Chapter Five:
Akari stared blankly at the phone as it rang for the sixth time. Her house was still a mess. Her hands still hurt. Only Kastunishiki had been moved, thoughtfully buried outside the house in the graveyard her family had made for their loyal pets.
A seventh ring. Whoever was calling certainly wasn't about to give up . . .
She didn't want to answer. It could be Ryouga, whom she eternally hated for his violent attack against her and her pet. But it also could be the doctor, or the constructor.
Gingerly, she removed the receiver from its cradle.
"Unryuu residence." She spoke softly, her voice all but dead. "Akari speaking."
"Hey, Akari? This is Saotome Ranma," came the brash voice on the other end of the phone. "Have you seen Ryouga lately?" That name! It haunted her, hunted her, and tortured her! Would she never be free of him?!
"I NEVER WANT TO HEAR THAT NAME AGAIN!" She screamed, slamming the receiver down.
Ranma stared at his receiver as the other end of the line went dead, greatly shocked at the outburst from the usually polite and demure young woman.
"Ooookay...." He gently replaced the phone, and turned to Akane, Ukyou, Cologne, and Ryouga. "She's not in the best of moods right now . . ."
The lost boy's glare caught him like a deer in headlights.
"Why should she be?" he muttered miserably, the blue glow surrounding him increasing in size. "After all, I probably ruined her life. And on top of it, I don't even know how!" His aura fluctuating uncontrollably, the bandanna wearing boy let it concentrate into a small sphere . . .
"NOT INSIDE!" Ukyou smashed him upside the head with her spatula. Ryouga blinked, then fell off the table he had been sitting on.
"Ow . . ."
The lost boy sat up and glared at her, but she took it in stride, and bashed him again when he wouldn't stop.
"Stop looking at me like that!" she yelled.
"Like what?!"
"Like I'm a piece of meat hanging in the window of a butcher's shop!" she snapped back. Ryouga scowled, then crossed his arms.
'Okay, let's sum-up our screwed-up life, eh, Hibiki?' He thought to himself. 'One, you've just screwed up your only chance with a girl who accepted you and your curse. Now she not only never wants to see you again, but she also hates your guts. Great. Two, you've jumped headfirst into trouble. Again. And this time, you've not only endangered yourself, but you've put your friends in danger, too. . . . Friends? What am I thinking? These people, friends? No . . . they don't care at all. They just want to protect their own lives . . . that's the only reason they're still here.
'Face it, Hibiki.' Ryouga felt his depression swell. 'You're screwed!'
'Nobody cares, I'm all alone, no one knows what to do, or what I'm going through, my life is ruined, and it's all my fault . . . I'm a danger to those I've grown to care about . . . I can't live like this!' Seeing that his three 'friends' were occupied talking to Cologne, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his pants and gripped the handle of his pocket knife.
'None of them will miss me, I'm better off dead. I won't be able to hurt anyone then . . . No . . . None of them will miss me, and they'll be safe . . .'
Ryouga stood silently, his hand gripping the handle so tightly he almost feared it would shatter. The others were so engrossed in their discussion, they didn't notice him slip out the door . . . and directly into the storage closet.
"Figures," he muttered, almost silently. "I can't even get lost to take my life . . ."
'Oh well, here's as good a place to die as any other . . .' He sat down on the floor of the closet and flipped out the blade. It was almost too dark to see the blade, but Ryouga had very good eyes.
A mere slit horizontally across the wrist wouldn't do it, the cut had to be deep . . . he'd have to be untreatable, in case they found him before he was quite dead. Steeling his nerve, he locked his jaw, and carved a jagged 'T' in his arm with the sharp edge. Blood streamed down his arm in a beautiful crimson fountain . . . then stopped, as the fountain dried up. "What the . . . ?"
He whispered, not believing the speed at which his wound had healed. Again, he tried to slice open his veins, and again, it healed, the blood welling up, only to be cut off by the regenerated flesh.
His bright blue aura now provided him with enough light to watch the healing process, but he took no notice of his glow.
"NO! KAMI DAMN IT!? WHY CAN'T I DIE?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, bursting from the closet, past the startled Akane, over the now trampled Ranma, and through the front door. Once in the street, he leapt directly in front of a speeding car, only to have it crash into him with the same effect had it hit a tree, instead.
"No bones broke, not even a scratch . . ." The lost boy's wide green eyes swept over his unharmed form, and took a step to the right, just as a large delivery truck tried to hit the breaks. There was a loud thud, but Ryouga got right back up, not even winded.
"This isn't right!" he screamed, dashing down the road. "Why is this happening to me?!"
He plowed over Kodachi, who had been on her way to hunt down her Ranma-sama, and nearly tripped over Tsubassa, who had been masquerading as a lamp post.
Five trailers, Four cars, three trucks, two bottles of rat poison, Akane's leftover cookies, and a partridge in a pear tree later, Ryouga found himself at the edge of a deep ravine.
"You again?" He muttered to the chasm. "Why is it you always appear when I need you most?" He received no answer, not that he had been expecting one, so he shrugged, and prepared to jump.
"RYOUGA!" Ranma yelled from behind him.
"Don't do it!" Akane added.
"COME BACK HERE, JACKASS!" Ukyou shouted.
"So long, Ranma." The lost boy smiled grimly, then leapt.
"NO!" the three cried out at once. "RYOUGA!"
A little less than a minute later, the ground shook as Ryouga hit the floor. The trio remained silent, then began to turn around.
"DAMN IT!" an angry voice screamed from the floor of the ravine. "Why can't I just die and get it over with?!"
"Ryouga?" Akane called down into the darkness.
"Sugar, are you okay?" Ukyou leaned over the edge.
"Unfortunately, yes." Ryouga grumbled, the echo reaching them.
"You gonna come up, or are you hurt?" Ranma asked.
". . . Do I have a choice?" was the annoyed reply.
"Well, either you come up, or I'll come down. Which is it gonna be?"
". . . I'll come up . . ." Ryouga sighed. "Maybe next time, my neck will break."
"WHAT?!" Ranma about had a coronary right then and there.
"Just a thought." A moment later, Ryouga climbed over the edge of the deep chasm, looking little more worse for wear. His clothes were tattered, and he was extremely dusty, but there wasn't so much as a bruise or a scratch on him.
"Damn it don't do that!" Ranma grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away from the edge. "You almost scared me to death!"
"That would make an interesting headline." Ryouga dead panned. "Nerima's greatest martial artist killed today by a fatal heart attack."
"Please don't scare us again like that, Ryouga." Akane sighed, relaxing.
"What, like this?" Ryouga back-flipped into the ravine a second time, causing the girls to scream, and Ranma to fall down out of pure shock.
There was a resounding crash.
"Guess it didn't work that time, either." Ryouga yelled up to them. "But hey, third time's the charm!"
Ranma twitched.
---
Ryouga lay in the basement of the Nekohaten chained to a wall. The room was dark and musty and the walls were dirty and crusted with scum. Various trinkets lay about the room, left over from the previous owners.
He yanked on the chains irritably. Cologne had used some kind of variation of the moxibustion technique which stripped him of his strength . . . but only temporarily. The effect lasted for only two days but it still was very annoying.
'I still don't understand why I have to stay down here. I can't be _THAT_ bad when I'm in berserker . . . what did they call it again? Berserker rage, mode, stage err . . . damn I forgot again.' His nose twitched irritably wanting someone to scratch it.
'Well at least they gave me a TV . . . but they could have least turned it to a decent channel! I've been watching this damn Sailor Moon marathon all day, and if I didn't want to kill myself before, I sure as hell do now!'
The lost boy growled and pulled at his chains harder.
'I don't need cold water to go berserk! Maybe I could dislocate my joints or something.' He contemplated this for several moments but was saved by the basement door opening.
He squinted his eyes against the light that flooded from the door and looked up at a fully armored samurai emerged from the basement.
"Oh no he's found me! Listen, I'm really sorry about your sporting goods store! I wasn't watching where I was going and-"
The samurai opened up a small flap on its helmet and looked at him with annoyed brown eyes.
"What are you talking about jackass?"
A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.
"Heh . . . heh never mind. I never said that." He looked up at the samurai questionably. "Uh . . . Ukyou?"
The samurai nodded as much as her heavy metal helmet allowed.
"Yeah its me."
"Ukyou, I didn't know you gave up okinomiyaki arts to become a samurai."
She tripped and barely kept herself from plummeting to the ground. Good thing too, she never would have been able to get back up again. She recovered and glared at him, since it was obviously his fault.
"No, Ryouga, I'm going to take you to some training grounds." Ryouga crinkled up his eyebrow in confusion. Something about this didn't seem right.
'Why is Ukyou all alone? Why isn't . . .oh.' He smiled knowingly, but the expression held no mirth.
"Why are you alone?"
Ukyou averted her eyes.
"Akane was supposed to come but--" She bit her lip.
"She was afraid of me wasn't she?" His head sagged, the weight of the world baring down on his shoulders.
"Akane afraid? Are you kidding?" She laughed half heartendly. Ryouga nodded. He knew.
"Aren't you afraid the wild animal will turn on you too?" He looked up and met her eyes. She felt unable to look away from the pain filled green orbs.
"Ryouga how could I ever be afraid of YOU?" She smiled. She was scared as hell but he still needed her help . . .
He knew she was lying but he still felt grateful. He smiled softly.
"Thank you for lying Ukyou."
"Anytime Sugar, anytime. So Ryouga, why are you down here?"
He blushed and shifted in his chains.
"Cologne said she was the best to watch over me and they wouldn't let me sit in a spare room because of this incident I had."
Ukyou shrugged and went to undo the locks of the chains.
"Did you get hit with cold water or what?"
Ryouga blushed, as the chains fell off his hands and feet. He sat on the floor and rubbed his wrists, trying to get rid of the lingering feeling of metal.
"Um . . . no I got lost on my way to the bathroom, they really shouldn't a labyrinth in a restaurant, and there was this wall . . . how was I supposed to know it was a support beam?! . . . and err," Ryouga trailed off as he noticed Ukyou staring at him.
Ukyou blinked a couple times before finally abandoning trying to figure out how a labyrinth, support beam, and the Nekohaten would have to do with Ryouga tied up in a basement watching Sailor Moon. Whatever it was it had to be horrible to have to endure such torture.
"So what's been going on?" Ryouga asked as Ukyou ducked back through the door and came back with a hand full of rope.
"Well, Happy finally came back. He looks horrible! He's all scarred up and everything! It was neat." Ukyou smirked. It was Happosai after all.
---
Somewhere in the Tendo Dojo . . .
A small figure clad in a red and green striped shirt idly scratched the wall leaving deep gashes in the wood.
Finally, he stood up and lifted a bra into the air.
"Ryouga Hibiki you shall pay for what you've done to me! Happosai is dead!"
Thunder and lightning struck in a clear sky for know apparent reason, lightning up a scared face. "Long live--
THE LECHER!"
---
Ryouga sneezed.
Ukyou walked up to her companion who was sitting on the ground and uncoiled a link of rope. Ryouga's eyes widened and his face blushed a deep crimson.
"Hey listen Ukyou! I may not be chasing after Akane anymore or anything . . but it doesn't mean I'm going to do THAT or anything! I'm glad that your over Ranma but we're just friends!"
Ukyou blushed. "YOU IDIOT! Its to tie you up with! Uh . . I mean restrain you! Err I mean . . . Damn it! IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!"
Ukyou looked for the nearest implement to hit him with. Unfortuantley, he had already done the job himself and was passed out on the floor in a pool of blood. She walked up to him and kicked him a few times.
"Wake up! This is harder to do when you're not awake!" He blinked, realized what she just said, and passed out again.
"Argh! Get your mind out of the damn gutter! I was going to tie you to the wheelbarrow so you wouln't fall out! Remember the moxubustion thing? Your legs don't work right now you idiot!"
He lifted his head and opened one eye cautiously and then other. Finally he sat up and laughed nervously.
"Oh THAT'S what you meant."
"What did you think I was talking about?" Ukyou glared at him with "scorned women glare of death 892" guaranteed to send many a man running in fear. Unfortunatley, she also got it confused with look 102 the 'catch cute man in chinese shirt' alluring gaze. She was really going to have to work on that.
"Nothing ma'am, nothing at all."
"Good." She tied up his arms and helped him into the wheelbarrow. "Are you made up of metal or what?" She wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"Uh sorry?" He blinked as a thought occurred to him. "If your job is just to take me there then why are you wearing all that armor?"
"Ranchan said suggested it. The wheelbarrow was his idea too." She sighed. "He always has such good ideas." Ryouga rolled his eyes.
"Well gee Ukyou, I wish I could be as smart as Ranma someday," Ryouga deadpanned.
Ukyou glared at him.
"When did you start to use sarcasm?"
Ryouga shrugged.
