Shadowstryker's Journeys: Ryouga Hibiki

By

Shadowstryker

 Ryouga, Ranma, and Akane are copyright Rumiko Takahashi, I, in no
way make claim to them.  Shadow, AKA Shadowstryker is mine and may not
be used without permission.

 Shadow is an abbreviation of Shadowstryker, I just don't want to
write the entire thing out several times.

 This is set in Volume 36
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************

Story One, 2nd Contact
Somewhere, I haven't a clue, Tokyo

 *CRACK*
 Ryouga was in a bad mood.  Not surprising was that it was about
Ranma.  The 20ft. tree he'd just knocked down gave a pretty good idea
about how pissed off he was.  "Where Am I Now!!!???" Ryouga yelled
angrily.

 "In a forest." A voice calmly said.

 Ryouga whirled around and saw a man leaning on a tree wearing a
black wool cloak.  He was 6'2 and had long brown hair, done up in a
ponytail. "Who are you?" Ryouga demanded.

 "I'm me." The stranger answered, a grin forming.  Seeing Ryouga's
rage increase, the stranger's grin got wider. "Ahhh!  You want to know
what my name is!" The stranger exclaimed. "I hold many names, but the
one I like the most is Shadow."

 "What do you want!" Ryouga asked, coming slowly down from his
rage.

 "To talk."

 That answer cut through all of Ryouga's anger. "Why?" Ryouga
asked, confused.

 "Because I see a lot of decisions that you'll have to make and
you can't do that with you being angry." Shadow answered, leaning
against the tree, never lifting his head up to look at Ryouga.

 "I'm not angry."

 Shadow shook his head and said one word. "Ranma."

Almost instantly Ryouga went from curiosity to intense anger.
"This is all your fault, Ranma!" Ryouga shouted.

 "How?"

 The question made Ryouga stop and think, seeing as Ryouga never
stopped and thought about things, he quickly stopped and said, "It just
is."

 "It just sounds like you need to blame someone for all your
problems." Shadow answered, pushing off of the tree and walking up to
Ryouga.

 "But it's Ranma's fault I'm cursed, his fault my life is hell,
his fault I can't tell Akane I love her, and it's his fault I'm lost!"
Ryouga yelled.

 Shadow now a foot away from Ryouga said, "Freeze."

 And that's what Ryouga did, his body suddenly froze up, not
moving, his eyes looking at Shadow in shock.  Once Ryouga wasn't going
anyplace he said, "Well it looks like you blame Ranma for a lot of
things.  Can't say I really blame you, you being the type who can't
take the blame for any of his own actions and all." Shadow commented,
looking at Ryouga without any expression on his face, then he sighed.

 Shadow started pacing in front of Ryouga while he said, "Ok, I'll
start with what you said in the beginning, your curse is Ranma's fault.
You followed Ranma on some vendetta about _bread_, now come-on, it's
only pastry, that's no reason to want the guy dead, if you'd showed up
at the appointed place and time it wouldn't of happened."

Shadow sighed and started again. "Now I know what your thinking,
when _you_ finally showed up he'd left, well guess what, it DOESN'T
MATTER!" Shadow yelled at Ryouga. "So it's _your_ fault you were on
that ledge.  Sure, it was Ranma who knocked you into the pool, but he
was blinded by his anger.  Besides you should've ducked for cover,
after all, a PANDA ran by you.

 We'll get off the curse, it's still your fault.  Second thing you
said was your life was hell, again it's your fault,  the only reason
why it's hell is because _you_ got hung up on defeating Ranma, that's
no reason to want to kill him and blame him for everything wrong in
your life." Shadow had stopped pacing and was looking into Ryouga's
frozen eyes.

 "Now, do you really want me to start on that subject?"

 Ryouga would've shook his head, this stranger and come from
nowhere and was quickly blowing a lot of his thoughts out of the water,
seeing how Ryouga couldn't shake his Shadow continued.

 "The only reason you can't tell Akane that you love her is
because she'd find out about your curse and would have bacon for
breakfast the next morning.  That's also your fault, you started
masquerading as her pet, and because of that you started sleeping in
her bed, seeing her change, and hearing her secrets.  And let us not
forget another thing, you started using her to hit Ranma.  All of that
is _your_ fault.  And don't tell me it isn't."

 Shadow had started pacing again and had ticked the points off his
hand.  He stopped again looking at Ryouga. "Now, onto the last thing
you said, you blamed your directional problems on him.  Well guess
what, it's not, that's a curse dating back a couple of generations,
your great-grandfather pissed a goddess off and she put a direction
curse on him, and as you well know it's hereditary.  That's the one
thing that isn't your fault, but, it's also not Ranma's fault."

 Shadow had given up pacing and had sat on a rock formation that
was in front of Ryouga. "So all I can say is stop blaming others for
your own mistakes, stop using people for your own worthless revenge,
and above all else,... GROW UP!!!"

 Ryouga recoiled from the volume and found he move again. Turning
he looked at Shadow and glared, "You don't know what I've been
through!" He shouted.

 "Yes, I do." Shadow said calmly, "But know this, you will be
wandering for all eternity, never finding the dojo and your offspring
will also be cursed with the 'family curse' _until_you_ grow up and
learn to accept the fault for things.  If you don't I'll make sure you
never find Ranma, Akane, or Akari in your life time."  And with that he
vanished into a nearby shadow.

 Ryouga stared at the spot that Shadow vanished, all his anger
drained to nothing, while his depression was building up.  Soon he let
go a truly massive ki-blast, with all the depression drained out of him
he slumped to the ground the words that Shadow had said to him eating
at him, making him, for once, face the truth.

The End

    Well this is the second installment of my 'fic, and I hope that it's
liked.
If there is anything you think I should have done differently let me
know.
I'm always open to suggestions, and yes this is supposed to be short,
it only has one, well two, characters in it.  The idea being this and
the
others I'm writing can go together to form a larger story.

Shadowstryker
www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/4829

"Of all the things I've lost in life I miss my mind the least."
                                -Shadowstryker(misquote from Ozzy)