The Amazon and the Moneylender: Episode 4, Part 2:
Dark Dreams
-------------------------------------------------------
Akane couldn't sleep, merely turned about
restlessly. Something was bothering her. It wasn't
long before she was up and dressed. Maybe a quick jog
would give her some time to think things through and
decide what exactly was bothering her.
She thought back over the day and couldn't place
her unease on anything. Not even the Kuno situation,
though she had heard from some of Nabiki's crew that
the samurai was indeed out of jail again. No it had
been a mostly average, for Nerima, day right up until
she and Ranma went off to bed after getting home from
school.
She had passed the park and was rounding the still
empty Ucchan's when she remembered that last
conversation. She didn't understand why Ranma was
being so cautious around Kodachi's feelings while not
seeming to care at all about a, marginally, more sane
Shampoo. Then she thought about another sentence of
his from the day before. She had almost forgotten it.
"Kuno must read the same books as my old man," he
had said. She stopped and thought about the various
times Genma had sold Ranma for meals and the repeated
cat fist training sessions. Then she felt a deep sense
of guilt and shame about her own behavior earlier that
day. She turned back around and started back to the
dojo.
"Excuse me," Kasumi was looking at an odd little
delivery man. "I have a package here for a" he checked
the label. "Akane Tendo."
"Oh, wait here a moment, I'll go and get her,"
Kasumi disappeared back into the dojo. Surprisingly
she couldn't find her sister, she tentatively knocked
on the guest room that held Ranma and Genma's bed
rolls. She half-hoped that she would find Akane in
there, and half-dreaded it. "Excuse me, Ranma?"
"What is it?" a bleary voiced Ranma asked. Kasumi
was one of the few people that could wake him up
easily. There was something instinctive in the human
being that dreaded hurting Kasumi's feelings.
"There is a package here for Akane, but I can't
find her anywhere." The door opened, revealing Ranma
still in his day clothes blinking away the sleep.
"And you thought she'd be in here?" he was mildly
insulted. "Never mind, I'll get it." He shuffled to
the door and regarded the delivery man.
"Akane's not here at the moment," he said. "I'll
sign for it."
"Sure," the delivery man handed over the clipboard
and Ranma signed it. The delivery man then handed the
large package over to Ranma and waved nonchalantly as
he left. Ranma looked over the package and immediately
noticed something odd.
"To Akane Tendo from Ranma Saotome?" he read aloud
in confusion. "What the?" Curiosity overwhelming him,
he opened the box. A green mist rose up and enveloped
his face. His eyes crossed and he fell backwards,
unconscious.
The lights came back on suddenly, at least so it
seemed to the two couples in the theatre. Ryouga and
Ukyou had given over to "pillow talk" soon after the
credits had started rolling. Truth be told they had
probably lost track of the movie a good thirty minutes
earlier.
Shampoo and Ukyou had calmed down tremendously
after that first...incident, and began chatting over
"business" while waiting for the theatre to clear.
Though they tried, the conversation didn't remain
professional for much longer than a minute. At which
point it degenerated into basic gossip and small talk.
It was doubtful whether either of them noticed the
shift in mood.
Then came the lights, the sudden and blinding
lights that revealed a nearly empty theatre. All four
of them blinked and squinted their eyes to clear the
glare. None of them quite saw the theatre employee
enter and leave quickly.
"Sorry!" they all heard just before the door shut
behind him. Then Ukyou looked down at the other couple
in the room as Shampoo looked up.
"You!!" both said at the same time.
"Knew that voice sound familiar," Shampoo declared.
"Lost-boy ruin movie, shouldn't go to theatre."
"Hey!" Ryouga protested. "I only yelled that one
time." Ukyou ignored the exchange and pointed,
somewhat pale, at the pair.
"You two were the couple making out?" she asked in
shock. Both Shampoo and Nabiki turned as red as Ukyou
was pale, and the chef was competing with Kodachi's
normal color. Ryouga just looked confused.
"We were not making out," Nabiki protested. "We
were laughing at a joke."
"Yeah, Shampoo not mean put hand there." Nabiki
winced. Ryouga finally understood what was going on.
"You're dating Shampoo, Nabiki?" Ryouga asked,
calmly, apparently rhetorically, because he went right
ahead talking. "Hmm, that's surprising."
"You're awfully calm about this," Ukyou noted.
"Get it through thick head," Shampoo shouted. "We
not dating."
"Oh don't worry about it," Ryouga assured them. "We
won't tell anybody. Will we Ukyou?"
"What?!?"
"We're not dating, we were discussing...uh...
business," Nabiki said, wishing she really had been
talking about business and not where to go to eat from
here.
"Like I said," Ryouga seemed to be ignoring them.
"We didn't see anything." He virtually had to drag the
half-shocked Ukyou out of the theatre with him.
