Realities Byte
By
Jim Robert Bader
(Inspired by the Works of Rumiko Takahashi & Others,
Including both the Convergences and Altered Destinies Series)
Chapter Six.
My Dinner Entree.
Continuum #24968173
Nabiki Tendo had thought herself fairly inured to dealing with the strange, the bizarre, even the incomprehensible on a more-or-less routine basis, but sitting in a fancy restaurant at a table across from another version of herself had to be a new one for the records. In point of fact she was finding this older Nabiki unsettling for more than just the strangeness of the situation.
Right now her other self was ordering from the menu in fluent Cantonese, a language Nabiki had quite naturally studied but had yet to master down to the least nuance like this woman before her. As far as Nabiki could tell-judging by the reaction of the Chinese mait'r'D-there was not the least flaw in her tonal pronunciation, if anything the other Nabiki was far too relaxed and sanguine about placing her order, as if she had nothing better to do at the moment.
"Your turn," the older Nabiki smiled, "Or would you prefer to let me order for you? I happen to know your tastes..."
"Uh...no thanks," Nabiki said, not as able to hide her unease as this other woman. She picked up her menu and said, "I'd like the fried noodles with chow mien and a side-order of egg rolls, some wanton and hot spicy tea...is that all right?"
"Oh come on," her counterpart replied, "You can do better than that. It's my treat, live a little, indulge yourself."
Nabiki gave the other woman her most careful scrutiny before she said, "You don't mind? The prices here are a bit steep..."
"Why should I mind?" the other Nabiki remarked, "It's on the expense account, like I told you.," and she proceeded to add items to the list Nabiki had already ordered, then added with a soft chuckle as the mait'r'D went off to fill their orders, "I can well remember what a bottomless pit I used to have. Ryonami used to tease me about having an oral fixation..."
"Ryonami?" Nabiki sat upright.
"She's married," her counterpart replied, "Has three lovely children. I look her up now and then just to see how she's doing. I'm afraid my work keeps me fairly busy most of the time...in fact Time is my business, which is how I can be sitting here with you now when you won't really be me for the next twenty years, give or take a few seasons."
"You're me from the future?" Nabiki found the notion easier to accept than the generosity that her other self was currently displaying.
"Well," her other self shrugged, "One possible future. To be perfectly honest we don't share the exact same quantum signature, but the difference is so miniscule you'd hardly be able to tell the difference."
"Quantum signature?" Nabiki repeated.
"Of course," her other self replied, steepling her hands once again to lean her chin upon her index fingers, "Every Universe in the Multiverse has its own peculiar vibrational rate. It's how we tell travelers apart from one Continuum to the next. Everything within a single dimension vibrates at the exact same frequency, otherwise their particles would fail to interact with other particles occupying the same space and time coordinates. Two objects with different frequencies can't touch each other. You can change the frequency rate on an object to make it resonate differently, which causes it to slip between the walls of space and time until it finds a resonance it matches. A signature is different in that you take it with you wherever you go, and it remains peculiar to the coordinates of your own home dimension."
"Right," Nabiki said cautiously, "And by 'We' you mean...?"
"The Time Agency that I work for," Nabiki-future answered, "We call it the ATC for short, or Time Commission if you like. Ranma also belongs to the agency and is one of our more effective operatives in Timespace Enforcement..."
"A cop," Nabiki said blandly, "You're telling me that the Ranma you know is a..."
"Timecop," her future self replied, "Charged with seeing to it that the timelines remain fairly stable with nobody disrupting the probability currents or causing a massive chain disruption in the balance between past and future. We pretty much have our hands full policing the timeline to see that things never get too far out of hand what with all these Time Jumpers and Probability Pirates to keep tabs on. I'm one of many central dispatchers who assign agents to deal with criminal cases that threaten to tear reality asunder..."
"Wait!" Nabiki signaled for a time-out, "Let me get this straight...you work for this Time Commission and you're Ranma's dispatcher?"
"And Ryoga's," the older Nabiki replied, "Those two are partners, have been for a number of years. We assign them to the really tough cases where their...unique abilities can be put to good use."
"And when did this happen?" the younger Nabiki asked, "Did you get drafted or were you given a choice you couldn't refuse...?"
"Oh no," her older self replied, "I volunteered...I had to, really. It was the only way to keep tabs on Ranma once he accepted his position..."
"And why did you need to keep track of him?" the younger Nabiki wondered.
"What else was I supposed to do?" her older self replied matter-of-factly, "After all he is my iinazuke..."
Ranma had faced down some of the toughest challengers ever to take up martial arts for their standard without flinching, from Kirin to Taro to Happosai to even more bizarre menaces such as Prince Herb and Saffron of Mount Phoenix, but never before had he faced an opponent this formidable, who seemed to know his every move before it was executed, who had a counter for each attack and flowed effortlessly out of the way of Ranma's most powerful maneuvers. Even when Ranma managed to score a hit it was as if he were punching solid iron, his older counterpart absorbing blows that would have shattered steel and fluffing it off like it was nothing. Worse still-from the perspective of his pride-his opponent continued to taunt in ways that were disturbingly familiar, as if he knew this form of rattling someone's cages well from long and careful practice.
"Give it up, kid," the older man taunted, "I can keep this up all day while you're losing it by inches. I know every move you've got, I'm stronger and a hell of a lot faster, so there's absolutely no way you can beat me."
"Shut up!" Ranma snarled, only to find himself grabbed by his larger foe with such laughable ease that he might as well be posing for his yearbook pictures.
"Not until I've had my say," his counterpart replied, slamming Ranma down on the ground and pinning him in place as he hissed, "And for once in your pathetic life you're gonna listen!"
Ranma fought to get free but found his position untenable. He managed to gasp out, "What do you want from me? I didn't do nothing...!"
