SAISHU NO WAKARE
                             (Final Farewell)

     Ranma awoke in a cold sweat in his bed, the morning light
blinding him temporarily as he opened his eyes and beheld the dawn
of a new day.  <D-damn.  It was just a dream>, he thought to
himself.  He sat up and clutched his forehead in one clammy hand,
the other resting on the blanket.  <It...it had been so real>.  Beside
him, Akane stirred and reached a hand out, questing for him.  Ranma
smiled and put his hand on hers.  Her fingers latched onto his with an
intense fervour and she drew him close to her.

     He responded and brought his face close to hers.  And he kissed
her lightly, a soft brush of his lips that belied the intensity of emotion
he was feeling at the moment.  Love first and foremost, mixed with a
considerable amount of....relief.  His eyes began to tear up but he
blinked the tears away.  <Don't think about it>, he told himself. 
But it was hard not to.  It seemed like it had only happened
yesterday, instead of six weeks ago.  The vividness of that moment
still hadn't diminished in the slightest.  An involuntary tear rolled
down his face and he quickly wiped it away.

     Then he lay down and enfolded Akane in his arms.  A gentle
yet firm grip, a brush of skin on skin, the cool breeze blowing in
from the window.  This was what he needed to get a grip on himself. 
Akane snorted and instinctively snuggled closer to him, her face on
his chest.  Ranma rested his chin on Akane's head and lay there,
thinking of the dream that he had.....
                                   * * *
     Ukyo was walking beside him on a road next to a field full of
wildflowers.  They were both grown up and she was dressed as
Ranma had last remembered her.  She had black tights on and she
wore her favorite okonomiyaki shirt - the one that reached halfway
down her thighs and was tied up at her waist.  Her hair, cascading
down her back, with a white ribbon in it.  The only things she was
missing were that bandolier and her giant spatula.

     He remembered her hugging him.  It was a gentle hug, nothing
at all like how the fierce embraces he usually got - right before Akane
malleted him.  It was an embrace full of unspoken meanings and
emotion, and he had returned without reservation, for nowhere
around could he see any signs of civilization, or other people.  

     It was out of love that he had hugged her back, but it was not
the kind of love he reserved for Akane.  It was deep friendship, and
the both of them had known it.  Then they broke the hug and Ranma
continued walking with Ukyo up the road.

     They were the only ones in this semi-surreal world of humming
insects that played in a score that included bird song and the rustle of
the wind in the tall summer grasses.    It was like a symphony of
life, Ranma mused.  A cloudless sky with a mantle of blue covering
the whole of the earth, and a sun lending life to everything under its
gaze, provided for a background scenery as the insects, the birds, and
the wind sang their song.  

     Then he took a step forward and noticed that Ukyo was no
longer beside him.  He looked back and he saw Ukyo standing in the
field.  How did she get there?  He took a step towards her...or tried
to, but he kept moving up the road.  Everytime he tried to move
towards Ukyo, who was in the field, he advanced the same distance
away.  "Ucchan!!!  Come on!!  Come with me!!", he yelled as he
stretched his hand out to her.  

     Ukyo just gave him a smile, full of longing and love, and
unspoken words.  Then she waved goodbye and began to walk off
through the meadow.  Ranma cried out again and tried to reach her,
but he kept progressing further and further until Ukyo was a small
figure in the distance.  She turned about then and waved again.  Then
the shade of a tree's branches hid her from view and.....
                                   * * *
     That was when he woke up.  <Ukyo....>

     He looked down guiltily at his wife and stroked her hair.  She
just kept on snoring away into his chest.  <That's the Akane I
know>, he thought wryly to himself.  Releasing Akane, Ranma sat
up and went to the washroom.

