"I can't have him." Those four words contained a myriad of emotions, yet
did nothing to truly express any of them. The truth, that unfeeling bastard,
was always painful in that it spared nothing. It refuted all lies and
pretenses, leaving only cold hard fact in its wake. "I can't have him. Not
like this."
The wind had gradually gained strength over the past hour, a thin haze of
drizzle soaking everything around in a blanket of despair. The bare limbs of
the tree beneath which she sat moaned with the moving air, splashing her
hair with bigger droplets of moisture.
There were no tears, she had none left to shed. It was over. There was no
way she could get back up. Ranma... Ryo... hadn't recognized her. He knew
her name, but nothing else. Worse, he had been afraid of her. He had tried
not to show it, but it had been plain.
[Get up, Akane,] the Crow said from a tree farther ahead in the inky gloom.
"No."
[We are close. Get up.]
"I can't. Just take me back now. I... I can't deal with this."
[You will not surrender, Akane Tendo,] the Crow replied, its mental voice
taking on a steely edge. [You are stronger than this. You surrendered once,
do not do so again!] Akane merely remained silent, letting the rain come
down on her head. [Ranma would not want you to give up. Now, RISE!]
Akane felt her legs move of their own accord, as if she had no control over
them. Against her will she took a step, then another, speeding into a jog
and then breaking into a full-on sprint. She leapt over a small bench,
clearing it with ease as the cold wind sliced through the wet trenchcoat and
chilled her to the bone.
"Where are you taking me?"
[You will know when we arrive. It shall be soon.]
Akane came to a halt before a gravestone in the sea of the dead which
people called a cemetary, one stone obelisk out of hundreds in the dark and
wet night. The stone stood out from the others, radiating a sense of
dreadful familiarity which made her stomach clench. This couldn't be it. No,
it was impossible.
[Look.]
"I don't want to," she pleaded in a weak voice. "I don't want to see."
[You must find the path again. This is the only way.] Lightning seared the
night, casting the world in a glow of electric blue as the thunder shouted
its challenge to the light. In the brief space of illumination, she saw the
Hirigana text etched into the stone... Tendo.
The drizzle grew into rain, beating against her back as she collapsed into
a kneeling position before the stone of her family's grave. Fear tingled on
her skin as she reached a tentative hand out to the stone.
My daughter's dead, what does it matter? Akane saw, felt, and lived the
final days of Soun Tendo. The emptiness, the loneliness, the endless void
where his heart used to be. Daddy, no, Daddy!
She could feel his health, his vitality slip away with each passing moment
as the world faded from focus, details washing into mush, hair going white,
the schools won't be united now, my little girl's dead what does it matter?
"AH!" Akane's eyes snapped open, a new wound slowly tearing open in her heart.
"Daddy..." He had just wasted away, lost in his own sea of anguish. Ranma's
killers had never been found, and she had been murdered, and everything just
turned to shit. Ranma hadn't even been cremated to be in the Saotome tomb,
his ashes scattered over the sea because the police couldn't positively
identify his female body. Or what was left of it.
[There is more. Look again.]
"I've seen enough."
[No, you haven't. You've only just begun to see.]
She saw Kasumi in the flash that heralded the dream that was not a dream,
alone in the house that was no longer a home, large and empty and so so silent.
Kasumi... Akane pleaded when she saw the lines that had formed on Kasumi's
once flawless face, please forgive me.
Alone, mourning, wounded, the state of the house reflecting the fading
light in her heart until one morning... a missed step, a painful fall, then
the sudden rush of a soul leaving the mortal world for the hereafter.
NO! NO, PLEASE! Akane was forced to watch her sister's broken form at the
bottom of the steps, neck bent at an unnatural angle, lying still as a stone
for two, three, then four days before the smell prompted neighbors to call
the police...
