Finding Bliss
Preface:
This is the alternative ending to Bliss written by Mike Loader and Laura Bartram. The story was written around 20 years ago. I remember reading it a long time ago around the time it came out along with many other good Ranma ½ fanfictions. I loved this story because I found the story different from the usual.
The link to the story archive:
Change the _ to . and remove the space. If it doesn't work, google "Ranma ½ fan fiction bliss."
Web_archive_org / web / 20080624042113 / www_thekeep_org / ~lara / bliss / bliss_html
Recently, I wanted to reread it and searched for it. I was glad I was able to find it in the archive and read the story. 20 years do change your thinking and how you see the world. As I read the story, I found myself rooting for the pairing and wanting the ending to go differently.
Bliss was written in 1999 when the concept of homosexuality was still looked down upon. However, 20 years later, things had changed and are now more accepted everywhere. Though not always but it's much better than it was then, which is saying something.
I want to make this statement: I wrote the story solely for myself to give it an ending that I wanted to end. I posted it here for others to read it. You DO NOT have to like it. Leave it and move on. If you do like it, great! That's all there it is to fan fiction, to write to let out the imaginations for pure entertainment.
You need to read the original story before this one or else you would be confused and it's a MAJOR spoiler for the original Bliss.
The first part of the story is directly from Bliss, starting at Part 8. As you read along, and you see a bold dash, that's where I start to take over and change the ending of the story. Forgive me if I don't follow their writing style. But if you find something familiar, it most probably came from the original story where I kept few elements. As it goes, Bliss do not belong to me. Characters belong to Rumkio Takahashi and the concept of the story belongs to Mike Loader and Laura Bartram. Like fan fiction is a playground, I am just borrowing it and giving it a different what-if scenarios.
Part 8 of Bliss/Part 1 of Finding Bliss:
Ranma screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
He dimly heard Akane's voice, Akane who WASN'T HIM, he was Ranma Saotome, he was a man, he remembered everything and he was a man...
And he heard Ukyo NO KUNO IT WAS KUNO OH GOD OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT DID I DO...
He screamed, and screamed, and his memories replayed life on the island, living with Kuno, being attracted to Kuno, sleeping with Kuno, making love to another man and actually ENJOYING it...
He fell to his knees and vomited. He felt... oh God, he wanted to bathe, he needed to wash it off him, he needed to wash it all away...
Kuno's hand fell upon his shoulder, and he gagged. Without even knowing why, he grabbed the other man by the neck and slammed him against the wall. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?" he screamed, fury and repulsion and sickness flooding him. "DAMN YOU! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME!? WHAT?" And Kuno just stared back at him, confused, horrified, looking like he had just punched him in the stomach.
And it wasn't Kuno, who was an arrogant hentai shit, it was Ukyo, Akane's husband.
Behind them, abandoned on a chair, little Nabiki started to cry. His daughter.
Ranma gave a despairing, animal scream and fled.
He ran through corridors and halls, ran out of the building, ran across the highway and into the small clump of trees beyond, overlooking the sea. He curled into a tiny ball beneath one of
them and cried.
Gone. Everything gone. He had lost his friends. He had lost his manhood. Bitter laughter welled up, manhood indeed. He had spread his legs for Kuno. Some man.
The demon should have just killed him. It should have just killed him like Ukyo, who his ego and selfish need for a cure had murdered, murdered along with maybe Shampoo and Ryoga.
And he couldn't even lose himself in revenge. The thing was dead. Kuno hadn't known what he was doing. The only person to blame for the sick joke his life had become... was himself.
The cliff edge stood not six feet away, and he stood. It was better this way. He only wished he had died on the raft, before having to realize what he had done, how he had befouled himself. He walked to the edge of the cliff, looked down at the waves crashing against the jagged rocks, and jumped.
For a second he hung in midair, and then a hand closed around the back of his shirt and swung him around to land with a thud on the turf. He looked dully up at his rescuer. "You shouldn't have stopped me, Akane."
