Thanks for all the comments I recieved on "Nothing Else Matters", from the
comments I recieved (both good and bad), I decided to rewrite it. This
took me a substantially longer time to do, please, as before, send all
comments personally.

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Based on comments I recieved from people who rated this fic on 100% Anime
Fanfics and on the FFML, I decided to rewrite this fic.

This fanfic was inspired by the Metallica Song of the same name.

Please send all comments/critiques to cberg@stega.smoky.org, or visit 100%
Anime Fanfics at http://www.smoky.org/~cberg/fanfics/ and check out the
fanfiction archive there.

All of this material is owned by Rumiko Takahashi

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                        Nothing Else Matters....
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                                A RanmaFic
                        By Chris Bergstrom


        He was gone, this time forever.

        Akane stood by the grave alone. Time had no meaning since his
death, so many days (years!) ago. The sky had been beckoning Akane to
leave, and had sent rain and cold her way, as if it was attepting to
persuade her that she had to leave. She had dared not budge. The razor's
edge of night blanketed the grave, a light was not shone anywhere. It was
as if death itself was watching over.

        Time is nothing in such a place.

        She had not been able (nor dared) to speak, lest she anger the
demons that took his life. She only stood, oblivious to the water coming
down around her. She had no umbrella, nor needed one. The moments lasted
an eternity, but she would not falter. She had to speak. She must appease
the devils of death. The hours standing by his grave, holding the flowers,
stretched on like the eternity of life itself. She waited a few more
moments, allowing her thoughts to congeal into a ray of hope that he was
not really dead....

        But he was. Death is inevitable, she felt her death would
definately come soon, now that she had nothing to live for. Her one true
love was dead, the sorrow was deep in her heart, her soul. Life means
nothing if it could be taken so easily, and so quickly. The tears started
to gently roll down her cheeks. it was a wonder that this had been the
first time she had cried over his death. But then, it had happened so
suddenly...
        Now was the moment, she thought, now is the moment to speak....

        "Nothing else matters now," she began, then paused. Her tears were
starting to drop to the ground, mixing with the rain to become the nectar
of life, the ambrosia of the gods. Rain and tears, her humanity was
reaching it's apex.  The stench of death was hanging in the air. Time had
spun for an eternity, and she realized that his death would not change the
course of history. Nor, would it really matter in the grand scheme of
things. It had affected her though, his death had changed her life
drastically. They may not have been important in life, but to each other,
they were the only importance.

        With this realization, she was able to continue, "Oh, Ranma! You
were always so far away, so distant! We never had the chance to be
together! Oh, Ranma! Why did you have to die?" Her voice reached a
tulmult, and lightning cracked the sky, a tree came crashing down a few
miles from where she stood. So powerful that the smell of ozone was left
in the air.  She did not notice, nor would care if she did.

        She fell to her knees.
        He was gone, that's all there was to it.

        She had trusted him to the ends of the earth and beyond. She had
never admitted her love for him.  She had never told him how much she
cared.

        And she would never be able to.

        Her voice softened to a whisper, one that almost did not reach her
own ears. "I love you, Ranma... I always did...  I can admit that now,
though it's too late for it to matter."
        The tears were now flowing freely, her face was wet and sickly
pale. She looked it was she herself who was dead, and not the corpse in
the grave before her.

        "Nothing else matters, Ranma, but you."

        The day was done, there is no way to return to the past. She would
never see him again, not in this life.

        "Oh, Ranma... it's over. It's...... over."

        They had experienced true love, and death cannot stop that. Not
with a thousand years to span between.  Time has no meaning for love.
Nothing else, but that love, matters. She stood up, the front of her dress
browned from the mud, and for the first time in hours, she looked away
from his grave. She looked across the infinate voids of space and time,
across the beaches and valleys of what was her soul. She was empty, her
soul no longer a part of her. She was just a shell of what she once was.

        Memories were all she had left of Ranma.......

        She thought back to all the times they shared, all the love she
felt but never noticed. How could she have let him die so quickly? So
carelessly?
        His life was over, there was nothing that could stop that now. She
could only bring him back through her memories, through the times she had
shared with him. If only she had been able to tell him how much she had
loved him! If only she could have been there when he died!

        But she hadn't been there for him, she had been away. And now, she
was permanently away from Ranma. Her heart hung heavy, the day was lost.

        She would never gaze upon her Ranma ever again.

        She had thought this many times in the last hours, but the
realization struck her full on the heart. She may have thought it, but she
had not said it.

        "It's over Ranma... you are gone, nothing can stop that..." she
faltered, not for the first time, searching for the correct words. The
tears were still flowing freely, thick in her throat and face. It was
getting hard for her to speak.
        "Life....  life is so.... short. We must grasp the moment when it
happens." Her voice suddenly became calm, etherial, the voice she spoke
seemed not to be her own.

        "I will never make this mistake again, Ranma."

        She approached his grave and lay the flowers, now soggy and
ruined, upon the grave of her beloved. It still had the effect she
intended. She felt Ranma's tombstone shine with a radiance of etherial
light. Ranma was close, would always be close to her, no matter what
happened.

        "Nothing else matters but you, my Ranma." With these final words,
she rose the knife she had been holding in her hand above her head. The
storm intensified, as if it knew what was to come. Death cannot stop true
love, not as long as there are worlds on which to live, and memories in
people's hearts. She brought the knife down, lightning arched again across
the sky, several trees fell around her, she was oblivious to everything,
except one thought...

        "I will always be with him...."

        Her thoughts were lost in a thousand memories, every one of them
of Ranma, and the times that she and he shared....

        The good, and the bad.....

                        Nothing else mattered.
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Creator of 100% Anime           |                Chris Bergstrom
http://www.smoky.org/~cberg     |          cberg@stega.smoky.org
                  Home of the Anime Challenge
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        -You call me a masterless man, but you are wrong.
                      I am my own master...-
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