------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction * Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction * Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction * ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Switch: Odds and Ends: Just Damp by Nikholas "Switch" F. Toledo ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please do remember that Ranma 1/2 is a trademark and a copyright of and by some big name people and companies I am not even worthy to introduce. Anybody who says that I took any of their stuff better not find me hiding. Also, great thanks to whoever reads this and likes it, good thanks to whoever reads it anyhow, and teeny thanks to whoever saw this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skipping about in the story, and compiling whatever post-mortem and pre- natal side stories which may come to mind, Odds and Ends has them all. Side stories from the minds of the people (and non-people) of NFT fics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Seventh Sign-Off) Day 1 One of the more prominent thinkers of the early 20th century, Carl Jung, had followed-up his mentor's studies in the field of psychoanalysis. That mentor, Sigmund Freud, had founded some very critical and very scientifically pertinent work on the study of how the human mind worked. They were in accord regarding the point that there was a deeper and more complex level of consciousness involved in the day to day living of such normal beings as you and me. But they had only scratched the surface of the matter, and left a rather peculiar vacuum in the pioneering of psychology (without so much as to leave a will and testament or, the very least, a theorem that most hobbyists in the field would crawl out of the woodwork to try to prove/disprove, much to the annoyance of institutions built to give away amazingly small amounts of prize money to the resolution thereof). But, having spoken their last words years back, it would be fitting to say that, as to theories that were put forth by great scientists in general, and by Carl Jung in particular, there will always be people to back them up, people who would exploit their potential conclusions, and people who would write stories based on them. It was always afternoon in the park. A small breeze wafted its way through the monkey bars, with an impression left by its Western counterpart that someone out there was watching. No one was. The swing was often-used, and it was no surprise that a young woman would be sitting there. There was something about sitting on a chair that had no legs and could be swayed to and fro that helped ease the mind of a troubled soul; the shorthaired girl, though, was unappeased. When the wind passed her by, she gave a shiver and tried, not-successfully, to cover her bare arms and shoulders with her tiny hands. She felt warmth in them, but feared that this, too, would leave, and that she would have to go looking for it. She would have felt the need to fix her hair, strung about in a dead and dry manner, but she hadn't cared. She hadn't even been bothered by her outfit, though she wasn't usually accustomed to wearing a tank-top and shorts outside the house. She just held on to the chain, which held her up, her gaze upon the road. She wondered where she would turn if she had found herself on it. Her companion, she had felt, was standing not too far off to the right. She gave an unquestioning look to Mousse, who stood wrapped in a heap of chains without his glasses. "Have a seat?" He sat down on the swing that was unoccupied and said nothing. A bunch of kids in hard hats passed by, and weren't heard nor listened to. They had stopped to give jeers and searing gazes, but were, more or less, not important. "I wonder whose kids those were." She didn't have a knack at nattering. As soon as she couldn't follow up what she was thinking, she clammed up and stared. Falling, through a hazy green-yellow sky. She didn't feel that worried about her falling. It was as though she had been falling through a never-ending river of rose-petals, caressing her every sensation. She was slowing, ever so slowly... She opened her eyes, and through them she could see the blue-green grass that rolled to the far browned plains. She imagined being happy, but didn't really get beyond this fuzzy feeling of... contentment. She so wanted to sigh, but was so at ease that such an effort was unnecessary. The laugh did not, could not, find its way to her throat. But the smile started to spread from her lips, to her face, and tempted to overcome her entire being. She began to glow, but only with a slight sheen. An impulse to wander presented itself, and her feet barely floated as she went to venture on her own. He felt walking, floor, wood and the smell of wonderment was gone. He had left a room of soft-cushioned walls, and was on the way to be illuminated, there was a light in a shaft of white. There was some sort of blossom show, and a tingling sensation was locking itself onto his skin. He gazed into the beam to a shadowplay of trees and silk. He saw Akane, in a kimono, with a bamboo umbrella. She was in a sitting position, and was gazing towards an unknown. She turned, so lovely, so unassuming and she spoke to him. He couldn't stop himself, walked closer, to the tree, and found himself taking a seat not quite opposite to Nabiki. She didn't quite smile, but she did not look into his soul. He began to wonder what she was doing in that tree. "What are you doing in that tree?" "This tree? It's mine." "What would you want to do with a tree?" as he began to pummel the trunk with all sorts of kicks