[FFML] [Ranma] [FanFic] Jewels and Bones

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Jewels and Bones

A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction Cross-Over

Jeremy Harper

Disclaimer - All characters in this chapter are the creations of Rumiko Takahashi and are used without permission.

Prologue

"You are going to die," the phoenix god proclaimed. A golden halo of fire illuminated his lean, comely form. Great wings, jewel-hued and scintillating, spanned wide from his shoulder blades, complementing his unearthly magnificence. A snarl of outrage twisted an inhumanly handsome face. Serpent fangs gleamed prominently in the white slash of his teeth. "You and your woman both. You shall pay for your interference in affairs that do not concern you." Despite the anger his visage openly proclaimed his tone was soft, lacking stridency, almost commonplace, as if he had said nothing more than he was going for a mid-afternoon stroll.

Ranma Saotome did not deign to answer. Hatred had rendered him mute. It ran through his veins, black, bittersweet and un-tinctured. His limbs quivered from its hot passing. His jugular pulsed and burned from its flow, making his teeth grit in reflex, as it passed upward to mingle in and stain the throne of his thought. He clenched his right hand tightly, his knuckles shining white. In his left hand he held what at first glance seemed to be a doll. Small and slender, with short blue-black hair and sad, tired brown eyes, it was a strange thing for a man such as Ranma to be carrying into a fight. He gave it a brief, imploring glance then looked back up at his foe.

For the first time in his life, Ranma Saotome knew true hatred. Towards all the others he fought before he had felt irritation or anger, never this venom of an emotion that now coursed and hissed through his body. Venom that could only be purged with the utter defeat and ruination of the arrogant, uncaring THING that stood proud and haughty before him, and by the salvation of the poor girl in his hand, who for the crime of trying to aid him had been diminished and was now slowly, inexorably, slipping into the dry and empty void of Death.

Ranma hawked and spat, and then rushed his foe with a speed the mortal eye could not easily follow.

Lord Saffron the Great reared back, nose wrinkling in disdain, the snarl disappearing as he pressed his lips together with grim determination. His halo snuffed out, the flames converging to his upheld right fist, condensing into a blinding white nimbus of power. He lashed out with his taloned hand, and a bolt of god fire lanced out to strike down and devour his mortal foe. Ranma sprang into the air, dodging the attack. He landed to Saffron's left, and continued to rush, circling widdershins around his foe. Saffron snarled softly, and shot more fire, blasting the land around the Dragon Tap into a scorched and sere waste, but never coming close to hitting his mercurial target.

Ranma continued to wind an ever-tightening gyre around the immortal. Hatred and desperation fueled his speed, making him reach a godly plane of performance he had never before touched. He needed to finish the spiral quickly, for time ticked slowly away, and each second gone brought Akane a second closer to death. He had lost the bladed ice-staff that had served him well up until now; a fluke bolt of fire had jarred it from his grasp, and before he could retrieve it Saffron's henchwoman Kimma had snatched it, crying out in triumph as she flew away. He could catch an occasional glimpse of her crouching on the promontories that surrounded the Dragon Tap as he played mongoose with the snaking fires, smiling and calling out encouragement to her liege and god.

'You're next,' he thought, then banished her from his mind, concentrating on the matter at hand.

Only Hyruu-Shoten-Ha could help him now. Only the Great Dragon ascending into the Heavens would buy him the time to reach the Dragon Tap and bathe Akane in its waters, restoring her from this diminutive state and preventing her from dying. That was the only goal that mattered. All else could burn.

Ranma rolled under another blast, shirt smoldering from the searing afterwash of its heat. Five more steps and he could summon the Dragon and end this.

Four steps...

Three steps... His right armed tensed, eager to release the power crackling about it.

Two steps...

One step...

"I HAVE YOU NOW!" crowed Saffron, hands clenched into a doubled fist as he fired a spray of power. Ranma could not evade it; the spiral had brought him too close. It smote him square in the chest, forcing the air out of his lungs, charring his shirt. Its force hurtled him back, far through the air, until he crashed into boulders bunched some several yards from the Dragon Tap. They cracked under the force of his impact, and he fell to the earth, and for a moment lay still.

Ranma tried to push himself up. He gasped involuntarily, ribbons of barbed light raking across his nerves. He coughed and spat - his spittle was crimson - and sank back to the ground. His Soul of Ice and the strange fire resistant side-effect of Akane's form had spared him from being burnt to a crisp, but the kinetic force of the god bolt more than made up for it. Stinging knives of pain pierced Ranma's chest, making his breathing a rhythm beat from raw agony. He heard a roaring in his ears, like the lashing surf of an angry ocean. Over the roar he could barely discern laughter: Saffron, and Kiima, exulting in his defeat and damnation. He wearily turned his head to look at the Akane-doll clutched protectively in his hand. She seemed unharmed, but Ranma felt a cold chill creep down his spine, while his stomach collapsed in on its self, becoming an empty, howling void. Her eyes were closed.

