Without You, Part 3
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction
By Medina
::Yes, Ranma's dead, but, as one critic told me, it was obvious from the
title. (Well, it could have been Akane...) I've only read one other fanfic
that's like this one, in content, and all apologies to the author of "A Rock
and a Hard Place". I read your story after I was well into this story. If
you can't tell, this is Akane's story now -- don't expect me to pan away to
how the Kuno family feels about it or his schoolmates; that is, unless
Akane's involved somehow. On with the next installment...::
She hadn't heard it; she couldn't have heard it! It was impossible! She
watched the doctor's mouth form the words, as if in slow motion, watched him,
listened to him explain the damage, the circumstances, the outcome. 'Unable
to save your fiancee...' she heard it, she wouldn't believe it. The doctor's
strong hands still held hers, his face was still intently focused into her
eyes, she saw the look in his face; 'this never gets easier', it said, and
carried a genuine feeling of loss for her. He had lost a patient. No. Not
him. She had heard it, but her ears didn't believe it.
But she felt it.
The very moment that she had seen the doctor walk out from the room, she
felt something missing, something that had been there every day for the past
three years was gone, and her heart sank into the hole it left. Her ears
didn't need to hear it, her eyes didn't need to see anything written; she had
lost a piece of herself that afternoon.
She didn't notice the hug of a compassionate nurse, and when they asked her
gently about any other family that he had, she rattled off the names of Genma
and Nodoka Saotome, his parents, and the phone number to the Dojo and to the
Saotomes' house. She remained in the same position, holding the doctor's
hand, not a tear, not an exclamation, silent as the dead. The dead.
"I want to see him," she whispered, barely audible.
"Are you sure?" the doctor asked, his tone hinting that she might not want
to see him in state at this point, in an emergency room.
"Yes."
A nurse took her arm, and Akane let go of the doctor, rose and followed
obediently. When she was out in the hall, Ryoga was still standing there, and
upon seeing Akane's expression, his bottom lip began to tremble. Akane looked
up, with a cold, empty emotion drowning her usually vital eyes, eyes which
told Ryoga, 'he's gone...' His legs failed him, and he slid down the wall
with his shoulder braced against it as his head hung down into his crossed
arms, sobs rocking his frame.
The emergency operating room was dim, quiet, save a few whirring sounds
that had been left on. In the center of the room, like if on an alter in a
shrine, he lay, motionless, pale. Akane broke away from the nurse, who slunk
back out into the hallway, leaving her alone. She circled the table he lay
on, moved some of the electronic devices out of the way, and came to a stop
near his head. The pipe had been removed, and a gaping hole that it had to
have left was covered by a blue cloth with spots of blood on it. His jacket
had been torn open; it was his favorite red jacket, with the long sleeves and
white cuffs. His mouth still looked overly red from the blood that had come
up from his lungs, but she could tell that there had been an effort made to
clean it off. The rest of his face, resting in an odd serenity, something
like sleep, something like sorrow, and his skin was almost a light gray in
color now.
Akane stood completely still over him, her mind and heart half hoping that
he would leap up, for him to tell her that it was all one big joke, like
everything else that they experienced together, but this was whatever the
opposite of a joke was. Reality. She shot an impulsive hand out to touch his
face, but stopped, hesitantly, and then resumed, slower. She rested her hand
on his forehead, which still felt of warmth, but not of normal kind -- it was
growing colder by the second. Brushing her hand upwards, she felt his coarse,
soft bangs, noticing that his pigtail was still in perfect order. Finally,
she cupped his cheek -- cheeks and mouth and eyes that had always smiled ...
and never would again. A speck of moisture fell onto his pallid cheek, and
she threw her arms around his broken frame, not caring about the blood, not
caring about the death. She held him tighter, dearer than she ever had
before.
"Ranma..." she wailed softly, nearly collapsing, her body thrown into a
convulsive fit of tears over him.
