Read the notes at the bottom before you comment, okay?

Ranma isn't mine; it's Rumiko Takahashi's.  Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko
Takeuchi.

This story takes place in the twenty-sixth manga volume during the
Ryugenzawa arc not long after Ranma finds Akane.  Well, that's when it
starts anyway.

Flashbacks are in between ****** lines.  Different scenes are separated by
two blank lines.

Well, here it is.

Random Fates
by Thermopyle (thermopyle@tds.net)
http://thermopyle.anifics.com/

#####

Ranma stopped in surprise.

He'd decided to stick around, camping in the forest after Akane told him
she was going to stay with Shinnosuke the night before.  She was pretty
fickle that way sometimes, being nicer to perfect strangers than she'd
ever been to him, despite her declarations of hating boys.  But he had
faith that she would come back to him, just as she always did, because
they were always there for each other, no matter how much they fought or
insulted or hit.  So he hadn't been too worried, relying on this
unspoken rule to hold true.  Only, for some reason, it looked like it
hadn't.

Akane and Shinnosuke stood close, faces almost touching, gazing into
each other's eyes.  The other boy's head was bent down towards hers as
she looked up at him, and their bodies were barely separated.  Akane had
P-chan clasped to her chest, not noticing that the pig was struggling
desperately, trying to escape her grasp and get as far away as possible.
Shinnosuke's hands were placed gently on her upper arms, holding Akane
close.  She could have easily pulled away, if she wanted to.  Akane
wasn't even trying.

Ranma must have made some noise, a slight, startled gasp or stepping too
loudly, because Akane turned to look at him.  On her face was a mixture
of surprise, embarrassment, and something else.  Annoyance, he realized.
No doubt she resented his intrusion.

"Ranma..." she said quietly, without moving from Shinnosuke.

How could she?  He knew he didn't deserve her, but he'd thought that
Akane accepted him anyway, she gave all the right signs.  She got
jealous whenever one of the other girls attached themselves to him, she
desperately wanted him to eat her cooking despite knowing he wouldn't
like it, she was always ready to defend him even though he was the
better fighter.  It sure looked like she cared for him.  So why?

She must think Shinnosuke was a better fighter.  That was what the
engagement was based on, marrying Akane to the strongest fighter, which
had always been him, in order to carry on the dojo.  So all he had to do
was fight, and win, to get her back.  But was that really the reason?
Or was he just not good enough?  He had to know.

Ranma grabbed onto his diminished confidence, concentrating on his most
important emotion, and forced his face into an arrogant mask.  "Well,"
he said, "if that's how you feel, then I'm glad we broke up.  But at
least tell me why!"

"Eh?"

Akane still didn't move, he saw, she still stood there with Shinnosuke
holding onto her, looking at him in confusion now.  Did she not
understand the question?  Did she think it was obvious why she would
turn to Shinnosuke, abandoning him, and wasn't able to figure out why he
would bother to ask?

Ranma's mask broke slightly, water starting to gather in his eyes as his
body trembled slightly.  "Tell me why!  Right here, clearly!  Why?!?" he
demanded.

Akane drew back from him slightly, an odd expression on her face.

Distaste, he concluded absently as he stared at her.  His mind was
blank, he couldn't think, how could this happen?  There had to be a
reason!

"I-Idiot!  What are you talking about?" she asked, her face growing red
and hands balled up into tiny, delicate fists.

She's angry, he saw.  Angry was good, angry was normal, and he could
understand it.  Maybe if he got her mad enough everything would be fine,
and she would return to the Tendou's with him.  Ranma stepped towards
Akane, mouth opening to start his usual spiel of insults, then suddenly
Shinnosuke was in the way, standing between him and Akane with his broom
held in an offensive position.

"Stop it," the other boy ordered.  "You're bothering Akane."

Ah, a challenge.  Now he could beat Shinnosuke, and show Akane that he
was still the best.  Then everything would be okay.  Now, to respond,
accepting the fight.

"You stay out of this!" he shot back.