She lifted him from where he lay, pushed him up against a tree, and kissed him.
When she stopped, he noticed with some surprise that she was crying. "No. No, don't you dare, Ranma. I lost you once, and it almost killed me. If you do it again, I'll follow you."
He gaped at her. "Wha... what...?"
Smiling through her tears, she kissed him again. "I love you, baka. I always have."
He stared at her, in shock. "But... but you always..."
"Why did you think I was so jealous of you?" Akane laughed, the sound a little sad. "It wasn't until you 'died' that I realized how stupid I had been. And then I was stupid in a whole new way, and slashed my wrists, and got into the furo to just drift away to the afterlife."
"You idiot," he said, aghast. "You tried to kill yourself?"
She shrugged. "It was really, really dumb, I admit. Silly and melodramatic. Luckily Nabiki had been expecting something like it, and got me out and bandaged my wrists."
He shook his head. "Just because you thought you loved me..."
"I do love you," she said quietly.
Ranma laughed bitterly. "How? I have a child, for God's sake. I gave birth to a child! I'm not a man, I'm Kuno's whore."
She slapped him, hard. "No! You're Ranma Saotome, and I don't give a shit what you did with him or who you gave birth to! You're the man I love, and you've come back, and that's all that
matters to me."
He stared at her, stunned. "You... you really mean that?"
"Yes, you baka." She smiled, her eyes filling with tears. "I know you never really thought of me as more than your friend, but..."
- (their original and my story starts merging here) -
He embraced her. In that moment, it hit him rather hard. He had waited for this for so long and now, he wasn't sure what he felt.
He pushed her away gently, "Thanks. I need to think. I don't know what I feel right now. I am confused."
Akane looked at him desperately. "Ranma, you love me? Don't you?"
Ranma gave her a sad smile. "I do. But things had changed. It's... been so long. Right now, I have two sets of memories, two sets of lives and I need to sort them out."
Akane dropped her hands, feeling defeated and wrung out. "At least, come home. You've always had your place with us."
Ranma nodded. "Thanks, Akane." He had strange feeling stir inside saying her name. All that time on the island, he was Akane. It was strange. He shook his head and followed her.
Ranma sat on top of the Tendo rooftop, watching the stars. It wasn't like the island. The stars were fewer and the sky blacker. On the island, you could literally see the universe and it was so beautiful. He felt homesick for the first time. But he was glad he was away from that place, the damned cursed place.
Akane joined him on the rooftop. It had been just them when they got home earlier. He retreated to his room and then the roof top to collect his thought. He was grateful for the time alone.
"This is a dream," Akane whispered. "You're home now. I don't want to wake up, but it has to be a dream." She rested her head on his shoulder.
He started but calmed down. She didn't catch the flinch and he exhaled. "No dream," he told her. "I don't know if I want it to be or not. God, Akane, what I've done... all my friends dead, Kuno... Kuno and me..." He frowned for a moment, it was something else he need to think on.
She was silent for a second. "Ryoga lived. He was in the hospital for a long time, but he lived. Akari married him as soon as he was able to walk, and they moved away."
"Shampoo?"
"I don't know. Cologne thinks she'll regain her sanity with enough care. They went back to China together. We don't know what happened to Mousse."
"It was my fault." He felt his hand being taken.
She squeezed his hand. "You couldn't have known. And even if it was, there's nothing you can do about it now. You're alive, and that's all I care about."
"I... I have a daughter, you know. I gave birth to a daughter." He smiled slightly, a tinge of love surfacing through the shame and horror. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to be ashamed of his beautiful, wonderful baby girl.
Akane was silent for a second. "I saw. What's her name?"
Ranma flushed. "Er, Nabiki."
She stared at him incredulously.
He flushed some more. "It just popped into Uk... Kuno's head, and I liked it. I didn't remember..."
"I'm going to kill him," Akane said quietly. "I'm going to kill him for what he's done..."