"I dunno, being a danger to society kind of brings out the negative feelings in you."
"And you were all sunshine and giggles before huh? Whatever. Don't insult Ranchan anymore or I'll send this wheelbarrow off a cliff, got it?" She turned the wheelbarrow around and wheeled it up a ramp located next to the stairs.
"I tried that already remember?. . . Wait . . Ranma told you to use the wheelbarrow? So the only reason your taking me is because Ranma asked you to?"
"Sit back and enjoy the ride jackass." She smirked.
---
The green, rolling hills flourished with vegetation and wildlife . . . and were about to be decimated.
Two figures rested amidst the beauty of nature, one who had seen it many times before and never was not inspired by it, and another who's heart was far too damaged to appreciate it anymore.
Ryouga sat in the midst of the wonders of nature, and his dark aura spread like wildfire as he watched the beauty that surrounded him that could never touch his heart. His aura of depression spread slowly, like oil on water, a black shadow stretching over the-- WHAM!
"OWW! What the hell was that for?!" Ryouga scowled at the Amazon matriarch.
"You're getting distracted, boy." Cologne shook her staff at him. "Concentrate on your inner equilibrium."
"And how am I supposed to do that? Weigh myself?"
WHAM!
"Don't you sass me, boy. Sarcasm doesn't suit you."
Ryouga twitched irritably, his scowl darkening.
"Please don't mention suits . . ."
Cologne threatened to bash him with her staff again, so he closed his eyes. A minute later, he opened them again, looking infinitely more cross.
"I can't do this!" he snarled irritatedly.
"Ranma could do it." Cologne prodded. Ryouga's scowl deepened again, and he once more closed his eyes.
"Mantra?" Cologne poked him. The lost boy nearly lost it right then and there, but slowly inhaled and began the long and wordy mantra she had taught him.
"Everything in the universe has a point of equilibrium. This point is the balance center for all life. All life must have a balance. Without this balance, there is chaos. And within chaos, there is destruction. Within balance, there is order. There is destruction in this order, but there is also creation."
Ryouga's expression relaxed slowly as he repeated the mantra, and laxly, his aura receded.
"I must achieve a balance within myself," he whispered. "I must find the calm within the storm, and encompass the yin and yang."
"HEY PORK BUTT!" Ranma's voice yelled loudly next to his ear. Ryouga's eyes snapped open, and his battle aura flared into life around him. WHAM! Cologne's staff connected with the back of his skull again.
"Don't be distracted!" She snapped.
"But--" Ryouga started, but another bash stopped him.
"Do you want to gain control of this or not?" The Chinese matriarch scowled. "If you are going to gain any small amount of control over this rage, then you will not allow that to distract you."
"Whatever . . ." Ryouga sighed. "Everything in the universe has a point of equilibrium. This point is the balance center for all life. All life must have a balance. Without this balance, there is chaos. And within chaos, there is destruction. Within balance, there is order. There is destruction in this order, but there is also creation. I must achieve a balance within myself. I must find the calm within the storm, and encompass the yin and yang."
"I SAID, HEY PORK BUTT!" Ranma's taunt again hit home, breaking Ryouga from his trance.
"RANMA, PREPARE--" WHAM. And so the process continued several more times.
By sunset, Ryouga had gone through the mantra seventeen times, each and everyone loosing his temper. Once, he came very close to blocking out the distraction, but Akane's voice had called out: "Ryouga, you're such an asshole. Get over yourself!" And he had been forced to Shi Shi Hokoudan the whole area.
Cologne had not been pleased.
For one week, the cycle went on. After a week, the park ran out of green, rolling hills, and they were forced to resort to the mountains. Not as much fun, but there was more for Ryouga to take out his anger on before blowing everything to kingdom come.
Three days into the second week, Ryouga got lost.
---
Chapter Six:
Ryouga trudged through knee deep mud. It had rained the night before soaking the ground completely. Luckily, he had been able to get shelter. He tried his best to stay dry. After all, he just didn't have to worry about himself now when he was changed. Changing into a pig was nothing compared with changing into a bloodthirsty killer. The waterproof soap and temporary man water helped a bit, provided he was able to keep puting it on.
The dark gray sky did nothing to improve his already dark mood. If nothing it reflected his emotions, hovering between calm weather and a violent raging storm.
He really needed a release from all this stress. Normally, he would be cursing Ranma in all the different languages he knew (he mostly knew the swear words) but lately, cursing Saotome had become less enjoyable. He wasn't exactly sure why though.
Maybe it was because, if wished him dead now, and he _DID_ drop dead, it might hurt Akane's feelings. Yeah, that was it. It wasn't like they were friends or anything.
His woodland surroundings slowly gave away to paved suburban streets. Taking care to avoid the various puddles littered about the ground, he walked up to a local.
"Excuse me sir, where am I?" The person turned around, revealing Ranma Saotome. Ryouga tried to contain a shudder of disgust. He'd just called Ranma sir!
"Wow Ryouga! Good thing you're here. Everyone thought you were going to go on a killing spree before we got to you."
Ryouga glared at his ex-rival, also known as the cause of all his problems.
"That's not funny Ranma." He hung his head sadly as a faint blue aura formed around him.
Ranma noticed but as usual his mouth turned out to be faster than his brain.
"Are you sure you haven't sliced anyone up somewhere? Er....oops."
Ryouga looked up slowly.
"No, Ranma I haven't killed anyone . . . yet."
A bead of sweat slowly rolled down Ranma's brow as Ryouga slowly reached for his umbrella. He lifted it up and--
"YOU JACKASS!"
CLANG!
Ryouga fell to the ground, narrowly missing a large mud puddle. Ukyou, the enraged Okinomiyaki chef, loomed over him doing a good impression of Soun's demon head.
"Do you have any idea how worried I--err we were about you?!"
Ryouga stood up shakily and rubbed the spot she had hit him at. A bump was already forming.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to find the bathroom and--"
"You were outside damn it! They're were no bathrooms!"
Ryouga stopped rubbing his head, finding that the bump had already healed. This should have been a good thing, except now Ukyou would be less "reserved" to hit him with that damn spatula. You really should need a license or something to carry that around.
Akane walked up behind Ranma. Her sneakers made small squeaky noises as she approached.
"Ryouga! Your back! We were really worried!"
Ryouga put a hand behind his head and laughed nervously. He had given up on Akane, but it still hurt sometimes. He still was in denial about what happened with Akari. He didn't think about it and tried to block it out of his mind. Whatever happened was bad and he just couldn't deal with it right now.
"Hey, Ryouga come on. The old ghoul said that your training was a flop and that we're going to ship you off to gaijin land anyway."
The lost boy blinked.
"Gaijin Land? Isn't that a theme park?"
Everyone but Ryouga face-faulted. Ukyou recovered first.
"No you idiot! Your thinking of DISNEY LAND."
"Oh I remember that place! Scary, surrounded by water with a bunch of weird pigmy children running around." Ryouga shuddered as the group stared at him for several moments.
"Pigmy children?" Ranma shook his head to clear it and grabbed Ryouga's hand. "Come on p-chan we're gonna see Cologne." Ryouga was dragged away, unceremoniously. Ukyou and Akane followed behind them. They didn't get too close though, just in case.
"Damn it Ranma stop pulling me! . . . wait . . . WHO YOU CALLIN P-CHAN?!"
---
Three days later, Akane, Cologne, Ranma, Ryouga, and Ukyou stood in the terminal for the airport. The lost boy would board a plane using the ticket he won in the martial arts obstacle course race, which thankfully, had been open ended.
"Be careful in America, Ryouga." Akane smiled weakly, still not one hundred percent sure about his mood.
"I will." He smiled just as weakly, stressed by the destroyed trust between himself and his friends.
"Don't get too lost, okay pork butt?" Ranma grinned in the same, superior manner he always did. Ryouga scowled, but his aura remained within a one inch radius of his body.
"Take care of your fiancée, Ranma." He growled, eyes narrowing. "And don't forget to keep putting medicine on your cuts." The pigtailed martial artist sweat-dropped.
"Hey, Jackass, go easy on Ran-chan." Ukyou prodded him in the ribs with her spatula, which no one knew how she got through the metal detectors with.
Flashback
Akane walks through the metal detector, and there is no problem.
Ranma walks through the metal detector, and it beeps. He backs up, and takes off his watch, grinning in an embarrassed manner. He walks through with no problem.
Ukyou walked up to the machine with her spatula strapped to her back, glared at it, and then walked through. The machine sweat-dropped, but remained silent.
Ryouga heaved a sigh and walked up to the metal detector.
It went off.
He backed up, looked for anything he was wearing that could contain metal, emptied out his pockets of several handfuls of change from Kami knows how many countries, and tried again.
The machine still went off.
Two guards walked up to him with miniature detectors, which went wild the second they started scanning him.
Everyone sweat-dropped.
"They must be malfunctioning," the security guards scowled at their machines. "Go on through. You don't look too dangerous." The Nerima clan sweat-dropped.
Present time
"Hey, Bacon breath, do you even speak English?" Ranma smirked. Ryouga stiffened.
"For your information, infidel, my grasp of the English language far exceeds your grasp of the Japanese language." The lost boy retorted in perfect, hardly accented English.
Ranma and Ukyou gaped. Akane, who was taking an English course, looked mildly confused.
"AND you have poor fashion sense, you ill mannered bastard. It's a wonder you've gotten through life without people thinking you're some kind of psycho!"
The lost boy flushed, putting his hand behind his neck and looking away.
"Ano.... my mother taught me....." He glanced at the floor. "She said it'd come in handy, when I ran into my dad. Japanese wasn't his first language, and he was still a little rough. I think a few words she taught me are a bit archaic, though."
"Here." Ukyou scowled, shoving a package at him.
"What's this?" He blinked, startled by the sudden change of topic.
"We all chipped in and got you something." The chef shrugged, trying to look impassive. "Just so you won't get cold in America."
Ryouga teared up.
"You guys... got a present for me?" He threw his arms open and embraced the three of them at the same time, nearly crushing them in the process. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done fore me! Thank you!"
"ACK! RYOUGA! AIR!" Akane, Ranma, and Ukyou cried out. The lost boy started from his happy reverie, and released them nervously.
"Oops, sorry." He blushed bright red.
"Passenger flight 843 to New York, now boarding." The overly saccharine voice of a stewardess came on through the intercom.
"Oh, yeah." Ryouga smiled weakly, his fangs still giving him a rakish appearance.
"See you guys around!" The lost boy turned and walked into the tunnel that connected the terminal to the plane. Ranma and Ukyou waved.... but Akane looked up and saw the sign above the door.
"SHOOT! Ranma, he just got on the plane to Alberta, Canada! Not New York!"
WHAM! Mallet-sama collided with Ranma once more.
"RYOUGA, YOU JACKASS!" Ukyou yelled.
Ryouga sat down in his coach seat. A young girl next to him with short black hair turned toward him and grinned.
"Excited about going to Canada eh?" she asked in a fake Canadian accent. The fact that a cute girl was talking to him was momentarily blocked out as what she said registered.
"Canada?!"
He turned around to get off the plane but it was too late.
The plane had already taken off.
---
Chapter Seven:
Ryouga lay hunched in his seat with his head on the airplane window.
"Stupid Ranma," he muttered under his breath.
Flashback
Ryouga squinted his eyes at the sign.
"Ranma, what gate is it?"
Ranma pointed to the southern gate.
"It's that one." At least he thought it was that one. Canada was a state right?
Ryouga looked at him suspiciously.
"Are you sure?"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should go over and check it for yourself?"
"Shut up!" He took a swing at the pigtailed martial artist, completely forgetting his suspicion.
End flashback
The teenage girl sitting next to him raised an eyebrow as her fellow passenger squeezed his arm rest so hard he left finger indents. She then leaned in next to him.
"Gee, what did that armrest ever do to you?"
Ryouga blinked. That cute girl was talking to him! Better say something suave . . .
"Uh . . . Huh?"
"Hi I'm Jubilee." She held her hand out and Ryouga numbly shook it while desperately trying to regain control of his thought processes.
"I'm Ryouga." He managed to mutter out. Jubilee winked at him.
"Ryouga . . . cute name."
"Th-Thanks." He laughed nervously.
"So what 'cha going to Canada for Ryouga? Romance, revenge, terrorism?"
Ryouga blinked. "Terrorism?"
Jubilee smirked. "Terrorism, eh? Is that your final answer?"
Ryouga waved his hands in front of his face.
"I'm not a terrorist really! Well, . . . there was this time that I accidentally blew a hole in the United Nations building, but that wasn't my fault!"
Jubilee blinked . . . several times. Why couldn't she sit next to someone normal? At least he was cute. Still . . . she better make sure of some things.
"You don't know anyone named Magneto do you Ryouga?"
