Without You
A Ranma 1/2 fanfiction
By Medina
::Well, I hope this works. Now, don't flame me if I wasn't supposed to send
this again, please, give me a break -- I'm new around her. I'm doing this
for those people who might want to actually read my story without all of the
gibberish in it. Sorry 'bout that -- I couldn't see that on my computer.
Anyhoo, thanks to those of you who were actually nice to me and gave
suggestions instead of being overinflated and telling me to read the FAQ
(which I did beforehand). If you like, (now that it's legible...) tell me
and I'll put up some more.::
Part One
"Eh? What's this?" he asked, looking at the letter-sized paper that Akane
had so suddenly thrust into his view upon the fence-railing where he usually
walked on their way home from school. He snatched it from her grasp when he
noticed that she was keeping her face, stern, turned away so that they would
not meet gazes. "'Furinkan High School Senior Ball,'" he read aloud, still
keeping his uncanny sense of balance while reading the the paper intently and
studying the picture of a man and woman dressed in fine attire surrounded by
stars on a moonlit walk that was a center eye-catcher on the flier as well as
the logo for the theme: " 'Together, Forever... Come and experience the
night that you will remember for the rest of your life'." He paused and
glanced at Akane again, who was still somehow keeping her view engaged
elsewhere. "Senior Ball's comin' up already? I'd better keep my guard;
word of this is bound to end up in Shampoo's or Kodachi's hands," he put his
arms up in back of his head and walked for a while, looking up, waiting for
Akane to comment. The sun shone down on the Nerima rooftops, in their red
tiling and brown shingles; laundry rustled in the breeze, a bird fluttered,
singing, to a lofty nest. Akane still walked, silent.
"Well?" Ranma finally broke the silence, peering down at her, bored of the
interlude.
" 'Well' what?" Akane finally said, still not looking at the handsome young
martial artist. He hopped down from the fence and walked beside her.
"Aren't you going to ask me if I want to go? You know, a macho chick like
you would do the asking, not the guy," he said, smiling impishly to add to
his dig.
"Why would I ask YOU?" she said, finally turning to him, staring daggers
through his head, her face red for more reason than anger, "You didn't look
at the whole thing," she pointed to the bottom, which said, 'Martial
Swing-Dancing Competition! Winning pair to be crowned King and Queen of the
Senior Ball! (Couples Only!).'
"Uh," he looked at it blankly, "you want me to dance with you? Hahaha!"
mouth open wide, nearly crying, he laughed. "After all, who would lead?
Hahaha!!" Akane's head steamed, her hair stood on end, and with a swift
backhand left a stinging reminder to Ranma upon his right cheek that he
should be more tactful.
"WHY would I want to dance with an idiot-pervert who cross-dresses?!? I
was just showing it to you in case you were interested ON YOUR OWN! You
think that I want to have anything to do with you after everything that's
happened? A wedding fiasco... I'm surprised I even walk to school with you
anymore!!" Akane yelled into the young man's face, who was now as heated and
indignant as she, although Akane was nearly in tears.
"That's a damn low blow! It's because of my STUPID pop, your dad, and that
perverted old man...!" his rebuttal was halted by a soft, high keen that
pierced the air of the area, making both his and Akane's hair stand on end.
Broken out of their quarrel, the two of them looked around, realizing that in
their heated discourse, had walked down a different street and had ended up
in an unfamiliar part of town. The houses were less kept than the ones
around their school and the Tendo Dojo, and much older. Large trees stood
like menacing giants, hiding a dilapidated abandoned shrine.
"Great, now you got us lost, idiot," Akane quipped, bopping him on the
shoulder. He turned to her, frazzled.
"I'm not Ryoga! I can figure out where we are..." he took a moment to look
about them again; "yeah, I know where we are now," he mused, "this is the
oldest part of Nerima; not too many people live on this side anymore -- at
least, if they can help it," they both took in the depressing sight.
"Then... let's go--" again, the strange howling noise sounded from one of
the houses nearby. "W-what was that?" Akane asked, trying her best not to
look scared in front of Ranma -- no matter how much she actually felt so.
