Ace Sanchez presents: Ranma + Ryoga Part 2 (Draft 2)
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A soft gasp shattered the night's silence. The little girl was sitting
up in bed, the covers tangled in her legs. Light from the moon briefly
reflected off the moist cheeks of her face as it shone in through the
window. It suddenly cut out when the clouds covered it, dropping the
small room back into darkness. Various toys on the bookshelf looked
sinister in the shadows.

Her bare shoulders shivered uncontrollably underneath the pink night
gown she was wearing. Her eyes were wide open in fright, still within
the nightmare she had woken up with. Strangely coloured eyes set in a
cute elfin face closed tightly. She let out a small sob as she 
remembered what she dreamt.

"Why did you leave us daddy?" she had shouted hoarsely at the shadowy
figure. She just knew he had to be her father. Although she could not see
his features she just somehow knew it. "Why aren't you here with me and 
Mama?"

The shadow that was her father remained silent.

"Why don't you come back?" she had cried. "Don't you love us?" she
sobbed desperately.

Then suddenly a then tendril of darkness had begun to creep out of the 
shadow. The little girl shook her head in shock as the blackness within
the gloom was momentarily revealed. "You ... you can't be Daddy!"

The darkness had then manifested into a shape she could not describe nor
remember clearly. The only thing that she knew for sure after she woke 
up was that it was a monster and that it had been going to kill her.

The girl stopped sobbing as she thought of her mother. Mama! She 
grew comforted at the knowledge that she was not alone. Her mother would 
tuck her into bed with her and hug her tight whenever she had a bad
dream. No monster would get her if she was with Mama.

The little girl turned on to her stomach and slid off the bed, letting
the covers slip on to the blue carpet. She was especially careful to
avoid looking at the headboard. By day, it was in the shape of cute teddy
bear head. But tonight she was afraid it would wake up and turn into a
demon if she so much as looked at it. 

Keeping her head slightly askew, she stepped softly across the carpeted
floor and opened her bedroom door a tiny crack. She looked first right,
then left out in the hallway. She carefully inspected each shadow for
anything that could remotely be hiding in it. After satisfying herself
that there was nothing, she opened the door half way and, turning her
body sideways, slipped out.

The air was cold, and the tiled floor made her bare feet shiver.
Somewhere outside, she could here the crickets chirping. Each consecutive
noise made her tense more and more. She began walking faster, making sure
that she only stepped on the tips of her toes.

As she grew nearer to her mother's room, she began to hear a muffled
sobbing. There was also a frightening thumping sound every few seconds.
The little girl paused. That can't be Mama, she thought. She never cries.
However the noise only grew louder as she continued to approach her
mother's bedroom door.

Finally she stood in front of the large wooden door and stared at it.
Dried red flowers decorated a small picture frame that hung on a small
peg. It was a photograph of her and Mama hugging and smiling in front of
an amusement park. Shadows played across it until it could not be seen
anymore. She shuddered at a particularly loud thump that came from behind
the door. The picture frame rattled. A red flower came loose and drifted
to the floor.

Hesitantly she opened the door and slid in. A tiny gasp escaped her
throat.

On the floor beside the large bed, parts of the covers snaked around as
the leg that was entangled in it moved about, thrashing violently. The
woman lying on top of the bed jerked from side to side as she sobbed
intermittently. She was crying, but her eyes were still closed. 

The little girl did not know that a person could cry in their sleep. A
tear began to leak out of her eye. Could this be because Daddy is not
with us? she asked in her mind. Maybe she was having the same nightmare.

"R-Ryoga, what are y-you doing?" The shout abruptly came out of her
mother's mouth shockingly loud, startling the girl. There was a powerful
thrashing of her left arm as her hand clenched into a fist. She began
trying to punch an invisible figure that might have been on top of her.

The little girl cowered backwards in fear, almost breaking out of the
room. But she could not flee like she wanted to. For some reason her feet
were rooted to the ground.

Her mother's arm suddenly stopped moving as if someone had forced it
down. "You bastard! I  can't believe you're doing this!" A pause. "Stop
it. It hurts ..." Another scream came out of her throat.

The little girl's eyes were streaming tears now.

Her mother's head jerked sideways as if someone hit her. "Y-You're
enjoying this aren't you," she sobbed pathetically. "If Akane could see
you now, y-you rapist."

Suddenly her whole upper body jerked upright. She began to convulse as 
if the invisible figure were furiously shaking her. Then her head jerked 
backwards, she let out a sigh and fell down on to the bed. After ten 
minutes with no more movement, just hard breathing, it became apparent 
that the nightmare was over.

The little girl was sitting down on the floor, panting hard. Hot tears
made twin streaks down her face as they dripped on the carpet. She sat
there looking at everything and nothing. She had just remembered what the
shadow had said just before she woke up. 

