Chapter 25

"What should I do?"

An extremely pensive Akane sat in a chair on the balcony of her home. She watched as the stars began to appear in the sky, one by one. The scene, however, was nothing compared to the magnificent view she had encountered on her camping trip two weeks ago, but it was all she could get for now due to her injury. Since then, Ranma had been taking her to therapy every other day, without fail. He had also been the messenger between her teachers and herself by bringing in homework and tests, and then taking them back when she completed them.

Doctor Tofu expected Akane to make a full recovery before the school year ended, but the administrators at the school had recommended she finished the school year in the comfort of her home. After the incident with the drugged Kodachi, the principal did not want to take any more chances in having Akane become injured again. She was saddened to not be able to attend school and continue all her other activities, and she missed her friends. However, she was also glad that she did not have to encounter Orochi or Kuno, or any other loser who had at some point tried to court her.

Staring at her arm sling, she remembered the reason why she had to wear it in the first place: Shampoo. After three days of returning to school, Ranma had commented to her that Shampoo had not shown up in days. Further investigation on his part revealed the Nekohanten's establishment had not only been abandoned but had also been placed up for lease with a new vendor. Akane had mustered all the shock she could summon to pretend she had not known why or when the Amazons had left. Ranma had not questioned the sudden move too much, and had soon forgotten about the members of the Chinese tribe.

Her worries about the Amazons were soon forgotten when she began to return to her normal life, or as normal as it could be without attending school. Her friends had been coming to visit her every couple of days to assist with her attempts at regaining normalcy, and Orochi had placed his distance between him and all things Akane, including Ranma. Days after her attempted murder towards Orochi, Ranma had confessed to her that Orochi had already shared with him his thoughts regarding Ranma's inadequacy to be with her, and Akane had nearly ran to Orochi's house to kill him.

After a discussion with Ranma, she had agreed that she had exaggerated her response to Orochi's taunts, and that Ranma did not care what the upperclassman had to say about him as long as Akane did not believe his observations were at all true. Ranma's commitment to her had become so strong that he had spoken to his mother regarding the move, and had convinced her to allow him to stay at the Tendo's until the school year ended.

Taking only Genma with her, Nodoka had been pleased that her son displayed such manly behavior of staying behind to assist his injured fiancée in her time of need. Ranma had remained in the Tendo home, and had been thrilled to have his room all for himself. He had also taken more responsibilities at home to offset some of the costs of maintenance, and had begun taking lessons from Tofu regarding home repair. It seemed, to anyone who stood outside looking in, that Ranma was preparing himself to be the man of the house for the Tendo home and dojo.

With so many changes in his attitude, the family began to question the motive behind his new sense of responsibility. Just three days ago, Akane and Ranma had had the difficult discussion with their parents regarding their relationship. After a long argument with everyone involved, Nodoka had agreed to allow Ranma and Akane to remain unmarried until the two youngsters finished high school. Ranma had made himself clear that he would not jump into something neither he nor Akane were ready for, and especially when Akane was still recovering from her injuries. He had also made a point to threaten anyone who went against their wishes by swearing to them Akane and he would elope and would never be heard from again.

Reluctantly, the families had accepted to wait until after graduation, claiming the new deadline gave them more time to plan the perfect wedding for the couple. Akane had been relieved that she and Ranma's relationship was out in the open, and that night they had celebrated by spending the night in his room.

While their encounter had been nothing more than a night of holding each other while they slept, sharing small caresses and whispering loving words to each other, Akane had been the happiest woman in the world. Her suitors were gone. His suitors were gone as well. Her shoulder and her wrist were on the road to recovery, and Ranma would stay in the home for the remainder of the school year. Everything was right in the world, their world. Everything seemed to go their way, until last night.

Ever since her return from their camping trip, Akane had begun having recurring nightmares. At first, they had been repeats of the images that had plagued her during their trip. She saw herself crying on her pillow in her room, repeatedly. She saw herself begging to forget Ranma, to forget her love for him. At that point, the dream would then take a turn for the worst.

Initially, Akane had not been able to understand what was happening around her in her dream. For a couple of days, her dream had ended after a blinding light would surround her, and all she could hear was the mumbling of people she could not see. Days after that, her dream would repeat itself, but a new scene was added at the end where the mumbling would eventually stop, and she could hear someone calling her name. Every two days the dream would become longer and more confusing as new images added themselves to the end of the dream. The scene from three days ago, the same person that had called her name before would then call out for Ranma, but Ranma never responded.

Last night, however, her slumber had been cut short when the ending of the dream altered itself again. The light that had been surrounding her had had slowly lost its intensity, and she had been left in the dark for a long time. Eventually, a spotlight appeared on top of her, and after a loud noise, she found herself covered in blood. The sight of blood had not shocked her until she realized the blood did not belong to her. The spotlight had gotten wider, and in front of her, by her feet, laid a bloodied Ranma, his limbs bent completely out of shape making him look as a torn rag doll. His eyes were still open, but were devoid of the passion they usually burned with. She had fallen on her knees, afraid of touching him as if she could cause any more damage to his already broken body.