     He looked at himself in the mirror and grimaced.  God, he
looked like hell.  He touched the bristle growing on his chin and over
his upper lip.  And to think that just five years ago, when he was
sixteen, he had worried about NOT growing a beard.  It came with
growing up, he supposed.  He reached for the razor, to make himself
presentable, but he paused.  <I wonder....>  He turned the cold
water tap on and lowered his face to the stream.  Then he splashed a
handful of water on his face.

     Instantly the curse took effect and he shrank in size and became
a woman.  Then she looked up into the mirror, turning off the cold
water tap as she did.  The bristle was gone.  

     Yes!  A revolutionary turn of events for men everywhere who
didn't like to shave!!  Just dunk yourself in Jusenkyo's very own
nyannichuan and you will never have to shave again!!  

     <Hah.>  Ranma-chan stood back from the basin and examined
herself.  Her female body had aged at the same rate as her male body
did.  Where a cute girl would have been standing five years ago, a
thoroughly beautiful and sexy *woman* now posed before the mirror,
her red pigtail hanging seductively over her shoulder and brushing a
straining breast under a sheer, sleeveless shirt....Ranma-chan
shuddered at that thought.  She could never think of herself as a
woman.  Never, never, never.  

     "Morning, Ranma."

     Ranma-chan jumped and turned about.  Akane stood there in her
nightgown, grinning at her.  Then she brushed past Ranma-chan and
she went to the basin, to brush her teeth.

     "M-morning, Akane."  Ranma-chan flushed a deep red.  Caught
posing in front of the mirror *again*!!  Really, this curse was causing
her more trouble day by day.  Swallowing her embarrassment, she
butted in beside Akane and began to brush her teeth as well.

     Her thoughts returning to her dream, Ranma-chan couldn't help
but think about Ukyo.  Akane was saying something but she didn't
hear a word of it.  Right now, all her senses were directed inwards to
try and remember how Ukyo had sounded like.  Try as she might,
she couldn't recall anything at all.  Not until she tried `Ran-chan'. 
Those words had flowed from Ukyo's lips countless of times in
greeting, or in jest.  In sorrow or in anger.  But no matter the reason,
`Ran-chan' had been said with love at its essence.  

     Unrequited love now that is.  Forever....and....and ever.  A hot
tear drop fell from her face and hit Akane's hand, which was just
reaching for the hot water tap.  Akane's hand paused, and then she
turned to Ranma-chan.

     "Ranma....what's wrong?", she asked with concern.

     "Nothing.  Nothing at all, Akane."

     Akane brought her hand up to her lips, and tasted the tear drop
with the tip of her tongue.  Ranma-chan wrenched the hot water tap
on and splashed her face with it.  His tears mixed with the comforting
warmth of the stream of water and he wept silently.  Then he felt a
hand lift him up from the basin by the chest.  Akane's hand.

     "Ranma....I'm sorry.  I should have known."

     "Don't be, Akane.  It's just that....that I still remember it so
clearly."  Ranma turned the tap off and turned away from Akane, so
that she couldn't see his tears.

     "We have already said...our goodbyes, Ranma.  Please, let her
go.  I weep for her too, Ranma, but...but we can't change what had
happened in the past."  

     "Past it may be, but it is still there.  Ucchan...."

     And Ranma's memories fell back six weeks.  To that day of
sorrow......
                                   * * *
     It was a morning under grey clouds when they had assembled at
the place.  Ranma, Akane, all the Tendos and Saotomes.  Shampoo,
Mousse and Cologne.  Ryoga and Akari.  Even Happosai.  All wore
clothing of purest white as they assembled around a grave.  Ukyo
Kuonji's final resting place.

     An illness of some sort, the doctors couldn't identify it, had
struck Ukyo two weeks before.  It progressed with a fury that stole
the spark of life from Ukyo and rendered her bedridden.  Ranma
could still remember the moment she had passed away.  

     She had opened her eyes, while lying in her bed, and she had
whispered two words in a voice so soft that only Ranma could hear. 
He remembered leaning with his ear close to her lips as everyone else
in the room strove, in vain, to hear what Ukyo was saying.

