Still forging ahead on six C, looks like it will get done in time.
Please C&C, etc.
This segment introduces a few more plot elements, as this chapter is doing generally.
A little action in C though. So to speak.
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
*Summer Lightning* and "Thanksgiving Eve" are copyrighted by
Garnet Rogers; if you haven't encountered him before go out
and buy his CDs, he sings lots better than I write.
"The Haughs of Cromdale" is a Traditional Scottish Melody.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 0.2 (Oct. 19, 1999)
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Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part B: The Morning After the Night Before
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane woke up happy.
This was a moderately rare event for her, but she noticed
that it had been becoming more frequent since the imposition
on her life of a certain red-haired girl. Regardless of the
source of her new-found contentment, however, she would
normally _not_ have expected this morning to be a good one.
Too much fear and pain the day before, too much expected
stress today.
Somehow, though, she had managed to navigate the dark rapids
of the night and emerge in the hush of early dawn rested,
loose-limbed and, somehow, entirely content.
Quickly dressing, she picked Isileth from the stand on her
dresser and slipped her in her jacket. Passing silently out
her door and down the hall to the top of the stairs she
stood silently for a moment, listening to the silence of the
house. Just below the normal limits of audibility she could
discern Kasumi's ministrations in the kitchen and someone
singing quietly in the garden.
It's so easy to dream of days gone by,
So hard to think of times to come.
And the grace to accept every moment as a gift
Is a gift that is given to some.
Nabiki woke up discontented.
She had pinned some hopes on the night before, but her
surveillance activities had come up empty. She was _sure_
that Ranma and her sister were lovers, but she had not
achieved her lofty reputation as a manipulator of events by
acting ahead of _certain_ knowledge.
The remedy for the lack of which had seemed simple, too;
lovers will tend to cling to one another in times of stress,
and yesterday's activities _should_ have provided _plenty_
of stress, which _should_ have expressed themselves nicely
last night.
But except for Ranma doing some sort of meditation thingy to
help Akane sleep, _nothing had happened_. It was annoying,
was what it was.
Worse yet, from her viewpoint, she had theorized that they
might, perhaps, simply have been too tired the night before;
so she had woken up at an entirely-too-early time in the
morning to continue her surveillance. But not only had Ranma
already been up, but Akane had woken early too, and _again_
they hadn't done anything. Not even a kiss!
Ah well, maybe one of them was more aware than she had
thought. She would simply have to get more subtle. It would
be a good challenge. Or, she might just strangle the
gibbering pair of _early-morning_ songsters.
Blearily and grumpily, Nabiki sat down in the dining room
and snarled at merrily cheeping birds and cheery sunrise
alike.
What can you do with your days,
But work and hope?
Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
What can you do with each moment of your life,
But live til you've lived it away?
Live til you've lived it away.
Soun awoke unsettled.
This was hardly unusual, of course. Still, he thought, this
was even worse than normal. For all the griefs he normally
felt, for all the power of the terrors and regrets that he
normally struggled with, they were just that: _normal_, the
common structure of his days. The changes that young Ranma
seemed to have brought into his family and his life might or
might not be terrible, but he felt their abnormality keenly
nonetheless.
Yet alongside this additional weight lurked an additional
variable, neither necessarily negative nor positive. With
change comes the possibility of change for the better.
Yet if that possibility is not fulfilled is it not more
terrible than if no such possibility had existed?
At the bottom of every Pandora's Box lurks shining Hope.
And whether that was a good or an evil thing Tendo Soun
could not for the life of him decide.
There are sorrows enough for the whole world's end,
There are no guarantees but the grave.
But this life that we live,
and the times that we spend,
Are treasures to precious to save.
Kasumi had probably awoken with the same serenity which she
always showed the world. It's always difficult to tell, with
Kasumi.
What can you do with your days,
But work and hope?
Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
What can you do with each moment of your life,
But live til you've lived it away?
Live til you've lived it away.
Kodachi and Sayuri woke early, each separately deciding that
they hated hospitals. But we won't get back to them until a
little later.
What can you do with your days,
But work and hope?
Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
What can you do with each moment of your life,
But live til you've lived it away?
Live til you've lived it away.
And a new day in Nerima began, as Kasumi called her,
slightly enlarged, family to breakfast.
------------------------------------------------------------
The thing that Akane was most aware of as breakfast
continued was hunger; a great, growing void in her stomach
that the food Kasumi had brought to table, double-sized
though it was, barely dented. Ranma, however, put a
surreptitious hand on her shoulder when she would have asked
Kasumi for more food, indicating that she should keep
silence.