* * * *
She didn't know how long she stayed there, she didn't care; the tears
wouldn't stop, her tired body still shook with the horrible pain and shock of
the loss of him. So many things remained unsaid, undone; there had been so
many things that she meant to tell him before, whether they were things that
he would have laughed at or been serious, Akane's lips had ached to form the
words that wanted to come out, but had been held back for a more appropriate
time, yet even now she couldn't say them. She couldn't say much, save his
name.
"Ranma... Ranma..." she felt the name sting her throat at each time she
said it, her eyes blurring with tears at each utterance; the name she would
not be able to angrily abuse, to get a rise out of. The only feeling that
came at the name was sadness, and emptiness. Guilt. Her words came back
again...
Sometimes... sometimes I HATE YOU!!!
I HATE YOU!!!
RANMA... I... I... I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!
She never wanted this! She never really did... but words, unthinking words
can haunt, torment, fill with regret. In a way, she felt responsible by
yelling, by fighting with him, leading him into the shrine that she knew was
dangerous.... But she wasn't the type of person to listen to a gut feeling --
especially when it was accompanied by a snickering boy. A beautiful, strong,
heroic snickering boy. One who she could not stop hurting over. She shook her
head at her guilt... grief was overcoming her more.
Noticing again that the job of cleaning off his dear face had not been done
very thoroughly, Akane, pulling herself away from him the best she could,
found a rag next to a water fixture, wet it and began to wipe his face down
gently.
The water made him look almost alive again; his skin shined lightly. She
looked at his parched lips, and remembered an old tradition that she had seen
done when her mother had died when she was young, so she took the wet rag and
lightly wetted his lips, letting a few droplets of water drip down into his
mouth. The tradition, if she remembered correctly, was used to give the
deceased a chance to revive, the water being sustenance to come back. She
knew it wouldn't work, but it seemed an appropriate action. Staring down
again at his face, she stroked his cheek again and ruffled her hand through
his hair, and the tears returned.
"You won't remember this either..." she whispered in his unhearing ear when
she leaned over, trembling, and kissed his lips sweetly, lightly, and then
encircled his dear head again amidst her sobs.
"Akane," someone whispered to her from behind when she heard the doors
brush open again and people enter the room. She let him go, and stood up
straight to see who it was: Genma and Nodoka Saotome.
The two of them caught Akane's gaze tenderly, and Nodoka ran forward, her
arms outstretched to Akane, which caused Akane to burst into another fit of
tears as she buried her face in the lightly scented cloth of Nodoka's
customary kimono. The proud mother did not let tears fall in front of her
husband, nor Akane, and especially not in front of her late son; she couldn't
let his spirit think that she was a weak, unworthy mother, and so she kept it
back behind a mask of pride, though the pain emanated from every inch of her
being. Genma, who was still at the door, his eyes shut, his face rested in a
look of meditation, began to walk forward, slowly. He made it halfway to the
table where his son lay, but his legs were the first to betray him, his step
faltering, and he collapsed to his knees. His hands covered his face, but it
was obvious that the tears had started, and Genma could do nothing now to
control it.
Akane, having regained some sort of grip on her emotions, looked up into
Nodoka's wise black eyes; they reflected the sorrow that Akane felt, and
something more, something different than she could fathom: A mother, losing
her only son, her only child. Relinquishing her hold on the woman, Akane let
Nodoka spend a moment next to him, and backed away.
Nearly expressionless, the woman looked down on her fallen child, and for a
while, stood as motionless as lay the corpse before her. All that moved was
her eyes, those keen, intelligent black eyes that had seen him take his first
steps, watched him play, surveyed his fine growth into a man, and now...
this. Her strong eyes took in the sight, they wrenched in pain at the sight
of the cloth covering the mortal wound on his robust chest, and resting on
his face, a single salty drop betrayed her seemingly inhuman strength.
"Ranma, oh my dearest little Ranma," she said in a voice so strong, but in
a barely audible whisper, "how could this happen to you?" Breaking her frozen
stance, she began to tenderly stroke his hair and face as the heavy tear
escaped her eye and trickled down her porcelain face. "You were supposed to
live long, marry, give me grandchildren to love as I did you -- not to lie...
cold, leaving your mother and father before they left you."
