Song of the Lute
by George Masologites
http://www.serve.com/guilds/ranma/
guilds@mail.serve.com [Hunter Kid]
(c) 08/10/1997  All Rights Reserved
Introduction
    
    Welcome to the world of Ranma 1/2, copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi.
I've been writing too many damn fanfics lately and not finishing them, so
hopefully I'll be able to get somewhere with this one.  This time around,
I'm writing a Final Fantasy/Ranma 1/2 crossover - in other words, the Ranma
1/2 characters in the Final Fantasy world.  That is, the original FF, not
two or three, because I haven't played those games recently and can't
remember the intricities of the plotlines, mainly. ;)
    Anyway, as I'm sure you all know by now, I'm a Ryoga fan and an Ukyou
fan, and I also like to pair them up, but that doesn't matter just now. ;)
Ryoga sort of lends himself to various plots, so I'm once again using him
as the central character.  How do the Ranma characters end up in the FF world?
    Sheesh, how else?  Someone gets ahold of a way to make a wish, of
course!  How -else- do you think these nutty fanfics work?

Prologue
Seeking Solace

    Ryoga Hibiki was not having a good day.
    Of course, Ryoga almost never had a good day, but this one was worse
than usual.  He had finally managed to get back to Nerima after two weeks
of aimless wandering earlier in the morning, and with several souvineirs
for his beloved Akane Tendo, nonetheless.  He grinned at the thought of
Akane; she always had the effect of making him smile.  What did I get her
this time?  He pondered briefly, then his dark eyes flickered with
remembrance as he patted his oversized traveling pack.  It had been
expensive, to be sure, but it would be worth it if it made Akane happy.
    A ring.  That's all it was, this time, he recalled.  He had purchased
it for a somewhat steep price from a small shop in rural China, where the
shopowner had claimed it was magic.  At first, Ryoga hadn't believed him,
but he was never the one to doubt magic - he did, after all, turn into a
pig every time he came into contact with cold water.  And he had a rival
who changed into a woman under similar conditions, and a couple
acquaintances who changed into a cat and a duck...
    He shook his head, clearing his thoughts as he removed the ring from
his pack, eyeing it lovingly.  The shopkeeper said it would grant the
wearer a single wish.  When Ryoga had asked him why he hadn't used it
himself, he had merely replied that he didn't trust wishes and that they
had a tendency to backfire.  Since Ryoga himself didn't entirely trust
wishes either, he hadn't used it.  Yet.  Sometimes, during his long
wanderings, the urge to put on the ring and yell, "Dammit, I wish that I
had a bloody perfect sense of direction!" was almost too much to bear, but
he hadn't wished anything yet.
    No, he had more common sense than that.  Things had a way of never
working out right for him - it was pretty much his life story.  When he
thought about it, he grew depressed.  Thinking about his life always left
him with a gaping emptiness inside of him, and thinking about Akane made it
worse.  And remembering that she was engaged to his worst enemy just made
him want to scream.
    Maybe he could wish that Akane wasn't engaged to Ranma.  He mulled that
over in his head, and decided against it, realizing how it could backfire.
They could just wind up married instead of engaged.  He bit his lip in
thought, phrasing several wishes in his mind.  'I wish that Akane hated
Ranma.'  No, that was no good, either.  After all, if she hated him, Ranma
wouldn't be staying at the Tendo Dojo, and Ryoga would never have met Akane
in the first place.
    'I wish I wasn't cursed.'  That one seemed particularly appealing to
him, and he couldn't find anything wrong with it.  And it was vague enough
so that maybe the ring would take away -both- curses of his, both the
Jusenkyo one and his directional curse.  Actually, the latter wasn't really
a curse, but it was damned inconvenient enough at times that Ryoga sure
thought of it as one.
    'I wish I wasn't cursed.'  Yes, that was sounding better and better by
the second.  He grinned toothily to himself as he slipped the silver
ivy-leaf ring around his finger and made sure there was nothing wrong with
the wish.  How could it backfire?  It wasn't specific enough to screw up
his curse; it would just get rid of it.  And without his curse, he could
ask Akane to be his girlfriend with a good conscience, knowing that she
wasn't getting together with a half-beast.  Ah, his beloved Akane...
    At least Ryoga thought of her as his beloved.  -She- didn't know about
it yet, but one of these days, Ryoga was going to let her know.  Dammit, he
was!  And then he could finally...be with her.
    Actually, when you got right down to it, Ryoga already slept with her.
Once again, -she- wasn't aware of this, but Ryoga always figured what she
didn't know wasn't going to hurt her.  And I'm going to tell her about it
one of these days, too, he had vowed to himself countless times before.  
    Needless to say, he hadn't yet.
