Disclaimer: All the characters belong to Rumiko
Takahashi and other respective companies and I am
in no way making any profit from this story. This
is just for my personal enjoyment and for the
enjoyment of those who may read this.
Email me with C&C: simplyshy@hotmail.com
*************************************************
The Truth: Part 2
by SM
*************************************************
The darkness was familiar to me. It was comforting and at the same time it filled me with a dread that was so strong it made me tremble.
I felt cold all over and I felt betrayed and full of rage.
How could I not have seen it? The signs were all there and...oh kami I was such an idiot!
But Ryoga was such a kind soul and he'd never do anything so deceitful...but he had.
And Ranma had stood by and...
My first instinct was to loathe Ranma. I felt the need to bash him to the ground and punish him, make him feel the same pain and humiliation that I felt.
All those nights I had been sleeping with *him* and Ranma had not thought enough of me to tell me to let me know.
But then my head began to throb and a voice whispered to me in the darkness, my own voice, gently telling me that I had ignored all the signs. It was my fault that I had not seen the truth sooner.
*Hey 'pig-boy,' you wanna go at it? Bring it on then.*
He could have told me. I would have listened. I would have believed him.
* Hey Akane, whatcha do that for?*
* You're always messing with Ryoga for no reason you baka! Stop it!*
But I wasn't a mind reader. Was it my fault that I was oblivious to everything? I needed to be told; how was I supposed to suspect?
*Ranma, you idiot! Stop calling me 'pig-boy'! You promised! Put that bucket down and fight me like a man!*
And Ranma was so honorable and he...it wasn't Ranma's place to tell me.
Warm tears trickled down my face and still I tried to push back the shame that was taunting me.
It was all Ryoga's fault, the bastard. *He* was the hentai and he was wrong for what he did.
'Yes,' whispered the voice, 'he was. But then again, you didn't want to let him go, did you?'
*P-Chan, why are you leaving? You're not trying to sneak away from me, are you?*
But...I needed him. I needed that little piglet because without him I don't know what I would've done. He helped me fight the loneliness that threatened to invade my heart and...
*You're a good listener P-Chan. You wonderful little piglet...you're the best thing that ever happened to me.*
And he had been. Up until then, I had been lost in grief because, although I was good at hiding it, I'd never been able to get over my mother's death.
I can still remember crying inside every morning as I got up to get ready for school.
As the years passed by, the pain lessened, but I was left with a dull ache ins my heart.
One I couldn't rid myself of.
And then Ranma came along and he brought all this trouble with him and he was insensitive and rude and obnoxious. He was...Ranma.
But I made a horrible mistake and I wish I could take it back because it hurt so badly. What I did was the worst thing I could have done.
I fell in love with Ranma Saotome.
I needed a reprieve from all the conflicting emotions and when P-Chan came along... I needed his soulful eyes and his attentive face shining up at me.
With P-Chan, I could let all my sorrows and my worries go. The little pig listened and, at a time when I needed that the most he was truly a blessing.
But still, it hadn't just been an innocent pig watching me as I undressed to go to bed. It had been Ryoga. *He* had been the one to stare at me with love and adoration...
And yet he could never look me in the eye when he was in human form.
I thought all this and the darkness was suddenly menacing and I didn't want to think anymore. I wanted to be taken away until I felt nothing.
But as much as I wished it and wanted it...I couldn't.
I couldn't blame Ryoga for what he had done because maybe he needed me as much as I needed him. If he felt half of what I'd been feeling the past few months then...he was not to blame.
And Ranma...he was so honorable and good and kind. I'd never given him a chance and I wouldn't have given him a chance if he had told me. I know that.
But it hurt to see that about myself. See that I was filled with an anger and rage that had control over me.
Seeing how unfair I had been to everyone around me was painful.
What Ryoga had confessed made me realize other things and it was like a domino effect in my mind.
The anger I felt dissipated, replaced by a deep shame.
