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And here's the second half.

-Mike Noakes
noakes_m@hotmail.com

***

      Ranma, perched a scant meter below the
conversation, blinked as he recognized Uehara's voice.  He
stopped listening, remembering the fight at the party and how
that asshole bully had incited him to violence.  Maybe, he
thought, and grinned, coming back to school was a good idea
after all.  I might not be one right now, Uehara--but payback's a
bitch.
      With a single smooth movement, Ranma lifted
himself over the edge onto the roof, pushed off from a crouch
and leapt to the top of the fence; fingers barely brushing the
edge, he swung over and dropped down, pushing off and
tumbling out of his fall.  He landed softly in a crouch a few
meters away from a group of students huddled next to the door
leading back inside.
      He didn't know most of them, though he more or less
recognized them.  They were some of the rougher kids in the
school, always skipping class and getting caught for smoking or
dyeing their hair or other stupid things like that.  Maya
slouched against the wall, her skirt indecently short, hair dyed
blonde and wearing makeup; Goda sat opposite her, smoking,
uniform undone despite the cold, his short hair gelled up spiky
and streaked with blue.  Ranma had never really paid them
much attention before, since they weren't in his class and
moved in very different circles than him.  They _have_ a circle,
after all, Ranma thought.  I've got more of a dot.
      But I know you, Uehara, Ranma added.
      Engrossed in their conversation, they didn't
immediately notice his arrival.  Uehara, sitting slightly outside
the circle of friends, saw him first.  His eyes widened in
surprise.  "Well, shit!  Speak of the transvestite, guys, we've
got company!"
      Everybody looked back.
      "Oh, hey, Saotome," said Goda, and gave a slight
wave.  "Long time.  Anyway," he continued, turning back to
Jun, "like I was saying, Yuuta said to Kensuke, 'You touch my
'lil Pikachu again, you bastard, and I'll kick your _ass_.'"  The
others gave him a slight nod and returned to their conversation
and card game.
      Slightly taken aback at being so quickly ignored,
Ranma walked closer.  Uehara didn't look away and watched
his approach with curiosity.  He stood up when the pigtailed
boy came near.  "So, you're back," he said, with apparent
disinterest.
      "For today," Ranma said.
      Uehara nodded.  "Good.  I got some unfinished
business with you, Saotome."
      Ranma raised an eyebrow.  "Oh, really?"  The fingers
of one hand curled closed.  He tried to tell himself he wasn't
going to enjoy this.  He wasn't restrained by some promise this
time, and he didn't care what any of these people thought of
him.  But for the whole series of events Uehara had started . . .
Ranma didn't consider himself a vengeful man, but he knew
that venting some of the tension he felt on the individual
responsible for most of it would somehow feel . . . good.
      "Yeah."  The tall, blond-haired boy slowly raised one
fist.  "See this?"
      Ranma nodded and tensed himself to spring forward.
      The fist curled open.  "Here."
      The martial artist stared blankly at the open hand.
"What?"
      "It's my hand, you moron!" said Uehara angrily.
"Shake it already!"
      "Why would I want to do that?"
      "Because I'm sorry, that's why, you idiot!"
      Ranma blinked.  "You don't sound very sorry."
      "Damn.  Yeah, I always screw that up; I'm not very
good at this kinda thing.  Listen, I wanna apologize for being
such a jerk at the party last week.  Like I told those gimpy
friends of yours, when I drink too much I get a little . . ."
      "Aggro?" said Goda.
      "Horny?" added Maya.
      "Stupid?" offered another boy.
      "Shut up!" he yelled at them, waving his fist, then
turned back to Ranma.  He stuck his hand out again.  "So, yeah,
like, I'm really sorry 'bout what happened, 'kay?  Shake on it?"
      Ranma reached out.  As his fingers slid along
Uehara's hand, a dozen techniques flashed through his mind,
wrist-locks and grapples and throws, a dozen ways to inflict all
kinds of pain back onto the boy.  You have no idea how you
screwed up my life, Ranma thought, and for a moment his grip
tightened on the bully's hand.  You have no idea what you've
cost me.
      "Yeah," Uehara continued, "I heard about all that shit
that went down last week.  Stupid idiots.  Heard you showed
'em who's boss though, right?"
      "I guess," Ranma said.
      "So why'd you take off after that?"
      "I don't belong here."
      The taller boy laughed.  "I keep forgetting what a
_wimp_ you are, Saotome!"
      Ranma frowned.  "Watch it, Uehara."
      "Oh, relax," Ryuta said.  "You mean, you actually
care what those bitches down there said?  Man, you've got a lot
to learn!  Now, listen, it's like this . . ."
      "Oh, crap, not again" Goda chirped.  "Not the
wisdom of Uehara Ryuta!"
      "Shut up!" the tall boy yelled, "Or I'll tell Saotome
how you've got a boner for his girl!"
      "Uh--what?"
      "Forget it.  Now, listen," Uehara said, gesturing for
the martial artist to sit slightly apart from the other group.
Shrugging, Ranma did so, thinking, It's not like I've got
anything better to do until class is over.  The larger boy,
obviously pleased at having an audience, took a seat opposite
him.
      "It's like this, see," Ryuta began.  "You're a wimp,
because you're weak--hey, don't interrupt!"  He raised one
hand to forestall Ranma's protest.  "I'm not stupid, I know you
can kick my ass.  You already have twice.  You're strong,
Saotome . . . but you're not tough.  Not where it counts, up
here."  The bully tapped the side of his head.  "Oh, sure, you're
no dummy, and your grades are probably higher than mine, and
you've got that martial arts discipline thing down . . . but you
care, man, you actually buy into that shit everybody's been
shoveling your way.
      "And there's so much of it, it fuckin' stinks so high,
even up here at the top of the school we're surrounded by it.
All those losers down there, so obsessed with getting great
grades, just so they can go to some university their parents
picked and graduate and get some job with some lame company
they'll work at until they die.  But, hey, that's cool, but those
idiots _don't see it_, and that's the sick thing, they're all too
pathetic to face up to the truth.  So they join clubs and play
games, they watch TV and write stories and do their homework
and fill their tiny little brains with pointless crap, so that they
never have to think about how meaningless their lives are going
to be, or how they really have no clue what they want to do,
and how lonely and unhappy they really are.
      "But not me.  Nope.  My life might be as shit as
everybody else's but at least I know it.  So why should I waste
my friggin' time tryin' to impress those idiots below, or some
teacher or my parents, when none of them want to have
anything to do with me?  Screw that.  I'll scare them instead,
and steal their lunch money because I can, and I'll make sure
that no matter how hard they try, they'll never be able to ignore
me or forget that I'm here.  I'm here to have fun; that's why I
come to this stupid school, because if anything else, it's a riot--
especially when you're around.  But I'm not gonna study any
more than I have to, and I'll just keep picking fights and
kicking ass until some Yak scout notices and picks me up, and,
hey, that might be as pointless as everything else, but at least
I'm having fun, right?
      Ranma's lack of response led Uehara to scowl.
      "An unbeliever, huh?  I don't get you, Saotome.  I
mean, you're strong.  You're always fighting, hell, more than
even I do.  And you _crush_ your enemies!  Like that dude with
the umbrella.  You take him down, hard, and you enjoy it!"
      "Hey!  No I don't!"
      "Not even Kuno?"
      The pigtailed boy smiled wryly.  "Well, maybe
Kuno."
      "Exactly.  That's why I don't get you, Saotome.
Yeah, I've watched you around school and stuff, and you're
downright _mean_ when you wanna be; and then you turn
around and pussy out for the stupidest reasons."
      "It's called water, Uehara."
      "Whatever.  Like that crap at the party and here at
school.  You were sad, man!  One second, you're laying the
smack down on me, and dude, that's the worst ass-kicking I've
_ever_ had; the next, you're moping around all pathetic-like,
going, 'oh woe is me, I sure wish I had a friend!'  It's like,
why?  You're better than those people, stronger than them, so
who cares what they think?  And then that shit with Tendo,
dude, I can't believe you were actually beating yourself up over
that.  It's about time, you ask me, that bitch had it com-."