     "Wakare, Ranchan", had come her voice in a trembling whisper
meant for his ears only.  

     Farewell, Ranchan.  Then she had squeezed his hand in one last
grip, full of unspoken love, and she had closed her eyes.  And passed
away into the realm of spirit, her going-away seeming to leave a
vacuum of feeling in Ranma, a void that he couldn't fill no matter
what he did.  

     For one of the rare times in his life, he had wept.  Fiercely and
unashamedly.  No words had come.  Though he had tried to bid her
farewell, he couldn't.  Silence had greeted silence, except for his sobs
of anguish splitting the air apart with their intensity.

     The Ucchan had been closed down and Nabiki had taken care of
all the legal details.  Ranma had told her NOT to sell the restaurant
under any circumstances, and Nabiki had merely looked him in the
eye, and had said, "I wasn't planning to, Ranma."
     
     Ranma's thoughts returned to the present when the priest read
out the final rites.  All assembled spoke the ritual words in
solemnness.  Then the casket was laid in the ground and one by one
people came forward, with their last words and parting gifts.  Ryoga
gave a bandanna, while Akari draped a silken handkerchief,
embroidered with little pigs, on the casket.

     Cologne gave a beautifully wrought jade brooch, while Mousse
placed a kiridashi beside the brooch.  
     
     Shampoo came forward then.

     "Zaijian....wo de pengyou."  She placed a bonbori reverently on
the side of the casket and stepped back, tears already welling up in
her eyes.  No doubt, for all her talk of `killing' and `slaying',
Shampoo's first encounter with death had sobered up her view of the
world.  With no one else to hold, with Ranma on the other side of the
grave, Shampoo laid a hand on Mousse's and squeezed.  Mousse
hardly noticed at all, for once seeing without his glasses.

     The adults of the gathering gave flowers.  Nabiki took a piece
of paper, with writing on it, out of her pocket and tore it in two. 
These she laid on the casket, putting Cologne's brooch over the
pieces to keep them from flying away.  Ranma caught the words
`Loan' before Nabiki strategically placed Mousse's kiridashi over the
words.  

     Akane produced the framed picture of the group shot that was
taken on Toma's island.  This she put, with great care, inside the
grave and on the casket.
     
     Ranma came forward last of all, right after Akane.  He laid a
hand on the wood.

     "Ukyo.  You have been....my best friend.  I'm no good at this
sort of thing, as you already know, so I'll....I'll make it short. 
Farewell, Ucchan.  We will always...."

     Ranma choked and struggled to regain his composure.  

     "...We will always....remember you.  Ucchan.  I'm sorry I
have...nothing to give you.  I'm sorry."

     Akane laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke words of comfort. 
He put a trembling hand on Akane's.

     "All I can give you is my farewell, Ucchan.  Please forgive
me."

     And he turned away, so that he wouldn't have to see the first
spadeful of soil being put in.  
                                   * * *
     Ranma left the bathroom, followed closely by Akane.  He sat
down heavily on the bed and sighed.  Six weeks had done nothing at
all.  His best childhood friend was gone and he had done little but
comfort her.  He....he wanted to have done more for Ukyo.  It was
not fair!  

     It was because of him that Ukyo had gone through all that she
did.  Hell, she had even opened a restaurant so that she could support
herself as she lived in the same town as Ranma did.  That had
showed alot of strength of character on her part, as well as being
coupled with a fierce, unabashed love for him and for life in general.  

     Was there a week that had gone by without him eating at least
one of her okonomiyaki?  Did he or didn't he help her through that
boom in her business, until she could hire more help?  Why, it had
only seemed like yesterday that he was just chatting with her about
life in general while gobbling down an okonomiyaki.....
     
