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"Autumn and Spring"
by Angus MacSpon

Based on "Ranma 1/2" created by Rumiko Takahashi.

C&C Welcome!

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- 7 -

"Finding her will be the difficult part," said Ukyou.

"You think so?" wondered Ranma.  "We're still assuming she's alive.  Is
she? Do you even know that much?"

"No," she answered quietly.  "But it doesn't matter.  After what I've
found out, how can I hold back?  One way or another, I have to know."
Her eyes burned as she said, "Do you think I could sleep at night,
knowing I'd abandoned her to ... to _that_?  Could _you_?"

Ranma stared at her, open-mouthed.  Then, slowly, he shook his head.

"No," she said, her momentary anger fading.  "Besides ... even if she's
dead, _it_ might not be.  We might be able to kill it."

Ranma's grin was vicious.  "Now that sounds like a good plan to me," he
said.

"Don't be too eager," she warned him.  "Think about what this ... thing
can do.  It controlled Shampoo's mind, making her think she had a great-
grandmother who never actually existed.  It controlled _all_ our minds,
made us see what it wanted us to see.  Now, maybe there's some way to
fight something like that.  But _I_ don't know how."

"Ahh, don't worry about it.  I'll find a way.  I always do."

"Typical," she murmured.

He grinned in reply.  Then, serious once more, he said, "What the hell
is the thing, anyway?  Some kind of demon?"

Ukyou raised her eyebrows.  "Who knows?  Call it that if it makes you
feel better.  Whatever it is, my guess is that Shampoo stumbled onto it,
somewhere, on her way back to Joketsuzoku.  It ... took control of her,
somehow.  She never reached the village.  Instead, it turned her back
toward Japan."

"That's another part I don't understand," Ranma complained.  "Why did it
make her go back to Tokyo?  Why was it trying to help her marry me?"

"You expect me to have all the answers?"  Ukyou sighed.  "We may never
know.  Or maybe you'll be able to ask _it_ that, when we find it."

"You seem to have theories about everything else..."

She snorted.  "I've had a while to think about it.  Well ... I think
maybe it was actually trying to help Shampoo get what she wanted.  In
exchange for ... whatever it took from her, perhaps."

Ranma laughed bitterly.  "It'd have had an easier time siccing her onto
Mousse.  At least he -- hey!  What _about_ Mousse, anyway? Was he just
another figment of our imaginations?"

"No," Ukyou said sadly.  "He was real enough.  When I visited
Joketsuzoku twenty years ago, I met him there.  He didn't recognise me.
He didn't even recognise Shampoo's name.  The whole time he was in Japan
had just been ... erased."  After a moment she added, "He died about
fifteen years ago."

Ranma nodded, but did not reply at once.  At last he said, "I'd always
assumed that he'd married Shampoo.  I mean ... it was pretty obvious she
liked him.  Even if she didn't want to admit it.  But this -- to make
him forget all about her, after everything he went through -- it seems
like such a waste."

Ukyou nodded.  "He asked me if I knew what had happened to him during
his missing years.  I didn't know what to say.  It seemed ... in the end
I told him I didn't.  It seemed kinder.  But ... it had been preying on
his mind for so long ... I'm not sure if I did the right thing ..."

"I --"  Ranma hesitated.  "I'm not sure what I'd have said either," he
admitted reluctantly.  "Ucchan, I wish to hell you'd called me about
this twenty years ago, when you first found out what had happened."

Ukyou flushed, looking ashamed.  "I've thought about that, many times,"
she said.  "But until I found that new clip this afternoon, I thought --
I still hoped -- that I might be deluding myself.  But even so --

"Ran-chan, we still have no idea where to find the thing."  She sighed.
"At first I hoped that, if it came from China, it might have returned to
China.  That's why I settled here.  But the truth is, after sixty years,
it could be anywhere.  Anywhere at all.  America.  Africa.  Atlantis.
Even one of the Lagrange colonies.  Without some idea of where to look,
what good would calling you have done?"

"Well, you've got a good starting point, at least," he said.

She blinked.  "I do?"

"Oh, for -- you must have seen it!  Look, we _know_ one place Shampoo
visited on her way back to Joketsuzoku.  And she must have gone there
before she met the ... demon, or whatever.  It'd hardly be likely to --"

"Ran-chan, what are you talking about?" said Ukyou sweetly.

"Jyusenkyo!  She fell into the spring-of-drowned-cat, remember?  And it
almost has to have been _before_ she met the demon.  But remember,
Jyusenkyo is --"

"Only a day or so from Joketsuzoku on foot," finished Ukyou.  She sat
stock-still for several seconds, her face quite blank.  Then, to his
dismay, she burst into tears.

Afterward, he did not remember moving.  One moment, he was sitting on
the floor, on the opposite side of the table to her.  The next, he found
himself holding her in his arms, as she sobbed on his shoulder.

"Shh ... shh ..." he whispered, as if he were soothing a child.  "It's
all right ..."

"No it's not!" she wailed into his shoulder.  "What if Shampoo _is_
dead?  What if she died nineteen years ago?  It'd be my fault ...
because I thought I knew all the answers ... because I was too damn
proud to call for help when I needed it ..."

Ranma did not answer at once.  He suspected that this was at least
partly true.

"What if she died _twenty-one_ years ago?" he said at length.  "Or
thirty?  Or fifty?  Without you, nobody would even know she was
missing."

"What if she's still alive?" Ukyou insisted.  "She's been ... enslaved
... by that thing for twenty years longer than she needed to be ..."

It was no good.  She could not accept comfort yet; she needed to blame
herself too much.  Unfortunately, he thought, she was right.  Pride had
driven her away when he'd married Akane; that same pride had kept her
from calling him when she needed help.  And perhaps Shampoo had paid --
or was still paying -- the price.

