AUTHOR'S FOREWORD: This is the second draft of this fic. While I have done a little re-writing, I am posting this chiefly to accompany the revised and expanded version of the follow-up fic, "The P-chan Letters".
This takes place a few months after the end of the manga.
DISCLAIMER: The characters in the following work of fiction are owned by their creator, Rumiko Takahashi, and were used here without permission. This fic may not be used for profit of any kind.
FINDING
by Elin B
"A sea of hatred," he had said to himself, as he crossed a parking lot in Niigata. "Yes. That's what it feels like."
He rubbed his bleary eyes, made a note of the phrase in his head and walked on. This was four days before the meeting.
Ryoga Hibiki could never determine if the dreams which had begun to plague him that summer had a natural origin or not. After all, when magic is an inescapable part of your life, you can't just rule out a supernatural explanation. But he had no real grounds to suspect that, either. All he knew was that he had never had dreams like that before.
Perhaps he had unwittingly angered a restless spirit, trespassing on haunted ground somewhere in his travels. Or perhaps they simply came from a dark place within him, through a door that had not been opened until now.
But why now, though? He had made his choice at last, given up on the goal and hope that had inspired him and sustained him for so long. That was over. There was a loss there, but it did feel like the right thing to do, finally. There was relief, too, as the comfort of a straighter path mingled with a certain amount of emptiness. In any case, things were supposed to be easier now.
And then, around midsummer, he had the first of these strange new nightmares. Ryoga couldn't understand it.
He had to talk to someone, finally, and there was really only one he could turn to. So he wrote her and asked to meet her in a week in this park.
And here they were, now, strolling on the lanes at a slow pace, having found no benches where they could sit in private.
Akari had looked at him closely, and then she asked him how he was, and if he was sleeping enough. That was all the cue Ryoga needed to start talking about the bad dreams. As he groped for words that could describe them properly - so she wouldn't think he was making a big fuss over nothing - some of the images rose in his mind again.
A sea of hatred, that's what it felt like...
The one where Akane, having learned about his curse, constructed a cruel and clever punishment, one she felt would teach him a lesson... only the shame grew far too large for him to bear. He had to give up his own self, abandon his name, become someone else...losing everything...
The one where both Akari and Akane walked away from him, leaving him there on the ground, their eyes and voices boring into him still with the sheer weight of their contempt, leaving him no way out at all. The future painted itself before him, hard and bleak and short...
The one where he made himself break up with Akari, for her own good, before she could be hurt worse, tearing down himself so he would not feel any more guilt, and then left for the road...
The ones where he hurt Akane badly, sometimes even killing her...
The one where he killed Ranma and was glad, although he did not wish to be: he was trapped in a horrible, destructive joy with no way out that he could see...
...there were so many of these dreams, and they did not fade, they stayed with him. He could not push them safely away to a hidden corner in his mind. Even during the day, dark thoughts filled his head as he tried going through the latest dreams: could he have done that, instead? or this? would that have helped? Sometimes, he came up with another way he could have acted, but usually not. The dreams were much more realistic and consistent than they had a right to be.
He tried to convey all this to Akari, to explain a little about what the dreams felt like. Perhaps he wanted to make her help him reach the decision he was groping for.
She had listened to him attentively. They had stopped on a bridge, and she rested her hand on the rail, but did not look down on the water below. It must have rained quite a lot the night before, for the brook ran very briskly for an August day .
Akari's face had filled with sympathy as he spoke, but she had also frowned.
"What's all this about Akane?" she asked him.
"I, um, I used to be in love with her," he mumbled. He heard her gasp.
"She kissed me, once, and I fell in love with her," he said, kicking at a pebble on the ground. "Only, she didn't know it was me..."
Once he'd begun like that, it was not half as hard as he had thought. He did not have to be impossibly courageous and self-denying: he just had to tell her what happened, one sentence at a time.
He had a feeling that for the past few days, as he was moving towards the meeting-place in this park, he was also trying to find something else. Perhaps it was this conversation he had been trying to find, to see its shape and course before it took place. And even more so, the other conversation that still waited in the future, not yet real and factual and yet so powerful in its uncertainty.
So he leaned on the rail and stared down at the rushing brook, as the words fell out of him like pebbles thrown into the water. Did he have to tell her all of it, that too, and this part? he wondered as he spoke. No - he swerved away from them: he could speak of those later. If there would be a later, with Akari. Stick to what was necessary, he told himself. Explain about the truth and the dreams.