Tears trailed down her face, and she screamed in pain at his lifeless body. The worst of it all, however, had been the voice that had woken her up in the middle of the night. The same voice that had once comforted her by telling her everything would be better in the morning. The voice that had then told her everything would be over soon. The same voice that was now taunting her with the consequences of her own unknown mistake.

"You caused this, child; he's dead because of you."

She had not been able to watch any more. Her body had convulsed violently at the amount of tears and sobs that engulfed her. The fear of seeing those images again prevented her from sleeping the rest of the night. She did not think she could ever sleep again. Without anything to do, no one to talk to, and not being able to train, she had sat at the balcony since this morning after breakfast. Nightfall had arrived, and she remained in the same place, replaying the gruesome images in her head.

The balcony door slid open, startling her, allowing Ranma to walk onto the balcony. He sat on the edge of the rail he had just recently fixed, and alternated his eyes between the stars and Akane.

"These skies bring good memories to me," Ranma said to open the conversation he knew was going to turn into an argument very soon if he did not play his cards right.

"How was your day?" Akane asked him, oblivious to the true intentions of his visit to the balcony.

"Same ol'."

Akane gave a quick peek to her watch.

"You're late."

Ranma jumped off the rail and walked towards her, sitting on the floor next to her chair, but still staring at the skies.

"Tell me about it!" Ranma agreed as he nodded. "Emi is getting needier. It seems every time I think I'm ready to leave, she finds something else for me to do. The overtime is nice, but I don't think I can stand her any longer."

"Maybe I should stop by? Have a little girl talk with her?"

Ranma chuckled. "I don't wanna get fired for assault, 'kane."

"Technically, it wouldn't be you who assaults her."

Ranma shook his head. "Don't sweat it. I'm already looking for another job. Maybe find something that pays more for fewer hours. I've been away from home too long."

"Or you could just stop working altogether. You don't need to work."

"I do need to work, especially during the summer that I can put in more hours. It's nice to have your own funds, you know?"

Akane nodded. "Maybe I'm just jealous because I can't even eat my own food without some help."

Ranma stood up and lifted her off the chair so that he could sit on it, and laid Akane on his lap. He examined her arm and her wrist, frowning at the presence of the sling and the brace.

"Two more weeks and you can move around again, Akane. Just wait a little longer and you'll be better in no time."

Akane agreed by nodding her head, absentmindedly. Ranma pressed a hand onto her stomach and rubbed it from left to right. "Are you hungry?"

"No," she said almost too quickly.

Ranma sighed. "Akane, Kasumi told me you didn't have lunch or dinner. That ain't gonna help with your recovery."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's too bad cuz I'm starving but I won't eat unless you do."

"Whatever, Ranma. You not eating would be the end of the world."

Ranma shrugged. He expected her to defy him on this. "Well, we have a front row seat of the end of the world right here on the balcony, don't you think?"

Akane opened her mouth to retort to his smart-ass comment, but her voice left her when the image of a bleeding, dead Ranma appeared to her again. She closed her eyes and shook her head, hoping the images would disappear. Ranma took her actions as a sign of dizziness, so he pulled her closer to him, covering as much as he could of her with his arms.

"Let's not turn this into an argument, Akane. Please, have dinner with me."

Nodding slightly, she agreed to his request. He smiled in victory as he stretched his arm backwards and pulled a tray of food he had hidden behind the curtains of the balcony. Akane snorted at the sight, wondering how he had known he would convince her to eat.

"It's still warm. Wanna sit on the floor?"

Akane agreed, so he carefully lifted them both from the chair, placing them on the floor with the tray of food between them. Ranma took turns to feed her and his own self, as he excitedly talked about his day to her. Akane only opened her mouth to accept his food offerings, but did not comment on his adventures for the day. Once half of the food on the tray was gone, Akane told him she had had enough to eat for the day.

"OK, Akane, but none of this shit tomorrow, OK? How are we supposed to enjoy the summer together if you pass out on me because of an empty stomach, uh?"

"Ranma, the summer break is two months away."

"So? The better we take care of you now, the sooner we'll be hanging out together anywhere we want to, later."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere."

Akane smiled at him, almost forgetting the images of his dead body on the ground. What the images could mean, she wondered, but not enough to invite a real-world glimpse of them. How could she possibly be the reason Ranma could die, perhaps soon? No, she could not be the reason for Ranma to die! Besides, Ranma was built like a rock, anyway. Nothing short of an extremely powerful deity could take him down. If Saffron had not been able to defeat him, why would anyone else be able to?

"Anyway," he said as he mistook her eye wandering for tiredness. "I'm gonna go shower, and you should go to bed. Even though you didn't do much today, tomorrow we're cranking up the therapy, so you better rest well."

Akane nodded to him, hoping he would not see her reluctance to heading to sleep. He helped her get up and carried her to her room and bed, silently enjoying the scent of her hair. He then returned to the balcony to retrieve the tray of food, and took it downstairs to Kasumi who was already waiting for it. Glad to see that Ranma had convinced her younger sister to eat, she took the tray from him and begun washing the bowls.

