Permanent
Part 25
Shadows of demons.
To say Ranma Saotome was drunk would be an understatement. After Soun
Tendo had passed out she turned a few thoughts over in her head. Ryoga
and Akane were acting more and more distant, Nabiki was sitting nearby
watching television in a pair of cut off shorts that she found herself
staring at every few moments, and worse yet, something still didn't feel
right in the air. Happosai was well on his way out of Japan and things
still didn't feel much better. She was also starting to get visions about
some strange traveler at night, the figure seemed familiar, and yet
distant somehow. Whoever it was had something long and menacing across
their back and a longing feeling accompanied them. She wasn't sure if the
feeling was from her or the figure. Ranma sank lower and lower into an
odd depression and started to knock back sake as if it was water.
"Ranma! Haven't you had enough?" snapped Akane as she snatched the glass
away as the sun slowly fell below the horizon behind her.
Ranma looked up at her and turned away in a sort of disgust. "Ya know
-kane, you don't -preciate nothin I do for ya! I got you a cute fianc�e,
a future, demonic super powers, and you don't thank me or nothin!"
Akane froze and stared at the girl in shock dropping the glass on the
ground shattering it as both her sisters and Ryoga stared at her.
"W-what?"
Ranma giggled to herself and leaned on her shoulder. "What? You
think-think, you can keep secrets from me -kane-chan?"
Akane slowly turned and looked at the room as they stared at her.
"Akane, what's she talking about?" said Ryoga carefully.
The Tendo girl blushed and looked away. "I got stronger somehow, I
wasn't sure why, but I think it might have something to do with this."
She pointed at her eye and sulked for a moment. "I was afraid of what
might happen if I told you..."
Ranma slapped her across the face and snapped at her angrily. "What are
ya stoopid? I knowed it all along!"
Ryoga narrowed his eyes at the red head and sighed. "Akane, when was the
last time you got some sleep?"
"I haven't slept since I woke up from my injuries," she replied turning
an even deeper crimson.
"Damn you Ranma! How dare you engage me to a Youma!" snapped Ryoga
angrily as he lifted the drunken girl by her shirt and shook her. A
moment later he was sprawled across the ground with a look of shock on
his face.
Ranma stood over him with a hard glare as she lowered her fists and
smirked. "Remember your place Mr. P."
The boy bowed his head and simply sat there staring at the floor. "This
is beyond belief! You don't have any right to do this to me!" He jumped
to his feet and stared her down.
"Ryoga, if I didn't know you cared, I would have never done it in the
first place. Stop hiding your feelings fool, I know you love her," she
sat down calmly and simply stared forward watching Akane closely.
"Youma?" said Kasumi as she stepped back away from her sister with her
hand over her mouth.
Akane smiled and looked down at her hand, it was a bittersweet
revelation. "So...that's it is it?"
Ranma nodded grimly and sat back. "You should be more careful Akane,
every amateur demon hunter in the city will be after you if you push your
luck and run around at night like you have been. Sooner or later one of
them will get lucky."
"How?" said the girl simply as she looked up and ignored the others
completely.
Ranma shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "Those things you fought in
the mansion turned you into one, they assimilate humans. If they had
killed you the change would have been complete. I managed to stop most of
the transformation while you were out, that's why it took you so long to
wake up. I almost didn't make it in time."
Kasumi looked between her sister and Ranma with a worried look in her
eyes. "Isn't there anything you can do Ranma?"
"Without killing her? No," replied the girl simply. "She isn't a full
youma, if she chooses to live as a human she can quite easily. She can
have a family and grow old and die."
Akane slowly nodded her head and relaxed. "If that's true, I can't carry
on the Tendo blood line without tainting it," Everyone in the room froze
and looked at her in shock. "I can't accept the engagement to Ryoga."
The boy looked at her coolly and smiled, "She's right Ranma." A faint
flash of disappointment appeared in his face for a moment before he
looked away. "I'm sorry."
The girl stopped and stared at them as her plans crumbled slowly to
dust. "If that's the way you want it Mr. P."
For a long moment nobody spoke, Akane sat uncomfortably as Ranma started
to drink directly from the bottle. The pigtailed girl idly wondered if
she should tell Soun about it or not. If Akane didn't want him to know
she really didn't have any reason to give the girl's secret away. She
stopped drinking and looked at the room. "Damn, I wasn't gonna tell
anyone about that."
They all looked at her for a moment and she shrugged and lifted the
bottle once again. "Ranma! You're unbelievable!" screamed Ryoga angrily
as he stomped up to his room and slammed the door.
"Is he going to be all right?" asked Nabiki; she had been feeling kind
of left out of the conversation. She had known about Akane's nighttime
trips, but this was a little more than she expected.
"He'll be fine, we get this way every once and a while," replied Ranma
with a half-hearted shrug. She promptly fell face first onto the table as
the alcohol finally overpowered her.
"Well, that was certainly interesting," commented Kasumi as she started
to clean up the mess.