     Even now Ranma thought he could just hop down to the Ucchan
and see her cooking the okonomiyaki with enthusiasm while handling
two different phone calls at once and serving customers with zest.  It
would be as if nothing had ever happened, nothing had ever changed. 
There she would be, envisioned Ranma, flipping an okonomiyaki to a
customer.  Then call out a greeting to a regular, and then speak on
the phone to her friends.  Long brown hair flying, eyes wide with
excitement, the smell of cooking permeating the atmosphere.  That is
the trademark of the Ucchan - enthusiasm and a love for cooking and
pleasing the customer.

     And there he would be, with Akane at his side, waving to
Ukyo.  She would flip them two okonomiyaki and keep on working,
albeit with less emphasis on the cooking and more of her attention
directed to Ranma.  Maybe....just maybe...nothing had ever changed. 
Perhaps if he ran down there fast enough....she would still be.... 

     One look at Akane's sober face destroyed that fantasy.  God, he
missed her.  <Wakare, Ranchan.....>, rang her words in his mind
over and over again.  She had said...goodbye.  After a journey of a
thousand miles, searching for him, trying to become his wife but
failing, she finally ended her too-short quest with an uttered farewell
to him.  Her best friend and fiance.  It felt, in some way, his fault
that Ukyo had passed away.  

     Ranma silently changed into his red shirt, which Kasumi had
modified to fit his bigger frame, and his black pants.  Then he left the
room.

     "Where are you going, Ranma?", asked Akane.

     "Out for a walk.  I'll be back later, Akane."

     And he felt Akane's eyes follow him all the way down the
hallway and out of the house.

     Ranma stepped out of the Tendo Dojo into the sunlight.  It was
a warm day and he basked in the heat of summer as he left the Dojo
boundaries and walked to the Ucchan, like he had done everyday for
the past week or so.  His feet traced familiar paths and he deftly
avoided the old woman with the ladle of water.  Down an alleyway
and over that house.  Past Furinkan High and turn that corner....

     The Ucchan.  It looked the way it had always been, except the
windows were shut and the door was locked.  It had the feel of Ukyo
all about it.  Indeed, she had spent most of her time after school
running the business.  And when the day ended, she would retire to
her room upstairs.  In short, it was her life.  

     Ranma walked up to the front door and paused.  He hadn't
entered since her passing away, but right now he needed to *feel*
Ukyo - and maybe reconcile himself to her.  Yes.  That's it.  He
produced a key and unlocked the front door, and stepped inside.  A
thin layer of dust covered everything, from the chairs to the tables to
the grill, and the seats by the counter.  Any moment now, Ucchan
would come running out of her room to see who it was.... 
     
     But she didn't come.  He imagined Ukyo behind the counter,
smiling at him even as she scraped the grill clean.  He walked over to
the seat by the counter, his favorite one, and sat down.  Then he
rested his elbows on the counter and stared sightlessly into the semi-
darkness.

     "Ucchan.  I'm sorry for coming into your place without asking
your permission, but I feel as if I hadn't said my goodbyes yet."     
Ranma sighed.  "I know I said goodbye...at the service, but I didn't
even say anything like that when you bid me farewell.  `Wakare,
Ranchan', you had said.  Well, I would like to say goodbye in the
same way, but it is not the same.  Not the same without you here to
hear me."

     Ranma shifted around on his seat and faced the spot where Ukyo
would have stood if she...she was still alive.

     "Do you remember our childhood together, Ucchan?  Of course
you do.  How could we forget the fun days we had?  And the day
you scraped your knee on that stone, I remember how you...you
shrieked as the iodine was rubbed into the wound.  Then we climbed
that tree and couldn't get down until my dad pulled the both of us
from there.  And our daily fights.  Yes.  Do you remember them?"

     Ranma didn't feel the least strange talking to the air.  To him,
the Ucchan would always answer - in his heart.  He knew what Ukyo
would say, and he believed that Ukyo would have said them as he
asked his questions.  "Yes, Ranchan!" or "Those were the times,
right Ranchan?" had been her typical answers.

