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Preliminary notes: What if…?, Spoiler. Places and characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi.
The story you're going to read refers back to the final chapter of the manga, so it would be recommendable a view on it by those who only know the anime (and a more general knowledge of the Saffron's saga).
I'm very grateful to my beta Tiger eyes for the corrections, the advices, the helpfulness. And for this English version of the story I am to Bebbe5, who masterfully translated it from Italian. Thanks to them as well, I can now wish you to enjoy the read as usual!
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Forse perché della fatal quïete
Tu sei l'imago a me sì cara vieni
O sera!
"Alla sera"
Ugo Foscolo
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Perhaps because you are the image
Of the silence of the grave, I cherish when you come to me
O Evening!
"Nightfall"
Ugo Foscolo
(Translation by John Hobbins)
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Chapter 1:
"When you daydream"
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She wasn't breathing.
Ranma tried to push that atrocious thought away from him like it was an imaginary enemy. But even defeating Saffron had been easier, he had to admit, as the idea came back to torment him with even more assiduity, relying on the fact that it corresponded to a real data.
Akane wasn't breathing.
"All this just because you had tried to save me…"
He saw her one more time. Her, turning the Kinjakan, stopping the water of the Jusendo spring and preventing the filaments of the phoenix-prince from extending more.
"… but it was none of your business."
He saw his fiancé vanishing once more from his view, again he saw her clothes suddenly starting to flutter in the air just to finally end in his arms.
Then nothing more. Darkness had swallowed him in its jaws.
In an istant, everything was over.
"Akane, you fool…"
He abruptly stopped. Then, without thinking too much about it, he landed a violent fist on his own self. He had deserved it, and she couldn't have landed it on him
(she won't be able to land it on him anymore)
in his place.
"No, I'm sorry…"
Ranma took a deep breath.
"As a matter of fact, what I wanted to tell you is… thank you."
And he kept on talking to her.
He convinced himself that those words wouldn't have been thrown to the wind, because she would've listened to him. Because it couldn't really be all over.
"I'm sorry… I'm not good at this stuff. I can never be sincere, so I just end up insulting you and getting you mad…"
He was doing it. For the first time, he was opening his heart to her, revealing her the thoughts he had never been able to remove from the prison of his own pride and his own shyness. That's why… that's why, now, she could not do him the wrong of not listening to him… could she?
"Wake up, Akane… there's something I want to tell you… you can hear me, can't you?"
Surely it was like this. Of course she could hear him
(she won't be able to hear him anymore).
She had to listen to him.
I want to tell you that I love you!
But…
(Never again.)
Things were different.
(Never again.)
She wouldn't have been able to do it again.
(neveragainneveragainneveragainneveragain…)
"AKANEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
She would never answer him.
Because everything was over for real.
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He opened his eyes. A darkness deeper than the one of his own shut eyelids enveloped him. Little by little his view got used to its surroundings. He concluded that the unreal quietness in which he had sunk meant that dawn was yet to come, that the others tenants of the house were still dominated by the torpor of a motionless sleep. Maybe a 'refreshing' one, he absent-mindedly thought recalling the commonplace, but mostly motionless.
Silence. No sign of life. The new day was still dead, so his protagonists seemed to be as well. He himself must have been that way, even if only for a few minutes. On the other hand, lately, he had lost the will to sleep. Also because, those few times he gave way to weariness, he had that dream again. And he would have preferred to stay eternally awake instead.
Dreams are weird. Premonitory hints of what is going to be, they believed since the dim and distant past. The mirror of the soul, they say nowadays. The reflection of your own fears. Or of forbidden desires. Or also, far more easily, memories, even if distorted by your emotions.
Which one was his specific case, was plain to him. Sure, he didn't understand much about psychoanalysis or headshrinker's stuff like that, he, but he sensed that in the end there wasn't much to understand.
Plainly, he hated to repeat that dream. He mostly hated the moment of the awakening. And even more, the moment when his awareness completely recovered and came back to distinguish imagination from reality. The confusion provoked by the end of the sleeping lasted many, too many seconds, and this made separating the one from the other harder. The dark of the night, in this context, surely didn't help.
So why he didn't escape that? Getting up, turning on the light: these actions would've established an efficient method for shaking himself from the ghosts who haunted his darkness.