      "Don't.  Call her that."  Ranma intoned, voice cold
and eyes hard, his hand suddenly vice-like around Uehara's
throat.
      "See," the bully croaked.  "See?"
      The martial artist threw him down.  "You're full of it.
I ain't like you.  I don't care if people forget about me, and I
don't beat up people because I can, and I don't care if they like
me or not."
      "Oh, that's right, you're just so much deeper than the
rest of us."  Ryuta smiled.  "Not.  Now who's full of it?"
      "Shut up."
      "Stop being such a bitch about this, Saotome, and
face the truth like a man.  You're not like the others, and you're
not going to change that.  They think I'm strange because . . .
well, just because, and 'cus I'm violent and rude and do things
differently than they do.  But think, man--if I'm a weirdo
because of my parents and the shit I do, then you--you must be
the freakiest thing this city's ever seen, you change _sexes_
man, and your glow when you're pissed, and you fight
monsters in your free time!
      "And don't tell me you don't like being different,
because you go out of your way any chance you get to make
damn sure everybody knows it.  It's not like you keep a low
profile, Saotome, between picking fights with the principal and
inviting your buddies over to the school field so you can kick
their ass in front of an audience.  Hell, even I do my ass-
kicking in private; you make sure everybody damn well
_knows_ you're a badass.  So face up to the truth, man: you're
different and you _love_ it, and you're never gonna be like the
rest of the flock.  So stop chasing after the favor of those shit-
faced losers below, 'cus it's just pathetic, and you're making
me sick."
      Ranma never got to further debate the dubious
wisdoms of Ryuta Uehara, however, for at that moment a deep,
sultry voice interrupted.  "So what do we have here?" a woman
asked.  "You wouldn't be . . . delinquents?"


      From the door leading back into the school stepped
the tall, curvaceous form of the adult Hinako Ninomiya, the
school's vampire-like disciplinarian.  The yellow dress that fit
her six-year old frame was stretched impossibly tight across her
full, voluptuous figure, accentuating the exaggerated femininity
that seemed poised to burst free of their scant restraint.  The
sheer sexuality she exuded could have been distracting, if it
didn't have such a painfully terrifying source.  She tossed back
the long lustrous sweep of her hair with a flick of her head, and
looked down at the students with a half-lidded look that could
only be described as hungry.
      "Aw crap," muttered Uehara.
      "So then," Hinako purred, "who do we have here?"
Fixing Goda with her heavy-lidded gaze, she ticked off one
finger, drawing it languidly back.  "Mr. Takemoto, how . . .
good to see you again.  This is your third time this month, isn't
it?  And smoking, too--my, you are being naughty today, aren't
you?"  Goda, already quivering, went white.  "And Ms.
Koyama, still by your man's side, I see."  Maya flushed red,
glancing aside at Uehara.  "That color suits you, but I believe
you know how I disapprove of makeup at school."  She
checked a third and fourth finger.  "Kitano Matsushita, absent
from class again; Jun Iwato, also absent.
      "And last," she said, lips curving in a dangerous
smile, last slender finger curling into her small fist, "we have
Ryuta Uehara.  Not much of a surprise, really.  Uehara and his
little gang of troublemakers.  I see inappropriate uniforms,
absenteeism, smoking, snacking, and defacement of school
property.  I see delinquents!"
      "Yeah, but do you see me?"  Ranma, emerging from
the shadows he had faded into, stepped in front of the gang of
students the teacher had been about to discipline.  He wasn't
too sure why he bothered, and was sorely tempted to just hang
back hidden and allow her to have her way with them.  He
didn't care for these students, didn't care much for Uehara, and
he held no grudge against Hinako--truth be told, he rather liked
the diminutive English teacher and felt he had more in common
with her than his peers.
      "Saotome!"
      "Yeah."  Ranma shrugged.  "Guess I'm back."
      "The biggest delinquent of them all," she said, eyes
narrowing.  "One week of absences!  Violence and destruction
of school property!  Flagrant disrespect for school authority!
And you never wear a uniform!"
      "You forgot blatant unrepentant cocky attitude," he
drawled.
      Hinako frowned and turned her attention back to the
other students.  "As for you sorry lot," she said, "you're lucky I
found a bigger fish to fry.  Get back to class immediately and I
may even forget this happened."
      The students needed little urging.  They cleared out
quickly and with only the briefest of sympathetic looks back.
Uehara left last, hands thrust deeply into his pockets as he
sauntered away.  He glanced back over his shoulder just before
heading downstairs.  "Thanks for the save, Saotome," he said,
and grinned.  "Yo."  Ranma wordlessly watched them leave,
until finally he stood alone on the school roof with the angry
disciplinarian next to him.
      "Alright, teach, how you wanna do this?" he asked.
He raised his fists and spread out three fingers of the right
hand, and two of the left.  "I've got five fingers for you if you
want 'em."
      "Oh my, Ranma," she cooed, blushing.  "Wherever
do you plan on sticking those fingers, I wonder?"
      "What?  No!  I just wanna poke your tits, is all!"
      "How very forward of you," she said, hands clasped
to her chest.  "And a student as well!"
      "That's not what I meant!"
      "Then whatever is it that you want?"
      "Nothing, dammit!"
      "Then why," she asked, "are you here, Mr.
Saotome?"
      Ranma blinked.  "Huh?"
      "You're not in class," she said, ticking off a finger.
"And yet, you're not rescuing your fiancee.  I don't see any
rivals about, nor are you training, nor is the school in any kind
of danger.  I do believe that covers the usual excuses for your
truancy, yes?"
      "Uh, yeah?"
      "Very eloquent.  So again I wonder why you are not
in class, Mr. Saotome?  I have had just about enough of your
delinquency!"
      "Aw, c'mon teach, I ain't no delinquent!"
      "Or, really," she said, sidling closer.  "Well then,
Ranma, why don't you share with me what makes you so
special that you can attend school at your own discretion?"
      "Hey!" he said, raising his hands in protest.  "It ain't
my fault I miss school so much!"
      "Still blaming others for your problems, I see.  Well,
Mr. Saotome, your parents may not care if you skip school, and
the principal might not care, and even that wonderful,
handsome, stud of a man, that _gorgeous_ Soun Tendo, that--."
      "Ms. Hinako?" he interrupted.
      "Yes, well, none of _them_ may care if you slip into
irredeemable delinquency--but I do.  I will not tolerate this kind
of behavior, Ranma.  Seeing you with those other rotten apples
leads me to believe that you're slipping in with the wrong
crowd--and considering your usual entourage, that's saying
something!"
      "That's not fair!  My friends ain't-."
      "Don't interrupt me!" she said angrily.  "You have
gone too far, Mr. Saotome!  I am tired of your frequent
absences and violent outbursts; of your insults, bad attitude,
and disrespect for authority; of the bad elements you bring to
this school and the destruction of property that follows; of your
weird behavior, strange clothes, and perverted-."
      "That's it!" he cried.  "I've had enough of this shit.
Where d'ya think you get off calling me all that, you chi-
sucking psycho?"  The last of the residual empathy he felt for
her evaporated under the barrage of insults.  Ever since you've
come to this stupid school, he thought, you've done nothing but
try and make an example of me, repeatedly denounced me as
both a delinquent and a pervert, and gone out of your way to
make my life difficult.
      Red-faced, she glared back at him.  "How dare you-,"
she started, but again he cut her off.
      "Don't get me started!" he yelled.  "I've put up with
a lot from this school, and from you to boot!  Enough's enough.
Back off!"
      "How dare you?" she repeated, taking a threatening
step forward, flipping a five-yen coin into her waiting palm.
"How dare you take up such an insolent tone with me?" she
added.  "For as long as I'm your teacher, you will treat me with
the respect I'm due!"  The coin, held between two outstretched
fingers of her right hand, faced him directly.  He could even see
one dark, smoldering eye through the square little hole.
      "Yeah, sure," he said, and plugged the hole with his
index finger even as she began to mouth 'Happo Five-Yen
Return'.  "But what if I'm not your student anymore?"
Eyes wide with surprise and the coin falling from
numb fingers, her anger dissipated instantly. "What?"