She broke away her gaze from his face, bringing her hands to her mouth, as
the pain was becoming too much to contain, but to her side came her husband,
still within his own unbearable suffering. He caught one of her wrists, and
pulled down her hand so that he could see her face; she looked up into his
reddened eyes, and seeing her own grief reflected back, let go.
"Ranma...! Did you ever know how proud I was of you??" she screamed through
she fell onto her husband's ready chest, and he wrapped his arms around her,
two parents of a lost child. "I never thought that you were unworthy!! I
loved you as much as a mother ever did a son... oh Ranma... Ranma..."
Akane nearly ran from where she stood and joined in the embrace, helping to
support the stricken mother... who was intended to have been her own.
* * * *
"Akane, are you ready?" Kasumi asked her in her always gentle voice,
although it had been twinged with of sadness, but also extra care when it
came to addressing her youngest sister. Akane didn't answer, but she could
see Kasumi peeking in through her door in the mirror of her dressing table
where she sat. Kasumi sent her a look of understanding, and came into the
room, where she stopped behind her sister, putting her hand on the young
woman's shoulder.
"I know this has been a hard week, so don't worry about anything. Take as
much time as you need," she bent over and gave Akane a kiss on her cheek.
Akane finally turned around to look at her sister, and with her large eyes
filled with the same grief that she had been feeling since it had started,
gave her sister a hug. Kasumi returned the gesture warmly, wrapping her arms
about her the girl's shoulders, and they stood there, immersed in the
sisterly comfort of the other. Akane relinquished her hold, and looked back
up at Kasumi again.
"Thank you... I'll be alright," Akane told her, to which she nodded, and
stepped out of the room. Akane turned back into staring into her mirror,
where she had been blankly living in for the past hour or so, just looking at
her own reflection, feeling nothing but the same emotion that had pervaded
her being since that fateful moment. She felt it so much that she could feel
nothing else, a kind of strange numbness that pain produces.
The last three days had been a blur for her since the incident befell her,
and being engulfed in her own melancholy, it became almost a comfort to her,
in that she could handle it; otherwise, she did her best not to react to, or
even think about any other feelings besides the blueness in which she had
resided. She remembered not seeing Ryoga when she came back out of the
operation room where Ranma had lain, but she made nothing of it, only feeling
tired and empty. Upon her return home, Genma broke the news to the family,
which brought out tears from her sisters and her father, but she couldn't let
another one fall from her face -- it was too much -- she just wanted to
sleep.
She didn't quite remember much of the following day, so she figured that
she must have slept a lot and not gone to school; her family must have been
spreading the sad news among the neighborhood and the Saotomes probably let
the school know about Ranma, because the day after that all of the people
came to visit.
She didn't remember many of them either, since there were too many for her
to handle, and she knew that she hadn't acted very cordial with them, which
she felt uncomfortable about now; wasn't she stronger than that to be able to
at least put on a mask of pride and stability as she had always done before?
It had always worked with Ranma--
"I always had a reason to put on a front with him..." she uttered to her
reflection, sinking down into her arms, crossed on the dresser top, her eyes
drooping a bit, then wincing as she remembered the rest of that day.
* * * *
"Ra...n... MAAAA!!" a wail came blustering in from the street, past Nabiki,
who had opened the door, nearly knocking Kasumi over with her teapot, and not
even noticing Akane. It came to rest in front of Genma and Nodoka, bearing
incense and gifts, wearing a decadent black kimono, embroidered with black
roses.
"Miss...?" Nodoka asked hesitantly when the woman took her hand to kiss.
"Kuno, Kodachi, your... (sob) late son's, (sob) INTENDED!" she flourished,
her eyes watering intensely behind a black fan she held before her face, "I
was... too late to be by his side at his final moment -- but in spirit I was!
He must have wished me there with his last breath..." With that, she feigned
a faint, with all of the Tendo/Saotome household glaring at her in disgust,
but close behind her, catching her midfall was a tall man, draped in a black
robe like the woman's.
"Please excuse my sister," he began, looking down at the floor intensely,
"We mean no disrespect."
