Follow-up for 'For You' by Ronny Hedin, far too depressing for my tastes, I needed something to further the story - if only not to sunk into depression. Although an astute reader may understand where the story comes from, I strongly recommand reading 'For You' before. Warning: suicidal tendencies may spring forth by reading his work, and mine is only lightening the mood a bit.
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Takahashi Rumiko. I make no profit in writing this.
I'm sorry, thank you
Revised 04-04-2003. Re-revised 05-04-2004. Unearthed from the depths of my hard disk drive and corrected on 22-09-2009.
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The wedding was stopped in panic at seeing Nodoka faint. Akane was rooted on her spot on the altar, torn between the need to continue, finish the happiest day of her life with the man she loved, and rush to the side of the woman who had not become her mother, but remained very close... The mother of Ranma Saotome, who she almost married
-With one last pull, he twisted the blade, drawing it up towards his heart-
and the pain came back. She knew then, something had happened to Ranma, and the call must have been to tell Nodoka, and Ranma was dying, and she wasn't with him-
Akane flew, leaving her husband behind, running towards the place where she knew her dumb jock, the carefree martial artist calling her an uncute tomboy was hurting, and it was all her fault and she was stupid stupid stupid damn insensitive tomboy why didn't she even tell him he risked his life worked like mad to make her proud and she had to go and get married to another, not even daring to face him to tell him, backstabbing bitch that she was...
Almost as an afterthought, she saw how much she had improved under Ranma's training, jumping from roof to roof, flying really, her pristine white wedding dress leaving a trail of light behind her, and she cursed herself even more, this white dress would have been more fitting black as night!
She was there now. A few neighbors had gathered at the Saotomes door, looking at the soaked red sheet covering the unmoving form of Ranma Saotome, not even twenty, martial artist extraordinaire, head student in first year at Tokyo University, who had completed seppuku with no second to shorten the pain of the honorable ritual.
Akane didn't feel the pain that constricted her chest, didn't feel the ice coursing through her veins, not even the numbness permeating her limbs, nor the arctic wind that blew through her mind. Her gaze, her soul, her very essence were focused on the still face of Ranma until he disappeared in the ambulance.
Some of the neighbors came to ask Akane if she knew him, what a pity it was, that she shouldn't stand there in the middle of the street with her magnificent dress, she had a wedding to attend to-
A crying angel in white saw the car speeding away, taking with it the dead body of the man she discovered she had never stopped loving.
The noise of somebody running towards her snapped her out of her trance. It was Ooyake, panting, his suit in disarray, closely followed by a slightly less out of breath Genma, carrying his bawling wife. And Akane saw where Ranma had gotten his skill and will to fight: the steely gaze he was giving the now reunited couple was as ardent as the one Ranma took whenever she was in danger. Only now it was directed at her.
Not saying a word, she entered the house and climbed to where she knew Ranma's room was.
It had looked soulless before, with only her picture adorning the spartan furniture. Now it felt like a haunted grave, a place so full of despair and hurt that, had these feelings not been in tune with the ones she had had for the past- past what? Fifteen minutes? One hour? A lifetime? She would have run away screaming she had kappas chasing her.
A pool of blood with a tanto soaking in it, a destroyed photo frame near the wall, and the rumpled picture of her smiling face on the edges of the pool... The rumpled paper was giving her face the mockery of a smile, turning it into an hungry snarl. A little blood had been spread on the picture, obviously splashed accidentally by whoever had taken Ranma's body away from his slumped seat, giving her picture the appearance of a feasting beast.
Strangely, it's at that same instant that she noticed she was still carrying her bridal bouquet. How appropriate.
She knelt, gently replacing the blood soaked tanto with the flowers, marring their bright white and yellow blossoms with red blood, and she watched the blood spreading slowly over the reddening blossoms, while she cradled the tanto against her heart.
She got up after a while, and started walking, her sunken eyes, blood tainted dress and the tanto she carried in place of a bouquet giving her the appearance of a wraith going to a wedding.
A reflexion in a shop's front window showed her so. She felt she looked exactly the way she should.
Her walk took her to Nerima's morgue, where Ranma's body had been put down for cleaning and identification. Nobody dared stop the supernatural creature who walked at the pace of an unheard wedding march, and when finally Akane came to a stop near the table where Ranma was laying, she was surprised to barely recognize him.
His complexion had always been weathered, almost brown during the hottest days of the summer, his skin made callous by all the blows he'd sustained, and the sheer power behind his muscles had made of Ranma the epitome of vitality, boy or girl depending on his latest contact with water. Always in movement, even completely concealed by bandages he had been more than alive.