"Magnets? You mean like the kind you put on your refrigerator?"
Jubilee spit out the soda she was drinking in surprise. Ryouga yelled and jumped up in his seat. He missed the spray but hit the top of the overhead compartment.
"Oops sorry about that, my bad." Jubilee laughed to herself. "Hope you didn't get brain damage or anything." Ryouga rubbed his head, even though the bruise was already gone. Why did he always run into the psycho women?
"Hey, Jubes, who ya talking to?" A pretty long haired blond asked from behind Ryouga. Jubes smiled evilly and grabbed Ryouga's arm.
"My new boyfriend, ya like him?" Ryouga's eyes bulged out of his head and he desperately tried to keep his nose from bleeding.
"I think your scaring the poor cute boy, Jubes." The blond winked at him.
A girl sitting next to her stopped shredding the paper on her pop bottle and looked up. She brought up a dark skinned hand and brushed her long hair out of her face.
"Jubilee you should stop manhandling the boy." Jubilee stuck her tongue out at the girl.
"Gee Monet I was only having a little fun."
Ryouga was trying to keep himself from breaking down. 'Pretty...girls...all around...me....scary...brazen...psycho American girls...brain....going....in...overload.'
Luckily, or unluckily depending on the way you looked at it, he was saved by two young men in the seats directly in front of him. One had dark gray skin, (skin disease perhaps?), and the other's was covered with a scarf from the lips down. Neither seemed to be very friendly toward him.
'Great Hibiki. They're probably their boyfriends. Your doomed. You'll end up accidentally releasing a Shishi Hokoudan then the plane will go down and everyone will die. Great, just great! Go on a plane Ryouga! It'll be fun!'
"Hey, chicas, was going on?" the gray skinned guy asked, narrowing his eyes at Ryouga. The lost boy narrowed his eyes right back. He wasn't going to let some weird elephant guy psych him out.
"Is this bloke bothering ya?" the scarfed one added in, similarly narrowing his eyes.
Ryouga waved his hands in front of his face. He could take the guys any day, they didn't look so tough, but a plane was not a place he wanted to start a fight.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I'll move to another seat. I didn't mean to make your boyfriends mad."
Multiple people spit out their sodas, and the gray skinned guy started to choke on a Twizzler. Ryouga had a fun time dodging them all. Damn it! Couldn't these people keep their food in their mouths? Weird Americans. If this was the way everyone acted...
He shuddered.
"We are not _NOT_ their boyfriends." The scarfed guy rubbed his temples. He seemed to be the only one not eating anything. He was giving Ryouga some really weird vibes. He could have sworn he saw a light under that scarf. Did he have a lava lamp stuffed under there or what?
"Oh, uh . . . sorry."
The teens continued to bickered between him as the hours passed. He decided that the scarf guy and the pretty blond reminded him of Akane and Ranma. Monet was like an immovable stone wall and possibly the only person who didn't bother him. He had a hard time following what the gray skinned guy said, something about "home boys"? And Jubilee . . .he hoped with every fiber of his being she wasn't the normal average American.
'Please . . .please . . . Kami-sama don't let her be . . .'
Oh yes, his American trip, was going to be _FUN_.
---
At last, the plane landed. Following Jubilee, the lost boy managed to exit the jet and return to the safety of solid ground.
"It was nice flying with you, Ryouga." She beamed at him.
"Aheh... yeah...." The bandanna wearing youth grinned weakly, showing his fangs again.
"So... ah... I… I'll se--"
"DIE, DAMN MUTIE SCUM!" A man wearing a shirt bearing the letters FOH leapt forward out of the crowd, waving a gun at Ryouga's recent traveling companions.
While his new 'friends' took up archaic fighting stances, Ryouga brought his palms together, and then let a small ki ball form between them.
"Shishi Hokoudan." The blast shot forward, nailing the man square in the chest and sending him flying onto the luggage carousel, where he lay on his back with swirl-y eyes.
Those of his new companions with jaws allowed them to drop reasonably low.
"Gee, I hate getting interrupted..." Ryouga mused. "Where was I? Oh, right. See you around!" He waved and walked off, quickly disappearing into the crowds.
One week later, Ryouga was thoroughly lost in the great , vast wilderness that made up a great deal of Canada.
---
Somewhere in the cargo hold on the plane a great evil stirred. It was ready to wreak havoc on a new continent. It was ready...
FOR PANTIES.
--
Chapter Eight
Rouge undressed and turned on the shower knob. Quickly she jumped into the shower and pulled the curtain close.
Somewhere in the shadows..."IT" lurked.
It snickered to itself and straightened its red overalls and red toupee. She would never seen it coming. Slowly he stalked up to the shower stall. His victim was too busy putting shampoo in her hair to notice.
He ripped open the shower curtain as violin music started to play from out of nowhere. His victim looked up in surprise.
"Play with me sweetums!" He jumped and glomped onto her, ready to feed his perversion. Except . . . something wasn't right.
"Wait.....ahhhhhhh!" The evil lecher's life force was drained away almost completely before she threw him off. He landed at the bottom of the bathtub and looked up at the ceiling as the water slowly went down the drain.
She shuddered, grabbed a towel, and ran out of the bathroom.
"I've got to warn all the cute guys of the intruder!" Rouge stopped and blinked. Where did that come from? And why did she suddenly feel an affection for bombs and underwear?
--
Being lost wasn't fun. Being lost in the wilderness was even less fun. Being lost in a wilderness on a different continent while trying to search for a man that you've never met to help you with your tendency to go berserk and kill things randomly brought new meaning to the not fun category.
And people wondered why Ryouga was always depressed.
"Damn it! Every tree looks the same! Damn pine trees!" He kicked said pine tree down in aggravated. It fell and created a domino effect throughout the forest.
--
Somewhere close by . . .
Victor Creed, a man that liked to have his pie and kill it too, was walking through the forest. He had grown bored with the monotonous forest. He was itching for something, or someone, to kill. He sniffed the air and smiled. With his excellent vision he could see a young traveler, couldn't have been more than nineteen, walking aimlessly through the forest.
"Look, fresh meat." He readied himself and pounced.
Or that's what he would have done had the tree not fell on him.
And he would have gotten right back up too if another tree hadn't fallen on him, and another . . . and another...
--
"Oops." Ryouga rubbed the back of his neck nervously. He had gotten a little carried away. Good thing no one was around or they could have gotten hurt. He picked up his pack and walked away from the pile of wood. If he had been paying better attention, he would have heard the growl of guttural rage emanating from the wood pile.
Several more minutes of walking brought him to a ravine overlooking a vast valley. A majestic waterfall stood at the mouth, its crystal clear water sparkled in the midday sun. Overcome by the beauty he stood mesmerized and defenseless from the killer creeping upon him until--
"Oh look a quarter!" He bent down as Creed went flying over his head and into the valley below.
SPLASH!
Ryouga stood up and pocketed the quarter. He scratched his head.
"I wonder what that sound was? There sure are strange animals around here . . .
With a shrug, he turned around and headed the other way. If he had stayed any longer he would have heard the guttural roar from the bottom of the valley.
--
Lightening and thunder warred in the sky. Ryouga Hibiki crouched lower under his umbrella. Only a few hours ago it had been sunny and beautiful, and now a massive storm had descended upon the forest. The weather patterns were so eradicate it was like being in Nerima . . . only there were more pines. He suspected that he'd smell like the inside of a taxi cab for the rest of his life.
He stopped next to a large pine. With the wind blowing so hard, and trying to keep dry, his visibility was extremely low. Someone could easily attack him by surprise.
Which was just what the figure in the tree was counting on as he clenched his fist in anticipation. The annoying kid in yellow and black (he really hated those colors) was finally going to meet his end. There was no escape.
BOOM! CRASH!
Ryouga jumped back as lightening struck the tree he had been standing next to. It was a black charred piece of ash. Luckily, the rain had made the foliage damp enough so there would be no fire.
"Man that was close!" He laughed and continued his trek through the woods.
Creed, the black charred mess, lay on the forest floor; his world a kaleidoscope of pain. Perhaps, it would be best to lay here for a few hours, or days, or maybe weeks . . .
---
Ucchan's Okonomiyaki shop was closed for the evening. Inside, however, life was still bustling. Three people sat around the grill, one cleaning, and two drinking sodas.
To the right, a small TV blared out news from across the world. The anchorman sat as his desk in his expensive suit, shuffling papers and speaking, when someone off screen handed him a new sheet.
"This just in," he reported. "The terminal outside of the Japanese-Canadian landing strip was attacked brutally today but anti-mutant terrorists." A picture of Ryouga, a Chinese girl, a blonde girl, and several other teenagers appeared behind him, showing the terrorist behind them with his gun.
"Fortunately, the attacker was put down by a mysterious young man who disappeared before police arrived on the scene."
Ranma blinked. Akane set down her soda. Ukyou peered closer at the TV.
"Was that.... Ryouga!?" The chef cried out.
"Pork-butt actually made it?" Ranma said. Akane whapped him.
"Don't tease poor Ryouga." She glared at him.
"What, have you ever seen him get to where he was going?" Ranma scowled back.
"He was with us on Togenkyo, and he didn't get lost once while we were there." The short haired girl noted.
"He found me." Ukyou shrugged. Akane and Ranma spun on her.
"OH! So that's how you got away from the monkey-man." He grinned. "I wondered why you were being so nice to him after that..."
"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL!" Ukyou smashed her Mega Spatula into Ranma's face.
"I think it's sweet..." Akane beamed.
The television continued to report the news. "Sources say that the monster of Daytona beach has stolen several women's bathing suit tops. Scientists speculate it was for its nests. More news on our environment report."
Ranma blinked. "Has anyone seen Happosai lately?"
---
Chapter Nine:
The hills seemed endless. Endless rolling blankets of green that seemed to extend to the ends of the earth. A flock of wild geese flew in an elegant V-shape overhead. Down below a heard of caribou roamed, eating happily. The chilly wind promised snow in the future. In other words?
It must be Canada.
'At least I hope I'm in Canada.' Ryouga peered closely at his map, unaware that it was upside down. It also happen to be a map of West Virginia.
'Why the hell does it need all these squiggle lines anyway?' He crumpled up the map angrily and threw it over his shoulder; not giving a damn about pollution or Indians that cry when you litter on commercials.
'Those Alpha Flight people had been nice to give me directions. I still think it's a weird name for ski resort. Why does everyone I run into seem to be wearing spandex? Is it a new trend or what?' He shrugged and shifted the weight of his backpack.
'What am I doing here? Do I even deserve a cure? After all the horrible things I've done . . . after what I did to Akari. . . . What _DID_ I do to Akari?' He shook his head violently.
'Damn it I can't remember!' He paused. 'Do I even want to remember? . . . Turning into a little pig was better than this. Ok, so it was kind of cool being able to beat up Ranma, but I never wanted to kill him!'
He blinked.
'Well, I don't want to kill him anymore. What would Akane have thought of me if I had killed Ranma? What . . . what if I had killed Ukyou? Or Akane?'
He felt a knife twist through his heart as the possibilities raced through his mind. He couldn't take it anymore!
"SHISHI HODOKAN!"
--
Another traveler raised his head as a sound reached his ears. It was too far away for even him to be able to identify. But he knew it had held such familiar pain . . .
--
Hours later, Ryouga found himself in the middle of a grassy glade, still lost. The sun was setting across the horizon, bathing the sky in brilliant hues of red and orange. An icy wind blew softly from the north.
"Damn," Ryouga swore. "I hate the cold...."
"You an' me both, kid." A gruff, smoker's voice chuckled from somewhere behind him. Ryouga spun around, confused at how someone was able to sneak up on him.
"Who are you?" The lost boy's hazel-green eyes narrowed.
"Not important. Just another traveler."
The man in question was short, even a few inches shorter than Ryouga. He wore a heavy jacket, jeans, flannel shirt, and boots. His wild black hair swept up into points, which would have been weird had the Lost Boy not been familiar with anti-gravity hair thanks to Ranma.
"Care for company, to share yer fire?" He gestured to the roaring campfire Ryouga had going.
Ryouga shrugged. With this new healing ability, there was little chance that even if this guy was a bandit, he couldn't take him. Even though the guy did look a lot sturdier than Ryouga himself . . .
"Thanks, kid." The man sat down and removed a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lighting it in the flames and inhaling deeply before blowing out a cloud of smoke.
"Smoking is bad for your health, you know." Ryouga arched one eyebrow. The man let out a hearty laugh at the lost boy's statement.
"Kid, these things can kill thousands o' people, but they'll never kill me."
Ryouga shrugged. "It's your life."
"So . . . you a fighter?" The bandanna wearing martial artist asked later, uncomfortable with the heavy silence.
"Ya noticed?"
"Your choice of clothing doesn't do a good job of hiding a strong build."
