Chapter 25: A Friendly Hand!

"What the?"

"Ranma, are you okay?"

"Ung. I feel like I was hit with a sledge hammer." Ranma croaked. "What happened?". Ranma noticed that he was lying on the floor on the opposite end of the washroom. He tried getting onto his feet, but his disorientation made this next to impossible. In the end, he gave up and simply shook his head around, before sitting in a yoga assan position (Authors notes: Position known for improving blood circulation, similar to Japanese seiza.) attempting to clear his head. Once he was over the greater part of his disorientation, he turned to face the dishevelled doctor.

"Doc, what's wrong?". Ranma quirked his ears as he tried to hear a response but was treated to a sound he had never heard from the normally calm doctor. "Why are you panting?". Tofu was hunched over, trying to pull in as much air as possible into his poor battered lungs. "You … don't know what … happened?" he coughed out.

"No doc! WAIT A SECOND! What about Natsume? Is she …"

"She's fine." Tofu huffed before he got up, obviously having gained control over his breathing. After taking a few calming breaths; he walked over to Natsume, lifted her head into the sink, and started washing all of the shampoo out of her hair. "Ranma, don't touch anywhere near your head until you wash your hands carefully."

"K doc. But could you please explain to me what happened? Why am I on the floor?". Tofu looked with a bit of worry at the younger martial artist before carefully schooling his face into a professional mask. "What is the last thing you remember?". Ranma thought for a minute, carefully avoiding putting his hand on his forehead as he would normally in these situations. Just then; he snapped his fingers, jumped back onto his feet, and walked over to the sink. "I was using my Ki to keep her synapses firing and prevent her memory from fading. I remember it was getting difficult to concentrate as the memories kept flowing, but then I accidentally focused on one. After that, I was surrounded by darkness and the next thing I know I was reliving some of her most important memories."

"Interesting!". Tofu walked into his study and started pacing around the rug in the centre of the room. Ranma watched this from the corner of his eyes whilst thoroughly washing his hands clean of the chemicals in the shampoo. Once satisfied that his hands were clean; he grabbed a towel from one of the racks beside the sink, dried his hands and walked towards the tired doctor. "Doc?"

"Yes Ranma?"

"What do you think happened?". Tofu stopped abruptly before facing Ranma and taking a deep breath. "I think you experienced her memories and whatever emotions she experienced, you started exhibiting them in your battle aura …"

"My battle aura? But how? I wasn't even releasing it. I couldn't have. I tried to use my Ki but it always failed.". At this, Tofu stared intensely at Ranma trying to puzzle through what little knowledge he knew, before saying "You were releasing a battle aura, in fact it was quite an intense aura. However the most surprising thing was that it was emotion based. I know for a fact that your aura is elemental but you were letting off an emotion based aura.".

Hearing this confused Ranma even further. Ranma traced the path Tofu took just a moment ago before turning to face the doctor. "Could you tell me the emotions?"

"No. I'm afraid that I was never able to read the aura properly to discern the emotions." the doctor replied. "That's alright. Did you happen to see the colours?"

Tofu wasn't sure what the appearance of the aura would be needed for but, considering Ranma's background with Ki, he gave as detailed a description as he could. "From what I saw, it was primarily a dark blue with flecks of green and a little violet. Would that help?". Whatever Tofu expected, it certainly wasn't the pigtailed martial artist standing there with pain in his eyes. "Loneliness, depression and jealousy.". Ranma started pacing around deep in thought, occasionally muttering out things like "No wonder!" and "Anyone would feel like that!".

Finally he stopped and turned to face the kindly doctor. "Tofu-san, we need to talk about what I saw.". Tofu saw the seriousness in his demeanour and immediately realised this was not up for debate. If he's being this formal, then it must be serious. Tofu simply pointed to the two armchairs, one on either end of a solid oak desk, standing proudly if somewhat hidden, at the back of the study. Ranma quickly took the one at the base of the table whilst Tofu walked at a much more sedate pace to the head of the table.

It was a few minutes until Ranma could speak again, and even then he would simply open his mouth, sigh and then shut it again. Finally, he managed to string up enough courage to say his next few words. "I think that Natsume might have abandonment issues.". Who knew eight little words could hit Tofu so hard. The doctor in question appeared completely shell-shocked. It wasn't as if I didn't have any suspicions. But how could I not have realised it before? I treated her for nearly four years but still! "Please explain Ranma." Tofu said in a muted voice almost never heard from the doctor.

Ranma simply sat there. The seconds slowly turned into minutes of unbearable silence until finally, Ranma couldn't take it anymore. "I saw everything."

"What did you see?" Tofu asked with genuine concern. Little did they know that Natsume was awake, hearing everything they were saying from behind the washroom door. If they would have turned around, as Ranma recounted the memories to the listening doctor; they would have seen tears falling silently on Natsume's face. They know! They'll hate me won't they. I have to leave forever. I can't show my face around here.