"OH. Yes. You. Did!" his opponent growled, hissing each word into Ranma's face as if they individually contained a distinctive meaning, "It's time you faced that, Junior, and stop running away from responsibility. You keep avoiding the truth and you might just wind up like the old man."
"No way!" Ranma snarled, "I'll never wind up like Pop..."
"Yeah, yeah," his counterpart said in dismissive tones, "I said the same thing myself about a zillion times, but you know what? I was turning into my father! I was becoming just like him when I was exactly your age! It was so much easier to go along with things instead of face the truth about myself and what I was doing to the people around me!"
"What are you talking about?" Ranma snarled, "You're crazy!"
"Bingo," the other man snorted, "What was your first clue?"
All at once Ranma found himself picked up again by one hand before his back made rude acquaintance with the wall of a nearby building. For a moment he was stunned and felt very much like a rag doll in the hands of his antagonist, but even through the haze and pain he could make out the words, "You're not gonna do it this time! I won't permit it to happen all over! You can't marry her, you stupid jerk, it will destroy you both and everyone around you!"
"M-Marry...?" Ranma managed to gasp out, only to find those chillingly blue eyes staring back at him coldly.
"I'm talking about Akane, you moron!" the larger man snarled, "This is the day you were gonna propose to her, which is why I've come back to your time to put a stop to it before it can happen!"
"N-Nani?" Ranma blinked, suddenly rattled by something other than being slammed around like a toy action figure. He stared at the man who looked so much like him and felt a shudder of horror...
"Iinazuke?" Nabiki could not believe she had heard right.
"Why so surprised?" her older self replied as she sipped from her glass of water, "You do remember that Daddy pledged that one of us was going to marry him someday."
"But..." Nabiki stumbled over the words, "What about Akane?"
"Akane," for the first time her older counterpart showed a trace of real emotion, going from momentary sadness to a quiet, intense kind of anger, "What about Akane? She had her chance and she blew it. Ranma needs someone with both feet squarely planted on the ground, and it might as well be me. After all...it's not like there's a lot of competition these days..."
"W-w-what happened?" Nabiki could barely get the words out.
"Well," her companion said with a thoughtful expression, "Technically I shouldn't be telling you. It's against all ATC rules to be giving out clues about the future, like...say...what happens in the stock market in another six months when the Asian economic crisis stabilizes and certain high-yield companies begin to rack up profits in the double digits."
"Oh?" Nabiki arched an eyebrow, thinking over that hint while still trying to absorb the other implications.
The older Nabiki just sighed, "I might as well tell you now. It's the reason Ranma's currently beating up on his younger self, and knowing him he'll probably be telling his double all about his tragic story, the baka."
"So..." the younger Nabiki said slowly, "What aren't you supposed to tell me?"
"That the marriage between Ranma and Akane will barely survive the year," the older woman replied, "And it's going to end very badly. Akane has a pre-
existing condition that you may not be aware about. You've noticed how recently she seems to be getting some control over her violent urges?"
"Uh..." Nabiki thought a moment then said, "It has been getting a lot quieter around here, now that you mention it."
"It won't last," the older Nabiki replied as she accepted her hot tea then blew on the cup before drinking, "Her anger is like a living thing, you see...it demands to be fed every so often. Think of it as being a period of remission before the cancer flares again to full life. It's just laying dormant beneath the surface waiting to break out, and the Honeymoon is where it starts to happen."
"The Honeymoon?" Nabiki repeated, "What could go wrong there?"
Her older counterpart just gave her an odd look, then shook her head and said, "It's obvious that you've never been married! All right, suppose I explain it to you like this: What is the primary motivation for Akane's tendency to beat up on Ranma?"
"His mouth," Nabiki promptly answered.
"So," her older self replied, "You're saying that he deserves it because of his mouth?"
"Ah...well," the younger Nabiki hesitated, "I didn't say he deserved it, but if Ranma wanted to avoid making her angry he should watch what he says..."
"Ranma?" her older self said incredulously, "Think about what he says before he says it? You must be mad!" She smiled after she said this and added, "Actually he's a lot better at controlling his tongue these days. After all the hell he's been through he's not the same guy that you remember, and it all began that night after they got married and the two made passionate whoopee together. When the heat wore down and they cuddled up together a very strange thing happened to Akane...she woke up in the middle of the night, saw Ranma laying beside her, and she promptly threw him out of bed, calling him a pervert."
"She what?" Nabiki gasped.
"I didn't know about this for a while, of course," her older self spread her hands to emphasize her helplessness, "It's not the sort of thing Ranma would talk about unless you carefully pry out the details, like I have. Looking back it's not really all that surprising...Akane had just fallen into the pattern of beating him up whenever he gave her the slightest provocation, even if it was just something she imagined him doing. It was a habit, an easy form of release for pent up aggressions, and Ranma made the perfect target because he never fought back. Akane was always the aggressor, and violence was her means of controlling Ranma, not to mention her focal point for controlling her own urges."
"Well...I..." Nabiki stumbled as she thought about this, "I...suppose I never really looked at it that way..."
"Oh yeah?" her counterpart suddenly flashed an angry look in her direction, "And I suppose it never amused you, never gave you a slight sense of smug superiority to sit back and watch Ranma make an absolute fool of himself trying to appease Akane, or his frequent gaffs where he'd say or do something without realizing the consequences of his often rude behavior?"
"Um..." Nabiki shuffled nervously in her seat, "Well..."
"Of course you found it amusing," her older self answered her own question, "Like having your own Three Stooges marathon in the comfort of your living room. Of course it never seemed to bother you that the physical abuse was all going one way, that there was no way for Ranma to retaliate in kind or maintain any kind of balance in their relationship. He was the Enabler, she was the Abuser, and the only way he could think of averting her periodic rages was to find some way not to make her angry. It didn't work, of course, even after Ranma finally learned how to curb his tongue and stop saying the things that were most responsible for making Akane feel both weak and pathetic."