"Ah. I fight, a bit."
"So then the muscle mass is from weight training?"
"Yer pretty observant, for a kid."
"I'm a fighter, too."
"You?" Once more, the man laughed. "Ya don't look it at all."
"Eh?!"
"Well, ya look kinda young . . . what style do ya use?"
Ryouga hung his head, letting shadows fall over his face.
"It's a conglomeration . . ." He sighed.
"Oh? That's nothing to be ashamed o', kid. Take the strongest moves . . . nothing wrong with that. Just as long as yer good."
"Oh, I'm good." Ryouga's scowl turned into a smirk. "I can prove it, too. Wanna spar? Loser cleans up camp tomorrow."
"Sounds fun." the man cracked his knuckles.
Both stood, and moved a short distance from the camp. Ryouga watched his opponent carefully, so as not to get lost.
They faced off, sizing each other up for a moment, trying to figure out the other's weaknesses from the mere stance.
"C'mon, old man, what're you waiting for?" Ryouga smirked.
"Kid, you sure yer a fighter? I've seen a lot o' men with more bark than bite... An' lots' o' them looked like they coulda packed a punch, too. You.... yer scrawny, for Pete's sake."
Ryouga's face went red. "SCRAWNY?!" He yelled. "I'll show you scrawny!" He punched directly down, embedding his arm up to his elbow in solid rock. Logan arched one eyebrow in amusement.
As easy as if he was lifting foam blocks, the lost boy tore out a huge chunk of earth and chucked it as the shorter, stockier fighter. Logan's claws slipped from their grisly sheaths, and cut through the stone like butter before retracting.
"Nice trick."
Ryouga's eyes widened slightly as the two halves of rock crumbled to each side. 'What was that?!' He was sure the rock would have nearly hit, not too hard, of course, but enough to show the man he was a force to be reckoned with.
"Got any more tricks up yer sleeves, boy?" Logan's grin was feral, his steel-blue eyes excited at the prospect of an honorable challenge. For once, his opponent would not be a hologram, a robot, or a dishonorable bag of fleas. A chance to put to the test all the things he learned in Japan, but never got to use on the field due to his enemy's lack of honor or knowledge of bushido.
Ryouga scowled. "I don't know how you did it, but it won't do you any good in our battle, old man."
"Let's go." Logan smiled, motioning for Ryouga to attack. Ryouga's mind was racing. He'd seen Ranma do the same taunt before, always getting him to charge. The first move.... make your enemy come to you.
"Yer better than I thought!" Logan laughed. "Ya didn't jump right in to battle . . . good."
"I'm not the brightest guy around, but I do learn, eventually." Ryouga admitted, never once taking his eyes off his opponent. When it was apparent that neither one was going to make the first attack, Ryouga caved. He flipped forward quickly, driving his left foot ground-wards in a sharp kick.
Logan twisted to the side to avoid it, and countered with a right punch. The blow didn't connect, though, because Ryouga had rolled with the move and was already behind his opponent. He jabbed, but Logan dodged that as well, displaying his skill at close range fighting.
The lost boy tried to kick Logan, but the older man managed to dodge once more, and Ryouga flipped backwards, catching him in the chin with his foot. This put distance between them, and gave the youth credit for first attack.
"Not bad." Logan admitted, rolling his neck to get cricks out of it. For some reason, Ryouga could swear he head heard metal... he ignored it, focusing on the older so that he could try and read attacks to come.
"I try." The lost boy assented.
"Try this." Logan lunged, adding kicks and punches, about half of which Ryouga blocked, and the other half which slipped through his guard. The lost boy wiped some blood from his lips, blood that had escaped before his new healing factor eradicated the wound. It was rather impressive really, to make him bleed at all.
He stretched, then quickly slipped back into his fighting position.
"You're not bad either, for an old man." Ryouga watched him for a minute, then shifted out of his stance. Logan let out a hearty laugh, relaxing.
"Nice sparring with ya, kid." Logan grinned.
"You too, old man." They shook hands, at which point, Logan flipped Ryouga. The lost boy caught on quickly though, and landed on his feet, before flipping Logan on his back.
'Not as dumb as he looks....' Logan noted sourly.
"So tell me, old man, how'd you get rid of that pebble I threw at you?" Ryouga wondered aloud sometime later.
"Ya really wanna know?" Logan leaned in closer, as if the secret had to be kept at all costs.
"If you know some kind of technique, I'd love to learn it from you." The lost boy replied. Logan held up his right fist, palm facing himself, and steeled his jaw as he sent the trio of gleaming adamantium claws through his skin.
"These babies will cut through anything."
Then the Junsenkyo victim's luck held true, as the area experienced a sudden spring shower. Unfortunately for Logan, Ryouga didn't have time to grab his umbrella, and got drenched.
The lost boy's eyes quickly went from soft brown-green to sharp blood-red, something that did not escape Logan's notice. Six similar talons shot forth from the top of Ryouga's hands, and his muscles tensed as he pulled back into a pouncing position. Wolverine was not smiling anymore.
Quick as the wind, the X-man grabbed the nearest thing to him and flung it at the Nerima Martial artist, in an attempt to distract him and gain some ground to fight in. The kettle that had sat over the fire smashed into Ryouga's face, spilling water all down his front, and causing him to fall over with swirl-y eyes.
Logan blinked, and saw that the red was gone from his companion's gaze. He sat him up against a tree, careful not to get the lost boy wet again. He saw when the change in his sparring partner's demeanor had taken place, and, despite popular opinion, Logan was a rather intelligent man. He didn't always talk like Hank McCoy, but then again, he was above human...
"Yo, kid, you okay?" He shook Ryouga gently, but the martial artist was out cold. Logan scowled, and picked up the youth's hand, from which the deadly metal claws still protruded. 'These should have retracted...' he thought.
"Wait a second, where the hell did he get these?!"
"Wha... whasat?" The lost boy blinked, looking dazedly at the older man who was examining his claws-- HIS WHAT?!
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Ryouga stared at his claws in mortification, while Wolverine scowled.
"Who the hell are you, kid?" The older man demanded.
"Ryouga…" The talons disappeared back to wherever they had come from with a soft snikt.
"Ryouga, eh? Well, Ryouga, you're going to tell me exactly what's going on, starting with what happened when it started raining..."
--
Chapter Ten
A little more than a half an hour after their encounter, Ryouga had given Logan the basics of life in Nerima. The elder's eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates, or at least, saucers, throughout the parts where any Junsenkyo curse was involved.
"So, now I'm looking all over the country for a guy I've never even met." Ryouga sighed.
"What's this man's name?" Steel-blue eyes narrowed in anticipation.
"Well, my sensei-of sorts called him Logan, but the guy back at that metal place said his name kinda funny...." The Lost Boy shrugged. "So I'm not sure if I've got the pronunciation right. So.... what's the deal with you, and your claws?" He gestured to the razor sharp talons that still gleamed from the top of his companion's hand. The man retracted his claws, and held out his hand in the American custom of handshakes.
"Name's Logan." He scowled. "Nice ta meet ya."
Ryouga gaped. "No way. Are you serious?" Logan nodded once, his expression reading 'no nonsense'. The lost boy bowed low, his own customs overriding foreign ones.
"Logan-san, it's an honor to finally meet you," a tear of joy ran down his face, relaxation seeping to his very bones.
"Er...... kid, I've got news for ya." Logan rubbed the back of his neck. "There ain't no cure for Berserker's Rage. It's something ya gotta live with for the rest o' yer life."
Ryouga looked up sharply, eyes widened and full of sorrow.
"I can teach ya a couple o' anger management techniques, but that's about it..."
"Shit." He leaned back against a tree, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'm doomed. It's no use, I'll never be normal again...... I just know I'll end up killing someone I love...... And I can't even put myself out of their misery......."
"You've tried suicide?" Logan glared at him.
"Don't get me wrong, it's not like I want to die, but..." Ryouga sighed. "I don't want to hurt any of them.... And if I stay like this.... I just know I'm, going to seriously injure one of my friends..... if not kill them....."
"I know what you mean."
The younger man glanced over at his companion.
"Every time I go into battle alongside my friends, I risk losing control...." Logan stared down at his hands, his own eyes staring at blood only he could see.
"I don't want to hurt any of them, but all I'm good for is fighting...."
"The battle is all we live for." Logan's eyes focused on the stars. "The cause is always distant."
"You mentioned some friends, earlier." The bandanna wearing martial artist noted. "Were any of them, by chance, a guy wearing a brown trench coat, a red-headed woman, and a really uptight guy with some kind of weird visor?"
"You've met them?"
"Once.... they told me you were back in Canada."
"Ah." The older man smiled faintly. "Those were my friends..... the X-men..... I'm sure you've heard of us?"
Ryouga shook his head 'no'. "Sorry," he shrugged. "I don't get to watch a lot of TV.... I'm on the road a lot."
"Oh yeah, that direction-less thing...."
"It's hereditary." Ryouga shrugged. "On my mother's side. Dad had no problem getting around.... from what Mom said.... but... he left." Logan resisted the urge to pat the boy on the head. The last thing he needed was to end up as another father figure.
"He probably had another life to lead…" Logan shrugged.
"That's what Mom said." Ryouga muttered glumly. He shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what to do.
"Wish I knew what to tell you, kid."
"It's all right, Logan-san. I came to terms with this a long time ago." Ryouga's hazel-green eyes were strangely calm.
"My father had wander-lust, even though he had a sense of direction." Ryouga sighed. "Mom said that, too."
"What's your mother like?" Logan asked, a small smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
"My mother is like an angel on earth," Ryouga smiled brightly. "She's the nicest, kindest, most decent human being I've ever met, which is saying something, with all the traveling I do. She's always tried to be there for me, even with her directional problem. She always understood exactly what the problem was, and how to fix it."
Ryouga turned knowing, sharp eyes on Logan. "She's off limits."
"I don't know what yer talking about...."Logan felt a drop of sweat roll down his face, and was glad that he didn't blush.
"Just making sure." Ryouga nodded and turned his gaze back to the campfire.
Logan smirked. "She must have been a very interesting women if she raised ya, Ryouga."
Ryouga blinked. Was that an insult or a compliment?
"Well, it's getting late, kid." He started rummaging through his pack and pulled out his sleeping bag. Something about this didn't sit well with Ryouga. When had he said he could stay at HIS camp?
He looked over and noticed he was already asleep.
"Goodnight Logan-san." Ryouga sighed and stared at the dying embers of the fire as they slowly dwindled down to ashes, lost in his own thoughts.
--
For the first time in many, many years, Logan dreamed of something other than the Weapon X project.
That night, he dreamed of a woman he hadn't seen in over sixteen years, the only woman who he hadn't lost to an enemy's claws or another man.
"Logan-san? Logan-san?" Arieru always had a somewhat confused look on her face.
"Eh?" He glanced to her as she gripped his arm tightly. A little too tightly. "Arieru-san, I'm losing circulation to my hand..."
"Gomen nasai!" She immediately loosened her hold. Arieru had always been a bit awkward.... but she had a good heart. Most of the time.
"Logan-san! It's our three month anniversary!"
"Our what?"
"You mean you forgot?!" WHAM! CRACK!
That was her biggest fault. Arieru had a fiery temper, and when she was mad, she very well fit her name: Loud-Sounding Lioness.
They finally came to the top of the ravine. Logan fell back to read a small sign that was covered with some underbrush and Arieru walked on ahead to the edge.
"Logan-san, isn't it beautiful out here?" She twirled around in circle with her hands held out. "Aren't you glad we came up here now? It's so romantic. Perfect place for a picnic!"
Logan mumbled something incoherently and pulled weeds from a sign.
"Are you paying attention to me, Logan? Hello?!"
Logan kept pulling out the weeds, not bothering to look up.
"Not as beautiful as you, Arieru." He muttered absently.
Arieru giggled. "Good answer." She looked over the edge at the churning river below. "Wow, that's pretty far down." She shuddered. She had never been a big fan of water.
Logan finished removing the last weed from the sign and read it out loud.
"Beware of landslides. . . Arieru get out of there!"
She looked back just as the edge of the cliff began to give. Even with her martial arts experience she didn't have time to get out of the way. Time slowed and her eyes met Logan's as she fell over the edge. Her hand was outstretched for help that wouldn't reach there in time.
Time resumed its normal course as Logan threw himself over to the remainder of the cliff. Somehow the rock didn't give away and Logan was tortured with the image of his love falling down the cliff into the icy waters below.
He held his head in his hands as tears streamed down his face and screamed out her name in anguish.
"Arieru!!!!!"
The cry became reality as Logan bolted up in his sleeping bag, sweat pouring off his muscled form.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw his companion was still sleeping peacefully. It wouldn't do to burden him with his private pain. He rolled over and waited for sleep to come. He wasn't really sure he wanted it to, though …
Akari stared blankly at the phone as it rang for the sixth time. Her house was still a mess. Her hands still hurt. Only Kastunishiki had been moved, thoughtfully buried outside the house in the graveyard her family had made for their loyal pets.