Ranma wasn't perfect but I had always given him less credit than he deserved.
I tried, without success, not to go into go into another round of 'pity me the motherless girl.'
I used to do that a lot, give reasons why I was justified in acting like the 'angry-uncute-tomboy' Ranma always called me.
My mother had died. Poor me. I was the youngest. Pity me. Life wasn't fair. Woe is me. Tofu loved Kasumi. Damn her.
I convinced myself that the world owed me and if I was rude, unfeminine, and blind to everyone else's feelings sometimes...then so be it.
And when Ranma came along he...he challenged me and he was better than me _in so many ways_.
He was more honorable than I had been and he cared about everyone and he was strong and...so handsome.
I remember that the first thing I fell in love with were his eyes.
They were a clear blue that reminded me of the color of the water in Yakami beach. We would go there when I was younger and my mother tried to teach me to swim.
I was four and I can still feel my mother's arms under me, keeping me afloat. I didn't fear the water as I kicked because I knew my mother was there. My mother would never let me go.
But she did.
She let me go too soon. I wasn't ready. My mother died and left me all alone in the deep end of the ocean and I almost drowned.
And then Ranma showed up and I could suddenly kick my legs out and I didn't feel as if I were suffocating in water.
But wherever Ranma was, trouble was never far behind. And so when I finally met trouble and mayhem they came in the form of Mousse, Shampoo, Ukyo, Kodachi, and...Ryoga.
A kind and gentle soul who was blinded by love. A strong love and devotion for a woman who could not love him.
Mu Tsu.
A strong Amazon girl who wanted Ranma only because she was too proud and too scared to try and disobey tribal laws.
Xian Pu.
A girl who could have become one of my closest and best friends had she not been human enough to fall for Ranma for the same reasons I had come to cherish him.
Ukyo.
A girl who had been without love or emotion for so long that she could not bear to let it go when it finally came into her life with the name of Ranma Saotome.
Kodachi.
I didn't blame her for it and I think I would have gone a bit mad too if it hadn't been for Ryoga.
He had given me comfort and friendship as P-Chan, a friendship so beautiful that the darkness had retreated for a while and I was able to face each day with some semblance of strength.
And Ranma, nothing could describe what I felt for Ranma. I loved him because...I didn't know why I loved him.
They had all brought such excitement into my lives that, little by little I had gone out of my shell and I had started smiling and I felt full of life.
But I had also learned to love outside of my family...I left security. I was lost and I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
Even now, I don't think I know what love is.
No, I do. Love, as I know it, is when you care for someone so much that the thought of being without him is unbearable.
Love as I know it is when you care for someone enough to let him go, but hold on to him as long as you can.
For Akane Tendo, daughter of Soun Tendo and heir to the Anything Goes Art, love is mysterious and frightening and exhilarating all at the same time.
Love makes you think you despise someone when, in reality, it's only the hurt that makes you think you do.
The little I know amounts to only one thing...love *is*.
No matter how much you fight it, disguise it, or push it away it's always there. It's there to torture you and tempt you and taunt you.
I also know what love isn't.
Love isn't forcing someone to marry you or abide by strange laws or making someone's life miserable so you can maintain your pride. It also isn't hoping and wishing that the affection and respect you feel for someone will turn into something more.
Love can't afford that price.
As far as I'm concerned, love isn't surrounded by a cloak of madness that pounds away at you until you can't tell what's real. It isn't fair to confuse love with gratitude to someone for driving the dark shadows away.
Even though I feel guilty for saying it, love isn't wishing and praying that your best friend will see you in a different way instead of feeling grateful that you have something more precious and beautiful than others will have in their lifetimes.
The only thing that is certain in my world is that I love Ranma Saotome with all his defects and all his downfalls.
As I lay in the darkness, huddled in the furthest recesses of my own mind, I could feel it pulsating deep inside me.
The love I felt for Ranma Saotome was thrilling and so, so terrifying.
I thought then that Ryoga was the least of my problems.
