DISCLAIMER: He did it! Not me! I'm innocent! -------------------- Ranma 1/2: Finally He's Gone By Jack Staik, Bookkeeper-At-Arms -------------------- She put her street clothes in the dark bag the ninja outfit had previously occupied. The dark clothes and mask made her all but invisible in the dark night. She leapt from rooftop to rooftop, above the streetlights. No one saw her passage. At her destination, she spread the dropcloth, then unslung the case she carried over her shoulder. Her target was across the street, in the place he called home. With no wasted motions, she assembled the rifle, the tubes and boxes coming together and becoming a sleek killing instrument. She brought the weapon to her shoulder. Through the starlite scope, she saw him, nearly five hundred meters away, through a window. He was bare-chested, moving smoothly through a martial arts kata. Everyone knew he studied the martial arts, but few understood his level of mastery. Watching him move, graceful and liquid, she knew. She had been trained in martial arts herself, but she could never match his perfect form and effortless control. Seeing his strong, masculine beauty, her heart fluttered. She hesitated. Perhaps this wasn't really necessary, perhaps she could marry him and they could have a life together... Then her own memories talked to her. His indecisiveness, his erratic behavior, his inability to treat her as anything but a friend. No, not a friend, a friendly acquaintance; he often showed others the sort of affection she craved, but which she never got. The irritation fed the anger, and the anger fed the hate..And the hate consumed whatever love remained. While he lived, she could never have a love or life of her own. He was an obstacle, a fetter. He must be removed. He finished the kata and sat in lotus position, meditating. Good. He would be stationary. Center head. The silencer dampened the sound of the shot. She counted off seconds - one, two, three, four... A splash of dark erupted from his head. He fell backwards, half his skull torn away by the bullet. Quickly, quietly, she disassembled the weapon once more. She removed the dropcloth, insuring no traces remained for forensic analysis. She checked carefully for any trace of her presence. Finding none, she leapt away, across the rooftops, along a different route than the one she had followed previously. She changed back into her normal clothes, then walked calmly away. No one noticed a thing. On the way home, she passed by a mortuary. A key the owners didn't know about opened a back passage, and an alarm wasdisarmed by the usual codes.The drop cloth and ninja outfit found their way into the crematorium. Soon, that evidence would cease to exist. The weapon found it's way into a vat of high-molar acid, which then was dumped into a canal. A small bit of acid spilt on her hands, but luckily she took precautions,and the burn was minor. Now nothing remained. * * * * * * * * * * The Tendo household was in shock. The tears flowed, not just from Soun, but from Nabiki and Kasumi and especially Akane. "Damn it! Why?!?" she cried. "How could he die like that?? All this time - I never really told him how I felt, and now - " she collapsed into hysterical sobs. Genma Saotome looked downcast. He perhaps had taken him too much for granted, took too much advantage of his good nature. Now - now he was gone. Ranma walked into the house, and saw the tears flowing from all the faces."What happened? I saw the police -" "A terrible thing, Ranma-kun." Soun said, his voice heavy. "Doctor Tofu has been murdered." "What? How? Who?" "No one knows." Soun answeed. "The police said it was a sniper. The doctor never spoke of his past - perhaps he had some enemy we don't know of." Kasumi wept quite freely (aided by squeezing the acid burn on one hand). "No. No one we know would want to hurt Tofu- sensei. Excuse me." She dashed to her room, obviously distraught, As her door shut, she allowed herself a smile and a full, rich laugh. And a cry of triumph... "Finally! He's gone!" -FIN- NOTE: After Volume 13 of the manga, Doctor Tofu just vanished. The official reason; Takahashi-sama got tired of him. She didn't even care enough about the character to give him a decent write-out. Now he has one.