He had remained in the same spot instead, enveloped by the shadows at the base of the stairs, keeping the almost fetal position he had assumed during his sleep. He felt something inside of him which pushed him not to move, which encouraged him to insist on keeping his position, the nape of the neck on the arm pressed on the second step, despite the aching muscles which, having woken up, were asking for respite in vain.
He wouldn't have moved. He was waiting for something. He was listening intently, as if he wanted to challenge the silence which was dominating his surroundings and to catch even the slightest noise which the night would've unintentionally let out. It was, truly, during moments like that one that he waited with more conviction: maybe because of his instinct, maybe because he was confused by his drowsiness.
The others wouldn't have understood. He couldn't explain. He could only wait. That something would've come. He would've been ready.
And finally it happened.
He won his challenge.
As always.
As almost always.
First he heard a dull noise. Some more instants of silence. Then one and more steps making their way from upstairs.
Nevertheless, Ranma didn't move from his position yet. He had been holding his breath for a fraction of second, before he understood that those noises weren't what he wanted to hear. Really not even he knew what he was waiting for. He was sure, though, that it wasn't this. And nothing else that wasn't what he expected, for him, was of much importance anymore.
As if by inertia, nevertheless, his hearing kept on doing his work… Silence again. Some other dull noises. Steps. The planks of the corridor's floor upstairs which were creaking. Nothing again.
Why getting worried? All the members of the Tendo family, let alone his parents, have been in their rooms for several hours, but maybe now someone had woken up, just like him. Maybe Kasumi, or more probably Nabiki, had got up to get a glass of water.
What else?
But… if things were this way, why Nabiki – or Kasumi took so long to get downstairs, meet him and heading towards the kitchen? Why were those steps so fearful instead? Why had they stopped, as if the person who was guiding them was somehow hesitating? Besides, those weren't Nabiki's steps. Nor Kasumi's. Not controlled enough, not enough placid: too much impetuous, for belonging to one of the two girls.
His father, then? It was useless to imagine it, he knew very well that things weren't like that as well. His mind made him unexpectedly wander, for some seconds, in the most secluded meanders of his own fantasy. And he saw in his head that those steps belonged to a stranger, sneaked furtively into Tendo's house, who knows, through a not-well-closed window for example, looking for something valuable.
But still…
Those steps were so familiar to him.
If only…
But it couldn't be what he was picturing.
He had to shake himself up. The 'stranger' hypothesis was incredibly plausible. So? For how longer then would he have remained inactive? Those steps had, from an exclusively rational point of view, their importance, even if they couldn't correspond to his absurd hopes. Because he had woken up, hadn't he? And imagination had to make room for reality.
Reality was more dangerous. It could have been a cheap petty thief, unaware of being in a house populated by martial arts' fighters. But it could also have been some criminal or maniac.
He had to shake himself up, before something bad
(again)
happened.
Ranma finally raised to his feet. He was ready to greet the unfortunate one who had dared to violate those sacred domestic walls. After all, he couldn't avoid such a duty: he was a martial arts' fighter as well. He still was despite the fact that he had abandoned the trainings the day of his return.
He furtively walked up the stairs, being careful not to make the steps creak. When he got to the top, the noises of before had stopped for several seconds, but in the darkness of the corridor in the end, which gave access to the bedrooms of the Tendo's sisters, Ranma clearly felt the presence of a stranger. The most important thing, the stranger still hadn't felt his presence.
That was the right moment. Now or never. Ranma sprang on, cancelling in a few instants the distance which separated him from the other.
You're mine!
The figure in the shadow – not Kasumi nor Nabiki, undoubtedly – stiffened and made as if to react, as if scared. Too late. Ranma easily dodged the blow and grabbed the arm of that incautious. He just needed to unwind what he have been harbouring for too much time: he had to give vent and, finally, that thief had undoubtedly chosen the less happy night to – his thought stopped abruptly.
That… that shape! And that wrist, far more thin than his own.
("I never realised… her hand is so small!")
It couldn't be true. Ranma couldn't be awake. He was still dreaming! Surely it had to be like that! But still… he had to know! He turned to look at her face, but the guy had taken advantage of that moment of distraction in order to escape from his grip and step over him.