"I'm not going to repeat myself."  Shinnosuke looked ready, Ranma saw.
The broom would give added reach, making him a bit more dangerous, but
both Ryouga and Kuno used weapons, so Ranma knew how to compensate.  He
doubted Shinnosuke would be as good as Ryouga was but he had to be at
least a decent fighter, otherwise Akane wouldn't be this worked up about
him.

Akane spoke up, "Hey, wait a minute!"  She waved her head and hands
frantically, trying to put off the match, which was now inevitable.

Why?  Why wouldn't she want them to fight?  Wasn't that what this was
all about, her doubting his abilities once again?  It couldn't be the
other thing; she'd already turned Ryouga away despite the lost boy's
polite, yet shy attempts to win her love.  No, she wanted the strongest
fighter, just like his father, and Soun, and everybody else he knew.
The best fighter won the prize, and Ranma intended to win.

So he ignored her.  Jumping forward, fists up and ready to pummel the
arrogant upstart, Ranma yelled, "You want it, then?!  I'm not as tame as
the animals in this forest!"

Shinnosuke, too, leapt into the air, broom swinging as they both
pretended not to hear Akane's yell for them to stop.  Ranma maneuvered
slightly in the air, mostly evading the attack and only getting his
shirt torn at the shoulder.  Shinnosuke, not expecting the midair dodge,
failed to escape Ranma's punch and took a hard blow to the cheek.

They landed opposite each other, neither showing the effects of the
first pass.  They jumped again, and Ranma noted in surprise that
Shinnosuke staggered slightly, his attack faltering.  Apparently that
blow to the head had some impact after all.  His confidence rising back
to its usual height, Ranma's fist once again blurred towards
Shinnosuke's cheek, expecting to put the other boy down with only two
hits.  Akane would be his!

And suddenly, she was there in front of him.  Ranma stopped his arm in
time to avoid hitting her, but his surprise left him completely open to
a slap to the face with all of Akane's strength behind it.  The blow
stung, but he didn't even notice the physical aspect of it.  Akane had
hit him, not wanting him to win.  Why?  Wasn't this about who was the
best fighter?

No, he realized.  Ranma was better than Shinnosuke, obviously so.  The
only reason Akane had interrupted the fight was because she didn't want
Shinnosuke to get hurt.  Akane had chosen, and she hadn't picked Ranma.
Being the best fighter no longer meant everything to her, actually, it
never had.  He remembered what she had said after he failed to gain the
Ultimate Weakness Moxibustion chart, that he had so many good qualities
besides his ability to fight.  He'd asked her to name them, and she had
been silent. She'd realized he was nothing but a fighter.

Ranma didn't know what else Shinnosuke had, other than being able to
fight, but it was obviously something Akane wanted that he couldn't
give.  There wasn't just some technique he could learn, a trick he could
use to win her heart, because he didn't know where to start.  How could
he attack this?  Akane wouldn't let him fight Shinnosuke, and that was
all he knew how to do.

Akane was talking again.  "Ranma... I'm sorry," she said, staring at her
hand.  "Hit me back..."

Hit her back?  She thought he was capable of hitting her?  Did she
really think that little of him?  If the situation hadn't been so
pathetic, he would have laughed.  He just stared at the ground, head
still turned to the side from her blow.  No, he wouldn't hit her back,
that's one thing he could never do.

Akane loved Shinnosuke.  It had to be true.  Ranma was nothing more than
a friend, and he didn't know how to win this kind of fight.  Being a
friend was the last thing he wanted.  If he stayed, though, he would
soon outlast whatever friendship might remain, after attacking
Shinnosuke as he had.  He had to leave, at least for a while.  This
wouldn't be the first time he'd used the Saotome School of Anything Goes
Martial Arts Final Attack, but it might be the first time he failed to
return afterwards.

"I... I get it..."  Ranma turned, and began to walk away.  "Sorry I
bothered you."

"Ranma!!"

Goodbye, Akane.


Ranma trudged through the forest, his bag at his back, posture stiff and
straight.  He'd been tempted to stop, to sit down and rest somewhere,
but he knew he had to keep moving, had to keep from dwelling on what had
just happened.  Real men, after all, didn't cry.