"It wasn't his fault," Ranma said dully. "He didn't remember anything either. He was 'Ukyo', and I was 'Akane', and it was a couple months before we started havin' sex..." He began to shake. His inner turmoil was rising. His old feeling for Kuno fought against the feeling he had developed in past 2 years churned. Akane tightened her embrace until he stopped.
"Are you sure he didn't remember? You know Kuno. This was probably his dearest fantasy come true."
"Kuno's not bright enough to fake it." He stared at her, eyes filling with tears. "I loved him, Akane. Kuno. I didn't just have sex with him, I actually loved him, and God help me but part
of me still does..." He fell into racking sobs and she held him, crying with him.
And she swore to make Kuno pay for what he had done to her Ranma.
In the trees beyond, Ukyo Kuno fled, hot tears running down his cheeks, his infant daughter clasped tightly to his chest. He had followed them to the cliff and then to the Tendo house, concerned for his Akane.
Nabiki Tendo yawned irritably, scratched, and meandered sleepily down the stairs. She wasn't a morning person at the best of times, and last night's sleep had been interrupted by the sound
of her little sister arriving home at some ungodly hour. Maybe Akane had gone out on a date? She hoped that was it.
Yawning, she took out a cup and a bottle of soda, setting both on the breakfast table. It was high time that Akane stopped pining away for someone who had been dead for over two years.
Especially when they had never gotten along when he was alive.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned.
"Boo," Ranma said.
Nabiki opened her mouth, moved it for a few seconds, and then fainted.
Ranma shrugged, took the bottle of soda, and began to fix breakfast. Cereal. Real, packaged cereal. He was gonna _enjoy_ this.
"Good morning," Akane said, strolling into the kitchen. "Did you sleep..." She stopped, glancing down at her sister. "Hey. Did you startle Nabiki?"
He smirked. "I've been wantin' to do that for ages."
"Meanie." Hefting Nabiki, Akane carried her out into the living room, set her on the sofa, and quickly returned. She found Ranma at the table, wolfing down food, and smiled.
"You don't know how much I've missed seeing you there, eating."
He finished chewing, and looked down. "Was it really that bad?"
"I didn't know that you were dead for three weeks. I was in the hospital, and they felt it would be best if I didn't know until after I recovered." She shook her head. "I was in shock for a few months, tried to kill myself twice, and then I slowly began to adjust to the fact that you were dead and there was nothing I could do about it."
He lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry."
Akane walked over to sit down beside him. "It wasn't your fault." She sighed, and hugged him. "A lot of things weren't your fault. Losing you hurt, a lot, but I grew up a little because of
it."
"I... look, when I was 'Akane', I'd have these flashbacks, and I'd hear my male voice insultin' you. And I hated it. It seemed so cruel, so demeaning..." He trailed off, and looked at her. "I guess what I'm tryin' to say is that I won't do that anymore. I didn't know how much it hurt."
She smiled. "Well, you can tease me if you feel like it. It would be like it was."
He smiled. He knew he wouldn't be anymore, they've changed. He shook his head to himself and asked, "Hey, where's Pop?"
Akane just shook her head. "He left shortly after the funeral. We haven't heard from him since."
"Aw, man. I hope the old guy's okay. We'd better take out ads in the Chinese newspapers asking for him."
"You think he'd be in China?" Akane asked. He nodded.
"Pop always went to China whenever things were rough. I don't know if he just liked it there, or if he disliked Japan."
His stomach growled, and he forked down another load of cereal. "So Ryoga married Akari, huh?"
"She practically nursed him back to health all by herself. By the time he got out of the hospital, they had already arranged the wedding." Akane smiled wistfully. "It was a lovely ceremony. I
was still a little out of it, but they insisted I be the maid of honor. It was good that they did; I needed to do something besides sit and stare at the walls."
"I'm sorry I missed that," Ranma said. "I'da liked to have seen that pig get hitched."
"He said afterwards that the only way it could have been better was if you'd been around to serve as best man."
"Aw, man... he really said that?"
She nodded. "He was pretty broken up by it all. You were the closest thing he had to a friend, I think."