They paused to listen again; it was coming from the direction of the
abandoned shrine.
"I'm going to check it out -- maybe it's an injured person?" the young
woman said, bounding impulsively off towards the imposing old building,
leaving Ranma on the sidewalk. "I'm not scared... I'm not!" She neared the
archway, where a sleek raven sat, cawing a warning at her; she hesitated
there.
"Turn baaaack..."
"AGGGGH!!!!" Akane yelped and jumped up, whacking the low voice behind her
with her mallet. "M-macho... chick..." Ranma groaned, the mallet leaving a
lump on his head, his hands up and twitching in a defeated pose.
"D-d-don't DO that, BAKA!!" hiding her mallet, she turned back to the
shrine, determined to gain the courage to face the shrine, undaunted. Ranma,
rubbing his poor, injured head, stood beside her.
"You know, whenever there are abandoned shrines, they have to be haunted,"
he said sternly. Akane looked up at him, wide-eyed, as he rested his stare
upon the old building at the end of a dirt walk. "Why else would they
abandon a shrine? Monks have more respect for holy places; only if the place
becomes cursed would devout priests leave their shrines. It must be the
sound of a restless spirit."
Akane noted Ranma's uncharacteristic sobriety, and looked on the shabby
shrine with a knot in her stomach: Ghosts??
"You... don't think -- is it??" she stuttered to him, turning around. "Of
course not," he said flatly, and Akane fell flat as well.
"Only fools n' kids believe in ghosts!"
Leaping to her feet, growling inwardly, Akane stared down the shrine, her
newest adversary in battle: she must conquer this -- or be laughed at by
Ranma for weeks!
"I'm not going to let him make a fool out of me!" Akane thought as she took
another step towards the structure. Ranma, still in his serious,
arms-crossed pose, took a moment to notice her advance towards the mysterious
old place. Somewhat startled by this, he leapt in front of her.
"Wait wait -- you're not actually GOING there now, are you?" he said, with
a smile to show that he had been merely joking earlier. Akane, face flushed,
forced her eyes off of the shrine before her to face him, trying with all of
her heart and mind to remain stoic against her feelings of trepidation and
embarrassment.
"What, are YOU scared?" she spat sharply, forcing herself to take on a look
of ice at the face which she had so many times been unable to stay calm
towards. Ranma froze for a second, and frowned.
"Why the heck would I be afraid? (Unless there's a cat...)" he reasoned
unconvincingly with her, "what I meant was that it's late, and I'm hungry;
Kasumi said she was making sukiyaki tonight too! Now, Akane, be a good girl
for once and go home nicely--" he had closed his eyes for a moment in an
attempt to seem more reasonable, and in doing so let Akane walk away from him
again without noticing. When he finally did look up, his head turning back
and forth to find her, he saw that she had already walked halfway to the
shrine. He groaned, and scurried after her, stopping in front of her again.
"Akane! Come on! Why can't you just be a typical girl and not some jock
with something to prove?"
Without saying anything, Akane slapped him across the face, and down into
the remnants of one of the shrine's ponds. However a remnant it was, it
still had water in it, and when he emerged, he was a she, with her typical
large bust and bright red hair. "Pfff..." she began, getting the stagnant
water out of her mouth, "what was that for?"
"Dummy, if you want a "typical girl" I'm SURE that you can satisfy
yourself. Go home if you want -- I don't care; just leave me alone!" she
stormed off further, leaving the female Ranma by herself, wringing out her
soaked clothes.
"Fine, you go in there, and I'll eat your sukiyaki! Bah... women," she
muttered, and began walking back to the street.
* * * *
"Idiot -- I know that he's really afraid, but I'll prove that I'm braver
than him. Using food as an excuse..." she paused in her thought when her
stomach made a loud gurgling noise, and she felt the want for food in her
belly. "But sukiyaki does sound good right now... Damnit, Ranma, if only
you weren't such an ass! No, I must take on this challenge! Forward!" she
shouted aloud, taking a strong forward step into the threshold of the open
doorway -- only to hear the whining again, coming from within, which startled
her back out of the door.
