Without You
By Medina
*Characters property of Rumiko Takahashi. Duuuh.
Chapter 1
"Eh? What's this?" he asked, looking at the letter-sized paper that Akane had so suddenly thrust into his view upon the fence-railing where he usually walked on their way home from school. He snatched it from her grasp when he noticed that she was keeping her face, stern, turned away so that they would not meet gazes. "'Furinkan High School Senior Ball,'" he read aloud, still keeping his uncanny sense of balance while reading the the paper intently and studying the picture of a man and woman dressed in fine attire surrounded by stars on a moonlit walk that was a center eye-catcher on the flier as well as the logo for the theme: " 'Together, Forever... Come and experience the night that you will remember for the rest of your life'." He paused and glanced at Akane again, who was still somehow keeping her view engaged elsewhere. "Senior Ball's comin' up already? I'd better keep my guard; word of this is bound to end up in Shampoo's or Kodachi's hands," he put his arms up in back of his head and walked for a while, looking up, waiting for Akane to comment. The sun shone down on the Nerima rooftops, in their red tiling and brown shingles; laundry rustled in the breeze, a bird fluttered, singing, to a lofty nest. Akane still walked, silent.
"Well?" Ranma finally broke the silence, peering down
at her, bored of the interlude.
" 'Well' what?" Akane finally said, still not looking
at the handsome young martial artist. He hopped down from the
fence and walked beside her.
"Aren't you going to ask me if I want to go? You know, a
macho chick like you would do the asking, not the guy,"
he said, smiling impishly to add to his dig.
"Why would I ask YOU?" she said, finally turning to
him, staring daggers through his head, her face red for more reason
than anger, "You didn't look at the whole thing," she
pointed to the bottom, which said, 'Martial Swing-Dancing Competition!
Winning pair to be crowned King and Queen of the Senior Ball!
(Couples Only!).'
"Uh," he looked at it blankly, "you want me to
dance with you? Hahaha!" mouth open wide, nearly crying,
he laughed. "After all, who would lead? Hahaha!!" Akane's
head steamed, her hair stood on end, and with a swift backhand
left a stinging reminder to Ranma upon his right cheek that he
should be more tactful.
"WHY would I want to dance with an idiot-pervert who cross-dresses?!?
I was just showing it to you in case you were interested ON YOUR
OWN! You think that I want to have anything to do with you after
everything that's happened? A wedding fiasco... I'm surprised
I even walk to school with you anymore!!" Akane yelled into
the young man's face, who was now as heated and indignant as she,
although Akane was nearly in tears.
"That's a damn low blow! It's because of my STUPID pop, your
dad, and that perverted old man...!" his rebuttal was halted
by a soft, high keen that pierced the air of the area, making
both his and Akane's hair stand on end. Broken out of their quarrel,
the two of them looked around, realizing that in their heated
discourse, had walked down a different street and had ended up
in an unfamiliar part of town. The houses were less kept than
the ones around their school and the Tendo Dojo, and much older.
Large trees stood like menacing giants, hiding a dilapidated abandoned
shrine.
"Great, now you got us lost, idiot," Akane quipped,
bopping him on the shoulder. He turned to her, frazzled.
"I'm not Ryoga! I can figure out where we are..." he
took a moment to look about them again; "yeah, I know where
we are now," he mused, "this is the oldest part of Nerima;
not too many people live on this side anymore -- at least, if
they can help it," they both took in the depressing sight.
"Then... let's go--" again, the strange howling noise
sounded from one of the houses nearby. "W-what was that?"
Akane asked, trying her best not to look scared in front of Ranma
-- no matter how much she actually felt so. They paused to listen
again; it was coming from the direction of the abandoned shrine.
"I'm going to check it out -- maybe it's an injured person?"
the young woman said, bounding impulsively off towards the imposing
old building, leaving Ranma on the sidewalk. "I'm not
scared... I'm not!" She neared the archway, where a sleek
raven sat, cawing a warning at her; she hesitated there.
"Turn baaaack..."
"AGGGGH!!!!" Akane yelped and jumped up, whacking the
low voice behind her with her mallet.