A seventh ring. Whoever was calling certainly wasn't about to give up . . .
She didn't want to answer. It could be Ryouga, whom she eternally hated for his violent attack against her and her pet. But it also could be the doctor, or the constructor.
Gingerly, she removed the receiver from its cradle.
"Unryuu residence." She spoke softly, her voice all but dead. "Akari speaking."
"Hey, Akari? This is Saotome Ranma," came the brash voice on the other end of the phone. "Have you seen Ryouga lately?" That name! It haunted her, hunted her, and tortured her! Would she never be free of him?!
"I NEVER WANT TO HEAR THAT NAME AGAIN!" She screamed, slamming the receiver down.
Ranma stared at his receiver as the other end of the line went dead, greatly shocked at the outburst from the usually polite and demure young woman.
"Ooookay...." He gently replaced the phone, and turned to Akane, Ukyou, Cologne, and Ryouga. "She's not in the best of moods right now . . ."
The lost boy's glare caught him like a deer in headlights.
"Why should she be?" he muttered miserably, the blue glow surrounding him increasing in size. "After all, I probably ruined her life. And on top of it, I don't even know how!" His aura fluctuating uncontrollably, the bandanna wearing boy let it concentrate into a small sphere . . .
"NOT INSIDE!" Ukyou smashed him upside the head with her spatula. Ryouga blinked, then fell off the table he had been sitting on.
"Ow . . ."
The lost boy sat up and glared at her, but she took it in stride, and bashed him again when he wouldn't stop.
"Stop looking at me like that!" she yelled.
"Like what?!"
"Like I'm a piece of meat hanging in the window of a butcher's shop!" she snapped back. Ryouga scowled, then crossed his arms.
'Okay, let's sum-up our screwed-up life, eh, Hibiki?' He thought to himself. 'One, you've just screwed up your only chance with a girl who accepted you and your curse. Now she not only never wants to see you again, but she also hates your guts. Great. Two, you've jumped headfirst into trouble. Again. And this time, you've not only endangered yourself, but you've put your friends in danger, too. . . . Friends? What am I thinking? These people, friends? No . . . they don't care at all. They just want to protect their own lives . . . that's the only reason they're still here.
'Face it, Hibiki.' Ryouga felt his depression swell. 'You're screwed!'
'Nobody cares, I'm all alone, no one knows what to do, or what I'm going through, my life is ruined, and it's all my fault . . . I'm a danger to those I've grown to care about . . . I can't live like this!' Seeing that his three 'friends' were occupied talking to Cologne, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his pants and gripped the handle of his pocket knife.
'None of them will miss me, I'm better off dead. I won't be able to hurt anyone then . . . No . . . None of them will miss me, and they'll be safe . . .'
Ryouga stood silently, his hand gripping the handle so tightly he almost feared it would shatter. The others were so engrossed in their discussion, they didn't notice him slip out the door . . . and directly into the storage closet.
"Figures," he muttered, almost silently. "I can't even get lost to take my life . . ."
'Oh well, here's as good a place to die as any other . . .' He sat down on the floor of the closet and flipped out the blade. It was almost too dark to see the blade, but Ryouga had very good eyes.
A mere slit horizontally across the wrist wouldn't do it, the cut had to be deep . . . he'd have to be untreatable, in case they found him before he was quite dead. Steeling his nerve, he locked his jaw, and carved a jagged 'T' in his arm with the sharp edge. Blood streamed down his arm in a beautiful crimson fountain . . . then stopped, as the fountain dried up. "What the . . . ?"
He whispered, not believing the speed at which his wound had healed. Again, he tried to slice open his veins, and again, it healed, the blood welling up, only to be cut off by the regenerated flesh.
His bright blue aura now provided him with enough light to watch the healing process, but he took no notice of his glow.
"NO! KAMI DAMN IT!? WHY CAN'T I DIE?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, bursting from the closet, past the startled Akane, over the now trampled Ranma, and through the front door. Once in the street, he leapt directly in front of a speeding car, only to have it crash into him with the same effect had it hit a tree, instead.
"No bones broke, not even a scratch . . ." The lost boy's wide green eyes swept over his unharmed form, and took a step to the right, just as a large delivery truck tried to hit the breaks. There was a loud thud, but Ryouga got right back up, not even winded.
"This isn't right!" he screamed, dashing down the road. "Why is this happening to me?!"
He plowed over Kodachi, who had been on her way to hunt down her Ranma-sama, and nearly tripped over Tsubassa, who had been masquerading as a lamp post.
Five trailers, Four cars, three trucks, two bottles of rat poison, Akane's leftover cookies, and a partridge in a pear tree later, Ryouga found himself at the edge of a deep ravine.
"You again?" He muttered to the chasm. "Why is it you always appear when I need you most?" He received no answer, not that he had been expecting one, so he shrugged, and prepared to jump.
"RYOUGA!" Ranma yelled from behind him.
"Don't do it!" Akane added.
"COME BACK HERE, JACKASS!" Ukyou shouted.
"So long, Ranma." The lost boy smiled grimly, then leapt.
"NO!" the three cried out at once. "RYOUGA!"
A little less than a minute later, the ground shook as Ryouga hit the floor. The trio remained silent, then began to turn around.
"DAMN IT!" an angry voice screamed from the floor of the ravine. "Why can't I just die and get it over with?!"
"Ryouga?" Akane called down into the darkness.
"Sugar, are you okay?" Ukyou leaned over the edge.
"Unfortunately, yes." Ryouga grumbled, the echo reaching them.
"You gonna come up, or are you hurt?" Ranma asked.
". . . Do I have a choice?" was the annoyed reply.
"Well, either you come up, or I'll come down. Which is it gonna be?"
". . . I'll come up . . ." Ryouga sighed. "Maybe next time, my neck will break."
"WHAT?!" Ranma about had a coronary right then and there.
"Just a thought." A moment later, Ryouga climbed over the edge of the deep chasm, looking little more worse for wear. His clothes were tattered, and he was extremely dusty, but there wasn't so much as a bruise or a scratch on him.
"Damn it don't do that!" Ranma grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away from the edge. "You almost scared me to death!"
"That would make an interesting headline." Ryouga dead panned. "Nerima's greatest martial artist killed today by a fatal heart attack."
"Please don't scare us again like that, Ryouga." Akane sighed, relaxing.
"What, like this?" Ryouga back-flipped into the ravine a second time, causing the girls to scream, and Ranma to fall down out of pure shock.
There was a resounding crash.
"Guess it didn't work that time, either." Ryouga yelled up to them. "But hey, third time's the charm!"
Ranma twitched.
---
Ryouga lay in the basement of the Nekohaten chained to a wall. The room was dark and musty and the walls were dirty and crusted with scum. Various trinkets lay about the room, left over from the previous owners.
He yanked on the chains irritably. Cologne had used some kind of variation of the moxibustion technique which stripped him of his strength . . . but only temporarily. The effect lasted for only two days but it still was very annoying.
'I still don't understand why I have to stay down here. I can't be _THAT_ bad when I'm in berserker . . . what did they call it again? Berserker rage, mode, stage err . . . damn I forgot again.' His nose twitched irritably wanting someone to scratch it.
'Well at least they gave me a TV . . . but they could have least turned it to a decent channel! I've been watching this damn Sailor Moon marathon all day, and if I didn't want to kill myself before, I sure as hell do now!'
The lost boy growled and pulled at his chains harder.
'I don't need cold water to go berserk! Maybe I could dislocate my joints or something.' He contemplated this for several moments but was saved by the basement door opening.
He squinted his eyes against the light that flooded from the door and looked up at a fully armored samurai emerged from the basement.
"Oh no he's found me! Listen, I'm really sorry about your sporting goods store! I wasn't watching where I was going and-"
The samurai opened up a small flap on its helmet and looked at him with annoyed brown eyes.
"What are you talking about jackass?"
A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.
"Heh . . . heh never mind. I never said that." He looked up at the samurai questionably. "Uh . . . Ukyou?"
The samurai nodded as much as her heavy metal helmet allowed.
"Yeah its me."
"Ukyou, I didn't know you gave up okinomiyaki arts to become a samurai."
She tripped and barely kept herself from plummeting to the ground. Good thing too, she never would have been able to get back up again. She recovered and glared at him, since it was obviously his fault.
"No, Ryouga, I'm going to take you to some training grounds." Ryouga crinkled up his eyebrow in confusion. Something about this didn't seem right.
'Why is Ukyou all alone? Why isn't . . .oh.' He smiled knowingly, but the expression held no mirth.
"Why are you alone?"
Ukyou averted her eyes.
"Akane was supposed to come but--" She bit her lip.
"She was afraid of me wasn't she?" His head sagged, the weight of the world baring down on his shoulders.
"Akane afraid? Are you kidding?" She laughed half heartendly. Ryouga nodded. He knew.
"Aren't you afraid the wild animal will turn on you too?" He looked up and met her eyes. She felt unable to look away from the pain filled green orbs.
"Ryouga how could I ever be afraid of YOU?" She smiled. She was scared as hell but he still needed her help . . .
He knew she was lying but he still felt grateful. He smiled softly.
"Thank you for lying Ukyou."
"Anytime Sugar, anytime. So Ryouga, why are you down here?"
He blushed and shifted in his chains.
"Cologne said she was the best to watch over me and they wouldn't let me sit in a spare room because of this incident I had."
Ukyou shrugged and went to undo the locks of the chains.
"Did you get hit with cold water or what?"
Ryouga blushed, as the chains fell off his hands and feet. He sat on the floor and rubbed his wrists, trying to get rid of the lingering feeling of metal.
"Um . . . no I got lost on my way to the bathroom, they really shouldn't a labyrinth in a restaurant, and there was this wall . . . how was I supposed to know it was a support beam?! . . . and err," Ryouga trailed off as he noticed Ukyou staring at him.
Ukyou blinked a couple times before finally abandoning trying to figure out how a labyrinth, support beam, and the Nekohaten would have to do with Ryouga tied up in a basement watching Sailor Moon. Whatever it was it had to be horrible to have to endure such torture.
"So what's been going on?" Ryouga asked as Ukyou ducked back through the door and came back with a hand full of rope.
"Well, Happy finally came back. He looks horrible! He's all scarred up and everything! It was neat." Ukyou smirked. It was Happosai after all.
---
Somewhere in the Tendo Dojo . . .
A small figure clad in a red and green striped shirt idly scratched the wall leaving deep gashes in the wood.
Finally, he stood up and lifted a bra into the air.
"Ryouga Hibiki you shall pay for what you've done to me! Happosai is dead!"
Thunder and lightning struck in a clear sky for know apparent reason, lightning up a scared face. "Long live--
THE LECHER!"
---
Ryouga sneezed.
Ukyou walked up to her companion who was sitting on the ground and uncoiled a link of rope. Ryouga's eyes widened and his face blushed a deep crimson.
"Hey listen Ukyou! I may not be chasing after Akane anymore or anything . . but it doesn't mean I'm going to do THAT or anything! I'm glad that your over Ranma but we're just friends!"
Ukyou blushed. "YOU IDIOT! Its to tie you up with! Uh . . I mean restrain you! Err I mean . . . Damn it! IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!"
Ukyou looked for the nearest implement to hit him with. Unfortuantley, he had already done the job himself and was passed out on the floor in a pool of blood. She walked up to him and kicked him a few times.
"Wake up! This is harder to do when you're not awake!" He blinked, realized what she just said, and passed out again.
"Argh! Get your mind out of the damn gutter! I was going to tie you to the wheelbarrow so you wouln't fall out! Remember the moxubustion thing? Your legs don't work right now you idiot!"
He lifted his head and opened one eye cautiously and then other. Finally he sat up and laughed nervously.
"Oh THAT'S what you meant."
"What did you think I was talking about?" Ukyou glared at him with "scorned women glare of death 892" guaranteed to send many a man running in fear. Unfortunatley, she also got it confused with look 102 the 'catch cute man in chinese shirt' alluring gaze. She was really going to have to work on that.
"Nothing ma'am, nothing at all."
"Good." She tied up his arms and helped him into the wheelbarrow. "Are you made up of metal or what?" She wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"Uh sorry?" He blinked as a thought occurred to him. "If your job is just to take me there then why are you wearing all that armor?"
"Ranchan said suggested it. The wheelbarrow was his idea too." She sighed. "He always has such good ideas." Ryouga rolled his eyes.
"Well gee Ukyou, I wish I could be as smart as Ranma someday," Ryouga deadpanned.
Ukyou glared at him.
"When did you start to use sarcasm?"
Ryouga shrugged.