"Ok... it's just a noise; remember, there's no such thing as ghosts..."
she chanted to herself, but all the while stories of ghosts, demons and other
ilk engulfed her mind, seeing the faces of horrible creatures and imagining
her own demise. As she made her way, slowly, into the shrine and through the
halls, the noise became louder as it led to the center of the building. The
floor creaked constantly, at every step; the walls were dirty, and some were
on the verge of collapse, while the once-beautful paper screening that looked
out into the back garden were in tattered shreds. Cobwebs, mice and other
forms of debris and animal life were evident in the old place, and the garden
looked like a young forest of unkempt grass and shrubs.
Finally, she found herself inside the innermost hall of the shrine, where
an altar with the charred remains of a long-since dead fire lay in a heap
beneath a clogged chimney opening. It was dark; she could barely see where
she was going, but the noise was at its loudest.
"Where is this coming from?" Akane said to herself, looking about the room
in almost a panic, her heart racing inside her chest. The floor creaked
loudly beneath her; before she could react, the dry wooden planks broke and
she fell, but caught the floor with one of her hands. Her body engulfed in a
cold sweat, Akane tried to grasp something with her other hand, but to no
avail; her other hand slipped off, and she fell down to the floor below her.
She landed well, fortunately, on her feet, atop some of the debris. It was
completely dark where she had landed, and the only thing she could see was
the dull illumination coming from the hole she had fallen through. The noise
was there. She heard it behind her, creeping up with an inhuman stealth and
movement; she turned, and before her were two glinting eyes.
"AGGGH!!!"
* * * *
"If that dope wants to go into that rickety old shrine, then let her; I'm
not gonna waste my time following around some uncute tomboy just to make sure
she doesn't get in trouble," Ranma mused as he stopped and borrowed a kettle
of water from a restaurant that was down the street from the shrine that
Akane had went off into. He hoisted his school bag over his shoulder,
having returned to male form, and began to trod down the street back into the
Nerima he knew.
"We could've avoided this problem if she had just asked me the right way to
the Senior Ball..." he went on in his head as he passed the old houses and
low-end businesses, "-- which isn't saying that I woulda' gone with her! On
the other hand, did she really want to go with me at all...?" Right at the
moment he thought this, he overheard a conversation at a sake bar that he was
walking next to:
"Yeah, he came by wondering where this "Tendo Dojo" was, and I told him,
'you're on the wrong side of Nerima for that!' and I pointed North," one man
said loudly.
"I saw that, the guy with a yellow bandana and an umbrella?" the barkeep
said.
"Exactly. But after he thanked me, he went exactly the OPPOSITE direction
to where I pointed! What kind of moron can't even follow a simple one way
direction--?"
"RYOGA!?" Ranma yelled, startling the sake drinker and the barkeep
together. "If that retard is heading away from the Dojo, then he might just
end up.... at that old shrine.... with Akane!!!" he continued in his head,
nearly falling to his knees in dramatics, the two men at the bar looking at
the martial artist as if he were a lunatic.
"If he finds her..." in his mind's eye Ranma pictured Akane and Ryoga
sharing in a heated battle against some ancient Oni, Akane running to him
passionately afterwards declaring, 'Oh Ryoga, what ever would I have done
without you!'
"And then..." he pictured the shrine, with the Oni defeated, returned to an
idyllic state of old Japan's beauty, with pink cherry blossoms wreathing the
perimeter, and little birds singing happily, with Akane and Ryoga sharing a
bountiful picnic of sukiyaki. 'Ryoga, it was really you I wanted to take to
the Senior Ball! I only showed Ranma that flier to get him to go with
someone else!' Akane tells him joyfully.
"But worst of all..." he saw them laughing and running through a field
together, Akane saying, 'Ranma was too afraid to come and see what the noise
was, afraid of the ghosts, but I wasn't, and neither were you, Ryoga! We
must tell the world that Ranma Saotome is afraid of old spooky shrines!!'
They laughed some more, but this time joined by all of Ranma's friends and
enemies, all guffawing to the point of tears that Ranma was afraid of ghosts
and that Akane was braver than he!