"Akane..." Ranma whispered, and he turned his face away, shutting his eyes and putting his face into the earth. The warning he had received circled through his head: when her eyes closed, she would die. He had failed her, in her time of greatest need, and all the pain and misery they had been through would be for nothing. A tear burned its way free, running down his cheek. He wiped it away furiously. He would not shed tears now. He still had something that must be done. Saffron still lived, and because of his actions Akane had perished. Ranma swore silently that Saffron would not live much longer.

Ranma forced himself to his knees, grimacing as he defied his pain. He would not quit until he had killed Saffron, but for the life of him he could not begin to see how he could do so. The phoenix god had recovered from every injury and wound he received with monstrous speed. The ice blade staff could have helped, but now it was beyond his grasp; he had neither the speed nor condition to retrieve in from Kiima now. Without the staff he could see no other way to defeat Saffron.

A splinter of memory glittered at the periphery of Ranma's consciousness. He snatched at it with his thought, but it danced away, fading into the fog raised by his pain and fear, only to bob back up almost tauntingly. He seized onto it tight, absorbing it, and recalled...

'The heart is the seat of the soul'

Hope rose in Ranma's breast as he realized the implications of this. It was a faint hope - desperate and perhaps foolish - but it was all he had. Ranma reeled up to his feet and turned to face the phoenix-god.

Saffron snorted in derision. "Mortal fool, you can barely stand. Do you still cling to the fallacious notion that you can possibly defeat me?" He leered at Ranma. "You should have stayed on your belly and begged me for mercy. It would have availed you not, but you would have spared yourself much pain."

"Saffron, you talk too much," Ranma declared. He staggered towards his foe, forcing his leaden legs to propel him forward. Saffron snorted again, throwing back his hand then throwing it forward, pitching out god fire. Ranma jumped over the blast, arcing high in the air before descending straight towards Saffron, his right arm held back, the hand glittering with silvery power, the fingers splayed and curled like claws as he summoned all his strength for one final blow. Saffron fired another bolt, his aim true. Ranma brandished the Akane-doll against the on-coming flame, and as it had before the god-fire broke against the dweomer cursing her, forking around Ranma, touching him not. He squinted against its radiance, keeping his eyes locked on his enemy.

Ranma landed before Saffron. The immortal crouched, preparing to quickly leap into flight and put distance between his holy personage and the miserable boy who defied him. He began his jump, and Ranma struck.

A wet crunch echoed and reverberated through the mountains, a sound like wet timber being forcefully splintered apart. Lord Saffron the Great fell to his knees, looking up in shock at the boy standing so close to him. He looked into Ranma's steely-blue eyes, beheld his savage, exultant grin, and for the first time in countless eons Saffron felt cold. Saffron looked down at Ranma's arm.

Ranma had struck Saffron in the chest, bursting through his breastbone as if it were a rotting cage of wood and thrust his hand into the phoenix-god's chest cavity. Ranma felt something squirm against him, and he gripped it hard and yanked it free. Golden ichor sprayed, arcing brightly through the air between mortal and god. Ranma reeled back drunkenly, Saffron's still-beating heart in his fist.

Ranma looked at the writhing, pulsing thing he clutched. It looked liked the illustrations he had seen in school biology texts, and yet - paradoxically - at the same time some small detail he could not quite discern made it appear nauseatingly alien, as if it belonged to a creature from some strange, far off world, and not of a being born of the Earth. Saffron's heart still beat wildly despite the trauma of evisceration, and showed no sign of stopping. In fact it felt like its rhythm grew stronger each time it convulsed, as if it were trying to force its way free from his hand. In his own chest Ranma felt his heart speed up in sympathetic response. He looked away from it and at Saffron. The immortal had fallen forward, propped up on one hand, while the other clutched at the great rent in his body. Ranma noted with a surge of triumph that the wound had not sealed up. All the other injuries he had inflicted upon Saffron had healed in seconds. Even his arms had re-grown miraculously just moments after being severed. But the hole in his chest, gushing thick, viscous ichor, showed no signs of regeneration. Saffron stared at Ranma, the pupils of his avian eyes pinpricks. His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps, and his shoulders shook with pain. Ranma grinned, and squeezed Saffron's heart cruelly. The phoenix-god screamed, collapsing, writhing in the dirt. Ranma stopped, and Saffron stilled with a moan.