"KASUMI!" Akane's hoarse cry of tortured denial split the night in time
with the next strike of heaven's fury, battling for dominance over the
trailing thunder. Her very soul bled from the wounds of the past, the
painful rents stealing her breath away as she looked at the stone one last time.
Daddy. Kasumi. Nab... Nabiki?
"Nabiki," Akane whispered, hope daring to blossom in her heart. "Nabiki's
not on here! Nabiki... Nabiki's ALIVE!" She shot to her feet, eyes locked on
the shadowy blot of space that was the Crow. "WHERE IS SHE?!"
[Come with me, Akane, and you shall see.] The Crow took wing, sailing into
the growing downpour as Akane chased after. Nabiki was alive! She'd find her
sister, and then things would get better! Nabiki was okay, she had to be!
The Crow left the cemetary, the pounding footfalls of Akane close behind.
This would be the most difficult, most dangerous part. Hope, while much
vaunted by poets and spiritualists, was a dangerous thing. When shattered,
the soul could easily lose the will to go on or, on the other extreme, gain
the will to fight against all odds when they realized that having nothing
meant having nothing left to lose. It was a perilous gamble, but one the
Crow had no choice but to take.
=======================================================
The rain was coming down hard when Akane reached the well-lit parking lot
of Tokyo General Hospital, an almost solid sheet of water that pounded the
earth without mercy.
She stopped in the center of the torrent, gazing up at the patterns of lit
windows as dread began to carress the edges of the hope that had given her
strength. Why would Nabiki be in a hospital? Was she hurt?
NO! she screamed at herself. Nabiki's NOT hurt! She just works there! Yeah,
she's an administrator or something! She'd never be a doctor or a nurse, she
has to be running the hospital!
The Crow called to her from atop one of the several lightpoles which stood
as silent sentries over the mostly empty parking lot, and her legs began to
move again. Water splashed up from the ground as her feet slammed into the
rapidly gathering puddles, soaking them through up to nearly her knees.
The parking lot faded into the distance as she rounded the bend, coming up
to the empty Emergency Ward. A single light shone above the glass doors,
rain cascading down from the overfilled gutters. Without pause, Akane
cleared the concrete deck elevated above the pavement and burst in through
the doors.
The cool antiseptic air of the corridor instantly froze her drenched body
as the stink of chemical cleaners assaulted her nose. Akane remembered in
that moment exactly why she hated hospitals. They were for the sick, the dead.
Well, hell, I should fit right in, she thought with no small amount of
sarcasm. Oh, doctor, can you help me? HAH!
The Crow perched on the empty receptions desk for emergency patients, the
nurse on call conspicuously absent. Good. The fewer people who saw her, the
better. It took flight again, racing down an adjacent hallway as Akane followed.
They passed two banks of elevators, the dread tightening its grip around
her hope. If Nabiki was in administration, wouldn't she be on one of the top
floors? Well, maybe not, but it would make more sense.
The Crow finally slowed, wings beating the air as its talons wrapped around
the stainless steel handle of a nondescript door. Stairs? she thought as she
closed her hand around the handle, the Crow leaping clear to land on her
shoulder. Well, I suppose taking the stairs might make more sense than using
the elevator in my case, she thought, fighting to keep hope strong.
The Crow took off again, angling down the lower stairs instead of to the
higher floors. Akane followed the bird down two flights of stairs to the
bottom and through a door identical to the ones above. Akane followed the
Crow to a set of nondescript double doors, each bearing that one
unmistakeable word. Morgue.
------------------------------------------------------
Matsuhara Yotsuya hardly enjoyed his work. After all, who actually liked
working with a bunch of stiffs? However, the portly twenty-two year old
couldn't complain. The money was decent, and the job was actually rather
easy. All he had to do was sit on his ass and catalogue whatever poor son of
a bitch that came in on a stretcher to catch the last train west. He didn't
even have to perform the autopsies, that was for the chief coroner.