      Ranma shrugged.  "I'm through with this place.  With
this school, this city, hell, with these people.  I'm leaving."
      "When?"
      "Today."  He nodded towards his backpack.
"Everything I own is in this thing."
      "And so you're just going to drop out of school?"
      "Nah.  I worked too hard to get as far as I have.  I
guess I'll have to come back or something, or at least call,
when I find a new home somewhere and a new school.  I ain't
giving up or nothin', Hinako.  I've just had enough of this
shithole."
      She shook her head with apparent dismay.  "I'm so
sorry, Ranma," she said, almost in tears, and the childlike
appearance of sadness she displayed contrasted strangely with
features so adult and unconsciously sensuous.  "As a teacher, it
seems I've failed you."
      This expression of genuine contrition was the last he
expected of her, and Ranma felt the familiar, though subdued,
stirring of guilt at making her--at making any girl--sad.  "Aw,
gee, teach, you ain't failed at nothing," he said, confused that
she could feel that she was somehow responsible for him
leaving.  "This really ain't got all that much to do with you."
      "Then why leave?" she asked.
      That she could even ask the question seemed strange
to him.  How could it not be obvious?  Even Uehara, though
disagreeing with his motivation, understood why Ranma
wanted to leave.  He supposed that it was inevitable that
anyone, upon becoming a teacher, lost touch with the reality of
students' lives; he just assumed that because Hinako spent so
much of her time as a child, she would maybe have a better
understanding.  Then again, didn't people just as easily assume
the same of him and women?
      "Why leave?" he answered.  "Why stay?  I mean,
c'mon teach, really, what is there to keep me here?"
      "Akane?" she said, blinking innocently.
      He replied with a frown.  "That's none of your
business, Ms. Hinako."
      Ninomiya smiled.  "Well then," she said, and
gestured for him to join her as she started to walk, "why don't
you tell me what makes this place so terrible."  She took in the
wide expanse of Furinkan, the gym down below, the stretches
of sports playing fields, the trees and uncultivated bush near the
far edge of the school terrain, with a sweep of her hand.
"Certainly it looks a little run down in places--and you can't
deny some responsibility for that--but otherwise it's a fine
establishment.  Believe me, as a disciplinarian, I've worked in
far uglier schools."
      "Yeah, sure," he admitted, staying by her side.  They
walked together, along the edge of the roof, looking across the
district spread out below.  The wind blew stronger now, slightly
cold and heavy with the promise of rain.  "But it's not the place
so much as the people who've convinced me to leave."
      "Teachers?" she asked.
      "Nah.  I mean, sure, you guys kind of let me down
last week, what with the whole gym thing and all, but for the
most part you're decent enough.  It's not even the Principal.
He's a complete nutjob, but when he's not tryin' to cut my hair
or something he can be an okay guy.  Like when he tried to
teach Akane how to swim."
      "So it's the students."
      "Pretty much," he said, and shrugged.  "You know, I
don't like the guy but Uehara is right about one thing: I'm
different.  From my peers, from the students in this school,
from kids my age.  It was stupid for me to try and fit in with
them.  Stupid."
      To his surprise, she laughed.  "Really, Mr. Saotome, I
thought you better than that," she said, and led him to the
opposite side of the roof.  "Listening to the likes of Uehara?
Our poor tortured rebel is neither as unique nor as bad as he'd
like to believe, I'm afraid.  That he's smart enough--remarkably
bright, in fact--to realize this just embitters him further."  She
glanced at her watch, and raised a hand to forestall any
questions.  "Just wait ten seconds . . . five . . . ah, here we go."
      The school bell rang, its musical chime announcing
the end of second period.  Within moments students poured
from the front door and side entrances of the school, as they
eagerly escaped classroom confines for a few minutes of fresh
air and relaxation.  Hinako turned his attention to the students
below.  Their voices reached him in a mix of laughter and
snippets of words.  "Look at them all, Ranma."
      He watched them from his perch high above, watched
them embrace the brief period of freedom given them.  They
looked the same, the boys in their tunics, black slacks and black
jacket and short black hair.  Those who conformed to the rules,
anyway.  One kid tried dyeing his hair once, and the teachers
brought him into the teachers' office, covered him in
newspaper, and spray-painted his hair black again.  Takenori,
that was his name, had come back to class smiling, unperturbed
by what had happened.  The rough kids, like Goda and Uehara,
had mocked him for letting the teachers do that to him.  The
teachers wouldn't dare try it with any of the young toughs at
Furinkan, the really 'bad' students.  Takenori hadn't seemed to
care.  The girls, at a glance, enjoyed a little more variety: they
all wore the same blue jumper, white blouse set, but their hair
came in a wider range of lengths and styles; their skirts all
varied in length, from moody ankle-length to dangerously
short; they even customized their socks, white of course, but
some oversized-baggy-ankle-glue-type while others were short
and decorated.  Many of the girls liked their uniform and wore
it during after-school hours, even.  Not Akane, though: she
switched into more comfortable clothes as quickly as possible,
into her dogi if she could.
None of this mattered.  It wasn't what he could see
driving him away.  The surface meant nothing, that's where
friendship expressed itself, meaningless.  What lurked inside
sickened him: the meanness and pettiness, the hollow fear and
cowardliness that expressed itself as spiteful lashing out.
Ranma looked down at his peers and saw nothing but cliques.
Leaders and followers.  And outcasts.  Emptiness.
      "I don't suppose you see it," Hinako continued.  "I
suppose you really are like Uehara in many ways."
      "I'm nothing like that guy," he said.  "But I'm even
less like the people down there."
      "Do you hate them?"
      A sudden upsweep of wind caught him, strong and
insistent, pulling at his pigtail, howling in his ears, school
sounds muted, eyes wet against the dust.  With arms stretched,
he slowly turned against the embracing swirl, eyes closed, and
reached out for the school below him.  He felt suddenly
euphoric, a bubble of laughter forming within.  As his
awareness touched upon his supposed peers he felt nothing: not
hate, certainly not love, nor fear.  The very absence of emotion
felt momentarily liberating, a welcome release from the
tensions of the day, and as the wind died and he turned back to
Hinako, busy fighting to keep her skirt down in a vain attempt
to preserve modesty, the first genuine smile he had known in
over a week rose.  "No," he answered, though perhaps she
didn't hear.  "I don't hate anybody."


      In the few remaining minutes before class resumed,
Ranma passed swiftly through the school corridors in search of
Akane.  He had expected upon his return to school a greater
reaction from both himself and the other students.  A number of
students noticed his passing--a few nasty glares, the occasional
waved greeting--but as he wove through the crowds most
seemed indifferent to his presence.  This suited him fine, for as
he looked inside he found that same indifference mirrored.
Something had happened in that moment on the rooftop, the
school and city and student body spread out before him.  A
recognition of his own isolation from it all, perhaps, but more
importantly an understanding of everyone else's similar
aloneness.  The fragility of the friendships that held that
knowledge at bay now seemed transparent, and he pulled a
serene acceptance of his own exile by accepting that Hinako
was right, he wasn't unique, he was alone, but just like
everybody else.  The only person in the entire school that
mattered was Akane.  He had shared something stronger with
her, something genuine and true; love; and while he no longer
had any claim to either her or that bond, it was through
protecting her, ensuring that she was okay, that he could bring
some momentary relevance to what he was doing.  Once Doctor
Tofu reassured him she was all right--she had to be, he refused
to believe something had happened while he was away--then he
could find something new to fill in that void her absence would
leave.  Something, anything.  Ranma felt again a confused mix
of emotions within, a hollow pain of loss mingled with
effervescent giddiness, as he glided down the stairs to his old
classroom.