"NOOOOO! NEVER!" a determined Ranma declared, immediately sprinting back
to the shrine where Akane lay. The men and other people on the street tried
to ignore the strange shouting man that came running through their normally
quiet streets.
* * * *
He could see the ramshackle rooftop of the shrine from down the street,
still in a dash, when he saw whom he had feared would end up there: Ryoga
Hibiki, looking as lost as ever, shuffling down the sidewalk looking around
nervously for the Tendo Dojo which was nowhere to be found on that side of
town.
"At least he made it to this side of the country..." Ranma mentioned to
himself as he watched the perpetually lost young man keep heading towards
Ranma's destination. "If he gets there before me, there's sure to be
trouble, but if I run in front of him, there will be just as much, if not
more. Hmm..." seeing a consecutive row of rooftops leading to the back
garden/jungle of the place, he made a quick leap and began to hop from roof
to roof, and finally landing on the shrine property, just as Ryoga stood at
the gate of the place.
"C'mon, you dope, move along; this isn't the Dojo!" Ranma spat in whisper,
watching Ryoga size up the building from a hiding place among the overgrown
grass and weeds.
"Is this it?" Ryoga asked himself, scratching himself on the head, "it
looks like the Tendos haven't been keeping up the place since I last visited.
In that case, I shall go to them and offer my assistance in the repairs!"
he cried, valiantly, and strode onto the dirt path to the door. Ranma fell
flat on his face.
"Idiot..."
"AGGGH!!" a female cry rang out from inside the shrine, alerting both
Ranma and Ryoga. "Akane-!" Ranma cried, an image of her being carried away
to a dark world by an evil spirit flashed through his mind, "I knew I
shouldn't have left her here alone!"
"A scream -- that sounded like Akane!" Ryoga said, and took to running
towards the shrine, "Saotome is probably responsible for--"
*THUNK*
Face to face, Ranma and Ryoga met; the two of them had run straight into
the other, making a sort-of Ranma-Ryoga sandwich. They fell to the ground
after a few seconds, parted, and once Ryoga gained his bearings, realized
that he had run into the man he most wanted to hurt at that moment.
"RANMA! What did you do to Akane!?" he bellowed, bashing Ranma, who was
still on the ground, in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
"Stupid... pig!" Ranma sputtered, as he tried to get back up, glaring at
Ryoga. "What exactly makes you think that I'd do something to her? You're
the pervert who sleeps in her bed!" Ranma stuck his tongue out at the fanged
man, who then swung his weighted umbrella at Ranma's head, to which he easily
dodged, and in the same motion, tripped Ryoga down onto his face.
"Listen, bacon breath, I don't have time to play right now; Akane might be
in trouble, and I don't need your 'help', so butt out!" Ranma told Ryoga,
tauntingly yet serious. Leaving his adversary on the floor, he walked into
the shrine, examining it as carefully as he could, keeping all of his
highly-honed skills of perception tuned to any signs of danger that might
sneak upon him in this place. He almost felt silly fearing that some sort of
monster resided in this old shrine -- but, at the same time, he had seen some
incredibly strange things in his travels and travails over the past few
years, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise if there was something
malevolent keeping home there.
He looked behind him; Ryoga had not followed. "Maybe he's gotten it
through his head no one wants him around here. I don't see why he keeps
chasing Akane -- he has Akari, and she KNOWS about his pig problem. He
shouldn't pass that up," Ranma thought, right before he heard someone
running atop the roof. "Nevermind... he's looking still," Ranma shook his
head and kept going.
The halls kept on winding, and it kept on getting darker and darker, and
for some reason, Ranma kept feeling a strange twinge of... fear.
"What's wrong with me? I have no reason to be afraid... unless there's a
cat... but the dark? It's something else, something... something I can't
quite put my finger on," he said to himself as he neared the innermost hall,
from which shone a small glint of light from what was left of the hole in the
chimney part above the fire altar. He shocked back suddenly, bracing himself
against the creaking wall.
"I... I swore that I just saw the altar blazing..." he looked about, but
nothing was aflame, nothing even bright enough to create an image of fire.