Sucking back the last of his Coke, Matsuhara reached for the okonomiyaki
that had been delivered earlier. He had stopped wondering how he could eat
while in the presence of so much death. Six months had pretty much innured
him to it. In his estimation, he was used to just about anything that could
come through those doors.
A wet chunk of okonomiyaki flew from his lips like a cannonball,
splattering against the wall at the sound of said doors flying open. Of all
the nights to get someone in here. He turned around... to... oh, shit.
She strode through the doors, tattered boots hitting the floor with a wet
flop sound on each step. The black coat dripped water from outside, coal
black hair beaten down and glistening from the storm. But her face, oh,
Lord, her face!
It was painted white, paler than any shade he had ever seen before. Large
dark circles were painted over her eyes, with a vertical line running
through each. The black color of her lips finished it, lending her the
visage of a clown from hell.
"What the?"
A large black crow sailed in behind her, buzzing her head before coming to
a halt atop one of the examination tables. The girl looked around as if she
were confused beyond all hope, blank eyes scanning everything without really
seeing it.
Oh yeah, he thought, she's bloody stoned. From the look of her, he could
have sworn that she was a corpse that had decided to hell with a gurney and
walked in on its own.
"Um... miss? C-can I help you?"
Akane gazed around the sterile room, her hope rapidly fading. Nabiki wasn't
in here, she couldn't be. Not a chance. Right?
Where is she?
[Look.]
Akane turned her head to the rows of metal doors that lined the wall to her
right, and the hope quickly died. Almost of its own accord, her hand reached
out to touch the nearest door. When nothing came, she moved to the next, and
the next, and the...
"NABIKI!" Akane stared at the fifth stainless steel door in the middle row,
her entire being shaking in disbelief. The pain returned in full crippling
force, and with it came the rage. With a yell of inhuman fury Akane grasped
the sides of the door and ripped it from its hinges.
"Hey, watch it!" Akane ignored the indignant voice from behind as the door
slammed against the wall with a loud crash. White vapor escaped into the
warmer air of the room as Akane grabbed the rolling platform and snatched it
out.
"Oh, no..." She would have been thrity-seven, yet her sister looked so much
older. Nabiki's hair was matted and filthy, the deathly pale flesh marred
with bruises and lesions from her face to below the line of the sheet. Those
brown eyes, once so full of confident light, now stared up at nothing.
"Nabiki... what happened?" Akane girded herself as best she could as her
hands reached to cup her sister's head.
The pain, oh the never ending pain, day after day of torture and
degradation in that dark cell. Akane saw it, felt it, lived it as her sister
was suspended from the ceiling, bent over the rack, held bound and prone,
and things beat her flesh and invaded her body, oh please make it stop make
it STOP!
"Where?" That voice, so filled with madness and anger, familiar yet alien
all at once. Time losing its meaning, pain taking her mind, fear eating her
soul while the shadow laughed and screamed and...
Akane screamed and pounded her head against the floor until phantom red
fire trucks raced across her vision, sirens wailing. All she wanted was
pain; pain and hate. Yes, hate. But never fear. Never, ever fear.
Fear was for the enemy. Fear and steel.
Matsuhara stared in numb shock as the girl howled like a wounded and
enraged animal, venting its fury to the world as she beat her head on the
floor. With each blow the webwork of cracks in the tile grew, the sound of
every strike a sickening thud. Blood began to spatter on the ruined floor as
she kept up the beating. Oh, damn, this bitch was NUTS!
She finally stopped on the tenth hit, her head remaining on the floor as
she took breaths in deep sobbing gasps. Matsuhara stood stock still, unsure
if he should move, and not certain he was able. Maybe she had knocked
herself out?
The head slowly rose, and he felt something warm and wet coat the front of
his pants. The black on white makeup was now streaked with tendrils of red.