Once outside the Dojo on the road to Furinkan, Ranma led
Akane and Nabiki to a small side-street off the Nerima
Ginza, wherein they found what Nabiki immediately dubbed
"the perfect hole-in-the-wall dive". It was a very small
restaurant, without even a window onto the street. The door
itself hardly advertised it's status as a place of business;
much more resembling a service entrance for some greater
establishment, except for the small sign whereon resided the
single word, "Gally's".
The inside of the restaurant was clean and neat, if small
and dark. It was dominated by the enormous grill that swept
across the back wall and left only a little space into which
a counter with ten stools and half a dozen small tables had
been crammed. There were no customers, and the only
occupant, who was evidently the cook, looked up at them with
an expression of professional cheer that lasted only a few
seconds.
"Hi! Welcome to Gally's. What I fix may for you today ...
_Ranma_?"
"Hiya, Gally-kun, we need eight mega-burgers to go, please."
"Eight ...? Right, eight Megas, to go, coming up."
Gally, if it were she, was a short, elfin girl with straight
black hair that barely reached her shoulders. She possessed
the grace of a martial artist in full measure and was almost
superhumanly fast and deft. Her only unusual features were
the black lines beneath her eyes, but both Akane and Nabiki
received a clear impression of hidden depths, as though
beneath her unmarked arms and perfect skin a whole
collection of scars lurked unseen, yet not unfelt.
Akane, however, quickly found herself distracted from
questions of deeper reality by her stomach's reaction to the
_enormous_ piles of savory ground beef, bacon and onions
being constructed at lightning speed before her eyes. She
had, of course, _been_ to a McDonald's before, and she had
even ordered a burger there, so she _was_ aware of the
concept involved. But the idea of 'burger' that she had
previously been aware of did not really seem to have much to
do with the things that were taking shape before her eyes.
"So, Ranma-kun," Gally said over her shoulder, "what doing
were you that touched off an eight-Mega hunger? I mean 'What
were you doing?'"
"Aaaactually ... it's closer to a three-Mega hunger,
Gally-kun. But Acchan here will probably need a little
more."
"She's in the same, errr, 'business', Ranma-kun?"
Ranma smiled quietly, "I've taken her as a student."
Gally whipped around and stared at Ranma for a moment,
big-eyed. Ranma blushed slightly and mumbled, "She shows
great promise."
One of the burgers chose that moment to expel some of its
grease onto the grill, hissing and spitting. Gally gave a
small shriek and whipped into a cooking frenzy, getting the
burgers back under control. "Well, I'm glad that it's just
normal ..." she trailed off.
Ranma raised an eyebrow at her back and asked, "Yes?"
"It's just that I ... well, yesterday I suddenly got um...
it was like I suddenly got the idea that you were a lot of
trouble in. Silly, huh? Hugo told me that he had a bad
feeling about mid-morning, too. Said it was like 'A goose
had walked across his grave.' Honestly, know where he comes
up with these things I don't."
Ranma sweat-dropped briefly. "Ahh, yeah. Silly. How _is_
Hugo-kun, anyway? And Ido-sensei?"
"Ohh, Hugo's _just_ fine. He and Ido are both doing things
at Nekomi Tech, you know. Techy stuff." She grinned briefly,
and fairly lit up the room. "It's entirely too geekly for me
to be interested in, but it makes them _so_ happy...."
"Yee-es," Ranma drawled, "I _do_ seem to recall you being
more on the side of, mmmm, _practical implementation_, shall
we say?"
"Be nice, Ranma-kun. So I like moving fast and blowing
things up good. Is that any reason for you to be mean to
me?" Ranma smirked. "Oh! That reminds me," Gally continued,
"Hugo and Ido have joined a motor club at NIT. Would you
come out to the races with us?"
"If nothing, mmm, _serious_ intervenes, sure. When and
where?"
Gally finished the first burger and whipped it in front of a
nearly drooling Akane, who launched into it with vigor.
"I'll get word to you when I know when the next race will be
held."
She put together a smaller burger that she had somehow
hidden amongst the others and wrapped rice paper around it,
handing it to Nabiki. "First hit's free," she winked.
On the way out the door, loaded down with a _huge_ fast-food
sack, Ranma turned back briefly, "... soon, Gally-kun. For
some reason I think that we're about to suffer from an
enormous addiction to ground beef," and winked in turn.
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki was somewhat amazed at herself, but exceedingly
amazed at her companions.