"M-macho... chick..." Ranma groaned, the mallet leaving
a lump on his head, his hands up and twitching in a defeated pose.
"D-d-don't DO that, BAKA!!" hiding her mallet, she turned
back to the shrine, determined to gain the courage to face the
shrine, undaunted. Ranma, rubbing his poor, injured head, stood
beside her.
"You know, whenever there are abandoned shrines, they have
to be haunted," he said sternly. Akane looked up at him,
wide-eyed, as he rested his stare upon the old building at the
end of a dirt walk. "Why else would they abandon a shrine?
Monks have more respect for holy places; only if the place becomes
cursed would devout priests leave their shrines. It must be the
sound of a restless spirit."
Akane noted Ranma's uncharacteristic sobriety, and looked on the
shabby shrine with a knot in her stomach: Ghosts??
"You... don't think -- is it??" she stuttered to him,
turning around.
"Of course not," he said flatly, and Akane fell flat
as well. "Only fools n' kids believe in ghosts!"
Leaping to her feet, growling inwardly, Akane stared down the
shrine, her newest adversary in battle: she must conquer this
-- or be laughed at by Ranma for weeks!
"I'm not going to let him make a fool out of me!"
Akane thought as she took another step towards the structure.
Ranma, still in his serious, arms-crossed pose, took a moment
to notice her advance towards the mysterious old place. Somewhat
startled by this, he leapt in front of her.
"Wait wait -- you're not actually GOING there now, are you?"
he said, with a smile to show that he had been merely joking earlier.
Akane, face flushed, forced her eyes off of the shrine before
her to face him, trying with all of her heart and mind to remain
stoic against her feelings of trepidation and embarrassment.
"What, are YOU scared?" she spat sharply, forcing herself
to take on a look of ice at the face which she had so many times
been unable to stay calm towards. Ranma froze for a second, and
frowned.
"Why the heck would I be afraid? (Unless there's a cat...)"
he reasoned unconvincingly with her, "what I meant was that
it's late, and I'm hungry; Kasumi said she was making sukiyaki
tonight too! Now, Akane, be a good girl for once and go home nicely--"
he had closed his eyes for a moment in an attempt to seem more
reasonable, and in doing so let Akane walk away from him again
without noticing. When he finally did look up, his head turning
back and forth to find her, he saw that she had already walked
halfway to the shrine. He groaned, and scurried after her, stopping
in front of her again. "Akane! Come on! Why can't you just
be a typical girl and not some jock with something to prove?"
Without saying anything, Akane slapped him across the face, and
down into the remnants of one of the shrine's ponds. However a
remnant it was, it still had water in it, and when he emerged,
he was a she, with her typical large bust and bright red hair.
"Pfff..." she began, getting the stagnant water out
of her mouth, "what was that for?"
"Dummy, if you want a "typical girl" I'm SURE that
you can satisfy yourself. Go home if you want -- I don't care;
just leave me alone!" she stormed off further, leaving the
female Ranma by herself, wringing out her soaked clothes.
"Fine, you go in there, and I'll eat your sukiyaki! Bah...
women," she muttered, and began walking back to the street.
* * * *
"Idiot -- I know that he's really afraid, but I'll prove
that I'm braver than him. Using food as an excuse..."
she paused in her thought when her stomach made a loud gurgling
noise, and she felt the want for food in her belly. "But
sukiyaki does sound good right now... Damnit, Ranma, if only you
weren't such an ass! No, I must take on this challenge! Forward!"
she shouted aloud, taking a strong forward step into the threshold
of the open doorway -- only to hear the whining again, coming
from within, which startled her back out of the door.
"Ok... it's just a noise; remember, there's no such thing
as ghosts..." she chanted to herself, but all the while
stories of ghosts, demons and other ilk engulfed her mind, seeing
the faces of horrible creatures and imagining her own demise.
As she made her way, slowly, into the shrine and through the halls,
the noise became louder as it led to the center of the building.
