The sun beat down upon a sparkling blue sea and attempted to suffocate the fish in the cold water's depths. Clouds floated lazily across an azure pool while a crisp, salty breeze whipped about below them, eventually easing its way under grey-tipped wings to fling seabirds ever higher in graceful spirals. It weaved swiftly between buildings near a harbor, and then dived at a pier upon which waited two girls.
The redhead sat with her back against one of the bollards, a bored expression on her small face. Her slender arms, folded against her bosom, only reinforced this appearance.
The other girl seemed anxious, however, her legs and back stiff with hands clasped before her. Chewing on her lower lip, she scanned the empty horizon several times before turning to her companion with somber eyes. The wind teased her hair, and when she ignored this, it sidled freshly beneath the silk of her Chinese blouse.
"Ranko?"
Ranma kept her eyes shut and only sighed tiredly. "Like I said, Akane, I don't know when Bushido-Butt'll get here. Just keep your eyes open, okay?"
There was a pointed pause from Akane's part, but the girl finally agreed. Slumping further in her spot, Ranma muttered to herself, "The guy wouldn't miss a date with me for his life." Then, as an afterthought: "Oh, he'd better get us a ship, or I'll ground his balls into the dust, wearing stiletto heels."
The minutes dragged slowly by in the smothering atmosphere, but at last, a rustling of clothing muffled the foaming waves. Curious, Ranma opened an eye.
Akane had also sat, leaning against the other bollard with her face turned toward the light. At least, the Mandarin collar partly shielded her beautiful white neck from the harsh sun. The scent... Could it possibly smell--or taste--as sweet as Ranma imagined?
Uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were taking, especially as it seemed she'd never be a whole man, Ranma pulled her legs up beneath her and looked out to sea--which was really the only reason she noticed the ship. She leapt up, gaping as the wooden craft crawled across the surface of the water to them. Beside her, Akane quietly got to her feet.
It was a Chinese junk, its crimson sails in sad condition and its masts weakened by ages of grim weather. Its owner looked even worse, his face wasted, for some reason. Ranma winced at the thought of having to date this young man--and then she winced again, realizing why Kunou appeared so haggard. Two unhappy girls eyed her from the deck.
"Dammit!" Ranma grumbled as the brown-haired girl tossed the end of a rope ladder over the side. "I thought I told 'im to make sure they didn't come! Stupid Kunou..." She glanced back down at Akane, and then climbed over onto the deck with a nervous greeting and grin for her best friend.
"Long time, no see, sugar," Ukyou replied and stepped back to let Akane aboard, her dark blue eyes flashing in her displeasure. Ranma only turned away and began hauling the ladder up, trying in vain to block out the sudden verbal assault made by the other girl.
"You despicable harlots! Where is he? What have you done to my beloved Ranma-sama?"
The Saotome girl glanced up at Akane, who seemed a bit bewildered at both the outbursts and at the fact that there was a spiked club being thrust at her face. Muttering an oath beneath her breath, she caught the girl in her arms and leapt to the poop deck in one swift motion.
The leotard-clad young woman below only gave the two of them a venomous glare before she threw the ladder back over the rail and made her descent, while Ukyou drew her weapon. The owner of the ship also appeared at last and bravely tried to protect his war goddesses from harm.
A slipper and a spatula later, Kunou was floating face-down in the water in perfect imitation of a drowned rat.
"What's she trying to do?" Akane asked worriedly. Ukyou was already climbing the deck ladder, the over-sized spatula strapped to her back blinding in the blazing sunlight.
Dropping a complaining Akane to the floor, Ranma appealed nervously to her best friend: "C-C'mon, U-chan, you... you don't wanna do this, do you?"
Ukyou paused. After a short moment of contemplation, she said curtly, "Yes, I do," and brought the flat of her giant spatula down on Ranma's head.
~~~~~*~~~~~
"Good morning."
Ranma opened his eyes, and there was a strange face smiling tenderly down at him. He stared blankly up at it, for he could not comprehend why it was there, and so said nothing in response to its greeting. After a moment, its lips formed a pout, and the face retreated to its side of the bed.
Slowly, he turned his head to find the source of the gentle light. It streamed in on all sides from between stone pillars... and there were large potted tropical plants further out. The air was cool and still, and he could hear water dripping from the leaves.
