Hi!

	Gee, it's been awhile since I've posted anything to the FFML.
Heck, it's been awhile since I've been _on_ the FFML.  Anyway, had a vague
idea floating in my head, decided to indulge in some procrastination, and
hammered this out in a few hours (not counting the short break to grab a
pint with a buddy -- which may have affected the ending somewhat...)  It
could probably use some fine tuning and more fleshing out... but I doubt
I'll ever get around to it....
	Anyway, enjoy, and C&C _always_ appreciated!

***

Sketch One: A Conversation Upon Returning From China


     Leaning forward to be heard over the din of the kissaten,
Hiroshi asked, "Did you ever wish you could just totally cut loose?"
     Daisuke raised an eyebrow.  "Huh?"
     "You know.  Just let go.  Say 'screw it', lose the inhibitions,
just do whatever the hell you want."
     Sayuri smiled over the edge of her cup.  "You just wish you
had the guts to ask Keiko out!"
     Hiroshi's face burned red.  'Well . . . yeah..  Sure, maybe. 
But -- but, still.  Wouldn't it be great if sometimes . . . heck, no, not
even 'sometimes', just once -- just once! -- we could just totally let
go and do something crazy?  Do something nuts and not have to
deal with the consequences?"
     "Like that's going to happen," said Yuka.  "You try -- I
don't know, try telling Hinako-sensei off in class, and see if you can
avoid the consequences.  Heck, try skipping you homework in her
class and see if you can get away with it!"
     "But that's just it," said Hiroshi excitedly.  "Even with the
consequences . . . imagine just not caring, taking the risk, doing it
anyway?  Just once, embracing life and _living_, man!"
     "What's got into you, bud. . . ," Daisuke started to ask,
when the door chime tinkled and a new customer entered.  A brief
silence descended over the kissaten as student conversations halted.
     "Umm, hi," spoke the newcomer, working his way to the
counter.
     "Ranma!" said Hiroshi, standing.  "You're back!"
     Looking slightly embarrassed, he nodded.
     "You, ah, you want to join us?"  Hiroshi gestured at the
table and his three seated friends.
     "Sure.  Just let me grab somethin' to drink, 'kay?"
     Hiroshi returned to his seat.  Conversations returned to
normal, though whispered references to Ranma suddenly seemed
more prevalent.  Daisuke leaned toward his friend.  "Wow.  He's
back.  It's been, what, a couple of weeks?"
     "Anybody know where he's been?" asked Yuka.
     "If he's back, then so must Akane!" added Sayuri.  She
hadn't seemed entirely pleased at Ranma return, but brightened at
the prospect of seeing her friend again.
     Hiroshi shrugged.  "I think they went to China or
something.  Who knows?"
     Just then Ranma approached, pulling up a chair to join them
at their booth.  To the four Furinken students, he seemed pretty
much the same as always, only slightly more . . . subdued, than
normal.  There was an unusually pensive air to him.  He greeted
them as he sat, and took a drink from his glass.
     "So . . . what's new?" he asked.
     Hiroshi and the others glanced among themselves, and
shrugged.  "Nothing, really.  It's been quiet while . . . while you
were away," answered the dark-haired boy.  Not entirely true -- 
there had been some changes in the social dynamics of the students,
new rumors going around -- but nothing Ranma would be
interested in.  "And . . . and you?  Anything new?"
     The pigtailed boy seemed to carefully study his hands.  A
ghost of a smile played across his lips.  "Yes.  No."  He shrugged. 
"Yeah, but it's been quiet at the Tendos' ever since Akane, Pop and
I got back."
     "Oh."
     There was a short silence, slightly awkward and
uncomfortable.  If something exciting had happened during his trip,
it was strange for Ranma not to boast about it.  Finally Daisuke,
smirking slightly, added, "Well, Hiroshi did just ask an interesting
little question. . . ."
     "Really?"
     "Yeah.  He was wondering what it might be like to -- how
did you put it, 'just cut loose'? -- just once.  Just go nuts and do . . .
whatever."  Daisuke leaned back into his seat, smiling.  "Got any
ideas?"
     "How do you mean?"
     "Well," said Hiroshi, cutting in and casting a brief glare at
his blond-haired friend, "haven't you ever wanted to . . . to, say,
just walk up to a girl and ask her out on a date?"
     "Or walk up to a _guy_ and ask _him_ out on a date?"
added Sayuri, smiling sweetly.
     "Or tell a teacher off?" said Yuka.
     "Or just reach over, grab a guy, and beat the living shit out
of him?" finished Ranma.  The same faint half-smile hovered at the
corner of his mouth.
     "Um, er . . . yeah.  Something like that."  The four friends
shifted a little uncomfortably in their seats.  "Well, maybe not . . .
_quite_ like that. . . ."
     Ranma shrugged.  "Well, why not?  We're talkin'
hypothetical, right?  That other stuff you've mentioned -- nothing
really special, you know?  I've done the date thing.  I've got
fiancees..  I've fought Hinako more than once.  I mean, that's not
really cutting loose.  Heck, even beating someone up isn't 'cutting
loose': it's more an exercise in self-control than anything."
     "What, just grabbing someone and trashing him is
'control'?" interrupted Sayuri, eyes flashing.  "Sounds more like a
bully to me!"
     "Not at all," answered Ranma, matching her glare with a
