(by Neko_no_miko)
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The golden rays of sunset swept its magnificent colour across the streets of Nerima. The different ways of sunlight reflected by the buildings and lamp posts had captured the attention of a sixteen-year-old boy, Ranma. The auburn rays lightly dusted a rosy red glow on the cheeks of a girl with dark blue hair walking next to him, the sight of her left Ranma unable to stop himself from stealing a few glances. Ranma's companion Tendo Akane, sensed someone staring at her and turned around to check but she was late to catch the boy red handed. She shrugged when she found Ranma looking in the direction of the canal whistling with nonchalance and tossed her hair to continue her way home.
Unknown to the girl, Ranma secretly peeked from a corner of his eyes and was once again mesmerized by the portrait like profile of his iinazuke's face. Carelessness on his part caused Ranma to fail to notice a shaky fence just ahead of him. As a result, the poor fellow stepped onto the faulty support and lost his balance. In the blink of an eye, Ranma ended up in the canal soaking wet. Akane lifted her one of her eyebrow in wry amusement and asked Ranma what he was looking at. Ranma smirked and answered back, "Don't worry. I wouldn't be staring at a kawaiikune otemba like you." As usual, this insult ended with the summoning on mallet-sama's appearance and the act to carry out the all important purpose (i.e. smashing Ranma's head to the ground).
[Later that night]
The dinner was conducted in a peaceful albeit a tense affair. The ugly stares complimentary of Akane to Ranma-kun made the boy felt uncomfortable until he could bear the silence no longer. With his usual charm and confusion, Ranma asked his iinazuke what he had done wrong. With a sniff, Akane spared him a glance that reminded him of something dispensable and coldly replied, "Nothing, except you had insulted my looks again!" Tendo Soun began his brawling on how the Saotome and Tendo lines will ever be joined and the others ignored him.
Kasumi's well intended remark on how a cute couple Akane and Ranma will make fell on deaf ears with a brief rolling of Nabiki's eyes and a sudden ring of bicycle warned the rest of the residents to save their meal except for the busily quarrelling pair.
"Nihao Ranma!" A cheerful greeting came from on top the poor boy's face as he tried to struggle from the weight of the bicycle. Akane's jealousy reared its ugly head and she slammed Ranma's head to the table when Shan Puu attempted to show her affections by an enthusiastic hug.
A sly smile on Shan Puu's face displayed, she asked Akane with false sweetness (in heavily accented Japanese), "Is Akane jealous because she did not know how to demonstrate Ranma how much she loves him like Shan Puu? Violent girl can learn a few tips from Shan Puu on how to be feminine." The Chinese girl gave an enthusiastic hug to the near suffocating Ranma after she finished her sentence before releasing him. A stuttering Akane and the immediate flush on her face confused the recovered Ranma, and his usual denial mode set in.
"Ha, what a joke! This girl can't cook, without any figure to speak of and is even kawaiikune! There's no way I will even like her." With a firm nod, he challenged any other person to say otherwise.
Hurt and sorrow flashed on Akane's face for a few micro-seconds, but before anybody could see it, a cold expression was replaced and she replied, "Well, if you hated it so much, why don't you cancel the engagement?" Akane slammed her chopsticks as she stood up and walked back to the room stiffly.
"Well," Nabiki spoke dryly. "Looks like you have finally got your wish, Ranma-chan!"
The awful silence was soon broken when Shan Puu embraced Ranma with renewed vigour, "Airen finally admit he like Shan Puu? I'm so happy!" Ranma winced at his own comments as the statement made by Akane echoed in his mind. 'I'll apologize to Akane tomorrow and solve this fiasco as soon as possible. It's not like as if it had not happened before." With a burning resolve, Ranma sneaked back to his room after he had managed to get Shan Puu to go back to Nekohanten.
[The next morning]
The annoying ring of Akane's alarm clock was brought to its end when the sleepy girl smack the timer off, toppling the harmless object to the floor. Akane stretched lazily before lying back on her bed and remembered the previous night's incident. A sob threatened to overcome her and she quickly snuffed it to death. A soft knock on Akane's door got her attention and she called out, "Come in." Kasumi popped in her head and greeted her, "Ohaiyou gozaimasu, Akane-chan. You do not wake up late usually and I come to check on you. Daijoubu desu ka?"
"Daijoubu, oneechan." Akane tried to stand up but a sudden wave of nausea hit her. Her legs gave way under her weight and Kasumi dashed forward to support her. "Arigatou oneechan," Akane thanked her sister sheepishly and said, "I think I'll just need to rest for a while before I came down."
"Oh no you don't," Kasumi firmly replied and pushed her youngest sister back to the bed. "You are not feeling well and you're definitely not going to school today. I'll bring your breakfast up and you are to go to Tofuu-sensei's clinic later!"
Akane sighed, as she knew that there was no way anyone could stop Kasumi oneechan from getting what she wants if she made a decision. "Hai oneechan, you win." With that, the girl laid back on her bed and rest as Kasumi smiled and went back downstairs.
However, the peace never lasted long, as Ranma entered her room. "Hi Akane. Are you feeling okay?" Akane's eyes sent a warning to Ranma warning him against provoking her as she nodded warily. Ranma cleared his throat uneasily as he continued, "Ano, gomen about yesterday." A warm smile encouraged him as he spoke more confidently, "I'm sure you'll be up soon and nothing will stop you tomboy since you're strong as an ox!" A dark expression began to form on Akane's face but he did not noticed. "I mean you should try to act cuter sometimes or else no boy will ever be attracted to you, eh?"
Akane clenched her fists tightly and snared, "Ranma, get out now before I kill you!"
Ranma blinked and stuck his tongue out teasingly. "If you think you can, come and try!" Akane tried to get up and grabbed her chair, but before she could throw the chair to its intended target a sharp pain in her head made her drop the object and she quickly suppressed a whimper.
Ranma ran forward and offered a hand to pull her up. "Are you okay, Akane? Want my help?"
Akane pushed his hand off weakly. "Iie, just get the hell out of here!" Ranma clenched his hands in fists and whispered in a hurt tone, "I'll call Kasumi or your family then," and he walked stiffly towards to dining table.
"Ranma, if you dislike me so much then why did you not end this engagement? Are you simply honour bound to me?" The stress toll has finally been accumulated to the point of Akane curling up in a corner and cry bitterly.
[Meanwhile, at the dining table]
"Nani, my little girl is sick? But she's too young to die!" With that, Soun burst into tears. Nabiki rolled her eyes at her father's melodramatic words as she leaned forward to stare at the guilty Ranma with scientific interest.
"Shouldn't you ought to be with your iinazuke right now?" A weak cough from him confirmed Nabiki's suspicion as she grinned, "Did you manage to stick your foot in your mouth as usual?" Ranma tried to stammer out his defense but Nabiki hit the table lightly with her palm. "I knew it!" A sad expression came onto Ranma's face as he muttered, "She just doesn't want me to be around."
Nabiki raised one of her eyebrows skeptically and shook her head helplessly as Kasumi spoke in lilting voice, "Don't worry Ranma-kun, Akane-chan is probably still in one of her bad moods. She'll forget the incident soon enough."
Ranma smiled, "Do you really think so?"
"Hai, I'm pretty sure."
With a weak smile, Ranma shouted a half hearted, "Ja ne!" before dashing off to school.
[In Furinkan High School, class 1F]
A warning glare from Hinako-sensei managed to stop Ranma-kun from yawning out loud in the middle of Japanese literature lesson. He shrugged sheepishly when the chibi-form teacher flashed her coin in a threatening manner and sat up straight in an attempt of listening to the lecture.
"Sheesh, why would anyone be interested in what others write? We can't even do any moves using such stupid words or description!" Ranma silently complained. A quick flash of his father's image however, made him retract his words, "On another hand, I don't think I wanna know," he shuddered at the implication of martial arts literature's existence.
He glanced at Akane's usual seat and smirked, "Akane's probably the only one able to excel in the 'Martial Arts of Japanese Literature'." His face was soon replaced a darker expression as he recalled the disaster meal last night. "I screwed up real big. I'd apologized when I get back!" With a determined nod, he mentally resolved to practice the speech of apology for the rest of the lesson.
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The bell rang to signify Ranma's favourite lesson, lunch time. He dashed out of class and headed to the big tree where him and Akane had always met even without deliberate appointment before remembering her absence. A rather unfamiliar feeling started to well up but he quickly locked it up in the deep recess of his mind. He was not prepared to face the reason about that queer tightening around his heart, especially the insecure future that comes with the acknowledgement.
"Ranchan!!! I've prepared an extra large pork okonomiyaki for you. Go ahead and eat," Kunoji Ukyou made her way to Ranma and sat herself down. An audible rumble from Ranma's stomach obviously pleased the chef and she pushed the chopsticks holding a piece of delicacy near the boy's mouth. "Now open wide and say 'Ah'," The delicious smell of the japanese dish agreed with his stomach when a louder growl was emitted. He was about to take a big bite when Shampoo's bicycle crashed and landed right on top of his face.
"Airen, it's not nice to eat with other woman. Eat wife's love nourishment," she shoved the bowl at Ranma. Ranma recovered from his near concussion and proceeded to yell out, "That hurts! Will you stop landing on my head?" Shampoo crushed him with one of her hugs and Ukyou swiped out her spatula and tried to hit Shampoo. That failed and her intended blow fell onto Ranma instead.
"Ranchan, gomen nasai! Now what have you made me done, you purple haired hussy?" Shampoo's battle aura flared up as well and a word of challenge is issued. Ukyou nodded her assent and used her best kawaii voice, "Just a minute, Ranchan. I'll be back once I finished with this bimbo."
Shampoo grinned confidently and added, "Airen wait here, Shampoo will be back soon and we can have date." A few quick hops on the roof tops, Shampoo and Ukyou disappeared in a matter of seconds. Ranma rolled his eyes and began to eat the bento Kasumi gave. The two girls will not be back, his experience taught him that too often.
[Evening, back at Tendo residence]
"Tadaima!" Ranma called out. The family's usual boisterous activities at night time was getting on his nerves. He tried to ignore the disturbance so that he could think but the noise annoyed him tremendously that he jumped up the the roof top to avoid the racket below.
The silence soothe his nerves like a balm to his over stressed mind. Children laughing while they played at the playground and the twittering of the birds relaxed his exhausted mind. Despite of the temporary release, as the night approaches, the pressing subjects that needed to be resolved will surface once more.
After finishing dinner, Ranma decided to take a look at Akane who was sick in bed throughout the entire day. He was preparing to knock on the door of his fiancée's bedroom when Kasumi emerged from the room. Ranma backed away and shifted uneasily as he twiddled his thumbs nervously. Kasumi smile reassuringly to him and gestured him to enter.
"Kasumi, is she awake?" Ranma hesitated to go in as Kasumi continued her way to wash the dishes.
The eldest sister of the Tendo family nodded cheerfully as she replied, "Akane-chan has just fallen asleep. You may go in but don't wake her up."
Ranma nodded and proceed to walk quietly into the dark room. A dim night light was turned on for any visitor's convenience sake. Just once, the teenager had a strange feeling of Kasumi expecting his visit and he was tempted to ask her about how she managed to know when to offer her timely assistance. An innocent beam from the cheerful sister made him dismissed the thoughts as pure speculation on his part.
The soft light hit upon the resting girl on the bed. Beads of sweat rolled down on her face as Ranma's expression took on a rarely seen expression of softness and compassion. He leaned forward to retrieve the cloth warm from the fever and rinsed it in the basin perched on the study table. Tiptoeing back, he replaced the cold compress on her forehead once more.
"Baka. Pretending to be strong in front of others like a tomboy when you're not even up to our martial arts level. This will teach you to be careful and take care of yourself next time round." The irritation in his tone was belied as he clasped her small left hand in his larger and powerful ones. A tiniest frown of defiance appeared on Akane's face and Ranma chuckled in faint amusement.
His thumb caressed the soft skin of her palm as he continued, "I'm sorry for what happened yesterday and this morning. I realized how much trouble I've brought you since we met. Perhaps if oyaji and I had never shown up in your life, you would have been much happier. Akane's hand tightened her grasp suddenly as Ranma noticed an unusual countenance on her pale face. His instincts warned him something had gone wrong as Akane begun to tossed and turned more violently in her sleep.
The horrified boy watches on as his fiancée mumbled incoherently before it escalates into a shrill shriek that sends needles of fear down his spine. He swept the girl into his arms and carried her downstairs, calling for help. The whole family came rushing towards him as Ranma tried to restrained the struggling patient. Nabiki dashed to the phone and called for Tofuu-sensei whilst Kasumi applied more cold compress and pressing a few pressure points to calm her youngest sister's ki as Ranma clung onto the girl.
Vaguely, Ranma registered the arrival of the grim faced doctor. Tofuu-sensei tried to peel Ranma's fingers away so that he could proceed with treatment but the boy merely held onto Akane with inhuman strength, his knuckles white with the strong grip.
The doctor carried Akane back to her room while the rest of the family waited outside for hours. The normally wailing Tendo Soun was supported back into his room and stared at the ceiling, tears pouring out silently. Kasumi brought out all her cleaning tools as she began a thorough scrubbing of the house during the tensed hours of waiting. Nabiki simply propped herself in a corner, eyes seemingly closed but the tension was visible from her clenched jaw.
Ranma was simply standing at the same position and posture since the doctor pried Akane from his grip. His eyes were staring vacantly at nothing and his hands opened and closed into fists. The seriousness of the situation stunned him until now and the inexperience of dealing with such matters, caused unsorted feelings rushed across his mind.
Nervousness, shock and fear were the most prominent emotions Ranma could identify with. The jumbled kind were the once he was unable to acknowledge. The consequences of such knowledge could end up in an early marriage unwanted by both Akane and himself. Thus, the stability he knew so well since settling down in the Tendo Dojo could be utterly changed and he was not sure if he could deal with the rage of admirers and fiancées.
'Are you unable to deal with this fiasco or are you a coward to face possible rejection by Akane?' A tiny voice in his mind whispered. Ranma mentally locked this psyche in the deep recess of his mind and shut his eyes to recapture to bizarre incidents that happened involving him and Akane.
[In the deep recess of Akane's mind]
"Oneechan? Otousan? Anybody here?" Trying to peer through a thick fog in this endlessly empty dimension, the navy haired girl whirled around in fear whenever she thought she felt a brush of cold slimy hand.
'Must be my imagination.' Akane took in deep breaths in order to calm her accelerating heartbeats down to her normal thumps. Despite the various efforts attempting to relax, the youngest Tendo could not help but begun to hallucinate spirits and the likes, existing in such a lonely and strange place.
Bad idea especially since she was not exactly brave and logical in the face of supernatural happenings. Of course the Jusenkyo curse and the Saotome family exposed her to the weirdest experiences that most human beings had no chance of witnessing, it was another matter all together when the creepy unknown confronts a person face to face. She started humming a childhood lullaby her mother used to sing when she woke up crying after nightmares, filling the space with sounds and this made her felt slightly better.
'Wonder if this is a nightmare itself?' Akane furrowed her smooth brow as she pinched herself to check her suspicions, yet pain caused her to yelp and the nig of worry arose again.
'Ranma, where are you?' Akane's sub consciousness involuntarily seek the pig-tailed boy and despite of the teasing comments that might followed, the terrified girl knew that it was at least better than feeling trapped and insecure in the dingy darkness all alone.
'He would come,' Akane tried to convince herself. A sudden howl that was la cross between wolf cry and the wind echoed. The blue haired girl swallowed the lump in her throat and mentally amended, 'I hope."
Ranma did not catch a slightest wink of sleep that night. His eyes were blank and unfocused as the onslaught of guilt bothered him for an entire night.
Tofuu-sensei emerged from Akane's bedroom after hours of attending to her. Dark eye rings lined the glassy orbs of exhaustion as he rubbed tiredness away from his eyes. Both the Tendo and Saotome family waited in tensed silence for the news while the kind doctor accepted a cup of green tea and finished it in one big gulp.
"Well," Tofuu-sensei began as the rest crowded around him. "Akane-chan is not in the danger right now." Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The doctor raised his hand to stop the chattering. "But, she's not exactly what I would call a recovering patient either."
Ranma held the doctor's arm in a death grip and breathed out. "What's wrong with her?"
Tofuu-sensei removed Ranma's hand before the martial artist cut off his blood circulation." This cold like symptoms combined with the stressful conditions are draining off her ki. I've managed to restore the ki to a healthier level but she has not woken up yet."
Ranma's face paled at the thought of the vibrant tomboy in a coma but the doctor patted him on the back reassuringly. "She's a strong girl. She pull through, don't worry yet. All she needs is the will get by." The boy nodded in faint resignation.
Cologne obaaba.
'Perhaps the old monkey had an idea or two about curing this weird illness,' Ranma grabbed the thread of hope like a drowning man.
Just perhaps.
The number of times that Ranma had strode to and fro within the whitewashed room of the intensive care unit was countless since Akane was admitted to the Nerima Hospital last weekend. Granted, he went to school at the insistence of his mother in pursuing a "all rounded" real man of men, but between the few snatches of breaks spent on meals and a few quick as well as fitful winks, Ranma stood by his fiancée's beside. He could have sworn that each time the life machine hooked up on Akane produced the dreaded shrill beep, his heart had stopped beating until the doctor-in-charge pulled her out from the death clutches, yet again.
Again. Ranma shuddered. The few times he had truly felt the agony at the merest possibility of losing her was few and distributed thinly indeed as compared to the few days of hell-hole he had been going through. Once more, he was startled out of his trance by another wail signaling his kawaiikunai fiancée's life in danger.
Someone had better tell me this is just a nightmare and it's going to end soon.
"Ranma? Otousan? Anyone?" Akane called out in an attempt to sound brave and to bring out her confidence that it was a prank by Nabiki. "This is not funny!"
A cold brush of wind chilled her right down the bones. Akane shivered and rubbed her hands on her lean arms to generate any little resemblance of warmth.
A shadow darted in lightning-fast speed into the black bushes from the corner of her eyes. Akane squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt of trying to convince herself that she will wake up soon.
'All right, if I ever leave this forsaken place alive, I promise I will not hit anyone for a month!' Akane vowed to herself. A mental image of Ranma sticking his tongue out caused her fist to clench in agitation. 'Then again, this rule is not applicable to jerks with an ego bigger than mother Earth.'
A slightest tinkling of bells shook the blue haired girl from her mental debate. A tiniest sort of girl form appeared with a small 'poof' and landed unceremoniously on the hard ground of the desert, causing a mini sand storm whirling about Akane. Both of them coughed hard at the discomfort and Akane frowned. "Are you some sort of spirit?"
The tiny girl glanced up in pure exasperation. "Do I look translucent enough to be a spirit to you? I'm a pixie, higher rank than those lost floating beings. A spirit indeed, hah!!!" The creature stamped her left foot in protest.
Akane was tempted to laugh at this amusing sight. The pixie glared at Akane warningly and wounded pride is written all over her face. Akane bit her lip to stop from bursting into laughter as she asks, "Are you okay?"
The pixie sighed and flew in front of her eyes. "A little bruised on my rear, but otherwise just peachy." Almost as an afterthought, it rubbed its sore bottom in great embarrassment.
Suddenly, the crimson eyes flew back to Akane's face. "Hey! You don't seem to be surprised to see me. Most humans would have freaked out when they meet with the supernatural stuff!"
Akane shrugged. "I've seen more supernatural things than you would believe so frequently that I'm used to this. Ever since I am engaged to this obnoxious jerk…" Akane clapped her hands over her mouth. "Not the I want to marry him of course. Our stupid parents arranged the match at birth. How ancient huh??