"You mean unfeminine?" Nabiki asked when she looked up to see a waitress had delivered their meals. She waited patiently until the trays were all laid out and the waitress had left before resuming, "I know what really bothers Akane is that Ranma doesn't take her very serious as either a woman or a martial artist..."
"But he still loves her just the same," the older Nabiki replied as she neatly folded her napkin and laid it out upon her lap, "I used to think that was enough, that love would triumph over all, that eventually their real feelings would work them past the hostility and mistrust. Of course that was all a pile of greeting card crap. It doesn't work that way in real life. People don't just spontaneously change and amend their ways without strong motivation. The problem with Akane was that she used violence to avoid having to deal with strong emotional issues. It's how she beats back death, by pummeling the whole world into submission."
"Beats back death?" Nabiki repeated with lifted eyebrows.
"Don't tell me you never suspected," the other Nabiki replied as she picked up an egg role and bit the end, chewing it slowly before smiling and saying, "Delicious...haven't had anything to eat all day. No time, what with rushing from my office to get to here and all that."
"Suspected?" Nabiki's eyes widened, "You mean you know why Akane has these rages?"
"It started around the time our mother died, right?" her counterpart replied as she picked up her chopsticks and snapped them out of their paper package, "Daddy folded up emotionally, Kasumi took over all the domestic chores and went into a state of perpetual bliss, and I...we became withdrawn in our emotions. We took our grief and shoved it right down deep into our souls where nobody could find and hurt us because we needed to be strong, we needed to stay in control, to help the family out in any way we could. Of course Akane took it the worst of all of us, getting angry about death, about having somebody we all loved get taken away from us without any way of fighting back or protecting her loved ones. It did something inside her, twisted her nature in a subtle way so that Akane resolved to never be that helpless in the face of death again..."
"But Akane's been in plenty of danger since then," the younger Nabiki replied, "If anything she's made a habit out of winding up playing the helpless damsel..."
"And who makes her feel that way?" her older self countered, "When Kuno made his declaration that only a guy who could beat her in a fight would be able to date Akane he wasn't anticipating Amazon rules, he was expressing his belief that he'd be the only guy worthy of Akane's attention. In effect he was trying to take the choice away from her because he sensed that she needed someone who could be strong and supportive. The clueless idiot never realized that he was exactly the wrong guy to prepare Akane for the pressures of adolescence. He just set the tone and motivated Akane to fight harder for her own independence...then along came Ranma, who was just so much better as a fighter that Akane might as well have been Kasumi for all the good her skills did her. He made her feel weak and helpless again, and she never could forgive him for that, even after she fell in love with the big jerk. In anything her feelings for him only intensified her feelings of inadequacy, which was one key factor behind her continuous use of violence."
"But you said Ranma learned to behave around her," Nabiki frowned, "Why wouldn't that help?"
"Because violence for Akane was like an addiction," her older self replied between mouthfuls of rice, "And what happens when you try to withdraw cold turnkey from an addiction? Your cravings only get stronger as the need that fuels the addiction increases. Akane never had any resistance to her own temper because she stoutly denied to herself that she had any problem. Funny thing about denial, though...the more you get into the habit of denying, the more you rely on it to avoid taking a serious look at the problem."
Nabiki was silent for a moment, then she cautiously said, "You mean to say that even when Ranma tried not to provoke her..."
"Her mind craved the comfortable addiction of anger and manufactured reasons to get angry," the older Nabiki answered softly, sipping once more from her tea cup, "It took less and less to set her off over time, and soon she was going around in a state of Defcon Four, ready to go off at a second's notice. It didn't even help when she started to learn how to cook better than before, or at least not to set the kitchen on fire, though she never quite was as good as we would have wanted. At least after a while her food stopped being so toxic and she even managed to keep a reasonably clean house, which was a good thing since I'd gone off to College and Kasumi had married Doctor Tofu. Daddy remained a presence in the house but it was Ranma who was teaching classes in the dojo to earn his keep. I only got to stop in every now and then to see what was happening, so I didn't catch on until it was well too late that there was any kind of serious problem."
"Didn't anyone try to help?" Nabiki asked, sensing that there was more unpleasantness to the story.
"Oh sure," her older self replied, "Kuonji was there at the house almost every other day checking up on Ranma to see how he was doing. She never really gave up on him, even after she accepted the fact that Ranma was married and still in love with Akane. Poor Ukyo...what a waste."
"What a waste?" Nabiki felt ice go down her spine as if in premonition.
"Yeah," her older self looked down and did not touch her food for a somber moment, then finally she looked up and replied, "She died almost one year to the day after the wedding protecting Ranma from Akane. She gave her life protecting him when Akane's mind finally snapped, and Ranma's never been able to forgive himself for that. I don't think he ever really knew how much she loved him until that day, though it was obvious enough to anyone else who knew her. The thing that was a surprise to him, though, was how much he cared about her. She died before he could tell her that he loved her, and it's been eating him up inside ever since. Every day for the last nineteen years he's carried that burden inside him, and now he's ready to explode with rage over having forsaken true love for a hopeless marriage to Akane."
Nabiki felt as if someone had punched her in the gut. Ukyo dead? Akane a killer? Ranma suicidally depressed? That latter though shocked her even more and in the horrified silence that followed she gasped, "What...what does he mean to do now?"
"Confront your Ranma with the facts," her other self said quietly, "Try to change his mind about proposing to Akane, and if he fails in that...then he'll probably kill him..."
"Yeah, that's right!" the older Ranma snarled to his stunned counterpart, "She's dead and I killed her! As surely as if I held the katana when it pierced her heart and slit her belly!"
"N-No way!" Ranma stammered, doing something he never had done before in a fight, which was to back away in horror at the icy stare that stood accusingly before her.