"When I was younger," Ranma rasped out as he watched Saffron try to rise clumsily to his feet, "My father and I stayed at a monastery for a summer. The old abbot there developed a liking for me, and spent many hours telling me all sorts of stories. One of them was about a samurai who had fought a demon who refused to die, no matter how many times he cut it with his sword. Finally the samurai cleaved out the demon's heart and sliced it in two, and the demon fell over dead. The abbot explained to me that many people believe that while thought lives in the brain, the heart is the seat of the soul." Ranma laughed wildly and mirthlessly. "And he was right! I took from you the one thing you can't grow back, can you, you feathered bastard? I have your soul in my hands, and you can't do anything about it."

"Give it back to me," Saffron moaned, reaching out imploringly. "Give it back to me and I'll do anything you want, grant you anything you desire..." Ranma just sneered.

"The only thing I want you took away from me forever," Ranma hissed. "You want your heart back, Saffron? Go get it then." Ranma threw it high into the air straight above. Saffron screamed and flew up after it. From the heights Ranma heard Kiima cry out, but paid neither her or Saffron any heed, his pitiless, empty eyes locked on the heart suspended in the sky. About his hand a lead-gray aura twisted and grew.

"Shi-Shi-Hokodan!" Ranma roared. The bolt of heavy ki shot heavenwards. It struck Saffron indirectly, sending him spiraling away. He righted himself, hovering heavily, just in time to see his heart speared and disintegrated by the blast. He tried to scream, but it came out as a quiet choke, and he plummeted soundlessly to the earth, sprawling face down, his great wings standing stiffly up from his back. The wondrous, jeweled hue slowly ebbed from them and his golden flesh paled until his still, motionless form was a dull light gray. A skein-work of cracks sprang up all over his body. A stiff wind blew, and Saffron crumbled into fine powdered pumice, which the wind carried away, leaving behind naught but his royal robes of samite.

Ranma watched Saffron die then walked towards the Dragon Tap. A blur of white and gold landed in front of him and lunged at him. He danced back with a curse as Kiima, her beautiful face flushed and stricken, tears of ineffable grief pouring from her eyes, wildly clawed and smote.

"You killed him!" she shrieked, her voice cracking from the strain of grief and anger. "You killed our Lord and God for all time! Do you realize what you have done to my people? Do you have any conception of the crime you committed against us? Damn you and your bitch to hell!"

Ranma did not answer. If not for his evasions an observer would think he did not notice her at all. He stared through her, as if she were transparent, a capering figure of glass. With a casual, almost lazy motion Ranma punched her in the pit of the stomach, his arm blurring liquidly with the speed of Amaguriken. She gasped, feeling her innards writhe and rupture under the impact of a hundred punches striking her in one spot over the span of a half-second. She doubled over, clutching at her belly. Ranma raised his leg and drove his heel into the base of her skull. She lay still, and Ranma continued to the Dragon Tap, leaving her sprawled and still on the devastated ground, not caring if he had killed her.

Staggering, nearly tripping over himself in his sorrow and from fatigue, Ranma stepped into the Dragon Tap, its warm water swirling around his ankles. He dropped to his knees and gently submerged Akane beneath the quiet waters. Instantaneously the sorcery binding her body washed away. Her form swelled and grew until finally she was her normal self again. Ranma cradled her tenderly, lifting her up and carrying her to dry ground. He kneeled again, laying her gently down. She looked so fragile and vulnerable to Ranma, a delicate orchid, naked and vulnerable to the careless capriciousness of the world. Ranma stripped off his shirt, wrapping her in its tattered remains to cover her nudity. "Akane..." He breathed softly as he waited, hoping against hope, watching for some sign, any sign of the faintest life to stir, praying silently that what he had been told was untrue. He saw none. Her breasts did not rise and fall; her mouth did not part; her eyes remained closed.

Ranma bowed his head, closing his own eyes. His shoulders sagged as a great weight, heavy beyond all his experience, settled down upon him. He sighed quietly, trying not to shake. He slowly opened his eyes and tentatively touched Akane's cheek, brushing it softly with his fingertips.

"I'm sorry, Akane," he whispered. "I'm sorry that... that you were so slow and clumsy and ended up getting in the way..." Ranma struck himself in the face, savagely chastising his errant, thoughtless mouth. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes for a moment before forcing himself to look down at Akane's quiet form. "I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean it. I... I never meant any of it." His vision started to blur, his eyes feeling warm and moist. "I'm so sorry I said all those mean things to you before. I wish... I hadn't done so, but I did because I was auh- auh- fraid of saying what I really wanted to." The tears came now, coursing wet and hot down his cheeks. His shoulders were quaking. He lifted Akane up off the ground, holding her close. He sobbed once then tried to master himself. He failed. "Akane," he pleaded. "Oh Akane. Please don't leave me now... I never got to tell you..." He embraced her tightly, his weeping open and unchecked. He threw back his head and screamed to the heavens: "AKANE! I NEVER GOT TO TELL YOU THAT I LOVE YOU!"

