Subject: [FFML] [Fanfic][R1/2] Finding
From: Elin B
Date: 1/18/2004, 4:30 AM
To: ffml@anifics.com


AUTHOR'S FOREWORD: 
This story, though written later, precedes "The P-Chan Letters", which
will also now be posted to the list.

Suggestions for improvements and other comments would be much
appreciated. 
  
DISCLAIMER: The characters of "Ranma 1/2" were created and are owned by
Rumiko Takahashi. Two of them are used here, with respect but without
permission.


FINDING
by Elin B


"A sea of hatred," he had said to himself, as he crossed a parking lot
in Niigata. "Yes. That's what it feels like."
He rubbed his bleary eyes, made a note of the phrase in his head and
walked on. This was four days before the meeting.

Ryoga Hibiki could never determine if the dreams which had begun to
plague him that summer had a natural origin or not. After all, when
magic in an escapable part of your life, you can't just rule out a
supernatural explanation. But he had no real grounds to suspect that,
either. All he knew was that he had never had dreams like that before. 

Perhaps he had unwittingly angered a restless spirit, trespassing on
haunted ground somewhere in his travels. Or perhaps they simply came
from a dark place within him, through a door that had not been opened
until now.

But why now, though? He had finally made his choice, given up on the
goal the hope of which had sustained him for so long. That was over.
There was a loss there, but it did feel like the right thing to do,
finally. There was a sense of relief mixed in with the loss: the
comfort of a straighter, truer path together with a certain emptiness.
In any case, things were supposed to be easier now.

And then, around midsummer, he had the first of these strange new
nightmares. Ryoga couldn't understand it.

He had to talk to someone, finally, and there was really only one he
could turn to.

So he wrote to her asking if they could meet in this park in a week's
time.
And here they were, now, strolling through the lanes at a slow pace,
having found no benches where they could sit in private.

Akari had taken a close look at him and then asked how he was, if he
was sleeping enough. That was all the cue Ryoga needed to start talking
about the bad dreams. As he groped for words that could describe them
properly - so she wouldn't think he was making a big fuss over nothing
- some of the images rose in his mind again.


A sea of hatred, that's what it felt like...


The one where Akane, having learned about his curse, constructed a
cold, cruel punishment that she felt would teach him a lesson...But the
shame then grew far too large for him to bear. He had to give up his
own self, abandon his name, become someone else...losing everything...

The one where Akari and Akane walked away from him both, leaving him
there on the ground, their eyes and voices boring into him still with
the sheer weight of their contempt, impossible to escape. The future
painted itself before him, bleak and gray and short...

The one where he made himself break up with Akari, for his own good,
before she could be hurt worse, tearing down herself so he would not
feel any more guilt, and then left for the road...

The ones where he hurt Akane badly, sometimes even killing her...

The one where he killed Ranma and was glad, although he did not wish to
be: he was trapped in a horrible, destructive joy with no way out that
he could see...

...there were so many of these dreams, and they did not fade, they
stayed with him. He could not push them safely away to a dark corner in
his mind. Even during the day, dark thoughts filled his head as he
tried going through the latest dreams: could he have done that,
instead? or this? would that have helped? Sometimes, he came up with
another way he could have acted, but usually not. The dreams were much
more realistic and consistent than they had a right to be. 

He tried to convey all this to Akari, to explain a little about what
the dreams felt like. Perhaps he wanted to make her help him reach the
decision he was groping for.

She had listened to him attentively. They had stopped on a bridge, and
she rested her hand on the rail, but did not look down on the water
below. It must have rained quite a lot the night before, for the brook
ran very briskly for an August day .
Akari's face seemed full of sympathy as he spoke, but she had also
frowned.

"What's all this about Akane?" she asked him.

"I, um, I used to be in love with her," he mumbled. He heard her gasp. 
"She kissed me, once, and I fell in love with her," he said, kicking at
a pebble on the ground. "Only, she didn't know it was me..."

Once he'd begun like that, it was not half as hard as he had thought.
He did not have to be impossibly courageous and self-denying; he just
had to tell her what happened, one sentence at a time.

He had a feeling that for the past few days, as he was moving towards
the meeting-place in this park, he was also trying to find something
else. Perhaps it was this conversation he had been trying to find, to
see its shape and course before it took place. And even more so, the
other conversation that still waited in the future, not yet real and
fact but so powerful in its uncertainty.