"Don't hand me that crap!" his antagonist declared in deadly earnest, "I was there when it happened...and if she hadn't thrown herself in the way...!" his voice caught for a second, but then he snarled, "I shoulda been the one to die, not her! It was to save my worthless hide that she got between me and Akane!"
"N-Nani?" Ranma looked at the other man without comprehension.
"Ucchan stood by me through Hell," the older Ranma was all but shouting, "She was the one who saw all the bruises and marks that I'd been taking from Akane and she tried to get me to seek help while there was still time! She all but dragged me to those meetings where victims of domestic violence got together and made me face the fact that I was trapped in an abusive marriage! She made me face the truth that Akane wasn't getting any better, only worse, but still I kept trying to make it work, to save my marriage, to prove I wasn't an irresponsible husband like Pop, that it wasn't all my fault that Akane no longer smiled and was always going around in a state of perpetual anger. It didn't matter what I did to try and appease her, all I had to do was gag when she fed me something and then she'd snap like dried bamboo! Then she found out about Ucchan taking me to those meetings..."
The older Ranma stopped talking, his body shaking for a solid minute as if the prison of his memories enclosed his mind. His eyes where shut tight as his fists clenched in anger and he started to manifest a black battle aura. When he opened his eyes again they were on fire from within, and when he spoke his words were like an inferno, burning the soul of the witness.
"I never should have turned my back on Ucchan! She was right all along, but I was too stubborn and proud to admit it...and then I lost my pride and I was still too stubborn! I suffered in ways you can't imagine, my body wasting away as I barely had any appetite. It was killing me inside! I wanted so much to make Akane smile again, but she never smiled at me any more! The girl I thought I'd married had turned into somebody else, somebody who I never wanted to see, and it was all my fault! My fault! And then that final argument at the end where Akane grabbed the Saotome Katana, which Mom gave her as a wedding present...!"
The blackness surrounding Ranma suddenly grew to a raging fire that obscured him, but with great effort he gathered his energies into his hands then hurled them skyward in a massive Shi Shi Hokoudan burst that staggered Ranma from the mere backwash. The energy discharge hardly seemed to tire him at all, so when he spoke again there was a frightening calm about his words that was somehow more terrible than before the explosion.
"Ukyo was paying her respects to the house when she heard the sounds of us shouting at each other in the dojo. She got there just as Akane drew the katana and came at me. I...didn't even budge when I saw the sword sink right into my abdomen, I just stared stupidly down at myself and wondered why it didn't hurt so much, and then she yanked it out and was ready to stab me again to finish me off..."
He shuddered, his whole frame wracked by the unvoiced sob he might have given had he not been trained from birth that such gestures were unmanly. The elder Ranma waited until his voice was steady once again before he said, "I think I wanted to die right then, that it was easier to accept death than to go on living the way we had been. I mean, what was the point of it all? We'd lost all of our students, our savings account had sunk to practically nothing, nobody wanted to visit us, not even Ryoga, and all because they didn't want to see the great and powerful Ranma Saotome reduced to a pitiful scarecrow. I'd lost everything, my pride, my integrity...all I had left was my honor, and even that meant nothing to me by then, so I just closed my eyes and tried to will it to happen...I never even knew Ukyo was there until I heard her gasp...and then she was standing in front of me and the sword was projecting out her back, the tip just centimeters from my heart..."
He closed his eyes again and clenched his fists in rage, willing himself to remain firm. He could not weaken now, now when he was close to achieving his ambition. The dream of half a lifetime: of doing it all over, of having a second chance, of making right the mistakes of the past...all of it forced him to open his eyes again, and what his younger self saw was not madness but a kind of sanity that was cold and sober, utterly lacking any trace of either warmth or humor.
"She died saving my worthless life," he declared in a flat tone milked try of all inflection, "To this day I don't know why she didn't simply knock Akane out or use her spatula to deflect the sword. Maybe she didn't have time to think of it, or maybe it was just love that blinded her...love for me, which I could never return because of my stupid oath to my unforgivably clueless parents!"
He began stalking towards the younger Ranma, "All these years people've asked me why I didn't leave Akane, why I stayed with her when the only sane thing I could have done was to sue for divorce! You know what the joke of it all is? The really sick thing that twists my guts just to think of it? It's because I still loved Akane, or thought I was in love with her, when all I could feel for her in the end was simple pity."
Ranma backed away, attempting to keep his distance as he sized up his foe, who was himself in all ways but for the unbelievable horror of his words, which hit Ranma harder than a thousand knife cuts.
"Ucchan's death changed all that," his older self declared when only a few meters away, where he halted, "In one instant I went from pitying Akane to hating her with as much passion as I could feel at that moment. I lost consciousness due to blood loss and woke up sometime later in the Hospital with several days having elapsed and the news that I'd slept right through the funeral they gave Ucchan. Akane was in a mental ward, of course, having turned herself into a vegetable when she realized what she had done to Ucchan...what she thought she had done to me. The ironic thing is that she's the one who called Doctor Tofu before losing it, and if it wasn't for that one simple gesture I would have died for sure. I wanted to, the Kami is my witness."
"So..." Ranma tried to get a handle on the bewildering story he had just heard and failed. His mind simply refused to understand how things could have turned out as badly as what the other man was describing, "So...things didn't work out for you. Why take it out on me?"
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when Ranma found himself tumbling backwards from a blow that he had not even seen coming.
"You young idiot!" his older self shouted, "Do you honestly believe that you'll turn out any better than me? If you are that much of a fool, then I'm wasting my time here! You can't make it work any better, I know! I've gone over it time and again in my head and it always winds up the same no matter how I work the numbers."
Ranma was trying to find his feet as the world spun around in circles and he glared at the three versions of the older Ranma who were glaring down at him from a surprising distance, "Ah...okay...maybe I might believe that if I knew for a fact that Akane's going to turn into some kind of a monster after our marriage."