The floor creaked constantly, at every step; the walls were dirty,
and some were on the verge of collapse, while the once-beautful
paper screening that looked out into the back garden were in tattered
shreds. Cobwebs, mice and other forms of debris and animal life
were evident in the old place, and the garden looked like a young
forest of unkempt grass and shrubs.
Finally, she found herself inside the innermost hall of the shrine,
where an altar with the charred remains of a long-since dead fire
lay in a heap beneath a clogged chimney opening. It was dark;
she could barely see where she was going, but the noise was at
its loudest.
"Where is this coming from?" Akane said to herself,
looking about the room in almost a panic, her heart racing inside
her chest. The floor creaked loudly beneath her; before she could
react, the dry wooden planks broke and she fell, but caught the
floor with one of her hands. Her body engulfed in a cold sweat,
Akane tried to grasp something with her other hand, but to no
avail; her other hand slipped off, and she fell down to the floor
below her.
She landed well, fortunately, on her feet, atop some of the debris.
It was completely dark where she had landed, and the only thing
she could see was the dull illumination coming from the hole she
had fallen through. The noise was there. She heard it behind her,
creeping up with an inhuman stealth and movement; she turned,
and before her were two glinting eyes.
"AGGGH!!!"
* * * *
"If that dope wants to go into that rickety old shrine,
then let her; I'm not gonna waste my time following around some
uncute tomboy just to make sure she doesn't get in trouble,"
Ranma mused as he stopped and borrowed a kettle of water from
a restaurant that was down the street from the shrine that Akane
had went off into. He hoisted his school bag over his shoulder,
having returned to male form, and began to trod down the street
back into the Nerima he knew.
"We could've avoided this problem if she had just asked
me the right way to the Senior Ball..." he went on in
his head as he passed the old houses and low-end businesses, "--
which isn't saying that I woulda' gone with her! On the other
hand, did she really want to go with me at all...?" Right
at the moment he thought this, he overheard a conversation at
a sake bar that he was walking next to:
"Yeah, he came by wondering where this "Tendo Dojo"
was, and I told him, 'you're on the wrong side of Nerima for that!'
and I pointed North," one man said loudly.
"I saw that, the guy with a yellow bandana and an umbrella?"
the barkeep said.
"Exactly. But after he thanked me, he went exactly the OPPOSITE
direction to where I pointed! What kind of moron can't even follow
a simple one way direction--?"
"RYOGA!?" Ranma yelled, startling the sake drinker and
the barkeep together. "If that retard is heading away
from the Dojo, then he might just end up.... at that old shrine....
with Akane!!!" he continued in his head, nearly falling
to his knees in dramatics, the two men at the bar looking at the
martial artist as if he were a lunatic.
"If he finds her..." in his mind's eye Ranma
pictured Akane and Ryoga sharing in a heated battle against some
ancient Oni, Akane running to him passionately afterwards declaring,
'Oh Ryoga, what ever would I have done without you!'
"And then..." he pictured the shrine, with the
Oni defeated, returned to an idyllic state of old Japan's beauty,
with pink cherry blossoms wreathing the perimeter, and little
birds singing happily, with Akane and Ryoga sharing a bountiful
picnic of sukiyaki. 'Ryoga, it was really you I wanted to take
to the Senior Ball! I only showed Ranma that flier to get him
to go with someone else!' Akane tells him joyfully.
"But worst of all..." he saw them laughing and
running through a field together, Akane saying, 'Ranma was too
afraid to come and see what the noise was, afraid of the ghosts,
but I wasn't, and neither were you, Ryoga! We must tell the world
that Ranma Saotome is afraid of old spooky shrines!!' They laughed
some more, but this time joined by all of Ranma's friends and
enemies, all guffawing to the point of tears that Ranma was afraid
of ghosts and that Akane was braver than he!
"NOOOOO! NEVER!" a determined Ranma declared, immediately
sprinting back to the shrine where Akane lay. The men and other
people on the street tried to ignore the strange shouting man
that came running through their normally quiet streets.