Ryanko covered her face with her small hands as she sobbed quietly into
them. It had said that its name was Ryoga.


Ranma + Ryoga (OAV Mini-series)  
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Written by Ace Sanchez

(Standard disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and its associated characters 
created by Rumiko Takahashi. This is a DARK fic. You were warned.)
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Part 2 "Daddy's Little Girl"


The early morning was a tapestry of gloom, woven exclusively from shades
of black and graveyard greys. Above China, it was a pure mat of darkness.
The dusky cloud cover blowing rapidly in the sky made sure that no stars
or moon was visible. An icy wind blew a strong chilliness that seemed to
freeze one's soul more than the body. Despite this, it was ominously
silent. 

Somewhere, in the darkest, most rural area of the country, high up in 
the upper canopy of the forests, a man was hanging precariously at least
fifty feet high in the air. His only support was the firmly clenched fist
holding him up by the collar around his neck. He was slowly but surely
sliding down into his scrunched shirt, the tightness beginning to give
him trouble breathing.

"R-Ryanko?" The man's voice choked out of his dry throat to the figure
that was holding him up, seemingly effortlessly. The dark orange bandanna
tied around his head was hot and wet with perspiration. His hands
desperately clutched at the wrist near his throat. Directly below him,
the ground beckoned silently, invitingly, waiting patiently for his
inevitable fall.

In contrast to the dangerous aura that the cloaked figure holding him up 
emitted, it was a strange sight that his captor was a young female. 
Despite her youth, she was unusually tall, with a slender but athletic
frame. 

Shadows played across the girl's face, no longer concealed in the hood
of her cloak. Her hair seemed one with the darkness of twilight, long 
strands of night that surrounded her hauntingly beautiful face. They
diverged into a thick, three foot long braid at the back of her head,
that escaped behind her, floating in the chilling wind.

"I-It can't be ..."

The girl was silent for a moment, unanswering. The only indication that 
she even heard the useless denial, was an ominous tightening of her fist. 

"Ryoga Hibiki," her soft voice stated unemotionally. "You really are a
bit slow aren't you?" Despite the disinterested tone in her voice, her
blue and green eyes were blazing in a curious mix of scorn and
satisfaction.

Ryoga shook his head wildly, as best he could within the girl's tight 
grasp. "W-With R-Ranma? I-It's impossible!"

Suddenly, she let go of him and spun around so shockingly quick, Ryoga's
grip on her arm slid away as fast and easy as if he wasn't holding on for
grim life. For the briefest of moments, he hung suspended in midair,
strangely reminiscent of a cartoon he had seen in his younger days. Then
Ryanko completed her rapid spin into a massive roundhouse double kick,
the first catching him in the stomach, tilting him forward, the second in
the chest stopping his forward spin and propelling him into a backwards
rotation instead. The world spun crazily in a universe of pain. His back
exploded in agony as he connected with a tree. He seemed to stick to the
bark of the trunk for a moment, before he began to slide downwards, the
rough wood shredding his shirt and scratching into his back, drawing
blood. Leaves fluttered everywhere, obscuring his vision.

As he tumbled downwards, Ryoga desperately spun into a somersault to 
gain his equilibrium and managed to catch another branch with both 
hands. He painfully brought himself up on top of it. He looked up to see 
Ryanko standing on the branch of a nearby tree. She had a smirk on her 
full lips.

"The teacher's in school always said I was impossible, but I never 
really believed it." She shook her head mock sadly. "And now, my own 
father, agreeing with them."

Ryoga choked as he stood up, one hand on the bough for support, the 
other rubbing his sore throat. He couldn't believe it. He had a 
daughter. With Ranma. It didn't seem possible. He looked at her
closely. Her face did resemble Ranma's in female from. Except she had 
an eerie quality that somehow made her more beautiful. And if he was
indeed her father, she had certainly received her fair share of the
Hibiki strength. He just didn't understand how she could be even 
stronger than him.

"I-If you really are my daughter, I-I don't want to fight you."

"You still doubt it?" She smiled, letting her fangs show. "With these
two ugly teeth? And this?" She pointed to her left eye which was of a
like shade to his. The other was a deep blue, reminding him of Ranma
except there was something lacking in it. Maybe, despite all their
fighting so long ago, it was Ranma's ingrained compassion. 

She smirked at his observation of her. "Sorry, but you fit the bill. And
here's your prize!" Shockingly, she grasped the trunk of the tree she was
standing on, and ripped the whole top of the tree off. Ryoga's eyes
widened. The piece she was hefting was at least twenty feet tall!