He was traveling back towards Tokyo, but after that he didn't know where
to go.  He couldn't return to the Tendou's, not without bringing Akane
back with him, and he certainly didn't want to try moving in with one of
his other fianc�es, no matter how temporarily.  Trying to do so would
just cause more problems, not only with the Tendous but also with the
girl as well, when he found a more permanent place to stay and wanted to
leave.

No, his fiancees were all out of the question.  Unfortunately there was
nowhere else he could go.  He couldn't even try moving in with Hiroshi
or Daisuke, since all of the girls and rivals in his life would quickly
come after him and probably trash wherever he was staying in the
process.  Ryouga lived far enough away from Furinkan that living at his
house might be an option, but there was no telling when he'd see Ryouga
again to ask if it was okay.  He was not going to go back and see if P-
chan was still with Akane.

Ranma sighed as he continued through the dense underbrush, traveling
steadily further and further away from his ex-fiancee.  He could go
anywhere, the choice was up to him alone, yet the one place he most
wanted to be was where he had just left.  He should be able to make the
edge of the forest by dark, at this pace.  Then he'd have all night to
think about it.


Ranma's mother sat alone in her room, silently flipping through a
picture book.  There was her son shortly after his birth, all pink and
ugly and small, but the look on her face as she held him clearly showed
that, to her, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.  There
he was in the process of getting his first diaper change, and what a
manly mess that had been, she thought, smiling sadly.  There were the
pictures of his first steps, as well as the first falls.

There was a picture of them smiling as she held him, now several years
old.  He was bruised, in that one, discolored in several places on his
exposed arms and legs, and a black left eye.  Still, he smiled,
happiness evident.  The next picture was not so cheerful.  It showed
Ranma, age five, on his back and struggling to get up despite a broken
arm and cracked ribs.  Genma stood over him, yelling down at the small
boy for not dodging properly.  Setsuna looked at the picture for a long
moment before reaching out to remove it from the album.  As she did so,
a few drops of moisture slid down her cheeks and hit the back of her
hand.  She ignored them and flipped the picture over, reading the
description for the thousandth time.

'Ranma - five years old,' it said in the smooth, flowery handwriting
that she'd prided herself on at one point.  'His training is progressing
quite nicely, and he's shaping up to be very manly.  Soon he and Genma
will be leaving on their training trip, and they've both signed the
seppuku agreement in case Ranma fails to grow up as he should.'  Oh,
yes, she knew what this picture said.  The words were burned into her
memory permanently now, although for the longest time she'd thought
nothing of it.  It wasn't until six years had passed that she started to
regain her memories, and even then it took three more before she
remembered everything.  This past year had been hell, remembering
everything, knowing what a mistake she'd made... and how she'd lost
everything as a result.

She sighed, putting the picture back into the album, and turned the
page.  The next picture, taken several days later, showed Ranma and
Genma walking away, down the street in front of their house.  Ranma
still had a cast on his arm, which would come off soon, and his ribs
were already healed.  Just as Ranma's bruises had always gone away
quickly, his bones knitted at an incredibly fast rate.  She knew why,
now, but it didn't lessen the pain any.

The loss of her son, her husband, Ranma's years of suffering at Genma's
hands...it was all her fault.  Her fault, and there was nothing she
could do to fix it, no matter how unfair or cruel it seemed.  All she
could do-

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and she turned towards it,
startled.

"Setsuna-mama?" called a tentative, shy voice.  "Dinner is ready."

She smiled slightly, somewhat grateful for the interruption.  "Okay,
Hotaru-chan.  I'll be down in a minute."

Setsuna wiped the tears from her face as Hotaru's footsteps trailed
away, then took a last look at the picture.  It was alone on the page.
There had been no more, after that one.  Ten years had passed, and there
wasn't a picture to show for it, no memories of him growing up because
her son had been gone the whole time.  Ten long, miserable years.

She noticed that her breathing was becoming a little shaky, that her
eyes were starting to water again, and quickly closed the album, putting
it back underneath her bed and out of view so none of her houseguests
could see it.  As she prepared to go downstairs for supper, she prayed
that tomorrow wouldn't be the last time she would ever see her son.