"You still don't get it," his older self said in disgust, "Akane is a rage addict, she has a condition known as Rage Disorder, which causes some people to lash out at the very people they care about. They don't even know when they're doing it because they can't see that they're a part of the problem. What makes you think you can turn her around? You think the power of love is going to reach out and heal her?"
"Well, why not?" Ranma felt his vision clearing a little and made several adjustments to clear himself out so that he could face only one of the opponents, "If love's the strongest thing in the Universe..."
"You think love can't be turned into hate?" the big man suddenly moved and slammed Ranma up against a tree more than forty meters from where they had been standing, "You don't know anything about love, Mister! I've held real love in my hands and I let it go because I was too stupid to realize it! Ucchan paid the price because I wouldn't let it go and dissolve the marriage! I don't know why she never hated me for he hell I put her through. Why, I was even crass enough to ask her to be my Ring bearer! How's that for clueless?"
"Ah..." Ranma said hesitantly, deciding not to broach that subject.
"You want to know what my 'love' for Akane did to the rest of her family?" the older Ranma persisted, "Kasumi had been studying medicine on the side and was helping Tofu out as his chief nurse, so naturally she came along with him when he went to the dojo and found Akane curled up in a fetal position, her hands still red with Ucchan's blood and the Katana laying like an incriminating black glove for anyone who had any doubts about what happened. Kasumi went into shock at the sight of so much blood, and me looking like I'd joined Ukyo in death...it just caused something inside her to snap, maybe guilt because she couldn't save her baby sister. She was never the same person after that, and neither was Tofu, but you could tell by looking that she was very deeply hurt and disappointed. Mister Tendo went into shock and had to be hospitalized, while Nabiki..."
For a moment the older Ranma's voice caught and he could not continue, the tears he dared not cry proving nearly overwhelming, but then he spoke again with effort, "Man, how can she even stand to look at me, knowing what a mess I made of her family and everything? It figures that the last thing Mister Tendo would do before kicking off was to engage me to her since we were the last two members of our families in any kind of shape to carry on the Anything Goes tradition, especially after Mom insisted that Pop 'make restitution for his sins' by holding him to that...stupid contract she had him sign all those years ago! I should have died with him, but no! I had to live to find out what kind of a rotten mess I'd really created, especially after word finally came to me about Shampoo!"
"Shampoo?" Ranma's eyes widened, "Not her too?"
The older Ranma glared a hateful, scathing look that seared Ranma's soul as he said, "Well, what did you think, you moron? You ever give two seconds to thinking about what would happen to her when you decided to marry Akane? You know those rules she lived by? Do you know what the penalty is for an Amazon who fails to carry out the obligation to marry her husband or kill him for disgracing her? It isn't death, it's dishonor for her entire family! Why do you think Cologne fought so hard to try and see to it I honored her great granddaughter?"
"But..." Ranma hesitated, then said, "Those rules were her problem! They ain't got nothing to do with me..."
"Idiot!" the younger Ranma found himself being hoist into the air again and shaken until his teeth started to rattle, "You think you can just dismiss her because she comes from another culture? Just because her rules aren't your rules? That it doesn't matter to her that you tossed her over for somebody who she could break in half if she wanted? You ever wonder about why she didn't kill Akane that first time but used the Xi Fang Giao to seal her memories? Why she didn't kill me the day after my marriage to Akane?"
Ranma found himself nose-to-nose with his counterpart, who glared at him before declaring, "Did you ever even for one second really think of her at all like she was a person? Did you care what would happen when she went back home and faced the other Amazons and had to admit her failure, why she left us alone when we humiliated and disgraced her? You wanna know what happened? SHE KILLED HERSELF! She took her own life, threw herself onto her own sword rather than bring shame to her family or have to live with the knowledge that she'd lost me forever!"
"N-Nani?" Ranma gasped in a tiny voice as he fought to retain consciousness in the face of the other man's anger, which now was burning like an inferno.
"SHE WAS MY WIFE!" the older Ranma roared in such heated tones as he sent Ranma flying...
"Kill him?" Nabiki was vaguely aware that her voice was squeaking but for once didn't care at all about that.
"It's well within the scope of his power," her older version replied while calmly finishing the rest of her dinner, "Ranma learned to kill shortly after becoming a Timecop. It's sometimes necessary in our business to end the career of a major criminal who might just keep coming back time after time if not permanently defeated. I won't even begin to tell you the troubles we've had in that respect with a certain guy by the name of Vega..."
"What are we sitting around here for?" Nabiki was half out of her chair, "We have to stop him!"
"I'm game," her counterpart said calmly, "Got any suggestions.?"
"Excuse me?" Nabiki said in disbelief at how calm her other self was handling matters.
"Understand, the Ranma I know is like a force of nature," that version answered, "You can't argue or reason with him when he gets a mad on, you just get out of his way and hope to find shelter. Besides, it can only do him some good to get it all out for once, to stop holding it all inside like he's been doing ever since he pulled himself together in the hospital. He spent a year in rehab, sequestering himself in a Buddhist monastery, then going on sabbatical seeking to regain his martial arts standing. I had to be there for him to help him get his life back in order. It was my duty and responsibility as his iinazuke, you see, to watch after him and be strong while he tried to make sense of what had happened. Even after all this time he still hasn't fully recovered or been able to forgive himself, he carries it all around and unleashes his rage at any target who gives him sufficient provocation. It was my idea to partner him up with Ryoga since the two are basically so much alike, and Ryo-chan is the only one tough enough to withstand prolonged exposure to Ranma's frequent episodes where he comes close to losing it. You know what a big ego the baka has. Imagine that conceit turned inward and against himself and maybe you'll have some slight notion of what he's going through at this very minute."
