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The FFML Refugee List

Hey Guys,

All right, my eternal apologies for not posting this friday, all I'm going
to say is that hotmail is the most satanic and evil creation on this side of
death....

Anyhoo, lets move on....

FRAGMENTS

^*^*^

A boy has died, but a man lives, and the girl who killed the boy is gone,
leaving in her wake a woman who survives with a man - hiding from their
shadows.  Nabiki is hot on the tails of two people, and Akane suspects and
mourns even as she prepares for her own wedding.  People know secrets, but
they might never tell what they are....

^*^*^

"Go home, Ki-chan," she muttered under her
breath mockingly, "you need your sleep, Ki-
chan," she added, "but don't take the car, you
might get hurt, Ki-chan."  Kimiko stripped off
her t-shirt unhappily.

She'd heeded his advice, but not without a
great deal of glaring.  And finally, she'd
poured a glass of cold water of his head,
saying, "Stay with Naka-kun, he'll want to see
a woman's face when he wakes up."

It didn't bother her that he was concerned for
her well being, it * had * been nearly forty-
eight hours since she had slept.

It did bother her that he felt like he could
order her around, and she really resented that
he was right.

Grunting, she slipped out of her sweatpants.

She wandered in front of her bedroom vanity
mirror, dressed in nothing but her black
panties and bra.  She stared for a moment at
the gentle lines of her waist.  She'd never
been skinny, she always knew that.  But she was
physically fit, with a trim midsection from
years on years of training endlessly.  She
traced her belly and stared at its flatness, a
former sign of her infertility.

But now . . .

She grinned.  Soon, very soon, the angles would
be replaced by fullness, she'd be able to feel
their baby kick inside her.

Giggling, she twirled around happily, falling
gracelessly on the bed; she closed her eyes and
sighed.

Content in her existence.

But even in her bubbling happiness, her mind
dredged up a dark memory, a sad thing that
she'd kept from many years ago.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 5 months previous

Yuki cried.

It was rare that she did such a thing, seeing
as she had spent much of her short life
mastering the art of calm and deadly precision,
this loose, bubbling psychosis was altogether
new and wholly unlikable.

But nevertheless, Yuki cried.

It wasn't that it was Kuno, per se, his
presence had never really bothered her
overmuch, and aside from the occasional scraped
knuckle she received from punching him when he
decided to wear some sort of padding under his
robes, she remained unscathed.  Irritated by
his commentary?  Yes, massively irritated, but
never afraid, never panicked.

But today was different, today was . . .

Today was bad.

He'd jumped her on a bad day, when she had too
much of a headache to really pay attention to
anything other than the pounding agony that
seemed endless between her ears.

If he had hit her, fine, she could take it.

If he had read poetry, she'd cover her ears and
walk away, trying to ignore him.

If he had tried to, God forbid, kiss her, she'd
hand him a knuckle sandwich, special-made, and
he'd be out of her hair for the afternoon.

But . . .

But Kuno had pinned her.

His thick fingers wrapped around her wrists,
and holding them up high against the heavy
brick walls that surrounded Furinkan High
School, where greenery kept them from view.  He
was pressed against her, and she in turn,
cozying up to the hard, cold surface behind
her.  She could feel his face get closer and
closer to her own.  And there was an
unmistakable arousal that rose in Kuno,
manifesting itself in the action of forcing one
knee between Yuki's paralyzed legs, whispering
passionately:

"Ah, yea, my sweet, virginal flower.  The foul
sorcerer Saotome hath released you, and you
sought to be near me, the Great and Masterful
Kuno Tatewaki," he practically growled in
ecstasy, "Oh, Yuki-sama, please, let me educate
you in the ways of love!"

In some distant part of her terrified mind, a
small voice pointed out, 'Well, at least he's
figured out that you have a name . . . '

This was drowned out by a screaming nine-year-
old girl deep inside of her, her school uniform
dirty, her shoes missing, and her legs streaked
with dried blood.  A nine-year-old that kicked
and bellowed and stamped her feet, shaking her
fists and crying:

"LET GO!  NO!  LET GO!  NOT AGAIN!"