* * * *
He could see the ramshackle rooftop of the shrine from down the
street, still in a dash, when he saw whom he had feared would
end up there: Ryoga Hibiki, looking as lost as ever, shuffling
down the sidewalk looking around nervously for the Tendo Dojo
which was nowhere to be found on that side of town.
"At least he made it to this side of the country..."
Ranma mentioned to himself as he watched the perpetually lost
young man keep heading towards Ranma's destination. "If he
gets there before me, there's sure to be trouble, but if I run
in front of him, there will be just as much, if not more. Hmm..."
seeing a consecutive row of rooftops leading to the back garden/jungle
of the place, he made a quick leap and began to hop from roof
to roof, and finally landing on the shrine property, just as Ryoga
stood at the gate of the place.
"C'mon, you dope, move along; this isn't the Dojo!"
Ranma spat in whisper, watching Ryoga size up the building from
a hiding place among the overgrown grass and weeds.
"Is this it?" Ryoga asked himself, scratching himself
on the head, "it looks like the Tendos haven't been keeping
up the place since I last visited. In that case, I shall go to
them and offer my assistance in the repairs!" he cried, valiantly,
and strode onto the dirt path to the door. Ranma fell flat on
his face.
"Idiot..."
"AGGGH!!" a female cry rang out from inside the shrine,
alerting both Ranma and Ryoga.
"Akane-!" Ranma cried, an image of her being carried
away to a dark world by an evil spirit flashed through his mind,
"I knew I shouldn't have left her here alone!"
"A scream -- that sounded like Akane!" Ryoga said, and
took to running towards the shrine, "Saotome is probably
responsible for--"
*THUNK*
Face to face, Ranma and Ryoga met; the two of them had run straight
into the other, making a sort-of Ranma-Ryoga sandwich. They fell
to the ground after a few seconds, parted, and once Ryoga gained
his bearings, realized that he had run into the man he most wanted
to hurt at that moment.
"RANMA! What did you do to Akane!?" he bellowed, bashing
Ranma, who was still on the ground, in the stomach, knocking the
wind out of him.
"Stupid... pig!" Ranma sputtered, as he tried to get
back up, glaring at Ryoga. "What exactly makes you think
that I'd do something to her? You're the pervert who sleeps in
her bed!" Ranma stuck his tongue out at the fanged man, who
then swung his weighted umbrella at Ranma's head, to which he
easily dodged, and in the same motion, tripped Ryoga down onto
his face.
"Listen, bacon breath, I don't have time to play right now;
Akane might be in trouble, and I don't need your 'help', so butt
out!" Ranma told Ryoga, tauntingly yet serious. Leaving his
adversary on the floor, he walked into the shrine, examining it
as carefully as he could, keeping all of his highly-honed skills
of perception tuned to any signs of danger that might sneak upon
him in this place. He almost felt silly fearing that some sort
of monster resided in this old shrine -- but, at the same time,
he had seen some incredibly strange things in his travels and
travails over the past few years, so it wouldn't be a complete
surprise if there was something malevolent keeping home there.
He looked behind him; Ryoga had not followed. "Maybe he's
gotten it through his head no one wants him around here. I don't
see why he keeps chasing Akane -- he has Akari, and she KNOWS
about his pig problem. He shouldn't pass that up," Ranma
thought, right before he heard someone running atop the roof.
"Nevermind... he's looking still," Ranma shook
his head and kept going.
The halls kept on winding, and it kept on getting darker and darker,
and for some reason, Ranma kept feeling a strange twinge of...
fear.
"What's wrong with me? I have no reason to be afraid...
unless there's a cat... but the dark? It's something else, something...
something I can't quite put my finger on," he said to
himself as he neared the innermost hall, from which shone a small
glint of light from what was left of the hole in the chimney part
above the fire altar. He shocked back suddenly, bracing himself
against the creaking wall.
"I... I swore that I just saw the altar blazing..."
he looked about, but nothing was aflame, nothing even bright enough
to create an image of fire. The only thing that he saw now were
a few broken metal pipes, the ends jagged, rusty and sharp, probably
broken by a collapse in the floor where the pipes had been for
gas to help fuel the fire. He nervously scanned the room the best
he could before he forced himself to go in. The floor creaked,
and he felt a slight slant in one direction, as if there were
a hole in one side. He stepped along carefully until...