He leaped out of the way frantically as she threw the massive piece of 
wood at him, which spun around like a huge propeller. One of the sharp 
branches sticking out of the mutilated tree top ripped open his pant 
leg and cut a long tear in his thigh, as it passed by. He rotated into 
a flip, clutching his wounded leg as he alighted on another tree's 
branches. He watched as the thrown tree top crashed into another tree,
snapping it in half. The massive tree limbs fell below creating a huge
amount of noise as they smashed into more branches before finally
crashing into the distant ground. Now he knew how she decapitated
Katsunnishi. She most likely just ripped his head off with her bare
hands. Her strength was monstrous.

"That was all you yesterday wasn't it?" Ryoga called out, looking around
desperately for her. The fluttering leaves in the air made it hard to
see, not to mention the gloominess of the night. He found her,
fortunately, still standing where she was, dusting off her hands. "You
were just playing with me."

Ryanko looked up at him and shrugged. "After all this time I've been
looking for you, what I really wanted to do was just rip your damn head 
off as soon as I found you. But it seemed like just a waste. Revenge is
best savored and drunk slowly like pig's blood. So I had to content
myself with a different piece of bacon." She frowned at him. "But
frankly, after one day I couldn't take it. Looking at your goofy looking
expression last afternoon, I just have to kill you," she continued,
cracking her knuckles. "I should really get back to doing just that."

Ryoga lowered his profile into a defensive posture. "I won't fight you,
but I'm warning you, I won't just let you kill me either. I'll defend
myself, and I've gotten pretty good over the years." Indeed, he had a few
tricks up his sleeves. 

Ryanko just smiled at him. Then suddenly, Ryoga didn't know how, she was
directly in front of him. One instant she was standing over about thirty
feet away, the next instant she was standing _right_ there on the same
branch. Striking out, shockingly fast, she kicked his legs out from under
him. Ryoga fell backwards, and grasped the branch with his hands, to
back-flip away. Pain exploded in his back however when he was rolling
around to land. She had somehow moved so quick to be at the place he was
moving towards before he got there. The momentum of her hit made him
smash into the trunk of the tree.

Desperately, as he rested face first upon the trunk, he built up the
feeling of his ki in his stomach and rapidly spread it through his body.
Just in time, as he felt a huge strike on his back, cracking the trunk in
front of him and sending him through it to fly across to the other side.
However instead of feeling the huge pain of the blow, it was muted
severely so that he only felt a mild discomfort. He spun forwards in the
air to grab another branch and swung up on it to land on his feet along
the narrow limb. He turned back to find that she was already gone.

"Not bad." The voice was right above him. Startled, he looked up to see
her sitting on the branch above him, lightly swinging her feet. "Ki
shield, right? It's nice to find out that my old man's not a total 
dumb-ass. In fact, its even better to know this since now I don't have 
to pull my punches anymore." She smiled wickedly, her sharp fangs 
showing.

Ryoga, sensing her about to move, tried to jump away before she could
attack. However, despite knowing this, he was still too slow. An
invisible seeming fist came out of nowhere and into his stomach, doubling
him over despite his ki manipulations and sending him rolling backwards
along the branch. Using his fingernails to scratch along the wood, he
slowed himself enough so that he wouldn't fall off. He coughed out some
blood. She really was pulling her punches. "H-How did you get so strong?
Y-You're a monster!"

"A monster you created," she replied matter of factly. "I'm sick of
fighting in these stupid trees. Meet the ground Daddy!" She made a huge
somersault leap over Ryoga's head and the descended, chopping through the
branch he was laying on with her hand.

Ryoga desperately tried to stand up and jump off before she cut through,
but he didn't make it. He crashed down through numerous branches, falling
rapidly. He tried to catch himself on each tree limb he passed, but each
time he caught a branch, Ryanko, who was following him as he fell,
smashed it off the tree.

Fortunately, his catching of several branches, however brief, broke his 
fall enough so that he could land relatively unharmed. Even so he had to 
go into a forward roll to further distribute his momentum. He sat up to 
watch Ryanko somersault down silently and land on her feet, her black
cloak billowing out like a cape. Leaves fluttered down all around them as
well as several severed branches which crashed down loudly.

Ryoga crouched on one knee, as he thought frantically. He could not 
effectively defend against Ryanko's speed. Essentially, his strengths 
were his offensive capabilities. He was not really a defensive fighter.
Hell, before Ryanko, he did not really need to defend, he could shrug
most blows off. But she was so damn strong, one hit from her could hurt
him badly. He could not last much longer. Already, the ki shield he was
desperately maintaining was sapping his strength. And it wasn't even
enough to fully stop her blows from hurting him. The blood loss was
making him feel faint. He looked up at the sky and was surprised that it
was getting lighter. The sun had begun to rise.

