To reply, post publically or e-mail the author at guilty@furinkan.net
Enjoy!
The FFML Refugee List
Ranma and his friends belong to Rumiko Takahashi. They're
used here without permission.
------------------------------
newRanma 3: Healing
by Chris Jones
------------------------------
Ranma had had migraines before. Some pretty good ones,
due to a certain someone's tendency to use heavy blunt
instruments to work out her irritations.
While she was in and out of consciousness during the
surgery, Ranma had the abstract knowledge that her head was
supposed to hurt. The drugs kept the force of the pain away,
making it merely a concept rather than a brutal reality. It
kept her calm, even though she could feel the cool air
blowing over the cut flesh and bone that gave way directly
into her...
She didn't feel it when they actually touched her
brain. She felt some other things, but she couldn't actually
feel *that*. Tofuu told her that she wouldn't, but she didn't
believe him until it happened.
Now that she was awake and the drugs were wearing off,
Ranma's head hurt like hell. She didn't like it. No sir. Not
one bit.
"How are you feeling, Ranma?" Tofuu asked from
somewhere nearby.
Ranma clenched her eyes shut, willing the light and
sound away. It just made her head hurt worse as the sutured
flesh tightened slightly over the cut bone in her skull.
"nnnn!!!!"
"Ah. Not well I take it," Tofuu guessed. "You'll be
glad to know that the clot was completely removed. I know
that we had you do it during the surgery, but I'd like you to
count to ten again, just so we know everything's okay."
"wass... afraid ya got the wires in backward?"
"Something like that."
"One two ten," Ranma bit off. "Ya happy?"
Tofuu shook his head and chuckled. "For now. When
you're feeling better, I'd like to run a more thorough
battery of tests. Right now, I think there's someone who
wants to see you, if you're feeling up to it."
"Huh?" Ranma asked.
Suddenly, Ranma felt a pair of arms wrap around her.
There was a sobbing, and a wetness on Ranma's face. She
opened her eyes a little bit, just enough to see a shock of
bluish black hair. There was a muffled sobbing in her ear as
well.
"Ah Akane... don't cry."
* * *
Over the next week, Akane almost single-handedly
monopolized Ranma's visiting-hours. Ranma was unconscious or
asleep most of the time, but the other girls grew rather
irritated with her. They were all allowed brief, supervised
visits however. Quite a few of Ranma's friends from school
dropped by. Hinako-sensei stopped by briefly with a summary
of the week's lessons.
Even Kodachi came and stared into Ranma's sleeping
face, despite the fact that she was female. Wordlessly, she
turned and left after only a few seconds.
On the fifth day, Akane, Shampoo and Ukyou were present
to see Ranma's dressings changed. They got a good, stomach
turning look at the roughly rectangular cut and the large
sutures on the side of Ranma's fuzzy scalp. Tofuu informed
them that the doctors usually used metal staples in the skull
for cases like Ranma's, but had used an organic cement in
this case. It slightly lengthened the recovery time, but
Ranma couldn't afford to have inorganic material shifting
around in her scalp when she changed.
Ranma was silent through the procedure. She was more
than a little upset at the noises of disgust the three girls
made when her scalp was exposed.
On the sixth day, Ranma was up and walking around
despite Tofuu's recommendations. When she started doing basic
katas, Tofuu came into her room to watch.
"My balance is all screwed up," she complained after a
few minutes
"You have been laying in bed for almost a week, Ranma.
That's enough to give anyone a little trouble getting back on
their feet," Tofuu explained.
"nnn..." Ranma grunted, going through yet another
repetition.
On the seventh day, Tofuu decided to remove Ranma's
bandages altogether and let her incision heal in the open
air. Doctor Najima argued briefly to put Ranma in a neck-
brace to minimize possible head trauma, but Tofuu recognized
the pleading look in Ranma's eyes and decided not to allow
the brace. He did get Ranma a padded boxing helmet and
required the youth to wear it while moving around the room.
* * *
On the ninth day of Ranma's confinement, she was lying
in bed reading a manga when there was a quiet knock at the
door of her room.
