This wasn't like the last dream. He wasn't in some familiar house, drinking tea with himself. He was somewhere much more upsetting...and his thoughts were not his own. Ryoga was formless, sightless, and very much the opposite of living. In the deep crushing blackness of this other place, his mind rushed through events and memories too fast for the little sliver that was Ryoga Hibiki to even comprehend.
"They think they can just trick me like this?"
Wisps of white smoke pierced the darkness, beckoning him to follow.
"I've waited too long to leave now! One generation means nothing to me! I'll wait a hundred years if I have to for the Saotomes to have a daughter!" He rushed away from the smoke, further into the comforting shadows of empty space. There he could gather his strength, become more powerful, and hold on to the part of him that was still inhuman.
"How does it feel?" His thoughts broke out into words, and Ryoga was brought back to himself, in a way. He was able to understand that the bitterness and anger he possessed was not his own, but...perhaps what the other part of him felt.
"Yes, it is..." He spoke to himself. "Every day since I...since we were nearly destroyed by that witch."
Ryoga tried to swim away from himself, to grasp out in the darkness and gain purchase on something, anything to use as a weapon. But it was difficult, without arms or legs...or any kind of body to speak of.
"Let me show you something, Ryoga...maybe then you'll understand what we are..." His darker half told himself, dragging the fanged boy into a new vision, very much against his will.
He was in a blindingly white room, surrounded by doctors and medical equipment. In front of him, Ryoga could see his own mother on the operating table. He didn't know much about medicine, seeing as he wasn't a surgeon or anything of the sort...but Ryoga had an inkling of what was happening.
"That's right, we're about to be born..."
"Why are you making me watch this?"
"Because you have to see it for yourself! Maybe then we'll stop fighting, and become one again..."
"What the heck do you mean? We were never one in the first place!" Ryoga argued with himself, becoming more and more distressed at the sight of his mother in pain, and the fact that he was having one of the most disturbing nightmares he'd ever conceived.
The image in front of him suddenly blurred, and Ryoga was no longer in the OR. He was in the lobby, watching his father cry into his hands, a man Ryoga had never once in his life seen shed a tear (though admittedly they didn't seem to have much contact nowadays.)
"What's happening!?" Ryoga began to panic. Had his mother just died?! Was this thing inside him showing Ryoga some kind of sick vision of the future?
"Not the future..."
Ranma opened her eyes, and yawned softly, turning her head over to look at the little black piglet nestled in her left arm. She blinked, surprised. When had that happened?
"Man, we must be pretty heavy sleepers..." She mumbled, trying to extricate herself from him...but...not really wanting to. She didn't want to wake him...he'd probably be pretty upset when he saw how they were sleeping together.
"Jeeze, Ryoga, I'm the one who should be mad," she whispered, as if he'd already woken up and gone into a righteous fit of anger. She smirked sleepily, poking at his head.
"Hey, wake up!" But it was no use. He was dead to the world.
Maybe I should tell him the truth...
But...what was that going to accomplish? Knowing him, he'd either think she was making up some kind of crazy story to trick him in to doing something for her...which Ranma sheepishly admitted to herself was usually the case if her girl half was involved. It wasn't really a half though, not anymore...at least not for now. She still hadn't changed her mind about fixing this problem. Anyway, even if he didn't think she was joking, he'd probably get all nervous and shy around her. Ranma Saotome was not some delicate flower, and she never would be. That reaction would actually upset her a heck of a lot more than him thinking she was a scheming villain.
"...You know, I think we've probably got along better today than we ever have before," she quietly mused, looking up at the ceiling. Her left arm was still wrapped comfortably around Ryoga, but the other was slung up over her shoulder. This was probably the only way she'd be able to come out with the story to him...with the poor fool peacefully unaware of his surroundings.
"I've got to tell you something, Ryoga...get it offa my shoulders already." This felt good...pretending to confide in someone. Even when she'd try to tell pops about her emotions throughout her life, she never seemed to be able to get through a whole thought before he laughed her off or punched her and told her to 'be a man'.
Ranma wrinkled her nose at that. 'Be a man.' What did the old man know about being a man? No, wait...that wasn't fair. She was beginning to understand something about him...seeing as this had been the only topic on her mind for the last 24 hours. Her dad was trying to keep her safe...in the only way he knew how.