She was dizzy, her vision started to swim, and
her legs grew weak, unintentionally giving him
the invitation that he was looking for, she
slumped down a little into his unwanted
embrace.

Kuno's tears flowed impressively as he
whispered, pressing his face into her bosom,
"OH!  YUKI-SAMA!  I knew that you would
eventually succumb to the charms of the Great
Kuno Tatewaki, no woman can resist-"

"No," she whispered, softly.

She couldn't move, she honestly couldn't move a
muscle, her fingers were frozen, her legs were
immobile, and her heart tore at her ribcage in
horrified, sporadic bursts.

And all of it came tumbling back to her,
rushing her like waves on a rocking, stormy
ocean, black and cold, bitter and salty,
choking her with their intensity.

Confusion, the cold stone wall behind her,
Hiyomata-sensei, the nice teacher, the sweet
teacher who told funny jokes during history
class.  The only one who had said that her red
hair was beautiful, that * she * was beautiful.
Hiyomata-sensei, mean, rough, calloused hands,
pushing her to the back of the school, a weird
look in his eyes, a funny expression on his
lips.  "Won't hurt," he'd said.  The sound of a
zipper.  Cold stone as her head was slammed
back against it.

Hiyomata-sensei . . .what, what was he doing?

Wait, wait, stop!  I'm just a little girl, what
are you going to do?

Pain, Kami-sama, endless pain.  Thrusting,
pushing, tearing, she was shattering, but she
couldn't call for help, someone's heavy hands
covered her small mouth, and her nine-year-old
legs were once again frozen from the searing
pain between her legs.

Dirty, used, broken.

The doctor's office, frowning, tears, shame.

"So sorry, Yuki-san, so sorry."  Why was the
doctor sorry?  "No babies, Yuki-san, you'll
never have babies."  What?  No babies?  But-
but she was going to grow up!  She was going to
get married and have three of them!  Yuri,
Nerri, and Kaneda, they had names!  "Sorry,
sorry, sorry."

Sorry wasn't enough.

And it never would be.

And the memories screamed through her mind as
she started to cry softly, the useless numbness
still racing through her body, all as she
whimpered that same one word:

"No," she pleaded, quietly, infinitely
desperately, "no."

But Kuno was too wrapped up in burying his
tear-soaked, overjoyed face into her flesh, his
clumsy fingers now working on the tie at the
back of her school uniform, muttering all the
while.

"Oh, you won't regret this, Yuki-sama, I'll
make sure you never regret this!"

It was over, she knew it, she couldn't move,
too frightened and too useless to force herself
to defend her body's rights, too sharp in
memory to gloss over it until she could panic
in quiet at her own home.

She was lost.

Now, now, Kuno . . .

She'd be twice-used garbage, the type of thing
you found at rummage sale and tossed aside,
thinking, "How disgusting, how can anyone try
to sell that, do you know how many people went
through that before?"

Her tears flowed as she felt his hand crawl
harshly up her leg, finding the lace edge of
her panties, she heard him groan, and he
pressed himself yet closer to her.

'Kami-sama,' she thought, 'please.'

And then she was free.

Her body fell away from the cold wall, suddenly
released from the confines of Kuno's embrace
and his lecherous touch.  Her head still spun,
and she landed gracelessly on her hands and
knees, legs wobbling, face still marred by tear
tracks, both dried and newly made.

But she could hear quite well.

The sound of early spring birds chittering in
the background, their voices appropriately
lowered as if they were attending a funeral,
the whistle of the still-chilly wind, the
rustle of new leaves.

"YOU JACKASS!  PERVERT!  RAPIST!"

'Ranma . . .' she found herself smiling
dreamily, eyes still confused, she could hear
his voice, so familiar and so soothing.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!  I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!"