"Great," Nabiki moaned quietly. "Now they think
we're dating."
"Crazy lost-boy not matter," Shampoo said. "We not
dating, so no problem, where we eat again?"
"Yeah, probably best not to press the matter,"
Nabiki agreed. "Otherwise it might just get worse. Um
I don't think we had decided where to eat." Then she
realized something. "Damn it! When did they get in
town?"
"You not know?"
"I'm going to have to fix this problem," she
stomped her foot and scowled. "Damn it, I knew when
Cologne first started heading this way."
"She travel with lost-boy, how you keep track of
him?" Nabiki blinked and then shrugged.
"Good point."
Outside in the lobby, Ukyou and Ryouga were heading
out into daylight.
"What's wrong with you?" Ryouga asked her.
"There were two girls making out in there," Ukyou
whispered. "Girls we know."
"So?"
"That doesn't bother you?"
"No."
"It took me two days of effort to get you to calm
down enough just to hug me, and that was after we'd
been stuck in Texas for a week, by ourselves." She
thought back to that. It had started as a way to
tease Ryouga, but well, apparently that bit about
playing hard to get worked. ~Come to think of it, its
still working.~
"Yeah, but whatever they're doing doesn't involve
me."
"Sometimes I just don't understand you, let's just
go say hi to Ranma and Akane and then go home."
Ranma awoke in the hallway and found himself
looking down at the package. There was something
wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Of
course there was the fact that a package supposedly
from him to Akane had contained some kind of gas, but
there was something more.
Ranma was still trying to figure it out when he
heard the voice behind him.
"What are you DOING opening MY mail?!?!" It was
Akane, but she wasn't home, Kasumi had looked for her.
"Well it was addressed from me," Ranma said. "And I
don't remember sending you anything by post! Besides
when I opened it, something knocked me out."
"That was me you pervert!!" That made sense to
Ranma, almost, it was too easy. Akane attacked with
her mallet and Ranma barely dodged.
"She's gotten faster," Ranma thought to himself as
the mallet came in again, this time it took out part
of the wall. "Damn! She's really mad this time, I
better get the mallet away from her." The next time
the mallet came down he lanced out a foot to snap the
head away from the handle.
Akane's swing continued unhindered, and there was
no sudden stop to end her forward momentum. Akane
cried out once as she flew forward and into the corner
of one of the walls, then she fell to the ground in
silence. Something in the back of Ranma's head was
flashing warning signs, Akane was much better than
that. Unfortunately for Ranma he was too preoccupied
to listen to his deeper misgivings any more.
"Akane?" Ranma asked cautiously. He looked at her
lying there in an odd jumbled like a dropped doll.
"Akane, are you okay?" He reached over and turned her
around so that she looked face up. Then he felt his
soul crack.
Akane stared up with sightless eyes, a deep gash in
her forehead where she had struck the corner of the
wall. Ranma looked up and saw that the wall was
smeared with blood, how could he have missed it
before.
"Akane!! NOOOOO!!!!!!!"
"Ranma?" Kasumi said half shocked as she rounded a
corner, seeing Ranma lying back against the wall. The
package lay opened in front of him. "What are you
doing opening Akane's mail?" Ranma didn't respond, she
saw him breathing easily and assumed that he had just
passed out from fatigue. "Really, imagine the nerve."
Kasumi took the package, and closed it up without
checking the contents, placing it on the table in the
hall. She then addressed the problem of Ranma's
unconscious form. At this point Akane came back in the
door and managed to trip over him.
"Hey, Ranma?" Akane said confused. "What are you
doing asleep in the hallway?"
"Oh, Akane," Kasumi declared then. "There's a
package for you there." Akane disentangled herself
from the unconscious form of her fiancee. It wasn't
unusual for Ranma to sleep through almost everything,
but he usually didn't fall asleep until he reached his
bed roll. She took the package and looked at it.
"To Akane Tendo from Ranma Saotome?" Akane
repeated. "Oh, I wonder what this is?" She opened it
and all she found inside was an envelope addressed to
Ranma.
"That's odd," Kasumi noted. "Why would Ranma mail
you a letter addressed to him?"
"I don't think this is from Ranma," Akane said, she
looked down at the sleeping form, worried.
"Ranma - By now your dear Akane has opened your
'gift' I won't bore you with the name of the drug,
I'll just tell you what it does. Even now Akane is
trapped in a series of unending nightmares, facing all
her greatest fears. She will stay this way until you
apply the antidote, which is in my position. If you
want Akane to wake up, sane, then you must fight me
one last time for the antidote. The soccer field, I
want your defeat to be public and humiliating. -
Copycat Ken." Akane dropped the letter, her face pale.
She launched herself at Ranma and began vigorously
shaking him, trying to wake him up.