Ranma sat in front of the campfire, staring at the flames.  Fish bones,
the remains of his dinner, lay piled to the side, and his tent had been
erected hours earlier.  Aside from the occasional crackling noises
caused by the wood burning there was no sound at all.  An odd side-
effect of the Spring of Life, no doubt, that the gigantic size of the
creatures in the forest caused their numbers to be greatly reduced.
There wasn't thousands of insects, flies and mosquitoes buzzing about,
grasshoppers chirping.  There were no owls hooting, or bats flitting
about in the night.  It was silent.

So he watched the fire quietly, thinking.

******

"Well, I'm glad you're a girl," said Akane, a smile on her face.

He blinked.  "Huh?"

"It's just... I'd really hate to lose to a boy!"

******

Ranma smiled sadly, then got up to add a bit more wood to the fire.
After that comment he had decided to never fight Akane again.  True, he
had already beaten her as a girl, but there was always that little bit
of happiness in his mind from the aftermath of that fight, when Akane
had thought that she'd found a friend, a girl friend, who was good at
fighting.  He never wanted to see what she was like after beating her
now that she knew about his curse, and that he wasn't a girl.  He was
quite sure her reaction would be different than the last time.

So instead he just ignored Akane when she tried to make him spar with
her.  Sure, she got mad, but he had promised himself, and he wouldn't
break this promise, that fighting her was something he wouldn't do.

Still, that incident was the first he could remember that indicated
there was something seriously wrong between him and Akane.  He'd always
ended up believing the best, convincing himself that it would all work
out, that they were just playing around.  There were times, however,
when it had been difficult to do so.

******

Ranma slipped silently up the steps, dreading what he was about to do.
It was necessary, his honor insisted upon it, but that didn't mean he
had to like it.  Not at all.

Coming to her doorway, he raised his hand to knock, then froze.

"I mean, what's wrong with a boy who turns into a girl?" asked Nabiki.

"'That's easy for you to say, Nabiki.  You're not the one engaged to her
worst nightmare!" Akane yelled back.

Ranma turned away and walked back to the steps, hopping lightly up to
the banister and sliding down to the next floor.  Nope.  There was no
way he was going to thank HER.

******

Feeling himself start to get drowsy, Ranma once again stood, bending
backwards slightly to get the crimp out from sitting on a log and
leaning forward for too long.  He slipped into his sleeping bag after
zipping the tent entrance up, then shoved the small traveling pillow
underneath his head.  Relaxed and more comfortable now, he felt his mind
begin to focus again on what he had been thinking about earlier.

How was he a pervert?  Sure, he turned into a girl, but it's not like
he'd ever given Akane any reason to believe he...did anything with his
girl form.  It couldn't just be that he'd walked in on her when she was
in the furo, she'd done the same to him before that and had thought he
was the pervert that time, too.  So was it really his fault?

******

"What do you mean I would have kissed anybody?!"

"Well it's true, isn't it?" she said.

He stared blankly at Akane, hurt and stunned momentarily for a minute
before responding.  "You really think I'm that kind of guy?" he asked
quietly.

"If you aren't, why did you kiss ME?!"  Her voice was shrill, demanding.
There was no pain in her eyes, just anger.

"Because, I... well..."  How could he explain?  He didn't remember, he
didn't know why he acted as he did when in the neko-ken.

"You don't remember, do you?" she sneered.

He frowned at that, beginning to get angry.  He had kissed her, so what?
Why was she so angry?  Sure, he'd been angry when that jerk Mikado had
kissed him, but he was a guy, of course being kissed by some perverted
jerk, a man, would make him furious.  Yes, he'd beaten the stuffing out
of Mikado, for holding him immobile and kissing him, yuck!, without
invitation, but he hadn't been deliberately cruel, which Akane was
being.  He'd seen the picture of his 'kiss' and it barely qualified as
being one!  He'd licked her on the lips as a cat!

He drew a deep breath, "Now listen-"

"I HATE YOU!"

Ranma froze.  "Well, I... I don't think you're cute!  At all!" he
stuttered out in retaliation.

"So now you insult me?" she whispered, suddenly calm.  Then fire sprang
back into her eyes, and Akane spat, viciously, "Coward!  And you call
yourself a man?!"