If he did not start attacking soon, he was dead in the water. That was
an apt expression Ryoga thought sourly. But he just could not attack his
own daughter.

"Now, Daddy, where were we?" She brushed her long hair out of her face
and adjusted her braid of dark hair. "I can call you Daddy right? 
I don't mean to be disrespectful." She ripped her cloak off completely,
letting it glide to the mossy ground behind her. It revealed her clothing
as the Chinese style black pants of the type Ranma always used to 
wear and a sleeveless dark shirt she wore on top that outlined her firm
bust. Long black bandannas tied to her right arm below the elbow flapped 
loosely in the breeze. 

"And children should always respect their parents!" she said just 
before she leaped forward in a furious combo, right back handed punch, 
followed by left, spinning elbow, it continued on and on. Ryoga was hard 
pressed to block each attack, but realised that she was not nearly 
hitting as hard as she could nor utilising her superior speed. Was she 
still playing with him? He also began to realise that she was not just 
using Anything Goes attacks on him, but several other styles which he 
recognised as Amazon techniques, as well as other styles he observed on 
his travels. What was most surprising, though, was that he recognised 
his own martial arts style flowing from some of her attacks. But to 
learn that, she must have been to his home town in Japan ... He began
to feel a weird sense of pride that _his_ daughter was such a good 
fighter.

Finally she ended with a powerful back somersault kick which Ryoga 
couldn't block even though it was obvious she wasn't really trying. He
was propelled backwards, his feet scraping the ground in twin streaks as
he fought to stay upright. A tree's trunk behind him stopped his sliding,
aggravating the deep scratches in his back. He was just too tired to 
keep his ki defense up. He spat out more blood. This time he thought 
that she probably broke several of his ribs. 

Ryanko frowned at him. "Aren't you ever going to fight back?"

"I-I can't fight you. Can't you see? You're my daughter no matter how
impossible it seems, and ... and after what I did to Ranma, I'm
afraid that I probably deserve this. H-how is he?"

She snarled, her blue and green eyes beginning to glow again. "It's
'she' you bastard rapist. You're the reason she's like this now! 
You gave us pain and suffering, it's only right that you suffer as 
well!"

Ryoga tensed and concentrated his ki shield just in time as she blurred
forward. A massive strike so hard, it actually broke through nearly all 
his defenses, sent him flying backwards like a bullet and through the 
trunk of another tree. It took another trunk to actually stop his rapid 
slide. He lay on his back, on the ground, trying to breathe, gasping
loudly and spitting out blood and saliva. There was several loud crashes
as the mutilated tree he burst through succumbed to gravity and fell
down, taking several nearby, smaller trees down with it.

Ryanko leaped over to land on the large, newly formed, smoking tree
stump. "But you're not making this satisfying enough. Imagine, trying to
be noble and good and not fight me. Where was your nobility seventeen
years ago, you piece of shit?"

Ryoga sat up painfully. He groaned as he shakily got on his feet. There 
was definitely another rib broken. And maybe even his colar bone. It was
a mistake to mention Ranma, he was now sure. Somehow, if he got out of
this alive, the key to resolving this led back to his old enemy. "I-I'm
sorry, if that means anything to you now ... daughter," he whispered.

"Don't call me that!" she snarled. "Anyway, since you're so pathetic that
you won't even fight me, let me tell you something. You know what I'm
going to do after I kill you?" She gave him an evil smile. "I'm going to
try to turn your dead body into a stupid pig and force you into Akari's
throat before I rip her shitting head off! And if I can't turn your
rotting carcass into that black little piece of crap, I'm going to make
her eat you and rip her stupid head off anyway!"
 
Ryoga's mind, hearing this, just snapped. The feelings within him that
were familiar that night long ago rushed back like the sea after low
tide. He began to feel the dark, black energy of depression and hate,
that lay dormant for so long, force themselves into his arms and begin to
rush towards his hands. "I will NEVER let you harm Akari." His voice came
out cold and furious.

Ryanko just continued to smile that small smile. "That's it Pop. Now
we're getting somewhere ..."

"You'll be going somewhere alright, and that's far, far from here!"
he shouted as he lifted his arms, releasing the intensity of his
dark emotions into pure destructive violence.

"SHIN SHISHI HOUKOUDAN!"



---- End of part 2 - To be continued...

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Here is draft 2 of Ranma + Ryoga Part 2. As always, C&C appreciated so I
can finally get a final version of this and send it on its way ... ;)
If anyone actually liked these fics, sorry for taking so long to get back
to them but I haven't felt a bit 'dark' in a while. Going back to Uni has
accomplished that ... ;)

Ace Sanchez (email: jsa@fl.net.au | www: http://jsa.users.fl.net.au/)