"...so, what I think now," he finished, "is that if I told her, told her my secret by itself, well, maybe that will make one of the nightmares come true, but not all of them. Maybe that will help things."
Then he stopped, and turned to Akari.
Her eyes scared him. He almost took a step back - was that tears? - but it was too late. She was already hugging him.
"Oh, how lonely you must have been!" she cried out.
The next moment, however, she stepped back and slapped him.
"You idiot!" she said forcefully. "What did you go and do something like that for?"
Ryoga began to stammer an incoherent answer.
"Wait," said Akari, suddenly blushing. She held up her hand as if to ward him off. "I didn't do that in the right order, did I?"
Ryoga stared at her, finding nothing to say. Well, he thought suddenly, now it's her turn to shape this talk. I've handed the tools over to her now.
"Don't you see what this means?" she exclaimed. She jabbed a finger into his breast, then boxed him on the shoulder. "She doesn't love you! She won't forgive you! I would have forgiven you!"
She clutched her right hand with the left, holding it tightly: both arms were trembling.
"And now you're not mine," she finished sadly. "You're not mine."
Oh no, thought Ryoga. This is where I have to say something, something deep and important. But the words were gone, the pebbles were gone, there were only the sunlight and the trees and the sound of running water. And, now and again, strangers passing by, forcing the two of them to pause in their talk. Perhaps they should go somewhere more quiet, but he could not summon the strength to do that.
She looks beautiful, he thought suddenly. She had always looked quite pretty, even lovely, but he could not recall her ever looking this beautiful.
(He would wonder about this, later. This was the first time she had been angry with him, and was not anger supposed to make you look ugly? But perhaps it also made you more real...)
He thought he could feel one or two more words com back into his mouth again, as he stood there only looking at her, not noticing the passers-by.
"Akari," he started - this was the easiest of the pebbles - "Akane and I, we're not..." He faltered, and tried again. "I mean, even if there was a chance, we're not...I don't think we could have been a couple."
This somehow still hurt to say, though it was not supposed to. He took a deep breath. The right words were somewhere out there, weren't they? He only had to find them and reel them in. "It's true that I wanted that, I dreamed about it. But now..." And how truly odd this felt, saying things like this out loud, as if Akari was a figment of his mind and not an actual person of the flesh, standing there. He went on.
"...I don't think I would know how to be her boyfriend. I didn't know how to go about it. I knew how to worship her from afar, and that was it."
Akari had stopped trembling. She held her whole body very stiff.
"How can you love two people at once?" she asked. "If that is how you feel about me..." She crossed her arms and turned away from him, her back looking tense and angry.
There had been dreams where he killed her. Not by intention, never that, but through careless physical strength or by mindless depression which tore them both down. Perhaps a true hero would walk away from her now, at this point.
But that thought tasted like a nightmare in itself. He kicked it aside.
"If I can be with you, then I want to," he mumbled at last.
She turned and looked at him again, her gaze softer, now.
"It must be more than just honour," she said. "Those nightmares wouldn't be so bad, if you didn't still love her."
Ryoga scratched the back of his head. Then he tried to tell Akari how he felt: that Akane had saved him once, letting him feel love and tenderness back when revenge for his curse had been his main goal in life. He owed Akane for that, for opening his heart up again.
That was when Akari hugged him for the second time. This time she did not let go as quickly.
"Even so," she mumbled, "even so..." Then she wiped her eyes. "Well, I guess there's nothing I can do about that, anyway," she said.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"No, tell me," begged Ryoga.
"It doesn't matter, does it?" Akari's voice sounded strained now, as she looked up at him. "Even if I don't know if you'll fall for her again once you get there..."
"But I won't..."
"I've still got to let you go."
"I've made up my mind for good. And besides..."
"Because you still belong to her, after all," she whispered.
"...that's the only way to get rid of the nightmares," mumbled Ryoga.
They looked at one another.
"Good luck," she whispered.
But she looks afraid, he thought. She looks far too afraid.
The revised follow-up, "The P-Chan Letters", will be posted here shortly. I will provide a link to it in the review section of this fic.
The first draft of a third piece (titled "Someday, Maybe") will most probably be posted within the next few days.
Thanks to all who commented on the first draft of this piece. As always, suggestions for improvement and other comments are much appreciated, and don't be afraid to be critical.