Akane rose from her knees, the pain in her head nothing compared to what
raged in her heart. Daddy, Kasumi, Nabiki, Ranma, all of them dead. All
because of... who? She couldn't see the face of the shadow, nor recognize
its voice, but she knew that this was the one resonsible. This was the one
who had started the ball rolling. And that was the one who would pay the
dearest. But first, there was one last thing to do here.
Gently, almost reverently, Akane lifted the stiff and cold body of her
sister off the platform. Nabiki may not have been the best of people, but
Akane still loved her unconditionally. She would not allow Nabiki to be
buried by the state, to have her ashes scattered to the winds. No, Nabiki
Tendo would be interred with her family.
She spotted the mortician, or whatever he was, standing like a statue. The
only thing moving was the stain on the front of his pants.
"You."
"H-hey, lady, I don't know her! I..."
"Shut up. Where's your incinerator?"
"What?"
"Your incinerator. Where is it?"
"It's.. it's in the back! Don't kill me!"
"I'm not going to kill you. Now, take me there." The fat man turned smartly
on his heel, obviously trying not to run as he lead the way to the incinerator.
===========================================
"There," the man, Matsuhara he said his name was, said. "It's ready." She
felt him stare at her forehead, the blood having vanished with the
self-inflicted wound. Akane didn't care. The time when she was concerned
with men staring at her body was long over.
She placed Nabiki's body, she couldn't think of it as actually being
Nabiki, on the conveyor belt which led into the inferno. The heavy iron door
creaked open, blasting her with a wave of heat as the belt clanked into
life. Akane watched as her sister's corpse was gradually carried into the
raging flames before the door slammed shut once again.
"Just a few minutes." Akane merely grunted in reply, memories of a happier
time playing through her mind. A time when the world was painted in the
colors of joy and the sun shone on the earth. That was a long time ago. It
was another world. Another time.
"Done." Matsuhara moved to the other side of the machine, deftly flipping
the switches that killed the hellish blaze within. He pressed a green-lit
button on the panel, a nearly imperceptible noise coming from within the
iron belly of the incinerator as the machine worked to scrape the cadaver's
ashes into the funnel which led to the plain urn in the holding chamber on
the outside of the machine.
He shook despite himself, not quite willing to believe the girl's promise
not to kill him. She was a freak if ever he'd seen one. There was no telling
what she was hopped up on. Of course, that bit with the blood disappearing
back into her head was a new one, but Matsuhara had no desire to learn how
it was done.
Come on, damnit! he thought, hurry up! The door finally popped open,
revealing the simple silver jar in which the cadaver's ashes were now
contained. Man, how was he gonna explain this? Pushing those thoughts aside,
Matsuhara screwed the lid onto the jar and handed it to the woman.
"Thank you," she said in a listless voice as she took the urn.
"Hey, no problem." Bullshit, this was a HUGE problem. Maybe he should've
been a salseman like his dad. Yep, life on the road looked real good right
then. Matsuhara blinked his eyes, and then she was gone.
"I need a vacation."
======================================
The rain had abated by the time Akane had arrived at the cemetary again,
yet the wind still retained its strength. It whipped at her coat as she
knelt before the family grave, biting into her flesh with spiteful teeth.
Akane paid the cold no heed as she scooped the last handful of drenched
earth over the urn. After patting it down, she reached for the crude wooden
marker at her side. It wasn't much, but it was all she could find.
She remained crouched before the grave for what felt like hours, staring at
the buried remains of her family. This was all that was left of the Tendo
family, four markers where their ashes lay. For a moment, Akane was curious
if her own ashes were still buried. If she had a physical body, then
maybe... No, best not think about that.
"Akane, Ranma, you stay here with your mother." Akane looked up with a
start at the sounds of those names coming through the night. "I'll just be a
minute."
"Be careful. You know how I worry when you go off alone."
"Don't worry, the man's voice - why was it so familiar? - replied. "I'll
call to you before I leave."