Ryoga...I could forgive Ryoga because I knew he had confused admiration and affection with love. He didn't know _me_.
The little piglet had only known half of Akane Tendo.
Yes, just like Ranma Saotome, I often felt that I was half a woman.
You couldn't, after all, be a complete woman when you didn't know how to love, could you?
Ryoga only saw the girl who craved for a kind ear to listen, the one who was kind and gentle only when she was with her pet piglet.
He didn't know the part of me that Ranma had touched, the part that sparked to life the moment he came into my life.
Somehow, I found a way to laugh at the situation. Poor Ryoga...if he only knew the real me, he'd probably bless his poor sense of direction.
Ranma made me feel alive and angry and frustrated and content and...he made me feel so many things at the same time that it's sort of hard to describe.
With Ranma, it was as if something had exploded inside of me. I felt revitalized and life was suddenly interesting.
My anger, the anger that Ranma made me feel each and every time he provoked it made my life bearable.
Suddenly, things weren't so bad anymore.
Unfortunately, things changed when I fell in love with Ranma. He had spoiled me, made me independent and unique, so I wasn't content with playing the part of 'just another fiancée.'
And then the battle with Saffron made me realize that things had to change. They had to change because I had started despising what I felt for Ranma...I hated it because it hurt so much to stand by and see that we weren't getting anywhere.
And yet, I didn't know if I was ready to face being in love with Ranma, to experience it.
What if I wasn't good enough? What if Akane Tendo wasn't good enough for Ranma Saotome?
But it was better to find out, to take on that challenge than to just sit back and let things go on as they had been. I just couldn't do that any more, kami help me but I just couldn't anymore.
Maybe...maybe, in a weird and twisted way I should be grateful to Ryoga for what he had revealed.
Ryoga had done what neither Ranma or I had done...he had changed things. Although the secret he had revealed hurt me terribly and I wasn't sure that I could forgive him just yet...he had started something that could be continued.
Maybe it was something that *I* could continue.
The idea was appealing and I felt myself coming out of the shadows just a little...
It was time to stop trying to hide the truth from people just to spare feelings.
If Ryoga, someone I was sure was hesitant whenever it came to hurting others, was brave enough to do it then Akane Tendo could surely do it.
But then again...
No. It was time to change things. As much as it would hurt others, it was better that way.
And maybe, maybe I could set the example by forgiving Ryoga for what he had done.
After all, he had only told me the truth.
I thought all this in what seemed like an eternity and suddenly everything seemed brighter and I felt as if some of the worry I had been feeling had been lifted from my shoulders.
Still, I couldn't forget reality. It would be a long time before Ranma and I could be together.
Even then things would never be perfect.
As I opened my eyes to see Ranma hovering over me, a worried expression on his face, I couldn't help thinking that I could probably handle that.
******************************************************
Author's Notes:
Whoa, so much going on ne? I know everything seems sort of confusing and unclear but I sort of wanted to go with Akane's stream of consciousness. She's thinking so many things and feeling even more that I thought it'd be cool to stick with that and make it a bit natural. Now that I'm done with this chapter, what exactly can you guys look forward to? Well, next up, Akane must deal with Ryoga and everyone else, including Ranma. How will I handle the Akane/Ranma confrontation? Well, let's just say that it won't be your typical "girl gazes into guy's eyes and they live happily ever after" type thing, but it'll be sure to give you a WAFF (Warms and Fuzzy Feeling). Give me C&C about this chapter because, after all, there's this great thing on fanfiction.net called "editing" and I can do lots of it at your request guys. Well, I'll be sure and try to post Part 3 sometime next week and you can be sure that you'll see more of the "Three Little Schoolgirls" story posted. As for the Nabiki/Kunou storyline request, I'm seriously thinking of doing another...maybe a "the day after" follow-up? Right now, there's a lot on my plate so I'll just take it easy for now.
C&C: Review or drop a line--simplyshy@hotmail.com
Until later,
Sonia M.