A door opened and Kasumi walked in with a bag of groceries. "Good morning!"
"Hi Kasumi," Ranma said awkwardly.
Kasumi blinked. "Ranma-kun?"
"Er, yeah. It's me."
She blinked again. "Aren't you dead?"
"I got better."
A third blink. "Oh. That's nice."
Slowly, she set the groceries on the counter and walked upstairs.
"I think she took that well," Akane told him.
"Better'n Nabiki did." He grinned at her. "You shoulda seen her face."
Akane sighed. "Tell me you didn't jump out at her moaning and making faces..."
"No! I just tapped her on the shoulder."
"Good thing she doesn't have a heart condition."
Ranma smirked. "Yeah. Say, your dad doesn't, does he?"
"Father? No, he'd just hug you and sob at us. He doesn't live here anymore anyway."
He blinked. "Huh? Isn't this his house?"
Akane looked embarrassed. "It's still in his name, yeah, but he's been living with Hinako-sensei for about seven months."
"I don't get it," Ranma said, scratching his head. "This is a nice place, lotsa room with me an Pop gone. Why didn't she move in with him?"
The embarrassed look turned into a blush. "Not enough privacy."
"What do you mean, not..." He stopped. "Oh. Are they gonna get married?"
"We don't know," Akane said sheepishly. "He hasn't mentioned it, but we hardly see him anymore."
"Jeez."
He stared at her for a few seconds, noticing for the first time the changes and the differences. Taller. Body more filled out, leaner and harder. The facial features sharper, more worn in
places. The eyes the same, the angry crinkle around them softer.
"I missed a lot, didn't I," he finally said.
She nodded. "We both did." She looked at him for a second, and then spoke. "Ranma, what happened? Where were you?"
He shrugged. "It was an island. We never knew the name, and the captain of the ship that fished us out of the ocean insists that there's no place like where we were in the entire North
Pacific. I believe him. It's gone now, anyway. Destroyed. I'm sad about that, because it was very beautiful."
"What was it like?" she asked quietly.
"It was the entire world. It was Genesis. It was very lovely, and very frightening, and savage beyond measure. We were hunted by wild animals, battered by storms, and there was a sorta
plague at the end that almost killed me." He smiled wanly. "I'd be dead about two dozen times over if it hadn't been for Uk... for Kuno. And vice-versa. But we lived, and we built a home..." He
looked away as the feeling of confusion rose again. "I don't wanna talk about it right now."
Akane nodded. "You don't have to. Yet. One of these days you're going to have to tell someone the whole thing, but that can wait for a while."
He sighed. "I should go get Nabiki."
"She's just in the other ro... oh." She looked at him in alarm. "You don't think Kuno would hurt her, do you?"
Ranma laughed softly. "He'd rather rip off his right arm and eat it than harm a hair on her head. Naw, she's perfectly safe with him. I'm just not sure if he knows..." He stopped, and slumped in his chair. "I guess he knows how to take care of her. He took care of both of us while I was sick, and that was in the middle of the jungle..." He suddenly buried his head in his hands.
"God, I don't know, I wanna see my daughter and I wanna clear this up... Kuno can take care of her for today."
Akane walked over and knelt next to his chair, and stroked his back until he finally looked up. "Sorry. I still... I'm confused, I guess."
"It's okay. You're home now."
He was home now.
Ukyo opened the door of the massive house and stepped inside. Under one arm, Nabiki whimpered. Inside was a stately entry hall, dust covering everything. A gaudy palm tree marred the otherwise tasteful decor, and he frowned at the sight of it. It must be his...
...haircut time, tatchi! hoho!...
Father, it was his father's. He hated him.
He walked into one of the sitting rooms, knowing the way instinctively. It was his house.
On the floor of the room, coiled like a poisonous snake, lay a gymnastics ribbon.
Laughter echoed in his brain, mad and joyous.
...brother dear!...
...i despise you, sister...
...ranma-sama!...