      He slowed to a walk stepping onto the third floor.  A
few startled glances his way by peers, a teacher, muted hostility
from some girls, and he ignored them and walked by, wearing a
quirky half-smile.  A feeling somewhat akin to what he had felt
upon returning to the Tendos' after a week in the woods slowly
arose.  There was a familiarity here, to these hallways and rows
of windows and chipped beige-painted walls.  This sensation
wasn't entirely comforting, school had always been somewhat
disconcerting for him, but in retrospect the year and a half he
had spent at Furinkan had not been all that bad.  Classes were
dull for the most part, certainly, but between club activities and
free time and the parade of lunatics that had passed through,
school had kept life interesting.  He didn't think he would miss
the school itself, but in being perfectly honest to himself he
found that there were some people, certain faces, he would be
saddened to leave behind.  Both Kunos, surprisingly, and
creepy little Gosunkugi as well.  Ms. Hinako.  He was surprised
at how many people he knew at Furinkan.  Guys from his club,
people from Akane's.  Yuka.  How many of them had he once
considered friends?  Daisuke.  Uehara.  Or had they only been
acquaintances, a bond even more ephemeral than friendship?
He'd even miss Sayuri, little bitch that she was, thinking herself
so tough, trying to get between him and Akane.
      Akane.  His thoughts instinctively shied away against
images unbidden arising--happy laughing setting sun glinting in
hair against canal fence looking down as he floundered in
water, she had pushed him overcome by her cuteness, by his
heart swelling so confusedly in a chest turned female, even then
he had known she was special, maybe not love, not yet at that
point, but the potential, a seed germinating, and now grown to
something so very painfully real, impossible and lost . . . not
lost but given away.  His own choice, what had he been
thinking, chest growing tight, painfully, steps faltering, and he
braced himself against the wall.  Chipped cement rough and
solid and cool beneath his palm.  Ranma drew a deep
shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut.  Remember, he told
himself.  You're doing this for her.  And yourself.  Now find
her.  And leave.  He took another moment and composed
himself, but just as he went to step forward an interruption, a
light touch on his shoulder, nearly timorous and holding him
back.
"Ranma?"
      "Hiroshi," he answered, turning to the blond-haired
boy.  Hiroshi seemed unusually subdued, nervous even, and his
eyes darted to the side as if unable to look him straight in the
face.  On his own part, Ranma felt his features slide into forced
impassivity as he pushed aside the recently reawakened
emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.  "What's up?" he
asked, his tone unavoidably cool.
      His friend winced.  "I. . . ."  He took a deep breath
then shrugged.  "Not much.  Just surprised you're here, I guess.
It's, ah . . . it's nice to see you again, man."
      Something in Hiroshi's voice sounded artificially
casual.  A smile seemed to dance hesitantly on his lips, not
quite able to take hold.  Ranma didn't have time to find out
why.  He wanted to find Akane before the break ended.
"Sure," he answered, and shrugged.  "Listen, I've gotta go,
'kay?"
      Unexpectedly, Hiroshi seemed to collapse inwards a
little, shoulders slumping, and he looked away.  "Yeah.  I
understand."
Puzzled and a little concerned, Ranma added, almost
apologetically, "I've got to find Akane," to which Hiroshi only
nodded, and turned away.
      Bemused, Ranma moved on.  He felt worry for his
friend.  Another person left behind because of circumstances.
Perhaps life at Furinkan hadn't been so bad after all.  He no
longer felt like he was taking part in some game, one in which
everyone but him knew the rules.  All this time, looking for
something profound in places where it didn't exist, those
friendships that seemed so much more real than anything he
could know, the way the girls hung out at lunch by the window
chatting, freely touching, or the guys swapping punches and
crude jokes when together, the unconscious sharing of
something common.  It all seemed so impossible, like he'd
been somehow excluded, whether intentionally or not--but now
he saw that the friendships he'd known with people like Hiroshi
and Daisuke were as real as it got, maybe not all that deep but
that's all there was, in the end.  Everything else was an illusion,
crafted with desperation to cover up the fact that, at the end of
the day, they were alone.
      The idea brought a certain calm with it.  I didn't feel
alone when I was with her, he told himself, the thought rising
from beneath the momentary peace he felt, threatening to
shatter it.  He'd miss Hiroshi.  That night at the party--had it
only been a week ago?--there had been a chance to know him
better.  Everything else had gone wrong, but that short time
while sitting there in drunken self-pity alone with Hiroshi, he
had momentarily felt himself connect with something deeper
that lay between the shallow friendships he saw at school and
what he had given up with Akane.  Something precious, known
only rarely and maybe briefly glimpsed with Ryoga, of all
people.  Well, when the idiot isn't trying to kill me, he added,
thinking of the few occasions when circumstances had forced
an unlikely alliance and unsteady peace.  Sitting in the steamy
bath together after their defeat of Herb and return to Nerima,
his masculinity so narrowly held onto, so nearly lost, something
others took for granted made impossibly precious.
      "Ranma, wait!"
      A hand grabbed him by the wrist, Hiroshi again
pulling him back.  An unexpected reminder of the party night,
memories seeming stronger and more insistent now that he was
trying to leave them behind: _You're having a good time
tonight, no matter what_, _We'll make this a night you'll never
forget._  Yeah, no shit, he thought wryly.
      "Ranma, I know, you've got to find Akane, I know,
but . . . can we talk?"
      "Yeah, sure, I guess," he answered, somewhat taken
aback by the eagerness of Hiroshi's request.  "Won't you be
late for class?"
      "Like I care?"
      They stepped into an unused classroom for privacy.
The door ought to have been locked, but Furinkan was one of
the few high schools that did without: locked doors more often
than not caused the adjoining walls to be knocked down as an
alternate entrance.  Anyway, between the Principal, Ms.
Hinako, the local martial artists, and the slightly insane
chemistry club, theft had all but disappeared from the
institution's hallowed halls.  It simply wasn't worth the risk.
Things that weren't yours had a tendency to explode or conjure
demons or release dangerous gasses.  The room was dim and
dusty, the air stale from disuse.  Ranma slouched against a wall,
backpack held between his outstretched feet.  It was getting
darker outside, overcast, the wind a faint howl setting the glass
next to his head to vibrate; already the windows were speckled
wet, though the rain had yet to fall.  Damn, should have
brought an umbrella, he thought.  Hiroshi grabbed a chair
opposite him and stared up at him searchingly.
      "So what's up?" Ranma asked.
      Hiroshi opened his mouth to speak but nothing came
out.  He looked confused and, suddenly frowning, looked away.
Perplexed, the martial artist watched but, feeling the press of
time, the incoming rain, the necessity of finding Akane, swiftly
lost patience as his friend fumbled for words.  He leaned
forward.  "Yo, Hiroshi, relax, man.  Just spit it out already."
The boy stood up.  He bowed deeply, from the waist,
nearly ninety-degree position held for a 1- 2- 3- count, before
rising again and fixing Ranma with unusually serious eyes.
"I'm sorry, Ranma.  Please forgive me."
      "Um, okay," he said.  He tugged at his pigtail for a
moment then added, "For what?"
      "For _what_?" Hiroshi sputtered.  "For everything!"
He advanced, seeming almost angry in his disbelief, earlier
confusion dispelled by Ranma's ignorance.  "For making you
stay at that stupid party!  For being such a shitty friend!  For
not helping you when you needed it, betraying your trust, being
such a pathetic weak loser _coward_ and standing by and
letting everyone tear you apart like that, it wasn't fair, I hated
the stuff they said, but I didn't _do_ anything because I was, I
was . . . afraid," he said, last word barely a whisper, vigor
dropping suddenly from his voice, as he fell back into his chair
with fists clenched.
      Ranma laughed, surprising himself.  Hiroshi,
suddenly scowling, insisted, "It's not funny!" which only set
him to further laughter.  Finally, shoulders trembling with the
effort of restraint, he managed to swallow back the giddiness
that threatened to bubble up again.  "I know, I know," Ranma
agreed, waving him down.  A week ago, maybe even yesterday,
what had felt like Hiroshi's--like all his friends'--betrayal had
sat sourly within.  Especially from Hiroshi, with whom he had
shared in his drunkenness things he would never have
otherwise spoken about.  But now it somehow seemed so
pathetically irrelevant that the contrast between the importances
he placed on it, and Hiroshi did, made his friend's gesture seem
absurd.
      "But, really," Ranma added, "Don't worry about it.
There's nothing to forgive."  Because none of it is important,
he wanted to add, but couldn't imagine a way of conveying
how he felt, how irrelevant school and friendships and
everything else now felt to him.