A small, slender hand touched his damp cheek. Ranma froze, stock-still, unmoving, unbelieving. Then he heard a familiar, welcome voice - soft and quiet and a little hoarse - say his name. He looked down, scarcely daring to hope.

Akane's eyes were open. She looked tired, worn and pale. She was looking up at him, her hand on his cheek, wiping away his tears.

"Ranma, you're crying," she said simply. "Why are you crying?" Ranma's jaw worked uselessly. He could not find his voice. His whole body trembled fiercely. With a sudden sob he dove his face down to hers and kissed her, deeply and passionately. Akane's eyes widened in shock, and she in turn started to tremble. Ranma broke the kiss to look at her face almost desperately, to make certain he wasn't dreaming, that she was alive and breathing in his arms. She looked back at him, questioning and unsure what to make of his actions. He started to rain kisses down on her face, and she shook her head, too tired to give more vigorous protest.

"Ranma, stop, please." Ranma did so, and just held her tightly. Akane's own arms wrapped around his back, but her embrace was tentative compared to his. His affection was so startlingly sudden and she felt so confused, her thoughts and recent memories a tangled cat's cradle in her mind.

"Ranma, what happened? I can't remember..."

"Oh gods, Akane. I thought you had died!" Ranma whispered in her ear. "I thought that I had been too slow, not good enough, and that I let you die." He started to sob again. "I thought that I had lost you and that I would never be able to tell you how much I love you." Akane stiffened in his arms, and her body trembled more vigorously.

"You what?"

"I love you." He said simply and frankly, the only way he knew how. Akane closed her eyes, her arms tightening around Ranma's shoulders. She felt her own tears start to well.

"Oh Ranma... oh Ranma..." She kissed Ranma's cheek, trying to get to his mouth. He pulled his head back slightly and she kissed him full on the lips, deeply and soulfully. She reluctantly pulled away as tears trailed down her cheeks. She gently stroked his tangled mane of hair, and smiled tremulously.

"I love you, Ranma," she whispered back as she cried. "I love you very much. Don't cry. You didn't fail. You saved me, like you always do." Ranma's smile lit up his face. They kissed again, holding each other tight, each not wanting to let the other go.

Suddenly Ranma groaned into Akane's lips. He pulled away, eyes half shut, hand clasped to his chest. Akane looked at him curiously, a sudden premonition seeding a small, poignant fear in her breast.

"Ranma, what's wrong?" Ranma groaned again, icy sweat springing up on his brow as his complexion became pallid. The knives of pain in his chest had returned three-fold, each thrust in to the hilt. Ranma coughed violently into his hand. His mouth tasted of bitter copper, and fresh red blood stained his palm.

"No," groaned Ranma. "No, not now. Please not now." He slumped down to the ground as his heart labored desperately. Saffron's blast was now taking its rightful toll. It had broken his ribs and thrust a fragment of bone into his heart. Saffron had killed him, but Ranma had refused to die, not while the need for revenge existed. But now that Saffron was slain and Akane still lived the hate and sorrow fueled adrenalin had drained away. His body could no longer persevere. "It's not fair, damn it!" he wheezed out in protest. "It's not fair!"

"Ranma!" Akane screamed. She grabbed Ranma, cradling him as he groaned. Bright crimson blood welled from his mouth.

"Akane," he gasped. "I'm sorry." He shuddered, his eyes clouding, their lids reluctantly closing. He reached up to touch her face one last time, feeling the warm tears flow onto his hand. "I love you Akane, always and forever." He shuddered violently, quivering from scalp to toe, and then fell still.

"Ranma?" Akane cried desperately. "Ranma, don't die! Please don't die. Don't leave me now. Please don't go Ranma. I LOVE YOU DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!"

And that is how they found her; naked and weeping and cradling the body of the young man who saved her.

**********

Author's Notes:

More to come, hopefully.

Thanks once again to Lord Archive, Mad Hamlet, and Miss Tanith for their invaluable pre-reading.

I welcome all questions, comments and criticism. Please direct such to direct such to DorianVal@aol.com or post directly to the list. Don't bother with flames, please. If you have nothing polite or constructive to say do not bother to write at all.

Thank you for your time and tolerance,

Jeremy Harper