At last, it occurred to him that it was cool because he had no clothing on. "All right," Ranma groaned, disgusted. He pushed himself up, wincing, and gingerly put his hand to the back of his neck. Gruffly, he asked of the female body beside him, "So what number fiancee..."
It was Akane lying beside him.
And then he could not remember what it was he had been asking of her. His mind was suddenly empty, blank--and then just as suddenly, half a million jumbled thoughts and unfamiliar memories were thrust back into his head.
W-Wedding night?
When did I...?
Ukyou... Akane--Saira--pregnant...?
Saira sat up in bed, clutching the clean, white sheets modestly to her chest, and peered into his face with a little concern. "Mastrael, are you feeling all right?" She put a hand gently to his forehead, and the sheet slipped, partially revealing her. His eyes followed the movement, jolted back up, and reluctantly slid downwards again as he silently wondered why, as her husband, he could not see her body.
"I'm fine," he murmured absent-mindedly as he eased the covers from her hand. His eyes traced the outline of her slender body, from the top of her head to her fine little toes. Obviously, no, she was not pregnant--
And then the disruption of thought, again, as she leaned back on her elbow with an amused smile playing on her lips.
--or that was how it seemed, but hadn't they just confirmed her pregnancy a few weeks ago? He laid his hand lightly over her belly. Warmth on his palm. Perhaps only imaginary, but there was... a slight stirring beneath his fingertips... or so he thought before she laughed his name, "Mastrael!" and pulled him down for a kiss.
~~~~~*~~~~~
Ranma woke from her dream and found a concerned face hovering above her. "Are you all right, Ranko?" the girl asked, and then Ranma blinked and roughly pushed herself up and away from Akane's lap.
"I'm fine!" Ranma got to her feet and looked out at the water, crests of waves daubed with the warm orange and pink of sunset, and craned her head around to find the darker horizon empty of land, too.
"Ranko, tell me why Ukyou-san did that to you," Akane said quietly after a moment. Ranma became nervous at the sobriety of her gaze, but shrugged it off in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner, and returned her eyes to the setting sun.
"My friend's a pretty violent chick, sometimes."
"But... completely unprovoked? How can you possibly call her your friend?"
She gave a cynical smirk. "Easy. You make an O shape with your mouth, then say, 'tomo,' and then the last bit sounds a little like 'plural' 'cept with a D--'dachi.' Kinda like the name of the girl who tried to spike your face."
Akane had been smiling at the explanation, but at the mention of Kodachi, her expression suddenly hardened, and she glared across the deck. Ranma followed her gaze and saw Kodachi tied, and struggling, to the main mast--with a suitable section of ribbon over her mouth. On the other side of the mast was a damp Kunou, also bound, but slumped on the floor with a wooden bucket over his head and a cracked mop in his hand.
"You... you did that, Akane?"
Either she didn't hear her or she ignored the incredulous question. "What's her problem, anyway? I didn't even get a chance to greet her, and she tries to kill me with Porcupine-on-a-Stick!" Akane spat in disgust and sat back with her arms folded against her chest.
A moment passed, in which Ranma continued to stare at her fiancee, until finally, more than a hint of uncertainty in her voice, Akane looked up at her and whispered, "What did I do to her, Ranko?"
"You were my fiancee first," Ranma whispered in reply. Akane's eyes widened at this. "Uh," Ranma stammered, "that is, you were Ranma's fiancee first, and uh, Kodachi's got... this thing... for Ranma, you see. She's a little jealous of you for being engaged to such an ass-kickin' guy, that's all."
Akane was silent for what seemed like an eternity, looking down at her tightly clasped hands. When at last she spoke, she stood up and mumbled, still with eyes averted, "Um, I need to go to the-the restroom--or whatever. Excuse me," and hurried away in search of the entrance to the lower deck.
Ranma wrung her hands as she watched her fiancee's stiff form disappear down into the depths of the junk. Eventually, it dawned on her that the other girl was not coming back up, and, alone in the fading light with only two incoherently muttering nuts, she wondered aloud, where was Ukyou? How had Akane beaten her into allowing her to watch over Ranma?
At that point, Ranma got a certain feeling and glanced up.
Of all the directions Akane could punt a person, why did she have to choose straight up?
Ranma saw one unconscious female face before Ukyou fell out of the stratosphere and onto her.
~~~~~*~~~~~
Akane squeezed the pillow almost to death in her arms. It was hugged tightly to her chest like some sort of shield against her femininity--and if Ranko came down in search of her, it'd be better than a cannonball by the time she was through compacting it.