It wasn't comfort that she wanted from him, he realised.  It was
punishment.

He forced harshness into his voice.  "Maybe so," he rasped.  "And at
this rate, it'll be another twenty years before you actually do anything
about it."

She stared up at him in shock.  Her tears were forgotten.  Hating
himself, he wondered just how real they'd ever been.

"I mean,  is this all you can do?" he demanded.  "Play with your
computer for years, looking for hints like this was some kid's game?
Then sit there and cry about how bad you've been, when you find out you
made a mistake?"

"What -- what are you --" she stammered.

"The Ukyou I used to know wouldn't be cowering her fancy house, afraid
to go out and get things done," he spat out.  In spite of himself, he
was beginning to feel genuinely angry.  Friend or not, she did have this
coming.  "But then, the Ukyou I used to know wouldn't just run away and
leave her best friend not knowing if she was alive or dead."

"Damn it, that's not fair --"

"Not fair?  What's 'fair' got to do with it?  Was it fair, what you did
to me?  Leaving me wondering for years?  One phone call is all it
would've taken!"  He seemed to have strayed somewhat from what he'd
meant to say, but somehow it didn't matter.

"I tried to let you know --" she burst out.

"Tried hell!" he roared.  "One little chat with Mom and you were off the
hook, right?  And when you found out I still didn't know, you just give
up!  Some friend!"  He stopped for an instant, then hissed, "You were
_relieved_ you didn't have to see me again."

"Yes I was!" she exploded.  "I had better things to do than wasting my
life mooning over a baka who only cared about fighting and never knew if
he was coming or going!  Getting away from you was the best thing I ever
did!  Without you I built a _life_, and a damn good one!"

"So good, you felt inspired to spend twenty years searching for someone
you never really liked in the first place," he jibed.

"You go to hell, Saotome!  At least I was looking!  Where were _you_?
Where do you get off, blaming me for not calling you, when you just sat
back for _sixty_ years and never even _thought_ about Shampoo?"

"At least I'm ready to do something about it," he snarled.  "I'm not the
one who wants to sit back and cry about it all."

She stared at him for several seconds, her face white with rage.
Finally she said, in a queerly calm voice, "Fuck you."  Then she turned
and stalked out.

He watched her go, and slowly let the anger drain out of him.  What had
he done?

He had intended to provoke her, to make her forget her self-pity.  But
it had gone further than he'd intended.  Much further.  He had attacked
her with an old bitterness he had not known he felt.

Did he really blame her so much for running away?  For having been able
to build a life without him?  For achieving so much more than he ever
had?  [Am I really that selfish?] he asked himself.  It was a sobering
thought.

And then, finally, she had struck back.  He shook his head.  Her words
had hit hard.  He had never seen it that way before, but it was true. He
_had_ failed Shampoo.  Turned his back.  Been glad she was gone. And
tried to forget all about her.

True, she had been a nuisance.  Her dogged pursuit of him, her
relentless determination to win him at any cost, had caused him grief
and pain more times than he could remember.  _And_ she turned into a
cat.

[But that's not the whole picture, is it?] he thought grimly.  [There
were other times, too.]  Times when Shampoo _hadn't_ been chasing him.
Times when he'd seen a completely different side of her: a sweet, good-
natured, friendly girl, devastatingly pretty, and with a deceptively
sharp intelligence.

[She was my friend,] he thought.  [All that time, and I never saw it.]
She had stood by him, fought for him -- even sided with him against
Cologne.  [She was my friend ... but what sort of friend was _I_ to
_her_?]  Not a very good one, he had to admit.  He had used her, more
often that he cared to think about.  But been her friend?  Seldom.

He found now that he even had to admire her pursuit of him.  It must
have been extraordinarily difficult for her: following him all over
China, surviving somehow on her own, and even to Japan -- where, despite
her barely knowing the language, she had somehow tracked him down yet
again and (he had to admit it) brought him to bay.  Could he have done
the same?  He wasn't so sure.

But after she gave it up and went back to China ... had he ever even
thought about her again?  Not often.  And only in terms of how glad he
was that she was gone.

It was not a pretty picture of himself.

He scowled.  [I'll have to talk to Ukyou.  Patch things up somehow.
Tomorrow, when she's had a chance to cool down.]

Perhaps it was fate.  Perhaps it was just a meaningless coincidence. But
that was the moment when he heard the whine of the engine starting up
outside.

[Oboy.  I made her madder than I thought.]

He ran for the door, but he knew as he started that he was too late.  He
made it outside just in time to see the running lights of Ukyou's
flitter as it climbed into the air, circled once, then headed west.  In
less than a minute it was gone, one more speck lost among the stars.

He watched for some time, hoping that she would change her mind, return
to the house.  But he knew she would not.  Ukyou could be very
determined, too.

[I'll have to follow her.]  But somehow it was only at that thought that
the true extent of his predicament dawned on him.  He was alone in a
house in the middle of the wilderness.  There were no other vehicles. He
could call for help -- but where would he tell them to come?  He had
only a rough idea of where in China he was.

[Oh, Ryouga ... I never knew what it was like before ...]

He was lost.

- End of Part 7 -



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Author's Note:
I have strong reservations about Ukyou's "Fuck you" line.  On the
one hand it's almost essential to the story.  (I really can't
imagine that scene ending any other way.)  On the other hand, it's
language that I don't think belongs in a Ranma fanfic.  (Some other
series, yes.  But not Ranma.)

Opinions, anyone?


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Angus MacSpon                                                Allen Gainsford
http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon            http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon