Without You

By Medina

*Characters property of Rumko Takahashi. I'm not nearly imaginative enough to have come up with these people myself. ^_~

Chapter 2

"Ryoga!? Ranma!? Are you all right?" she shouted down, and when no reply came, she carefully climbed down into the hole which she had earlier been rescued from and began sifting through wooden planks, metal pipes and other pieces of building that had come down. Upon moving a torn cardboard box, she saw a yellow bandana with a black pattern on it, and pulled up on it. Ryoga, with a bump on his head and various other scratches was completely out of it, his eyes glazed in spirals and his mouth open with his fangs visible.


"Ryoga, are you ok??" she asked intently, shaking him a bit. He blinked his eyes, and suddenly leapt up to his feet, fists clenched, alarming Akane, her hands up in surprise.


"Curse you--!" he declared to the sky, and immediately collapsed again, a whirl of disorientation shadowing his head. Lying down now, he opened his eyes again and noticed Akane looking over him. "Akane -- you came to my rescue??" his face grew flushed in anxiety, "Akane... I... I, I... GAH!" he bellowed, not able to get any sort of appreciative or loving word out of his flustered face, and relaxed his head back down, trying to think of how to begin again. "Uh... Akane, why don't I walk you home now? I'm sure your family is wondering where you are and--" he looked back to where Akane had been kneeling next to him, and she was gone, sifting through more of the debris.
"I'd like to take up your offer, but first," she said as she tossed splintered wood behind her, "I need to find Ranma... so I can give him a piece of my mind!" she added on to make sure she didn't seem as concerned as she actually was. Ryoga nodded his head in defeat, but stayed there, brushing the dust from his torn clothes and checking for any serious cuts.


"Akane, such a noble woman; searching for such slime out of the goodness of her heart," he thought as he gazed upon Akane, still moving wood.


"Akane..." a male voice murmured softly from beneath the pile, which perked the girl's ears into the direction she needed to go.


"Ranma, where are you?" she called loudly, hoping to hear him again so that she could pinpoint the direction, but there came nothing. She began to dig in the direction that she had heard his voice, but then considered to herself who this was she was digging for.


"This is Ranma I'm looking for, after all," she went over in her head, pausing from her work, "he's probably playing at this to make me look foolish for being so concerned," she pictured him popping out from under the rubble at the most inopportune time, and then laughing at her, calling her a weak little girl. She frowned. "That won't happen this time, Ranma Saotome," she stood up straight and looked around the half-illuminated basement floor, then shouted, "Okay, Ranma, come out; I know what you're doing, and you're not going to make a fool out of me again," she paused for a minute or so, waiting for some movement. None. "This isn't funny, this isn't cute! Just come out and let's go home," nothing again.


Still determined to win this time, she walked over to Ryoga and put her hand on his shoulder. "Fine, Ranma, I'm going to go home with Ryoga and you can come follow us whenever you like. We'll have such a nice walk, won't we, Ryoga?" she looked at Ryoga, who was now as stiff as a statue, his face beet red; she tugged on his arm, and he fell over, still in the same position as he had been standing. Akane sighed. "We're leaving," she said loudly, and began to drag Ryoga up the rubble pile, out of the hole.


"No... A... Akane..." even softer this time they heard his voice come from the pile, where a couple of two by fours moved and a shingle was pushed out, revealing a hand, straining to move, trying to get their attention.


"Ranma, just get out, you're stronger than me anyw--" she stopped abruptly, spying something that struck sliced her vision like a knife: Ranma's hand was trembling, and a trickle of dark blood stained the back of it. "Oh no..." she whispered, and dropping Ryoga like a brick, hurried back down to where Ranma was pinned.


"Ranma, talk to me! Can you push any of this off of you?" she asked, fear lacing her voice. No answer, but she saw that his hand was still moving, and so began to pick through the best she could, but came to what was blocking her way the most, which was the pillar; a thick column of wood which had on top of it half of the altar base. She tried to move it, but it wouldn't budge; she was too weak! Growing more frantic, she kept trying and pushing to make it move, until something happened, and it began to lift suddenly without her adding any extra force. She looked up: Ryoga had come to his senses and realized that something had gone awry. He used his brute strength, and the pillar was soon out of the way.


Akane gave Ryoga a look of gratitude and went to picking away the last of the wood, metal and insulation. She could see his red jacket and black pants beneath her, and from the way that the debris had been positioned, he shouldn't have been under too much pressure, and seeing a rip in his sleeve showed a shallow gash in his arm. That's where the blood had come from; a feeling of relief washed over her, and even Ryoga, seeing that a crisis had been averted.


"You're free, Ranma. Are you all right?" she talked to him as she cleared away more stuff, hoping that now, with the pressure off his chest, that he would respond. Ryoga, still silent, pulled away a box that had been over Ranma's face; his eyes looked up to his rival wildly, piercing him with a feeling that Ranma was trying to tell him something.
"Akane," Ryoga whispered, his eyes still locked into Ranma's, "Akane, something's not right..."


"What are you talking about?" she asked, clearing Ranma's other hand from beneath a mass of tangled pipes. Ranma raised his arm slowly, pushing away at the rubble that covered his chest, consisting of a few blocks of wood and another set of metal pipes.


"I'll get those off," Akane offered, "why don't you get up?" she suggested, right as she reached for the pipes, but found that they wouldn't move. She paused, perplexed, and grabbed at them again, a little harder this time.
"Agh--!" Ranma groaned in a feeling of sharp pain and gasped air back into his throat heavily, his eyes widening more. "Akane..." he spat out, looking at her, who now had a horrible sense of dread taking over. His hand, shaking, grasped the side of his jacket near the pipe, and pulled it out to reveal...


"The pipe--!" Ryoga gasped in horror.


"No..." Akane mumbled, her eyes wide in fear, looking down by his back: blood. Blood everywhere. His red jacket had masked showing it on top, but the amount beneath him couldn't be denied; it covered everything.


The pipe, the broken, sharp, rusted metal pipe had impaled Ranma's chest in the fall of the floor, through the upper-left side, through lung, artery and vein, not completely coming out his back; only the tapered barbs of the broken end. A steady stream of blood had already left his body, and his face was growing pale.


Panic-stricken, Akane found herself unable to say a word, let alone think, until Ryoga's voice brought her back.
"I... I..." he stuttered, the blood and the horror of the incident shocking the normally strong young man to the point of babbling. Akane bent down over Ranma and began to try and assess the situation as best she could.


"Ranma... oh my god... oh.. oh... Ryoga! Go out and get help!!" she looked at the directionless boy, who as about to ask her something, but she wouldn't allow it. "Just go! I don't care who you find, what you find, just, just get an ambulance, a doctor, ANYTHING!!!" she shrieked, and Ryoga took off at that in a hurry.


Akane looked down at Ranma; she had never seen him look so weak, so helpless, not even when he had lost all of his strength had he seemed so much not like the Ranma she knew. Somehow though, in the depths of herself, she found a deposit of courage.


"I know I need to be strong -- for the both of us," she thought, taking a deep breath to strengthen herself from crying into hysterics. When she opened her eyes again, he was looking at her. She couldn't quite understand what his eyes were telling her; they did not look afraid, but painful, and with an odd sort of tenderness that Akane rarely saw from him. That look only made her feel more desperate to help him. She sat down next to him, and rubbed her shoulders in the cold of the basement. The sun was going down steadily, and it was getting cold. She felt something touch her hand, and looked down; Ranma was trying to take hold of her hand. She grasped it, and smiled down at him warmly.


"Save your strength, Ranma," she told him, trying her best to keep her voice from wavering, "you'll make it through this, like you always do. Anyway, you're too stubborn to give up without a good fight, right?" she looked at him again, his expression had not changed, which somehow made her more uncomfortable. "Ryoga will find some help, don't worry," after she said that, she heard a wheeze from Ranma that was something like a laugh, but the movement of his chest caused him more pain. Akane couldn't find any more encouraging words, at least ones that she could say without breaking down into a barefaced lie, so she stroked his hand gently, warmly, and felt him squeeze back in response.


* * * *


"This is taking too long," Akane whispered, watching for a sign of anyone coming down to bring aid. "Why did I have to send Ryoga?" she asked herself, but she knew why, although she would not admit it to herself. Mere minutes seemed to her as hours as she watched Ranma's face grow paler, felt his grip steadily lose tenacity. By a feat of strength, through all of this, the boy had retained consciousness, despite the pain that emanated from him so much that Akane could almost feel it along with him; a cold, sharp object thrust into her chest, the feeling of her own blood washing her back made her shiver and her heart beat faster in anxiety for he who lay beside her. But the light in his eyes was fading.


"Akane..." he whispered as best he could, the pain and congestion in his chest obvious in his words, "leave me."
She turned him suddenly, having drifted off into thought, startled, for he hadn't said a word since she had found him.

"Shh... don't waste your strength," she told him again, the only words she could think of at the moment.


"No," he went on, gasping for enough air to make a sound, "go..."


"Why?" she asked, feeling hurt by his command. She could have kicked herself for feeling so, but nonetheless, she wanted to be by his side. His eyes pleaded with her, but she wouldn't budge. "Why?"


"I... don't want..." he began, and coughed, reddened saliva spreading to his lips, "want you to... see me... die... like this."


"You're not going to die!" Akane roared almost too hastily, and caught herself, calming, "you're not going to die, Ranma; Ryoga is going to bring help soon, and everything will be fine," she whispered to him, clutching his hand tightly in hers, locking eyes with him as if her gaze could keep his from faltering. She relaxed more, and began to stroke his forehead.


"You'll bounce back, you'll see. You have more competitions to win, more morons to teach a lesson to," she told him, "you need to beat me again at something -- you always do."


He took in a breath heavily and turned his face away from hers wishing he could hide, but in no condition to move, he was vulnerable to her every look. A tear trickled down the side of his eye, spattering lightly against the rubble beneath him, and squeezed Akane's hand with all the strength he could muster. Akane felt a weak pressure on her hand when she noticed the tears in his eyes; from them she could feel the bitterness of his futile frustration -- she hated that, for Ranma knew when he was beaten to the point of futility, which Akane couldn't bear to see him in; it hurt her to do so.


"No, Ranma, don't do that... don't--" she began morosely, and began to feel his hand loosen from hers. His chest convulsed into weak coughs as blood which had welled up inside his lung tissue was overwhelming him and trickled from the corner of his mouth after the heaving subsided, turning into a slow wheezing. Akane saw his eyes begin to glaze over and his eyelids struggle to stay open.


"Ranma, come on!" she said to him, trying to tilt his head to the side to rid his air passages of the blood, but only succeeded in moving around the pipe in his chest, causing the stream of blood leaving his back to grow. "just a couple more minutes, please, hang on!"


Another few coughs shook his frame, and he tried in vain to sputter the fluids from his mouth, causing more thick, almost black blood to pour down his cheek, which was pale to a pasty whiteness. His eyes looked up to Akane's again for one, last lingering look, then slowly fell shut. The rocking of his chest stopped, and Akane no longer felt his hand pressed against hers.


"Ranma?" she pressed his hand against her chest, in hopes that it would move, but did not. She took to shaking him, but felt no resistance, saw no sign of movement. She finally put her ear down to his chest and listened; not a sound of breath, not a trace of a heartbeat. Her heart fell to her toes and a sharp realization of what she had not heard chilled her soul to the point that tears could not come -- they were frozen.


"Ranma!!" she shouted, into his face, as she frantically began to attempt CPR. She remembered that they had learned it in school during health class; Ranma had "revived" the victim dummy in record time, but she, she had done the equivalent of breaking the victim's ribs and blowing enough air into his mouth at one time to inflate a large rubber raft. Despite her failure, she had to try!


Putting her hands to his chest, careful to avoid the pipe wound, she began to pump his chest, but it only accomplished in expelling more blood from his mouth. She nearly cursed and tilted Ranma's head to the side, emptying the last of the life-fluid from his throat, and then remembered that she had to blow air into him. She stared at those lips, now stained in blood, and remembered that the only time that they had touched hers was when he had no idea that he had done it. "He won't remember this, either," she thought, as she was about to lean down to force his lungs to expand with air. Just as she neared his lips, she heard a commotion from above and turned to see what it was. Men with flashlights, carrying equipment, and Ryoga, scaled down the rubble heap to reach Akane and Ranma.


"Akane, I got the paramedics! Is it too late?" Ryoga called out to her.


"I don't know!" she shouted back to him as a paramedic gently pulled her to one side, while the rest of them hovered around Ranma, like honeybees around the last dying flower of summer. Akane didn't notice the man examining her for injuries, nor wince at the sting of alcohol and a bandage over a cut on her elbow; the only thing that she could watch was what they were doing to Ranma, attaching bags of plasma, administering CPR, and strapping him to a stretcher. The only thing that she heard the EMT tell her was that she couldn't ride along in the ambulance, as they weren't allowed to bring her. Nodding numbly, she watched them bear him from her, pressing his chest, covering his face with a breathing mask, and followed to see them disappear into a white ambulance and speed off to the local hospital.


* * * *


Sometimes... sometimes I HATE YOU!!!
I HATE YOU!!!
RANMA... I... I... I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!


Her own words echoed in her head while she stood there, watching the flash of lights from the ambulance hurry him away from her. Bitter knots formed in her stomach, causing her throat to close up tightly, holding back tears that welled slowly in her eyes, rippling the orange-fire of the setting skyline.


"I never wanted this... not even... no -- not in my deepest rage could I have wished this upon him! But... how could I have said it... if not for the slightest moment... I... I wished..."


"Akane," someone was still there, tapping her shoulder from behind, breaking her from her thought. Still half in a stupor, she turned slowly to see behind her Ryoga, looking hauntedly worried, his eyes wide, his face lined with stress and fatigue. She tried to force a smile at him, but nothing happened -- her face refused a falsity.


"The hospital isn't far from here... do you want to...?" he stammered, his urgency and hesitation showing through his uneasy stance, telling Akane without words that he couldn't face this alone. Her heart felt a brief lilt: she couldn't go alone either.


"Yes, let's hurry."


* * * *


The sun was nearly set by the time they reached the hospital; running at full speed, it had taken the two martial artists roughly five minutes to reach the place, and found that the ambulance had arrived maybe a minute or two before them. The long shadows of the building hung over them, like a dark cloud, cold. They rushed through the glass emergency room doors, and panting, reached the reception desk. A rotund, short woman in a nurse's uniform spied them over the top of a clipboard that she had been examining and waddled up to the counter. She had already seen their disheveled look, and assumed they were in for treatment.


"Please fill out the proper information and a doctor will be right with you, thank you," she said in one breath, shoving two admittance forms before them, and turned back to her previous task. Akane, panting, pushed the papers away while she looked at the nurse with intense desperation.


"Pardon me, ma'am, but a friend of ours was just brought in by ambulance and it's very important that we find him," she said in hurried lines between pants. The nurse paused, almost ready to tell them to wait, but saw something in Akane's face that told her that it was impossible; she had to see this person! She let go a heavy breath, softened her face, and gave Akane a cooperative look.


"What's his name, describe the condition."


"Uh...? Oh, Ranma Saotome; he had a pipe stuck through his chest--"


"Him?" the nurse exclaimed in a momentary loss in composure. Akane and Ryoga both shook their heads emphatically. "He's in room three, it's just down the way," she pointed to the left hall, "double doors."


"Thank you," Akane bowed quickly and took off with Ryoga in tow as fast as she could. The nurse lingered on Akane's running form, shaking her head.


"Poor girl..."


* * * *


Dodging doctors, nurses, patients, carts and various other things that stood in the way, the two of them rushed, trying to look at each door they passed.


"Akane, over here!" Ryoga called to her from behind. Akane skidded to a halt and returned to where he had beckoned: double doors, a big number three. She stood there, almost frozen after the rush to find it. Did she want to go in to find out what may or may not have happened, or would she just stand there and wait for the whole situation to dissipate, like a bad dream? She turned to Ryoga, who offered little reassurance, as he had the same look as she. Turning back a round, she shivered, holding herself together, and began to place her arm out to push the doors open, when someone emerged.


Akane and Ryoga leapt back, startled, their hearts beating just as fast as the other. The doctor saw the two of them, and it hardly occurred to him that they were looking for that room. He had almost walked halfway down the hall when Akane spoke up.


"Excuse me, sir," she said timidly, the doctor pivoting in her direction, his dark, intelligent black eyes focusing on her through wire-rimmed glasses, "who's in this room? Is it Ranma?"


He blinked at her, "Ranma... oh, you mean the boy with the pigtail?"


"Yes."


"And who are you?" he asked methodically, crossing his arms lightly, keeping his face intent on Akane.


"I'm his..." she hesitated to say, but decided it would be for the best, "... his fiancé." The doctor's face, for a split second showed a change, but instinctively kept his stoical "doctor's face" on.


"Oh. Then why don't you come over here with me," he said, motioning for her to come with him into a sitting area that they were by. He walked behind her, and the two of them sat down. Akane felt her face grow paler as her heart beat harder so much that she felt that it was going to travel up her throat and out of her mouth. She watched the doctor intently, wanting to ask the question that was on her lips, but they wouldn't move, so she remained there, silent, waiting. The doctor saw it in her eyes, and drawing in a full breath, ran his hand through his hair, adjusted his glasses and returned his full attention to Akane.