"Hey," she said, expecting one of the girls to come in.
Instead, the door opened slowly. After a few minutes,
Tatewaki Kunou stepped gingerly into the room. He was
carrying a bouquet of roses.
Ranma rolled her eyes and groaned quietly. She stuffed
the manga under her pillow and stared the kendoist in the
face.
"Hey, Kunou."
Stepping around her as if she was made of glass, the
blue-robed youth quietly sat the roses down on the table next
to her bed and rushed out of the room.
Ranma sighed and put her sore head in her hands. She
didn't know what bugged her more, the fact that Kunou showed
up or the fact that he was now afraid he would hurt her.
* * *
Later that day, Tofuu, Kasumi, Nabiki and Akane took
Ranma to the hospital cafeteria for lunch. It was a welcome
change from the tray lunches she had received for the last
several days. It was also quite an entertainment to watch
Tofuu switch from 'full Kasumi-itis' mode into a more serious
medical mode whenever any of the other doctors stopped to
talk to him.
Ranma would have doubled over laughing if not for the
persistent pain involved in moving her head too much.
On the way back from lunch, Akane was happily wheeling
Ranma along in her wheelchair when Tofuu directed the group
down a hallway that Ranma hadn't seen before.
Pretty soon, they were going through a ward that housed
many seriously injured patients. Ranma had been attached to
EKG and EEG monitors for a few days, but many of these
patients had a whole array of apparatus surrounding them.
"What is this place?" Ranma asked, nervously eyeing
some of the twitchier patients.
"This is the head trauma ward," Tofuu explained. "You
were in here briefly just after you arrived. We moved you to
the CCU after we figured out that you had a cranial bleed."
"Ugh," Ranma whispered.
"Ugh, exactly," Tofuu agreed. "I brought you in here so
that you could see what you were up against."
"Huh?" Ranma asked in confusion.
Somewhat guiltily, Akane let Tofuu take over wheeling
Ranma down the long corridor.
"You're staring to move around again. That's good,
because it shows how fast you're recovering, but it's also
bad, in the sense that you're not fully healed yet. An
accident at this stage of the game could have a lot more
serious effects than you might think."
"I don't get what you're sayin', Doc," Ranma replied
nervously.
"Let me be a little more explicit, then," Tofuu said,
dropping the hammer. "I'm going to restrict your actions
until I feel that you're fully healed from brain surgery,
Ranma."
"What?"
"No acrobatics and no martial arts other than basic
katas for three months," Tofuu said as Ranma's expression
became angry and contrary. "No sparring whatsoever. No
exceptions. No running to school on the fence, either. I've
seen how you do that and you could easily lose your balance
and fall."
Ranma glared darkly at both the doctor and Akane, who
couldn't bring herself to look Ranma in the face.
"What if I don't wanna?" Ranma asked in a petulant
tone.
"I'm not going to treat you anymore if you don't,"
Tofuu said. "And in the worst case, you could end up back in
here. I don't want that and I don't think you want that. Do
you?"
Grumbling, Ranma crossed her arms and pulled her feet
up into the wheelchair.
"I'm sorry, Ranma," Akane said. "But you really do have
to have time to heal."
"It's for the best," Nabiki agreed from where she and
Kasumi were trailing slightly behind the other three. "A few
months of down-time against the possibility of a whole
lifetime of disability. Think about it for a bit."
"It will be okay, Ranma-kun," Kasumi assured the
redhead. "I'm sure all your friends will wait until you're
better to play, don't you think?"
"Promise us?" Akane asked.
Defeated by Akane's pleading expression, Ranma nodded.
"I'll promise, but I won't like it."
"I'll give you some books," Tofuu said in a consoling
tone. "You can learn some Shiatsu while you heal. I know it's
not as exciting as the other arts you practice, but I've
found it to be invaluable knowledge. Think of it as a
challenge."
"Shiatsu, or not getting into any fights for three
months," Ranma asked in a petulant tone.
"Both," Tofuu said.
* * *
Ranma was released from the hospital two days later.
She hated being pushed out of the hospital in her wheelchair,
but was even more upset by the taxi that Soun and Genma had
waiting for her.
