CHAPTER 4: - REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Is redemption a futile hope for those who feel that they are past
forgiveness?"  

      Jaden smiled as she left the boy lying on the dusty ground,
fingering one of his ubiquitous bandannas in her still cold and pale
hands. She coveted this symbolic tag of victory, of a revenge complete -
and smirked sourly. She could have had Eve's soul if it hadn't been for
this poor kid and his best enemy. Then, she would have been able to rest
finally, her retribution complete. But it didn't turn out her way, she
didn't like that. At all. So Hibiki would drown in the quicksand of his
own depression, and Saotome... he didn't have a clue what his fate was,
not a clue... 

*    *   *   *    *    *

      Brilliant streaks of deep black wrapped themselves around Ryoga
till he felt himself trapped in a metaphysical prison. He tentatively
reached out, at last seeing his hand and arm before him and his body,
clothed darkly, was back with the lost boy. This swirling black seemed
different somehow to the eclipsed abyss of black that was beyond it. It
seemed so much more real and vivid to him than the nothingness he had
found himself in. A glimpse of red hues played with his senses, flicking
past his vision erratically. What... what was this?
       *You know.*
       "Huh?" He could at last hear his voice speak out, though he felt
detached from it, separate.
       *Touch it and you'll know.*
        Ryoga hesitantly reached out his hand toward the blurred
boundaries of his dark glasshouse, captivated by the circling streaks of
black which built it. His finger gently brushed against the streaks...
       "Aaaah!!"
       ...and flinched back in an instant, repelled by the dual sensation
of a burning, raging heat and a dead, arctic chill which was so without
life it sickened him. Its touch swamped him with an overpowering aura of
complete wretchedness and hatred. Doubling over in a raw agony too
recognisable, Ryoga clenched his chest, feeling the panicked, erratic
thump of his heart as it tried to escape him, unable to cope. He started
to cry, unable to stop the burning tears from littering his face, though
they brought no catharsis to the melancholy bleakness which was crashing
through him like an untamed animal rampaging.
      "Oh god!! Nooo! Stoooop! " He screamed, choking with a vile taste
stinging and whipping his tastebuds. "Why me??!" He cried out
desperately, unable to escape his own depression..
      *You know what it is know, don't you? You finally know what I've
showed you.*
      "Stop it! Stop all these feelings! Please, stop them!" Ryoga
pleaded, trying to ignore the answer which seemed to scratch away at his
mind, as his conscious seemed to once again connect sharply with his
voice.
      *I can't, it would kill you.*
      "Why!??"
      *Because what you touched was your soul.*
      "My... soul?" Ryoga calmed down faintly, the vile taste still
lingering in his mouth while his other senses numbed slightly to the
bleak, harrowing emotions which had barricaded themselves inside his
mind. He had known the truth since the sensations had first entered him
but he hadn't wanted to admit it. To know he was so little just furthered
his depression further down the mental coil, just made the choice of
living or dying so much easier... but still, there was a small scrap of
his personality which wouldn't give in, tenaciously held him to life for
an abstract reason which the rest of him couldn't figure out.
      *Haven't decided, yet, have you?* The alien voice which didn't
belong to him, echoed through him suddenly, interrupting his thoughts.
      "No, I... I..." Ryoga heard his weak, pitiful voice squeak out
quietly. The sound of it disgusted him even more than Ranma ever had. The
cocky, confident, easy-going, self-fulfilled tone of Ranma's voice he had
always secretly envied and had wanted to destroy it and also Ranma's
happiness  because he couldn't have either, could never have the same
sort of peace. He loathed Ranma for taking his own untroubled soul so
fore-granted. 
      *I'll help you again, then.*
      "How?"
      The cold, unseen presence answered back; *You'll see...*