"But if he's crazy enough to actually kill his younger self...?" Nabiki tried to argue.
"Why do you care?"
"Huh?" Nabiki blinked, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Little Sister," the older Nabiki gave a hard look to her younger counterpart, "I'm the one who's engaged to marry Ranma and have been for close to twenty years thanks to Daddy forcing me to make that promise on his death bed. I've had time to forge bonds to my Ranma, what I want to know is why you'd give a damn about a guy you've tormented and blackmailed since practically the very first day he showed up in Nerima."
"Ah..." Nabiki hesitated, "Well...he...he is going to be my brother-in-law..."
"Go on," the older Nabiki's eyes narrowed, "Pull the other one. What have I just got through telling you about the marriage to our little sister? Surely you must have a better reason than that."
"What do you mean?" Nabiki asked with rounded eyes.
"Please," the older Nabiki snorted, "Who do you think you're dealing with here? You think I don't know the truth about you deep down? I got a news flash-I WAS YOU all those years ago, I know everything that's going on in your mind right now, so I'm the last person on earth whom you can successfully lie to."
"Ah..." Nabiki looked down at the table and her still-untouched dinner.
"You don't have to hide it with me," the older Nabiki replied, "You care a lot more about Ranma that you let on, and you think of him as exciting because of who he is, what he does, the curse that gives him perspective on both genders and the general basic fact that he's the nicest, sweetest, kindest guy in all of Nerima, bar none! You know what a special sort of person he is, even with all of his personal faults, his stupidity and that monumental ego. You don't like to think about that because it conflicts too much with your hard-earned reputation as an Ice Queen."
"Ah..." Nabiki fidgeted slightly.
"Two years ago you made a horrible mistake," the older Nabiki replied, "You let him go. You allowed Daddy and that brainless cad of a Panda engage Ranma to someone who basically despises him, never trusts anything he says, barely listens to his explanations and generally just beats him up for fun. Smooth move, Sis, a real display of your tactical brilliance, letting yourself get freaked the first day he was here, or sizing him up on the basis of his non-
existent wallet."
"But..." Nabiki started to say then hesitated.
"You thought he was cute the first second you laid eyes upon him," her older self continued unrelenting, "You even thought his girl form was pretty, but you didn't want to deal with a few issues so you let your one chance for true happiness to slip through your fingers. I'll have you know that I would KILL for the chance to go back and do it all over, even with all the problems that come from being his iinazuke."
Nabiki looked up at her other self and said simply, "You love him?"
"What was your first clue?" her counterpart murmured softly, then her voice took on a note almost of normalcy as she added, "By the way, if you're not going to eat that, mind if I have some of what's on your plate? I'm still famished."
"After what you ate?" Nabiki said incredulously.
"Hey, what can I say?" the older Nabiki snagged a fried Wonton and began chewing it as she smiled, "Oral fixation, remember? It's like Ryonami says, I've just got to have something in my mouth every five minutes or I feel orally deprived. Guess one of these days I'm gonna make some guy really happy."
Nabiki could not help noticing the wistful tone in her other self's voice and said, "You mean you haven't...done it yet?"
"What do you think?" Nabiki sniffed, "I'm one year short of the big four-oh and who have I had to practice with? Kuno? That's a laugh! I used to be crazy over that guy, but the minute he sees Ranma's female half he's gone right over the event horizon. Mousse? Yeah, if he can even see his way to notice somebody other than Shampoo! Not much recommendation there. Ryoga's kind of sweet but he's basically clueless and pretty much happily married to Akari. Then there's always Mikado Sansenin..."
"Him?" Nabiki snorted, "I'd sooner kiss a toad!"
"So you see my problem," Nabiki replied, "Why settle for beef when you can have filet mignon, and Ranma's arguably the cutest guy on the planet if you go by character as well as looks. If I'd chosen him instead of foist him on Akane you'd better believe I wouldn't leave him in any doubt about my feelings."
"But...what about Ranma's safety?" Nabiki challenged, "How can you just sit there so calmly while he's maybe destroying himself outside...?"
"Practice," the other Nabiki said somberly, "It isn't easy, I'll grant you...it's taken me years to get the hang on it. For the longest while I was afraid of letting him out of my sight as I thought he'd maybe resort to suicide to deal with his grief problem, then I finally came to realize that Ranma isn't that sort of person. Deep down he cares about life, about people, maybe even a little about himself, which is how he was able to build himself back from the brink of extinction. In time I've just learned to trust Ranma and let him go live his destiny. It's hard, I'll admit, but the only way that I can really love him is if I give him the freedom to live his own life rather than try to break him to my standards. The thing to keep in mind is that Ranma always wins...always. He never backs down from a challenge, but he always succeeds in turning an opponent's strength against him."
"But there are two Ranmas now!" Nabiki pointed out.
"Yes," her counterpart replied, "Irony, isn't it? I can only wonder which one of them emerges the victor in this clash..."
"Still with me?" Ranma heard those words echoing in his skull where he lay in a crumpled heap, "Good, because I ain't done with you yet, Junior, not by a longshot!"
Ranma coughed, feeling battered and bruised all over as he struggled to get himself into an upright position. The beating he had taken so far had not been life-threateningly serious but it was starting to take its toll on his reserves, which was nothing compared to the battering of his ego.
"W-why?" Ranma managed to gasp out, "Why are you doing this...?"
"Because I'm sick and tired of carrying around the pain of being you!" his other self replied, "You're such a pathetic little whiner, you don't have any clue about what you do to other people. Bad enough you take Ukyo's friendship for granted and treat Shampoo like dirt, but you can't even face up to the responsibilities you have accepted!"
"I didn't...I didn't know about Shampoo," Ranma managed to say, "I didn't think she was the type..."