So he leaned on the rail and stared down at the rushing brook, as the
words fell out of him like pebbles thrown into the water. Did he have
to tell her all of it, that too, and this part? he wondered as he
spoke. No - he swerved away from them: he could speak of those later,
if there would be a later with Akari. Stick to what was necessary, he
told himself. Explain about the truth and the dreams.

"...so, what I think now," he finished, "is that if I told her, told
her my secret by itself, well, maybe that will make one of the
nightmares come true, but not all of them. Maybe that will help
things."

Then he stopped, and turned to Akari.

Her eyes scared him. He almost took a step back - was that tears? - but
it was too late. She was already hugging him.

"Oh, how lonely you must have been!" she cried out.

The next moment, however, she stepped back and slapped him.

"You idiot!" she said forcefully. "What did you go and do something
like that for?"

Ryoga began to stammer an incoherent answer.

"Wait," said Akari, suddenly blushing. She held up her hand as if to
ward him off. "I didn't do that in the right order, did I?"

Ryoga stared at her, finding nothing to say. Well, he thought suddenly,
now it's her turn to shape this talk. I've handed the tools over to her
now.

"Don't you see what this means?" she exclaimed. She jabbed a finger
into his breast, then boxed him on the shoulder. "She doesn't love you!
She won't forgive you! I would have forgiven you!" 
She clutched her right hand with the left, holding it tightly: both
arms were trembling. 

"And now you're not mine," she said sadly. "You're not mine."

Oh no. Now he had to say something. And not just any something, but
things that were real and important. But the words were gone, the
pebbles were gone, there were only the sunlight and the trees and the
sound of running water. And, now and again, strangers passing by,
forcing the two of them to pause in their talk. Perhaps they should go
somewhere more quiet, but he could not summon the strength to do that.

She looks quite beautiful, he thought suddenly. She had always looked
quite pretty, even lovely, but he could not recall her ever looking
this beautiful. He would wonder about this, later: this was the first
time she had been angry with him, and was not anger supposed to make
you look ugly? But perhaps it also made you more real.

He thought he could feel one or two more words come back into his mouth
again, as he stood there only looking at her, hardly noticing the
passers-by.

"Akari," he started - this was the easiest of the pebbles - "Akane and
I, we're not..." He faltered, and tried again. "I mean, even if there
was a chance, we're not...I don't think he could have been a couple."

This somehow still hurt to say, though it was not supposed to. He took
a deep breath. The right words were somewhere out there, were they not?
He only had to find them and reel them in. "It's true that I wanted
that, I dreamed about it. But now..." And how truly odd this felt,
saying things like this out loud, as if Akari was a figment of his mind
and not an actual person of the flesh, standing there. He went on.

"...I don't think I would know how to be her boyfriend. I didn't know
how to go about it. I knew how to worship her from afar, and that was
it."

Akari had stopped trembling. She held her whole body very stiff.
"How can you love two people at once?" she asked. "If that is how you
feel about me..." She crossed her arms and turned away from him, her
back looking tense and angry.

There had been dreams where he killed her. Not by intention, never
that, but through careless physical strength or mindless depression
which tore them both down. Perhaps a true hero would walk away from her
now, at this point.

But that thought tasted like a nightmare in itself. He kicked it aside.

"If I *can* be with you, then I want to," he mumbled at last.

She turned and looked at him again, her gaze softer, now.
"It must be more than just honour," she said. "Those nightmares
wouldn't be so bad, if you didn't still love her."

Ryoga scratched the back of his head. Then he took another deep breath
and tried to tell Akari how he felt: that Akane had saved him once,
letting him feel love and tenderness back when revenge for his curse
had been his main goal in life. He owed Akane for that, for opening his
heart up again.

That was when Akari had hugged him for the second time. This time she
did not let go as quickly.

"Even so," she mumbled, "even so..." Then she wiped her eyes. "Well, I
guess there's nothing I can do about that, anyway," she said.

"What?"

"Never mind."

"No, tell me," begged Ryoga.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Akari's voice sounded strained now, as
she looked up at him. "Even if I don't know if you'll fall for her
again once you get there..."

"But I won't..."

"I've still got to let you go."

"I've made up my mind for good. And besides..."

"Because you still belong to her, after all," she whispered.

"...that's the only way to get rid of the nightmares," mumbled Ryoga. 

They looked at one another.

"Good luck," she whispered.

But she looks afraid, he thought. She looks far too afraid.















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