The muted greens and browns and grays of the forest seemed to laugh
at Hibiki Ryouga as he stumped through them, frustrated, the colors
swirling green-and-sunlight when the chilly breezes of middle autumn
rustled the branches of the firs and pines and deciduous hardwoods, each
gust of wind claiming a few more of their leaves. Seething at the
futility of traveling by foot with a sense of direction such as his, he
determinedly pressed onward through the never-ending trees and sparse
underbrush, his destination calling him onward, making him restless and
sleepless when his body ached and told him to stop. He was almost
there, or so he told himself: just a couple more days, and he would be
there, would see the lights of Tokyo rise out from below him, drowning
out the stars and the moonlight in their arrogant brilliance. And he
would know that he had, once again, at long last reached the Nerima Ward.
But the town he came upon was not Tokyo. His long-traveled
instincts told him that it was too cold to be Tokyo; it was not late
enough in the year yet. This realization drew a bitter sigh from his
lips.
"Lost again," he murmured, trudging disconsolately into the
outskirts of the town -- possibly even city. It was hard to tell how
populous it was, as this section of it stood a bit higher than the
surrounding forested lowlands, the trees thinning out a great deal as
the town encroached upon it.
The town was like any other in this increasingly cosmopolitan
country. This sameness would not have bothered Ryouga if not for the
difficulty it caused him when he needed to orient himself, to figure out
where he was. It was a blessing that his destination was in Japan, and
not on the Asian mainland, where greater perils than endless forests
awaited lost travelers.
"Where is this?" he asked the first person that he passed, a young
woman in well-tailored business clothing.
She looked at him. She was not particularly attractive, but her
smile was pleasant. "This is Fukaura. Are you lost?"
Fukaura was at the northwest edge of Honshu. "Lost" was an
understatement.
"It appears so," he replied stoicly, burying his disappointment. It
wasn't as if he hadn't been expecting to be lost, after all... "Thank
you, ma'am."
She smiled again, and her eyes seemed to follow him as he walked
into the town. With what emotion, he couldn't have said. Hibiki Ryouga
was not a man who could easily tell a person's thoughts, even his own,
jumbled and confused as they often were, as they were now. Especially
now.
Akari was sick. When he was lost, he would call the pig farm at
least once a day, just to talk with her, the kind, wonderful girl who
said she loved him. But five days ago, she had complained of a fever,
and it had gotten worse. Two days ago, she had barely been able to
rouse herself from her bed to answer the phone, and he'd convinced her
to check into a hospital. She'd been reluctant, her distaste for
western medicine rearing its head, but he'd pressed her and she'd
acceded to his wishes. She was considerate, if nothing else.
Ryouga had been unable to contact her since then, as he'd been lost
in the deep forest, with no way of reaching a telephone. Finally, he'd
come upon civilization again, and within short order, his eyes alit on a
public telephone. Punching in a long-memorized calling card number, he
phoned the Tatsushita Memorial Hospital, on the outer edge of the Nerima
Ward, the only hospital within reasonable distance of the Unryuu pig
farm.
The phone rang twice, and a receptionist answered. "Tatsushita
Memorial Hospital," she said. She had the polite, crisp tone shared by
receptionists worldwide.
"Hello, yes, my name is Hibiki Ryouga. You have a patient there
named Unryuu Akari. I need to speak with her."
"Are you a family member, sir?"
"Yes. I mean, no. I'm her fiance, you see. I'm...out of town and
can't make it in person, but I need to just make sure she's okay."
"Of course, sir. Just a moment."
There was an agonizing wait of maybe fifteen seconds. Ryouga heard
her hands clack efficiently across a keyboard, pulling up Akari's
profile, no doubt.
"Sir..." The voice sounded uncertain.
"Yes?" he said, impatient.
"Sir, I don't know how to tell you this, but...I'm sorry, sir.
Unryuu Akari died last night. I'm very sorry."
Ryouga was numb with shock. "Dead..." He stared blankly at the
brick wall before him. "I...I see. Thank you, miss..."
He hung up the phone, sat down on the public sidewalk, and began to
cry.