This frozen shell of white porcelain was what she had turned him into. His body was getting cooler, only half an hour had really gone since she committed her life to another man, and she could feel it inside of her, she was getting cold, a stony cold, like when she was dying on Phoenix Mountain, and Ranma had called her back. Only now he was the one dead, and she couldn't find enough strength in herself to call him back. She couldn't condemn him: if her own heart was any indication, saving him would mean a life of suffering.
The orderly who was to clean the body had stopped after merely removing the soaked red shirt, surprised in his work by the surreal bride walking in. She took the wet sponge from his slack hands and started to slowly clean the white face with it, slowly and tenderly. It seemed to shift a little, losing its male rough edges, the hair took a reddish tint, but then it stopped.
Akane could feel it. Ranma was lost in an ocean of dark nothingness, nothing more than a little dying spark of life in a storm of death, fear, despair, hurt and anger.
She took him in her arms and reached for him with all her being. She knew that she couldn't trade her life for his, he'd never allow himself to live if she did. The lingering pain in her mind was now a howling storm, and she embraced it.
She could feel Ranma. She could reach Ranma. May it take all her strength, burn her soul and damn her for all eternity, she'd get to Ranma and take him away from the howling storms of the ghostly place he had cast himself to because of her.
She didn't notice her heart stopping. Her breathing had stopped long before that. Her tears were frozen diamonds on her white cheeks. But her eyes were alive. They gazed at Ranma's closed ones with unyielding intensity. She could feel it. She was getting closer. She could almost grasp him, and take him away from this hell he had chosen for himself, even if only for an instant. She lunged forward, getting a firm grip on him.
And Ranma's eyes opened.
She almost got lost in the gray-blue orbs under her gaze, the only thing still alive in his dead body. She could feel herself slipping away, and Ranma was already heading for the exit, back to his hell.
"I'm sorry. Thank you."
She thought these words more than her frozen lips could pronounce them, but Ranma smiled anyway.
***
The Tendo training hall ceased all activity, and its two masters declared the Anything Goes school dead since it didn't have any more heirs. Nabiki worked like mad to get the best results she could in her studies, more closed emotionally than she was before. Kasumi was still taking care of the house and had even started to date doc. Tofu, but she didn't smile anymore. The doc had been around for some time now, having discovered that Ranma saving Akane on the brink of death at Jusendo had made them dependent on the other's life force, and that one going away would have eventually killed the other no matter what.
Genma had lost weight,and was working relentlessly to create his own school around the forbidden moves he had created and the ones he had seen his son practice. His newly opened classes at a neighboring dojo were meeting with some success.
His wife had to stop him from gathering stray dogs, and convinced him that this 'dog-fu' was a silly idea anyway.
Nodoka had stopped wearing kimonos, switching to dark dresses and never again carrying her sword everywhere. When asked about it, she answered 'screw honor'. She had just discovered that she was pregnant, by the way. Genma had given her a small smile on discovering and promised to train the child only if asked to. The Tendo agreement had reared its head a little time, but everybody concerned had shot it down: Soun, Kasumi, Nabiki, Genma and Nodoka only decided on a common thought to name the little red-headed girl, Ranko.
Ooyake mourned for a long time, and was found drowning his sorrow in a bar by a female Tokyo U student doing the same. The fact that she could almost relate to his own tragedy, having learned of a previous love committing suicide was a deciding factor for a few more bottles. They lived happily ever after.
Years after the dojo was closed, when the surrounding buildings were destroyed by a 'Tendo, Inc.' construction company to make room for a more efficient lodging complex, nobody dared demolish the still intact building, instead working around it, essentially burying it under a chapel of steel, concrete and glass. With time, even the architects forgot what Lot #428, with all its entries actually blocked off, could contain. The buildings had been made to defy centuries, even on land as unstable as Japan's.
In the now dark and silent dojo, a jar had been added to the shrine's contents, along with a slowly yellowing photo of a pigtailed young man surrounded by young women, crazed guys and strange animals.
As for the jar, Akane's grip on Ranma's body couldn't be broken, and they were incinerated together, their ashes mingled in a single urn. A ghost, maybe, who could have penetrated the sealed entrances, could have heard the faint echoes of cries, laughter, fights and mayhem piercing through the tuneless and sorrowful song the derelict building sang for its unlucky ward.
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AN: there. Now it's off my hard disk. Time to get drunk.