A shiver ran from her shoulders to the very tips of her fingers, and she buried her face in the pillow to give a shuddery breath. The red-headed girl's words kept running through her mind, accompanied by her clear blue eyes:
'You were my fiancee first.'
What had she been like prior to her amnesia? Akane wondered, staring blankly at the old wooden floor. Was it possible... the cause of the amnesia had changed her sexual preferences from... whatever they had been to what they were now? Which seemed, a week ago, in Ranko's brother's arms, to be strictly heterosexual, now...
She lay back on the lumpy mattress, ran her eyes warily over the beams of the top bunk, felt suddenly frightened that the aging wood would release its weight, and moved to the bed across the tiny room. Two seconds later, she jumped up again to pace around the room--still with the pillow in her arms.
She was wearing Ranma's shirt, and it carried faintly what she thought could be his scent, along with the smell of the sea. She had had his arms around her and had slumbered beside him in the grass, with the night breeze caressing her cheek, and his heart pulsing in her ear. However, when she had woken, he had been gone, and she had found Ranko putting out the fire with a kettle of steamless water. As the redheaded girl had said, Ranma would be waiting for them in Japan.
He was wonderful! Perfect in every way she knew (so far). He was strong, handsome, and she liked to think he was also sweet. After all, not every young man could spend a night with a girl and not at least try to get farther than a quick grope, right? He hadn't even tried to kiss her... which was a little disappointing, Akane thought, pausing in her step at a loud thud from above.
She glanced upwards at the smoke-stained ceiling of the cabin and tore up to the deck... to find Ranko sleeping beneath her "friend." Disgusted, Akane stalked back downstairs to lock herself into a small room where the lesbian couldn't talk to her. After what seemed like half a night of weary thoughts, she fell into a dreamless slumber on the wooden floor.
A tentative knock and a muffled murmur of her name in Ranko's voice woke the girl. Still groggy, Akane staggered to her feet and mumbled something incoherent. Her hand was curled round the cool handle before she recalled yesterday's unpleasant discovery, and she withdrew her hand to her side.
"Akane!" Pounding on the door, door handle shaking in decrepit wood, an exasperated pause... Pounding again. "Akane, c'mon, let me in, or at least tell me what I did!"
Then more shouting, but with the addition of different voices--outraged, and perhaps loudest, presumably the captain's. There were several utterances of the odd "Oof!" and "Ack!" as the ship rocked with a wave, and Akane listened almost with interest as it sounded as if they had all gone tumbling.
"Tendou Akane, belov--agh!"
"Shaddup, Kunou."
~~~~~*~~~~~
The hours dragged on and left Ranma slumped against the wall across Akane's door. The tediousness of it would never end. Ukyou had told her it had taken them about a week to reach China from Japan, and it would take that long to get back to the mainland where Ranma could heat up some water, become male Ranma, and finally coax Akane out of her little hiding place.
For some reason, Akane didn't seem to like Ranko very much, which was a curious thing, considering Ranma'd tried her best to behave. And now she smelled like raw fish, which just happened to be all there was to eat in the middle of the Yellow Sea, where the sharks had never heard of okonomiyaki--where Akane wouldn't open the door even to accept her goddamned sushi-without-everything-BUT-fish!
Ranma eyed the door, again, and rolled the idea around in her head a bit more. It was a flimsy piece of wood. Huh, Kunou probably hadn't spent much money on the heap of firewood called a ship. It wouldn't take much for it to shatter, and then she would tear inside and cram the food down the dumb girl's throat.
She sat there, immobile, for a moment, and then shook her head with a dry smile. "I've been pretty violent lately, huh, Akane?" she murmured fondly to the door across the hall. She expected no answer from her fiancee, and received none--not so much as even a sound of movement.
Ukyou's voice floated down to her, somewhat hopefully. Earlier, her pleadings to move onto the upper deck had been turned down, and after three hours of sitting there beside Ranma in silence, she had sighed softly and wandered up to the deck. "Did you say something, Ran-chan?"
"No, nothing," Ranma called up quickly.
"Oh." The brunette sounded disappointed. "Okay." There was the sound of a sheet of steel meeting a face, and then a body probably crumpled to the deck. "No, she wasn't talking to you, you jackass."
When things quieted above her, Ranma stared blankly at the door, her hands folded in her lap.