     Ranma got up and went around the counter.  There.  A spot on
the floor worn bare by her constant pacing and moving about.  He
squatted down and rubbed it with his fingers, feeling the smoothness
of the wood in that spot.  

     A glint of metal caught his eye and he peered under the counter. 
Ukyo's big spatula and her bandolier.  He pulled them out with
trembling hands and stood up.  And he placed them on the grill and
looked down at Ukyo's equipment.

     Suddenly, seized by an urge he couldn't explain, Ranma went
upstairs to Ukyo's room and entered it.  

     Here.  

     This was where Ukyo had passed away.  Ranma felt tears
welling up again but he swallowed and pushed them away.  And he
walked about the room, feeling the presence of Ukyo all about him. 
The room was sparse, yet comforting in a fashion.

     A little blue book caught his attention.  It was centered right on
her desk and it seemed to beckon to him.  Ranma picked it up and
opened it tentatively.  It...it was Ukyo's diary and in her handwriting. 
He turned to the bookmark in the diary and read what was written
there.

--------------------
June 29th, 1992
--------------------
Dear diary, I hope to go on a date with Ranchan today, my FIRST
ONE, - that is, if my business allows me to.  I know the regulars
won't really mind....

     I know of a place we both could go to!  I'll get the train tickets
for the both of us for a round trip back to my old town.  I've always
wanted to visit that place, and especially that meadow we used to play
in when we were kids.  Anyhow, better get back to schoolwork or
else my grades will suffer.....
-------------------

     Ranma flipped the page, but it was blank.  The next one was
blank too.  Then he caught sight of two pieces of paper bookmarking
a certain part of the diary and he flipped to that.

-------------------
July 1st, 1992
-------------------
Dear diary, I finally got the train tickets for our date.  They're the
indefinite kind, the ones that aren't postdated, and I hope to catch
Ranchan for a visit back home.  I don't feel too well right now, but
in a couple weeks' time I should feel much better.  I don't have the
strength right now to write more....and I'd better shut down the
Ucchan until I get better.  
-------------------

     Ranma pulled a train ticket out and looked at it for a long
moment.  Then he put it in his pocket and shut the diary.  He left the
room, closing the door behind him, and he scooped up Ukyo's spatula
and her bandolier.  He left the Ucchan and headed off with a purpose
for the first time in six weeks.  He was finally going to make peace
with Ukyo.
                                 - - - - -
     Ranma stepped off the train and left the train station behind. 
The town where he had grown up in had changed.  Then again, it
HAS been fifteen years, hasn't it?  Memory guided his steps through
the town and to the spot where the okonomiyaki cart would have been
if his father hadn't taken it.  It was no longer the same.  Carts selling
ramen and various other foodstuffs now occupied the streetside, but
no one was selling okonomiyaki.  <Fitting...>, Ranma supposed. 
He walked down the street and weaved in between people and made
his way out of the town.

     He reached the beginnings of the meadow via a winding road. 
Strangely, it was still untouched by real estate developers.  And he
took his first tentative step into its greenery since his abrupt departure
fifteen years ago.  The sights and sounds of the field of life enfolded
him and he followed a well-trod path - to the big rock that sat like
some brooding giant in the middle of the field. 

     A mountain, it had seemed to him when he was young, and a
mountain it still seemed.  It hadn't changed a bit, this immutable rock
where he and Ucchan would have scaled to look down over their
domain.  With a leap, he soared in the air and landed lightly on the
rock.  Ranma laid the spatula and the bandolier on the rock and he sat
down.  

     Here was the spot where he had usually sat, and there was
where Ucchan would have perched.  Ranma contemplated the spot
now, imagining Ukyo sitting there, her long hair hiding her back as
she faced away from him, long legs curled up beneath her.  He
imagined her turning about and pointing out some wonder of nature
they hadn't seen yet, an excited smile on her face.  