    Ryoga always supposed he did it to protect Akane from her somewhat
perverted sex-changing fiance, Ranma, but there was another, more obvious
reason:  he enjoyed it.  Well, she was a beautiful woman.  Of course he
enjoyed it.  Not that he would admit it, to himself or anyone else.  And,
lastly, it was actually an advantage to being a pig half the time.  There
were precious few of those, unless you had fancies about become bacon
strips on someone's breakfast plate.  
    Ryoga didn't.
    All in all, it hadn't been that bad of a start for the day.  He had
started walking around Nerima, hoping to stumble upon the Tendo training
hall - or someone that he knew and could guide him there - and ran into
just what he didn't want to run into.  Ranma.  
    Somehow, whenever he saw Ranma, it just completely spoiled his day.
And today, it managed to make him forget all about his new wishing ring, too.
    He grinned wickedly to himself and pulled out his combat umbrella,
stealthily creeping up behind Ranma.  Or at least that's what he -tried- to
do.  Ryoga never had a knack for being sneaky, so he sounded rather like a
herd of elephants on the march.
    "Ah, heck with it," he grunted in a sour voice.  "Ranma!"  He bellowed,
brandishing his reinforced steel umbrella menacingly.  "Prepare to die!"
Cliche, maybe, he thought to himself, smirking, but it sure got Ranma's
attention fast enough.
    Ranma grinned at Ryoga, dodging the wild swipes with the heavy umbrella
nonchalantly.  "Yo, P-Chan!"  He greeted Ryoga cheerfully, jumping over him
and kicking him into a nearby brick wall, shattering it.  Must have been
shoddy worksmanship.  "How's it goin', man?"  Ryoga snarled something
incoherently as he pulled himself out of the remains of the wall, charging
at Ranma.
    Ranma leapt out of the way nimbly, kicking his rival into another
adjoining wall, knocking that one down, too.  Either all the walls in town
were poorly made, or Ryoga just had a really hard head.  Ryoga stood up,
growling, but didn't seem hurt, so Ranma made a quick guess that it was the
latter.
    "So, Ryoga," Ranma prompted himself, looking curiously at the fanged
boy, "what'd I do to you now?  Ruin your life again, or what?"
    "Too damn late for that," Ryoga sneered, launching a series of vicious
attacks which Ranma avoided with irritating ease.  "You ruined my life long
ago; this's revenge!"  He swiped with his metal-reinforced bamboo umbrella,
which Ranma ducked under as it connected with the concrete wall behind him,
ripping through it with the greatest of ease and blasting a half-moon
shaped arc in it.  Having lost it's support on the bottom, the large wall
tottered slightly, ready to fall at any moment.  Ranma, apparently, noticed
this.
    "Er...Ryoga?"  He asked nervously, pointing to the wall.  
    "Shut up, dammit!"  Ryoga snarled, swinging the heavy umbrella again.
Ranma bounded out of the way, and it once again connected with the concrete
wall, this time completely obliterating the bottom part, sending a huge
shudder through it as it collapsed on top of Ryoga's angry form, the heavy
concrete blocks smashing against him.  
    Ryoga didn't appear to notice this as he irritatedly swatted the
half-ton blocks away like bugs, reducing them to rubble as they smashed
against the paved roads, leaving huge potholes in their wake.
    Ranma laughed and stuck his tongue out at Ryoga.  "Try again, P-Chan!"
He grinned, dodging around Ryoga's furious blows, then finally vaulting up
onto a short building's roof with his arms, landing gracefully.  "Can't we
just talk this out?  Why're you always so mad at me, anyway?"
    Ryoga admitted to himself that it wasn't such a bad idea, and maybe
they -should- have just talked it over, but he didn't feel like it at the
moment.  Rather, he wanted to cause some destruction - particularly the
destruction of a certain Ranma Saotome.  "You know damn well why I'm mad!"
He bellowed angrily, clenching his fists in a boiling fury.  "It's your
fault Akane doesn't see my love for her, dammit!  It's your fault I turn
into a pig!  Everything is all -your bloody fault-!"  He screamed a battle
cry, jumping up onto the building roof and launcing himself at Ranma once
again, this time landing a hit and sending Ranma flying into a stack of
wood with a loud grunt of pain.
    "You like the pain, Saotome?"  He sneered, advancing towards Ranma once
again.  "You deserve ten, no, a hundred times more pain than this for what
you've done to my life, Ranma!"
    Ranma leaped to his feet and snorted derisively, looking at Ryoga with
a flat stare.  "Ryoga, calm down.  If you like Akane so much, tell her.  I
won't get in your way, okay?"
    It was a good deal, actually, Ryoga reasoned.  Or he would have
reasoned that if he was wasn't in a state of berserker rage.  "You don't
understand how I bloody feel!"  He snarled, holding the steel handle of the
combat umbrella in a grip like a vice.  "Akane doesn't understand how I
bloody feel!"  His fury rose.  "Nobody understands how I bloody feel!"
    "Ack!"  Ranma barely jumped to the side of an overhand chop from the
umbrella that would have reduced his skull into tiny shards of bone if it