Overhead, the oblivious sun blazed on cheerfully.
***
The Rivers of Babylon
a Ranma 1/2 fanfic by
George P. Masologites
14 January 2002
***
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we
remembered Zion.
-- Psalm 137:1
He smiled at him, his oldest enemy, his oldest friend. "You've
come. I knew you would."
The other man sighed, shaking his head sadly. "Why does it always
have to come down to this?"
"That's just the way it is, Ranma. The way it has to be."
Ranma's lips curled into a slight smirk, and he clenched his fists.
His enormous power made the chill air shimmer around him.
It had begun. At last, at long last...
***
Ryouga awoke the fourth morning to the sound of a soaring hawk's
fierce war cry.
He sat up in his bundle, shaking his head to clear the slumber from
his mind. His eyes strayed upward, catching sight of the great hunting
hawk for a fleeting moment, hundreds of feet overhead, before it
disappeared beyond the thick forest cover.
It was early November, but the coldness of the weather suggested
that autumn should have progressed further. A brisk wind bit at his
weatherbeaten traveling garments, and he shivered in spite of himself as
he gnawed on a piece of crusty bread that was this day's breakfast. He
took a small draft of water from the leather canteen he kept in his
burdensome traveling pack, careful not to spill even the slightest drop
of the cold liquid on himself, and shivered again.
He looked at the sky once more. It was cold; too cold. The
wearisome gray clouds hung thickly in the somber sky, and he wondered if
the winds might bring an early snow this year. He shook his head,
shouldered his pack, and began walking, happy to once again get his
blood moving and drive out the cold.
He thought about Akari. Her funeral would be held sometime soon,
and he knew he should attend. But how could he, the lost boy, unable to
even find a great city such as Tokyo?
But he would try to attend. He owed her that much. That much, and
so much more, so much more...
***
Time did not pass here as it did in the outside world. Here, the
river of time was dammed, dried up, flowed backwards, swirled on and on
and endlessly into the darkness. Space, there was. But time was
incomprehensible, and its whirls and eddies spun around and around,
burning through his mind and plunging him into their cool, cool depths,
down, down, descending...
He shook his head, and stared ahead. The stars shone down on him,
faint and white and impossibly ancient, and the breeze of the deepening
twilight was refreshing and cool. His eyes turned to the distant,
eternal night behind him, and he suddenly became afraid. Afraid of the
things that lurked in the far darkness, afraid of the shadows that
lurked in the depths of his mind, afraid of his own weakness, driving
him once again into relentless grief...
The breeze was colder now, and the darkness pressed upon him with
greater urgency. Driven by his nameless fear, he began to run, his
powerful legs carrying him far and fast, across the endless dusky
plains...
***
The fifth day brought a solemn snowfall, and the sixth, a bitterly
cold rain, slashing and hard.
Ryouga continued his relentless march onward, stopping only to rest
for four or five hours late into the night, and setting off again before
daybreak. His pack held skillfully drawn maps and atlases, but for a
man with a sense of direction such as his, these tools had next to no
use at all. He used them exclusively for the location of landmarks, so
that he might chart a general course to lead him to Tokyo.
The cold rain would have battered a lesser man insensate, but Ryouga
scarcely noticed it, protected as he was by his broad bamboo umbrella
and a ki shielding technique he had worked out several years ago to
guard against the rain. He only paid it mind because it made the ground
a churning sludge of melting snow and mud, and he was forced to fight at
times to keep his footing on the treacherous earth. His ki shield would
not protect him if he became immersed in water. He trudged on, his
frustration deep and angry, silently cursing the ill fortunes that
besieged him at every turn, giving him a moment's happiness, only to
snatch it away again.
_Akari..._ Her name whistled through his mind like a knife, sharper
than all of nature's icy winds, echoing in his thoughts again and again,
forlorn and distant, filled with pain. _Akari..._
He heard a sharp cry from overhead, and saw that the hunting hawk
was once more soaring far above him, braving the storm to find an
elusive meal. Was it the same hawk...? Even his sharp eyes could not
tell at this great distance, but something in his heart told him it was.