"Ranma? Ranma?!? RANMA wake-up!! BAKA!!!!
WAKE-UP!!! BAKA!!! HENTAI!!!!
WAKE-UP!!!....Ranma....wake...up.....please" she gave
up, leaned over his almost motionless form and
sobbing. Kasumi blinked at the display and picked up
the letter, wondering what it said.
"Oh dear," it was all she said, as usual. Akane
stood up then, her face enraged, and ran on out the
door. "Akane wait."
"He's dead!!" Kasumi heard her yelling in the
distance. "I'm going to kill him!!" This time she
actually meant the words.
"It seems that Shampoo is not going to be back
anytime soon," Kodachi noted.
"Are you going to eat the rest of that?" Mousse
asked, pointing at the barely touched ramen bowl.
"Oh, that is far too much for me all on my own."
"Do you eat like this all the time?"
"Of course not," Kodachi said, only a little
hesitantly. They all felt the approach of a supreme
concentration of battle chi approaching. "Is that
barbarian back already?"
"You mean Ryouga, I suppose," Cologne noted. All
three regarded the street where they expected the
fighter to pass. They saw the glow first.
"Whoah, he's very mad," Mousse noted. Then Akane
nearly flew by. The three warriors dropped to the
floor. "I wonder what Saotome did this time?" Both the
women understood differently.
"You should rather ask what happened to Ranma,"
Cologne suggested.
"It seems that I have to leave," Kodachi said fully
proper. "Perhaps Miss Tendo could use some help."
Mousse felt a twinge of jealousy almost, though he
knew helping Akane might help Kodachi win Ranma.
"I'll go with you," Mousse said. "As angry as she
is, she won't need much help, but you never can tell."
Kodachi seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, but it may
have been his imagination.
"Good," Cologne agreed. "Go, I shall be fine here."
"Isn't this where we first met?" Ryouga asked.
"Yeah, which is past the dojo," she glanced
suspiciously at Ryouga. "How did we get here?" Ryouga
shrugged.
"That was only two years ago right?"
"Yeah, that's right, actually it's good we're here.
It fits. I want to talk about something."
"Go ahead," Ryouga noticed that there was a teasing
tone to her voice. It was the same tone she got when
coming up with a new plan. There was, something behind
it though, a hint of worry to the voice though.
"Maybe when we finally get to Ucchan's we can start
moving your stuff into the main bedroom?" She watched
him closely, gauging his reactions.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Ryouga gulped.
Snuggling and living in the same house was one thing,
but he didn't want to take advantage of this new
relationship with Ukyou. She might not actually want
him, this might just be one of those nurse/patient
things he had heard of. "Could you fit my bed in
there?"
"Why would we need two beds?" Ukyou resisted the
urge to smack him. "I mean we've been sleeping
together pretty much the entire month." To herself she
added a slightly frustrated after thought. "And
sleeping has been about all we were doing."
"But we were camping," he protested. "We're not
even engaged." Ukyou sighed, Ryouga was far to
chivalrous sometimes. She stopped and looked up at
him, Ryouga's tread ceased as well and he turned to
face her, nervously. All the teasing was gone from her
face. She looked like someone about to fall off a
cliff in hopes that she would survive. That was
something that Ryouga had a lot of experience with.
"Ryouga," Ukyou said softly, looking up into his
face. "I want you more than I ever did Ranma. I don't
want to be under the same roof with you and not be
able to feel you next to me. What about you?" she
paused a moment.
"Ukyou, I-" Ryouga started, feeling his heart rise
in his chest. Ukyou forestalled his response with
gentle touch to his lips.
"Let me get this all out okay? Can you tell me
outright, without the shy and chivalrous crap? Do you
love me? Or am I just the next best thing to Akane?"
She paused, swallowed hard and asked one last
question. "Do you want to be mine?"
"I already am," Ryouga answered without hesitation,
silently reprimanding himself for doubting their newly
found feelings. Ukyou breathed a sigh of relief. She
reached up as he leaned down and they met in the
middle for their first real kiss.
After what felt like an eternity, they were brought
back to the world in general by two bright flashes of
light and the sound of polaroid photos being
dispensed.
"Good," Yuka said. "We can collect on that pool
then."
"What?" Ryouga said dropping the hand from his
eyes. Ukyou glared at the pair and considered whether
or not to flourbomb the both of them.
"You guys haven't seen Nabiki around have you?"
Sayuri asked as Yuka was waiting for the film to
develope. "Last we saw her she was off doing something
with Shampoo."
"We just saw them at theatre," Ryouga said
irritably. "Why?"
"We just need to tell her something." Yuka said.
"Thanks." They started to leave and found themselves
blocked in either direction by a weapon. An umbrella
on one side and a spatula on the other.
"The pictures," Ryouga noted.