     Then they would have sprung off the rock and run, to catch the
dragonfly or to watch the dandelion puffs spin in the wind, one by
one spiralling into the heavens.  Perhaps he would catch her and
initiate a wrestling match.  Or, maybe she would race him back to the
rock.

     Or, maybe she would unwrap her lunch and share a slice of
okonomiyaki with him.  He would always slink about her, like a
predator, and try to take pieces of okonomiyaki from her without her
knowing.  It had become a game of sorts with the both of them,
Ranma trying to sneak a piece, Ukyo trying to eat it up as fast as she
could.

     Ranma patted the spatula and felt a pang in his heart.  This was
the spatula she had always worn.  Day in, day out, it was slung on
her back.  It never left her side.  And this bandolier, it always graced
her front and added a feeling of the martial spirit to her feminine
curves, for it would usually be filled with throwing spatulas.  He
could almost imagine her wearing them.  Almost.

     All they were missing....was Ucchan herself.  

     "Ucchan......"
     
     "Ranma."

     Ranma started and looked around in great surprise.  Ukyo?! 
Where is she?  She...she isn't gone after all!

     Something poked his leg from below and he looked down.  It
was....Akane.

     "Akane!?  H-how did...did you get here?"

     "I followed you.  I read the destination on that ticket and I
simply took the same train as you did."  She looked up into his eyes,
matching him gaze for gaze.

     "Akane, you didn't use...use the ticket, did you?"

     "Do I look insensitive to you, Ranma?  Of course I didn't."

     Ranma sighed and swung down from the rock, grabbing the
spatula and the bandolier as he did.

     "Look, Akane.  I can explain this....."

     Akane threw herself into a hug with Ranma, holding him tight. 
No words broke the sounds of nature for a long time, and Ranma
hugged her back.  Then she spoke.

     "Ranma....this is eating you up from the inside.  I know you
didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to Ukyo.  God knows that
I know, seeing you mope for six weeks straight.  But is this how
Ukyo would want you to do?  I...I know she really loved you,
Ranma.  I can even forgive her attempts to bomb me at our first
failed wedding - she had seen you slipping away from her fingers. 
She had known you first before I did, or Shampoo, or even Kodachi. 
It just didn't seem fair, to her."  

     Akane took a deep breath.     "So, that's it.  People don't see
how I could forgive her at all, but I can.  Four years takes alot out of
a person's spite for another, and I didn't have the energy to waste in
a vendetta against Ukyo."  Akane looked up into Ranma's face. 
"Anyhow, enough about me.  I have said my goodbyes, Ranma, to
her.  Can you do the same?  Ukyo would not want you going through
your days like this."

     Ranma took Akane's hand in response and led her through the
meadow, the both of them not saying a word.  Ranma stopped at a
certain tree and he bent down, and he saw the faintest scratchings of
hiragana.  His name, written in hiragana, was above Ukyo's name,
also etched in hiragana.  His eyes made out other writing, mostly
declarations of friendship, that progressed from a child's eye level in
a spiral that worked its way down the tree trunk.  He and Akane bent
low to read the writing.  Ranma's words abruptly stopped but Ukyo's
continued onwards.  "I hope he comes back"...."Where is he? 
Ranchan?"....all the way down the tree to its base, where the last
words were "I'll find him wherever he is."

     Ranma sat down on the ground heavily.  He was going to have
to give Pop a really severe beating in practice today, or tomorrow. 
Akane sat down beside him, and Ranma leaned back on the tree.  A
falling leaf fell as the wind swept the branches and it landed just
ahead of Ranma's feet.  The two of them didn't speak for a long
while, then Ranma broke the silence.

     "We always came to this tree, Ukyo and I.  And with one of her
father's spatulas, we would carve stuff into the trunk every once in a
while, when we felt like it.  This tree, and the rock, were our secret
bases, gateways to the dreamworld of the meadow.  This was our
domain, we had told ourselves.  We would never grow up to become
adults so long as we remained in this place.  We would never age,
nor change....nor die.  Immortality was ours!  As long as we never
left its boundaries, we were destined to be children forever.  Well,
that was what we thought.  Maybe....maybe it is true.  Maybe this
meadow is like a magical place.  But who knows now?  Especially
now."