The burgers were as good as anything Kasumi could have made,
and the relatively smallish one she had eaten was still
larger than anything that she, an experienced consumer of
munchies, would have believed she could have found room for
so soon after breakfast. Yet it was less than a third the
size of the _eight_ that the slight chef had made for Ranma
and her sister, and Nabiki was not sure whether to be more
amazed that Ranma had finished _two_ of them, that her
_sister_ had finished two of them, that Akane had eaten them
with such ... voraciousness, that Ranma had put _three_ of
them back for later in the school day, or that she was still
carrying one of them in her hand, perhaps to use on the walk
_to_ school.
But what Nabiki was being _really_ amazed at was that Akane
could pack away a major Kasumi-style breakfast, follow it
with _two_ piles of meat, cheese, vegetables and bread that
must have tipped the scales at a kilo each, and _still_ have
the energy to jump about like a moderately demented
ping-pong ball while "attacking" Ranma.
At least Ranma was being sensible and remaining serene in
her manner. Though it was a sobering exhibition of just how
good she truly was to note that she was facing down a sword
with a folding fan. And kicking Akane's butt without
breaking a sweat.
Nabiki stole a moment from admiring the martial arts
exhibition to take another searching look at the fan. Nabiki
harbored suspicions about that fan. Normal fans, after all,
do not deflect sword-blades, nor can they be used as
leverage to flip an opponent fifty feet into the air.
The thing was, though, that it couldn't be a gunsen at all.
It was plainly visible to anyone's sight: a simple, folding
bamboo frame, covered with plain rice paper that had never
even been died or patterned. To Nabiki's eye it seemed to be
a well-used three or four years old, and the only thing on
it was a small calligraphed phrase that appeared to be an
autograph or similar running along one edge.
"Umm, Ranma-san?" Akane slid forward along the fence,
Isileth at mid- guard. Ranma looked down towards Nabiki's
upturned face and flicked down beside her as Akane
slide-stepped forward along the fence-top.
"Yes, Nabiki-kun?" Ranma lightly rapped Akane's ankles,
sending her forward another dozen paces as she struggled to
control herself.
"I was just wondering where you'd gotten that fan from?"
Nabiki indicated the fan in question with a gesture as Akane
regained control by jumping up and high into the air.
"Well, I bought it for Sensei, once ..." Ranma gestured
widely with the folded implement.
"Haaaah!" Akane came down in a falling pear-splitter.
*whsssh* Which Ranma dodged, gently guiding the blade past
with the fan before *whrt* flicking her high into the air
again. "Whooaaa!"
"... and when, later, I left his school, so to ..." Ranma
flowed around to Nabiki's outer side with respect to the
street as Akane flipped in mid-air and came back down.
"Not that ..." she began to snarl *hfff* as Ranma guided to
sword-blade past herself again. Akane evaded a fan twist and
lunged, perfectly in control. There was a *klng* as Ranma
blocked the blow close and a rapid- fire *klk-klak-klik* as
they fenced for fractions of a second before *whf* another
blow went past and Akane's ".. eas.." trailed of behind
another *whrt* "... eeeeee!" *THUD*
"... speak, he gave it back. It's just a keepsake, really."
Ranma hid her face behind the fan in a moderately
provocative manner as Akane thumped into a telephone pole
down the street.
"But you're blocking a _sword_ with it! _And_ flipping my
little sister umpty-dozen feet in the air. Why doesn't it
break?" Nabiki asked plaintively as Akane pushed herself
away from the pole.
"Neat trick, ne?" Ranma winked.
Akane put Isileth away and threw her arms out in a great,
wrenching yawn as Ranma and Nabiki came level with her.
"Ahhhh! Ranchan, I don't think I'm going to get that one
easily on my own. It ought to be easier; just what are you
doing, anyway?"
Nabiki tuned the explanation out, thinking furiously. She
had gotten several blurred glimpses of the calligraphy as
Ranma had gestured with it, and she thought that she had
seen that hand before somewhere. Common wisdom argued that
any artist's hand is completely unique, and so if she could
recognize the style it should be as good as actually seeing
what it said. Then she shook her head; no, it couldn't be.
But she remembered where that hand had leapt out at her
before: on a set of scrolls in a museum.... Which was
patently impossible of course, even for Ranma, but....
Her attention was distracted by a loud growl next to her.
Looking around, she saw that Akane was paper-white and
holding her stomach with both hands. "Ranchan ...," she
whispered panic-stricken, but Ranma had already unwrapped
the burger she had been holding and put into her hand. Akane
looked at it in shock for a moment before all but falling on
it slavering.