It cried out again, the shrill ferocity of its call defying the
slashing wind and rain, and then it was gone again, over a solitary snow-
capped crag in the distance, its fastness somber and regal.
***
He had been running for an eternity, but he knew, somehow knew, that
he was not fast enough, that he must run faster, that the unnamed
shadows of his fear that chased him were faster than he was, that he
would soon fall victim to them...
The stars glared down, cold and white and merciless, unblinking as
they watched the terrified runner cross the boundless plains of night,
their judgement as harsh and unyielding as their cruel cold gaze.
The years fell away from the runner, in this place, far, far beyond
the reaches of the river of time, his careworn face shimmering and
reverting slowly to the face of a child, smooth-cheeked and thin, but
the terrible nameless fear that burned through his mind did not abate,
and he ran, ran, ever faster, tears streaming down his face, desperation
searing his soul...
The cold breeze now came in frigid gusts, and the darkness swathed
the runner like a cloak, and on and on he ran...
***
A month passed before Ryouga found himself in Tokyo once again, and
winter had now begun in earnest.
The brisk wind and the lightly falling snow filled the solemn gray
morning, and Akari's gravestone was crowned with a layer of soft snow
when he finally stumbled upon it.
He gazed at it, his heart bitter and his eyes sad, and shook his
head. It was not right that she be buried here, under the glowering
hardness of Tokyo's brilliant lights. Her family's custom was one of
cremation, and the ashes were to be strewn over the soil of the Unryuu
gardens. But she had died young and unexpectedly, and had not left
instructions, and she had no family members left to speak on her
behalf. So the last surviving member of the once-proud Unryuu clan was
buried here, in an unnamed, snow-laden graveyard four miles from
Tatsushita Memorial Hospital.
He kneeled down before it, his eyes closed. He held a small string
of wooden beads in his hand, clenched tightly, his head bowed. Slow
tears rolled down his unshaven cheeks, ruddy from the cold.
"Akari," he whispered, his voice tight, filled with
grief. "Akari..."
By the time he had left the cemetery, his tears spent, he felt that
he had no strength left in him. His grief roiled deep within his chest,
and any thoughts that flittered into his darkened mind he cut off,
discarding them as worthless, as rubbish.
Nothing mattered. Not anymore.
The austere noontime sun peered disconsolately through the thick
cloudbank to cast its bleak rays on the snow-brushed graveyard and the
despairing wanderer, slowly trudging through the old iron cemetery gate,
oblivious to the world.
***
The shadows finally reached him.
The child's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the dark, formless
earth, sobbing in terror and bitter rage.
Behind, a kind laughter reached him, and he looked back, his large,
dark eyes tearful, but hopeful.
He could see nothing. He wiped at his eyes. The wind was picking
up again, it felt cold, like it did in the beginning, but not unbearably
so.
The laughter seemed a little less kind, now, and a vaguely mocking
note had found its way into its mirth.
He shook his head, willing the laughter to be kind again, but it was
fading, fading, along with all the warmth that had ever been in the wind.
The laughter became cold and biting, and the shallow hope in his
fearful eyes fled before it.
Tears began to leak out of his eyes once more, and his small body
was wracked with terrified sobs.
The darkness gathered behind him. Frozen wind turned his tears to
crystal before they left his cheeks.
And the laughter was hollow, as empty and ancient as time itself.
***
Ryouga sat up abruptly in his bundle, covered in sweat.
He shuddered, wiping the sleep from his eyes. A light rain was
falling, but he had trained himself well enough that he reflexively
shielded himself with his ki even while he was asleep. The rain was
cool, but not cold, in odd contrast to the two inches of snow that
blanketed the ground. It was cold enough to make him shiver, though,
and he cast the nearly soaked bedroll from him, sighing. It was only an
hour or so until dawn; there was no sense in returning to sleep for so
short a time, especially with the dark dreams that had been plaguing his
sleep of late.
He shook his head, tying his bedroll to the top of his heavy
traveling pack. He cast back with his mind, but came up with nothing.
His nightmares were intense, he knew that much, but he could not for the
life of him recall them.