"No, they never do seem like the type," his older self replied sadly, and suddenly Ranma felt his hair being seized as he was physically dragged onto his feet by his opponent, "But you think that makes a difference to her? You're blowing it, man! You're screwing up people's lives and you don't even have a clue! Maybe if you thought about somebody other than yourself sometimes..."
Ranma grabbed the bigger man by the wrist and attempted to throw him but the tactic failed as the other Ranma held his ground as though his feet were nailed to the concrete.
"That's it," his other self replied, "Get it all out, show me what kind of a Man among Men you are. That used to mean so much to me...but where did that feeling go?"
With almost contemptible ease he lifted Ranma and hurled him over his shoulder and into a brick wall.
"Guess I just stopped thinking it was important," the older Ranma said as he turned around to confront his stunned opponent, "I mean what kind of a man lets his friends suffer because he can't make his mind up about life? I mean, what are you doing with your life, guy? All these fights, trying to be the best, training yourself every day to face the next big challenge, and meanwhile life is just passing you by. If you're not too careful you'll wind up turning into me, and believe me you don't want to have that happen. It's not a fate you'd wish on your worse enemy."
Ranma grunted at that and tried to form a coherent rebuttal but the repeated assaults to both his mind and body were starting to penetrate through his mental defenses as he lay where he had fallen sucking in wind and regathering the fragments of his fighting spirit.
"Gee, I'll bet you're wonder, 'What is this guy going on about?'" his future self helpfully said, choosing to talk instead of finish the engagement, "You wonder what's so bad about being me. I mean I'm the toughest guy you've ever gone up against, I eat scum like Herb and Saffron for breakfast. I'm undefeated in over a million different realities, but you know what? It means nothing to me! Nada, zilch! I've got nothing left to me but fighting! Always endless fighting!"
He knelt down so that he could continue to speak in an almost friendly fashion, though his words continue to hammer home with the same merciless intensity as before, "Let me tell you what I am, Junior...I'm walking death! I'm unstoppable power! I can level mountains and change the course of mighty rivers, and I hate it! That's what you've got to look forward to if you don't get it all together and do it right this time, and by that I mean no way do you marry Akane!"
The older Ranma lifted his gaze and for a moment his expression almost became wistful, "I can remember that day we first met...kami but she was so cute in that faded yellow gi of hers. She challenged me to spar in the dojo and I whipped her ass hands down. Of course I wouldn't do more than lay one finger on her, but she was a girl, and I was taught that fighting girls was unmanly. Not that it stopped me from kicking Shampoo off that log, mind you, but the whole idea of hitting Akane just made me feel queasy.
"I never could understand why she resented me so much over that, but now I know it's because I was hurting her pride by refusing to fight. In effect I was saying that she wasn't good enough for me to take serious, it used to drive her crazy! Before me she was the toughest broad in all of Nerima, but then I show up, and then Ryoga, Shampoo, Ukyo, Mousse and...well...it's like we were this exclusive club of powerful fighters and she was only an honorary member. No matter what she did, or how hard she trained, she never seemed to be able to compete with us as any kind of serious contender.
"But by then the real problem wasn't her fighting skills, it was the rivalry that was going on between the two of us. From the minute she walked in on me while I was taking a bath and realized that I was a guy she could not separate me in her mind from that one moment. I used to think there was something wrong with her even then when she started calling me a pervert...I mean, who walked in on who when we were both naked? She never let herself see it that way, of course, since I was officially the enemy, a boy, and therefore by definition a Pervert.
"I didn't really warm up to her at first either, partly because of the Macho way she was acting and partly because I couldn't get it out of my mind that she was this crazy, angry chick who was picking fights with me over what I thought was nothing! I mean, the whole engagement thing wasn't even my idea, and I certainly wouldn't have picked her on the first try. It was only later when I started to feel something, when I began appreciating that she was really trying, that she was a pretty decent fighter in her own right, and that she had this really cute side with a smile that could make me feel warm and fuzzy inside...well, you'd think a guy like me would feel lucky to finally have someone who wants to spend time with him and do stuff we could both enjoy together..."
The older Ranma sighed and his chin fell as he looked down, "Yeah, I let myself begin to believe that there might even be a chance for us both, but my problem was that I just couldn't stop my fool mouth from running off and saying stuff without me thinking about it first. I was really cruel to her and so obnoxious that I can't even bear to think about it! I put her down for every little attempt she made to become a better cook or a fighter, insulted her femininity whenever I thought she was cute, got jealous when she gained some new advantage, like with the Super Soba Noodles, and basically acted like a jerk in a thousand little ways that added up to mental torture, so why shouldn't she return the favor? What you sow you reap, and I reaped the effin' Whirlwind!
"And why did I do it? Hell if I know! I just remember feeling so...uncomfortable every time I started to lower my guard and think of Akane like she was a real woman. When I started to feel something for her it scared me so bad that I had to do something to keep her at arms length. Insults were my way of maintaining my independence, of keeping it all down, bottled up inside me, the feelings and emotions that Pop always said were unmanly, like he knew anything about being a man," the older Ranma snorted, then his tone deepened again as she added, "How could I not know that I was doing to Akane the whole time was poisoning her against me? It was unbelievably selfish, and I deserve some of what happened to me because I made her into what she became. If it wasn't for me Akane could have been a different person...she might even have been happy!"
The hateful glare returned to Ranma-senior's eyes, "And you...jerk-off! You're the reason all of it happened! All of it! Akane's slow descent into madness, Ukyo's self-sacrifice, Shampoo's suicide..."
"N-No way!" the younger Ranma said, "You're blaming me for stuff that ain't even happened..."