He backed up slightly, unsure how to take this.  She took advantage of
his pause and produced a bucket from somewhere, quickly splashing him
with the contents.  He stood there, dripping cold, dirty water, and
stared at her in disbelief.

"Just be a woman for the rest of your life," she screamed at him,
pulling out her mallet and swinging it at him savagely, "and go find a
real man to marry!"

The blunt weapon hit him in the chest and he felt several ribs crack as
the impact threw him into the air and away from the dojo.  The last he
saw of her before flying off into the distance was her angry glare and
cries of "I hate you!"

******

The top of the tent suddenly started to seem quite blurry, so he closed
his eyes.  Sleep must be coming soon, if even his eyes were tired, so it
would be better to rest them.

Was it his fault?  Had he always been in the wrong, for not telling
Akane about his curse at the very beginning, for not treating her
differently, carefully?  He had thought they were getting along well,
that they had become friends not only in spite of, but because of their
bickering.

Why had she left?  Did she hate the curse?  He had thought that she
didn't, that she treated him normally despite that except on the
occasions when they fought, but perhaps he was wrong.  Maybe it was his
fear of cats?  She had laughed when she found out about it, had seemed
to think it funny, but she could have been laughing at him, instead,
that he would be scared of such ordinary, 'harmless' animals.  It wasn't
until he'd kissed her that she had really seemed to care much about it,
and then it was rage and hate which she had expressed.

She'd named him a pervert, a freak, a jerk... she'd said she hated him,
called off the engagement multiple times.  Was he really that bad?

Feeling a couple drops of water slide across his cheeks, from a leak in
the tent, no doubt, he decided that there was one way to find out if
this really was his fault, if he deserved to have Akane leave him.

He would ask his mother.


She turned over in her bed, continuing to toss restlessly as she had for
the past few hours.  She was going to see Ranma tomorrow.  What do you
say to a son you've never really known, who you abandoned to a child-
abusing maniac like Genma?  Sorry just didn't seem appropriate.  She
couldn't tell him everything, that would be just about the worst thing
for her to do, but if she didn't give him a good enough explanation then
even after finding out why, he'd probably never be able to fully trust
her.

His curse, his fear of cats, his abusive fiancees and crazed,
unrelenting rivals, all the people in his life that tried to manipulate
him, force him to do as they wanted, it was all her fault.  If she
hadn't been so damnably stupid...

Noticing that her pillow was cold and wet from absorbed tears, she
flipped it over.  The other side was still damp, too, so she tossed it
aside, wiping her cheeks dry with the sleeves of her nightgown.  They
wouldn't last long either, she was sure.

Would he hate her for what she was going to do?  Would he see it as a
forced retreat, and resent her for it, or would he see it as an escape
to freedom and a chance to start over?

When she came for him after another thousand years of loneliness and
despair, would she be turned away with nothing but scorn?

Her sleepless state continued long into the night.


Setsuna woke moments before her alarm clock went off, just as usual, and
deactivated it just as it began to make the buzzing sound that heralded
the new day.  Despite a horribly low amount of sleep the night before,
she felt nervous, giddy even, and excited.  She was going to meet Ranma
today; not in his cursed form as cousin 'Ranko', but in his true form,
as her son.

Getting up quickly, she slipped into her private shower and quickly
cleaned herself off.  She was too keyed up to properly enjoy the furo
this morning, she just wanted to get dressed, to go meet her son.  A
sense of urgency filled her, and she found herself moving faster than
normal even though she knew it would be a few hours yet before she would
see him.

Out in five minutes, she went through the motions of her morning routine
automatically, without really paying attention.  She didn't need to,
she'd been doing this for so long that it was unnecessary.

A half hour after waking up she left her room, dressed, make-up on, and
hair combed out for its usual emerald shine.

Now she just had to wait for the others to leave before she could switch
to being Nodoka Saotome and really get ready.

By the time the others stumbled down the stairs she had breakfast and
tea fixed and was quietly and methodically demolishing everything on her
plate, the taste going completely unnoticed.  She was focused on
something far more important.

