Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all its characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and have been used without permission. This fanfiction was written for personal enjoyment, and hopefully the enjoyment of the readers.
Key:
"speech"
::thoughts::
flashback
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Usotsuki
by Rain
Part Seven.
Akane wouldn't move. She looked so stiff.
He was reminded of when the Ginkajan had turned her into that little doll. But she had smiled at him then. Kami, how he needed to see he smile now.
"Someone call Toufuu-sensei, quick!" Ranma shouted, not really sure what to do. A hospital wouldn't even know where to begin with a ki attack, and no doubt they were running out of precious time, if they even had any. They'd waste it answering questions. They needed Toufuu, at least he knew enough about pressure points and ki flow. Her skin looked too pale. This was beyond bad.
"Come on, Akane, don't give up on me!"
Kasumi had run out into the yard by now, and was gazing on in a kind of shocked disbelief at the prone form of her sister. Tendo-san and Ranma's father were still out, thankfully, as Soun would likely have flooded the back garden, and that was the last thing anyone needed right now. Kasumi did as Ranma told her, running into the house to the phone.
Nabiki sauntered out into the hall to stop her. She looked considerably less collected than usual. Placing a hand on her older sister's arm as she reached for the receiver, she cleared her throat dryly.
"Maybe you'd better let me make the call, Kasumi," she said evenly.
Ranma slowly turned to Shampoo. He wasn't quite sure what to think, he was a bit stunned. There wasn't really anything to say.
Shampoo knew she had crossed the line now, if she hadn't done so ages before. The point of no return. And she knew there was nothing that she could say to repair the damage. In retrospect, now that the momentary rush of desperate adrenaline was quenched, she found it hard to take in what she had planned to do. She really didn't want to kill Akane. She considered her a fair competitor, not a recyclable obstacle. She suddenly felt very hollow.
She turned and left. Not for the Nekohanten, returning to Cologne now, maybe ever, was not an option. She needed some time to herself to think things over. Ranma didn't think to stop her. That was a matter to be settled between himself and Shampoo. But the time for that wasn't now.
"Ranma!" Nabiki's voice wafted in from the house. "Toufuu-sensei says to bring her to the clinic. It's too serious to take care of here."
Ranma carefully lifted Akane's limp body from the grass and took to the rooftops of Nerima.
* * *
"This is far more serious than I had expected," Toufuu murmured to himself as he gently poked and prodded at Akane's lifeless figure. Kasumi had been told to stay at home, naturally, and Nabiki hovered in the doorway, observing tersely. Ranma couldn't stand still, but he did his best to stay out of the doctor's way.
"Is there anything you can do for her, sensei?" Nabiki inquired a little too calmly for Ranma's liking.
"I'm not sure yet, all I can do for now is restore her ki flow, it's much too low… That should stabilize her for now, but as for the long-term…" he trailed off, unsure. "I've never seen anything like this before."
"But I've gotten blasted by ki attacks hundreds of times, and that wasn't a problem!" Ranma protested.
"But this is much more serious, Ranma-kun. I'm sure you can see that. And it's an unusual type of attack, and a pattern of ki damage I'm not familiar with… Look along her arms-" he indicated the marks on Akane's arms. "-There aren't any burns, like a normal ki attack… They're more like tiny, intricate incisions, so small you can barely see them… Usually, when you come in with ki damage, they're burns, not cuts. This is peculiar indeed."
Ranma wasn't sure what this meant. Did it mean that Toufuu-sensei couldn't help her? Would she…
"Sensei…" he whispered, afraid of the answer he'd get, "Is she going to… She won't…"
"I'm sorry to say, Ranma-kun, but I have no way to be sure right now. Her breathing so far has been normal, if a bit shallow, and her pulse is only slightly irregular. I've restored her ki flow with some pressure points, so I'm sure she'll make it through the night."
This was unreal. Ranma wasn't used to hearing Toufuu-sensei talk in such a professional manner. This could mean, he supposed, one of two things; either he really couldn't tell for sure and was as worried as the rest of them and as reluctant to show it, or the harm was far worse than he was letting on and there really wasn't anything to be done.