cool gaze.  "Not for a martial artist.  Okay -- maybe not just
grabbing _anyone_," he amended, "since that would be kinda
pointless.  But whenever I get into a fight -- and I've been a lot! --
it takes discipline _not_ to hurt someone . . . not to hurt them
seriously.  Heck, if I were to go full out in a fight," and here, he
raised his hands before him, turned them slowly, eyed them
curiously, "I could really hurt someone.  The things I could do. . . ."
     Sayuri made a gagging motion.  "Oh, come on!  We've seen
you _lose_ fights, Ranma.  You going to tell us you weren't going
full out?  That you _threw_ the fight?"
     He shrugged.  "Don't believe me, then.  But it's true.  I
didn't know it then . . . but it's true.  I was holding back,
unconsciously, I was . . . afraid, of, of 'cutting loose'."  He gently
lowered his hands to the table, started tracing idle little spirals with
one finger.
     Ignoring Sayuri's quiet, disgusted 'oh, please!', Hiroshi
examined his friend for a moment, who seemed entirely engrossed
with drawing invisible circles.  There _was_ something different
about Ranma, in his voice, the way he held himself.  "But you know
it now?" he asked.
     Without looking up, Ranma nodded.
     "Why?  What happened?"
     "Because I," and here, he interrupted the fluttering of his
fingers, and looked up, "_did_ cut loose.  For the first time.  I let it
all out."
     For some reason, something in Ranma's voice caused
Hiroshi to feel a slight chill run up his spine.  He took a small sip of
his drink before asking in a soft voice, "Why?"
     "Because someone almost killed Akane.  Because someone
came this close," and he held his fingers the slightest of fractions of
an inch apart, "_this_ close, to killing Akane."
     Sayuri and Yuka gasped.  Daisuke paled.  Hiroshi leaned in
closer.  "And. . . ?"
     "And to save her, I had to beat the guy responsible.  And
time was running out.  And so, for the first time ever, I held nothing
back. _Nothing_.  It wasn't a conscious choice, nothing planned, no
decision -- but with Akane held to my chest, dying, and that bastard
Saffron not caring, and not willing to save her, just to spite me, out
of arrogance, anger . . . something snapped.  And suddenly, I
wasn't fighting to beat him.  I was fighting to _kill_ him.  I hacked
off his wings.  I ripped off his arm.  I shattered his jaw.  No holding
back.  And when the chance came, I didn't hesitate.  I froze him
solid and blasted him in half.  I killed him.  He shattered and fell to
his death . . . and I _didn't_ _care_."  Raising his hands before him
once more, his eyes took on a distant look.  "No, more than that,"
he whispered, "I _enjoyed_ it.
     "Fighting without having to worry about holding back. 
Going to edge, letting out the rage, not worrying, thinking, caring -
- totally focused, living in the moment, living your potential, fully
realizing what you can do . . . do?  What you've _done_, and can
still do!  Sun looming, heat burning, skin blistering, death a
heartbeat away; mountains shattering, body frozen and heart
chilled, but still _alive_ -- alive, with mountains lying in ruins at
your feet!  That's life -- that was living!"
     He turned burning eyes to gaping friends.  "And only one
thing has rivaled that experience.  And since then . . . life has been
quiet and dull, and I wonder if I can ever forget that moment when
I was fire and ice, winds swirling and torn rock; when life and death
seemed as one and I glorified in my own existence, hanging
between Heaven and Earth.  Sometimes I think I would do almost
anything to recapture that moment."
     In the silence that followed, Ranma finished his drink and
stood.  "Well, I've got to go.  Nice seeing you guys again.  See you
at school on Monday?"  He stepped away and headed for the door. 
Behind him, Yuka, Daisuke, and Sayuri shared disbelieving,
surprising, frightened wordless looks.
     But after a moment's hesitation, just as Ranma reached the
door to the kissaten and stepped outside into the bright sunlight,
Hiroshi caught up and held him back.  "Ranma, wait!"
     He paused and turned.  "What?"
     "You said . . . you said something else happened, something
that matched kil . . . fighting that guy.  What?  What was it?"
     Ranma was silent for a moment, then turned away. 
Speaking over his shoulder, voice soft, tinged, it seemed, with
disbelief, he said, "The moment I told Akane that I loved her."
     He walked away.  The chime tinkled softly as the door
closed behind him.


                                   -Michael Noakes
***

	I might write a small collection of these things, when the urge
strikes me.  I only seem to be able to find the time to write short bits.
I had different ideas on ending this -- maybe have Ranma go into a
Nietzschean argument about how he's justified in killing, if he wants to,
and slaughter everyone in the kissaten -- but went the happy way.

	Later!
	-Mike
***
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ful is the heavenly bread.  And the    *
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product of the heavenly bread.  The  vast mass will never understand this.
Yet it is the essential truth of Christianity, and of life itself.  The
few will understand.  Let them take the responsibility.
  -D. H. Lawrence, 'The Grand Inquisitor' in _Selected Literary Criticism_
***