First word of warning. ***
This is my first fanfic, as well as my first attempt to return to
writing in many years. I am vary out of practice, and probably was not
vary good back then either. However, I now am attempting to recover
that lost voice I had once held in writing; if not improve upon it.
Please please, C&C are not only wanted, but desired and surely needed.
Second word of warning. ***
None of the characters in this story belong to me. That being said.
Please don't tell Nabiki, as I really can not afford what price she
might set. All of what is set forth here, is meant to honor and praise
those stories that have meant so much to me. Thank you Takahashi, for
without your fun and wonderful stories, I would have had far few
reasons to laugh and smile.
Third thing:
My apologies to Brian Drozdt. I not no intentions of stealing a
title, but I am very bad at coming up with names and titles. Now that
it was mentioned, I think I had seen that one around, but never read
it. It was only a title I had decieded on at the last second anyway.
Hopefully a better title will present itself in the telling of the
story.
Now, on with the show:
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Ranma sat in front of the TV, oblivious to the certain doom
that was approaching. Suddenly, without warning, Akane appeared from
the kitchen carrying a tray of cookies. She approached Ranma with the
tray and set them down in front of him. Ranma scanned the room for an
avenue of escape. Finding none he started to gone into his tirade
about her cooking, stopping short as he saw the pensive look in her
eyes. The words that always flowed out of his mouth before, always
served to protect and distance him from the emotional world, hung in
his throat.
Try as he might, he could not blame Nabiki completely for the
devastation that had ran that night. Even before everyone had shown up
and destroyed everything, he had already ruined it. That he had not
realized until he heard Akane crying that first night. He had wanted
to go to her, but didn't want to get hit, or more correctly, was
afraid that she wouldn't hit him. He deserved it, and in some awkward
way, wanted it.
He wasn't sure what a home felt like, but he was more
comfortable here than he had ever been. He wasn't sure what love
really felt like, all he knew was that for as long as he could
remember, everything he ever cared about left him. As Ranma thought of
how his mother was disappointed in him after that day, he felt the
weight of all the things he had lost. Some far more valueable than he
would ever know.
Now, he was losing Akane. For more months than he deserved, he
had managed to keep Akane near him by tricking fate and trying to push
her away. But now, fate it seemed, had taken notice of his little
trick, and he didn't know what to do. He knew if he refused, she would
move a little further away from him; however, if he tried them and
they made him sick, she would be more hurt and move further away . . .
it was a lose-lose situation.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. 'Salvation,'
Ranma thought as he jumped up. "I got it!" Ranma yelled.
"Ranma!" Akane growled.
"Who could it be at this hour?" Ranma asked with a smirk, not
to have answered, but anything had to be better than his options two
seconds ago. Opening the door, Ranma froze. There stood a man perhaps
in his thirties. He had short dark hair, and was clearly dressed for a
much colder season than it was. Form a glance Ranma could tell he was
not a Martial Artists and had probably never even been trained in the,
and yet this man gave off a feeling that made Ranma tense. With him
was a girl about Ranma's age. She had had some training, Ranma
thought, but was definitely not even on Akane's level. She too was
dressed in winter wear. Her hair was a shiny black with faint red
highlights, which fell loosely around her shoulders. The man looked
uncertainly at Ranma while the girl looked like she was seeing a
ghost. He knew he had never seen either one of them before, but
somehow they both felt familiar. 'No, not now, not again. I am so
gonna kill you old man,' Ranma thought defensively as he fought the
only logical reason for them to be here.
Almost as if in a nightmarish answer to his thoughts, the girl
sprang forward, giving Ranma a tight hug that felt like she never
wanted to let go. Ranma might have thought 'why me,' if this last year
had not confirmed to him that every ounce of joy he might experience
in his life, he would have to pay with so much more pain. Suddenly the
world began to spin then went dark.
As Ranma collapsed, he nearly took the girl down with him;
after all, she had not been expecting him to suddenly go limp. Hikaru
glared at the girl who stood before her clutching a mallet with a
suspiciously new dent in it.
"Do what ever you like, it's not like I care or anything!" She
yelled at the unconscious form that was Ranma. She turned and started
to storm off down the hallway.
"You," Hikaru spat. "You shall never do that again!"
Nabiki, who had been watching the whole thing silently from
atop the stairs now gasped as she watched the girl begin to glow, if
one could call it that, black. Darkness and shadow seemed to be
radiating form her in a way darkness should not be able to. Then she
leaped into the air, aiming a death strike at Akane. Akane had turned
just in time to watch her jump into the air. After many long battles
with Ranma's other fianc�e's, she had expected some form of attack.
Why should she be that different from the others. What she did not
expect was to see such a powerful black aura tinged with such a deep
crimson red surrounding the girl before she leapt at her with an
amazing skill. Akane was about to dodge out of the way while blocking,
she knew she could never move fast enough to get completely out of the
way, when mid way through the strike, the girl seemed almost to stop
in mid air, then landed roughly on her feet. The girl spun around to
face her companion.