Ranma swallowed hard and tried not to think about the latter possibility.
* * *
It wasn't until a little after noon that Toufuu was finished examining Akane and taking notes on her conditions and scarring. Ranma sat in a chair in a corner of the room, miraculously, the entire time.
"Well, Ranma-kun," Toufuu sighed heavily, closing his notepad and capping his pen mechanically, looking strained. "That's all I can do for her for now. I'm going to go to my study and try to find all I can on Amazon ki techniques and their effects. As for the rest of you, I would just sit in the waiting room for awhile, try to relax, maybe read a magazine, go grab something to eat, do whatever you can to keep yourselves busy. Other than that," he laid a hand on Ranma's shoulder kindly. "All I can tell you is to try and calm down."
"I'm fine," Ranma replied brusquely, slightly contradicting the fact that he had started when Toufuu had addressed him.
"Please, Ranma-kun. There's nothing more to be done for now."
"Hai, sensei," he sighed, moving to the door.
"Oh, and Ranma-kun?"
Ranma turned, looking rather worn out. "Hai?"
"Sorry I couldn't make it."
Ranma turned his head to one side, not sure what Toufuu meant.
"To the wedding."
Ranma merely nodded, then looked at the floor, turning and shutting the door behind him.
* * *
Slouching into the sofa in the outer waiting room beside Nabiki, who was flipping tiredly through a business magazine, Ranma sighed resignedly for about the fiftieth time since the night before.
Nabiki, slightly more irritable when her nerves were stretched as tight as they currently were, glanced sideways at him, annoyed.
"Honestly Ranma, relax. Toufuu is the best."
Ranma didn't say anything, leaning his elbows on his knees and running his hands through his hair, also not for the first time.
"Hey," Nabiki said, sounding strangely comforting, putting a hand on Ranma's arm. "It's OK."
"No, not really," Ranma said quietly.
"You came back, didn't you? That's what matters. Forget about it."
Ranma laughed wryly. "No, I can't just forget about it. It's not that easy."
"Well, it should be."
"Well, it isn't."
"So make it!"
"This is stupid," Ranma muttered, more to himself than to Nabiki.
"And so are you," Nabiki retorted hotly. "Ok, so let's not forget about it. Let's talk about your reasons for doing so in the first place, shall we? Because to tell you the truth, I think I deserve to know."
"You? Why would I tell you? And why haven't you charged me for anything lately?"
"Moi? That's no way to talk to your sister-in-law! I'm offended."
"Right." Ranma somehow found the energy to roll his eyes.
"Anyhow, Akane should know. And since she isn't exactly available right now, I think you need to tell someone. So tell me. I think you need someone to listen, don't you?"
Ranma mulled it over in his mind. He was really too tired to give a damn, and he really did need to get some of it off his chest. Removing his hands from where he had been tangling them in his bangs, he clasped them together in his lap, following the straw patterns on the tatami mat floor as he began.
"I think I've made a terrible mistake."
"Elaborate."
"I don't think it was right for me to marry Akane. I really don't."
Nabiki looked, to put it lightly, vexed. "What are you talking about? Everybody knows that you-"
"I know it too, Nabiki!" he interrupted. "Don't think I don't know that I…" he was wringing his hands now. "…That I love her. I do."
Nabiki visibly relaxed. "So what's the problem then?"
"It wasn't fair to Akane. I know she agreed to it just like my mom said, the "joining the houses" act got old. It did for me too. But that wasn't why I went along with it. And I feel really selfish for doing that to her. She didn't want it, and I just followed along with it because it was what I wanted. She was right when she said I didn't think of how she felt. It was a stupid thing to do, but it's too late now. And I know that telling her that I'm sorry wasn't enough. How could it be? She's stuck with me now, basically. Honestly, I can't blame her for hating me more than ever. I'd hate it too. And I'm starting to hate myself for doing it too."
Nabiki would have interjected again if she hadn't been so stunned by what she was hearing.