"Good morning, Setsuna-mama," Hotaru said, rubbing at her eyes sleepily,
her hair mussed still from being in bed.  The girl always took a while
to wake up, but she looked so sweet and innocent while sleeping that it
was impossible to admonish her for lazy behavior.

Her other two houseguests just kind of plopped down at there seats and
hunched over their plates, poking at the meal half-heartedly, obviously
not completely aware yet.  They were both dressed and ready to go to
school, just as Hotaru almost was, but they had been through the furo
and should be more awake by now.

"Late night, you two?" she asked.

Michiru said nothing.  Haruka just raised her head and smirked before
she returned to eating her breakfast.

Tilting her head back to drink the last of her tea, Setsuna finished off
her own meal and carried her dishes to the kitchen, quickly rinsing them
off and putting them on the rack to dry.  By the time she returned to
the dining room the others were almost finished eating and it was just a
few minutes before they had to leave for school.  She looked with
disapproval at Hotaru's messy hair and fetched her purse, digging
through it until she found the brush.

Hotaru looked so cute, trying to eat despite having her head jerked
around every few seconds as Setsuna tried to work out the tangles.
"Setsuna-mamaaaa," she whined, just as she did every morning.

"Oh, hush.  I'm almost done," she replied.  Haruka and Michiru were both
done eating now and were sipping at the remains of their tea as they
watched.  They always got a kick out of seeing Hotaru drop her food
repeatedly, playing up the difficulty of eating while having her hair
brushed.  Such an adorable child.

"There," she said, finished.  "You wouldn't have to put up with this
every morning if you'd just brush your hair every morning like everybody
else does, you know."

Grumbling tragically about the unfairness of it all, Hotaru scooped the
last bit of food on her plate into her mouth, then, without swallowing,
she gave Setsuna a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Hey!"

Giggling, the girl grabbed one of the bentos Setsuna had prepared
earlier and ran out the door, calling, "Bye Setsuna-mama, Michiru-mama,
Haruka-papa!" as she went.

Setsuna glared at the empty doorway as she wiped her cheek, then turned
to see her other two houseguests grinning at her.  She scowled.  "Don't
you have somewhere to be...?"

Still smiling, the couple picked up their own bentos and went to leave.

"Later, Setsuna," said Michiru.  Haruka just waved goodbye as she exited
the house behind her lover.

She waited until she heard the squeal of tires that indicated they were
gone, then she activated her disguise field, causing her to change into
one Nodoka Saotome.

Now that her houseguests were gone and no longer serving as a
distraction, her earlier nervousness and excited state returned full-
force, and she ran back up the stairs to her room to get ready.

Two hours later, and a half hour before she was to meet Ranma, she was
done.  She had on her most expensive kimono, one that suited this form
perfectly, her hair was done up in a tight bun, and her face was colored
just right with make-up.

She was going to meet her son today, and she would look her absolute
best when she did so.  Even if this wasn't her real face.

Setsuna checked herself over one last time to make sure she was really
ready, then slipped out the door, locking it behind her.


Ranma walked the streets of Juuban, looking for a phone booth.  He'd
left Ryugenzawa early that morning and arrived in Tokyo after only a few
hours of running.  Once he got here, however, he discovered a major
snag; he didn't know where his mother lived.

Spotting a sign for a gas station, he jogged on up to it and found the
usual payphone on the outside of the building.  Attached to it was a
directory for Juuban.  He flipped through the pages looking for Saotome,
either Genma or Nodoka.  There were several Saotomes listed but none
were under his parents' names.  None of the addresses looked familiar,
either, but he didn't know if that was because he'd completely forgotten
where they lived or for some other reason.

Maybe she just wasn't listed?  Knowing Pop, she was probably used to
people coming to look for her to pay off some debt or other.  So how did
he find her, then?  Ranma frowned at the phone book as he tried to
figure out what to do.

"Hello, Ranma," said an unfamiliar voice from directly behind him.

Startled, he dropped the book and whirled about, taking up a defensive
stance.

In front of him now was a red-eyed woman a couple inches taller than he
was, with long, dark green hair that stretched down to the back of her
calfs.  She had a light-purple dress-suit on, the jacket open to reveal
a white blouse underneath.  She was gorgeous.  Her face was
expressionless, but she was studying him quite openly, as if appraising
him.