Takahashi and other respective companies and I am
in no way making any profit from this story. This
is just for my personal enjoyment and for the
enjoyment of those who may read this.
Email me with C&C: simplyshy@hotmail.com
*************************************************
The Truth: Part 2
by SM
*************************************************
The darkness was familiar to me. It was comforting and at the same time it filled me with a dread that was so strong it made me tremble.
I felt cold all over and I felt betrayed and full of rage.
How could I not have seen it? The signs were all there and...oh kami I was such an idiot!
But Ryoga was such a kind soul and he'd never do anything so deceitful...but he had.
And Ranma had stood by and...
My first instinct was to loathe Ranma. I felt the need to bash him to the ground and punish him, make him feel the same pain and humiliation that I felt.
All those nights I had been sleeping with *him* and Ranma had not thought enough of me to tell me to let me know.
But then my head began to throb and a voice whispered to me in the darkness, my own voice, gently telling me that I had ignored all the signs. It was my fault that I had not seen the truth sooner.
*Hey 'pig-boy,' you wanna go at it? Bring it on then.*
He could have told me. I would have listened. I would have believed him.
* Hey Akane, whatcha do that for?*
* You're always messing with Ryoga for no reason you baka! Stop it!*
But I wasn't a mind reader. Was it my fault that I was oblivious to everything? I needed to be told; how was I supposed to suspect?
*Ranma, you idiot! Stop calling me 'pig-boy'! You promised! Put that bucket down and fight me like a man!*
And Ranma was so honorable and he...it wasn't Ranma's place to tell me.
Warm tears trickled down my face and still I tried to push back the shame that was taunting me.
It was all Ryoga's fault, the bastard. *He* was the hentai and he was wrong for what he did.
'Yes,' whispered the voice, 'he was. But then again, you didn't want to let him go, did you?'
*P-Chan, why are you leaving? You're not trying to sneak away from me, are you?*
But...I needed him. I needed that little piglet because without him I don't know what I would've done. He helped me fight the loneliness that threatened to invade my heart and...
*You're a good listener P-Chan. You wonderful little piglet...you're the best thing that ever happened to me.*
And he had been. Up until then, I had been lost in grief because, although I was good at hiding it, I'd never been able to get over my mother's death.
I can still remember crying inside every morning as I got up to get ready for school.
As the years passed by, the pain lessened, but I was left with a dull ache ins my heart.
One I couldn't rid myself of.
And then Ranma came along and he brought all this trouble with him and he was insensitive and rude and obnoxious. He was...Ranma.
But I made a horrible mistake and I wish I could take it back because it hurt so badly. What I did was the worst thing I could have done.
I fell in love with Ranma Saotome.
I needed a reprieve from all the conflicting emotions and when P-Chan came along... I needed his soulful eyes and his attentive face shining up at me.
With P-Chan, I could let all my sorrows and my worries go. The little pig listened and, at a time when I needed that the most he was truly a blessing.
But still, it hadn't just been an innocent pig watching me as I undressed to go to bed. It had been Ryoga. *He* had been the one to stare at me with love and adoration...
And yet he could never look me in the eye when he was in human form.
I thought all this and the darkness was suddenly menacing and I didn't want to think anymore. I wanted to be taken away until I felt nothing.
But as much as I wished it and wanted it...I couldn't.
I couldn't blame Ryoga for what he had done because maybe he needed me as much as I needed him. If he felt half of what I'd been feeling the past few months then...he was not to blame.
And Ranma...he was so honorable and good and kind. I'd never given him a chance and I wouldn't have given him a chance if he had told me. I know that.
But it hurt to see that about myself. See that I was filled with an anger and rage that had control over me.
Seeing how unfair I had been to everyone around me was painful.
What Ryoga had confessed made me realize other things and it was like a domino effect in my mind.
The anger I felt dissipated, replaced by a deep shame.
Ranma wasn't perfect but I had always given him less credit than he deserved.