The pixie nodded its head in total agreement. "I understand that completely. I was also arranged by my own clan leaders to marry the prince of the firefly fairies and that idiot doesn't even look and act of a royal descent!"
Crimson eyes met with larger orbs of warm golden brown and both the human and the pixie had a feeling of affinity and understanding.
Cologne-obaachan was puffing away at her pipe as her sharp eyes undimmed by the advancement of age peered out of the wrinkled face at the earnest expressions of friends, rivals, acquaintances and foes alike of Tendo Akane. Tendo Soun was unusually quiet unlike other times when Akane fell into the hands of other admirers or pursuers. Instead of wailing out his usual banshee cry, he stared into space unfocused in his shock and grief. Ranma on the other hand, was tapping his feet impatiently as he glared occasionally at the wizened woman looking at her ancient scrolls. Happousai tried to sneak his greedy hands on a particular scroll on the spell of reversing age but she rapped her long walking stick at the culprit.
'No way is Happousai going to reverse back to youth. It would mean another 200 mores years of bearing with his lecherous existence in the mortal plane.' Cologne shuddered at the prospects of the evil midget continuing his escapades of stealing panties and other loathsome acts she had to put up with in the past.
Ranma strode around the tiny space of Nekohanten dining room for about the hundredth time in merely 10 minutes. He tried to interrupt the old woman, better known to him as old monkey, but only got a sharp rap on the head for incessant ramblings and annoyed glares from the most of the occupants in the room. The only positive response being Shampoo and Ucchan was highly unappreciated, as he did not want to be caught in the middle of a pulling match with him as the unfortunate rope.
Cologne sighed and took a sip of her Chinese oolong tea at last, as everyone else seemed to sigh along side with her, albeit due to different reasons from her own. Ranma pounced on top of the table eagerly and demanded, "So. Any ideas what is pulling Akane into a coma, old monkey?"
The walking stick fell on the pig-tailed head again as Cologne muttered, "Hmmph, Youngsters these days have no respect and patience for the elders."
Leaning back comfortably on the cushion, the elderly woman lifted her one of her eyebrows and commented, "It seemed to me, Tendo Akane is not abducted by any of those demons, spirits or whatever medical terms the western doctors like to use to describe a symptom. She merely activated a long lost spell of entering into the spiritual recess in her mind."
All the blank expressions conveying confusion and lost made Cologne rubbed her forehead in exasperation. "Simply put. Akane unconsciously make herself enter into this coma."
The entire crowd blinked and finally reacted. "Oh…"
Ranma scrunched his face up in irritation as he rolled his eyes. "Just great. Here all of us are worrying if there were any major illnesses harming the stupid tomboy and she actually done this to herself?" He continued to mutter "stupid tomboy" under his breath until Ryoga punched him in the face to shut him up.
"How can we get Akane-san to wake up then?" Ryoga asked, daydreaming away of how he gallantly looked into the eyes of girl of his dreams with shiny background filled with roses.
Ranma in girl form somehow enter the dream at the climax, as he was just about to confess his undying love, hugging him and telling Akane that he is Ryoga's fiancée. The thunderous look crossed his face as he realized such would not be too far from the truth either. Ryoga blasted the already unconscious Ranma with a healthy dose of Shi Shi Houkadan for his interference even in his dreams.
After some arguments on who is to be blamed for Akane's plight, (the Ranma's fiancées voted Akane herself and male admirers of Akane voted for Ranma), Ranma finally returned to the land of consciousness and volunteered himself despite all protests from both parties of Ranma and Akane's admirers.
[To Be Continued]
Authors notes:
Oh well, thanks to the numerous encouragement, threats and pleas, *ducks any sharp flying objects thrown in my way* I present to you all the long waited update of Love is Never Easy. No Akane again, I'm sorry. I'm in the mood for being in character with other characters in Ranma. Don't you all find them so cute?? :-) Anyway, please continue to review. An author's source of inspiration other than what GOD provides, is the nice reviews that made me so warm and fuzzy... Aww!!! Love it or hate it??? Drop me a review... I hope I'll be updating this fanfiction soon after... *crosses fingers*