It was true. She had become increasingly violent, even if only in her thoughts. Quicker to raise a hand, to even think of harming Akane, an act that would have been harshly punished before Ryouga had knocked her down. Before Jusenkyou's waters had seeped into the ground, imparting a valley of dusty springs to her.
Of course, Ryouga popped out of nowhere, probably having gotten lost back at the Tendou dojo, and just automatically assumed the dry springs were her fault, and then started that damned fight which had caused Akane's amnesia.
A surge of quiet fury flew through Ranma's chest as she wandered to the upper deck with the dish and past the still-bound and struggling Kodachi towards her best friend, if just for the sake of companionship.
Ranma paused and looked on with a smirk while Ukyou flung several of her small spatulas at the wall, to which Kunou was already pinned. The first and fourth of the airborne spatulas pinned the undersides of his sleeves to the wood beneath, while the second and third fell on either side of his neck. At the sight of the redhead, Kunou started a muffled gibbering, which did him no good, as it appeared a section of Kodachi's gymnastics ribbon was strapped over his mouth.
Ukyou, seeing his struggling, looked over her shoulder and beamed. "Glad to see you, sugar. Akane eat anything?" She gave the dish a quick glance before she turned back to the quaking Kunou. "I guess not, huh?"
She grunted, ripping out one of the spatulas that he was hanging from. "Geez, what's eating her? Ugh!" A spatula shot from the wood, and it skittered, glittering in the sunlight, along the deck to rest lifelessly near Ranma's feet. "Oh, drat--could you get that for me? Thanks. I don't think I did anything to her, and Kunou didn't actually get a chance to grope her, for once..." Ukyou turned with three of her spatulas held casually in one hand and an amused smile on her face. "So what'd you do?" she asked.
Telling Ukyou about her great one-liner last night would not do, of that Ranma was very sure. However, there was nothing else Ranma felt she had done. "I don't know," she lied, "but listen, U-chan, that's not what I came up here for." She looked down at the deck, and then up into her best friend's eyes. "I want you to tell me: Do I seem any different since I left?" Do you think I snapped?
At Ukyou's somewhat confused expression, Ranma pulled out the spatula near Kunou's neck and mumbled, "There isn't a cure."
Ukyou was quiet, still removing her weapons from the wood.
"When me and Akane got there, there wasn't one drop of water left in any of the springs. You know, I thought I smelled blood, and the guide wasn't there, or his daughter, either." Blood, yes, and a few tatters of shredded clothing strewn in the tall grass.
Her best friend paused to gaze at her as she said, "I think I saw the guide in the hospital where Akane was staying..." Lying still and pale as the sheets beneath her dark hair, with an oxygen mask strapped over her mouth. Ranma turned away from Ukyou's inquiring eyes. "A-after Ryouga hit her."
While Kunou began to struggle and screech a muffled vow of revenge against the fanged boy, Ukyou looked down at her hands. "He hit her hard enough to make her lose her memory?" she asked softly. "It was some sort of accident, right? I thought... he loved her." She turned her gaze to Ranma's, stepped toward her. "I mean, if Ryouga hit Akane, would you--"
The hairs at the back of Ranma's neck bristled. "I wou--"
She already had, and by the look on the other girl's face, Ukyou knew. She just appeared as if she didn't believe it, though, or didn't want to believe it. Pity for her.
Ranma dropped Ukyou's spatulas with a depressed clatter. "Wake me when we get back to Nerima," she said softly as she wandered back below decks.
~~~~~*~~~~~
Credits:
ARISSA, the goddess-queen of research, located numerous diagrams of Chinese junks for me. Most of this chapter takes place on a junk, so without her help, this chapter would have been very, VERY different. Scarily different. ^^; Thank you, Riss!
BOB MACFIE actually took the time, two hours at least or more, to proofread this. It's somewhat significantly different from the first draft, now. The first draft had the unnecessary Shampoo in it--that's how different it is. ^^; The first draft also included misused words and ugly sentences, but you don't see any here, do you? ;) Thanks, Bob!
CHRIS SIEBENMANN, the all-round nice guy who knows lots of stuff (e.g. the definition of bollard), READS my stuff. At least, I think he does because he certainly knew what a bollard was when he heard and saw it described, and for that: THANK YOU SO MUCH, MR. SIEBENMANN! Without him, I would have used... post. There was another word suggested by several people on the FFML, but that wasn't quite the same thing as a bollard, which was EXACTLY what I was looking for! ^_^