"The pipe had punctured his lower pulmonary vein and scratched the aorta, both of which are intrigal to oxygenated blood flow," he began, making small gestures with his hands while he spoke, "and it also punctured a good part of his right lung, along with many blood vessels, and one of the major bronchioles. This all caused a lot of bleeding, but due to the fact that the pipe was left in his chest cavity, there was less than there could have been..." he trailed off, thinking about something, which bothered Akane.


"And...?" she asked to get him to the point.


He took her hand, "Miss..."


"Tendo."


"Miss Tendo, he lost a lot of blood, especially into his lungs, which hampered his breathing severely," he paused again, squeezing Akane's hand a little, and looked down at the tiled floor. "We tried to restore a normal sinus rhythm," he looked up back into Akane's eyes, which were wide, showing an anticipation of pain, "but the loss in blood pressure was too great," the doctor felt Akane grip his hand tighter than ever. He blinked heavily before he could finish, then returned to Akane's eyes; "Miss Tendo, we were unable to save your fiancé."


* * * *


She hadn't heard it; she couldn't have heard it! It was impossible! She watched the doctor's mouth form the words, as if in slow motion, watched him, listened to him explain the damage, the circumstances, the outcome. 'Unable to save your fiancé...' she heard it, she wouldn't believe it. The doctor's strong hands still held hers, his face was still intently focused into her eyes, she saw the look in his face; 'this never gets easier', it said, and carried a genuine feeling of loss for her. He had lost a patient. No. Not him. She had heard it, but her ears didn't believe it.
But she felt it.


The very moment that she had seen the doctor walk out from the room, she felt something missing, something that had been there every day for the past three years was gone, and her heart sank into the hole it left. Her ears didn't need to hear it, her eyes didn't need to see anything written; she had lost a piece of herself that afternoon.
She didn't notice the hug of a compassionate nurse, and when they asked her gently about any other family that he had, she rattled off the names of Genma and Nodoka Saotome, his parents, and the phone number to the Dojo and to the Saotomes' house. She remained in the same position, holding the doctor's hand, not a tear, not an exclamation, silent as the dead. The dead.


"I want to see him," she whispered, barely audible.


"Are you sure?" the doctor asked, his tone hinting that she might not want to see him in state at this point, in an emergency room.


"Yes."


A nurse took her arm, and Akane let go of the doctor, rose and followed obediently. When she was out in the hall, Ryoga was still standing there, and upon seeing Akane's expression, his bottom lip began to tremble. Akane looked up, with a cold, empty emotion drowning her usually vital eyes, eyes which told Ryoga, 'he's gone...' His legs failed him, and he slid down the wall with his shoulder braced against it as his head hung down into his crossed arms, sobs rocking his frame.


The emergency operating room was dim, quiet, save a few whirring sounds that had been left on. In the center of the room, like if on an alter in a shrine, he lay, motionless, pale. Akane broke away from the nurse, who slunk back out into the hallway, leaving her alone. She circled the table he lay on, moved some of the electronic devices out of the way, and came to a stop near his head. The pipe had been removed, and a gaping hole that it had to have left was covered by a blue cloth with spots of blood on it. His jacket had been torn open; it was his favorite red jacket, with the long sleeves and white cuffs. His mouth still looked overly red from the blood that had come up from his lungs, but she could tell that there had been an effort made to clean it off. The rest of his face, resting in an odd serenity, something like sleep, something like sorrow, and his skin was almost a light gray in color now.


Akane stood completely still over him, her mind and heart half hoping that he would leap up, for him to tell her that it was all one big joke, like everything else that they experienced together, but this was whatever the opposite of a joke was. Reality. She shot an impulsive hand out to touch his face, but stopped, hesitantly, and then resumed, slower. She rested her hand on his forehead, which still felt of warmth, but not of normal kind -- it was growing colder by the second. Brushing her hand upwards, she felt his coarse, soft bangs, noticing that his pigtail was still in perfect order. Finally, she cupped his cheek -- cheeks and mouth and eyes that had always smiled ... and never would again. A speck of moisture fell onto his pallid cheek, and she threw her arms around his broken frame, not caring about the blood, not caring about the death. She held him tighter, dearer than she ever had before.


"Ranma..." she wailed softly, nearly collapsing, her body thrown into a convulsive fit of tears over him.


* * * *


She didn't know how long she stayed there, she didn't care; the tears wouldn't stop, her tired body still shook with the horrible pain and shock of the loss of him. So many things remained unsaid, undone; there had been so many things that she meant to tell him before, whether they were things that he would have laughed at or been serious, Akane's lips had ached to form the words that wanted to come out, but had been held back for a more appropriate time, yet even now she couldn't say them. She couldn't say much, save his name.