and punches. The tree was beginning to shiver but the occupant was nary impressed. "I bought this tree," she began, "because I liked seeing things." "Seeing things, huh." He started running circles around the trunk, which had a velvety touch. It was a sexy kind of tree, and the shade of blue it was hued came out as Ukyo's wraparound, unraveling without its bandoleer, under Nabiki's calm-world perusal. "Give me a hug," said the tree. "Give me a kiss," said Nabiki. He stepped on the lowest roots, flowing outward, blanket in a windy night, enfolding him as he found handholds in Ukyo's navel, the hollows of her shoulders, the crook of her arm, her delicate fingers, as they felt him, and he felt them, all of them. Nabiki sat in the tresses of her light brown hair, with wings of a butterfly, so far to him, so taunting, and so tiring to see. He sat down on the branch he was closest to. Ukyo turned to him and said nothing, the tree was no longer blue, but the ground ate away at the color, laying only white and pink, which made the tree look soft and hard at once. He felt through the upper branches, and they came with him like fragrant willow's wisps, snaking not quite around him, tentatively. Nabiki flew by to kiss his ear, but he heard her say, "you're such a pig," not that he could complain, it was all true. But she kissed him, dammit, that should mean something to her, it meant something to him. Ukyo just shook her head, her hair covering the sky. He sat up. It was a nice afternoon. The yellow of the sun's spectrum refracted itself into his eyes, by way of his glasses. Dr. Tofu gently removed them, and noticed that they had weighed nothing. The realization signified that he had dozed off from what he was doing. What was he doing? He glimpsed briefly at the junction in the road he was suddenly on, and arbitrarily took a left. He couldn't exactly recognize the place, but he simply took into account that he had been here recently. Probably in the other side of Nerima. A few steps brought him to a comfortably downtown house he had noticed on his way back to the clinic. There was a woman who had her back turned to him, who was bent at the waist. She was picking something up. Knowing that the dream would unravel itself, he did what he felt he should and went to the woman, who was straightening. Nodoka felt awkward to dream about being at home, as it was the place she was most at. A lot of more interesting occurrences have happened at the Tendo dojo, but this was what she got. The first thing she had noticed when she started to sweep the road in a familiar manner was a small but long swath of cloth. Picking it up, she saw that it was a belt, and one used to fasten one's gi. It was kiddie-sized, and felt old and well-used. She sensed someone behind her, who had been there for quite some time, and she turned. Dr. Tofu returned his glasses, and stared into the eyes of someone who must be Kasumi, but from a far-flung future. He couldn't help but start to feel jittery. He fought to keep himself in check, that he's had dreams of her before, and that this was just some manifestation of her. Once sobered, he opted to act cool. "Hello." "Hello," the phantom image of future-Kasumi replied. "Do I know you from somewhere?" This was bad. The doctor's self-confidence ebbed. His representation of a future Kasumi didn't even remember him. "I'm Dr. Tofu. From the clinic." "I'm sorry but I can't recall... oh!" Nodoka remembered seeing him earlier, with the skeleton. "You're the martial artist? And a doctor, too?" She wondered where she had picked up the name. East wind, eh? "Um, yes." Odd that the first thing that would come to mind was that he was a practitioner of defensive arts, not of healing arts. He notched it down to his own perspective of the young homemaker being in a martial arts family. Nodoka had some fleeting notion that this dream wanted to tell her something, but her initiative was required. "Excuse me," she started, "but were you at the Tendo dojo?" Her reference to the dojo as someone else's property struck him as odd, but it would seem that Kasumi would take the duty of being a wife as much as belonging to another family. "Uh, no, but would you like to go there?" He wasn't quite sure why they were moving, but a nod from his companion affirmed it. She left the rolling hills after what seemed was a long walk. The surroundings paled into a yellow sort of hot, and she found herself walking on the road. She knew that she rarely walked on the road, and thus took some careful notice of what she saw. There were several telephone posts, with advertisements for things such as job openings and midnight sales, but none of these really concerned her. After several meters, she had walked into a familiar looking playground. She had been an avid child, and stayed often here. She felt herself rising as she passed the swings, and the teeter-totters, and the monkey bars. There were people there, but she sensed rather than saw them, and knew that they were people she knew, all of them. Some were people she hated, and others were people she cherished, but they all faded as she came to the foot of the ladder. Quickly, she came up the rungs, how high it was. It was as high as she's always known it to be. Peering down, she felt her first inklings of fear, but she had outgrown it, those years past. Still, she closed her eyes as she started to slide. He came out from under the mass of anchor that had fallen upon him, and realized that a whole boat, which had been held aloft by a balloon, had trashed the roof he had unluckily been atop of. Checking his limbs, Tsubasa swept the scene with