I tried, without success, not to go into go into another round of 'pity me the motherless girl.'
I used to do that a lot, give reasons why I was justified in acting like the 'angry-uncute-tomboy' Ranma always called me.
My mother had died. Poor me. I was the youngest. Pity me. Life wasn't fair. Woe is me. Tofu loved Kasumi. Damn her.
I convinced myself that the world owed me and if I was rude, unfeminine, and blind to everyone else's feelings sometimes...then so be it.
And when Ranma came along he...he challenged me and he was better than me _in so many ways_.
He was more honorable than I had been and he cared about everyone and he was strong and...so handsome.
I remember that the first thing I fell in love with were his eyes.
They were a clear blue that reminded me of the color of the water in Yakami beach. We would go there when I was younger and my mother tried to teach me to swim.
I was four and I can still feel my mother's arms under me, keeping me afloat. I didn't fear the water as I kicked because I knew my mother was there. My mother would never let me go.
But she did.
She let me go too soon. I wasn't ready. My mother died and left me all alone in the deep end of the ocean and I almost drowned.
And then Ranma showed up and I could suddenly kick my legs out and I didn't feel as if I were suffocating in water.
But wherever Ranma was, trouble was never far behind. And so when I finally met trouble and mayhem they came in the form of Mousse, Shampoo, Ukyo, Kodachi, and...Ryoga.
A kind and gentle soul who was blinded by love. A strong love and devotion for a woman who could not love him.
Mu Tsu.
A strong Amazon girl who wanted Ranma only because she was too proud and too scared to try and disobey tribal laws.
Xian Pu.
A girl who could have become one of my closest and best friends had she not been human enough to fall for Ranma for the same reasons I had come to cherish him.
Ukyo.
A girl who had been without love or emotion for so long that she could not bear to let it go when it finally came into her life with the name of Ranma Saotome.
Kodachi.
I didn't blame her for it and I think I would have gone a bit mad too if it hadn't been for Ryoga.
He had given me comfort and friendship as P-Chan, a friendship so beautiful that the darkness had retreated for a while and I was able to face each day with some semblance of strength.
And Ranma, nothing could describe what I felt for Ranma. I loved him because...I didn't know why I loved him.
They had all brought such excitement into my lives that, little by little I had gone out of my shell and I had started smiling and I felt full of life.
But I had also learned to love outside of my family...I left security. I was lost and I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
Even now, I don't think I know what love is.
No, I do. Love, as I know it, is when you care for someone so much that the thought of being without him is unbearable.
Love as I know it is when you care for someone enough to let him go, but hold on to him as long as you can.
For Akane Tendo, daughter of Soun Tendo and heir to the Anything Goes Art, love is mysterious and frightening and exhilarating all at the same time.
Love makes you think you despise someone when, in reality, it's only the hurt that makes you think you do.
The little I know amounts to only one thing...love *is*.
No matter how much you fight it, disguise it, or push it away it's always there. It's there to torture you and tempt you and taunt you.
I also know what love isn't.
Love isn't forcing someone to marry you or abide by strange laws or making someone's life miserable so you can maintain your pride. It also isn't hoping and wishing that the affection and respect you feel for someone will turn into something more.
Love can't afford that price.
As far as I'm concerned, love isn't surrounded by a cloak of madness that pounds away at you until you can't tell what's real. It isn't fair to confuse love with gratitude to someone for driving the dark shadows away.
Even though I feel guilty for saying it, love isn't wishing and praying that your best friend will see you in a different way instead of feeling grateful that you have something more precious and beautiful than others will have in their lifetimes.
The only thing that is certain in my world is that I love Ranma Saotome with all his defects and all his downfalls.
As I lay in the darkness, huddled in the furthest recesses of my own mind, I could feel it pulsating deep inside me.
The love I felt for Ranma Saotome was thrilling and so, so terrifying.
I thought then that Ryoga was the least of my problems.