 *    *    *    *   *    *

      Eve tore through the afternoon crowds of shoppers as she drew
closer to where she now knew Ryoga was. She had to get to him, the
sooner, the much, much better it would be. Self-recrimination, guilt and
shame intensified in her suddenly, blasting through her body. She didn't
know if the emotions were her own but it could only mean she was getting
closer to him. Closer and closer till her heart started to hurt.
      "Ooh!" Eve slammed to a halt abruptly, her body disabled and locked
up without warning. She couldn't move! Why? She wrestled her neck around
painfully, against a force which demanded it give in, her pride strained
against any thought of screaming. People stopped and stared at her like
she was a street-show. "Idiots," she snarled through gritted teeth and
with a jolt, wrenched her neck the other way. There was a long, narrow
alleyway barely a few feet from her and she could just see a shadow
slumped up against a wall near the far end of it. Damn, it must be Ryoga.
Except she could barely move. She willed her leg forward. Nothing
happened. Try again. Nothing. Again, again, again, again!!! "Arrrghhh! I
have to move!!"
      This was bad timing for Jaden to learn new moves and tricks, she
must be getting more powerful. Playing around with mortals had always
seemed to increase Jaden's capacities, Eve had never figured out why. Did
these ordinary humans have some sort of unknown power that Jaden was
feeding on? But... she should concentrate on getting to Ryoga. She
gritted her teeth together as she gathered all the inner strength she had
to her centre. Forcing and pushing and grinding all her energy to one
place, sweat swam all over her, her hands shaking as they tried to break
free of this spell. Imagining a metal chain around her, Eve tried to
break it apart. Her heart constricted and tightened, threatening to break
free from her body. But she couldn't stop... Ryoga... he... he deserved
better than a loser... he deserved better...
      ~C-rack!~
      Eve felt her teeth begin to break as they took the full brunt of
her stubborness. Muscles toiled to work harder than ever, wanting to snap
and give in. Her screwed-up eyes couldn't see the surfacing veins in her
skin as they laboured the blood fast through her. If the body was a
person's temple, Eve was self-detonating it in the hope of breaking free.
      "Yeeessss!" Eve cried as she shattered past her pain barrier and
the spell, collapsing forward into a heap on the ground, barely able to
stand. The bemused crowd shuffled away as they saw that the "show" had
come to an end. The pain she was in would have a long ago killed anyone
in that crowd. 
      Catching long, deep, breaths of air, she shuffled her tired body
into the shadowed alley, her already damaged legs unable to take much
more inflicted torture. "Must get to him. Must." After what seemed to be
forever and a fortnight, Eve reached Ryoga's slumped side, leaning her
back against the wall with a body resigned to jolts of agony as yet more
injuries were discovered. 
       Her eyes glanced at Ryoga, who was wrapped in the glum, gloomy,
aphotic atmosphere of the alleyway. It would have made anyone else
practically blind if they had entered that backstreet but Eve's powerful
vision meant she could see more clearly. But it only felt like a curse at
this moment, seeing the miserable state which was partly her fault, and
the guilt which had slowly afflicted her stabbed now like a thorn in the
flesh. Reaching out her least damaged arm, instinctively knowing where
the spell had entered his mind, Eve gently touched the side of Ryoga's
head.... Only to be hailed back by a split-second flood of dark, bitter
emotions from his Stygian soul. 
       "What... what was that?!" She gasped as she stubbornly overcame
the overwhelming depression, carefully shifting Ryoga's body around and
placing his head gently on her lap, which didn't appreciate it that much.
She slid an unhappy arm underneath his head to stop it dropping to the
ground. She only knew of one other who had been put under this magical
curse: herself, but it didn't help her understand it beyond the
superficial. And her walled-up unconscious only knew how she had escaped
it. It was probably self-imposed, to protect her from knowing anything
which could destroy the sort-of life she had built up since the tragedies
which had made her an orphan. Although she could remember vividly what
had happened to her family and the rest of her race, emotion hadn't
tagged along on those replays of the past. 
       Flicking back a stray lock of hair from Ryoga's face, Eve stared
at his shrieking eyes, fascinated by their depth and dull intensity. Even
if Ryoga decided to live, how was he going to cope with all these
experiences irradiating in his mind? How could she let this happen? How
could she!? She sickened herself, sometimes.  "I'm so sorry for this,
Ryoga," she whispered sadly, softly stroking his matted, greasy hair; "so
sorry..."
       Someone's heavy breathing alerted Eve to their presence. She had
been so distracted, she had not noticed the girl standing barely a few
feet from her. She lifted up her drooping head, trying to hide the savage
guilt she felt. She was slightly surprised by this person's arrival, she
had expected them but not this quickly. And for some reason they hadn't
been affected by the same spell she had, it must only be for those with
the more unconventional senses. "Were you not chasing Ranma when I last
saw you?"
       "I lost R...Ran-chan, he ran t-too fast. I decided to look for
you," Ukyo choked out, trying not to let the reason for Ranma's worry and
panic bother her. Would he run like that for her if she was in danger...?
Switching subjects in her mind, Ukyo decided to broach a more immediate
problem, not really wanting the answer for that, either. "Is... is Ryoga
alive? Is he breathing?"
       "He's breathing."
       Ukyo's relieved tone was evident, "So he's gonna be OK, then?"
       Eve's sad eyes looked up at Ukyo, hating herself for what she's
about to say, "...No, Ukyo, he's not." 