"No! Stop!", thundered Ranma, who was in a cold sweat. The figure quickly vanished, in the opposite direction to the one he had come from.
"Stop, I said! You can't run away anywhere!"
As a matter of fact, that who should have been a common thief was basically trapped. He walked down the corridor with a bit of advantage, but Ranma was chasing him, by then sure that he would've been able to catch him. It was not long before the stairs that, unexpectedly, the figure slipped through the door of the guestroom.
Never mind, Ranma thought. He also reached the sliding door and violently threw it open, panting for the run and the excitement. Now he would've known.
Breathlessness he searched the switch, the hand trembling nervous. When finally he found it, what he saw surprised him a great deal.
Surprised eyes. Inquisitive eyes.
Accusing eyes.
The eyes of his dad, who was calmly sipping a drink from a thermos, but who was at the same time looking at him with a severity which inspired some respect: a consideration that plainly he wasn't used to give him.
The eyes of Ucchan, who was staring at him scared, completely enveloped and firmly clenching her own blanket.
The eyes of his mother, who slowly emerged from her own bed with a more pained than surprised look.
And that's it. In the small room there was no one else.
"Ranma… what happened?", Nodoka asked, with plain anxiety.
"We want an explanation", Genma grumbled gravely, not taking that hateful look from him not even for a second. "Is it possible to know what's up in your mind, to wake us up with all that din this late at night?"
"I… I…", Ranma murmured, lost and not stopping looking around himself. Could it be that they hadn't noticed?
"You what? Speak!", the father replied.
"I was chasing her… I saw her going in… Why the hell didn't you stop her?!"
Ukyo stared at him upset.
"Ran-chan… who we should have stopped?"
Genma seemed to barely hold back a quiver of anger.
"Nobody has come in here. Don't you see?"
Right, so it seemed. Everything pointed at that. Had he dreamed for real? Wasn't he able to tell reality from dream yet? But still… no, Ranma could swear that he had seen her! He had grabbed her wrist! She was there, she was real. It wasn't a fruit of her imagination.
"All this is absurd! Absurd!", he cried, giving vent to all his frustration. "You're surely lying! She can't have disappeared in the thin air!"
"Who, Ranma? Who did you see come in here?", his father cried with even more vehemence.
The boy hesistated for a moment.
He took his courage.
And finally gave voice to his thoughts.
"I've seen her coming in… Akane."
Ukyo started. Nodoka seemed on the verge of tears. Genma seemed, on the other hand, calming down.
The rest of the Tendo family had, in the meantime, gathered around Ranma.
"What's happening?", Soun asked for everyone.
Not Ukyo not even Nodoka managed to answer.
It was Genma who got up to his feet and faced his friend. "Ranma said he has seen… Akane… coming in this room", he murmured, with a now hoarse voice which, at the same time, was also calm and steady.
Not one of the Tendos commented that statement. They merely stared at the teenage with the pigtail. No accusing eyes, this time. In their looks none could've read blame, quite the contrary. On the other hand… was it a sensation of his or… they all seemed to pity him? And that would've been far more unbearable.
"Stop looking at me like that! I tell you it was her!"
Kasumi noticed that her father was trembling and hurried to take his hand.
"Now stop it, Ranma! You know that Akane hasn't moved from her room!", Nabiki burst out, with a harsh tone.
Suddenly Genma roused himself, grabbed his son by his shirt collar and dragged him in the corridor.
"What are you doing?!", the teenage Saotome protested.
"Now you're coming with me", the old Saotome enjoined, "to see Akane."
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On the door towered, as usual, the shape of a small duck with her name carved in occidental characters on it. Genma turned the handle without many regards and, as the door opened, the sign dangerously wobbled.
The parent turned on the light. "Forgive me, but I'm doing it for you! Here… look, look with your eyes!", he said in just a whisper.
Ranma looked inside. So he had truly dreamed? Imagination and reality had really crossed, just for him, the mutual border?
Akane had never moved. Akane was still lying on her bed. The eyelids lowered in a peaceful expression, she was the only person who hadn't woken up in all that noise.
Nor she would've been able anymore.
So it was true.
Dream was dream and reality was unchangeable.
The lifeless body of Akane Tendo had never left its place.
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End of Chapter One
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