Ranma quickly returned to Akane, and saw her sitting on the edge of her bed. Unaware that she had no plans to sleep for the night, he grabbed her pajamas and helped her change into them. He then proceeded to tuck her in under the covers, and kissing her goodnight.

"Two more weeks and that brace and sling come off."

"And after that, one more month of me being a sack of potatoes around the house."

"Hot-looking sack of potatoes, Akane. Hot-looking sack of potatoes," he told her with a huge smile on his face.

"Oh, Ranma. Why do you do this? Try to cheer me up?"

"You know why," he said, bending down and kissing her. If he had known this was the last kiss he would receive from her, he would have made it last longer than it did.

Standing up, Ranma winked at Akane before leaving her room, closing the door behind him. He stood outside her door for a minute, as his own inner battle returned to him.

"Your choice you have made," he heard the voice remind him again. He had constantly reminded the annoying little voice that the choice he had made was his final one. However, after seeing Akane's broken, bloodied body on the ground at his feet in his dream last night, he was not sure if his choice had been the correct one. He feared he had inadvertently chosen Akane to die in lieu of him when he had thought he was choosing Akane over anything or anyone. Perhaps his mind was playing some outstandingly dirty tricks on him, and the tension of all the events that had happened to them in the past month were just adding to his already overly active imagination. He knew there was nothing he could do for now. He could only wait and see, and the wait was slowly killing him inside.

Reluctantly, he headed to the bathroom, hoping a warm bath would ease his fears. "Can I change my choice?" he thought to himself as he walked down the stairs.

"Of course, you can," the voice responded.

Ranma sighed. He knew he needed to rest. He was talking to a random voice in his head as if they were the best of friends, making choices of options he did not know about, or believed enough to investigate. After what felt like an eternity, he finally arrived at the furo. He made himself comfortable inside of it before his thoughts reversed back to the evasive meaning of his recurring nightmares.

"I don't need to make a choice. I can keep Akane safe without having to choose anything a random voice says."

"How can you keep her safe from what you cannot see?" The voice retorted mocking his inability to understand what stood before him.

"I don't need to see, just feel."

"Can you feel her heart beating slower? Can you feel her life being sucked away?"

"No, she's fine. She will be fine."

"Can you feel her warm blood in your hands?"

"There is no blood, not hers, at least."

"How can you be so certain? She didn't choose you, you know? Why should you choose her?"

"She didn't choose me? Maybe I shouldn't choose her either. Maybe she knows better than I do. Maybe I should commit myself to an asylum for having a conversation with myself. Or maybe you're just a sick son of a bitch who has nothing better to do than mess with people's lives."

"You know not with whom you speak. However, you will find out, soon. You will find out when your hands are stained with her blood."

"SHUT UP!"

"And then, you will have to choose. You will have no option but to choose. No option to save her; no option to keep her safe, just the option to choose."

"To choose what?"

"Soon, you will choose, soon."

Ranma splashed water on his face, as if it were possible to wash away the images, the fear, and the confusion this voice caused within him. He could not give in to it. He could not believe it, but he could not ignore it, either. He could only listen, and hope that the true intentions of his vision would reveal themselves soon. A knock on the door startled him, pushing aside the visions and the voice.

"Ranma-kun, are you almost done there? I'd like to bathe sometime this century," an annoyed Nabiki yelled from the other side of the door. Nabiki heard noises coming from within the bathroom, which stopped when a towel-wrapped Ranma appeared in front of her.

"It's all yours."

"Thank you, Ranma-kun. I think I only aged five years instead of ten waiting for you to come out."

"Funny, you look as if you aged ten," Ranma responded to her. Nabiki wrinkled her nose. "Watch your mouth, Saotome, or you won't get that advance on your newly set annuity in time."

Ranma flinched. He could not let a small comment set back his plans. He was expecting the funds by the end of the school year so he could complete his secret idea. He had to make amends with her immediately.

"Oi, Nabiki-chan! What I meant to say was that you looked ten years younger!"

Nabiki chuckled, not amused at all by his lame attempt to fix his previous comment. However, the knowledge that she still had him eating from the palm of her hand was enough to accept his sad version of an apology.

"Good boy, Ranma-kun. I knew you wouldn't want to disappoint my little sister by not having her surprise ready in time."

"Never crossed my mind."

"Let's keep it that way, OK?"

Ranma nodded, hurrying his step to get as far away from Nabiki as he could. He sometimes could not stand the middle Tendo sister, but he needed her help for his plan to work. He knew Akane did not suspect a thing, and he wanted to keep it that way. He could hardly wait to see her face when he surprised her at the end of the school year. The next ten weeks would be the longest ones of his life.

His mind created possible reactions from Akane and happy situations coming from the surprise he had in mind until the voice made its appearance again.

"She will never see the day."

"Fuck off," was his final response to the voice he ignored for the rest of night.

A/N: OK, so now it gets weird. These last few chapters were the purpose of this fiction. I got too distracted with what happened in between, so it's time to pull it back together. Did anyone guess what the purpose of the voice is? Can anyone guess where the voices are coming from?