      Hiroshi blinked, unsure.  "Really?"
      "Yup."
      "We're still friends?"
      Ranma thought of friendship and of all that it entailed
to him, and shrugged.  "Yeah, of course."
      Visible relief.  Hiroshi smiled, for the first time
resembling the perverted jerk that used to needle him about
girls.  "Oh, man, I'm really glad to hear that.  I've been so
worried this last week, thinking you'd hate me, hate all of us,
and that we'd hurt you really bad."  He let out a deep breath.  "I
oughta've known better--you're Ranma Saotome!  Nobody
beats Saotome!"
      Yeah, Ranma thought.  Nobody beats me.
      "It's good to have you back," Hiroshi said.  "I've
missed you around school.  Though you haven't missed much,
it's been a quiet week, even Kuno's been quiet 'cus of tests and
stuff.  Well, not too quiet, of course, this is Furinkan after all,
and it took a day or two for things to die down after you took
off, people aren't used to seeing you get violent.  Well, with
other martial artists, sure, but not like that, I think you scared a
lot of them, and they deserved it.  Assholes."  But as he
continued babbling Ranma only paid half an ear, thinking,
things were quiet while I was away.
      Finally sensing that he was losing his audience,
Hiroshi stopped talking and, with a final shrug, finished with,
"I mean it.  I'm glad you're back."  Ranma didn't feel like
correcting the obvious, that he was back, maybe, but certainly
not to stay.  "We oughta talk after school or something.  Catch
up on things, you know?  On what you've been up to for the
last week."  It dawned on him that his friend was reaching out,
as he had at the party.  Ranma wondered why Hiroshi bothered.
      "Well, I better get down to the office," Hiroshi
added.  "Grab a note to get back into class."
      "Later," Ranma said, knowing full well that he would
probably never see his friend again.


      Unsure of where to find Akane, he went straight to
his old classroom.  Classes had started while he was talking to
Hiroshi, but Ranma wasn't too worried about interrupting.  It
would only take a minute: check if Akane was okay, tell her he
was leaving, and wish her the best of luck.   The same tightness
to his chest returned but he felt an incipient looseness to his
shoulder balance the pain; it felt like a heavy weight about to
be lifted away.
      As he passed alongside the room a few classmates
noticed him, he heard his name whispered and then repeated
louder, the shift of seats as people looked his way and watched
him through the sliding frosted windows.  He smiled, cockily,
loving the attention.  He threw the sliding door open and
stepped boldly into class.
      "Ranma Saotome, you're late," Mr. Fujimoto, his
math teacher, said without looking away from the blackboard.
"You know the drill: buckets, water, hallway."
      Stupid math teacher, Ranma thought, smile slipping.
"Sorry teach, I'm just here to see Akane," he said, but as he
scanned the classroom and the faces turned his way--some
grinning, a few snickering, some annoyed, one angry--he noted
that Akane's seat was empty.
      "Mr. Saotome," the teacher said, "I don't appreciate
you disrupting my class like this.  But if you must know--."
      "You've got some nerve barging in like this!"
      Ranma turned to the interruption.  His smile
tightened.  "Sayuri," he said.
      With an abrupt shove she pushed her desk forward,
the squeak of the legs against the floor cutting through the
sudden tension that lay between them.  She stood and tossed
her long hair back with an angry flick of her head, and flashed a
sharp, unfriendly smile his way.  "Yeah.  Akane's friend,
remember?"
      "No matter how much I'd like to forget."
      "Wow, the jock's grown a wit."
      Ranma bit back his retort.  Akane wasn't here and
Sayuri was wasting his time.  "This crap I don't need," he said.
"I'm looking for Akane."
      "You just don't get it, do you?" Sayuri said.
      "No, _you_ don't get it, Ms. Yamamoto." interrupted
Mr. Fujimoto.  "This is my class, and I don't like interruptions.
You know the drill: bucket, water, hallway."
      "But--."
      "Bucket, water, hallway, Sayuri," the teacher
insisted.  "Unless you'd like to spend the next forty minutes
sitting in seiza."  He turned to Ranma.  "As I was saying,
Akane was called down to the office at the beginning of class.
You can probably find her there.  Now, if you don't mind, I
have a class to teach.  Either grab a pair of buckets and go stand
in the hallway, or disappear to wherever it is you go, Mr.
Saotome.  I don't much care either way."
      Later, he stood outside the classroom watching as
Sayuri struggled with the weight of her bucket.  She glared at
him, arm trembling under the weight.  She switched hands,
spilling some of the water as it sloshed over the edge.  "This is
all your fault," she muttered.
      "You want some help with that?" he asked, grinning.
      "Bite me."
      "I'll pass," he said, and turned away from her.  "I've
got better things to do."
      "Yeah, like what, screw up Akane's life even more?"
      Oh boy, Ranma thought.  Here we go.
      "Asshole.  You're the worst thing that ever happened
to her, you know that?  Sick thing is, you don't care, do you,
you sick bastard.  You get some kick out of torturing her, is that
it?  Just string her along, right, like the rest of your girls, after
all, we're all just bitches, isn't that it, amusement for the great
Ranma Saotome.  Arrogant prick.  Well, it stops here!  I'm on
to you, we all are, and we're _not_ going to let you heap your
shit on Akane anymore!"
      Surprised at the softness of his own voice, he
answered over his shoulder.  "So that's it, eh?  Shit from shit?
Is that all I am?"  Something warm formed at the base of the
comforting emptiness he had felt since stepping off the school's
roof.  Is this what I wanted, he wondered, is this why I'm
giving her her say?
      "Maybe you _are_ finally starting to get it," she said,
and from the tone of her voice he could picture her smirk.
"You're scum, Ranma--you're insulting and violent and
abusive, stupid and arrogant and perverted.  She should've
dumped you ages ago.  Marry you?  Like she'd marry a freak
like you!  Do her a favor, do us all a favor: run off.  Run away.
Do the right thing for once."
      Jagged and hot and almost beautiful in both its
intensity and suddenness, rage surged through the entirety of
his being, filling the hollowness within to the brim.  He shook
with the effort to contain it.  Arms trembling at his side.
Perfect recollection of why it had been so easy to leave last
week, the dumb pettiness of these people made so blindingly
obvious once again.  Eyes squeezing shut.  Trying to
understand where this anger came from.  Then it came: this
stupid little bitch was _right_!  But for him to come to the same
realization this morning and act upon it was infinitely different
from having the words flung at him from outside, from Sayuri,
from the very source of Uehara's proclaimed stench.  And then
knowing that when he left, these ugly small sad little people
would think that they had won, had driven him away and
defeated him, defeated _Ranma Saotome_: unbearable!  Yet
that same realization compounded his own self-disgust, source
of half his anger's intensity, because that very thought proved
Sayuri right and betrayed his own arrogance and weakness.
Had he learnt nothing during his week away?
      He should just walk away and ignore her, but the girl
just wouldn't shut up.
      "What, cat got your tongue?  The truth hurts, doesn't
it, Ranma?  Doesn't it?  You're even shaking, how sad, you're
not _crying_ are you?  I thought real men didn't cry.  Right?
But you're not a _real_ man, are you?  Real men don't cry, and
they sure don't hit their fiancee.  And they never, never have a
period, do they?  Want to grab some water, hide in the girls'
bathroom, have a good cry?  Feeling a bit bloated?  Want my
boyfriend to comfort you again?  Pervert."
      And somewhere amidst the spiteful, hurtful words,
Ranma felt something inside . . . click, like the final piece of a
puzzle sliding into place.  It was as if his anger in filling him
completely had tripped some switch and triggered its own
release.  The anger drained away completely, leaving him
momentarily exhausted.  In the aftermath of this shift, during
which Sayuri's words continued to assault him but signified
nothing, connecting with nothing, he closed his eyes and
embraced the nearly sublime tranquility that descended upon
him.  Like a cloud.  Soul of Ice.  Peace.  Ranma sighed,
thinking, Doctor Tofu was right, I'll never forget.