Akane leapt back into the shadows as the Crow flew off in search of the
voices. She saw them through its eyes, the images coming in sepia tones. He
was very well muscled, the sport coat and slacks showing that nicely. His
hair fell over a yellow-on-black striped bandanna, barely touching the deep
brown eyes of a man she thought she'd never see again.
"Ryoga?" Akane crouched behind one of the sparse trees in the cemetary,
waiting for him to arrive. She knew where he was going.
Ryoga Hibiki walked through the drizzle, his umbrella keeping him mostly
dry. It had been a long time since he had to worry about getting wet, but he
still hated it. Several encounters with insane chefs had broken him of cold
water a long time ago.
He knelt before the Tendo monument, a place he knew by heart from his
yearly visits, and clapped his hands twice before saying a prayer to the
spirits of Akane, Soun, Kasumi, and Nabiki. He also said a second prayer for
Ranma, the first having been performed at the Saotome tomb where only Nodoka
was buried. Two lines gone from the face of the earth, such a pointless
waste. Akari waited with their children, knowing full well why he was here
without him ever having told her how much he had loved Akane, and
understanding all the same.
"Akane." The name of his first love. The first woman who had set his heart
and soul aflame. Akane Tendo, who had loved him, but not as he wished. "I
wish I could have avenged you. I wish I could have gotten my hands on Raizo
Tanaka. I wish... I wish..." Ryoga's voice broke as he fought against the
tears, "I wish I could have protected you. You and Ranma."
-----------------------------
Akane watched as Ryoga spoke into the night, her heart longing to comfort him.
Silly Ryoga, she thought, so brave. So selfless.
-----------------------------
He lost the fight, tears spilling down his cheeks. While his life was all
he had wanted, peaceful, happy, and just plain damn wonderful, this would
always remind him of how he had failed.
"I'm sure you know this, but I married Akari Unryuu.. Uh, Akari Hibiki now.
Heh. We have two children, now. Took me long enough." Akane, who had been
born first, and Ranma. Both named after his first love and greatest rival,
who had met an ignomious end. "They're beautiful. Little Akane-chan, she
reminds me so much of... of you..." Ryoga lost his battle against the pain
as tears of regret streamed down his face.
"She acts just like you. Little Akane-chan's so full of fire and spirit,
but she's a bit too boy-crazy for my tastes," Ryoga added with a chuckle.
"She's only thirteen. Guess it's just being a dad that makes me so nervous
about that."
----------------------------
Akane watched the much older Ryoga, tears stinging her eyes. Not all was
lost after all. Ryoga was still alive and, from what she could tell, happy.
Who would have thought it? Ryoga Hibiki, the most depressed and melodramatic
man she knew, the one to find true happiness. Life was funny that way...
----------------------------
"I wish you and Ranma were here, Akane," Ryoga said. "You'd love Akane and
Ranma-chan. They're so damn cute..." A painful sob burst from his chest, the
memories of the past twenty years bubbling up to the surface. "I... I loved
you, Akane. I know I've said it for the past twenty years, but you were the
first woman I ever loved.
"Akari wants you to know that she misses you. She barely knew you, but...
she's such a sweet woman. I love her as much as I loved you.
"You'll never know how much those times meant to me, Akane. Those fleeting
moments in your arms were the closest thing to heaven I'd ever felt. I just
couldn't bear to tell you about the pig you held to your chest so many
times. I couldn't tell you that I was your pet P-chan."
----------------------------
Akane felt her eyes widen at Ryoga's confession, the memories of holding
her dear P-chan coming through the mists of time. All those nights, cuddling
him... It was Ryoga?!
"Ryyyooooggggaaaa......."
-----------------------------
Ryoga whirled around at the sound of feet hitting the ground, an errant
flash of lightning illuminating the intruder. Through the garish paint,
Ryoga instnantly recognized who it was.
"Ryoga, you jerk!"
"GYYAAAH!" The world vanished into blackness as he fainted dead away. A
ghost, he was seeing a ghost!