He sat down heavily in the rainy pre-dawn chill, half-heartedly
eating half a piece of hard bread; his customary breakfast. He found he
had little appetite this morning.
It had been almost eleven months since he had visited Akari's
grave. The new year had dawned much the same as the old, and the winter
was a bitterly cold one. Ryouga traveled on, as he always did;
immediately following his visit to her grave, he could not muster the
will to travel, but, after he had cried himself dry and let the sharpest
part of his grief run its course, he had one morning shouldered his
great pack and walked into the drizzling snow. He had not been back to
Tokyo or the Nerima Ward since then, and found that he had no desire to
return. There was nothing left for him there.
He had wandered aimlessly for a long time on the islands of Japan,
and had found himself in the port city of Nagasaki one sweltering day in
late June. He had found work on a ship before, as a young man chasing
an enemy to China, and had no problem demonstrating his competence as a
simple deckhand once again. He had decided to seek passage to China;
rumor told of great masters of the Art that still resided deep in the
mountains of rural China, and he found that, aside from his never-
ceasing training, he lacked any kind of direction at all. And he also
desired to once again seek out Jusenkyou's cursed waters, deep in the
Bayankalas of far Qinghai, and try to find a cure for the affliction
that had lain heavy on him for the past eight years of his life.
"No..." he murmured. Today was the sixth of November. "No...nine.
Today's my birthday." He cracked a slight, quickly passing smile at
that, the first time he'd smiled in a long time. Alone, in the
wilderness, deep in mourning and sorrow, smiles were hard to come
by. "Imagine that...me, twenty-five years old..." His face reverted
back to its well-worn expression of solemn impassiveness, and he paid
the thought no more mind.
Though he did not will it, before he had finished his meager
breakfast, his mind once again drifted back to Akari, and to the other
misfortunes that still lingered in his mind. Akane. Ranma...anything
involving Ranma. They had been allies at times, rivals at others; he
had even defended him once, when Ranma had lost his strength. But he
had never found it in him to have any true affection for the other
fighter, and the anguish that Ranma had visited upon his life he had
never put out of his mind. The years he had spent making his ki
shielding technique effective was a testament to Ranma's lasting
impression on him.
He had harbored some vague hope that if he left all remnants of his
life in Nerima behind him, he would gradually forget it. Years had
passed, now, but the old grudges and mixed hatreds remained in his mind,
stagnating, embittering him, and his grief for Akari was still fresh.
Taking a sip of his water, he stood up, banishing the thoughts and
his feelings from his mind angrily, and began to train. His training
was the only thing that remained to him, and he embraced it with all the
passion that he had during his great rivalry with Ranma, years ago. He
was simply a wanderer, now; he had no destination that needed traveling
to, no direction to his endless journeys. The only things he did were
train and walk, train and walk, train and walk. Some days, he just
trained. He had remained at a single camp in excess of a week, once,
training unceasingly from before daybreak to long past dusk. It was a
life that suited him well. He was stronger and fitter than ever before,
and his skill in the Art had become enormous. He was a skilled hunter
whose knowledge of the wild places made the night that he went hungry a
rare one, and his tremendous power assured that any potential bandits
did not trouble him. He had not yet found Jusenkyou, nor any of China's
storied kung fu masters, although he never had given up his search. His
should have been a proud, fearless life.
Deep in mourning, he cast the blame for Akari's death squarely on
himself. If only he'd stumbled upon Tokyo sooner, if only he'd been
there to help her, if only he wasn't him, if only, if only, if only...
The mighty warrior began his training with a sad and heavy heart,
his dark eyes reflecting the gnawing shame and bitter regrets that ate
away at his soul.
***
Another year had passed, and Ryouga's journeys had carried him deep
into the heart of the wilderness, high in the thickly forested mountains.
The winters were colder here, and the air thinner. He knew he was
no longer in China, although he did not know where his wanderings had
brought him. The people here had pale skin and fair hair, and spoke in
guttural tongues alien to him. But the region was sparsely populated,
and his encounters with other humans were few and far between; he found
no need to teach himself their language. November had come again, and
nearly gone, and the winter here was more savage than any he had yet
experienced. The sudden, torrential blizzards arose with no warning,
and the ice of the wind sliced through even his powerful constitution
like a knife.