"You're lucky you probably don't have a family like mine, Ryoga. I haven't seen my mom since I was a little kid, and pops...I think he did more harm than good, in the end." She looked down at Ryoga and sighed.
"I'm sure you don't even care about much of this stuff. Seeing as you're usually trying to kill me or somethin' else. But...I guess you're one of my best friends..." She paused. "Seeing as the others are always trying ta marry me. Now don't get mad or nothin', Ryoga...but I gotta tell ya what Akane did the other night..." She spent much of the next hour telling him about the morning before when hot water didn't change her anymore, when she'd torn off into the streets in a rush of hysteria, and then been brought to Cologne to learn about the weird contract her grandfather had signed. Each word made the events seem more real. She hadn't realized before how dream-like the previous day had truly felt until just then.
Looking back up at the ceiling again, Ranma closed her eyes, and...didn't really feel the need to cry anymore. Didn't feel the need to lash out. Maybe she'd just gone into full-blown shock, finally. Or maybe she was just too tired to do much but think and talk.
"...it's not like I don't care about Akane or nothin'. Sometimes I thought she was real cute...okay, a lotta times. I still do. Her and Uchaan are probably two of the cutest girls I know. And even when Shampoo's been a pest, she's got her moments." She paused. "I don't hate any of them, Ryoga. I like them."
"Did I ever tell anybody that? 'I like you'?" She asked the sleeping pig, who for all the world looked much more at peace on the outside than he was in his dreams.
"Maybe...maybe I have. But even pops, y'know...I've never said I loved him. It's not like I don't. I kinda gotta..." Ranma rubbed her face, frowning. "You just don't go around telling your old man things like that, do you?" It wasn't what men were supposed to do.
These weren't questions Ryoga would have been able to answer. He had too many problems of his own, at that moment. Namely...his own death...
"Is my wife alright?"
"She is asleep, Mister Hibiki, and we all think it for the best right now."
"...And my child? Is it a boy or girl?"
"...Your child...was a boy."
"WAS?!"
Ryoga watched his father hear the news, and his heart went out to the older Hibiki, wanting desperately to comfort him...though it was silly.
"Dad, I'm not dead! I'm your son, Ryoga! I'm right here in front of you!" Ryoga mentally shouted, unable to form real words without a mouth to speak.
"Just watch..." His other self advised, and the walls of the waiting room faded away. The fanged boy felt himself rushing through it like tearing into rice paper. Beyond that, another wall, and another...it would have been dizzying, if he had a body. But then, he was in another white room, where a nurse carried a small bundle. She was clearly upset, and Ryoga recognized her as a family friend.
The one who'd...saved his life? That was what his parents had always told him...
"You were a miracle, Ryoga. You were born dead, and they thought you would stay that way...but when Inatsu was carrying you down the hall..." The words of a story his mother had proudly told him many times came rushing back into Ryoga's mind.
Behind the nurse, he saw a black cloud approaching fast.
"Watch out!" Ryoga wanted to shout, to rush forward and stand between the fog and the young woman. But he couldn't...and instead he was only a witness to the bizarre scene of the fog enshrouding the bundle in the nurse's arms...and when it faded...the bundle began to stir.
"What just happened?!" Ryoga shrieked in his head.
"You still haven't figured it out? We were just re-born!" Those words echoed in Ryoga's mind over and over again, followed by cruel and almost insane laughter. He wanted to lash out, to attack the other voice, tear it to shreds...
"What I'm trying ta say, Ryoga..." Ranma began, almost too afraid to say it...
"I think, maybe...if I can't find a way back as a guy, I could start to like-" Just then, in the middle of her heartfelt explanation of her possible feelings, Ranma was rudely snapped back to reality when Ryoga burst from her arms squealing in the rage-filled way only a truly deadly martial artist turned non-kosher could...and then proceeded to try to tear her face to shreds with his hooves.
Obviously he had to spend the rest of the night outside...and when Ryoga realized what he'd done, he couldn't hold it against Ranma for pummeling him a little bit rougher than usual. The voice, meanwhile, continued to laugh...just as it had in his dream.
Author's note: I hope some of this is beginning to make sense. Even if you're still confused about Ryoga's nature, I plan to reveal a bit more in future chapters to clarify every piece of it. And since it's the weekend, you can look forward to slightly longer than normal chapters :)