"Hello?!" someone's voice yelled from beneath the floor.
"Akane!?" Ranma replied, recognizing the voice, "where
are you? I heard you scream from outside; what happened?"
Below, Akane was overjoyed that he had found her, but at the same
time was disappointed that she had to be saved by him. "The
floor broke, but I found what was making the noise," she
was interrupted by a little bark.
"A puppy? THAT's all that was???" Ranma said, disgusted.
"It was trapped down here; it must have fallen through the
roof," she said, looking at the cute little gray puppy's
face and held it close to her.
"So... why don't you just get out?" Ranma said, peering
down the hole, where he could just make out Akane's form. "Too
clumsy to get out of your own mess?"
"Jerk -- I twisted my ankle when I fell! Anyway, I have to
be able to carry the puppy, so one of my arms is occupied right
now," she said gruffly. Ranma could almost see her face turn
red.
"Fine," he stretched his arm down the hole, holding
onto the floor with his other, and found Akane's outstretched
hand, and began to pull her up. "Hurgh... have you gained
weight?"
"JUST PULL ME UP!" she retorted furiously, unable to
hit him due to the bundle in her other arm. After a bit of strain
from the awkward position, Ranma pulled Akane and the puppy out
of the hole. Akane coughed from the dust, and patted down her
school dress, caked with dust, and set the puppy on the floor.
Seeing that it was free, it gave Akane a good-bye yip, and scuttled
off to exit the shrine. Ranma stood silent waiting for her.
"So, why did you come back?" she said while examining
her twisted ankle, rubbing it a little. He glanced at her from
the corner of his eye. "I'm sure that your beloved sukiyaki
is cold by now, if daddy and uncle Saotome haven't eaten it all,"
she added provokingly.
"I couldn't just let you go 'n hog all the glory... if this
is what you call 'glory'. I couldn't have you spreading rumors
that I was afraid to go into some old abandoned shrine -- which
I might add, I am not," he said bluntly. Akane looked down.
"Oh, that's all..?" she said, unguarded for a moment,
until she realized that Ranma had perceived what lay beneath her
words. "Well then -- you should have just gone home! I didn't
need you, and you had to come back just to prove that you were
better than me, a girl. I came here on my own will! I could have
gotten out of there just as well without you, so don't go feeling
special!" she threw her head into the air spitefully. Ranma
grew heated.
"That's gratitude for you -- I come to help and you tell
me to take a hike. Should'a expected that much from a girl like
you," he said, turning to leave. Akane stood and glared at
him.
"What do you mean, 'a girl like me'?"
"Nevermind," he said drearily, not turning around.
"Not 'nevermind'; what are you insinuating!?" she began
to raise her voice.
"You asked for it," he mumbled under his breath, turning
around angrily, "an over-reacting, thickheaded, jock-chick!
Sometimes you try to act more manly than a real man! I know I've
told you this before, what, a thousand times if not once, but
I still can't stand it! Why can't you just be a normal girl for
a while, instead of acting like some macho, uncute, ditz?"
he blurted out to her, waving his hands. They stood staring at
each other in silence for a few moments, Akane's face blank. Slowly,
she turned her head down.
"A-Akane?" Ranma said gently, realizing then that he
said something that had truly hurt her.
*WHACK*
He almost flew across the room, she even left a mark of his face,
which was amazing since he could usually take ten times that and
not bruise.
"RANMA!" she screeched, tears flowing down her hurt,
angry eyes, "you high and mighty jackass, you don't know
what it is to be me!!!" she swung at him again, this time,
with him dodging, just barely. In the swing, her blouse caught
a nail on the wall and ripped, her sleeve almost gone. "You're
always the strongest, the best at EVERYTHING!! You even get better
grades than me!!! Sometimes... sometimes I HATE YOU!!!" she
cried.
"Akane --!" he tried to get a word in, but she turned
to him and interrupted again.