      The young martial artist turned back to the angry girl
confronting him.  He looked at her carefully, noting her anger
at his obvious appraising gaze and not caring in the least.  Half
her face concealed by the sweep of her hair, having fallen while
she hurled her poison at him, left one narrowed dark eye to
glitter sharply at him.    Both hands clutched at the handle of
the bucket, straining, but in her rage she had yet to realize how
tired she was.  Her hands were flushed a purpled red, the
fingers beyond the curve of the handle a startling white.
Breasts that were slightly larger than Akane's yet smaller than
his own heaved with the effort of both the weight and the anger
she carried.  She was, in her own way, rather pretty: no wonder
Hiroshi was attracted to her.
      "What are you looking at?" she hissed, eyes
narrowing.
      "Nothing."  He stepped closer.  "At all."
      "Oh, ha ha," she answered, and then, as he came to
stand before her, forcing Sayuri to look up to match his stare,
"You think you can intimidate me?"
      "Not at all," he said, with the hint of a smile.
      "I'm not scared of you."
      Ranma leaned in, bringing his face close to hers.  "Of
course not, Sayuri," he whispered.  This close, he could smell
the faint sheen of sweat breaking out as she struggled with the
bucket, an undercurrent to the floral sweetness of her long hair.
She smelled different from Akane, more . . . girly, he thought,
more ordinary.  She trembled at his closeness.  But not with
fear.
      "Get away from me, you asshole," she hissed.  Sayuri
tried to swing the bucket against him, maybe splash him with
water, but found the movement checked.  He held the bucket
firmly in place; she might as well have been trying to move the
wall.  "Let go!"
      He pulled back a little.  She really wasn't frightened
of him in the least.  Rather, she shook with revulsion at his
nearness.  That she could feel such intense hatred nearly
frightened _him_.  "What," he asked, voice tinted with
wonderment, "did I ever do to you, Sayuri?  How can you
possibly hate me so much?"
      "You're a violent pervert, that's how."
      "Bullshit.  I'd never hurt you, and you know it."
      She snorted.  "Yeah, whatever.  Like it matters.  This
has nothing to do with me."
      "Noth--?  Then why--?"
      "Because of Akane, you moron!"  Sayuri dropped her
bucket.  She poked him hard in the chest as she spoke,
emphasizing each statement.  "Because she's my friend--my
best friend!  You have any idea what that means?  Do you?
No, of course not, you don't have any friends, you freak?
Friends are special, Ranma, there isn't much I wouldn't do to
help a friend in need--whether they realize they need it or not."
      "Like Akane?"
      "Exactly.  Like Akane.  Akane, who tells us how she
really feels.  Who comes to us after you've screwed around
with her head and heart--again.  After you've insulted her.
Broken a promise.  Embarrassed her.  Put her down.  Belittled
her accomplishments.  Run off with your other girls.  Broken
her heart.  After you've taken off, who do you think picks up
the pieces?"  Now it was her turn to tremble with barely
restrained anger, livid hatred suffusing her gaze.  Now empty of
his own rage he felt cold and weak before her, taking a step
back as she advanced on him.  "It's all games to you, right?
Fun and games.  Yeah, well, while you're having fun, real
people are getting hurt!  Hurt in a very real way . . . and when
you hurt Akane, you're hurting me too!  Me, you're hurting me
too, you jackass, do you get it, _me_."  Her fingers curled into
a small fist and she pounded him in the chest.  It didn't hurt, of
course, she couldn't hurt him, but he still fell back a step before
her.
      Sayuri pulled her fist back and stared up at him, red-
faced and breathing heavy.  He was surprised to see her eyes
flecked with tears.  "This has nothing to do with me," she
repeated.  "It's about Akane: I won't stand by and let you hurt
her.  I know how she feels.  I'm her friend, she talks to me, I
wouldn't be her friend if I just stood aside and let you tear her
apart.  Poison her.  Whatever she thinks.  Whether she realized
it or not, the week you were away was the happiest I've seen
her in months.  You understand?  The week you were _away_."
      Ranma held her gaze for a long time.  He nodded
once.  "I'm sorry," he said, softly.  "I never meant to hurt
Akane; I never meant to hurt you."  Then he sighed and, after a
pause of hesitation, leaned in close, bringing his mouth near her
ear.  She didn't flinch away; it seemed much of her anger had
drained away as well.  "But can you keep a secret?" he asked,
whispering.  "I know you'll never tell her.  Akane.  I love her,
Sayuri."  He smiled sadly.  "I love her."
      With those words Ranma turned and walked away.
He didn't look back, though he imagined he heard the girl call
his name.  What he had believed in anger a week ago he now
reaffirmed in cold apathy: he was finished with Furinkan High
School.


      When he descended to the school office he
discovered that he was too late: Akane had already left.  She
had received a phone call from Doctor Tofu and received
permission to leave the school.  "She left about ten minutes
ago," the office clerk told him, "and she wanted me to tell you.
I told that Hiroshi boy to pass it on to you; I guess you missed
each other?"
      As Ranma left the school behind him at a hurried
walk, he felt the earlier worry that had haunted him all morning
return.  Between Uehara and Hinako, Hiroshi and Sayuri, he
had managed to momentarily displace his concern for Akane.
Called back by Tofu?  Something serious had to be wrong.  He
nearly broke into a run but an uneasiness that bordered on fear
stayed his legs and held him to a brisk walk.  She couldn't be
sick.  The doctor just wanted to tell her in person.  Akane was
fine.  In returning the same way he had come before, the day
felt strangely disjointed, as if the morning's walk to school
belonged to a different reality--a different morning, a different
Nerima, a different Ranma.
      Far too quickly, it seemed, he stood before Doctor
Tofu's clinic.  He reached for the door but hesitated, feeling
inexplicable apprehension.  Stepping aside he leaned heavily
against the wall, drawing strength from its solidity.  He closed
his eyes and tried to calm his hurried breathing.  This sudden
nervousness didn't make sense.  When, he asked himself, did
everything become so complicated?  For a year everything had
been fine.  Fun and lighthearted and without consequence, it
seemed, the way things ought to be.  The ways things ought to
be was: Nabiki's condescending smirk as she drained his
wallet, a mischievous glint to her eye; the smell of Kasumi's
fresh baked bread and the delicate song of her whistling as she
brought vitality to the household.  His idiot father's fumbling
and Mr. Tendo's tears.  A pervert's stolen panties; a cute piglet
with a grudge; a two-meter long spatula.  Martial-arts: ice-
skating, take-out food, tear ceremony.  Rivals.  And fights in
which nobody got hurt, not _really_, they were all so good and
he didn't hate anybody, why would he try and hurt somebody
and force consequences that weren't necessary?  That's the way
things were.
      Well, maybe not always, he grudgingly admitted.
Herb had been serious--deadly serious, and dangerous.  Kumon
Ryuu had meant to kill him in revenge for the very real death of
his own father.  Losing his strength to Happosai hadn't been
fun, at least not for him.  Sometimes when his mother visited it
hurt inside, the idea that she could kill him even more so; how
could he live in fear of his own mother?  Pantyhose Tarou's
first visit, that arrogant jerk.  Ryugenzawa.  Sometimes
everything became painfully real and serious, as if a dark
undercurrent to his life--one only hinted at in passing and rarely
seen--reared its head and thrust itself violently into awareness,
shattering some fragile shell of fun complacency he had
constructed around himself.  Yet wasn't it in these moments
that he shone brightest, when he felt the most alive?
      Akane.  That was the way things ought to be.
      Tomboy.  Short hair.  Upturned nose.  Brown eyes.
Idiot!  Forgiving.  Rarely seen smile.  Do you want to be
friends?  Pervert!  Fiancee.  Mine.  Cute--she really is cute.  I
hate boys, I hate you, I wish we'd never been engaged.
Walking hand in hand.  I don't mind.  Thank you, Ranma.
Nothing said.  No need.  You think this is easy?  I dare you to.
If I didn't care.  [More snippets-check manga-check order.]