Akane looked at her sisters and sighed, "Look, don't tell daddy about
this OK?"
"As if he'd believe us," commented Nabiki dryly. She knew that he would
if she said something, especially considering what he had seen since
Ranma had come into their lives. Still, it seemed to make her sister feel
better. "You do realize that you'll have to come up with something to
break the engagement with Ryoga if you don't want him to know about
this."
Akane froze and looked up at the room where her former fianc�e was. "Oh,
yes. I'll have to talk with him about this."
Ryoga Hibiki was not happy, Ranma had betrayed him terribly. The Hibiki
line...he stopped and realized that the Hibiki line would have to carry
on without him anyway. His responsibility to his family ended the day he
signed the contract with his master. As far as he was concerned he
belonged to her. "There in lies the problem."
He hung his head and sighed trying to sort through his problems. "What
am I going to do now?" It was becoming more and more obvious that Ranma
wanted him to be independent and live his own life from now on.
Unfortunately that conflicted with what he felt was a sacred and
honorable duty. "I can't just leave her...can I?" He hung his head and
mulled over the problem turning it over and over again and again in his
mind. "Damn you Ranma, this is all your fault!"
Akane pulled Ranma up by her arms and grunted as she hefted the girl up
the stairs helping her stagger along the ground. She had almost forgotten
Ranma was drunk for a moment before she keeled over on the table. She was
halfway awake at the moment though. Ranma held onto the rail and allowed
herself to be placed in her old room.
Happosai's things still lay in the room scattered across the floor.
Ranma took one step into the room and shuddered as the evil energy of the
old man enveloped her body. She stood upright screaming in terror as a
deluge of imagery flooded her mind and the perverted feelings washed over
her body. Instinctively she lifted Akane up into her arms and jumped from
the room.
The Tendo girl screamed a short cry of protest as she was thrown from
the room and landed with Ranma on top of her just outside the doorway.
The pigtailed girl chuckled slightly and rubbed her head against her
chest. "You know Akane, you're kind of soft here."
She blushed and jumped away pulling Ranma up with her. "What's wrong
with you?"
"How long has that old man been in that room?" said Ranma flatly as she
gave the door an evil looking stare.
"I donno, about a week?" said Akane as she tried to remember the exact
number of days.
"I can't sleep in there," replied the girl simply as she shrugged
Akane's grip off. "I'll just walk home."
Akane frowned and grabbed her again, "You aren't going anywhere like
that, come on." She shoved the girl into her own room and lay her down on
the bed.
Ranma giggled slightly and allowed Akane to push her into her bed. She
smiled and sprawled out on the bed for a moment before reaching down and
pulling Akane into her arms. "I love you Akane!"
The girl smiled at this and gently pushed her away. "I love you too
Ranma, now come on. You've got to get some sleep or you'll feel even
worse tomorrow morning."
Ranma grabbed her again and kissed her on the lips, Akane fell back with
a blush forming on her cheeks as she shoved the girl back instinctively.
"What are you doing?" she asked as Ranma pushed herself on top of her
forcing her onto the bed and kissed her again.
Akane felt heat rush into her face as Ranma rubbed her body gently and
probed her mouth with her tongue. She pushed gently away as he struggles
lessened slightly under the girls forceful prodding. Finally Ranma
stopped and relaxed on top of her clutching her shoulders and wrapping
her legs around her torso. Akane froze in shocked horror as the girl
suddenly stopped moving and simply lay there with her on the bed. After a
moment she shook her head and stared down at her friend in shock.
Ranma was snoring softly curled up in a little ball with her head
resting against Akane's chest. The strong smell of sake dominated Akane's
senses as she simply watched her for a moment unable to become angry with
her for some reason. Finally she sighed and put a pillow over her head as
the confusion of her emotions took over at last.
"It was probably just the alcohol," she muttered under her breath. She
looked down one last time and vowed never to let her friend drink again.
Something else popped into her mind as she watched the redhead sleep
peacefully in her bosom. The way Ranma had reacted to being in Happosai's
bedroom, perhaps that had something to do with the slightly upsetting
events that had taken place only moments before. Akane mulled over it for
a long time before looking down at the girl one last time, "Shouldn't I
be angry with her?" She pushed the thoughts away and lay down to stare at
her ceiling for the rest of the night.
Hikaru Gosunkugi stared at the book in front of him and tried his best
to hold his head up as the night dragged on. He wanted badly to find a
cure for himself, and luckily most of the students never even noticed
him. If he managed to cure himself soon there was a good chance nobody
would notice any change at all. He sighed and looked down at the pages of
the powerful white magic tome that sat before him on the desk, after a
long moment he felt his eyes droop shut as his head slammed into the
center of the book. He began to snore violently not noticing the white
light that emanated from the pages surrounding him completely. A golden
shadow fell behind him as the light poured fourth through his body in a
blinding and spectacular light that seemed to vanish suddenly. Finally
all that remained was the strange shadow behind him; it seemed almost
like there was a spot of pure gold on the ground behind him as he lay
there peacefully. His stump rose up as if to scratch his head as he lay
there dreaming, not knowing of anything that had just happened.