had connected.  "Calm down, man!  You're going to get one of us killed!"  
    "And that one of us is going to be -you-!"  Ryoga growled, swinging the
umbrella again in an ill-placed shot that Ranma dodged, jumping over it and
delivering a hard side kick to Ryoga's face.  The kick would have sent
anyone else into unconsciousness, but it barely made Ryoga stagger.  Ranma
pressed the attack harder, rapidly flowing into a punch-roundhouse-spinning
side kick combination, the last of which connected fully and knocked Ryoga
into the same stack of wood where Ranma had been previously, landing with a
loud 'thud' sound.
    The pain, instead of amplifying Ryoga's anger like it usually did,
brought the fanged boy back to his senses.  He seemed to be holding back
tears as he growled softly to himself.  "Why doesn't anyone understand how
I feel?"  He closed his eyes, leaning back against the shattered woodpile.
The words seemed to tumble out of his mouth without him even wanting to say
them.  "If only I...if only I hadn't gone to China, my life wouldn't be a
disaster right now," he stammered in a choked voice.
    Ranma blinked at the sudden change in Ryoga.  "R-Ryoga?"  He managed to
say, walking over to his rival and putting a hand on his shoulder
comfortingly.  Ranma felt awkward trying to make someone feel better who
had seconds ago been trying to kill him, but seeing anyone, even Ryoga, so
torn up made him practically brim with pity.
    "If only I hadn't been on that cliff that day," Ryoga was mumbling
softly, "I would be a normal man."  He looked up at Ranma, his usually
angry glower changed to a bitterly regretful stare.  "All for bread," he
said with a sigh.  "All this...my life has been ruined...for a few pieces
of bread."  He laughed quietly.  "This has all been about bread!"  He
bellowed, punching the roof that they were sitting on furiously, sending a
huge shudder downward through the building.  
    Ranma wasn't sure what to say.  Ryoga seemed to be finally using logic,
and that alone surprised him quite a bit.  Of course, there was the small
problem that since Ryoga's anger was gone, it had been replaced by a
suicidal bitterness, and Ranma had no idea how to calm him down, or
brighten him up.     
    "You know, Ranma," Ryoga said in an almost conversational tone, "all
this time I've been blaming you, and it's really not your fault."  Ranma
almost gagged at this.  Ryoga was right, for the most part, but Ranma never
thought that Ryoga would actually -admit- to something being his own fault.
 Ryoga laughed ruefully.  "And still, nobody understands me.  Not you, not
Akane, no one.  Don't really got much to live for, do I?"  He asked, a sad
glimmer in his eyes that frightened Ranma; he sincerely hoped Ryoga wasn't
going to try anything stupid, like killing himself.  "It could have been
different, though.  Yes, so much different."
    "Ryoga," Ranma began, but Ryoga didn't pay him any heed, cutting him off.
    "Somewhere else, I might have bloody fit in," he said, shaking his head
as he looked around at the destruction he had caused only minutes before.
"Somewhere else, people might understand how I feel, how I am.  But I'm not
there, am I?"  He smirked.  "No, I'm here, stuck in this hellhole that I
created all for myself."  He grinned over at Ranma, his eyes oddly devoid
of...something.  "I think...there's only one solution to it all," he said
resolutely, standing up.  
    Devoid of hope.  Ranma suddenly realized what Ryoga meant to do,
knowing that it was probably too late to stop him.  Ryoga was standing on
the edge of the building, looking down at the hard concrete street below.
Strangely enough, Ryoga was smiling, and his face seemed to be at peace.
For the first time since Ranma had met him.
    "I just wish...that I could have been born in a place where I would
have been accepted," he said, a far-off look in his eyes as he laughed
slightly.  "But I wasn't.  There's only one solution left, isn't there?"
    Ranma didn't say anything; he was too busy staring at a silver ivy-leaf
ring that Ryoga was wearing on his left hand.  It was glowing.  "R-Ryoga!"
He stammered, pointing to the ring.
    Ryoga's eyes widened in amazement as he looked downward at his hand.
"The ring!"  He gasped, suddenly giving a fanged grin, and started to say
something else, but the ring shot out a brilliant white glow, sending both
of the young men into unconsciousness.
    And, to any onlookers, the two of them would have vanished.

Rain Song
http://www.serve.com/guilds/ranma/
guilds@mail.serve.com

open hk.sig

    The slender girl, Ryako, only gave him a cute, yet somewhat wolfish,
grin.  "Aw, you're no fun, Ryoga," she said, hitting him on the shoulder
playfully.  "Here we are, so close, and you won't let me read what you're
writing?"  She snuggled up against him, smirking to herself.
    Ryoga apparently didn't notice that she was only kidding, because his
face glowed a bright red and he nervously inched away from her.  "C-close?"
 He stammered.  "I...well...you see..."   
			 			-from Ryoga 1/2, chapter 11
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