a gaze. The carnage took most of the building's ceiling, and he could peer inside a room which had no occupants. It was still nighttime, and he felt that something more refreshing than getting hit on the noggin by a galleon was getting his exercise, and so he fled the disaster area. She took her regular place, out of the limelight, and where she could see everyone. Usually, it was the dining room, or any other room in the house. She was not quite privy to those that did occur in the rooms in the second floor, but she could hear them; it wasn't as though they were being private about it. She sat upon a roof, knowing that it wouldn't rain. Not that it would have mattered: she had an umbrella along. The kids were at play and she, and only she, would watch over them, like the mother she wanted to be. She could feel every one of them, their miseries, their distractions, their need to relate with the world. The world related to them, each in its own special way. She giggled at the self-inflicted reprimand. It was a weird sort of play, with some of them pantomiming, and with their weird poses around the furnishings. They spoke their lines without ever really wondering if there was someone who would listen, who would care. There was a four-person ballet of sorts on the monkey bars, with one of them in a pig costume. Someone was doing acrobatics near the slide. On the swing, there was Akane, in a cloak of self-defeat, and a duck in a nest of metal. Akane was paying attention to the scene that was unfolding nearby, again distracting herself from her pain, becoming more like herself as time progresses. She wanted to reach out to her again, but held back; this was her time, her grief to bear, in the safety and silence of her own. She kept her eyes open, taking it all in, when she noticed the Doctor in a corner of her mind. He was walking and talking with a woman she couldn't readily see. As soon as they came within view, they receded from it. She turned back to her charges, and wondered where one of them was. He was so often in the picture that she started to think about where he was. But she could only wait. And she did. He was startled by the fact that he was in a tree, looking down upon the silence of the world. There she was, as serene as the night that borne her. She spoke of confidence and majesty, in her posture. She had an audience of captive hearts entranced by her. He tried to jump down, and felt that he couldn't. He was not yet part of the big scene. He wanted to be part of it, if just so that he could come inches closer to the one who had stolen his mind, his soul. But alas, he alone was an audience captive. She turned to a side, to talk to a robed figure, who took a seat beside her. Replacing her glance to the front, she muttered sweet nothings into the air. How could he be so helpless? To hear her voice, he had only to lean forward, but the spell upon him prevented it. Curse this! Curse it all! The world darkened around him, as consciousness returned. He took a left and found himself staring at a dead end. "Oops." This wasn't here a while back. Come to think of it, I thought I was here a while back. That boat must have hit harder than I thought. Gotta get to a doctor, or a bed, or something... She was floating. It was only the floating she's had in quite a while. It only meant that things had been too unreal for her, and she had been unreal for the world. It was giving her not only a headache, but a heartache as well. It was not very nice of fate to hand her such a situation. But she's always known how to get the most out of a pair of deuces. She sort of felt the change in direction, though the loss of gravity. She finally opened her eyes. It was a tower. A black and yellow tower. She instantly felt gravity assert itself as she eased unto the top. A little breathless, she heaved a sigh of relief. She was kind of high up, and she could notice several people near the base of the tower. Notice them, much due to the noise they were producing. Ryoga was there, locked in an intimate embrace with Ukyo. She felt herself start to heat up. She could not, she noticed, try to remove herself from her current, and rather precarious, position. It was the male who first saw her. "What are you doing up there?" Indeed, what was she doing up there? "Up here? I'm spying." Ukyo was nuzzling herself upon him. "Who would you want to spy on?" She felt a rumbling, and hoped it would not alter her current altitude drastically. "I was spying on you." "Spying on me, huh." Ryoga and Ukyo were starting to revolve around her tower, much to her dismay, and began to rise higher and higher alongside her. There was more rumbling, and Ukyo's hair started billowing in the air, as though alive in the ambient energy. She screamed uselessly into the wind, no voice erupting from her throat, as the two lovers fated themselves into the higher unknowns. She bowed her head. "You're such a pig." It's common knowledge that in a dream, not all of the senses work. A lack of smell might make itself obvious, or the peculiar silence might weigh itself heavily. But, it is a rare occurrence for a complete lack of sight to characterize itself in a dream. Rare, and almost unheard of, except for those who live partially in the lack of sight. Mousse could not tell completely that he was in fact dreaming, nor could he figure out exactly where he was. He had abruptly landed earlier, via the anchor he had brought out, but had lost his sight quite before that. As a result, he was totally disoriented with the change of consciousness. He felt that he was being bogged down by something, as though whoever had