"Perhaps you could give them to us?" Ukyou added.
"You don't hit girls," Sayuri said confidently.
Ryouga and Ukyou smiled, "It's...in your dossier."
"What about me?" Ukyou asked. Nabiki's lieutenant's
gulped.
"Here," Yuka handed them over glumly.
"Thanks," Ukyou accepted both photos gladly. "By
the way, I wouldn't have hit you either. Hey, these
are pretty good."
"What?" Sayuri shouted.
"It's the whole don't bully the weak thing." Ryouga
explained, as he was looking at one of the photos.
"You look great in this one."
"You bluffed us?"
"Yep," Ukyou said. "Oh, but you're so cute
squinting at the flash in this one."
"Well let's go on to the dojo, what do you say
Ucchan?"
"An excellent idea, Ryochan," Ukyou agreed and then
they were both walking on, leaving an annoyed Sayuri
and Yuka behind.
"Well?" Yuka asked as soon as the martial artists
were gone. Sayuri smiled and put her hand into a
pocket. She stopped smiling.
"I don't have the other camera," she retrieved a
slip of paper and read it. "'Neither of you is Nabiki
- R&U.'"
"Damn it," Sayuri said. "Let's just go find
Nabiki."
"RANMA!!!" Ranma looked up at the demon-head of
Soun Tendo. "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS!?!!"
"Where's Dr. Tofu?" demanded Ranma. "She can't be
dead! She can't be!"
"I have always told you all that he is an evil that
must be destroyed." It was Kuno.
"Oh Ranma," Kasumi's face was pale, and the usually
undauntable woman looked as if she was going to faint.
"Don't just stand there!" Ranma yelled. "Call Dr.
Tofu!"
"There's no need to call me, murderer, I'm right
here."
"Monster how can you claim to have loved Akane!"
"Ryouga? But you're in America!"
"Too think that I once loved you!" He saw Ukyou
getting ready to wield her spatula.
"But it was an accident!" Ranma fled out the door
away from the growing mass of his enemies and friends.
"Airen finally get rid of violent girl!" For a
moment the fear and confusion were replaced by an
overwhelming rage. He turned to face Shampoo and found
a half-cat, half-amazon. "Aiya, Shampoo so happy."
"No! No!! NO!!!" Ranma backpedaled and ran in full
flight away from the creature.
"I appreciate the impulse, boy, if it wasn't for
that sword of your mother's" he stopped and saw a
panda speaking with his father's human voice. "But
perhaps you should have waited until after the
marriage. Like father, like son, eh Ranma?"
"I didn't mean to kill her, it was an accident!"
Ranma was shocked to hear himself speaking with a
girl's voice. He looked down and saw that he was
indeed in female form.
"Oh come on," and Ranma-Chan turned to face
Ranma-Kun. "You know you hated her. I'll bet you were
even jealous of her. I'll bet you were even jealous of
her. All those men chasing after her and only one or
two after your female form."
"This is a dream," Ranma realized suddenly.
"Something from that gas." Ranma smiled. "I can handle
this."
And then suddenly Ranma jolted awake. He was lying
in a hospital bed, and he felt weak and tired. He
heard a yawn and looked to see what he thought was
Ukyou.
"Ucchan?" The name came out strained and weak. Even
as he said it he knew that he was wrong. Ukyou didn't
have fangs.
"Mom!" the almost-Ukyou yelled, startled.
"I don't believe it," he heard a woman say. The
voice was a little familiar. "He's really awake."
"Hello Ranma," said a man's voice. "How are you
feeling?" Then Ranma turned his head and saw two
people he immediately recognized as Ukyou and Ryouga.
They were older than he had last seen them, both in
their late thirties or early forties.
Then he caught a look at himself in a mirror. He
was old, and his muscles were withered from long
disuse.
"This is still the nightmare," he said desperately.
Ryouga and Ukyou looked at each other in concern.
"I told you he wouldn't take it well," Ryouga said.
"No, Ranma," Ukyou said gently. "This is real, Dr.
Tofu finally found the antidote."
"What happened."
"It was one of Kodachi's tricks," Ryouga told him.
"It was supposed to hit Akane."
"Akane! What happened to Akane?"
"Is he talking about the Akane I'm named after?"
The girl asked.
"Yes, he is," Ranma had a sinking feeling that the
news not good.
"She faced off against Kodachi," Ryouga said. "Of
course no Kuno would fight fair."
"Kodachi killed Akane," Ukyou said through a choked
voice.
"NO!!!" Ranma shouted, Akane died because he wasn't
there to protect her. It couldn't be. "This is still
the dream!!!" Suddenly he was young again.
Ranma woke up slowly, as he usually did...
=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
Signed
He of Too Many Names (Thrythlind/Thryth/Luke/Hyperbole/Pika/Pooka)
http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html
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