 *     *     *    *     *     *       
         
      The darkness lightened, but barely, only to be replaced by the
ethereal streetlights, which haunted the early dawn streets with their
vivid, bright glow. Adjusting his eyes to this new light, Ryoga gazed all
around, still confused by the turn of events. "Am I... back in the real
world?"
      *No. We're in your past.*
       ...Time travel?
       *Only in your memories.*
       Puzzlement settled comfortably in him. "How can I be in my own
memories?"
       *The same way you could touch your own soul, Ryoga...* the cold,
suddenly barren voice answered, illuminating the disturbing recollection
hidden in the lost boy's patchworked mind. The nightmare memory screamed
and shrieked at him with merciless intensity.
        "Oh," he replied blankly, numbing the rememberance, deafening its
cries. He didn't want to know how he could have touched his soul, how he
could be walking in his own memories... he was happy to go on without
that knowledge.   
         *Anything seem familiar to you about where you are?*
          Ryoga blinked. He had totally forgotten that he was where he
was. Peering, trying to find details that would jog his memory... but he
found very little, only the faint wail of traffic in streets far away and
an odd buzzing noice inhabiting his sensitive sensorium stubbornly,
refusing to go away as he shook his head over and over. "Gaaah! What is
it?" He grumbled loudly.
         *It's telling you that you're not remembering right,* the
anonymous sound once again permeated his brain like a dull thud. *Nothing
about this place stands out as strange?*
         "Well, there is --" 
          *Apart from me.*
         "...No, not really. It looks like just any other empty street at
night." Ryoga sighed with saddened recollection, "I've seen many in my
life..." He took another look round. "The lamposts do seem taller than
usual, probably foreign."
        *Step under a light and you will see.*
        Curious, Ryoga did as he was told, "now what?" 
        *Raise your hands to your face.* 
        Cautiously doing just that, he was in for a surprise. His eyes
widened rapidly. "My hands!! They're so..." so... small, covered with
baby fat, still. Not the large, lean, weathered hands of a powerful
martial artist. More like a kid's chubby little paws.  "Why are my hands
so small, like a childs??!"
        *Because you are one.*
        "I'm what..?" Ryoga asked, still not fully comprehending, his
mind mangled up with mixed emotions.
        *You are a child, Ryoga. Nothing more than a tiny brat!" the
voice sneered nastily.
        "A kid, but how --" Ryoga cut himself off as he listened to his
own voice for the first time in a while. It was... high. Higher than
usual... Oh no..!
        *I told you I was taking you back into your memories. This one's
been long repressed. Pathetic to look at, really.*
         "I... I did get lost... a lot... as a child," he remembered,
with melancholy drifting around his speech; "but what is so special about
this street, this place? Wherever it is..." He gazed around the street,
looking into the distance where the sun began to rise, yet was still
dominated by the remnants of night. A flash of  light invaded his vision.
Spinning around, the fanged boy held his breath, stifling the sobs of
despair grown from loneliness which so much wanted freedom, his eyes
locked on the sight before him. "How... did you know?" He replied so
quietly, he could not even hear himself speak.
       *I thought you didn't want that knowledge...*
       Stirring the thoughts around his head, Ryoga grasped at the one he
was sure he wanted. "You're right, I don't want to." 
       Focusing again on the image presented to his eyes on Destiny's
plate of his personal fate, Ryoga  felt cold tears shiver down his
cheeks. There was a window in front of him. And inside that window was a
lighted room. And in the room there were children, happy children smiling
at their parents - Ryoga's face soured even further- as they opened their
Christmas presents. The lonely lost boy stared numbly at them, not caring
if the family spotted him. He now remembered this forbidden memory, which
now came unbidden, from December the 25th, ten years ago. He had been...