Tatewaki Kuno stood on the roof of his home watching over Nerima in the
darkness for a final few moments before retiring for the evening.
Something in his mind pulled away that he felt he should be aware of, but
it faded away. Most people would dismiss such a feeling easily, but Kuno
had learned that actions like that were not wise. In his dreams he had
seen a dark shadow standing over Akane Tendo, and a golden light that
could be both savior and demon to him. The uncertainty and vagueness of
the dreams haunted him, but since his present condition had been caused
they always seemed to come to some true in some way or another. Even that
did not bother him though, the wizard Saotome should be able to handle
anything that came. What worried him was the darker feeling he was
getting from the future, an evil presence that seemed to threaten all
that he held dear with a strange familiarity.
"Perhaps I worry too much for the future, when the present is so
turbulent as of late," it seemed like an intelligent thing to say, in the
past he would have written such a thing down; but now he seemed to become
enlightened more often with such musings. A wisdom long forgotten to his
old self. His speech was far more normal nowadays, but it still amused
him to think that way on occasion while in private.
The wind blew from the east sending a whirlwind of fallen leaves through
the air as he looked out over Nerima one last time. "The wind is
changing." He spread his wings and gently landed in the courtyard before
heading inside the home for the evening to settle down for the night.
The next morning at the Tendo Dojo the sky seemed calm as the sun peeked
over the horizon. The birds began to sing and life started to turn as the
streets of Nerima slowly crawled to life. All seemed peaceful with the
world, that is until Akane Tendo and Ranma Saotome woke up.
Ranma slowly opened her eyes, it took all of her willpower to do so, she
struggled to raise her head from the pillow and fell face first back into
place as a thousand daggers of pain slammed into her head at one time.
"It's about time you woke up, it's a good thing it's the weekend Ranma,"
snapped Akane angrily. She looked down and saw the redhead in her chest
and smiled at her with a little maliciousness in her eyes.
The pigtailed girl snapped to attention and fell back onto the bed again
as she realized where she was. "What happened?" she struggled painfully.
"You got drunk and accosted me you pervert!" snapped the girl without
much heat. "I think you must have absorbed some of the perversion from
that room last night. I guess you're a little sensitive to things like
that when you're drunk."
Ranma's eyes went wide, "Accosted? Drunk?" that would go a long way
towards explaining the headache. She slumped back into the pillow after
rolling on her side to allow her friend to get up. "Wait a minute, what
do you mean accosted?"
Akane snorted and kicked her leg lightly. "You almost raped me last
night you pervert!" She had time to think it over while Ranma slept off
her liquor, she had concluded that Ranma had absorbed some of Happosai's
perverted energy. That must have been why her best friend had acted that
way, there was no other explanation. The thing that scared her the most
was that she had almost let her do it.
Ranma was having different thoughts as she lay there staring at the wall
in silent horror. "I did what? Oh, oh no..."
Akane seemed to understand her distress. "Ranma relax, I'm not angry,
you were drunk...and after what happened in your old room I think I know
what happened to you."
Ranma felt comforted slightly by this, but not too much. If what Akane
said was true she could have let her personal little secret slip very
easily last night. "Did I say anything strange last night?"
Akane thought about it, "No, not really. You stay here for a while and
I'll call Cologne and tell her what happened."
Ranma rolled over and looked up at the ceiling shielding her eyes from
the sunlight that came through the widow. "Thanks." Ranma felt a new fear
in the pit of her stomach, how much had she done last night? What had
happened exactly? She felt the surest way to find out was to ask Akane,
she might get an honest answer from her, but then again she had been
keeping a pretty important secret from her, or trying to until last
night. Revealing that was one of the few things she remembered.
"What the hell have I done this time?" She rolled over and felt the pain
that seemed to cover her entire body now slowly throb. "I'll worry about
it later, I don't need this right now."
TBC...
Sigh, more foreshadowing for things yet to come, some things way later.
This one was more of an exploration of the characters and a set up for
some things I've been wanting to do with the characters.
The thing with Akane, Ryoga, and Ranma has actually been requested many
times. It was planned that way since the beginning, but I've been getting
a lot of mail asking me to break up Ryoga and Akane, and hook her up with
Ranma despite the fact that she's a girl.
This is by no means decisive and Akane isn't going to just decide she's
a lesbian either. There's to much that lets them deny anything that might
have happened in this chapter right now; besides, I'm not so sure I like
the idea of Akane the raving lesbian either. If and I say -if- it happens
it will be a slow and gradual process.
Next time: All kinds of stuff, Gosunkugi's changed, but is that a bad
thing? And what's it got to do with Akane? Plus Ryoga, Ranma, and Akane
deal with their torrid love triangle some more. Things aren't looking
good for some reason as a jealous interloper interferes, but who could it
be?
C&C to: Carrotglace@juno.com