"I can walk!" she protested.
"Well, it's a bit early to be exerting yourself, don't
you think?" Soun asked.
"I'll ride with you," Nodoka offered.
In the end, Ranma, Akane, and Nodoka ended up riding in
the taxi back to the Tendou dojo. Ranma was appalled at the
price but kept her mouth shut.
"It's quite all right, dear," Nodoka said after she
paid the driver. "I took out a very large medical insurance
policy on you and your father some time back. This came out
of that money."
Ranma blinked. "I was kinda wonderin' how we were gonna
pay for the hospital bills."
"There are a few expenses that haven't been addressed
yet, but I think we'll be okay," Nodoka said. "You shouldn't
worry about it."
Ranma's shoulders slumped. "Ah well. It's good to be
back," she said.
* * *
Two weeks passed in which Ranma did little but soak up
bed rest and Kasumi's cooking in vast quantities.
She hated to admit it, but the combination of such an
intrusive surgery *and* a week in bed had all but decimated
her stamina. She worked out a little each day, but found that
she didn't really want to break Tofuu's restrictions yet.
Since she was no longer able to spar with her father,
he and Soun had actually started taking a few students at the
dojo with beginning and advanced kenpo classes. Ranma guessed
that most of the extra money was being used to cover some of
the 'expenses' that her mother had mentioned, but signs of it
did show up around the house. Nodoka had some new clothes,
including a pretty, modern dress that Ranma thought she was
beautiful in, and Kasumi bought a few more things for the
kitchen. Akane was bringing her a new manga every day after
school. Nabiki, as usual, played her cards close to her
chest. Ranma couldn't tell that the extra money affected her
at all, even though she was certain that she was extracting a
good share from her father.
Genma seemed to have a hard time talking to her. Akane
had pretty much recovered from the incident that triggered
Ranma's odd behavior and tipped them off to the brain injury,
but it seemed that her father felt mostly responsible for the
original injury in the first place. Ranma was irritated, but
felt no need to confront the man.
Instead, she learned to play go with Soun, and rapidly
learned all the man's best techniques, including all the best
cheats and distractions.
In just a few days, Ranma was up to doing two or three
hours of katas a day while Akane was at school. She never
realized that she could actually *want* to go to school, or
even how lonely she could be at home by herself.
It was just a few days before she was scheduled to
return to school that Ranma found Kasumi watching television
in the main room one afternoon. It was quiet, but there was a
dramatic scene on the screen riveting the older girl's
attention.
"Hey," Ranma said, greeting the girl.
Kasumi's attention never wavered.
"What are you watching?" Ranma asked, sitting down next
to Kasumi. She stared at the show for a few minutes before
realizing that it was a soap opera.
Great. Kasumi was a soap-head. Who knew?
With nothing better to do, Ranma bit the bullet and
tried to decipher the complex story. She gave up after a few
seconds and pulled out a manga to read while she waited for
the show to finish.
A few moments should be spent here describing what was
otherwise a completely plotless show. 'Nurse Academy'
revolved around the personal relationships between several
very attractive and very interchangeable young women and the
doctors they spent their time with.
Needless to say, there were no end of faithless
marriages, duplicitous affairs and completely unsurprising
plot twists.
The first lacy bra-clad bosom shown as two of the
interchangeable lovers got into a steamy makeout scene ripped
Ranma's eye away from her 'Dragonball' manga and glued it
back on the screen
She blinked twice, not really sure of what she was
seeing.
"Eimi's the licentious one," Kasumi explained quietly,
blushing at the scene but not looking away. "She's so
naughty, always stealing Kakeri's boyfriends. She even...
*ahem*... slept... with Takara's husband!"
"Urr..."
The next day, Ranma again joined Kasumi for 'Nurse
Academy'. She was there anyway, and there was the implied
guarantee that at least one of the girls was going to be in
*some* state of undress sometime during the show. As it was
however, Ranma made a mistake and began to look for plot
where there was none in order to cover her secret intentions.
"So what's that guy do again?" Ranma asked of one of
the more muscular male characters, who seemed to have the
best luck getting into the raciest situations.