"You BAAAAKA, you.. you... PERVERT, you HALF-MAN, I HATE
YOU!!!" she spat in all of her most hurt feelings, all of
the teasings and little comments that he had made to her over
the last three years coming to a head. "RANMA... I... I...
I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!" she finished, right in his face. She
remained there for a second, and the turned away weeping, beginning
to run.
"Akane!!" Ranma yelled, half angry and hurt himself,
but half genuinely guilty, and went after her. She kept running
until she ran into something -- someone. Ranma saw a pair of eyes
full of rage and a sneer from a fanged mouth. It pushed Akane
to the side gently, then without saying anything, gave a shocking
blow to Ranma's stomach.
"Saotome..." the voice of Ryoga trembled in anger, "YOU
HEARTLESS ANIMAL!!" he stared down at Ranma, who was doubled
over, clutching his abdomen, and prepared to strike again. "First
I find you here alone with her, and then you have the audacity
to insult her AND rip her clothes! I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!!"
Having to recover quickly, Ranma leapt backwards, avoiding Ryoga's
impending fist. Ryoga took to chase, and sought out his enemy
amidst the shadows of the old hall. Akane, who had reeled back
after bumping into Ryoga, watched, nursing her hurt feelings.
"I hope he really hurts that idiot..." she thought,
seeing Ranma dodge yet another blow, and stomp Ryoga's head in
the process. "Fat chance..." she added, remembering
how Ryoga was always getting trounced by Ranma on a fair playing
field.
The fight continued, with Ranma tying to get Ryoga off of his
case, all the while leaping, ducking and just plain moving fast
to avoid Ryoga's steely fists, which angered the fanged man all
the more.
"Stay still, Saotome, and let me punish you!" Ryoga
bellowed, frustrated.
"You think I'm as stupid as you look?" Ranma came back,
flipping over backwards and ending up behind Ryoga, where with
a swift sweep with his leg, brought Ryoga to the floor.
"Curse you!!"
Akane remained in the corner, near the broken-down altar, growing
bored of a routine battle. "You stay here, Ranma; I'm going
home," she said aloud, feeling her way through the darkness,
trying not to trip on anything lest she inflame her already sore
ankle. The floor creaked loudly, just as, Ranma having yet again
ducked a blow, Ryoga smashed a supportive pillar to splinters.
Ryoga kept on going at the his rival, not noticing the impending
danger of the roof that was now noticeably sagging; Ranma did.
"Pork brain, let's get out of here! The roof's gonna collapse!"
Ranma shouted to Ryoga, leaping around the room.
"I'll not listen to any of your distractions!!" Ryoga
yelled, his eyes clouded by anger. Ranma saw it starting to fall...
near Akane!
"Akane!" he shouted across the room, "don't go
that way!" he pointed to the ceiling, but she only stared
at him with the same hurt look on her face; she didn't believe
him. "Damn it..." he cursed, and ran from Ryoga.
"Get back here, coward!!"
"I told you..." he said while running on a crash course
with Akane, "get out of the way!!!" swiftly, and a bit
rough, he collided with Akane, sending her skidding through the
doorway.
"Ranma--!" she shouted in rage, then she bumped her
head against the floor and stayed down for a moment, dazed.
"You bastard!!!" Ryoga, all the more angered by the
"attack" upon Akane, rushed at Ranma, who was off-guard
thanks to his deferment of the girl, and they connected, Ranma
being thrown to the floor. Before Ryoga could make another move,
or Ranma could leap away, the ceiling gave up and came down on
the both of them, crashing loudly, jostling Akane back to full
consciousness just in time for her to see Ranma and Ryoga engulfed
in debris, making the floor collapse below each of them.
As quickly as it had happened, it ended, the dust creating an
eerie silence after the commotion had been so abruptly stopped.
The late day sun beamed down gently from the huge hole in the
roof, and half of the floor in the hall was collapsed down into
the base floor. She scrambled to her feet, coughing as the dust
and dirt got in her mouth and nose, barely able to see down through
it to see what had become of the two men. When the everything
came to settle, she could see a huge pile of rubble, but neither
of the boys were visible.