-------------------------------
Akane looked down at the unconscious form of Ryoga Hibiki, the mist
collecting on his body. The anger that had come from his revelation was
rapidly fading. So he was P-chan, that was a long time ago. It hurt, but in
light of the real pain she had endured, it was insignificant. But still...
Pain, loneliness, despair, lost in a wilderness he didn't understand. Akane
saw Ryoga/P-chan collapse from the combined weight of his emotions before a
pair of hands closed around him.
"THERE you are, you silly pig!"
Over time, the anguish lessened as Ryoga and Akari became closer until one
perfect summer night beneath the stars, the warm breeze, the heady scents of
Earth's bounty....
Akane released Ryoga's head, a small smile playing across her lips. Why
Ryoga, you little stud you! His clothes were now drenched, yet he was still
a man. He must have found the cure for his curse, then.
"I forgive you, Ryoga," Akane whispered softly as she knelt next to him,
laughing and crying all at once. It was strange, feeling such joy and
sadness simultaneously, but in that conflict lay one simple truth.
While her life had been strange - for want of a better term - she had been
lucky. Even the pain and hardship, in light of what she now knew as real
agony, seemed so sweet to her now.
"I've been thinking about all this hell I'm in. I guess I forgot just how
good my life really was." Akane bent down to plant a light kiss against
Ryoga's wet cheek, her tears mingling with the rain on his skin.
"Thank you, Ryoga. And don't worry, I'll avenge Ranma for you. I'll avenge
everyone for you. I promise."
--------------------------------
Ryoga awoke with a start, head whipping about in an attempt to find that...
who was that, anyway? The cemetary around him was empty, the gravestones his
only company.
Had it all been a dream? He sat there on the drenched earth, trying to
figure out what he had seen. Had it been Akane? Had it really been?
"Ryoga!" Akari's sweet voice sliced through the night as the footsteps drew
nearer. Ryoga rose to his feet, vainly trying to wipe the wet grass off his
pants. It was a dream. Yeah, that was it.
"Over here!"
"Oh, I thought you'd gotten lost again!" Akari Hibiki came into view, her
once girlish beauty having long since matured to that of a full woman.
Little Ranma Hibiki's head rested against her shoulder beneath the canopy of
the umbrella, his bottom supported by her arm. In her other hand was Akane
Hibiki's, who sported her own umbrella and very stylish rainslicker.
"Um, dad?" she asked, her nose scrunched up in that way she had when she
was both curious and confused. "Why're you rolling around in the mud?"
"I... uh... I just slipped, that's all."
"Yeah, right, dad. How can a martial artist just lose his balance?"
"The same way a precocious little teenager can lose her allowance for a
month," he replied with a grouse.
"Really, dear," Akari began with a giggle, "we should go. Ranma-chan's so
sleepy."
"Yeah. Yeah, let's go home."
------------------------------------
Akane watched as Ryoga and his family left the cemetary, him holding his
daughter's hand as she held Akari's. After all these years, he still got
lost. The thought made her chuckle despite herself.
Your children are beautiful, Ryoga, she thought. I'm honored that you named
them after us.
They vanished from view, swallowed by the night, and Akane turned her focus
back to the job at hand. This was bigger than just herself and Ranma, much
bigger. Others had suffered at the hands of this shadow, those she knew and
those she did not. All their souls screamed for a reckoning, and Akane was
the only one who could give it. She cast one last look in the direction
Ryoga and his family had gone, and felt a tug on her heart.
Be happy, Ryoga. Live the life Ranma and I never got to have. She violently
squelched the irrational envy that welled up within her. She had no right to
be jealous of Ryoga. Well, she did, but she wouldn't sink that low.
[Are you ready, Akane?]
"Yes." She seized the pain within her, letting it nurture her wrath. She
was here to avenge the dead, not to bother the living. "Let's go. We have