     Ranma looked over at Akane.  She motioned for Ranma to
continue, watching the leaves fall from the tree.

     "Anyways, it was where we came to hide from what our fathers
had demanded that we do.  She came after okonomiyaki cooking
practice, and I after martial arts.  And we played many different
roles, back then.  Safari hunter, aeroplanes acting out a
dogfight...you name it, we played it.  All except `House'.  The issue
of marriage, or fiancees or fiances had never crossed our minds."

     Akane didn't reply and Ranma fell silent.  The long minutes
passed lazily and the song of the meadow sang them into a drowsy
state.  Akane leaned over to Ranma and held his arm.  Then the both
of them heard laughter, high pitched and tinkling.  They opened their
eyes and looked at the big rock, where the sound was coming from.  

     Two children, about six or seven in age, were scaling the rock. 
One child, wearing a red shirt, crouched on the top of the rock and
looked up into the sky, his mouth wide with wonder.  The second
child, obviously a girl by the way she was dressed, clambered up
beside him and stared at the sky as well.  The boy pointed out a cloud
shape and the girl squealed with amusement.  They took turns
pointing out clouds, and dragonflies, and anything in the sky that
caught their fancy.

     "Look...an ae-ro-plane!!  Zoom!!  Zoom!!"

     "It is...making clouds!!  Look!  Wow...."

     Ranma stood up and brought Akane up with him.  Then he hung
the bandolier on a low hanging branch.  He gave it, and the tree, one
final pat of farewell, and he lead Akane to the big rock.  The two
children sat up and waved to the two of them.  Akane waved back
and soon the children of two generations met face to face.

     "Hi!!  My name is Tobimaru!  What's yours?", squeaked the
boy.

     "And I'm Haneda!", added the girl.

     Ranma smiled.  The inheritors of the meadow had come to
claim their place at last, in the form of Tobimaru and Haneda. 
Ranma reverently laid the spatula beneath the big rock and took a step
back.  The two children regarded the shiny item inquisitively.

     "Tobimaru....Haneda?  Please don't take the spatula away,
alright?  Whatever you do, just leave it where it is", said Ranma to
the two children.  They nodded and took turns feeling it, but they
respected Ranma's wishes and didn't move it from its final resting
spot.  Then Ranma bent down and picked up a rock.  He began to
inscribe words on the rock's side with painstaking care.  The two
children and Akane watched him in curious silence.  He finished and
dropped the piece of rock.  He stood up and turned about, as if
composing himself.

     "Ranma....?", inquired Akane.  Ranma smiled reassuring at her
and turned to face the big rock, and the tree further off, where the
bandolier swung in the wind.  Akane scooped the two children up and
put them down from the rock.  This was going to be an important
moment for Ranma.

     "Ucchan....I will never forget you.  I never said goodbye but
this is where it all started, so I thought it would be fitting to make
peace with you here.  You bid me farewell just before you....left. 
I'll bid you farewell, in my own words and my own way, in this
meadow where everything began."

     Ranma heard the wind rustle the tall summer grasses and the
leaves of the trees in response to his words.  He took a deep breath
and put his hand on the spatula for the last time.

     "Wakare, Ucchan.  I'll...I'll really miss you."

     With that, Ranma took Akane's hand and led her from the field
of memories, following the well-trod path, and back to the road that
led to the town, and to the real world, leaving the unchanging
meadow behind them.

     On the way back, inside a booth of the train, Akane turned to
Ranma.

     "What did you write on the rock, Ranma?"

     Ranma smiled and stroked her face with his fingers.

     " `Saishu no wakare, Ucchan' ", he said as he dipped his head
close to kiss her.

---------------------------

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     -WebDragon