Kodachi, that was her name, and he suspected that she was not entirely stable. The officials in the port had checked, and found that his one relative was in America, studying at a medical
college. He supposed that was a good thing. Maybe she had gotten better since he... left.
"And who am I?" he asked Nabiki, quietly. She gurgled at him happily.
Slowly at first, then swiftly, as if drawn by an unseen force, he ascended a flight of stairs. Left down a hall, through a door, up another staircase...
And then finally he was in a room. His room.
Photos. Photos of Akane, and the other Akane who had... who had made Akane someone else. Photos everywhere.
...my pig-tailed goddess!...
...akane tendo, i would date with thee!...
Photos on every corner of the room, bought from...
...500 yen, kuno-chan...
"Nabiki?" he asked, staring at his daughter. Now another picture floated through his mind, the sister of Akane Tendo, who helped him at times...
...i must have them both!...
...i call it two-timing...
He had openly sought both of them? And they had agreed to this?
...for the last time, i'm a guy, you idiot...
...hentai!...
...come to my arms!...
"No... no..." he whimpered, almost dropping Nabiki. His daughter howled in alarm, and he was barely able to set her on the bed before falling over, pain ripping through his head in white-
hot bursts.
...idiot!...
...jerk!...
This couldn't be him, it wasn't him, it couldn't be...
His eyes jerked upward, to where a bokken lay on a hardwood stand.
...saotome, die!...
...foul sorcerer!...
...i shall free akane from your clutches...
Enemy. Ranma was his enemy...
...yo, kuno...
...aw, man, not again...
...hentai...
No. Not enemy. Ranma held him in friendly contempt. You had to be worth something in order to be an enemy.
Ranma and his Akane were the same person. He had known this, before, but denied it. They were the same person, and he was engaged to the real Akane, and both of them had a certain amount of feeling for each other.
"No, please no..."
Because Ranma was a man, not a woman. Just a man who occasionally turned into one. It would seem that hot water triggered the change, and his memory showed that cold water
induced it. There hadn't been any hot water on the island, save for the odd bowl of hot soup.
And Akane - the only real Akane, because his Akane was Ranma - Akane and Ranma hated him. They quite rightly despised him as a delusional pervert.
Memory flooded back. Blows rained upon him, insults were hurled, and he had refused to see that they didn't like him and found his behavior objectionable.
He saw how they looked out for one another.
How they teamed up to attack him.
The disgust and fury they showed when he dared touch one of them.
And again he felt Ranma slam him up against the wall, and scream at him in horror and rage and disgust, and he understood completely.
His Akane was gone, and she hated him. And would always hate him.
Ukyo screamed, and the last memories of Tatewaki Kuno slid into place. And the last shards of Tatewaki Kuno melted like icicles in a blast furnace. He was Ukyo Kuno, with the memories of
someone called Tatewaki Kuno, who he hated. Hated because his actions had taken Ranma away from him forever.
Kuno bent double in agony, and slammed his fist into the floor over and over, screaming his rage and grief. Pictures ran through his mind, of Akane and Ranma, lying naked together under a tree by the port, still glistening from the sweat of their lovemaking...
His first impulse was to run from the room, find the family tanto, and end his misery. Then little Nabiki cried, a worried, frightened wail, and he knew that he could not. His daughter
needed him.
Slowly, shaking, he stood, and sat on the bed, and cradled his daughter until the cries stopped. She was his, his and his beloved's, and they would always be together in her. And nothing
could ever take that away.
It was small comfort against what he had lost. But it was the only thing he had left.
"Come now, Nabiki-chan, you must eat. Take the bottle." Kuno sat on the big sterile couch in his big sterile home, cradling Nabiki. The bottle he was trying to get her to take was going
completely unwanted. The little girl wanted nothing to do with it, no matter that it was her dinner.
"Please, Nabiki-chan," he pleaded, putting the bottle to her mouth. "You must..."
Little Nabiki turned her head away from the bottle, closing her eyes as well. It was her ultimate refusal.