As Natsume prepared herself to run away; Tofu simply looked at the defeated man in front of him. Tofu personally knew from experience how powerfully confident his aura could be normally, but never had he seen a man so broken in front of him. "Ranma, what's wrong?"

"I started blaming her. I thought she was a selfish #&*%# but I never thought of how she felt. Her life was so lonely just like mine, but rather than understand our common pain, I simply accused her. Did you know she kept lying to Kurumi to keep her happy. She never had someone to comfort her like she did to Kurumi and I kept accusing her of holding Kurumi back from her true potential. I thought of her as honourless when she spent all her life giving hope whilst hers dwindled away.". Tofu walked over to the young man to give him some much needed comfort. Ranma stopped for a second, feeling the warm hand holding his shoulder tightly, Ki flowing from Tofu into himself and calming him down.

Slowly, Ranma calmed down. When Tofu felt that he was ready, he took his hand away and walked back to his chair. Ranma took a deep breath and without lifting his head, unwilling to show his face with so much vulnerability, before speaking quietly, almost in a whisper. "Tofu-san? After seeing her memories, I can't help but keep thinking about that day I told them about their parents. Did I do the right thing? I never thought before about the consequences. Everything I did usually turned out well but this is the first time that something I did caused such great after-shocks and I can't help but feel that I have wronged Natsume badly."

Natsume couldn't help but start crying harder. Not only was the boy in front of her not rejecting her; he understood her and was treating her as a person. He's blaming himself? Why? He didn't do anything wrong but he feels responsible for me? After all I did, trying to kill Akane and sell him to the amazons, all he can think of is how badly I must feel. How can he? I'm a monster aren't I? "RANMA!". The force in his voice broke off Natsume's current train of thought, and she craned her neck towards the two people, sitting in the other room, trying to hear their conversation better.

"Ranma!" Tofu spoke again, this time with less force but the same firmness he held normally. "It isn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact from what I heard, I can be pretty sure that she would be thankful of your concern."

"But how? I took away the only person who stayed with her through the pain. How could I not be wrong?"

"Ranma; if your parents abandoned you, wouldn't you want to know why they did so?"

"I guess." He sniffled.

"She wanted the same, I'm sure of it. You managed to close the most painful chapter in her life, the first step to her finally healing. Don't blame yourself. It isn't right."

"But what do I do now? I want to help her. She needs some sort of constant in her life and I think I took it away.". This was too much for Natsume to bear. She burst out of the room and hugged Ranma with as much strength as she could, sobbing freely on him as she tried to comfort the only person who cared for her. "Natsume; I think Ranma may need to breathe.". This brought Natsume out of her trance enough for her to realise that Ranma was turning a rather ugly shade of blue. She quickly released Ranma before shyly moving away, her head hanging down in embarrassment.

Ranma was desperately trying to fill his lungs with air, in a desperate attempt to return to his original colour. A few minutes of panting later and all three were facing each other. "Natsume I'm …"

"No Ranma. I'm sorry. I thought you were trying to take everything away from me so I tried to get rid of you. Now I realise that you were simply trying to make me see the mistake I was making. I … I". Just then, Ranma walked over and hugged the apologising girl, pushing as much love and comfort aura as he could into Natsume. This caused the girl to burst into tears, having not had anyone to hold her when she was alone. After an eternity, Ranma lifted her face so that both were looking into each other's eyes. "Natsume? I know that we both made mistakes about what we thought of each other. Do you think we could be friends?". Natsume looked at Ranma with in trepidation and hope, fear that his words are a cruel joke and hope that he cares. "Do you think we could be friends?"

"Y-You want to be … friends … with me?" Natsume asked, her worries clear as day to Ranma and Tofu. "Yes. I would love to be friends with you."

"I can't." she said as she turned away. "I've done too much to be forgi …". Her words were cut off abruptly when Ranma pulled her face back to face him. "Don't. I never want anyone to feel alone. I want to be there for you. I want to know your pain. I felt the pain of loneliness myself, though obviously not as badly as you."

"You? How?"

"I spent a majority of my life away from my mother, living with only my grandpa and baka of a father, who you know is an idiot. Everyone I cared for was left behind. No one should have to bear that in life. Let me in. Let me help you.". Natsume was speechless. No one had ever cared that much for her. Especially someone she knew for just a few weeks. Can I? What if he leaves? What if he decides he hates me? Please don't hate me. "I won't hate you."

"You won't? Promise?"

"I promise.". Tofu simply stood there, not trusting himself to break such a moment. She finally has someone. I wish I had known her pain before. It makes me feel like a poor doctor. But at least she has a friend now. It's time she had someone. "Let's go home now."

"Ok Ranma." Natsume replied shyly.

On the street a few hundred yards from the Tendo dojo

"Ranma?". Ranma turned to face a happier Natsume. "Yes Natsume?"

"I just … I just wanted … to say … Thank You!". Ranma just smiled whilst the pair walked towards the dojo.