Kodachi looked up at him with one eye, as she was trying to pretend to be
unconscious, her look full of spite. He pushed her up, and forced her to
stand, to which she stood there, eyes closed, face frowning, insisting that
she was fainted away, despite the fact that she was standing. Her brother
continued to look around the room, his face sober, holding his incense stick
and a small gift in hand. He turned to Ranma's parents, bowing to each, then
her kneel down before the altar.
The small Buddhist family shrine, in its red lacquer and gold trimmings
housed a small image of the Buddha himself, along with a place for offerings,
where a few tangerines upon mochi cakes sat and a metal incense burner with
quite a few smoldering sticks already in it. Beside the shrine was a recent
picture of Ranma, smiling, in his favorite red jacket, looking as strong and
lively as he ever had... exactly how the families thought he should be
remembered.
Kuno placed the gift down in a pile below the shrine and put the incense in
the holder, then kneeled down to chant a prayer for his soul.
"Namanda... namanda..." he stopped suddenly, his eyes still closed, "What,
what was that?" he said aloud, "Is that you Ranma? Are you telling me that
you want me to take care of Akane in your absence? Well, I am honored!" He
opened his eyes, and looked at Akane, who was sitting drolly at the dining
table, trying to tune the Kunos out; "Akane! Ranma's spirit spoke to me! He
wants us to be together--" as he stretched his arms out to her, about to leap
to her side, he ran his face smack into that of another -- his "Aloha"
father, the principal of Furinkan High.
"Pleas' excuse da keiki, folks, dey's a little loopy," he said, bowing to
the ever-increasingly disturbed household, and Akane finally just groaned and
put her head down. Principal Kuno pushed Tatewaki to the floor, his arms and
legs rigid in shock, next to his sister who was still standing with her eyes
tightly shut.
The principal took his turn before the altar, leaving a gift and incense as
well, then peered at the picture of Ranma.
"Dyin'...." he whispered as he looked at the picture, taking of his
sunglasses momentarily to wipe away at the small tears under them. He put the
shades back on slowly, and looked down at the picture again. "DAT'S TEN
DEMERITS!!!"
"AUGHHHH!!!!" Akane screamed, leaping up, and in one swift kick of her foot
the Kunos were sent flying out the door, Kodachi with her eyes still closed.
Akane stood, seething with tears in her eyes, screaming, "YOU CREEPS!!" She
felt a gentle hand touch her back, and turning around, saw Nodoka's
understanding eyes.
"Thank you."
* * * *
On her dresser, there stood a picture from the previous summer's excursion
to the beach, which caught her eye as she remembered the visit of the
disgusting Kuno family. Picking up the framed print, she gazed at each face
that had somehow managed to end up there, including Kuno and his
harpy-sister. Akane felt a wave of deep-set anger wash over her, and she
searched for a black marker from her pen-can, from amidst cartoon painted
pencils, shiny pens and other presents. Knocking the can down, she found the
sharp-tipped marker, and uncapped it as the rainbow of pens crashed to the
floor. She forced the picture from its frame, cracking the wood, breaking the
glass, tearing a corner, she slammed it down on the dressertop and vehemently
went to blacking out first Kodachi's serpentine puss, and then scratched out
Kuno's smug grin.
She sat, seething again, realizing how livid a simple picture had just made
her feel, remembering why she had kept herself so numb to these things -- she
could not control herself. Having regained her previous state of morose
contemplation, she picked up the picture again, looking over the people. She
saw Ukyo, Shampoo, Mousse, Cologne, Happosai, her family, herself, Ryoga,
Uncle Genma and Ranma... How happy they had all been then, despite the
constant conflicts that scattered their days with a sort of annoying
excitement. She longed for those days.
And then she remembered: Ukyo. Shampoo. The other fiancee.
* * * *
"Hello?" a cheerful voice called from the doorway, accompanied by the sound
of heavy objects being sloughed to the floor. "Is anyone here? I came by to
say hi to y'all, and the door was just left wide open and no one's about.
Hello??"