"I dunno, being a danger to society kind of brings out the negative feelings in you."
"And you were all sunshine and giggles before huh? Whatever. Don't insult Ranchan anymore or I'll send this wheelbarrow off a cliff, got it?" She turned the wheelbarrow around and wheeled it up a ramp located next to the stairs.
"I tried that already remember?. . . Wait . . Ranma told you to use the wheelbarrow? So the only reason your taking me is because Ranma asked you to?"
"Sit back and enjoy the ride jackass." She smirked.
---
The green, rolling hills flourished with vegetation and wildlife . . . and were about to be decimated.
Two figures rested amidst the beauty of nature, one who had seen it many times before and never was not inspired by it, and another who's heart was far too damaged to appreciate it anymore.
Ryouga sat in the midst of the wonders of nature, and his dark aura spread like wildfire as he watched the beauty that surrounded him that could never touch his heart. His aura of depression spread slowly, like oil on water, a black shadow stretching over the-- WHAM!
"OWW! What the hell was that for?!" Ryouga scowled at the Amazon matriarch.
"You're getting distracted, boy." Cologne shook her staff at him. "Concentrate on your inner equilibrium."
"And how am I supposed to do that? Weigh myself?"
WHAM!
"Don't you sass me, boy. Sarcasm doesn't suit you."
Ryouga twitched irritably, his scowl darkening.
"Please don't mention suits . . ."
Cologne threatened to bash him with her staff again, so he closed his eyes. A minute later, he opened them again, looking infinitely more cross.
"I can't do this!" he snarled irritatedly.
"Ranma could do it." Cologne prodded. Ryouga's scowl deepened again, and he once more closed his eyes.
"Mantra?" Cologne poked him. The lost boy nearly lost it right then and there, but slowly inhaled and began the long and wordy mantra she had taught him.
"Everything in the universe has a point of equilibrium. This point is the balance center for all life. All life must have a balance. Without this balance, there is chaos. And within chaos, there is destruction. Within balance, there is order. There is destruction in this order, but there is also creation."
Ryouga's expression relaxed slowly as he repeated the mantra, and laxly, his aura receded.
"I must achieve a balance within myself," he whispered. "I must find the calm within the storm, and encompass the yin and yang."
"HEY PORK BUTT!" Ranma's voice yelled loudly next to his ear. Ryouga's eyes snapped open, and his battle aura flared into life around him. WHAM! Cologne's staff connected with the back of his skull again.
"Don't be distracted!" She snapped.
"But--" Ryouga started, but another bash stopped him.
"Do you want to gain control of this or not?" The Chinese matriarch scowled. "If you are going to gain any small amount of control over this rage, then you will not allow that to distract you."
"Whatever . . ." Ryouga sighed. "Everything in the universe has a point of equilibrium. This point is the balance center for all life. All life must have a balance. Without this balance, there is chaos. And within chaos, there is destruction. Within balance, there is order. There is destruction in this order, but there is also creation. I must achieve a balance within myself. I must find the calm within the storm, and encompass the yin and yang."
"I SAID, HEY PORK BUTT!" Ranma's taunt again hit home, breaking Ryouga from his trance.
"RANMA, PREPARE--" WHAM. And so the process continued several more times.
By sunset, Ryouga had gone through the mantra seventeen times, each and everyone loosing his temper. Once, he came very close to blocking out the distraction, but Akane's voice had called out: "Ryouga, you're such an asshole. Get over yourself!" And he had been forced to Shi Shi Hokoudan the whole area.
Cologne had not been pleased.
For one week, the cycle went on. After a week, the park ran out of green, rolling hills, and they were forced to resort to the mountains. Not as much fun, but there was more for Ryouga to take out his anger on before blowing everything to kingdom come.
Three days into the second week, Ryouga got lost.
---
Chapter Six:
Ryouga trudged through knee deep mud. It had rained the night before soaking the ground completely. Luckily, he had been able to get shelter. He tried his best to stay dry. After all, he just didn't have to worry about himself now when he was changed. Changing into a pig was nothing compared with changing into a bloodthirsty killer. The waterproof soap and temporary man water helped a bit, provided he was able to keep puting it on.
The dark gray sky did nothing to improve his already dark mood. If nothing it reflected his emotions, hovering between calm weather and a violent raging storm.
He really needed a release from all this stress. Normally, he would be cursing Ranma in all the different languages he knew (he mostly knew the swear words) but lately, cursing Saotome had become less enjoyable. He wasn't exactly sure why though.
Maybe it was because, if wished him dead now, and he _DID_ drop dead, it might hurt Akane's feelings. Yeah, that was it. It wasn't like they were friends or anything.
His woodland surroundings slowly gave away to paved suburban streets. Taking care to avoid the various puddles littered about the ground, he walked up to a local.
"Excuse me sir, where am I?" The person turned around, revealing Ranma Saotome. Ryouga tried to contain a shudder of disgust. He'd just called Ranma sir!
"Wow Ryouga! Good thing you're here. Everyone thought you were going to go on a killing spree before we got to you."
Ryouga glared at his ex-rival, also known as the cause of all his problems.
"That's not funny Ranma." He hung his head sadly as a faint blue aura formed around him.
Ranma noticed but as usual his mouth turned out to be faster than his brain.
"Are you sure you haven't sliced anyone up somewhere? Er....oops."
Ryouga looked up slowly.
"No, Ranma I haven't killed anyone . . . yet."
A bead of sweat slowly rolled down Ranma's brow as Ryouga slowly reached for his umbrella. He lifted it up and--
"YOU JACKASS!"
CLANG!
Ryouga fell to the ground, narrowly missing a large mud puddle. Ukyou, the enraged Okinomiyaki chef, loomed over him doing a good impression of Soun's demon head.
"Do you have any idea how worried I--err we were about you?!"
Ryouga stood up shakily and rubbed the spot she had hit him at. A bump was already forming.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to find the bathroom and--"
"You were outside damn it! They're were no bathrooms!"
Ryouga stopped rubbing his head, finding that the bump had already healed. This should have been a good thing, except now Ukyou would be less "reserved" to hit him with that damn spatula. You really should need a license or something to carry that around.
Akane walked up behind Ranma. Her sneakers made small squeaky noises as she approached.
"Ryouga! Your back! We were really worried!"
Ryouga put a hand behind his head and laughed nervously. He had given up on Akane, but it still hurt sometimes. He still was in denial about what happened with Akari. He didn't think about it and tried to block it out of his mind. Whatever happened was bad and he just couldn't deal with it right now.
"Hey, Ryouga come on. The old ghoul said that your training was a flop and that we're going to ship you off to gaijin land anyway."
The lost boy blinked.
"Gaijin Land? Isn't that a theme park?"
Everyone but Ryouga face-faulted. Ukyou recovered first.
"No you idiot! Your thinking of DISNEY LAND."
"Oh I remember that place! Scary, surrounded by water with a bunch of weird pigmy children running around." Ryouga shuddered as the group stared at him for several moments.
"Pigmy children?" Ranma shook his head to clear it and grabbed Ryouga's hand. "Come on p-chan we're gonna see Cologne." Ryouga was dragged away, unceremoniously. Ukyou and Akane followed behind them. They didn't get too close though, just in case.
"Damn it Ranma stop pulling me! . . . wait . . . WHO YOU CALLIN P-CHAN?!"
---
Three days later, Akane, Cologne, Ranma, Ryouga, and Ukyou stood in the terminal for the airport. The lost boy would board a plane using the ticket he won in the martial arts obstacle course race, which thankfully, had been open ended.
"Be careful in America, Ryouga." Akane smiled weakly, still not one hundred percent sure about his mood.
"I will." He smiled just as weakly, stressed by the destroyed trust between himself and his friends.
"Don't get too lost, okay pork butt?" Ranma grinned in the same, superior manner he always did. Ryouga scowled, but his aura remained within a one inch radius of his body.
"Take care of your fiancée, Ranma." He growled, eyes narrowing. "And don't forget to keep putting medicine on your cuts." The pigtailed martial artist sweat-dropped.
"Hey, Jackass, go easy on Ran-chan." Ukyou prodded him in the ribs with her spatula, which no one knew how she got through the metal detectors with.
Flashback
Akane walks through the metal detector, and there is no problem.
Ranma walks through the metal detector, and it beeps. He backs up, and takes off his watch, grinning in an embarrassed manner. He walks through with no problem.
Ukyou walked up to the machine with her spatula strapped to her back, glared at it, and then walked through. The machine sweat-dropped, but remained silent.
Ryouga heaved a sigh and walked up to the metal detector.
It went off.
He backed up, looked for anything he was wearing that could contain metal, emptied out his pockets of several handfuls of change from Kami knows how many countries, and tried again.
The machine still went off.
Two guards walked up to him with miniature detectors, which went wild the second they started scanning him.
Everyone sweat-dropped.
"They must be malfunctioning," the security guards scowled at their machines. "Go on through. You don't look too dangerous." The Nerima clan sweat-dropped.
Present time
"Hey, Bacon breath, do you even speak English?" Ranma smirked. Ryouga stiffened.
"For your information, infidel, my grasp of the English language far exceeds your grasp of the Japanese language." The lost boy retorted in perfect, hardly accented English.
Ranma and Ukyou gaped. Akane, who was taking an English course, looked mildly confused.
"AND you have poor fashion sense, you ill mannered bastard. It's a wonder you've gotten through life without people thinking you're some kind of psycho!"
The lost boy flushed, putting his hand behind his neck and looking away.
"Ano.... my mother taught me....." He glanced at the floor. "She said it'd come in handy, when I ran into my dad. Japanese wasn't his first language, and he was still a little rough. I think a few words she taught me are a bit archaic, though."
"Here." Ukyou scowled, shoving a package at him.
"What's this?" He blinked, startled by the sudden change of topic.
"We all chipped in and got you something." The chef shrugged, trying to look impassive. "Just so you won't get cold in America."
Ryouga teared up.
"You guys... got a present for me?" He threw his arms open and embraced the three of them at the same time, nearly crushing them in the process. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done fore me! Thank you!"
"ACK! RYOUGA! AIR!" Akane, Ranma, and Ukyou cried out. The lost boy started from his happy reverie, and released them nervously.
"Oops, sorry." He blushed bright red.
"Passenger flight 843 to New York, now boarding." The overly saccharine voice of a stewardess came on through the intercom.
"Oh, yeah." Ryouga smiled weakly, his fangs still giving him a rakish appearance.
"See you guys around!" The lost boy turned and walked into the tunnel that connected the terminal to the plane. Ranma and Ukyou waved.... but Akane looked up and saw the sign above the door.
"SHOOT! Ranma, he just got on the plane to Alberta, Canada! Not New York!"
WHAM! Mallet-sama collided with Ranma once more.
"RYOUGA, YOU JACKASS!" Ukyou yelled.
Ryouga sat down in his coach seat. A young girl next to him with short black hair turned toward him and grinned.
"Excited about going to Canada eh?" she asked in a fake Canadian accent. The fact that a cute girl was talking to him was momentarily blocked out as what she said registered.
"Canada?!"
He turned around to get off the plane but it was too late.
The plane had already taken off.
---
Chapter Seven:
Ryouga lay hunched in his seat with his head on the airplane window.
"Stupid Ranma," he muttered under his breath.
Flashback
Ryouga squinted his eyes at the sign.
"Ranma, what gate is it?"
Ranma pointed to the southern gate.
"It's that one." At least he thought it was that one. Canada was a state right?
Ryouga looked at him suspiciously.
"Are you sure?"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should go over and check it for yourself?"
"Shut up!" He took a swing at the pigtailed martial artist, completely forgetting his suspicion.
End flashback
The teenage girl sitting next to him raised an eyebrow as her fellow passenger squeezed his arm rest so hard he left finger indents. She then leaned in next to him.
"Gee, what did that armrest ever do to you?"
Ryouga blinked. That cute girl was talking to him! Better say something suave . . .
"Uh . . . Huh?"
"Hi I'm Jubilee." She held her hand out and Ryouga numbly shook it while desperately trying to regain control of his thought processes.
"I'm Ryouga." He managed to mutter out. Jubilee winked at him.
"Ryouga . . . cute name."
"Th-Thanks." He laughed nervously.
"So what 'cha going to Canada for Ryouga? Romance, revenge, terrorism?"
Ryouga blinked. "Terrorism?"
Jubilee smirked. "Terrorism, eh? Is that your final answer?"
Ryouga waved his hands in front of his face.
"I'm not a terrorist really! Well, . . . there was this time that I accidentally blew a hole in the United Nations building, but that wasn't my fault!"
Jubilee blinked . . . several times. Why couldn't she sit next to someone normal? At least he was cute. Still . . . she better make sure of some things.
"You don't know anyone named Magneto do you Ryouga?"