      Ranma opened his eyes.  The sun of early morning
was now overcast behind threatening dark clouds.  A wet wind
blew persistently promising heavy rain and femininity.  Far in
the distance the sky grumbled, something bright and powerful
and hidden flashing.  In contrast to the chaotic potential that
hovered on the horizon, his mind felt at peace.  It was the first
time in a very long time.  Rather than the empty calm of this
morning, he felt a relaxed sense of acceptance.  He smiled,
without bitterness or irony or subtlety.  Nerima was again
spread out before him, but unlike this morning he viewed it
from the ground and felt a different empathy for this town he
was resolved to leave behind.  He felt no hatred towards this
place he had lived in for the last year and a half; rather a diffuse
warmth as he wandered his eyes across the houses and fences
and narrow cobbled walkways filled him.  For the short time in
which Ranma leaned against the wall and watched without
contemplation the quiet life of the town before him, he felt
content.  He regretted none of the choices that had brought him
to this very point, where he must now check one final time
upon the woman he loved before turning away and leaving both
her and this city he had just embraced, behind.
      Without hesitation, he stepped into Doctor Tofu's
clinic.


      With the clouds blocking the natural light from
outside, the clinic seemed darker than usual, more somber and
stifling.  The ceramic chime of his entry felt unnaturally loud
under the smothering quiet that enveloped the room.  Even the
whistling of the brewing storm's wind had quieted and turned
deathly still.  There were no other patients, nor any sign of the
doctor or Akane.  Ranma's every sound and movement seemed
amplified by the surrounding stillness.
      He stood there confused for a time, taken aback by
the lack of reception.  It was as if Tofu had left and forgotten to
lock the door behind him.  And where was Akane?  Ranma
knew that he couldn't have arrived more than ten or fifteen
minutes after her.  As he stood there he slowly shook off the
stupefying numbness the unexpected quiet had caused, and as
he did he gradually became aware of other sounds within the
clinic.  Urgent whispered voices.  Subdued sobs and subtle
movement the next room over.
      "Doctor Tofu?" Ranma called out.  "Akane?"
       There was a brief but abrupt cessation of noise, then
Tofu's voice called back.  "One moment please.  We'll be right
out."  His voice had that same hollow ring to as this morning,
forced clinical professionalism that came so unnaturally to the
doctor.
      It took a full minute for them to emerge, the measure
of time kept by the hammering of Ranma's heart.  Tofu walked
first into the room, and a beat later Akane followed.  Akane,
cheeks wet with tears that no longer flowed.  Face bloodless
aside for the redness of her eyes and nose.  Her hands fluttered
in the folds of her school uniform, twitchy and restless,
worming their way close to her body before falling limply at
her side.  He sought her eyes but they slid away, afraid and
pained, unable to meet his gaze.
      They stood there in a frozen tableau, the martial artist
facing both the doctor and Akane.  He had no idea for how
long.  Nobody seemed ready to speak first.  Ranma felt light-
headed, once again disjointed, almost as if he was watching the
scene from outside rather than being a part of it.  Watching as
the young pigtailed man first turned worried eyes onto the
doctor, then the crying girl, and finally went to speak.
      "Doctor?" Ranma asked, his mouth painfully dry.  He
never stopped looking at Akane.  No force on earth, he felt,
could have made him look away.  "Doctor, what's wrong?"
With Akane, he couldn't bring himself to add.
      "Akane is fine," Tofu answered after a long pause.
"Akane is . . . fine, Ranma."
      She slowly raised her head, her bloodshot eyes finally
making contact with him.  The visceral pain and fear and . . .
pity he saw there was overwhelming, he nearly flinched and
backed away but suddenly movement became impossible, he
was rooted to the spot.  His legs felt weak and standing became
an effort.  He realized he was shaking.
      "Then what's wrong?" Ranma asked, the words
sounding as if someone else had spoken them.
      "Ranma," the doctor said, taking a step forward, his
voice at its most professional.  "I don't know how to say this.
Something happened to you a week and a half ago.  At that
party you went to."  But then his voice failed, and though
Ranma could still feel the doctor's eyes upon him no further
words came.
      He waited and waited and finally when neither Akane
nor the doctor continued, he demanded, "What?" in a voice
filled with, Ranma realized, burgeoning panic.  "What is it?
Was I poisoned?  Robbed of my strength?  Do I have a week to
live--what?  Is it another curse, magic--"
      "You were raped," Akane whispered.
      Sound seeped back into the room--abrupt ticking of a
clock; subdued violence of the growing storm outside--
somehow more real than the doctor and girl confronting him.
More real, it felt, that Ranma himself.
      "Raped?" he echoed, the word meaning nothing.
      "I found you, Ranma," she continued.  "At the party.
In the room.  You were naked.  And female.  There was blood.
Your blood.  On the bed sheets.  On your legs."  She took a
deep breath.  "And your thighs.  You were nearly unconscious.
You said it hurt, that you were in pain."
      Tofu continued.  "This morning's tests prove it true.
There's hCG in your blood and in your urine, Ranma.  Both
bodies, somehow, even when you're male.  I was very thorough
with the tests.  Believe me."
      Ranma slowly look away from his former fiancee and
turned empty eyes onto the doctor.  "I don't understand."
      Only then did Tofu's rigid facade fall away.  With
sad, carefully measured words, he explained:  "Ranma, you're
pregnant."
      "Pregnant?"  He didn't understand what they were
saying.  There was a faint buzzing at the edge of his senses
distracting him.  Nagging and growing in intensity.  He shook
his head to clear it but it remained insistent.  Immediate.  He
felt the need to sit down but still felt unable to move.  Needed
to take a deep breath but found it caught in his chest.  Couldn't
move, couldn't breathe.  Stifling, growing hot, painfully so,
murmur in his ear growing to a roar, loud and consuming as the
room grew darker and darker.  I don't understand, he wanted to
say.  Tried to say.  But he couldn't think and the words died
and he felt himself falling.
      "Ranma," called a voice from far away.  Akane was
next to him.  Standing so very close even as the room behind
her seemed to draw back.  He tried to focus on her voice.
Found it impossible.  His vision refused to settle, slipping
desperately across the mundane features of the room: chair wall
painting magazine sofa.  An absurdly loud sound filtered
through the roar to his ears.  His own.  Air sucked down
through clenched teeth.
      "Ranma."  Akane's voice reached him again,
soothing but urgent.  He turned to her.  Met her eyes.
"Ranma," she said again.  Amidst the turmoil surrounding him
her eyes provided an unexpected relief, breathing relaxing and
sound draining away, made insignificant by the brown eyes that
held him secure, something solid beyond his own unstuck
center.  "I don't know how but you'll be okay.  We can make it
through this somehow."  She brushed one hand softly against
his cheek.
      "Don't touch me," he said in a dull, flat voice, and
suddenly realized that he _could_ move, flinching violently,
instinctively slapping the touch away.  A staggering step,
impossible to find solid footing, the ground swaying wildly
beneath his feet, vertiginous tilting as he fell back.  He felt
Doctor Tofu reaching for him, words lost in the surging rush in
his ears.  "Don't touch me!" he screamed, throwing the man
aside and stumbling, collapsing onto a wooden bench meant for
patients, how many people had sat in this very place, how much
filth and illness and incipient death was he sitting on?  The
thought made him sick and cold, he leapt to his feet and stood
there shaking, gasping for breath, the noise redoubling in his
head as he looked wildly about, wondering where Akane and
Tofu had gone, knowing then that he was alone, truly and
fundamentally alone and lost.
      His perception shattered.  Like a sequence of
snapshots, intermediate moments lost.  Fragments, causality
gone.  Viewed from outside.  Standing by the couch.
Trembling.  Eyes wild.  Bent over doubled.  Middle of the
room.  Clutching his stomach.  Insides churning, pain,
revulsion.  Numb thud.  Shoulder dull, staggering into the wall.
Akane, stepping towards him.  Held back.  Doctor Tofu,
clutching his side.  Eyes steely, glinting bandit-hard, watching
him warily.
      "Ranma!"  The doctor's voice a whisper nearly
buried by the pounding in Ranma's head.  "We want to help
you," he said.  "We can help you."  But again his words meant
nothing.  None of this meant anything.  There was nothing left.
Except for those eyes, brown and soft, pained, pitying.  Pity.