::He can't be that blind.::
But looking back on Ranma and Akane's history together, ::Yes,:: she revised, ::He can. But so could she. That's the most ridiculous and frustrating part.::
"I don't know what to do anymore," Ranma was saying. "It's kind of late to be rethinking things, but I don't know what to feel. I really did want to marry her, Nabiki. I did. But I couldn't tell her, because she always tries so hard to make everyone but herself happy. I knew she would go along with it because that's what she does. Kami-sama, I wish she wouldn't do that."
He fiddled with his ring. It still felt a bit foreign, but it didn't feel wrong at all.
"I just wanted so bad to love her."
Nabiki gathered herself together fairly quickly.
"So love her."
Ranma turned to her.
"You two are always so busy getting in your own way to see that you're both crazy about each other. She…" Nabiki paused. Maybe it was best to leave the L-word to Akane. "She cares for you. Very much. As much as you care for her. That's why she married you. You left. So, that's not so great. But you came back. She doesn't know. But you should at least tell her. Let her know how you feel, let her know that you came back for her, just like you always do. She needs to hear it. And I know you need to hear this from her."
Ranma's expression wasn't easy to read.
"So just love her. With all your heart and soul. Because everyone knows that's what your best at, Ranma. And that, brother-in-law, comes without a price."
"Nabiki-" Ranma started.
"Psh, don't thank me. Someone had to do it."
"Ranma-kun?"
Toufuu-sensei had reemerged from his office.
"Sensei? What is it?"
"I was looking over Akane's lesions again, as a reference to the Amazon ki attack descriptions I was reading, when I noticed something strange." Ranma had followed Toufuu back into the room where Akane had been left to recover, and the two were standing on the side of her bed now.
"This-" Toufuu brushed some hair away from Akane's neck and shoulders, and pointed to a much more serious cut along the side of her neck. Ranma inhaled sharply. That was cut was deep. "-incision is much deeper and cleaner than the others along her arms and shoulders. It served as an objective for the ki attack, therefore striking the hardest, and much more severely."
"What does it mean? Is it-"
"I found this-" Toufuu opened the book he had carried in under his arm to a marked page and showed Ranma a specific passage. "-In an ancient scroll on Amazon attacks, mainly the ones intended for murder." Ranma held back a shudder. "This book contains the only known translation. Apparently the attack Shampoo used on Akane was this one here… the Kire no Shi, or "The Slice of Death." It slices the victim cleanly along the intended area, and from the enormous amount of ki it takes to summon one, it only deposits a fraction of that amount into the victim."
"You mean-" This was sounding worse by the minute.
"It entered Akane's bloodstream through her main artery, here." He traced a line across her neck. "I have no way to determine how much managed to enter her system, but I can estimate that, worst case scenario, she doesn't have more than three days. By tomorrow evening it will have slowly penetrated her body's defenses, and she most likely will fall into a coma. After that, it's only a matter of time."
Ranma slumped into the chair, overwhelmed.
"You mean… she… she'll…"
"I'm sorry, Ranma. That's all I've been able to find. I'm not even sure there's a cure."
"A cure…" Ranma's thoughts were swimming in circles. He slowly rose from the chair.
Apparently, desperate times called for a visit to a certain ramen shop.
End Part Seven.
To clear up some confusion:
This fic is post 38th manga.
I know that Toufuu-sensei leaves in the manga, and I haven't seen enough of the anime (no further than season four) to know if he does the same there, but I decided to keep him for my purposes. Besides, a hospital, like Ranma thinks in the beginning, probably wouldn't be the best option.
Shampoo resorts to a desperate maneuver such as this, as I touched on, to try and save herself from Amazon punishment for not marrying/killing Ranma-kun/Ranma-chan, which I figured was most likely by execution.
For the last time, NO, I am not going to kill anyone off. Bah, I'm not that evil.
Until my next post; next day delivery or sooner, guaranteed!
::Rain
P.S. Contact me at creepyoldmanwink@yahoo.com
I am not a creepy old man. I am a teenage girl. It's a joke with a friend. So there. ^_~