He had not trained for the past week; all his energy was depleted
merely trying to keep warm in this frozen land. He had realized his
error in traveling so far north, and had slowly begun to make his way
south, but he feared that he had gone too far into the land of winter,
and that the ice would claim him before he found a path out of the
thickly wooded passes of this endless mountain range.
His step was a slow one, and he was hunched over against the howling
wind and snow and ice of the great blizzard that had arisen at dusk. A
thick oaken staff was clenched in his gloved hands, and he stumbled
occasionally as he walked, gasping for breath, struggling and
staggering. His battered body screamed at him for rest, for a brief
respite from the endless cold and pain, but he knew that he could not
rest until he found some kind of shelter. Those who lay down in the
snows did not rise again.
Though he could see almost nothing between the night and the driving
storm, he somehow managed to make out the faint outline of a deep
fissure in the mountainside ahead. It was not much, but it was probably
the last chance he was going to have to save himself from the ice.
He faltered once, collapsing to one knee, but he forced his aching
body to stand up again and walk, and, victorious, fell down on the rocky
soil inside the fissure, thankfully shielded from the snows by a low
overhang, and succumbed to the cold and his exhaustion, crystal tears on
his face, wanting nothing more than to hold Akari again...
***
But then the darkness drew back before the child, dissipating and
dissolving, like an ephemeral mist in the morning sunlight. Shapes
began to materialize out of the desolate twilight, and he saw a grassy
plain laid out before him. But it was surrounded by great walls on
three sides, towering over his small, thin form, and behind him lay a
small, one-lane road.
"I...know this place..." he said softly, gazing about him in
wonder. It was the empty field behind his old home. This was the place
where his life had begun to come apart.
Before him was another boy, of the same size and build, with a small
black ponytail.
Ranma.
Then they were children no longer, but grown men, mighty warriors,
masters of their Art who could annhiliate anything that stood before
them, men who had once defeated a god.
***
Ryouga awoke in the gloom of the cavern, freezing. The great
blizzard was still howling and shrieking mightily outside in the deep
forest night, but the chill it brought no longer pierced him so badly.
He shivered and curled up in his bundle, tried to fall asleep again.
After a moment, his well-honed instincts felt a presence behind
him. He flipped over quickly and looked up, all traces of his slumber
gone instantly, but there was no one there.
"Ryouga..."
Alarmed, he turned around again, but there was no one.
"Ryouga..."
_I know that voice,_ he realized with shock.
"Ryouga..."
"A...Akari?" he asked, tentative and quiet, not daring to hope.
There was no answer.
"Akari?" he asked again, his eyes darting around
frantically. "Am...am I dreaming?"
She stepped out from the shadows, smiling, her face as kind and
beautiful as he remembered it. Her step was slow and graceful, almost
as if she glided above the rocky earth. But there was no shadow in the
cavern, because there was no light.
"I'm dreaming," he answered himself, and he began to weep.
Akari's slender fingers brushed against his lips, and her smile was
heart-rendingly pure. "You are," she said, kissing his forehead gently.
He held her tightly in his great arms, crying unashamedly, the
warmth of her ghostly form driving out the frigid darkness...
***
He smiled at him, his oldest enemy, his oldest friend. "You've
come. I knew you would."
The other man sighed, shaking his head sadly. "Why does it always
have to come down to this?"
"That's just the way it is, Ranma. The way it has to be."
Ranma's lips curled into a slight smirk, and he clenched his fists.
His enormous power made the chill air shimmer around him.
It had begun. At last, at long last...
END
Author's Notes:
Can a person find catharsis and closure in dreams? I think, perhaps
so. Whether I have succeeded or failed in conveying this idea, only the
reader can decide.
Comments and criticism are welcome. My email address is
guilds@mail.serve.com.
-George/Hunter Kid
14 January 2002
--
"War is like unto fire; those who will not put aside weapons are themselves
consumed by them."
- The Spring and Autumn Annals
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