Ryoga...I could forgive Ryoga because I knew he had confused admiration and affection with love. He didn't know _me_.
The little piglet had only known half of Akane Tendo.
Yes, just like Ranma Saotome, I often felt that I was half a woman.
You couldn't, after all, be a complete woman when you didn't know how to love, could you?
Ryoga only saw the girl who craved for a kind ear to listen, the one who was kind and gentle only when she was with her pet piglet.
He didn't know the part of me that Ranma had touched, the part that sparked to life the moment he came into my life.
Somehow, I found a way to laugh at the situation. Poor Ryoga...if he only knew the real me, he'd probably bless his poor sense of direction.
Ranma made me feel alive and angry and frustrated and content and...he made me feel so many things at the same time that it's sort of hard to describe.
With Ranma, it was as if something had exploded inside of me. I felt revitalized and life was suddenly interesting.
My anger, the anger that Ranma made me feel each and every time he provoked it made my life bearable.
Suddenly, things weren't so bad anymore.
Unfortunately, things changed when I fell in love with Ranma. He had spoiled me, made me independent and unique, so I wasn't content with playing the part of 'just another fiancée.'
And then the battle with Saffron made me realize that things had to change. They had to change because I had started despising what I felt for Ranma...I hated it because it hurt so much to stand by and see that we weren't getting anywhere.
And yet, I didn't know if I was ready to face being in love with Ranma, to experience it.
What if I wasn't good enough? What if Akane Tendo wasn't good enough for Ranma Saotome?
But it was better to find out, to take on that challenge than to just sit back and let things go on as they had been. I just couldn't do that any more, kami help me but I just couldn't anymore.
Maybe...maybe, in a weird and twisted way I should be grateful to Ryoga for what he had revealed.
Ryoga had done what neither Ranma or I had done...he had changed things. Although the secret he had revealed hurt me terribly and I wasn't sure that I could forgive him just yet...he had started something that could be continued.
Maybe it was something that *I* could continue.
The idea was appealing and I felt myself coming out of the shadows just a little...
It was time to stop trying to hide the truth from people just to spare feelings.
If Ryoga, someone I was sure was hesitant whenever it came to hurting others, was brave enough to do it then Akane Tendo could surely do it.
But then again...
No. It was time to change things. As much as it would hurt others, it was better that way.
And maybe, maybe I could set the example by forgiving Ryoga for what he had done.
After all, he had only told me the truth.
I thought all this in what seemed like an eternity and suddenly everything seemed brighter and I felt as if some of the worry I had been feeling had been lifted from my shoulders.
Still, I couldn't forget reality. It would be a long time before Ranma and I could be together.
Even then things would never be perfect.
As I opened my eyes to see Ranma hovering over me, a worried expression on his face, I couldn't help thinking that I could probably handle that.
******************************************************
Author's Notes:
Whoa, so much going on ne? I know everything seems sort of confusing and unclear but I sort of wanted to go with Akane's stream of consciousness. She's thinking so many things and feeling even more that I thought it'd be cool to stick with that and make it a bit natural. Now that I'm done with this chapter, what exactly can you guys look forward to? Well, next up, Akane must deal with Ryoga and everyone else, including Ranma. How will I handle the Akane/Ranma confrontation? Well, let's just say that it won't be your typical "girl gazes into guy's eyes and they live happily ever after" type thing, but it'll be sure to give you a WAFF (Warms and Fuzzy Feeling). Give me C&C about this chapter because, after all, there's this great thing on fanfiction.net called "editing" and I can do lots of it at your request guys. Well, I'll be sure and try to post Part 3 sometime next week and you can be sure that you'll see more of the "Three Little Schoolgirls" story posted. As for the Nabiki/Kunou storyline request, I'm seriously thinking of doing another...maybe a "the day after" follow-up? Right now, there's a lot on my plate so I'll just take it easy for now.
C&C: Review or drop a line--simplyshy@hotmail.com
Until later,
Sonia M.