Nabiki looked on with concern as her sister ravened her way
through her (effectively) fifth full breakfast of the
morning. She would have been far more concerned of course,
had Ranma herself not so obviously anticipated it, but still
....
Akane herself was no little concerned. "Ranchan, what's
happening to me?"
"You used up a _whole_ bunch of resources yesterday, Acchan.
In fact, I would estimate that you used up about twice what
you had available. So you , we, had to borrow some more, so
to speak. This is just the pay-back. Well, and the interest
too, of course."
"Me and my big ideas," Akane muttered.
"So you'll stay behind, next time?," Ranma asked hopefully.
Akane's glare required no translation. "You _did_ say that
you _did_ need me along, _right_?" she purred.
Ranma sweat-dropped and blushed, grinning sicklily, "Errr.
Yeah."
"So there."
------------------------------------------------------------
The room was mostly dark, if you didn't count the TV.
Normally, Sayuri was as capable of vegging out as any
teenager, but that was when she had a choice whether to do
so or not. Of course, she could have turned the lights up
... then she could have spent whole ... seconds cataloging
the flowers and plants.
As of the last time she had done so, fifteen minutes ago,
there had been 35.
Or, she could read. The signs on the wall, for instance.
Why, there must be ... twenty of them. That had been thirty
minutes ago.
Of course, looked at objectively, it was sufficient of a
miracle that she was alive for the sheer lack of anything to
do to drive her crazy in the first place. She certainly
shouldn't complain that her family had been too distracted
by her miraculous recovery to remember to leave her any
books. Or even homework.
Or, she could review her suspicions about the source of that
'miracle' for the ... twenty-third ... time. Or, she could
get right up and wander about in the _lovely_ hospital,
wearing the _lovely_ hospital gown that was actually _more_
embarrassing than if they'd left her naked.
At least there weren't any IVs left. Although there wouldn't
be anyone out there to talk to except patients she didn't
know and who certainly had worse problems than her and staff
members who certainly wouldn't have time to amuse one
teenage girl.
It was certainly a better policy to wait quietly until
someone came to visit her. If she avoided straining
anything, they might let her go home, she supposed, sometime
next week.
Sayuri leaned back in her bed and watched the television's
flickering glow for a few moments, then slung her feet over
the edge of the bed and found a spare gown. This she put on
over her original gown, but backwards. She topped off with a
towel from the bathroom wrapped around her waist. Then she
opened the door and went out into the corridors. It was
either that, or another dubbed episode of Wheel of Fortune.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kodachi lay back in her bed with the TV off, and gathered
her strength. Her leg was still very weak, in her
estimation, and her face ached in a pattern that suggested
to her that she might well end up with a permanent scar. Her
eyes were closed in concentration, because she was
attempting something that she had only heard stories about.
She was trying to visualize all of the relevant acupuncture
points for legs and arms and to connect them in a chi
circulation circuit. It didn't help that she had never
actually even felt her chi per se, of course, but it was
something to do to pass the time until her
torturer/therapist showed up.
And keeping her eyes closed to concentrate on her
visualization meant that she didn't have to look at her
room.
Which didn't have anything in it to look at but the flowers
that Ranma-sensei and Akane-san had left.
And she knew what they looked like.
Unfortunately, neither self-hypnosis nor even meditation had
ever been among the skills she had mastered, and the
necessary distance from the red dust of earth would not come
to her, try though she might. Thus, the unexpected opening
of her door came as something of a relief. It _was_ a little
odd, since Ranma and Akane should be in school and no-one
else was likely to come by to visit, and it was outside the
nurse's and therapist's schedules as well; and she sat up in
bed and raised her lights.
The appearance of a small, long-haired girl in two hospital
gowns and a towel was somewhat unexpected.
------------------------------------------------------------
The school-yard before first bell was a hotbed of rumor and
speculation.
The only sure information was that Sayuri had come out of
her coma at last and that Ranma had had something to do with
it. Persistent rumor whispered Akane's name as well; said
that she had died curing Sayuri's illness; said that _Ranma_
had died curing Sayuri's illness; said that Ranma and Akane
had died _together_, and in each other's arms; said that the
"in each other's arms" part was right but that they were
still quite alive, thank you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink,
etc.); denied all of the above for the thought that Sayuri's
"illness" had been induced by The Forces Of Darkness, who
had finally been defeated by Magical Girl Ranma and her
apprentice; and threw around other thoughts, some of which
were very strange and inaccurate indeed. The absence of
Furinkan's normal source of rumors and hearsay, Tendo
Nabiki, did nothing but add fuel to the fire.