"Magnets? You mean like the kind you put on your refrigerator?"
Jubilee spit out the soda she was drinking in surprise. Ryouga yelled and jumped up in his seat. He missed the spray but hit the top of the overhead compartment.
"Oops sorry about that, my bad." Jubilee laughed to herself. "Hope you didn't get brain damage or anything." Ryouga rubbed his head, even though the bruise was already gone. Why did he always run into the psycho women?
"Hey, Jubes, who ya talking to?" A pretty long haired blond asked from behind Ryouga. Jubes smiled evilly and grabbed Ryouga's arm.
"My new boyfriend, ya like him?" Ryouga's eyes bulged out of his head and he desperately tried to keep his nose from bleeding.
"I think your scaring the poor cute boy, Jubes." The blond winked at him.
A girl sitting next to her stopped shredding the paper on her pop bottle and looked up. She brought up a dark skinned hand and brushed her long hair out of her face.
"Jubilee you should stop manhandling the boy." Jubilee stuck her tongue out at the girl.
"Gee Monet I was only having a little fun."
Ryouga was trying to keep himself from breaking down. 'Pretty...girls...all around...me....scary...brazen...psycho American girls...brain....going....in...overload.'
Luckily, or unluckily depending on the way you looked at it, he was saved by two young men in the seats directly in front of him. One had dark gray skin, (skin disease perhaps?), and the other's was covered with a scarf from the lips down. Neither seemed to be very friendly toward him.
'Great Hibiki. They're probably their boyfriends. Your doomed. You'll end up accidentally releasing a Shishi Hokoudan then the plane will go down and everyone will die. Great, just great! Go on a plane Ryouga! It'll be fun!'
"Hey, chicas, was going on?" the gray skinned guy asked, narrowing his eyes at Ryouga. The lost boy narrowed his eyes right back. He wasn't going to let some weird elephant guy psych him out.
"Is this bloke bothering ya?" the scarfed one added in, similarly narrowing his eyes.
Ryouga waved his hands in front of his face. He could take the guys any day, they didn't look so tough, but a plane was not a place he wanted to start a fight.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I'll move to another seat. I didn't mean to make your boyfriends mad."
Multiple people spit out their sodas, and the gray skinned guy started to choke on a Twizzler. Ryouga had a fun time dodging them all. Damn it! Couldn't these people keep their food in their mouths? Weird Americans. If this was the way everyone acted...
He shuddered.
"We are not _NOT_ their boyfriends." The scarfed guy rubbed his temples. He seemed to be the only one not eating anything. He was giving Ryouga some really weird vibes. He could have sworn he saw a light under that scarf. Did he have a lava lamp stuffed under there or what?
"Oh, uh . . . sorry."
The teens continued to bickered between him as the hours passed. He decided that the scarf guy and the pretty blond reminded him of Akane and Ranma. Monet was like an immovable stone wall and possibly the only person who didn't bother him. He had a hard time following what the gray skinned guy said, something about "home boys"? And Jubilee . . .he hoped with every fiber of his being she wasn't the normal average American.
'Please . . .please . . . Kami-sama don't let her be . . .'
Oh yes, his American trip, was going to be _FUN_.
---
At last, the plane landed. Following Jubilee, the lost boy managed to exit the jet and return to the safety of solid ground.
"It was nice flying with you, Ryouga." She beamed at him.
"Aheh... yeah...." The bandanna wearing youth grinned weakly, showing his fangs again.
"So... ah... I… I'll se--"
"DIE, DAMN MUTIE SCUM!" A man wearing a shirt bearing the letters FOH leapt forward out of the crowd, waving a gun at Ryouga's recent traveling companions.
While his new 'friends' took up archaic fighting stances, Ryouga brought his palms together, and then let a small ki ball form between them.
"Shishi Hokoudan." The blast shot forward, nailing the man square in the chest and sending him flying onto the luggage carousel, where he lay on his back with swirl-y eyes.
Those of his new companions with jaws allowed them to drop reasonably low.
"Gee, I hate getting interrupted..." Ryouga mused. "Where was I? Oh, right. See you around!" He waved and walked off, quickly disappearing into the crowds.
One week later, Ryouga was thoroughly lost in the great , vast wilderness that made up a great deal of Canada.
---
Somewhere in the cargo hold on the plane a great evil stirred. It was ready to wreak havoc on a new continent. It was ready...
FOR PANTIES.
--
Chapter Eight
Rouge undressed and turned on the shower knob. Quickly she jumped into the shower and pulled the curtain close.
Somewhere in the shadows..."IT" lurked.
It snickered to itself and straightened its red overalls and red toupee. She would never seen it coming. Slowly he stalked up to the shower stall. His victim was too busy putting shampoo in her hair to notice.
He ripped open the shower curtain as violin music started to play from out of nowhere. His victim looked up in surprise.
"Play with me sweetums!" He jumped and glomped onto her, ready to feed his perversion. Except . . . something wasn't right.
"Wait.....ahhhhhhh!" The evil lecher's life force was drained away almost completely before she threw him off. He landed at the bottom of the bathtub and looked up at the ceiling as the water slowly went down the drain.
She shuddered, grabbed a towel, and ran out of the bathroom.
"I've got to warn all the cute guys of the intruder!" Rouge stopped and blinked. Where did that come from? And why did she suddenly feel an affection for bombs and underwear?
--
Being lost wasn't fun. Being lost in the wilderness was even less fun. Being lost in a wilderness on a different continent while trying to search for a man that you've never met to help you with your tendency to go berserk and kill things randomly brought new meaning to the not fun category.
And people wondered why Ryouga was always depressed.
"Damn it! Every tree looks the same! Damn pine trees!" He kicked said pine tree down in aggravated. It fell and created a domino effect throughout the forest.
--
Somewhere close by . . .
Victor Creed, a man that liked to have his pie and kill it too, was walking through the forest. He had grown bored with the monotonous forest. He was itching for something, or someone, to kill. He sniffed the air and smiled. With his excellent vision he could see a young traveler, couldn't have been more than nineteen, walking aimlessly through the forest.
"Look, fresh meat." He readied himself and pounced.
Or that's what he would have done had the tree not fell on him.
And he would have gotten right back up too if another tree hadn't fallen on him, and another . . . and another...
--
"Oops." Ryouga rubbed the back of his neck nervously. He had gotten a little carried away. Good thing no one was around or they could have gotten hurt. He picked up his pack and walked away from the pile of wood. If he had been paying better attention, he would have heard the growl of guttural rage emanating from the wood pile.
Several more minutes of walking brought him to a ravine overlooking a vast valley. A majestic waterfall stood at the mouth, its crystal clear water sparkled in the midday sun. Overcome by the beauty he stood mesmerized and defenseless from the killer creeping upon him until--
"Oh look a quarter!" He bent down as Creed went flying over his head and into the valley below.
SPLASH!
Ryouga stood up and pocketed the quarter. He scratched his head.
"I wonder what that sound was? There sure are strange animals around here . . .
With a shrug, he turned around and headed the other way. If he had stayed any longer he would have heard the guttural roar from the bottom of the valley.
--
Lightening and thunder warred in the sky. Ryouga Hibiki crouched lower under his umbrella. Only a few hours ago it had been sunny and beautiful, and now a massive storm had descended upon the forest. The weather patterns were so eradicate it was like being in Nerima . . . only there were more pines. He suspected that he'd smell like the inside of a taxi cab for the rest of his life.
He stopped next to a large pine. With the wind blowing so hard, and trying to keep dry, his visibility was extremely low. Someone could easily attack him by surprise.
Which was just what the figure in the tree was counting on as he clenched his fist in anticipation. The annoying kid in yellow and black (he really hated those colors) was finally going to meet his end. There was no escape.
BOOM! CRASH!
Ryouga jumped back as lightening struck the tree he had been standing next to. It was a black charred piece of ash. Luckily, the rain had made the foliage damp enough so there would be no fire.
"Man that was close!" He laughed and continued his trek through the woods.
Creed, the black charred mess, lay on the forest floor; his world a kaleidoscope of pain. Perhaps, it would be best to lay here for a few hours, or days, or maybe weeks . . .
---
Ucchan's Okonomiyaki shop was closed for the evening. Inside, however, life was still bustling. Three people sat around the grill, one cleaning, and two drinking sodas.
To the right, a small TV blared out news from across the world. The anchorman sat as his desk in his expensive suit, shuffling papers and speaking, when someone off screen handed him a new sheet.
"This just in," he reported. "The terminal outside of the Japanese-Canadian landing strip was attacked brutally today but anti-mutant terrorists." A picture of Ryouga, a Chinese girl, a blonde girl, and several other teenagers appeared behind him, showing the terrorist behind them with his gun.
"Fortunately, the attacker was put down by a mysterious young man who disappeared before police arrived on the scene."
Ranma blinked. Akane set down her soda. Ukyou peered closer at the TV.
"Was that.... Ryouga!?" The chef cried out.
"Pork-butt actually made it?" Ranma said. Akane whapped him.
"Don't tease poor Ryouga." She glared at him.
"What, have you ever seen him get to where he was going?" Ranma scowled back.
"He was with us on Togenkyo, and he didn't get lost once while we were there." The short haired girl noted.
"He found me." Ukyou shrugged. Akane and Ranma spun on her.
"OH! So that's how you got away from the monkey-man." He grinned. "I wondered why you were being so nice to him after that..."
"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL!" Ukyou smashed her Mega Spatula into Ranma's face.
"I think it's sweet..." Akane beamed.
The television continued to report the news. "Sources say that the monster of Daytona beach has stolen several women's bathing suit tops. Scientists speculate it was for its nests. More news on our environment report."
Ranma blinked. "Has anyone seen Happosai lately?"
---
Chapter Nine:
The hills seemed endless. Endless rolling blankets of green that seemed to extend to the ends of the earth. A flock of wild geese flew in an elegant V-shape overhead. Down below a heard of caribou roamed, eating happily. The chilly wind promised snow in the future. In other words?
It must be Canada.
'At least I hope I'm in Canada.' Ryouga peered closely at his map, unaware that it was upside down. It also happen to be a map of West Virginia.
'Why the hell does it need all these squiggle lines anyway?' He crumpled up the map angrily and threw it over his shoulder; not giving a damn about pollution or Indians that cry when you litter on commercials.
'Those Alpha Flight people had been nice to give me directions. I still think it's a weird name for ski resort. Why does everyone I run into seem to be wearing spandex? Is it a new trend or what?' He shrugged and shifted the weight of his backpack.
'What am I doing here? Do I even deserve a cure? After all the horrible things I've done . . . after what I did to Akari. . . . What _DID_ I do to Akari?' He shook his head violently.
'Damn it I can't remember!' He paused. 'Do I even want to remember? . . . Turning into a little pig was better than this. Ok, so it was kind of cool being able to beat up Ranma, but I never wanted to kill him!'
He blinked.
'Well, I don't want to kill him anymore. What would Akane have thought of me if I had killed Ranma? What . . . what if I had killed Ukyou? Or Akane?'
He felt a knife twist through his heart as the possibilities raced through his mind. He couldn't take it anymore!
"SHISHI HODOKAN!"
--
Another traveler raised his head as a sound reached his ears. It was too far away for even him to be able to identify. But he knew it had held such familiar pain . . .
--
Hours later, Ryouga found himself in the middle of a grassy glade, still lost. The sun was setting across the horizon, bathing the sky in brilliant hues of red and orange. An icy wind blew softly from the north.
"Damn," Ryouga swore. "I hate the cold...."
"You an' me both, kid." A gruff, smoker's voice chuckled from somewhere behind him. Ryouga spun around, confused at how someone was able to sneak up on him.
"Who are you?" The lost boy's hazel-green eyes narrowed.
"Not important. Just another traveler."
The man in question was short, even a few inches shorter than Ryouga. He wore a heavy jacket, jeans, flannel shirt, and boots. His wild black hair swept up into points, which would have been weird had the Lost Boy not been familiar with anti-gravity hair thanks to Ranma.
"Care for company, to share yer fire?" He gestured to the roaring campfire Ryouga had going.
Ryouga shrugged. With this new healing ability, there was little chance that even if this guy was a bandit, he couldn't take him. Even though the guy did look a lot sturdier than Ryouga himself . . .
"Thanks, kid." The man sat down and removed a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lighting it in the flames and inhaling deeply before blowing out a cloud of smoke.
"Smoking is bad for your health, you know." Ryouga arched one eyebrow. The man let out a hearty laugh at the lost boy's statement.
"Kid, these things can kill thousands o' people, but they'll never kill me."
Ryouga shrugged. "It's your life."
"So . . . you a fighter?" The bandanna wearing martial artist asked later, uncomfortable with the heavy silence.
"Ya noticed?"
"Your choice of clothing doesn't do a good job of hiding a strong build."
"Ah. I fight, a bit."