held on to him had forgotten to let go, even through the fall that they had both experienced. The lack of seduction on the part of his captor, though, was something of a mixed blessing. He felt like walking, and did so, under so much duress, until a voice spoke. It said, "have a seat?" He found it with the minimum of fuss, and sat down. The voice said: "I wonder whose children those were." Children. He had thought back to his own childhood, and realized that there wasn't much to speak of. He had known, since then, who the one true love he had was, and that the same did not give a whit of care. His whole life had been given over to that someone, so much that anything else done was a means to an end, which he hoped was a happy one. But, look at it now. So pointless. So blank, so dark, and so alone. He had no reason to go on, in any direction. The mastery of his art could have taken place, where it not for his attainment of it. He was at the peak of what he could be, and had nothing to show of it. He couldn't see his future, neither could he learn from his past. He stood up and walked again. Dr. Tofu had had some doubts as to whether or not he wanted to continue in the following of this particular dream, but felt too restricted to leave. Besides, he had had problems asking Kasumi for permission to leave, much less leave her before they got to their destination. And so, he had opted, at least, to stay civil. Nodoka, on the other hand, had whiled herself away, nimbly counting the stitches on the underside of the belt. She knew exactly how many there were, as she was the one who had sewn it together, for her young and impressionable son. It only served to attest to her increasing suspicions that she was doing the right thing, not only in trusting her guardian angel (a doctor, and a martial artist, too), but in coming with him to the Tendo dojo. She let go of the cloth, which lay limp across the hollow of her right shoulder, as she took the turn that took her directly into... ... the playground. It was surreal, but the turn he knew would take them to the front door with the familiar "to defeat owner" sign took them straight into the park/playground which was only a few blocks from his clinic. A look from his companion signified that she had thought the same. Oh well. This dream could exactly get worse, could it? At a 24-hour shop, a goat in a blue coat and tie was sipping a cup of steaming coffee. The good thing about coffee in a dream was that it couldn't exactly upset your stomach at any time of the day, unless you wanted it to. He was waiting on this little girl, who was looking somewhat lost. The young girl was looking apprehensive with her large eyes, and was shuffling her tiny flat-soled shoes in mild annoyance. He cleared his throat, and adjusted his bifocals. "Yes?" She stared into his face. "You weren't listening." He shifted in his seat... just so. "I was." She finally slid into the seat across the table, as a belly dancer was entertaining a balding man in his pajamas. "Then tell me." He started. "Excuse me?" She crossed her arms in front of her. "Tell me my story. The way I told you." He laughed nervously at the little girl. She was keen, he could tell, but he really was listening. He just wasn't very good at storytelling. He looked her back in the eye. "Are you sure you want me to maul your story? I do not carry the same panache as you yourself do." Try to get out of a situation if possible. She just turned her head and said, "I'm waiting." He released a sigh of disappointment. "Let me see. If I've got this figured out. "This story of yours is about a princess and a commoner. They were childhood friends, where neither of them was aware of the heiress's heritage," he accented a long e in neither. "The commoner, a simple guy, falls in love at first sight with the young royalty. She, not quite responsive, gives him the heave-ho. The guy, who is lucklessly struck by the princess, dogs her for years. She, on the other hand, gives no space." She had already turned her head to look intently at him, as though trying to make more sense of the scene being drawn from someone else's mouth. A fish was trying to sell the Eiffel tower to an uninterested pair of dogs on the street corner, on the outside. He, on the other hand, was just getting into it. "Finally, she falls in love with this foreigner, an heir in his own right, and flies away to be wed. The fellow just cannot get the point, and follows her. But, the plot thickens. "He finds out that she is the one who wants to marry him, not the other way around. In a tragic twist of fate, he confronts her with his undying affections, and tries to claim her as his own. He fights the prince, who is no slouch and easily overcomes him. Comparing the sheer persistence of her suitor to the lack of persistence in her chosen savior, she begins to feel stirrings for the sucker. And, in the end, she loses them both?" She nodded at the interrogative tone in her story-reteller's statement, trying not to be distracted by the raining meatballs which were pelting various penguins out of their tuxes crossing the street. Having finished his half of the bargain, he introduced her to hers. "And why, if I may, was the ending so abrupt? There was a large amount of leeway for a restitutive solution to the dilemma." She merely tilted her head. "And you have a solution, I guess?" He took another sip, to parch listless lips. "I do." She stirred in her sleep, and, in her, the dream stirred. There was some large force keeping her where she was, and it felt unnerved to the touch. She felt her arms to be constricted about her, as though in