      *Lost, alone and forgotten? ... Cold, sad and miserable?* the voice
mockingly reminded him. *...No presents to open? ...No stupid, lost
parents to give you them? No warm bed to snuggle up in? No --*
       "Yes, now please stop talking," Ryoga answered, trying to stop the
painful words the voice sent from reaching him. Emotions still sent
shockwaves of despair rushing round him as they grappled with the
contrasts set before them. These children so happy and were well-loved,
knowing that their parents will always be there for them. Unlike Ryoga.
He didn't have that certainty. This had been the first missed Christmas
in a long line of missed celebrations including New Year, Ryoga's first
day of school and his birthdays -- he had spent many of them alone.
Laughing bitterly, he wondered if his parents had even been there when he
was born. 
      But this disturbing recollection facing him right now, through a
window, had been caused after days of sitting still in an empty house,
waiting for his parents to come home. In ever encroaching sensations of
loneliness, the younger Ryoga had decided to go out and search for them.
That had been the first memory he had of being on his own. But the little
boy had soon been lost in the global jungle, turning every corner with
hope as he had been sos ure that he had heard his mother call his name.
But he'd never been able to find out if that voice had been his mother's,
since he'd never made it around that damned corner. He'd always been so
far away from the one's he cared for, looking at pictures of his parents
to remind himself what they looked like.
       *Now, that _is_ pathetic. Not even knowing your own parents,* the
voice popped up, whistling it's unwanted tune through Ryoga.   
       He walked up to the bright window, watching as the two grinning
children hugged their parents, clutching their favourite toys; one toy
was a gentille doll, dressed in lace and all things nice, the other was a
scaled down plane, which the boy flew with one hand as he hugged his
mother with the other. Wishing that he could fly away, the small Ryoga
sighed against the cold window-pane causing the smoky air to spread
across the glass.  Is this all he ever had been? ...On the outside,
looking in?
       "I want to go back to reality, now," Ryoga asked whatever had put
him here.
       There was no answer. Still waiting.... Still silence.
       Feeling the cold kidnap any warmth left in him and the chillyness
skip and dance across his face and little fingers, an idea entangled
itself around Ryoga. It looked so warm in the house... the family seemed
so happy and nice... Would they let him share the glowing fireplace?
Would they get rid of the voice which had itself from him, suddenly. But
he didn't want to wait for the voice's return... 
       ...Ryoga wanted, he needed, attention and love and someone to hug
him, unable to remember the last time his real parents had done that. His
family saw each other so infrequently, that their lives passed each other
by, perhaps even literally... But this family seemed stable and here.
That was the important part, they would be here for him.. if they
accepted him, that was...
       ~Thump, thump,~ Ryoga knocked against the window.
       "Hello, can I come in? Hello?"
       The happy family's early morning Christmas was disturbed by his
noise. They looked around but saw nothing, Ryoga somehow invisible to
them.
        ~Thud, thud.~
        "Please, it's cold!!"
         The mother seem bemused and the father, looking uncannily like
his own, looked worried. The children lost attention in the noise and
began to play with their presents.
        ~Thump! thump!~
        "I'll be good, I really will!!"
        The father whispered something in the mother's ear. She smiled
and laughed gently, her smile so like mom's. Now, they both seemed at
ease, once again and began to regard their children, again, with a loving
gaze.
        ~THUD! THUD! THUD!~
        "I'll do anything!! _Please_!" 
         ~THUMP! Thump! Thump.....~
         "....any....thing...."
         ~Tap... Tap...~
        The house and the family and the street disappeared, leaving
nothing but the dense black the lost boy was too used to...... 