Kuno looked down at her, desperation slowly creeping across his face. He steered the bottle to her mouth again, and again she turned her head away from it. This was not good. Standing, Kuno went to the kitchen and resisted the urge to throw the bottle down. This would work for now, but he couldn't feed Nabiki out in public this way.
Setting Nabiki down on the counter, he grabbed a banana and peeled it, keeping a careful eye on his daughter. He took a small bite and began to chew gently, mashing up the already soft fruit. This had been his least favorite part of caring for Nabiki because it felt unsanitary that she should be sharing his germs.
When he had softened the banana up into a uniform mush, he scooped it out of his mouth on his finger and tried to feed it to Nabiki. "Here you are, just like we've done before."
But still, Nabiki refused his offering of food. She would not open her mouth even to cry.
"Nabiki..." Kuno wiped the much from his finger and stared at his little girl. She opened her eyes and looked back, almost defiantly. "Nabiki, you have to..." He sighed, defeated. She wasn't going to do anything she didn't want to, she never had before.
Maybe she wasn't hungry though. Maybe that's what the problem was. That's what it had to be. Well, that was fine. She could wait a little while, and then when she got hungry enough,
she would eat. "If that's the way you're going to be," he said and lifted her in his arms.
That brought a smile to her face and a stab of pain to Kuno's heart. Why did things have to be this way? He felt so useless, half a person without Aka... Ranma. Whatever was in the
past between the two of them, Kuno didn't care. His docile home life before the island felt like it was a million miles away, and he was glad of it.
On the island, he felt that he had finally blossomed into a man, a real man, and that he and... Ranma had something between the two of them that would last until they died. On that island.
Only on that island.
But they weren't on that island. They weren't on the island, and with all the inconveniences it had laid upon them, he wished he was back there. "Nabiki-chan, we were happy there, weren't we? It wasn't so bad, was it? Allowing nature to take its course with us... That's really not so awful. Is it?"
The little girl could not answer, only smile and giggle at him, and smack him in the face with her tiny hands. The sigh this time was not of defeat, but of resignation. To him, there was a difference. He had not been defeated, he had given up. Now he was forced to adapt back to the ways of civilization, of Japan, of living alone.
And he was so miserable and confused. The only person who loved him was his daughter, and if she had known him before, she would probably hate him too. All he wanted was his life back, his REAL life, his life back on the island. All he wanted... all he wanted was Akane back.
"Nabiki-chan, why? Why couldn't she be mine? It was all I wanted, and now... Now I don't have anything. Except you." He looked around at the huge, terrifyingly empty house. "And this
house that I barely remember, and money I have no use for except to take care of you."
He began to rock her gently, soothing himself as much as the child in his arms. There was just so much wrong with his life in Japan, so much wrong and there was nothing he could do to fix it.
He felt like he was back on the raft, bobbing in the water, waiting for the ocean to take him wherever it wanted.
"If you won't eat, my little songbird, then I think it's time for a nap." He tickled her under the chin, getting a wide, toothless smile from her. And he was so tired. Tired of it all because he didn't fit in. Didn't fit in with society, with his life, with himself. He hadn't finished high school, he didn't have a job, and even his memories seemed hazy and distant. The people he should have known just... weren't there.
It seemed like his entire life had just gone missing. He sat down slowly on the couch that he was beginning to hate, Nabiki already resting against his chest with her eyes closed, and slowly
reclined. The shadows of his past, of his rotted, perverse, twisted, pathetic past, seemed determine to haunt him in his waking hours and his dreams, so it seemed preferable to let it
assault him in his sleep.
But in his sleep, they weren't just his memories haunting him. It was everything, all merged into one giant nightmare, waiting for him. Twisted versions of himself, rife with the
disease on the island, and his sister in all her insane glory...
And Ranma, his Akane, spewing words of hate at him and the baby clutched in his arms. And her hair shone with the color that he couldn't identify, and the pillars were all around him, and...