'Even physics appeared not to be involved where Ranma life was
concerned,' Nabiki quipped to herself. It was a pity Ranma was still
out of it. She would have liked to get Ranma's opinion on how she did
that. After all, it would have been kind of fun to break a few laws of
physics during certain classes she would have to be taking in college.
"Hikaru-chan, do you want to go home already?" The man asked.
At least now Nabiki knew the name of one of their guests. She looked
down toward the ground and shook her head. "Then apologize to Akane."
So he knew Akane. Nabiki wasn't sure what to make of that. She was
sure of one thing though, she didn't like being the one out of the
loop.
"But . . ." she started, but he just stared at her. Turning
around slowly, she turned toward Akane, her head hung low. Then she
bowed deeply "Gomen nasai."
"Oh, hello Kyousuki. Long time no see, ne?" Kasumi asked from
behind Nabiki. Now Nabiki was at a total loss. She had meant to catch
this wild tale from the beginning this time. Now it seemed she was the
only one who didn't know what was going on.
"You know him, oneechan?" Akane asked trying to grasp
something just out of reach. At least Nabiki now knew she wasn't the
only one in the dark here. Kasumi only beamed that gentle smile of
hers.
After their mother had died, she had thrown herself into the
impossible task of trying to take her mother's place. In the beginning
it had threatened to overwhelm her. Then she watched as Akane smiled
again for the first time. Soon after that, she had held Nabiki as she
cried in her arms for hours, letting go some of the turmoil that she
had been bottling up. Kasumi had been afraid that they would all hate
her. Hate her for trying to fill their mother's place. For trying to
live up to that promise. After that, everything she did around the
house was no longer a chore, but something she relished doing. Now she
longer looked upon the world with the same suspicious eyes that she
had before. Now she openly accepted everything she saw for what it
was, and before her stood a man, who was at once, a total stranger and
yet a friend they had just met a few months back. It was no wonder the
others didn't recognize him, it may have been the best makeup job in
the world. Even she would have missed it, except a certain look about
the eyes, and something about his voice gave him away.
Chubasa could learn a few things from him.
"Ah, yeah." Kyousuki said some what uneasy. He had hoped none
of them would recognize him. Some reason though, since she was the
only one that recognized him, he felt the first hint that they might
actually be able to pull this off, if Hikaru could bide her time.
Inwardly he sighed. How could he be doing this. Certainly, he
felt he was following the path of the greater of two evils. He could
still stop this. What right did he have to be here in the first place?
He wished he had talked it over with Madoka. He knew she would have
put a stop to this. What kind of evil man was he to even think of
this. Actually it had been the idea of a young girl named after a dear
friend that she would never meet.
"Kasumi, we need to talk . . . Alone."
"Okay, how about in the kitchen?"
With a grin that sent shivers up both Nabiki and Akane's back,
he responded "Sure." Both Akane and Nabiki looked questioningly at
Kasumi who softly strolled down the stairs toward the kitchen. The two
strangers followed closely behind. Akane just watched.
Nabiki, on the other hand, was down the stairs just as soon as
they all passed into the kitchen. "Nabiki!" Akane hissed, thinking
'what are you doing.' Nabiki only smiled back as she tried to listen
to what was being said. Akane had felt like the only one everyone was
spying on, every since Ranma got here. She had always hated that,
especially when it had ruined one of those special moments. She knew
she should be against this. Akane thought for a second, the joined her
sister at the door. Too much she needed to know.
After a long silence, they booth looked at each other quizzically.
Akane barged on in, Demanding to know what was going on. The kitchen
was empty.
"Kasumi!" Akane yelled. "He just kidnapped Kasumi!" Ranma who
had just now begun to stir, found himself being dragged out into the
back yard and off on to the Nerma streets while Akane was muttering
something about Kasumi being kidnapped and it must have been something
he did.
Nabiki walked back over to the couch and waited. Something was
not right here. She was sure that if they had left, she should have
heard a door, a window, something, but they were gone without a trace
in just the short time it took her to get down the steps. She had
walked out of her room expecting to see the final nail in Ranma's
coffin. Instead she was meet by two people who knew far too much for
Nabiki to be comfortable with. Together they had just walked right in
and spirited off the only person, who might have had some kind of a
clue what was going on.
Ghosts. Demons perhaps. Perhaps some forgotten gods. Perhaps
the vary Gods that watched over Ranma and Akane. Nabiki smirked at the
thought. Now she was letting this whole curse thing get to her. No
gods or demons had spirited her away. Sure Ranma had fought some
pretty weird things during their stay here, but not Gods. 'Unless you
count the 7 unlucky gods, after Ranma got through with them.' No,
there was a logical explanation this time, and Nabiki was just missing
the key piece to the puzzle. Ranma would bring her back safe and
sound, or Nabiki would see to it he died a slow agonizing death.
=== third_child@hotmail.com
We the unwilling, led by the unknowing,
are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful.
We have done so much, for so long, with so little
we are now qualified to do anything with nothing