"Sifuru?" Kasumi responded. "He's the head of the
grounds department. He's actually a plant for the Ministry of
Intelligence, but is working at the Academy to eventually
expose Kituto. What Kituto doesn't know is that the girl he's
having an affair with, Mikao, is actually Sifuru's daughter."
"Wait a sec... That girl," Ranma pointed to the tight
uniform-clad nurse as she pranced across the screen, "is
supposed to be that guy's daughter?"
"Sifuru was played by a much older actor when I was in
high school," Kasumi explained, "But when Akumi-san left, he
was replaced with this actor to boost ratings."
"Okay..."
The next day, Ranma decided that she was pretty damn
sick and tired of being a girl, and spent her time moping
around the yard while Soun and her father conducted a Kenpo
class in the dojo. When three P.M. rolled around, Ranma was
more than happy to have the distraction of watching 'Nurse
Academy' with Kasumi. Secretly, she was a little disappointed
that none of the girls took off any of their clothes, but
enjoyed the discussion of the show with Kasumi nonetheless.
It was nice to have *someone* to talk to.
When Akane and Nabiki came home that day, Ranma found
that she was having a difficult time *not* discussing the
show.
The next day, a Friday, was a school holiday. It was
also the last school day Ranma was scheduled to stay at home.
Akane and Nabiki were home for the day. Akane spent the first
part of the day puttering over Ranma, and trying to get the
recovering girl to let her wrap bandages around her head.
Nabiki, in turn, took extra time to tease Ranma about the
amount of schoolwork she was going to have to catch up on.
After the initial rush on Ranma, the redhead relocated to the
dojo to read her Dragonball manga. Ranma found herself
waiting for three o'clock with tapping feet.
It was because Miki was getting into a deepening
relationship with Dirk, the gaijin brain surgeon. There was a
fairly decent chance that she'd take off her blouse again.
(It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that
Moto had setup a secret date with Eimii at the same time his
fiancee, Kakeri had a business presentation to make for the
hospital at the same restaurant.)
Ranma worked her way back into the main room about ten
minutes before the main event. She flipped on the television
to an innocuous gardening program, and settled down in the
back of the room with her tankouban. Her usual pattern was to
wait for Kasumi to come in and change the channel.
To his surprise however, Nabiki and Akane marched in
five minutes before the show started.
"Sorry, Saotome," Nabiki prompted, nudging Ranma with
her foot. I know you're sick and all, but you'll just have to
take off. Our program is about to come on."
"What?" Ranma demanded, hurt and a little disappointed.
"Akane, Nabiki, are you going to watch with me today?"
Kasumi asked as she came into the room from the kitchen.
"You betcha, Sis!" Nabiki announced, holding up her
copy of 'NHK Serial Weekly'. This is Miki's date with Dirk
and Kakeri's big presentation. It's only because we got the
day off that we can watch it with you!"
"Kakeri's big presentation..." Ranma wondered aloud.
"That's right, Ranma," Nabiki cautioned. "Boring girl
stuff. You wouldn't like it."
"Uhh..."
Akane did her best to placate the girl. "It's okay,
Ranma. We'll let you have the television back right after
'Nurse Academy' is over, okay?"
Ranma's jaw dropped open in surprise. They *all* wanted
to see...
"Where should I look for you?" Akane's question
interrupted Ranma's train of thought. "In your room? In the
dojo?"
Ranma *could* relocate, so as to distance herself from
any risk of being seen watching the show, but...
She *really* wanted to see Kakeri give it to that
bitch, Eimi!
"Uh... I'll just read here in the back. I'll be okay."
"Okay, Ranma," Nabiki replied regretfully. "Don't say
we didn't warn you."
Ranma was glad to have the company as she watched the
soap.
-----
~to be continued...
* * *
C. Jones - guilty@furinkan.net
http://www.furinkan.net
2001 - "My God, It's full of stars!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
desaix@sysnet.net
Sir Desaix, member # 116 of the Knights of the True Fiancee
anime fanfics available at
http://www.geocities.com/zednik.geo/fanfics.htm
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'