Into the living space of the Tendo house peeked the ample-haired head of
Ukyo Kuonji, the resident Okonomiyaki chef, and one of many of Ranma's
admirers. After the incident with the Kunos, the Tendos had decided to retire
to other areas, seeing that, perhaps, the Saotomes would be better left to
attend to business by themselves. Akane had elected to stay behind; not that
she had really told them that she would, but she just had, in that she didn't
try to get up and leave. She was the first to notice Ukyo, and when she saw
the young woman, she felt something that she hadn't expected: her heart
wrenched for a moment, and her skin tightened uneasily as she was going to
have to face someone with a serious emotional attachment to him again. She
hadn't thought of how she would deal with it, so she hadn't even imagined
that upon visiting the pain of others she would see her own in their eyes.
Ukyo saw Akane and smiled brightly, then turned around to pick up the
luggage she had dropped in the hall. Walking in, she looked about casually;
she didn't seem sad or even upset at all -- was this how Ukyo dealt with it?
Akane wondered, which made her more curious to inquire into what was on the
girl's mind. Yet despite her curiosity, she waited in her corner of the
kitchen, feeling held back by her fear of facing her own reflected emotions.
"Smells like incense in here... Hey there, Akane, where is everyone? This
place is usually hoppin' with life! Right now, it's as empty as a tomb --
what's up?" the cute chef asked, Akane wincing at each of the unfortunate
words Ukyo had unwittingly used. She paced back and forth, awaiting Akane's
reply, but when none came, she continued on her own; "It's been a while since
I've been around. I'm thinking of opening another location of "Ucchan's" near
the beach, since it's not worth shutting down the one here every summer just
to hit the crowds there ... are you okay, Akane?" she asked again, pulling
herself way from her own little world when it became apparent that she would
be the only one talking.
"..."
"Uh, okay... Anyway," Ukyo continued, brightening again, "as soon as I've
got it all up and ready, it'll be just in time for y'all to come and visit
the beach during the summer months! Doesn't that sound great, everyone having
a special place to hang out by the beach? And it'll be good for all of our
"cursed" friends to get a hold of some hot water, although, I think that
Ran-chan likes that girl's swimsuit a little too much, wouldn't you say?" she
giggled. Akane's stomach twisted in anxiety and her mind swam in another tide
of horrible emotion as the gleeful musings of the girl before her brought up
the same memories in herself; normally wonderful, treasured memories, but now
only reminded her of what would never be again. She couldn't look up into
Ukyo's eyes anymore, and shot her gaze to the floor suddenly.
"Ah, of course you would!" she said, taking the movement for a gesture of
consent, "of course, I'm not sure if you can handle my competition for him,
huh? Hee hee, you know that I'm just a big tease! Oh, I almost forgot -- I
brought something with me." Ukyo nearly fell into one of her big sacks that
she had carried with her, then popped right back out with a box in her hands.
"I figured, that since I've been gone so long, that my dearest Ran-chan would
appreciate some of my signature okonomiyaki--"
"RANMA'S DEAD!!!!"
"for lun.... what?"
Akane found herself standing over the kitchen table,
her face red, screaming into Ukyo's unsuspecting face. Realizing this, after
a brief pause from the shock of her own action, she sat down just as quickly,
throwing her eyes back down to the table's surface. Ukyo stood there, the box
of her special dish still in her hands, staring down at where Akane had so
abruptly cut her off. Like a melting statue, she slowly sat down, placing the
box on the table, and reached her hand across to touch Akane's folded grasp.
"What -- did you say?" Akane felt her touch, gentle, and caught Ukyo's face
again, the brightness changed to a horrified look of hope against her own
hearing. A tear escaped Akane.
"It's true. Three days ago. It... it was an accident."
"B- but how?? Ranma NEVER has 'accidents'!" Ukyo pressed, her hand gripping
Akane's tighter.
"It was an accident!" Akane repeated, this time with more intensity; she
didn't really believe herself.
I wish you were dead!
The words weighed on her chest as heavily as the debris that had pierced
Ranma's chest, as if they were one and the same...