a chrysalis, an ever-changing nightmare. Various playful-child noises passed by, and she felt more tense than comforted. Someone, someone help me, she thought, but could not voice out her fears. Tears began to form as the silence began to suffocate her. In her mind's eye she saw Ryoga, walking slowly, unhurriedly, toward her. Help me! she gasped breathlessly. Free me! His eyes asked. Why? How? Please... A shuddering sensation came as she thought to look up. A Nabiki with wings on her feet came to rest above her own paroxysmal frame. Come to me... Yes, Ryoga said, changing direction slightly. No! She shook with cold rage. He's mine! But, the floating one replied, are you his? Ryoga started to float toward the winged temptress. Ryoga... don't... leave... Tsubasa wandered about, like a drunken duck. After doing figures- eight, a turn led him to two bystanders. "Is there a doctor in the house?" he said, not quite sure why. Dr. Tofu was surprised to see a somewhat beaten-up young man unsolidly approach them and ask for a doctor. "I'm a doctor. What seems to be the matter?" The longhaired youth swagger-staggered to look at him with crossed eyes. "I got hit by a boat, can ya fix me up?" Laying the boy on the ground, he immediately went through a routine check and realignment of each appendage and torso joint. After three seconds, he said, "feeling better?" Tsubasa stood up to shake his arms. "Wow! I feel better already!" He turned to thank the doctor. Dr. Tofu just laughed. Nodoka gaped at the gleefully hopping multivestite. "Excuse me," she started, indicating the receding form, "was that a boy or a girl?" Dr. Tofu blinked, then readjusted his spectacles. "male, I think." Nodoka just stared. "Oh." Falling, through a hazy green-yellow sky. She didn't feel that worried about her falling. It was as though she had been falling through a never-ending river of rose-petals, caressing her every sensation. She was slowing, ever so slowly.... She floated from the roof she was sitting on, and landed facing a wall. Beyond the wall was the set of monkey bars that set stage to a play of words and flickering emotions. Grasping the top, she floated in just in time to see him pass by. Kuno had that dream again. He had slept for only as long as Mr. Turtle was snapping before he saw the dream in his mind's eye. He was walking, as one of his stature would, until he came upon Akane Tendo, profile set upon the horizon, with the sun setting beyond her. As he had deigned to declare his love (and rush toward her, readied for an endearing embrace), she sat stilled and turned away. Curious, he stopped and turned to look. What he saw made him weep, and he woke. Akane had turned from the scene, quite unloved by herself, and the sky had darkened; a storm was brewing , but it had seemed to suck itself into the sky. She shook herself up, more frail than bones, she felt that she wanted to shout, but no one was there to listen to her but strangers and jeering, sneering children that were never hers. She wanted to shout into the maelstrom of time, the wretch of reality, the futility of free will how she wanted it to stop or end or die, die without saying goodbye; she'd never, ever want to do that... She felt a shriek come forcibly into her throat, and she saw him, it was him, all along, an angel, wings beating against the wind, against all odds and ends. He was shining, smiling; she felt herself grow so beautiful in his eyes. The wind should have deafened her. The cold should have frozen her. The sharpness should have scalded her tongue. The odors should have nauseated her. But, all it was, was him and her. He reached for her, and she saw a ray of light. Suddenly, the twister stopped, and like a kite losing its altitude, he spiraled in front of her. "No!" her voice, full, found surface. He was being swallowed into the ground, and his arm jutted weakly, holding a shiny ring. She braced, caught his hand, and fell through the earth with him. Gosunkugi woke up, having exactly three minutes and forty-nine seconds of sleep. "Happens every time," he mumbled, and went to light a candle to oil his voodoo spikes by. Day 2 (Eighth Hour's Sleep and a Moment's Dream) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Detach here) The Odds and Ends line is more of a collection of slightly inebriated-sounding vignettes than a complete storyline, sort of like stories cut out for sheer insanity, or just excerpted for being examples of bad humor. More to come of this, as the story unfolds. I'm now becoming more comfortable with the mailing lists I'm on and with some of my cohorts busy peddling their own wares, I found the time to continue the story. With all the C&C, support and assorted happy- happy-joy-joy stuff I get in the mail, I'll probably be half pushing through day 2 and half heavily revising day 1. As Vector told me, I do have LOTS of errors. (If someone sees me putting the bath on the second floor again, tell me.) Publicly, I'll thank those on the ronin ML and FFML2 who mailed me various responses, all of which I am thankful for: Keener Barnes (my first and fastest responder), Peggy Stonnel (my harsh mistress of grammar, who whipped my fic into shape), Jim Franks (who just mailed to say the work was being read), MDump@aol.com (who merely asked for renumbering), Terence Marks (who talked about the weather/climate and more), Korhonen Kai Petter (who I will give a copy of my revisions, if I am able to make them), and LaShawn Taylor (who wondered what Switch was all about -- with the rest of us). Good day to all. (Detach here) -------------------------------------------------------------------------
