Permanent
Part 25
Shadows of demons.
+++++++++++
To say Ranma Saotome was drunk would be an understatement. After
Soun Tendo had passed out she turned a few thoughts over in her head.
Ryoga and Akane were acting more and more distant, Nabiki was sitting
nearby watching television in a pair of cut off shorts that she found
herself staring at every few moments, and worse yet, something still
didn't feel right in the air. Happosai was well on his way out of Japan
and things still didn't feel much better. She was also starting to get
visions about some strange traveler at night, the figure seemed familiar,
and yet distant somehow. Whoever it was had something long and menacing
across their back and a longing feeling accompanied them. She wasn't sure
if the feeling was from her or the figure. Ranma sank lower and lower into
an odd depression and started to knock back sake as if it was water.
"Ranma! Haven't you had enough?" snapped Akane as she snatched the
glass away as the sun slowly fell below the horizon behind her.
Ranma looked up at her and turned away in a sort of disgust. "Ya
know -kane, you don't -preciate nothin I do for ya! I got you a cute
fiancee, a future, demonic super powers, and you don't thank me or
nothin!"
Akane froze and stared at the girl in shock dropping the glass on
the ground shattering it as both her sisters and Ryoga stared at her.
"W-what?"
Ranma giggled to herself and leaned on her shoulder. "What? You
think-think, you can keep secrets from me -kane-chan?"
Akane slowly turned and looked at the room as they stared at her.
"Akane, what's she talking about?" said Ryoga carefully.
The Tendo girl blushed and looked away. "I got stronger somehow, I
wasn't sure why, but I think it might have something to do with this."
She pointed at her eye and sulked for a moment. "I was afraid of what
might happen if I told you..."
Ranma slapped her across the face and snapped at her angrily.
"What are ya stoopid? I knowed it all along!"
Ryoga narrowed his eyes at the red head and sighed. "Akane, when
was the last time you got some sleep?"
"I haven't slept since I woke up from my injuries," she replied
turning an even deeper crimson.
"Damn you Ranma! How dare you engage me to a Youma!" snapped Ryoga
angrily as he lifted the drunken girl by her shirt and shook her. A moment
later he was sprawled across the ground with a look of shock on his face.
Ranma stood over him with a hard glare as she lowered her fists
and smirked. "Remember your place Mr. P."
The boy bowed his head and simply sat there staring at the floor.
"This is beyond belief! You don't have any right to do this to me!" He
jumped to his feet and stared her down.
"Ryoga, if I didn't know you cared, I would have never done it in
the first place. Stop hiding your feelings fool, I know you love her," she
sat down calmly and simply stared forward watching Akane closely.
"Youma?" said Kasumi as she stepped back away from her sister with
her hand over her mouth.
Akane smiled and looked down at her hand, it was a bittersweet
revelation. "So...that's it is it?"
Ranma nodded grimly and sat back. "You should be more careful
Akane, every amateur demon hunter in the city will be after you if you
push your luck and run around at night like you have been. Sooner or later
one of them will get lucky."
"How?" said the girl simply as she looked up and ignored the
others completely.
Ranma shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "Those things you fought
in the mansion turned you into one, they assimilate humans. If they had
killed you the change would have been complete. I managed to stop most of
the transformation while you were out, that's why it took you so long to
wake up. I almost didn't make it in time."
Kasumi looked between her sister and Ranma with a worried look in
her eyes. "Isn't there anything you can do Ranma?"
"Without killing her? No," replied the girl simply. "She isn't a
full youma, if she chooses to live as a human she can quite easily. She
can have a family and grow old and die."
Akane slowly nodded her head and relaxed. "If that's true, I can't
carry on the Tendo blood line without tainting it," Everyone in the room
froze and looked at her in shock. "I can't accept the engagement to
Ryoga."
The boy looked at her coolly and smiled, "She's right Ranma." A
faint flash of disappointment appeared in his face for a moment before he
looked away. "I'm sorry."
The girl stopped and stared at them as her plans crumbled slowly
to dust. "If that's the way you want it Mr. P."
For a long moment nobody spoke, Akane sat uncomfortably as Ranma
started to drink directly from the bottle. The pigtailed girl idly
wondered if she should tell Soun about it or not. If Akane didn't want him
to know she really didn't have any reason to give the girl's secret away.
She stopped drinking and looked at the room. "Damn, I wasn't gonna tell
anyone about that."
They all looked at her for a moment and she shrugged and lifted
the bottle once again. "Ranma! You're unbelievable!" screamed Ryoga
angrily as he stomped up to his room and slammed the door.
"Is he going to be all right?" asked Nabiki; she had been feeling
kind of left out of the conversation. She had known about Akane's
nighttime trips, but this was a little more than she expected.