"You don't understand, Saotome!  Yuki-sama
agreed, the tears were merely of-"

"I'LL KILL YOU!  I'LL KILL SO SLOW THAT YOU'LL
BEG FOR DEATH!"

"Ack!  Saotome," the sound of a bone-shattering
punch, "please, calm thyself-" Kicking sounds,
"You misunderstand!"

And Yuki blinked away the tears and memory long
enough to see something she would not soon
forget.

Saotome Ranma glowed and eerie red color, not
his battle aura at all, it tasted purely of
rage, of endless malice that promised eternal
and inextinguishable pain.  His hands were
wrapped tightly about Kuno's throat, so tightly
that the upperclassman's face was turning an
unnatural shade of pale, and the only sounds he
could make were gurgling, choking noises.

Ranma's eyes were wild, not the comforting blue
she usually sought from her seat across the
field during lunchtime, and not the happy,
excited sky-color she glimpsed while they
sparred, a dark, turbulent fury had tainted
them with a purple-black ultramarine.

His muscles were tense, bulging, ready to put
that last burst of energy to good use and crush
Kuno's windpipe like his fingers so desperately
wanted to.

The small pebbles that littered the ground were
floating at least two inches in the air, and
the larger ones were staring to levitate, too,
so powerful was Ranma's anger.

While most of Nerima didn't bother to take him
too seriously, Yuki knew better, he was more
than well-prepared to dish it out, and the day
he lost control was the day that the heavens
would weep for the first person who he disliked
and with whom he crossed paths.

"Now," Ranma hissed, pulling Kuno's terrified
face towards his own, "you die."

It was a promise, and Ranma never broke
promises.

Somewhere, she found it in her broken self to
say something, the one word that could diffuse
the situation, save a life, give an answer and
pose a question.

The one word that hadn't worked the first time
around.

"NO!" she screamed as loudly as she could.

It was barely heard above the quiet.

Ranma turned towards where she lay sprawled out
on the grass, his fury suddenly evaporating
like mist, dropping Kuno bodily.  His eyes
cleared as he ran towards her, gently pulling
her off the ground and cradling her in his
arms.

"Yuki," he said softly, his voice hoarse,
"Yuki, are you okay?"

She nodded her head and bit back the nausea as
the world lurched, "I-I'm fine, Ranma-kun,
don't," she added painfully, "don't kill him,
Ranma, don't kill him," she gasped weakly,
laying her head against his chest, trying to
steady the rumblings of her earth.

His face grew hard again, and throwing a
repulsed glare towards where Kuno lay, gasping
for breath a few meters away, he muttered, "Why
not, he deserves to, he was, he was going to-"
he stopped abruptly unwilling to say the word.

"You're not a killer, Ranma," Yuki said, head
still buried in his chest, "you'd regret it
later."  There was a pause where the only
things that existed in the universe were the
wind, Ranma, and her, all in their own plane
where they were immune from life.

"Take me home, please," she said quietly,
desperately, clinging to him with a need he'd
never seen in her before.

And soon, as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop,
a thick, contemplative look on his handsome
face, Ranma glanced down towards Yuki, asleep
and yet, still-weary in his arms.

Once again, it was just the wind, him, and her.

If only for one blink of never.

^*^*^

Ryoga cursed, it had been hell enough getting
to downtown Tokyo and past Sakura Tower's
rather large and angry doorman, but now, he had
to break and enter?

He picked out the handy-dandy lock pick he'd
discovered in Genma's things a while back and
kneeled down to the handle.

He grinned as a satisfying click came to his
ears.  With that sound, came also a memory,
long-buried and guilty, but recalled like the
first time you ever saw beauty and felt it.

Ryoga shook his head in horror, he'd forced
himself to forget years ago, when he'd awakened
in the bright, blinding, white hospital room,
wrapped in gauze and unable to speak.

But it came, and it simmered, filtering into
his thoughts like a black-winged butterfly,
deceptively beautiful, unendingly dark.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 5 months previous

Hibiki Ryoga had been the world over, most of
it by accident, and had managed to learn a few
useful phrases in various different languages.