      .....A cold wind blew, ruffling his hair. Where was he now? ...It
seemed familiar but distant.  A large building rose like a monolith
before him, intruding into the grey sky. Its apathetic, ridged design and
Boeotian countenance matched the weather, whose limp and sunless
appearance made it seemed almost resigned to a fate. But what could give
this place such a heavy atmosphere? 
      He walked slowly towards the building, against the hard, gritty
ground. Huh? Gritty? He looked down and saw that his blistered, swelling
feet were without shoes. Well, there were scared scraps of leather and
cloth flapping in the breeze, barely hanging on to his feet, undecided as
to whether they should give up or not. It was like they had been worn
off. And why did his feet seem as if they had shrunk, again?  Edging his
hands up to where his eyes could see, the owner of the eyes noticed that
his hands seemed to have shrivelled up, too... What --
      *Don't you remember your old high school, Ryoga?*
      "My old high school...?" Why was he here? Back, at this godforsaken
dump he had attended? But what here could make him want to die?   
      "Talkin' to yourself again, lost boy?!" He snapped around to see
where that sneering voice had come from and found himself face to face
with one of his enemies, he hadn't seen them for years. And it was still
too early to see his dishonourable face again.
      "Sotan...!" Ryoga growled up at his taller nemesis who seemed to
tower over him like the school building. Sotan's sneering smile, slightly
turned up at the ends of his lips,  turned to one of disdain and
disrespect. This was the boy who had had everything over him, including
height. The one that had made a life a living hell, long before Saotome
had turned up.
       The outwardly handsome boy reached out a hand and grabbed the nape
of the confused Ryoga's shirt, dragging him up to his level, their faces
inches apart but both together in temperament. "Don't you address me in
that manner, you pathetic little piece of dirt who no-one cares about!"
Sotan spat out, his voice chomping away with mockery at Ryoga's
self-esteem. A crowd started to gather around, curious but unwilling to
help the lost boy. 
       "Don't you call me -" Ryoga protested before a sharp pain snapped
round his head, trailing a path of fiery agony. "Yaaahh!! Stop it, you
tyrant!" He gripped his head with his hands, feeling the warm burns haunt
his skull. 
       ~Ka-thump!~
      The unyielding pressure roped around Ryoga's neck left, only to be
replaced the solid, unpenetrable existence of the playground which
knocked his tired body into gritty reality, wounding his unusually
sensitive skin with castigations of anguish. He'd forgotten what ordinary
weakness felt like; this whip-lashing of his 12 year-old body had
painfully reminded him, though. It'd been after bullying like this that
he'd decided to take up martial arts. Slowly sitting up, his head missing
the bandannas which were now gone, Ryoga - his eyes red with anger at
both Sotan and himself - stared up and saw Sotan dangle his first ever
bandanna infront of him. It had taken years of training before he felt
worthy to wear it again.  
      "Heh... This what you looking for, Hibiki?" He smirked, ripping up
the piece of tough cloth like it was nothing. The crowd of young
adolescents started to laugh, at Ryoga, too. Jeering... at him! Had he
really been _that_ pathetic back then? Real memories of taunts, jokes
behind his back and teasing of his lack of directional sense smashed into
his mind like a tidal wave. He'd had no friends at high school when he'd
first started, no equal. The first year at the boys school had been a
literal hell. Stared at, poked at, laughed at... he had hated it so much
and now here he was, reliving it... reliving the damning crucifix upon
which his early faults had been displayed...!
      "Aw, look at the poor little idiot, he's scared!" Gibed Sotan
bitterly, the acidity of his words seeping through Ryoga's head over and
over and over. Little... idiot... lost.... "Scaredy cat, scaredy-cat,
couldn't find his way out of a paper bag! All alone! All alone!"
      This really began to rile Ryoga, he knew that they weren't real,
that this was all a hallucination caused by something which wanted him to
die for reasons unknown. But, but it felt so real and when all the other
boys started to join in, not wanting to incur Sotan's infamous wrath, he
just...
      "Scaredy-cat, scaredy cat!"
     "I'm not!" he jumped up and protested, boiling and bubbling with an
impassioning fervour. This sort of thing had really happened, a long time
ago and he couldn't stand it! Not ever again!!
     "All alone!" The crowd chorused, like angels from hell, "Parents
just as dumb as him! Even they don't care for the lonely lost boy! Even
they don't care!"
      "No! They do care! They do...!" He shouted half-heartedly,
beginning to believe them, like he had done all those years ago. He
couldn't believe that they were crowing the nightmarish song which had
dogged his childhood and had gnashed away any chance of self-esteem as a
teen. 
      "Pathetic piece of dirt! Jerky jerky jerk!" The mob began to swarm
around him, closing in with their stinging words, their assimilated gaze
boring at his soul; "...that's the story of the lonely lost boy! The
lonely lost boy!!"
       Ryoga didn't want to listen, he didn't want to fight, he just
wanted to get out there, the deja vu all too real. This may have been a
dream but it was based on events closer to home than he had been for most
of his life. "Go away! Go... AWAY!!" He cried out desperately -
depression compressing inside of him - only eliciting more mocking rhyme.
Feeling their nauseating breaths upon him, knowing he couldn't jump high
enough in this weak body to escape, he felt that there was nowhere for
his black-eyed soul to go but down to the black earth imprisoned beneath
this artificial terrain.
      "Breaking point!!!"
      ~Booom!~
      Diving into the underneath of concrete, Ryoga tuned out the screams
and cries of anguish as  shards of rock slammed into the off-guard mob
above him. All were above him while he was below. So far down...
      "Coward, Hibiki," an angry echo ricoched down the tunnel to him,
propelling him on further, "you're just a coward!" Coward, coward,
coward, coward, coward.... He was nothing more than a coward, running
away from his problems, such a coward. Drops of literal emotion streaked
down his face as Ryoga kept going, severing the earth below him as his
mind was corrupted with insults he had long thought he had forgotten.
      *Crying? How pathetic! No wonder your soul was such a sorry
sight!!* The disembodied voice cackled with more frankness than Sotan
ever had. 
       "Leavemealoneleavemealone!" Ryoga screeched out, the shrapnel from
his drilling hitting his face with brutal intensity, blood trickling into
his mouth. But he didn't care, he didn't deserve to live in comfort, he
deserved this punishment for his cowardice.
      *It doesn't matter how dig you deep, Ryoga, I'll always be with
you. You can't run away from me...*    
      "Leavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealone...!!!" Ryoga
rambled on, lost in the earth and in his psyche......