The only thing that he saw now were a few broken metal pipes, the ends
jagged, rusty and sharp, probably broken by a collapse in the floor where the
pipes had been for gas to help fuel the fire. He nervously scanned the room
the best he could before he forced himself to go in. The floor creaked, and
he felt a slight slant in one direction, as if there were a hole in one side.
He stepped along carefully until...
"Hello?!" someone's voice yelled from beneath the floor.
"Akane!?" Ranma replied, recognizing the voice, "where are you? I heard
you scream from outside; what happened?"
Below, Akane was overjoyed that he had found her, but at the same time was
disappointed that she had to be saved by him. "The floor broke, but I found
what was making the noise," she was interrupted by a little bark.
"A puppy? THAT's all that was???" Ranma said, disgusted.
"It was trapped down here; it must have fallen through the roof," she said,
looking at the cute little gray puppy's face and held it close to her.
"So... why don't you just get out?" Ranma said, peering down the hole,
where he could just make out Akane's form. "Too clumsy to get out of your
own mess?"
"Jerk -- I twisted my ankle when I fell! Anyway, I have to be able to
carry the puppy, so one of my arms is occupied right now," she said gruffly.
Ranma could almost see her face turn red.
"Fine," he stretched his arm down the hole, holding onto the floor with
his other, and found Akane's outstretched hand, and began to pull her up.
"Hurgh... have you gained weight?"
"JUST PULL ME UP!" she retorted furiously, unable to hit him due to the
bundle in her other arm. After a bit of strain from the awkward position,
Ranma pulled Akane and the puppy out of the hole. Akane coughed from the
dust, and patted down her school dress, caked with dust, and set the puppy on
the floor. Seeing that it was free, it gave Akane a good-bye yip, and
scuttled off to exit the shrine. Ranma stood silent waiting for her.
"So, why did you come back?" she said while examining her twisted ankle,
rubbing it a little. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "I'm
sure that your beloved sukiyaki is cold by now, if daddy and uncle Saotome
haven't eaten it all," she added provokingly.
"I couldn't just let you go 'n hog all the glory... if this is what you
call 'glory'. I couldn't have you spreading rumors that I was afraid to go
into some old abandoned shrine -- which I might add, I am not," he said
bluntly. Akane looked down.
"Oh, that's all..?" she said, unguarded for a moment, until she realized
that Ranma had perceived what lay beneath her words. "Well then -- you
should have just gone home! I didn't need you, and you had to come back just
to prove that you were better than me, a girl. I came here on my own will!
I could have gotten out of there just as well without you, so don't go
feeling special!" she threw her head into the air spitefully. Ranma grew
heated.
"That's gratitude for you -- I come to help and you tell me to take a hike.
Should'a expected that much from a girl like you," he said, turning to
leave. Akane stood and glared at him.
"What do you mean, 'a girl like me'?"
"Nevermind," he said drearily, not turning around.
"Not 'nevermind'; what are you insinuating!?" she beganto raise her voice.
"You asked for it," he mumbled under his breath, turning around angrily,
"an over-reacting, thick-headed, jock-chick! Sometimes you try to act more
manly than a real man! I know I've told you this before, what, a thousand
times if not once, but I still can't stand it! Why can't you just be a normal
girl for a while, instead of acting like some macho, uncute, ditz?" he
blurted out to her, waving his hands. They stood staring at each other in
silence for a few moments, Akane's face blank. Slowly, she turned her head
down.
"A-Akane?" Ranma said gently, realizing then that he said something that
had truly hurt her.
*WHACK*
He almost flew across the room, she even left a mark of his face, which was
amazing since he could usually take ten times that and not bruise.
"RANMA!" she screeched, tears flowing down her hurt, angry eyes, "you high
and mighty jackass, you don't know what it is to be me!!!" she swung at him
again, this time, with him dodging, just barely. In the swing, her blouse
caught a nail on the wall and ripped, her sleeve almost gone. "You're
always the strongest, the best at EVERYTHING!! You even get better grades
than me!!! Sometimes... sometimes I HATE YOU!!!" she cried.
"Akane --!" he tried to get a word in, but she turned to him and
interrupted again.