Akane lost herself momentarily within her own bitter guilt, but was jostled
back to reality when she heard gentle sobbing across from her; how could she
only think of herself! Ukyo had known Ranma for many more years than she had,
and had endured the indignities of being a 'second-place' fiancee -- the girl
had lost just as much, if not more than she herself did in this situation.
Akane sat in silence, allowing her own tears to slowly trudge their way down
her cheeks while she studied Ukyo's reactions.
Her pretty face and green eyes were already red, and she was moving her
hands slowly back to the box that she had brought -- a gift too late. Pulling
on a string, the top was released, and she fumbled back the lid to reveal an
okonomiyaki masterpiece: in the shape of a heart, lined with shrimp and crab,
the sauces applied in just the right amounts, and written with the most care,
"Ran-chan" stood out in the white sauce. She blankly stared down at it,
occasionally shaking with a sob. "Ran-chan..." her mouth formed the words,
but no sound came from her throat. She closed her eyes.
Akane was touched, and hadn't expected to feel so for one of her 'rivals'.
So many new feelings were born at each aspect of this whole incident, she
could hardly keep up with them all. Akane pulled a tissue from her pocket and
placed it into Ukyo's trembling fingers, to which the girl looked up to see
an earnest look of compassion and understanding from Akane, and nearly
smiled. Taking up the tissue, she blotted her eyes and looked about the room
uneasily. Her eyes lingered across the kitchen into the living room where the
family shrine had been opened up to welcome the spirit of the deceased.
Impulsively, she stood up, her eyes never leaving the shrine, bringing her
creation with her, and began to shuffle over to it as a sleepwalker might
move. Arriving there, she scanned the area for an unlit incense stick,
finding the last of the sweetly-scented orange blossom incense that the
family had always kept with their shrine. Lighting it, she placed it into the
metal burner, and closed her eyes again to take in the aroma of the wisps of
smoke that now rose from the altar like spirits into the heavens. Gingerly,
she opened the box again to look at the gift that she had intended to bestow
upon her beloved, which now would have to serve as an offering to his spirit
in the netherworld. She kneeled before the shrine, holding the still-warm
okonomiyaki up to the picture of Ranma.
"I give this as a love-gift to my Ran-chan; may your spirit be restful...
and always remember that I will never stop loving you..." her voice gave out
on the last few words, and she placed the offering on the altar before she
completely broke down, falling prostrate on the wooden dojo floor, her body
wracked with great heaves, her love and loss pouring out as her salty tears
stained the floor. Akane rose and ran to her rival's side, putting her arm
around her back while her own eyes still were full of her own lamentation.
Ukyo slowly sat up, her hands covering her face, and sank herself into
Akane's waiting shoulder, where they remained for some time, taking a small
comfort in the other's presence and shared grief.
* * * *
"It's amazing," Akane mused, "how something so horrible can remove rifts
between people. I've never thought much of Ukyo's feelings towards Ranma,
but... but she did love him. And I.... I... still, I can't say it, even to
myself," she glanced over the picture some more, and noticed that she and
Ranma, although on two different sides of the picture, somehow looked to the
other, and their stances matched perfectly.
"After all... he was so mean to me at times... yet I was the same way to
him. My feelings seem so unclear most of the time; I'm never quite sure what
I'm feeling when I do something, or say something. Maybe it was just the hurt
talking at times, or... the gratitude. Maybe... maybe I never loved him at
all... maybe I'll just miss him as a friend..." she mulled it over, but as
soon as the notion crossed her mind, her heart and stomach seemed to wrench
into a great knot, falling somewhere down into her entrails, but attempting
to take with them the tons of baggage that came with any true feelings for
him. It felt completely and utterly wrong. She tried to think it again, to
convince herself that he meant less to him than she had made out...
"NO," her psyche shouted, the twists and turns inside of her loosening, but
with them the pain of her true feelings returned "Damn it, why can't I just
rationalize it all away? Why did it have to be the other way around... that
he really meant more than I had ever realized?" another of many tears dripped
onto the picture, this time wetting Shampoo's exotic smile. "I guess we all
try some way to lessen the burden... even to deny it completely."