"He'll be fine, we get this way every once and a while," replied
Ranma with a half-hearted shrug. She promptly fell face first onto the
table as the alcohol finally overpowered her.
"Well, that was certainly interesting," commented Kasumi as she
started to clean up the mess.
Akane looked at her sisters and sighed, "Look, don't tell daddy
about this OK?"
"As if he'd believe us," commented Nabiki dryly. She knew that he
would if she said something, especially considering what he had seen since
Ranma had come into their lives. Still, it seemed to make her sister feel
better. "You do realize that you'll have to come up with something to
break the engagement with Ryoga if you don't want him to know about this."
Akane froze and looked up at the room where her former fiancee
was. "Oh, yes. I'll have to talk with him about this."
++++++++++++
Ryoga Hibiki was not happy, Ranma had betrayed him terribly. The
Hibiki line...he stopped and realized that the Hibiki line would have to
carry on without him anyway. His responsibility to his family ended the
day he signed the contract with his master. As far as he was concerned he
belonged to her. "There in lies the problem."
He hung his head and sighed trying to sort through his problems.
"What am I going to do now?" It was becoming more and more obvious that
Ranma wanted him to be independent and live his own life from now on.
Unfortunately that conflicted with what he felt was a sacred and honorable
duty. "I can't just leave her...can I?" He hung his head and mulled over
the problem turning it over and over again and again in his mind. "Damn
you Ranma, this is all your fault!"
+++++++++++
Akane pulled Ranma up by her arms and grunted as she hefted the
girl up the stairs helping her stagger along the ground. She had almost
forgotten Ranma was drunk for a moment before she keeled over on the
table. She was halfway awake at the moment though. Ranma held onto the
rail and allowed herself to be placed in her old room.
Happosai's things still lay in the room scattered across the
floor. Ranma took one step into the room and shuddered as the evil energy
of the old man enveloped her body. She stood upright screaming in terror
as a deluge of imagery flooded her mind and the perverted feelings washed
over her body. Instinctively she lifted Akane up into her arms and jumped
from the room.
The Tendo girl screamed a short cry of protest as she was thrown
from the room and landed with Ranma on top of her just outside the
doorway.
The pigtailed girl chuckled slightly and rubbed her head against
her chest. "You know Akane, you're kind of soft here."
She blushed and jumped away pulling Ranma up with her. "What's
wrong with you?"
"How long has that old man been in that room?" said Ranma flatly
as she gave the door an evil looking stare.
"I donno, about a week?" said Akane as she tried to remember the
exact number of days.
"I can't sleep in there," replied the girl simply as she shrugged
Akane's grip off. "I'll just walk home."
Akane frowned and grabbed her again, "You aren't going anywhere
like that, come on." She shoved the girl into her own room and lay her
down on the bed.
Ranma giggled slightly and allowed Akane to push her into her bed.
She smiled and sprawled out on the bed for a moment before reaching down
and pulling Akane into her arms. "I love you Akane!"
The girl smiled at this and gently pushed her away. "I love you
too Ranma, now come on. You've got to get some sleep or you'll feel even
worse tomorrow morning."
Ranma grabbed her again and kissed her on the lips, Akane fell
back with a blush forming on her cheeks as she shoved the girl back
instinctively. "What are you doing?" she asked as Ranma pushed herself on
top of her forcing her onto the bed and kissed her again.
Akane felt heat rush into her face as Ranma rubbed her body gently
and probed her mouth with her tongue. She pushed gently away as he
struggles lessened slightly under the girls forceful prodding. Finally
Ranma stopped and relaxed on top of her clutching her shoulders and
wrapping her legs around her torso. Akane froze in shocked horror as the
girl suddenly stopped moving and simply lay there with her on the bed.
After a moment she shook her head and stared down at her friend in shock.
Ranma was snoring softly curled up in a little ball with her head
resting against Akane's chest. The strong smell of sake dominated Akane's
senses as she simply watched her for a moment unable to become angry with
her for some reason. Finally she sighed and put a pillow over her head as
the confusion of her emotions took over at last.
"It was probably just the alcohol," she muttered under her breath.
She looked down one last time and vowed never to let her friend drink
again.
Something else popped into her mind as she watched the redhead
sleep peacefully in her bosom. The way Ranma had reacted to being in
Happosai's bedroom, perhaps that had something to do with the slightly
upsetting events that had taken place only moments before. Akane mulled
over it for a long time before looking down at the girl one last time,
"Shouldn't I be angry with her?" She pushed the thoughts away and lay down
to stare at her ceiling for the rest of the night.