"Ranma... Ranma..." she felt the name sting her throat at each time she said it, her eyes blurring with tears at each utterance; the name she would not be able to angrily abuse, to get a rise out of. The only feeling that came at the name was sadness, and emptiness. Guilt. Her words came back again...


Sometimes... sometimes I HATE YOU!!!
I HATE YOU!!!
RANMA... I... I... I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!


She never wanted this! She never really did... but words, unthinking words can haunt, torment, fill with regret. In a way, she felt responsible by yelling, by fighting with him, leading him into the shrine that she knew was dangerous.... But she wasn't the type of person to listen to a gut feeling -- especially when it was accompanied by a snickering boy. A beautiful, strong, heroic snickering boy. One who she could not stop hurting over. She shook her head at her guilt... grief was overcoming her more.


Noticing again that the job of cleaning off his dear face had not been done very thoroughly, Akane, pulling herself away from him the best she could, found a rag next to a water fixture, wet it and began to wipe his face down gently.


The water made him look almost alive again; his skin shined lightly. She looked at his parched lips, and remembered an old tradition that she had seen done when her mother had died when she was young, so she took the wet rag and lightly wetted his lips, letting a few droplets of water drip down into his mouth. The tradition, if she remembered correctly, was used to give the deceased a chance to revive, the water being sustenance to come back. She knew it wouldn't work, but it seemed an appropriate action. Staring down again at his face, she stroked his cheek again and ruffled her hand through his hair, and the tears returned.


"You won't remember this either..." she whispered in his unhearing ear when she leaned over, trembling, and kissed his lips sweetly, lightly, and then encircled his dear head again amidst her sobs.


"Akane," someone whispered to her from behind when she heard the doors brush open again and people enter the room. She let him go, and stood up straight to see who it was: Genma and Nodoka Saotome.


The two of them caught Akane's gaze tenderly, and Nodoka ran forward, her arms outstretched to Akane, which caused Akane to burst into another fit of tears as she buried her face in the lightly scented cloth of Nodoka's customary kimono. The proud mother did not let tears fall in front of her husband, nor Akane, and especially not in front of her late son; she couldn't let his spirit think that she was a weak, unworthy mother, and so she kept it back behind a mask of pride, though the pain emanated from every inch of her being. Genma, who was still at the door, his eyes shut, his face rested in a look of meditation, began to walk forward, slowly. He made it halfway to the table where his son lay, but his legs were the first to betray him, his step faltering, and he collapsed to his knees. His hands covered his face, but it was obvious that the tears had started, and Genma could do nothing now to control it.
Akane, having regained some sort of grip on her emotions, looked up into Nodoka's wise black eyes; they reflected the sorrow that Akane felt, and something more, something different than she could fathom: A mother, losing her only son, her only child. Relinquishing her hold on the woman, Akane let Nodoka spend a moment next to him, and backed away.


Nearly expressionless, the woman looked down on her fallen child, and for a while, stood as motionless as lay the corpse before her. All that moved was her eyes, those keen, intelligent black eyes that had seen him take his first steps, watched him play, surveyed his fine growth into a man, and now... this. Her strong eyes took in the sight, they wrenched in pain at the sight of the cloth covering the mortal wound on his robust chest, and resting on his face, a single salty drop betrayed her seemingly inhuman strength.


"Ranma, oh my dearest little Ranma," she said in a voice so strong, but in a barely audible whisper, "how could this happen to you?" Breaking her frozen stance, she began to tenderly stroke his hair and face as the heavy tear escaped her eye and trickled down her porcelain face. "You were supposed to live long, marry, give me grandchildren to love as I did you -- not to lie... cold, leaving your mother and father before they left you."


She broke away her gaze from his face, bringing her hands to her mouth, as the pain was becoming too much to contain, but to her side came her husband, still within his own unbearable suffering. He caught one of her wrists, and pulled down her hand so that he could see her face; she looked up into his reddened eyes, and seeing her own grief reflected back, let go.


"Ranma...! Did you ever know how proud I was of you??" she screamed through she fell onto her husband's ready chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, two parents of a lost child. "I never thought that you were unworthy!! I loved you as much as a mother ever did a son... oh Ranma... Ranma..."


Akane nearly ran from where she stood and joined in the embrace, helping to support the stricken mother... who was intended to have been her own.