      Everything resolved into this single moment when,
through a supreme effort of will, Ranma Saotome brought
everything back and momentarily halted the chaotic unwinding
of his person.  Through recollection of his original purpose, he
held himself together and turned back to doctor.  "Akane is
really okay?" he asked.
      The doctor nodded.
      "Then I have to go," Ranma said.
      He left Doctor Tofu's clinic.


      Ranma Saotome stood outside the clinic.  Empty of
thought, insensate.  He breathed, eyes open, neither trembling
nor wavering; yet lost within himself he was aware of nothing.
He remained that way for some time.  Slowly he returned to his
senses.  The wind whispering over and around him, rushing
through and tickling his arms, pulling his clothes.  Faintly
grainy and wet, carrying dirt and coming rain.  Tingling with
the storms potential.  Then a faint bouquet of cut grass,
smoldering rubbish, exposed canal filth.  It sat bitter on his
tongue, acrid and unpleasant.  As the wind faded a medley: the
far off grumble of thunder, loud voices raised in argument,
sharp drilling of nearby construction.  Then he saw Nerima
once again; and between the angry brown skies roiling above
and the dirty windswept street and the hurried people walking
face down unaware of anyone but themselves, he felt a deep,
profound disgust well up within.   He stood, unmoving, unable
to move, perfectly still, and yet as his disgust boiled over into
physical revulsion he began to shake.  First one leg, vibrating
slightly, uncontrollable, growing in strength, spreading,
reaching up through his thigh, the pit of his stomach, a dull,
numbing detonation there that quickly consumed the entirety of
his being and left him trembling to the furthest reach of every
limb.
      The young man took a single step forward.  Another.
The disgust he felt as a physical thing subsided with movement,
but in the absence of pain the inevitability of thinking slowly
returned:
      Akane.  Saw me.  Naked and female.  Stripped in the
dark.  Lying passed out and defenseless.  With blood on the bed
sheets.  Blood my blood my legs my thighs.  Is she okay Akane
doesn't need me anymore.  She knew all along but couldn't tell
me why.  Those soft brown eyes always filled with disgust and
pity.  Pitied me before but at least she hated me as well.  Now
she can't even hate me 'cus I've lost it, lost everything.  Oh god
it's gone it's gone with everything I was meant to be.  A man
among men martial artist heir to the family's Art pride and
honor.  Who couldn't even protect himself, how could this
happen, what did I do, why--why?  They all told me, jerk
Casanova pervert tease babe bitch slut--only a joke, a joke!
Acting playing around even with Hiroshi I never meant
anything, I'm a man even with the curse.  Bunny suits bikinis
bras and panties and strip tease pride didn't mean anything--it
was just in fun!  How could it be fun, being a man I know what
others think, what was I really playing at?  Toying with them, is
that it, knowing I'm always better than they could never hurt
me even touch me, ever.  Yeah, 'cus I'm Ranma Saotome of the
Saotome School of Anything Goes, the best ever even when
I'm a goddamn girl!  Goddamn weak fragile flawed stupid
stupid _stupid_ cursed girl's body, won't slow me down, I'll
make damn sure everyone still respects me!  Knowing what
you sick idiots think you can take Ranma made weak by
smooth skin soft curving legs ass tits and wet cun--no!  No no
oh god no I was playing, not that it can't be because I'm a man
among men don't cry don't cry, _stop_!  Stop that weak girl's
like crying Ranma be strong and take it like Pop taught you
with those cats in the pit in the dark.  Dark smell of fur fish
fangs feline fists reaching for pain, that's it, again and . . .
again, yeah, that's it, pain kills the thinking ends the tears.
Tears are for sissy weaklings and I'm strong like Pop raised me
to be a man among men did this to me Pop I let you down.
Lost it all Pop every wanted was his son rising high I failed Pop
I'm sorry I'm sorry Dad oh Dad what am I going to do now?
Now I've lost Dad and Mom's promise and Akane, Akane how
can I protect you when I could not even save my Art failed me
ripped and torn away.  Tore into me, who did, a man, a man's
hands on me, touching me, a man, feeling me, a man, stripping
me, a man, inside of me inside of me a man, no no Akane, no,
Dad Mom, please, there's something inside me a man tore me
opened me used me spread me screwed me fucked me he . . .
raped me.  He raped me.  Taint left deep within can't be
reached for it grab punch claw it out from inside too deep I'm
too dirty again I'm running away.  Trying to run doesn't matter
how fast how far I reach inside I'm filthy and weak like a
stupid girl.  Like everyone said I'm a girls flaunt and flirt with
boys just like I did.  Always all my fault I'm a dirty useless girl.
Saw it from the beginning.  Pity's all I deserve.  Can't do this.
Not alone.  Akane.
      Through this spiral of thoughts he punched through
into an awareness so sudden and intense that he momentarily
felt propelled above his foreign surroundings.  Details so
sharply realized that understanding became painfully
impossible rushed past as he continued running headless of
direction or destination.  The pounding of his heart and burning
of his lungs served as testament to his desperate flight, head
and arms and chest and stomach dulling aching where he had
punched and clawed himself.  Tear-streaked bared-teeth
headlong dash towards exhaustion, utter body-weary soul-
numbness the only possibility of relief, his mind once again
empty of thought but for a single repeated word.  The coming
storm swirled above him and the winds chased him but nothing
could touch Ranma as he fled Nerima.

Continues in
Choices: Decision

-Michael Noakes
June 7, 2001

***

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Well, after the year and some months it took me to write this
chapter, I (again) don't think I have much to say.  I was hesitant
to make this a chapter in itself--where I stopped was originally
intended to be the halfway point of the fourth chapter, Choices:
Decision.  Considering the current length (though
'Complications' stands as the shortest chapter yet by some
2000 words), it seemed reasonable to post it as is.  This thing
keeps growing longer than expected (100 000+ words and
counting!), and I can't help but wonder if I should turn brutal
and cut away scenes that might otherwise be considered
gratuitous--the Uehara and Hinako scenes could probably drop
out without overly effecting the flow of the story, though I'm
reluctant to do so.
      A very strange feeling came over me as I approached
the end of the chapter.  Specifically, as I wrote, "'You were
raped,' Akane whispered," I became all jittery.  I've been
waiting four years to get to this point, but it remained an
unpleasant scene to write; at the same time, it was the most I've
enjoyed writing this story in a long time.  This carried through
into the final internal monologue which, while unbelievable
difficult to write and probably ambitious beyond my skills,
challenged and excited me unlike any other writing has done in
years.  The ending scenes of this chapter are why I still keep at
it, even after I've lost a lot of my original interest in fanfiction,
or even in anime in general.
      What else?  This is the first chapter of Choices
written entirely in Japan (does it show?).  Actually, aside for a
few sentences in the final internal monologue, it was written
entirely at work during free periods and on lunch breaks--which
means it was written on Japanese computers using a Japanese-
version English-language character set, so hopefully that won't
cause too many problems while viewing.  Switching to
Japanese encoding might help (sorry!).  It may have taken a
year and some to get written, but I only really started writing in
the new year.  Beginning to end, I figure it only took me three
or four months.  I'm hoping the fifth chapter will be done by
the end of the summer--I'm probably being optimistic.  Then
again, two months of being chained to a desk with absolutely
no work to do (teachers in Japan don't get time off during
summer break)  might just force me to keep writing.  Still, I'm
planning to take a short break first (study some Japanese or
something), then tackle a chapter or two of Let the Curtain Fall,
before returning to Choices.
      This chapter was written entirely from Ranma's point
of view, which I felt was essential considering what was to
come.  The idea was that, after Tofu's revelation and Ranma's
flight, the chapter would switch in it's second half to other
characters' perspective, giving alternate views on
(mis)assumptions Ranma has made throughout.  Akane's view,
of course, was going to be of first importance.  I never made it
that far, so I guess it will have to wait until the next chapter.
      Finally, very special thanks to Illana, who
unwittingly took on a sort of prereader's position.  Her
continued support and suggestions throughout helped me
actually finish the damn thing--and not simply abandon it long
ago.  Many thanks.
      Hey.  I guess I did have a lot to say after all.

noakes_m@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m
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