"Guess again, Junior," his older self leaned forward, "It's already happening right now. It's too late for you to mend fences with Akane. Even if you marry her she's never gonna forgive you for what you've been doing to her for the last two years. Ukyo's going to decline just by watching you suffer through a loveless marriage, and Shampoo...you think she's some kind of brainless idiot for loving you? She must be, but you know what? She doesn't deserve to suffer the fate you're forcing her into, to choose between life and killing either you or Akane. Even if she took Akane out of the picture she knows she can never have you, so what do you think she does about that? She puts on a brave little fa ade calling herself the happiest girl in all of Nerima and manifesting a personality that just gushes out her love for you! You don't deserve her, Man, you know that and that's why you always keep her at a distance!"
"But it's those rules," Ranma gasped, "Those stupid Amazon rules..."
"You think the rules are why she's after you, baka?" the other Ranma said with disgust, "Guess again! She wants you for who and what you are, the rules were just there to point her in our direction. You never could get past the fact that you thought it was only the rules that were making her love you. You didn't trust her because she's underhanded and sneaky, because she thinks like a Cat and her cursed form scares you. Funny thing is you both have a lot more in common than you seem to realize because you've both been trained to be the best, and she's the only girl in all of Nerima who's anywhere near to being your equal as a fighter."
The younger Ranma did not have anything to say to that. He sat where he was and looked thoughtful. This prompted his older self to continue, "You want to know why I'm doing this? Why I'd give up everything I know, believe or have worked for the last two decades? It's because there's only one thing that gives my life any meaning, my honor! At the moment I don't really have any honor, nothing left that I give a damn about, and even my life is pretty meaningless without the people that I care for. What have I got to lose by trying to make a difference in the past? You think you're in hell because of your curse and all the girls chasing after you, but I got news for you: I'd do anything to be where you are now, the chance to do it all over!"
The older Ranma sighed, and for a moment much of the anger drained out of him as he said, "It's too late for me, man. I've been through hell and I didn't actually survive it. I died that day when Ukyo took it in the heart to protect me. All I've done since then is just get by from moment to moment. I haven't really known what it is to feel happy in all that time, not after all the stuff I've done, the people I've killed, the enemies I've put down...all of it's just been stuff I do to help prove that I'm still living..."
He closed his eyes again and pain returned to his features, "I vowed that I would never let anyone get caught up in the same mistakes as I made. I can't stand to see anybody suffer like I have, not for some mistaken idea of loyalty and honor. You're engaged to marry a Tendo because your Pop says it's the right thing to do, and your mother thinks it's so manly. I've always wondered why they were so insistent that I get hitched to one of the Tendo sisters...did you know the very last thing Mister Tendo did on his death bed was to re-engage me to Nabiki...?"
"But...I don't understand," Nabiki gasped, "How can Ranma change his own past? Wouldn't altering things affect his current existence?"
"You've been watching too many bad episodes of Star Trek," her older self retorted, "You can't really change your own past, the quantum signature keeps you from interacting with your own timeline. To objects with the same signature can't occupy the same space at different times, it causes Probability Paradox and it's disruptive to the system. We travel between worlds in terms of space and time by going sideways as wells as forward and back. It is not possible to go back and, say, kill your own ancestors so that you were never born, you can only go back to a close parallel of yourself and eliminate the you from that timeline."
"So why is Ranma doing this?" Nabiki asked, "If he can't really change anything..."
"Not for himself, obviously," the older Nabiki replied, "But by coming close to our home signature he can affect one of the worlds parallel to our timeline, and that's where he gets the potential to change things. By creating a new timeline out of the potential that exists already..."
"Create a new timeline?" asked Nabiki with raised eyebrows.
"In a manner of speaking," the older Nabiki replied, "But what I really should say is that he means to redirect the flow of time so that it reflects an altered reality that will take shape from the raw stuff of its potential. You see...every moment of existence we have many different choices we can make, and any one of them can affect the course of our future. Those alternate pathways exist in potential, but only a few of these many choices can be realized, much like a blank sheep of paper has the potential for all the classics of great literature ever invented. It's only when the print is set to paper and the dark lines are etched there that a timeline is finalized. The future is always in motion..."
"Yeah, I got that part, Yoda," Nabiki said in mild sarcasm, "But if you can't really predict the future..."
"Oh, I could check to see which alternate future timeline is going to be yours once the coordinates harden," the older Nabiki replied, "It's a lot easier to do at my station at Central Control, but I have methods just as reliable at my disposal. I'm not quite the helpless damsel you are when it comes to dealing with a crisis. Just as Ranma has his resources...so do I have mine."
As she said this she brought the palms of her hands almost together and seemed to focus on the space between those palms, where a golfball-sized sphere of light appeared. She banished it a few seconds later then casually linked her fingers and smiled the type of smile you might find on a cat named Cheshire.
"H-How did...?" Nabiki gasped.
"Magic," her counterpart said before returning to finish what was left of her diner, "Or Chi-force manipulation, if you will. There is an ancient Amazon discipline called the Lore Masters, which I apprenticed in during a period when I had nothing better to do. I'm quite good at it now, it comes in handy when working with timetravel."
"You're a Mage?" Nabiki gasped.
"No," her older self said patiently, "I said I am a Lore Master. There is a fundamental difference, but that really isn't very important right now. As a matter of fact," she glanced at the strange watch dial she was wearing, "I'd say we've wasted enough time here. Come along, and have them put what you didn't eat into take out containers. You're going to have quite an appetite when this business is over, believe me."
Nabiki looked at her counterpart and said, "I thought you said you didn't know my exact future?"
"Some things don't take precognition to know in advance," her older self said sagely as she got up out of her chair and waved to a passing waiter, "You just have to know how to read the tea leaves."
As Nabiki got up to follow the example of her strange companion she chanced to notice that the cup her older self had been drinking had been drained and was sporting a few tea leaves, which same seemed to be forming a letter in kanji. She started to frame her next question, then thought better about it. Instead she hurried to catch up with her companion...
Continued.
Comments/Criticism/Clerical Typeface in Tealeaves: shadowsmane
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