* * * *
Ukyo hadn't stopped crying, but she had stopped shaking and sobbing
uncontrollably. Akane had walked her back into the kitchen and offered to
make her some tea; the girl consented with a forlorn glance back. Now Akane
was apprehensive, because it was time to prepare tea -- tea was a beverage,
something that is taken with food... Akane didn't "do" food. Even if she
tried, and oh, how she tried. Her cooking fiascos were one of Ranma's
favorite jokes...
She sniffled again, and pushed back the thought. Must make tea for Ukyo!
She found the teapot, and the jar of tea.. and hoped.
"Here you go, Ukyo."
"Th- thanks, Akane..." the girl gave a heartfelt reply, and cradling the
mug in her hands, brought the teat to her parched lips, the liquid warming
her body. A smile washed over her face for a moment, and Akane brightened --
the tea hadn't killed her! As she watched Ukyo sink down into the chair,
sipping the tea in silence, Akane felt suddenly peaceful, as if someone had
reached out and given her a hug. She looked about the room in a wonder.
"Ranma...?"
"EVIL GIRL!!!"
The wall crashed in, covering Ukyo and Akane in plaster dust, and causing
the teapot to tip off of the table, the tea dribbling out of the top and
spout. The noise and sight of a crumbling wall suddenly brought Akane back
three days, and she cowered back, her heart racing as she looked about
wildly, searching for Ranma. What she found, as the dust settled was Shampoo,
beyond irate -- almost crazed.
"Sha- Shampoo! What do you--"
"Shut up! Where pervert-girl hide Shampoo husband?" the Amazon looked
razor-sharp daggers down at Akane, now broken from her stupor, her ornate
weapon millimeters from the girl's nose. Both Akane and Ukyo were confused;
she thought that they were hiding Ranma?
"Speak! Where hide Ranma?! Tell!" now Shampoo's face had switched positions
with her weapon. Akane felt something odd in the gaze...
"Don't you know? Ranma's..." Ukyo interjected, feeling the tension between
the other women and attempting to at least begin to bridge a way past it.
Shampoo shot her glare over to Ukyo, and pointed her weapon at her.
"You in on too? Pervert-girl and boy-girl hiding Ranma for selves?"
"But--" Akane tried now, but only caused Shampoo's attention to return to
her.
"People tell grandmother that Ranma dead! That Akane last person seen with
him! I know it all lie! Great-big lie!" she blared into Akane's face, then
backing off, her weapons pointing at the other fiancees, spoke again. "If
tell Shampoo where you hid Ranma, I not fight. TELL!"
Ukyo and Akane exchanged pitiful glances, both realizing the same thing:
Shampoo was falling into a madness of denial. The look that had been evident
in the girl's eyes when Akane had see them up close showed of an unbearable
grief beneath the rage, grief that Shampoo would rather deny to the point of
lunacy than deal with. She believed her own conspiracy theory.
"Shampoo... can't you see? The shrine, his parents, the obituary in the
newspaper..." Ukyo pressed gently, tears welling up in her own eyes in the
telling, "The two of us? Shampoo, this is all horribly real... how I wish we
were only playing a trick on you, how I do--!" Shampoo glared down, unmoved.
"You lie bad. All put-on."
Akane could take no more -- she had lived through the whole incident, had
held his hand until his last breath -- she knew too-well of Ranma's fate, and
as much as she wished it hadn't happened, she couldn't stand someone getting
away with denying the truth of the pain that would haunt her for the rest of
her days.
"You goddamned little whore," she growled, striking both Ukyo and Shampoo's
attention, "you think that you're more special than anyone else, that you can
just go and not believe it, not recognize the pain that the rest of us are
feeling -- the pain that he went through as he bled to death beside me!!" she
paused, beginning to see a shimmer of a tear in Shampoo's angered watch.