Kuno woke up suddenly, the remains of the nightmare, confused as to where he was momentarily. The feeling of his daughter still asleep on his chest yanked him back to reality,
which was its own nightmare in a way.
Nabiki had adorably left a rather sizable drool puddle on his shirt, which blended in perfectly with the sweat. At least he hadn't awakened screaming like the first few nights the nightmare
had come upon him. That had invariably awakened Nabiki, who had also begun to cry, and made him feel lower than low.
The sweat was a much nicer, at least quieter, reaction to the dream and didn't make Nabiki react adversely. And at the time, the only thing he cared about was taking care of her, and her
well-being, and making her life as easy as possible. If she was hungry, he would feed her. If she was tired, he would put her to bed. If she was bored, he would play with her. If she was hurt, he
would heal her.
If not for her, this weird conglomeration of Ukyo and Tatewaki Kuno would have simply been a memory, put out of his, and everyone else's, misery.
And if at any point in time, she didn't need him, didn't want him, said she hated him, then he would remove himself.
And then his tears began to mix with his sweat and Nabiki's drool because he didn't want to exist in the strange half-life he was forced to live.
"Nabiki-chan, I don't know how you can stand me, because I can't stand myself."
Kuno couldn't put down Nabiki the rest of the afternoon and night. He wanted to have her close to him before she grew up and became distant, as children invariably did. He wanted her love for as long as he could get it because she was the only person he was
getting it from.
And speaking of his daughter, it was getting late and she still hadn't had anything to eat. She'd probably be up half the night since she had been sleeping, but Kuno thought he might be
too.
"Nabiki-chan, it's time to wake up," he said quietly, bouncing her slightly in his arms. "Nabiki-chan..."
She slowly opened her eyes, her face slack and tired looking. Blinking slowly, she looked up at her father and yawned.
For the first time since Akane had been ripped away from him at the port, Kuno smiled. "That's my little girl." He ran the back his finger along her cheek. "You must be hungry. Let's get you
some dinner."
He repeated his ritual of warming up a bottle to the proper temperature, bouncing Nabiki in his arms the entire time. He made a silly face at her, causing her to giggle, and he smiled again,
this time sadly.
"One day, little girl, you're going to grow up and you're not going to need me any longer. You're not going to laugh at a silly face, or smile at me. I'm not really your father after all.
Your father was a good man, not a delusional pervert like me. I'll never be the man your father was; I can't."
Shaking his head at the girl's smile, he fetched the warm bottle and tested its temperature. Determining it safe, he once again tried to give it to Nabiki.
She accepted the rubber nipple partway into her mouth before turning her head and rejecting it once more.
"Don't do this to me, Nabiki-chan. You need to eat," Kuno said, his voice somewhere between annoyed and desperate. He tried to give her the bottle again, and again she refused it.
Finally, Kuno did throw the bottle, and that made Nabiki cry pitifully. Looking down at her, a look of panic settled on his face. She wouldn't eat and now this. God, he was an awful parent.
And needed her to eat.
Kuno retrieved the bottle and tried again. "I know you haven't eaten all day, Nabiki-chan. Take the bottle. It's dinner." He tried to force it in her mouth. "Damn it, Nabiki. You've got to eat." The last sentence was spoken with desperation and the beginnings of tears in his eyes.
He just didn't know what to do. Nabiki wouldn't respond to him, and she wouldn't take a bottle or soft food.
The phone rang and was answered. "Hello?"
*Yes, may I speak to Ranma? I need...*
Kuno looked at the phone in his hand as the line went dead.
He slammed it down, frowning. He needed to speak to Ranma. The problem with Nabiki went beyond their problems in the past. This was the here and now, and he needed to talk to Ranma.
"Come on, Nabiki-chan," he said, lifting her, "we have to go see Mommy."
Note:
This will be fairly three or four parts. I am writing this to relieve the stress of the finals. I know I do have 2 other stories I need to get back to, which I will after the finals. For now, I'm just dipping my toe in Ranmadom. Part two will be merging of the original Bliss and my story.