Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, nor do I profit from them. This is an exercise in boredom.
Revenant
By: Ky Hakubi
"Ranma, stop picking on Ryoga!" Akane yelled. "Ryoga, stop encouraging Ranma!"
Both young men ignored the fuming woman as they continued to furiously trade blows.
"Ranma! Because of you, I've seen Hell!" the Hibiki youth screamed in rage, arcing a deadly swing at Ranma's head.
"Are you still blaming me for your problems Ryoga?" Ranma asked incredulously, back stepping away from the umbrella aimed at his skull. "You need to get a life!"
Ryoga let forth an unintelligible scream as he repeatedly thrust his weapon, intent on brutally finishing his opponent. The Saotome heir avoided it all with calm control, easily staying a step ahead of the enraged Hibiki.
"Stop it, both of you!" Akane demanded, attempting to break up the fight.
Ryoga, lost to anger, barely recognized that his umbrella hit something soft, and it wasn't his target. Ranma's panicked expression stopped him in his tracks, umbrella froze in the back swing.
He slowly looked left.
He saw Akane sprawled against the wall of the Tendo estate.
She wasn't moving.
There was a slowly enlarging red stain on her blouse.
Something sharp and white peeked through the center of the blotch.
She wasn't breathing.
He registered each of these observations with growing despair. A sharp noise broke him from his paralysis.
"AKANE!!!"
Ranma ran forward to his fiancé's body. He checked for her heartbeat.
Nothing.
Akane was gone.
He cradled her body against his chest, weeping audibly. His shoulders shook as he wailed in agony, a cry of pain from the very depths of his soul.
Akane was dead. She was dead before he could find the courage to tell her that he loved her. Ryoga had stolen that from him. Just as he had stolen the glorious light from Akane's eyes. Stolen her voice. Stolen her life.
Ranma stopped rocking the body of the woman he loved, and stood slowly.
Ryoga fell to his knees as Ranma turned his gaze on him.
His eyes were cold. Dead. No emotion touched them. Not hate, not anger, not loss.
Ryoga couldn't move under that horrific gaze. All he could do was whimper as Ranma slowly walked toward him, ki focusing into his fist.
Ryoga's world went black as the ki charged fist caved in his skull.
---
Life for Ranma had lost meaning. He slowly wasted away, hardly eating or sleeping. He never spoke. He barely registered that anyone was around him. He mechanically went through the motions of life.
After weeks of not practicing martial arts, Genma tried to give him a rude awakening.
He felt like he was getting through to Ranma when the boy looked at him. His hopes were quickly dashed when he saw the lifelessness in those dark orbs. It felt like looking into the eyes of a corpse.
---
Ranma lay in bed some months later, blankly staring at the ceiling. The full moon cast strange shadows about his room.
tap tap
Ranma's mind registered the noise at his window, but he gave no indication.
tap tap
Maybe they would go away. Everyone went away. No one stayed with him. Everyone left eventually.
tap tap
Ranma didn't budge. The noise persisted until dawn broke on the horizon.
---
A few more days passed, and Ranma was lying in bed once again.
tap tap
The noise was back.
tap tap
Ranma briefly wondered what would be in his window, but the thought soon died.
tap tap
He continued to stare at the ceiling, banishing consciousness from his mind.
tap tap
---
A week later and the noise had visited Ranma every night. It came when the moon was at it's apex, and ceased at dawn. Ranma decided to see what was visiting him in the dead of night.
He lay in bed, as always, and waited patiently for his nightly guest. He wasn't disappointed.
tap tap
This time, Ranma looked toward the window. A figure loomed in the moonlight.
tap tap
It had the curvaceous figure of a woman. It brought it's hand up again.
tap tap
Ranma stood and walked to the window. As he approached, the figure became more visible.
He spoke his first word in almost a year.
"Akane…"
---
She screamed.
The Tendos and Saotomes ran up the stairs to find Kasumi leaned against the wall across from Ranma's bedroom, clutching her knees to her chest, and shaking with tears.
Soun tentatively looked into the young man's room. He almost emptied his stomach at the sight awaiting him.
Ranma lay in a puddle of his own blood, his entrails surrounding him, apparently by his own hand. The far wall was painted in his blood.
It was a message.
'Akane says Hi'