"Where is Japan?"

"Say again?"

"YOU JACKASS!  DIIIIEEE!"

"Would you like the nymphomaniac squid-monkey
to greet you in a sexual manner?"

All of these and more were written deep into
his mind in at least a dozen different
languages.  While "Where is Japan?" and "Say
again?" make perfect sense when we take into
account Ryoga's fabulous sense of direction,
and the rude phrase can be understood, no one
quite knows where he learned the last one.  All
we * do * know about it was that he picked it
up shortly after bumping into a Chinese
exchange student on the commons of a New
England University, pity Ryoga never bothered
to verify whether or not what the student told
him actually meant: "Which way is the bus
station?"

But that wasn't the point.

The point was that Saotome Ranma was leaping
across the roofs of Nerima with a woman in his
arms, undoubtedly, Akane once again, hurt and
disoriented because of his villainous actions.

For the moment, Ryoga chose to stick to
English, and the second to last of his most
commonly used phrases, because after all, if
you're going to scream profanity at someone, it
sounds and feels so much better to do it in the
lingo of a culture that celebrates the dirty-
minded.

"RANMA!  [YOU JACKASS!]"

This time, he had decided to forego the 'Die',
what with his throat being rather soar after
all the [Where is Japan?]s that he'd been
tossing around much of Eastern Europe.

He reared his arm backwards and poured all his
energy into it, grinning to himself as he
realized what an incredible strike this would
be, how fantastically quick Ranma would have to
move to avoid it.

It was only then that Ryoga noticed that the
girl in Ranma's arms had red hair, long,
gleaming locks of it.  And that she was
sobbing, clinging to Ranma as if her very life
depended on his being there, being there for
her.

But it was too late to stop his fist.

Ranma turned around just in time to see Ryoga's
fist fly towards him, and made a quick
decision.

He was atop the Yamaguchi family's one story
house, and they had a pool, a lovely one with
glittering turquoise water and a pretty tile
design along the bottom that looked like waves
from high above.  From where he was, he wagered
that it was about ten feet deep on the far
right end.  Making two calculations in his
head, he reached a verdict.

Just as Ryoga's fist made impact, Ranma threw
Yuki from his arms, vaguely hearing her screams
as she fell through the air.

Yuki, the sudden shock knocking some semblance
of conscious thought into her mind, curled her
body into a ball, preparing to hit the water
with a splash.

And still up on the roof, Ryoga waited for
Ranma to get up, to glare at him and curse at
him and call him stupid names.  Ryoga waited
for Ranma to hit him back.

But he didn't.  Instead, he just lay face down
on the roof tiles, his pale cheek pressed
against them.  His fingers did not move, and
his hair brushed a little in the afternoon
breeze.  A thin trickle of blood started at his
lip and ended in a growing pool of it beneath
his face, drying quickly against the intense
heat of those clay tiles, baked hot in the
afternoon sun.

Ryoga wasn't sure how long he stood there,
staring at Ranma's still form, waiting, just
waiting for a reaction, waiting for him to
recover from the blow.

It wasn't until he heard it, a scream that tore
his line of sight from the motionless body on
the ground to the horrified blue eyes of a
redheaded girl that he realized that any time
at all had passed.  Her face was white, paler
than fresh-fallen snow, and her lips had become
a strange, unhappy purple color, chlorinated
water gathering in a puddle underneath her
dripping clothes.

And suddenly she turned to him, blue eyes
burning a hole into his soul, and she whispered
something that sounded like a cry, reminding
Ryoga of a time long ago when he heard a
funeral procession.  There was something
foreign in this woman's eyes, a broken sort of
light that never shone from Ranma's, at least
not before.

But that wasn't what surprised him, it was the
way her tears started spilling from her eyes so
softly, how her lips trembled and how she
shimmered grief.

So saddened for a man who didn't deserve her
tears, didn't deserve her concern - it was just
Ranma - why did she need to cry?