Yuka had originally been besieged, but since she had been
otherwise occupied worrying about Sayuri she had little data
to give. This had caused the crowd to fragment and so she
had had to latch on to Daisuke and Hiroshi in order to have
someone to speculate with. Nonetheless, she was the first to
hear the distant voices, silver and gold.
I was riding west, through Ontake Mountains.
The hills were heavy with new-fallen snow,
And the sun-bright hills were dappled like a pony,
I was riding hard, I had miles to go.
And a magpie flew, 'cross the mountain highway,
It flashed and tumbled, through the golden trees,
And I thought of you, and my heart was lifted,
And floated with that magpie, on the morning breeze.
Hiroshi and Daisuke noticed her silence and then, moments
later, the reason for it. Caught up between going to hear
the voices better and gaining height so they could see
better, the Average Pair settled for trying to shush people
instead.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Across the Furinkan schoolyard ripples of silence spread, as
the spell of leaping flame and swirling wind touched briefly
here and there and then passed on.
Tonight the Harvest Moon hangs over the valley,
I see the hills shine, in its silvery light.
It's the same old Moon, that shines down upon me,
And'll light my way, till I'm by your side.
For where I go, You go with me,
Though the miles keep us apart.
Your kisses on my lips, and your arms around me,
And your gentle hands, always on my heart.
Some heard in the song confirmations of theories. Some did
not.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Nabiki, walking just behind Ranma and Akane, marveled. She
had always known that her little sister was good at martial
arts, but who would have thought that _this_ was hiding
under there, too.
Well who scattered these diamonds,
through the vault of Heaven?
Who drew the curve of the magpie's wing?
Who shaped your face, and what made you love me?
Where is the heart of every living thing?
Well, I guess I don't know, and I don't care either.
I know you love me, how could it not be?
And I am your's, now and forever,
'Till my lips fall silent, and my eyes can't see.
Somewhere in the back of her mind words like 'Idol' and
'Agent' were flashing, surrounded by scads of beautiful yen
signs, but for the moment even Nabiki was lost in the song.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end Dear, only love remains.
Ranma and Akane entered the schoolyard to a wall of stunned
silence.
Akane almost blushed, but Ranma smiled broadly and spread
her arms wide and the walls of Furinkan picked up her
shouted "Good Morning, Furinkan!" and blurred it back into a
roaring cheer.
Yuka hurtled from her position by the doors with a cry of
"Ranma-san, Akane-san!" Like a hyperactive heat-seeking
missile she hurled herself into Ranma's arms shouting "Thank
you! Thank you for saving Sayuri- chan!" Slipping free from
a slightly staggered Ranma she turned on Akane, and froze
with a wail of shock.
Yuka's wailed "Akane-san! What happened?!" pretty well
silenced the cheering and when Yuka gently grasped Akane's
blushing face by the chin and turned her head everyone could
see the scars; and see, also, the flaming red and swirling
gold of the eye beneath them.
The stunned silence lasted for several seconds as Akane's
blush achieved near nuclear proportions but the blush faded
instantly when Yuka broke the silence ... by bursting into
tears.
Akane swept Yuka into her arms and hugged her hard. "Shh,
Yuka-chan. It's all right. I'm not hurt, it's just a scar,
like; the eye still works."
"But ... *snff* ... I mean, are you sure Akane-san? It looks
like ..."
Akane blushed again, but rallied, "I'm _sure_, believe me.
It looks weird as hell, but everything works just fine."
"But _how_?" Yuka said.
"Oh, well," Ranma said, dryly, "she _is_ a hero, you know."
"But then why don't _you_ have one, Ranma-san?" someone
called.
Ranma ran a possessive hand over her flaming hair and said,
"Each to their own."
A small wave of chuckles was broken by another cry from the
rear ranks,
"Three cheers for Ranma and Akane!"
"Banzai!!"
Ranma smirked and covered her mouth with her fan as Akane's
blush went beyond Mega-Nuclear to Don't Point That At My
Planet.
"_Banzai!!_"
Akane resolved to kill the person who had spoken, but
afterwards. Still, no-one had ever cheered _her_ before.
When you came down to it, it was kind of nice.
"BANZAI!!"
And the left eye in her thrown back face flamed, briefly, a
solid gold.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part C: When I Was A Fighting Man, The Kettle-Drums They Beat
Tomorrow, I hope.
Yours very respectfully,
Eric Hallstrom, CC, PhD, UBIP,etc.
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com