++++++++++++
Hikaru Gosunkugi stared at the book in front of him and tried his
best to hold his head up as the night dragged on. He wanted badly to find
a cure for himself, and luckily most of the students never even noticed
him. If he managed to cure himself soon there was a good chance nobody
would notice any change at all. He sighed and looked down at the pages of
the powerful white magic tome that sat before him on the desk, after a
long moment he felt his eyes droop shut as his head slammed into the
center of the book. He began to snore violently not noticing the white
light that emanated from the pages surrounding him completely. A golden
shadow fell behind him as the light poured fourth through his body in a
blinding and spectacular light that seemed to vanish suddenly. Finally all
that remained was the strange shadow behind him; it seemed almost like
there was a spot of pure gold on the ground behind him as he lay there
peacefully. His stump rose up as if to scratch his head as he lay there
dreaming, not knowing of anything that had just happened.
++++++++
Tatewaki Kuno stood on the roof of his home watching over Nerima
in the darkness for a final few moments before retiring for the evening.
Something in his mind pulled away that he felt he should be aware of, but
it faded away. Most people would dismiss such a feeling easily, but Kuno
had learned that actions like that were not wise. In his dreams he had
seen a dark shadow standing over Akane Tendo, and a golden light that
could be both savior and demon to him. The uncertainty and vagueness of
the dreams haunted him, but since his present condition had been caused
they always seemed to come to some true in some way or another. Even that
did not bother him though, the wizard Saotome should be able to handle
anything that came. What worried him was the darker feeling he was getting
from the future, an evil presence that seemed to threaten all that he held
dear with a strange familiarity.
"Perhaps I worry too much for the future, when the present is so
turbulent as of late," it seemed like an intelligent thing to say, in the
past he would have written such a thing down; but now he seemed to become
enlightened more often with such musings. A wisdom long forgotten to his
old self. His speech was far more normal nowadays, but it still amused him
to think that way on occasion while in private.
The wind blew from the east sending a whirlwind of fallen leaves
through the air as he looked out over Nerima one last time. "The wind is
changing." He spread his wings and gently landed in the courtyard before
heading inside the home for the evening to settle down for the night.
++++++++++++++
The next morning at the Tendo Dojo the sky seemed calm as the sun
peeked over the horizon. The birds began to sing and life started to turn
as the streets of Nerima slowly crawled to life. All seemed peaceful with
the world, that is until Akane Tendo and Ranma Saotome woke up.
Ranma slowly opened her eyes, it took all of her willpower to do
so, she struggled to raise her head from the pillow and fell face first
back into place as a thousand daggers of pain slammed into her head at one
time.
"It's about time you woke up, it's a good thing it's the weekend
Ranma," snapped Akane angrily. She looked down and saw the redhead in her
chest and smiled at her with a little maliciousness in her eyes.
The pigtailed girl snapped to attention and fell back onto the bed
again as she realized where she was. "What happened?" she struggled
painfully.
"You got drunk and accosted me you pervert!" snapped the girl
without much heat. "I think you must have absorbed some of the perversion
from that room last night. I guess you're a little sensitive to things
like that when you're drunk."
Ranma's eyes went wide, "Accosted? Drunk?" that would go a long
way towards explaining the headache. She slumped back into the pillow
after rolling on her side to allow her friend to get up. "Wait a minute,
what do you mean accosted?"
Akane snorted and kicked her leg lightly. "You almost raped me
last night you pervert!" She had time to think it over while Ranma slept
off her liquor, she had concluded that Ranma had absorbed some of
Happosai's perverted energy. That must have been why her best friend had
acted that way, there was no other explanation. The thing that scared her
the most was that she had almost let her do it.
Ranma was having different thoughts as she lay there staring at
the wall in silent horror. "I did what? Oh, oh no..."
Akane seemed to understand her distress. "Ranma relax, I'm not
angry, you were drunk...and after what happened in your old room I think I
know what happened to you."
Ranma felt comforted slightly by this, but not too much. If what
Akane said was true she could have let her personal little secret slip
very easily last night. "Did I say anything strange last night?"
Akane thought about it, "No, not really. You stay here for a while
and I'll call Cologne and tell her what happened."
Ranma rolled over and looked up at the ceiling shielding her eyes
from the sunlight that came through the widow. "Thanks." Ranma felt a new
fear in the pit of her stomach, how much had she done last night? What had
happened exactly? She felt the surest way to find out was to ask Akane,
she might get an honest answer from her, but then again she had been
keeping a pretty important secret from her, or trying to until last night.
Revealing that was one of the few things she remembered.
"What the hell have I done this time?" She rolled over and felt
the pain that seemed to cover her entire body now slowly throb. "I'll
worry about it later, I don't need this right now."
TBC...