"You BAAAAKA, you.. you... PERVERT, you HALF-MAN, I HATE YOU!!!" she spat
in all of her most hurt feelings, all of the teasings and little comments
that he had made to her over the last three years coming to a head.
"RANMA... I... I... I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!" she finished, right in his face.
She remained there for a second, and the turned away weeping, beginning to
run.
"Akane!!" Ranma yelled, half angry and hurt himself, but half genuinely
guilty, and went after her. She kept running until she ran into something --
someone. Ranma saw a pair of eyes full of rage and a sneer from a fanged
mouth. It pushed Akane to the side gently, then without saying anything,
gave a shocking blow to Ranma's stomach.
"Saotome..." the voice of Ryoga trembled in anger, "YOU HEARTLESS
ANIMAL!!" he stared down at Ranma, who was doubled over, clutching his
abdomen, and prepared to strike again. "First I find you here alone with
her, and then you have the audacity to insult her AND rip her clothes! I
WILL NOT ALLOW IT!!" Having to recover quickly, Ranma leapt backwards,
avoiding Ryoga's impending fist. Ryoga took to chase, and sought out his
enemy amidst the shadows of the old hall. Akane, who had reeled back after
bumping into Ryoga, watched, nursing her hurt feelings. "I hope he really
hurts that idiot..." she thought, seeing Ranma dodge yet another blow, and
stomp Ryoga's head in the process. "Fat chance..." she added, remembering
how Ryoga was always getting trounced by Ranma on a fair playing field.
The fight continued, with Ranma tying to get Ryoga off of his case, all the
while leaping, ducking and just plain moving fast to avoid Ryoga's steely
fists, which angered the fanged man all the more.
"Stay still, Saotome, and let me punish you!" Ryoga bellowed, frustrated.
"You think I'm as stupid as you look?" Ranma came back, flipping over
backwards and ending up behind Ryoga, where with a swift sweep with his leg,
brought Ryoga to the floor.
"Curse you!!"
Akane remained in the corner, near the broken-down altar, growing bored of
a routine battle. "You stay here, Ranma; I'm going home," she said aloud,
feeling her way through the darkness, trying not to trip on anything lest she
inflame her already sore ankle. The floor creaked loudly, just as, Ranma
having yet again ducked a blow, Ryoga smashed a supportive pillar to
splinters. Ryoga kept on going at the his rival, not noticing the impending
danger of the roof that was now noticeably sagging; Ranma did.
"Pork brain, let's get out of here! The roof's gonna collapse!" Ranma
shouted to Ryoga, leaping around the room.
"I'll not listen to any of your distractions!!" Ryoga yelled, his eyes
clouded by anger. Ranma saw it starting to fall... near Akane!
"Akane!" he shouted across the room, "don't go that way!" he pointed to
the ceiling, but she only stared at him with the same hurt look on her face;
she didn't believe him. "Damn it..." he cursed, and ran from Ryoga.
"Get back here, coward!!"
"I told you..." he said while running on a crash course with Akane, "get
out of the way!!!" swiftly, and a bit rough, he collided with Akane, sending
her skidding through the doorway.
"Ranma--!" she shouted in rage, then she bumped her head against the floor
and stayed down for a moment, dazed.
"You bastard!!!" Ryoga, all the more angered by the "attack" upon Akane,
rushed at Ranma, who was off-guard thanks to his deferment of the girl, and
they connected, Ranma being thrown to the floor. Before Ryoga could make
another move, or Ranma could leap away, the ceiling gave up and came down on
the both of them, crashing loudly, jostling Akane back to full consciousness
just in time for her to see Ranma and Ryoga engulfed in debris, making the
floor collapse below each of them.
As quickly as it had happened, it ended, the dust creating an eerie silence
after the commotion had been so abruptly stopped. The late day sun beamed
down gently from the huge hole in the roof, and half of the floor in the hall
was collapsed down into the base floor. She scrambled to her feet, coughing
as the dust and dirt got in her mouth and nose, barely able to see down
through it to see what had become of the two men. When the everything came
to settle, she could see a huge pile of rubble, but neither of the boys were
visible.