......The mirkiness of the hot underground soon wilted away like a dying
flower only to be replaced by the eternal abyss which Ryoga had first
found himself in. It wrapped him in a blanket of comforting, wooly,
psychic wilderness, far away from all the pain. But traces of the mental
anguish still crawled around inside of him.
      *What do you choose, now?*
      "Just leave me alone," Ryoga moaned in a whisper, not caring if the
voice heard him.
     *Did that reminder of your past tell you of your true self?*
      What could he say? It did show that he had been a coward, someone
unable to cope with bullies... but-but he had changed, he had grown
stronger and with his martial arts skill, no-one had dared bully him... A
heavy burden swallowed Ryoga's heart briefly ...But no-one had talked to
him either... at least the ritual teasing had stopped, that he was
thankful for. He had never been liked but he was respected for being
unbeatable in fights and soon it had been Sotan on the ground, frightened
and ashamed... The "lost boy" had been able to defeat those years older
than him in the daily lunch brawls over food. Ryoga felt a smile blossom
on his face over those recollections of good days... "I've decided, I -"
      *- Are you not forgetting something, or should I say someone...?
Let's go back to those good ol' days, ne?*
      Ryoga wondered what the voice was talking about, the answer quietly
nawing away at his grey matter. The cotton wool of nothingness was
removed from his sight and replaced with a once familiar scene: the
lunchtime brawl at the boy's-only school cafe where every day was a war.
Seeing the curry bread packet rise in the air, he jumped up, reaching
with all his might to catch it, to prove his fighting worthy. He smirked
inwardly with confidence. "It's mine!" ...What could depress him about
this? He felt the answer sneak up behind him -
      ~Bop!~
      - and bounce off his head, causing him to fall into the pack of
hungry young men. Shakily standing up, the warm memories faded as reality
bit hard and fast... Ryoga faced the one face he couldn't believe he's
forgotten. 
      "Ranma... you...!" Ryoga roared as he trembled with rancorous
resent at the sight of the pony-tailed lad chewing on _his_ curry bread
and killing his beloved, feared reputation at the same time. He had been
beaten time and time again by the agile teen who now was filled with
confusion at this recognition...
      "Do I know you?" Ranma asked, "'cause you seem to know me."
      Cracking his knuckles, with barely tamed anger at his fingertips,
Ryoga decided to answer: "let's just say, your reputation precedes you."
      "I have a reputation?" the still all-male boy seemed surprised but
pleased and grinned mischiveously; "cool." 
        Cool? Cool?! COOL??! The one who was to gain all of Ryoga's
hard-earned respect with one mindless jump thought it was 'cool'. The one
who was to nullify his last shreds of confidence thought it was 'cool.'
Cool?! Ryoga had trained so hard and this newcomer was to unravel into a
mess that what Ryoga called his life??! No-one had taken him seriously
after Saotome's arrival, no-one to this day. Even if he had defeated
Ranma in a match, Ranma would defeat him in a rematch by cheating and
using dishonourable tactics. His martial arts skills were nothing more
than a joke to those who knew of Ranma. Even Akane once looked at him
with unguarded pity, apologising for the pig-tailed scum's better skill
and speed; look that had nearly killed him haunted him still, an anethema
to his soul...  
      And Ryoga didn't like coming second, didn't like it one bit...
      "Get me away from _him_," Ryoga growled shakily under his breath;
"Now, I said...!"
      Ramna looked at him, puzzled by this strange guy's behaviour. "You
OK, man?"
      "No, I'm not... And my name's Ryoga Hibiki, remember that."

