-Chan's lungs, from the small bottle I had hauled up the mountain, in the bottom of my rucksack. Hell, he's not reacting. My goodness, I'm sure he's dead - he's probably got an heart attack and now, when the water will be ready, I'll have back a dead Ryouga, a stone cold, dead Ryouga. What sense does it make to come up such a dreadful mountain if you turn into a bloody swine every time you step into a drop of water! What a stupid idea it was from the beginning - this dude's place is just in bloody Japan, with someone to watch over him all the time. I can't wait any longer, I just hope it's warm enough, just warm enough - I don't have any other gas cartridge left... wake up, jackass, wake up wake up WAKE UP WAKE UP!!!!!!

Snow melts in the sun

He perceived Ukyou's head pressing against his chest. The transition had been instantaneous and disorienting, like waking up one morning in the wrong bed. Ryouga perceived first mass, then gravity again - the unique sensation to be back into our time and reality. Another thought raced through his head. Maybe it isn't true, maybe it's me and Ukyou and we're both dead. He felt again a surge of panic. He tried to scream, but his throat seemed obstructed.
Ukyou turned toward him. For one instant, she looked puzzled, as if she were having difficulty identifying him. Then she stood against the wall of the snow cave, unable to speak.
"Where are we?" The sound of his own voice surprised Ryouga. Ukyou looked at him, and Ryouga thought that as she was probably going to give some abrupt or sarcastic answer. But she simply stared at him, with an expression of deep relief, then his hand and kissed it.
"What a stupid trick to do, Ryouga."
Ryouga looked at her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, even with her deeply sunken eyes and broken lips.
"What happened at the Bottleneck?" He asked, but he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.
"I don't know. A bit of the serac has fallen, and I've beaten the hell out trying to stay on the right of the couloir. I called your name many times, but the storm was too strong. Then..."
She paused, trying to find the words.
"Then?"
"Then, I don't know - maybe I'm too tired. Anyway, I stumbled onto you while trying to get near the second icefall. I was sure you were going to get straight in the most dangerous place. I wouldn't have seen you if not for your bandanna. I thought you were dead, Ryouga. Or better, you probably were and then you're resurrected. Welcome back to our world, jackass." She smiled again.
Ryouga closed his eyes. He discovered he was happy, and considered how mysterious and powerful was that sensation. He closed his eyes and inhaled again the tenuous air of the 8000 meters.
"Sorry to interrupt your reveries, Ryouga, but I think you have to dress, and try to help me out of here. I can't even stand on my feet."
She continued to smile.

Blind Cassiopeia

For Ryouga, the next 48 hours were one long and continuos dive. Ukyou couldn't walk anymore: her toes were frostbite, as all the fingers of her right hand. She couldn't held onto the fixed ropes - Ryouga had to literally drag her down, out of the Shoulder's limbo.
They found the ropes more easily than presumed. Ryouga made an improvised harness for Ukyou, and tied her on his back. Anyone else couldn't have found the strength to haul her down all through the 2000 meters of the Abruzzi spur but, now, Ryouga was a man with a purpose. All his strength was returning. Whether it was because they were plunging back into the denser strata of the atmosphere, or because of some other internal drive, Ryouga hadn't felt so strong since his days of training in the mountains along with Cologne.
However, their descent from the mountain was still a fighting retreat. The Black Pyramid was completely white, plastered by a three-inches coat of verglas. The ladders on the House Chimney were useless, buried as they were under the ice. Ryouga had to rappel where possible, and downclimb where not. Ukyou was semi-delirious, but her vital signs were good. It was now a matter of coming down fast, and ask for help at the military base at Liligo, a few miles south-west of Concordia.
The lower, easier slopes were even more arduous - there was an unimaginable quantity of snow. Here, the only thing that Ryouga could do was plod down, front pointing step by step and stopping every twenty meters to take his breath. Nevertheless, he was feeling exhilarated, albeit still worried for Ukyou's conditions. They didn't even really bivouac: Ryouga's sleep was limited to a few and sparse naps, resting his body against the rock, dozing intermittently, awakening at Ukyou's every moan. The second night on the spur the sky cleared partially for some minute. Ukyou was laying on her back, her face exposed to the sky. Suddenly, she covered her eyes.
"Is everything OK?" Ryouga asked.
"I don't know - it's just that Vega is blinding me."