"So then the muscle mass is from weight training?"
"Yer pretty observant, for a kid."
"I'm a fighter, too."
"You?" Once more, the man laughed. "Ya don't look it at all."
"Eh?!"
"Well, ya look kinda young . . . what style do ya use?"
Ryouga hung his head, letting shadows fall over his face.
"It's a conglomeration . . ." He sighed.
"Oh? That's nothing to be ashamed o', kid. Take the strongest moves . . . nothing wrong with that. Just as long as yer good."
"Oh, I'm good." Ryouga's scowl turned into a smirk. "I can prove it, too. Wanna spar? Loser cleans up camp tomorrow."
"Sounds fun." the man cracked his knuckles.
Both stood, and moved a short distance from the camp. Ryouga watched his opponent carefully, so as not to get lost.
They faced off, sizing each other up for a moment, trying to figure out the other's weaknesses from the mere stance.
"C'mon, old man, what're you waiting for?" Ryouga smirked.
"Kid, you sure yer a fighter? I've seen a lot o' men with more bark than bite... An' lots' o' them looked like they coulda packed a punch, too. You.... yer scrawny, for Pete's sake."
Ryouga's face went red. "SCRAWNY?!" He yelled. "I'll show you scrawny!" He punched directly down, embedding his arm up to his elbow in solid rock. Logan arched one eyebrow in amusement.
As easy as if he was lifting foam blocks, the lost boy tore out a huge chunk of earth and chucked it as the shorter, stockier fighter. Logan's claws slipped from their grisly sheaths, and cut through the stone like butter before retracting.
"Nice trick."
Ryouga's eyes widened slightly as the two halves of rock crumbled to each side. 'What was that?!' He was sure the rock would have nearly hit, not too hard, of course, but enough to show the man he was a force to be reckoned with.
"Got any more tricks up yer sleeves, boy?" Logan's grin was feral, his steel-blue eyes excited at the prospect of an honorable challenge. For once, his opponent would not be a hologram, a robot, or a dishonorable bag of fleas. A chance to put to the test all the things he learned in Japan, but never got to use on the field due to his enemy's lack of honor or knowledge of bushido.
Ryouga scowled. "I don't know how you did it, but it won't do you any good in our battle, old man."
"Let's go." Logan smiled, motioning for Ryouga to attack. Ryouga's mind was racing. He'd seen Ranma do the same taunt before, always getting him to charge. The first move.... make your enemy come to you.
"Yer better than I thought!" Logan laughed. "Ya didn't jump right in to battle . . . good."
"I'm not the brightest guy around, but I do learn, eventually." Ryouga admitted, never once taking his eyes off his opponent. When it was apparent that neither one was going to make the first attack, Ryouga caved. He flipped forward quickly, driving his left foot ground-wards in a sharp kick.
Logan twisted to the side to avoid it, and countered with a right punch. The blow didn't connect, though, because Ryouga had rolled with the move and was already behind his opponent. He jabbed, but Logan dodged that as well, displaying his skill at close range fighting.
The lost boy tried to kick Logan, but the older man managed to dodge once more, and Ryouga flipped backwards, catching him in the chin with his foot. This put distance between them, and gave the youth credit for first attack.
"Not bad." Logan admitted, rolling his neck to get cricks out of it. For some reason, Ryouga could swear he head heard metal... he ignored it, focusing on the older so that he could try and read attacks to come.
"I try." The lost boy assented.
"Try this." Logan lunged, adding kicks and punches, about half of which Ryouga blocked, and the other half which slipped through his guard. The lost boy wiped some blood from his lips, blood that had escaped before his new healing factor eradicated the wound. It was rather impressive really, to make him bleed at all.
He stretched, then quickly slipped back into his fighting position.
"You're not bad either, for an old man." Ryouga watched him for a minute, then shifted out of his stance. Logan let out a hearty laugh, relaxing.
"Nice sparring with ya, kid." Logan grinned.
"You too, old man." They shook hands, at which point, Logan flipped Ryouga. The lost boy caught on quickly though, and landed on his feet, before flipping Logan on his back.
'Not as dumb as he looks....' Logan noted sourly.
"So tell me, old man, how'd you get rid of that pebble I threw at you?" Ryouga wondered aloud sometime later.
"Ya really wanna know?" Logan leaned in closer, as if the secret had to be kept at all costs.
"If you know some kind of technique, I'd love to learn it from you." The lost boy replied. Logan held up his right fist, palm facing himself, and steeled his jaw as he sent the trio of gleaming adamantium claws through his skin.
"These babies will cut through anything."
Then the Junsenkyo victim's luck held true, as the area experienced a sudden spring shower. Unfortunately for Logan, Ryouga didn't have time to grab his umbrella, and got drenched.
The lost boy's eyes quickly went from soft brown-green to sharp blood-red, something that did not escape Logan's notice. Six similar talons shot forth from the top of Ryouga's hands, and his muscles tensed as he pulled back into a pouncing position. Wolverine was not smiling anymore.
Quick as the wind, the X-man grabbed the nearest thing to him and flung it at the Nerima Martial artist, in an attempt to distract him and gain some ground to fight in. The kettle that had sat over the fire smashed into Ryouga's face, spilling water all down his front, and causing him to fall over with swirl-y eyes.
Logan blinked, and saw that the red was gone from his companion's gaze. He sat him up against a tree, careful not to get the lost boy wet again. He saw when the change in his sparring partner's demeanor had taken place, and, despite popular opinion, Logan was a rather intelligent man. He didn't always talk like Hank McCoy, but then again, he was above human...
"Yo, kid, you okay?" He shook Ryouga gently, but the martial artist was out cold. Logan scowled, and picked up the youth's hand, from which the deadly metal claws still protruded. 'These should have retracted...' he thought.
"Wait a second, where the hell did he get these?!"
"Wha... whasat?" The lost boy blinked, looking dazedly at the older man who was examining his claws-- HIS WHAT?!
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Ryouga stared at his claws in mortification, while Wolverine scowled.
"Who the hell are you, kid?" The older man demanded.
"Ryouga…" The talons disappeared back to wherever they had come from with a soft snikt.
"Ryouga, eh? Well, Ryouga, you're going to tell me exactly what's going on, starting with what happened when it started raining..."
--
Chapter Ten
A little more than a half an hour after their encounter, Ryouga had given Logan the basics of life in Nerima. The elder's eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates, or at least, saucers, throughout the parts where any Junsenkyo curse was involved.
"So, now I'm looking all over the country for a guy I've never even met." Ryouga sighed.
"What's this man's name?" Steel-blue eyes narrowed in anticipation.
"Well, my sensei-of sorts called him Logan, but the guy back at that metal place said his name kinda funny...." The Lost Boy shrugged. "So I'm not sure if I've got the pronunciation right. So.... what's the deal with you, and your claws?" He gestured to the razor sharp talons that still gleamed from the top of his companion's hand. The man retracted his claws, and held out his hand in the American custom of handshakes.
"Name's Logan." He scowled. "Nice ta meet ya."
Ryouga gaped. "No way. Are you serious?" Logan nodded once, his expression reading 'no nonsense'. The lost boy bowed low, his own customs overriding foreign ones.
"Logan-san, it's an honor to finally meet you," a tear of joy ran down his face, relaxation seeping to his very bones.
"Er...... kid, I've got news for ya." Logan rubbed the back of his neck. "There ain't no cure for Berserker's Rage. It's something ya gotta live with for the rest o' yer life."
Ryouga looked up sharply, eyes widened and full of sorrow.
"I can teach ya a couple o' anger management techniques, but that's about it..."
"Shit." He leaned back against a tree, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'm doomed. It's no use, I'll never be normal again...... I just know I'll end up killing someone I love...... And I can't even put myself out of their misery......."
"You've tried suicide?" Logan glared at him.
"Don't get me wrong, it's not like I want to die, but..." Ryouga sighed. "I don't want to hurt any of them.... And if I stay like this.... I just know I'm, going to seriously injure one of my friends..... if not kill them....."
"I know what you mean."
The younger man glanced over at his companion.
"Every time I go into battle alongside my friends, I risk losing control...." Logan stared down at his hands, his own eyes staring at blood only he could see.
"I don't want to hurt any of them, but all I'm good for is fighting...."
"The battle is all we live for." Logan's eyes focused on the stars. "The cause is always distant."
"You mentioned some friends, earlier." The bandanna wearing martial artist noted. "Were any of them, by chance, a guy wearing a brown trench coat, a red-headed woman, and a really uptight guy with some kind of weird visor?"
"You've met them?"
"Once.... they told me you were back in Canada."
"Ah." The older man smiled faintly. "Those were my friends..... the X-men..... I'm sure you've heard of us?"
Ryouga shook his head 'no'. "Sorry," he shrugged. "I don't get to watch a lot of TV.... I'm on the road a lot."
"Oh yeah, that direction-less thing...."
"It's hereditary." Ryouga shrugged. "On my mother's side. Dad had no problem getting around.... from what Mom said.... but... he left." Logan resisted the urge to pat the boy on the head. The last thing he needed was to end up as another father figure.
"He probably had another life to lead…" Logan shrugged.
"That's what Mom said." Ryouga muttered glumly. He shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what to do.
"Wish I knew what to tell you, kid."
"It's all right, Logan-san. I came to terms with this a long time ago." Ryouga's hazel-green eyes were strangely calm.
"My father had wander-lust, even though he had a sense of direction." Ryouga sighed. "Mom said that, too."
"What's your mother like?" Logan asked, a small smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
"My mother is like an angel on earth," Ryouga smiled brightly. "She's the nicest, kindest, most decent human being I've ever met, which is saying something, with all the traveling I do. She's always tried to be there for me, even with her directional problem. She always understood exactly what the problem was, and how to fix it."
Ryouga turned knowing, sharp eyes on Logan. "She's off limits."
"I don't know what yer talking about...."Logan felt a drop of sweat roll down his face, and was glad that he didn't blush.
"Just making sure." Ryouga nodded and turned his gaze back to the campfire.
Logan smirked. "She must have been a very interesting women if she raised ya, Ryouga."
Ryouga blinked. Was that an insult or a compliment?
"Well, it's getting late, kid." He started rummaging through his pack and pulled out his sleeping bag. Something about this didn't sit well with Ryouga. When had he said he could stay at HIS camp?
He looked over and noticed he was already asleep.
"Goodnight Logan-san." Ryouga sighed and stared at the dying embers of the fire as they slowly dwindled down to ashes, lost in his own thoughts.
--
For the first time in many, many years, Logan dreamed of something other than the Weapon X project.
That night, he dreamed of a woman he hadn't seen in over sixteen years, the only woman who he hadn't lost to an enemy's claws or another man.
"Logan-san? Logan-san?" Arieru always had a somewhat confused look on her face.
"Eh?" He glanced to her as she gripped his arm tightly. A little too tightly. "Arieru-san, I'm losing circulation to my hand..."
"Gomen nasai!" She immediately loosened her hold. Arieru had always been a bit awkward.... but she had a good heart. Most of the time.
"Logan-san! It's our three month anniversary!"
"Our what?"
"You mean you forgot?!" WHAM! CRACK!
That was her biggest fault. Arieru had a fiery temper, and when she was mad, she very well fit her name: Loud-Sounding Lioness.
They finally came to the top of the ravine. Logan fell back to read a small sign that was covered with some underbrush and Arieru walked on ahead to the edge.
"Logan-san, isn't it beautiful out here?" She twirled around in circle with her hands held out. "Aren't you glad we came up here now? It's so romantic. Perfect place for a picnic!"
Logan mumbled something incoherently and pulled weeds from a sign.
"Are you paying attention to me, Logan? Hello?!"
Logan kept pulling out the weeds, not bothering to look up.
"Not as beautiful as you, Arieru." He muttered absently.
Arieru giggled. "Good answer." She looked over the edge at the churning river below. "Wow, that's pretty far down." She shuddered. She had never been a big fan of water.
Logan finished removing the last weed from the sign and read it out loud.
"Beware of landslides. . . Arieru get out of there!"
She looked back just as the edge of the cliff began to give. Even with her martial arts experience she didn't have time to get out of the way. Time slowed and her eyes met Logan's as she fell over the edge. Her hand was outstretched for help that wouldn't reach there in time.
Time resumed its normal course as Logan threw himself over to the remainder of the cliff. Somehow the rock didn't give away and Logan was tortured with the image of his love falling down the cliff into the icy waters below.
He held his head in his hands as tears streamed down his face and screamed out her name in anguish.
"Arieru!!!!!"
The cry became reality as Logan bolted up in his sleeping bag, sweat pouring off his muscled form.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw his companion was still sleeping peacefully. It wouldn't do to burden him with his private pain. He rolled over and waited for sleep to come. He wasn't really sure he wanted it to, though …