*    *    *    *   *    *
              
        Eve watched with downtrodding guilt as Ukyo's relieved face
cracked into fearful confusion.
        "What... what do you mean Ryoga's not OK? I though he was
breathing... I..." the bemusemed countenance she held crumbled out of
existence as a realisation crushed it with force. "He's in a coma, isn't
he?" 
        "Sort of..." Eve replied with uncertainty.
        "What's that supposed to mean??!" Ukyo snapped suddenly, her
mortified emotions searching for a definite answer to grasp on to. "Tell
me what's happened to him!!" She growled down at Eve, whose intense,
dazzling blue eyes had shone in the darkness, dulling the blackness like
a bright torch, leaving Ukyo slightly unnerved but still determined and
frustrated. "He's my friend, I _need_ to know!!"
       The lucent sadness from Eve's eye's dulled into the background as
her strong, prideful front awakened in the windows to her soul. "...Help
me take him to the hospital and I'll tell all of you what's going on,"
she returned smoothly, her eyes not meeting with the young chef's.
        
The end of this chapter.....   
  
Author notes:
So so sorry for it taking so long!!!! Writer's block and Real Life
interefered!!! And to anyone who read "Hard To Say Goodbye", there will
be a new chapter soon (hopefully)! By the way, everything before the
appearance of Ranma I made up. It is not canon, just what _might_ have
happened to a pre-Ranma Ryoga. Sotan is a real name, though. As always,
C&C required and esteemed highly!!! ^_^ Don't bother sending flames as I
have a fire extinguisher! ^_-
And if there's any problem with the formatting, please tell me!!!

~K-chan
k-chan@rocketmail.com

If you need any explanations or past chapters, please e-mail me! ^_^