Now, I'm back again into this city

Three days after reaching K2's summit and eight after their departure from the Savoia basin, in a steel grey morning, Ryouga Hibiki and Ukyou Kuonji reached the Godwin Austen Glacier and, three hours later, the site of the traditional base camp. No one was in. Using stones and scavenging the remains of the previous expeditions, Ryouga made a shelter for Ukyou. She was in pain, but more or less attentive. Before leaving for the four hour walk to Concordia, Ryouga slept a bit on a flat rock near Ukyou. When the alarm clock awoke him, she was looking at the summit of K2, now peeking out of the clouds. The view was fantastic - the Mushroom, a suspended glacier over the SSW ridge, looked like an ancient fortress.
"We did it, Ryouga. We really did it. Didn't it seem to you as if it had been impossible?"
She was right. It was a familiar moment after every difficult climb, when you look back at the summit and ask yourself: have I really been there? Really - me?
Ryouga thought: hadn't we crawled up to the summit, it wouldn't mean nothing to us. These pillars, the web of ice encrusted the cracks and couloirs, they are signals we give a significance each time we come here.
In Ryouga's mind, the Godwin Austen moraine was a prehistoric highway over the streaming bed of ice. On the opposite side there was the small rocky pyramid of the Gilkey Memorial, with all the names of climbers fallen on K2 written on improvised plaques, made out of frying pans and tin plates.
He knelt near Ukyou: "While we were high on the mountain, I thought that maybe, when back in Tokyo, I would get in touch with Ranma and settle things." His voice sounded as if he finally felt all his obligations had been finally met.
Ukyou lifted here eyes. They were beautiful, full of sadness and understanding.
"There's no chance to repair the evil that I did to Ranma and that Ranma did to me, if evil has it really been. Maybe Ranma could change his mind, but I don't think so, and probably it wouldn't be right. You can't change the rules of a game when you're losing, Ryouga. But it doesn't matter anymore, because I feel for you something for which there are no words. You're bound to fight against the inevitable as I tried once, but you're the only person I know that could really do this, and win his battle against time. And that's why I love you, Ryouga Hibiki."
Ryouga smiled, and felt the darkness inside him rent asunder. He put on his rucksack, and raced down the glacier, toward Concordia.

Later: Altair

Ryouga sat inside the Nekohanten, waiting for Shampoo to get ready for the New Year's Eve party at Ucchan's. He was trying to focus his eyes on the small letters on the border of the "K2" menthol cigarette packet. He had got the habit while convalescing on the Islamabad military hospital, after treatment for minor frostbite. Everyone else said that these cigarettes were the worst - Ryouga had bought two crates of them before leaving Pakistan. He was fascinated by the image drawn on the packet - K2 as it is seen from Concordia. He put his fingers on the top and let it slide down along Abruzzi's spur, trying to put in relation every place on the image with his own memories. The Bottleneck, the Shoulder, The Black Pyramid, The Red Towers, House Chimney... his finger always came back to the top. Only six month before he had been there. There. There. There...
Cologne came to the table, bringing an opened Kirin. "Shampoo's getting ready. She'll be here in a minute."
Ryouga didn't answer. The temperature inside the restaurant was suffocating.
"If you don't mind, I'll wait outside. It's too hot here." He got the bottle and left.
The street before the Nekohanten was covered by a thin layer of snow and empty, except for a tall and gaunt figure staring at the restaurant's ensign. He had a carefully trimmed short beard and a regular tan that contrasted with his fashionable grey dress.
It was Kuno.
"I wasn't sure about the place. I mean, it has been so many years ago." Ryouga was glad to see him - he got another beer and a chair, and they sat outside the Nekohanten's door.
Kuno was back in town for some month, before his next assignment - he planned to get married with an Italian girl before the end of next year. He needed some rest and Ryouga noticed how Tatewaki's eyes always stared at an indefinite point before him. His next to last responsibility had been in Central Africa. Here, another inter-tribal war had exploded - United Nation's intervention had been, as often, too late and not enough to prevent a genocide.

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