"Ranma?" she whispered, her voice trembling
like a leaf, and kneeling down at his side, she
whispered again, "Ranma-kun?"  And with the
softest touch, she brushed his hair from his
face, grasping his deadened fingers tightly;
she moved his head to lay on her lap, stroking
his cheek so gently, as if she feared he would
shatter from the contact.

Ryoga's throat was dry, constricted, and a
horrible screaming guilt raged in his mind, he
stuttered, "Yuki-san, I'm so sorry, I didn't
mean to-"

Ignoring him and stroking Ranma's hair gently,
as a mother to a wounded child, she whispered,
"Don't worry, Ranma-kun, you're going to be
just fine, don't worry."

"Yuki-san," Ryoga started, stepping towards
her.  He never finished because the girl in
question looked up to him once again, those
soulless eyes vacant once again and cold as
ice, saying only:

"Call the hospital, Ryoga-san," her voice was
dreamy, disconnected, far away from this hot
afternoon where the air smelled of blood and
pool water.

Ryoga did not protest, and he did not speak.

Ryoga hopped to the ground, and pounding on the
Yamaguchi's front door with nearly primal
desperation, a thousand guilty thoughts
screamed through his mind.

He'd killed Ranma, he'd killed the one boy who
had helped him and he'd killed Akane's fianc�
who she loved and oh Kami-sama he was going to
burn in hell-

He'd never killed anyone, and for all the times
he'd wished death upon Ranma, he'd never truly
had what it took to kill a person.  But now,
now there was a very real possibility that he
had taken someone's life.

It was only after the ambulance was pulling
away from the sidewalk, only after he saw
Yuki's profile lined in the fragile gold of the
sunset that he saw the bloodstains still
blooming on her clothes, and the pale still on
her face.

"Yuki-san," he started slowly, wringing his
hands together, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know
that he was holding onto you, it was an
accident, I swear," he paused, an insane, odd
little thought fluttering into his mind.

Strange how he should be explaining this to the
girl who was just the freakish mirror image of
Ranma's curse instead of the pigtailed boy's
fianc�e.

Yuki turned towards him, an expression on her
face that told him that she was tired,
exhausted, spent.  "It's all right, Ryoga-san,"
she murmured quietly, walking towards him, eyes
averted towards the ground, "I'm sure Ranma
will forgive you."

Ryoga found sudden relief bubbling up through
himself, and nervously putting his hand against
the back of his head, he babbled:

"Oh, that's great, Yuki-san, I was so afraid
that you'd be angry at me!  I mean, I know that
you're too logical not to know it was an
accident, could have happened to anyone-"

A delicate fist shot out towards his nose,
filed nails pressed so hard into its own flesh
that he could, briefly, see bright red blood
seeping from the broken skin.

And then all he could see were sunbursts of
pain, and all he could feel was his nose
shattering into a thousand pieces, and how the
blood gushed down his face.  A sudden 'whoosh'
of air as the fist was reared again and struck
more certainly this time, with a resounding
thud against the side of his head, and Ryoga
swore his brain ruptured right there an then.
His legs were kicked out from underneath him,
each having been dealt a vicious spike to the
knee, and he found himself laying a bloodied
pile on the ground, surprised and in pain.

There came a soft voice, somewhere above him, a
floating mass of red shimmer visible through
the involuntary tears that had filled his eyes,
"I'm certain that Ranma will forgive you,
Ryoga-san, he's an awfully nice person."  Yuki,
Ryoga realized, was the owner of that lyrical
voice, and she was the one causing the pain,
too.

He received a vicious kick in the stomach,
knocking the wind out of him and making him
feel like the entire world was fading out of
view, and in the background, Yuki kept
speaking:

"I'm * positive * that he'll forgive you, he's
very kind," she kicked him again, harder and
aimed at his kidney, left unguarded and
upturned, a dark hiss came into her voice, "but
I never said that I would."