Another fiancee, he was sure.  The old man was going to die.

"Who are you?  And how did you know my name?" he asked guardedly,
relaxing his guard somewhat but prepared to run away if it became
necessary.  She looked somewhat distressed at his abrupt tone and lack
of greeting, but he ignored it.  He wasn't in the mood for this.

"My name is Setsuna Meiou.  I'm here to take you to your mother.  You're
trying to find her, correct?"

What?  "How did you know I'd be here?"  And how did you know I was
looking for Mom?  Who was this chick?

She smiled again and said, vaguely, "You'll find out.  Come along."
With that, she turned and began to move away.

Ranma hesitated for a moment, put off by her behavior, then looked back
at the useless phone book again.  Damn.  He hurried to catch up, falling
into step beside her as they walked down the street.  He waited for her
to speak but she said nothing, all she did was take a step forward at a
time, her high-heeled shoes clicking regularly upon the concrete
sidewalk.  Her hair hung alongside her face, and he couldn't see it
unless he sped up slightly and was obvious about looking.

Finally he couldn't stand the silence any longer, and spoke.  "I'm not
marrying you."

At that, her step faltered and he braced himself for some kind of
assault, be it a physical attack, a barrage of deceptive girl-tears, or
declarations about how his honor required him to wed her.

Instead she just turned to face him, and smiled for the first time, her
bizarre-looking red eyes filled with amusement.  "Don't worry," she
said, "I'm not one of your fiancees."  Her smile faded and he was left
seeing nothing but a blank mast again.  "And I'm already married."

Surprised, he said nothing.  If she wasn't a fiancee, who was she, and
how did she know his mother?  He decided to ask.

"How do you know my mom?"

"That's kind of hard to explain.  You'll find out when we get to her
house."  She hesitated briefly.  "Why are you going to see her?  I know
you've never visited her before.  She's...spoken to me about it."

"It's... kind of private."  He frowned.  "Are you going to be at my
mom's after showing me where she lives?"

"No...?  Not really..."

"Good.  I'd like to talk to her alone."


Outside she was calm, but inside she was having a nervous breakdown.
She still didn't know what to say, what to do.  She wanted to grab him
in a hug and not let go, to take him away from that horrid man who
called himself Ranma's father as well as all the craziness that plagued
his life.  There were so many questions she wanted to ask him, about
what he liked, what he disliked, what his interests were besides the
obvious one, what he thought of his fiancees, of his 'father', of all
the 'friends' he had...

Most of all, she wanted to know what he would think of her, once she
figured out how to tell him who she really was, and with that, who he
was.

#####

Heh.  I wrote the first scene of this, with Shinnosuke, a little over a year
ago now.  It was originally going to be in a completely different fic, but I
ended not writing that and the scene was forgotten until I came up with this
idea.  The rest was written around August or September, after I figured out
how to use it here.  Somewhere around then, anyway.

I'm posting it now because I've decided to completely change the approach for
this story.  It really doesn't work as it is.  The story itself isn't going to
change, but it will be entirely from the view of Nodoka/Setsuna instead of
switching back and forth between her and Ranma.

So... if you want to comment on this, feel free to, but keep that in mind.
It'd really be a waste to point out misspellings or errors in the scenes from
Ranma's POV, because they're going to go away.  If you have general comments
about what happens in the scenes, please email them to me, but don't waste
your time with the small technicalities.  Unless you really, really want to.
:)

The Nodoka/Setsuna scenes will probably be reused within the framework that I
will be writing to enable myself to write this thing from her POV.  Doing that
shouldn't be a problem, so if you want to point out actual errors there, feel
free to.  Other comments are welcome as well, whether it's just questions
about what's going on, which I may or may not answer, depending on what the
question is, anything regarding how cute Hotaru is (she really is cute :) ),
or anything you want to say at all.  Whatever.  :)

I'm not currently working on this, though, so don't expect the rewrite soon.
Still working at Gensou Rakuen (my Ranma/Noir cross) and don't plan to get to
anything else for some time yet.

Anyway, that's all!  Let me know what you think.  :)


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