"Yes, Shampoo, he bled to death, it happened. A falling wall, a ceiling, a
metal pipe pierced his chest, his blood still stains the floor of the old
shrine. I saw the rusty metal inside of him, the blood... oh, the blood...
how he struggled to stay awake, he told me, coughing through his own blood,
to leave him, to not watch him die. But I did. I watched him grow pale, his
strength leave him, and I SAW HIM DIE!! I felt his cold forehead at the
hospital, and I'm helping to arrange his funeral! HOW DARE YOU deny what I
have to live with, what I saw, Ranma DIE while I still live. You have no
right, NO GODDAMNED RIGHT!!!!"
The room was unnervingly silent after that. Ukyo sat, dumbfounded again,
frozen with the cooling cup of tea still in her hand. Akane was now the one
staring down Shampoo, tears freely leaving her livid, hurt eyes. Shampoo's
visage had melted, her mouth hung open, her weapons were down at her sides. A
tear welled up in her left eye.
"NO!!! LIES!!!" she screamed again, bringing her hands up to clutch her
head, her nimble body writhing at the conflict within herself. Ukyo dropped
her cup, watching the breakdown of a fellow fiancee, but Akane remained firm
in her gaze. Shampoo looked up, her eyes showing no sign of coherence, just a
red haze that covered up truth.
"I KILL YOU!!!" the Amazon screeched, clenching her fists in the air, and
beginning a rush at Akane. Pushing her back to the opposite wall, she pinned
her shoulder with her left arm, and held up her right hand in a blade, ready
to strike at Akane's throat.
"Do it."
Shampoo blinked.
"Do it," Akane whispered, her eyes closed, held her head up high and bared
her neck to her attacker.
For a second, Shampoo's face showed the grief that she felt inside, the
second that it took to drop her offensive. She reeled back, unsure in her
mania why she was suddenly taken with fear of the weaker girl.
"Fine. If you not tell Shampoo, Shampoo find him on her own!!" with that,
she was gone, swift as the wind out the same hole in the kitchen wall that
she had entered through.
"RANMAAA!! WHERE YOU???" When Shampoo's pitiful cry could no longer be
heard, Ukyo turned back to Akane, who still stood against the wall, but now
with tears streaming from her closed eyes, her chin trembling. Ukyo
hesitantly walked to Akane -- her 'outburst' had scared not only Shampoo, but
the young okonomiyaki chef as well. She touched Akane's hand with a finger,
and the girl spasmed away, her eyes opening.
"A-Akane... was that all... the truth?"
She nodded.
"Oh my god..." Ukyo began to cry again, but this time, wrapped herself
around Akane's shoulders. She was shaking horribly -- she couldn't cope with
that kind of strain. Feeling lightheaded, the room spun, her legs buckled
beneath her, and the world faded into a most welcome black. Yet, in her
unconscious state, in her ears the desperate cry still rang...
"RANMA? WHERE YOU?"
* * * *
"Poor Shampoo... somehow... I envy her madness," she looked down at the
picture again, sniffling back what was left of the few tears she had let out
in her reminiscence. She propped it up against her mirror, although it looked
a shambles. "I guess that's how it's going to be... Ranma, why'd we have to
part that way? So angry -- like so many other days, but you must have known
that I never really meant it," she sighed, but also remembered the things
that he had said to her which caused their last fight.
"You're such a jerk! Why couldn't you have understood me better? I was just
trying to be worthy in your eyes, do something right for a change! You just
HAD to get angry with me..."
She put her head down again, staring at the wall of her room.
"Ranma, you jerk, why'd you have to die...?"
* * * *
End part three.
Now that we're through that, I'd just like to make a few comments on
criticism.
I understand that some people don't like any character variation,
or disagreement in how they are portrayed.
Personally, I enjoy seeing
characters in different lights, as I have seen in many of the stories I've
read.
I also get tired of those "not another of xxxxx-type fanfic..."
criticisms.
Maybe I haven't been around the Ranma 1/2 fanfiction scene as
long as others, but from what I've read, even similar stories can be just as
good as the other, as each author has their own take on their plot.
(Unless
you're a plagurizing bastard...)
Anyhoo, I'll be writing part 4 as soon as I
get the chance.
Laters.