The blows rained down, and Ryoga started to
realize that perhaps Ranma had not been joking
about what he'd conferred to him months ago.
"Watch yourself around Yuki, Ryoga, I know you
mess up and attack her a lot because she looks
like me, but we're very different people," he
had paused, "I still have friendly memories
about you, Ryoga, to her, you're just a
stranger, someone to be dealt with and put out
of her way - don't start anything you can't
finish."

And Ryoga was wishing fervently that he hadn't
started this.

Yuki's hand grabbed him up by the collar, and
shaking his body out straight, sending another
scream of pain through him, she yelled:

"Do you know what could have happened to me if
he hadn't been there today?"  She kneed him in
the groin harder than she'd ever bothered
before, and he screamed in response, "Don't you
get that he's your friend?"

Tears started to run down her face.

The Tanakawa's bred strong women - but everyone
has a breaking point, everyone has a flaw.  It
was too much, the anger and shame of a summer
afternoon shattered by memory's trauma, and
then the sudden terror of a friend in pain.

Still holding him by the collar, she slammed
him bodily against the brick wall surrounding
the Yamaguchi's backyard.

'One, two, oh, yeah, three," Ryoga thought
slowly, 'three broken ribs, pretty good for a
chick.'  And then she slammed him into the wall
again, this time harder than before.  'Five,'
Ryoga added weakly, 'definitely five.'

"Why?" she started slowly, her voice drowned in
tears and her face red with anger and hurt,
"Why would you do this to him?"  Her arm
started to tremble, fingers loosening their
hold on the cloth of his shirt.  Ryoga found
himself slowly sliding to the ground, lazily
watching her back away from him, hair clinging
to her tearstained face as she whispered:

"He's just a boy, Ryoga," she paused, turning
around for just a moment before glancing back,
"a boy with too many problems and no one to
talk to, why would you hate him so much?"

Suddenly, Ryoga felt inclined to talk, and she
felt inclined to stop and listen:

"You're an idiot, Yuki-san," he gasped,
grasping his chest tightly, trying to breathe
without sending more pain coursing through his
body, "why do you always protect him?"

And she turned back around, flame in her eyes,
like two candles that had been dropped into a
bonfire, intense, unmerciful, furious.

"Because I love him," she whispered, voice
hoarse, "I love him in a way that you'd never
understand."  She stopped herself, expression
aghast at having revealed her secret, at having
given part of herself away, to a stranger who
didn't deserve to know her.

She ran, an air of desperation surrounding her,
and Ryoga lay there in the puddle of his own
blood and wondered painfully of her words.

It was hours later when he was lying in the
quiet hum of the hospital when he realized the
error in her thought:

He was the only person who could ever
understand.

^*^*^

Ryoga shuddered at the memory.

He didn't fear it because of the brutality of
her assault, though it had shocked him.  The
wounds inflicted were too cruel, too savage,
too harsh to have been dealt by a * girl *.
Much less the smiling redheaded child who had
always forgiven his mistakes, or, at the very
least, treated his politely.  Somehow she'd
done it, beaten the stuffing out of him that
time and many occasions thereafter.

Maybe it was that she loved him, loved Ranma in
the same way that Ryoga had loved Akane,
touched but never held.  Treated as a friend
and a familiar, but never allowed true
contentment.

He'd kept her secret, all those times
thereafter that he had wandered into Nerima,
seeing her on the street walking next to Ranma,
laughing or yelling or humming a tune, he'd
never uttered a word.

But that wasn't why he bit back a groan every
time he remembered the incident, it wasn't the
humiliation or defeat or the yawning pain of a
long recovery that tormented him.

It was what he had done to her in retaliation.

Something that could not be forgiven, and would
never be forgotten.

Kicking himself for wasting time, Ryoga gave
the door a firm push, listening to it creaking
inwards.

"Watch out, Yuki," he whispered, "you'll never
know what hit you."

^*^*^

All feeback is welcomed and appreciated.

-Linda


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