Disclaimer: Ranma ½ belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. And why, after all this time, have I not just done a blanket disclaimer somewhere so I don't have to type these things over and over again? Whee.
Warning: Remember the angst I warned you about last time? Well, it hasn't gone away.
Sit and stare into a dusty window
An empty face stares back at me and cries
My vulnerability
Rushes up to me
And I'm left here
The rebel without a cause
And the deeper I delve into
The consciousness of me and you
The harder it gets
I need to close my eyes
~Erasure, "Piano Song"
He was lost somewhere—it was dense and damp, like a jungle. China, he'd still been in China then. But it was after… It started to rain, and he was still unused to having to take immediate refuge from something as simple as a little shower. The sensation of the change was the same—it felt like he was being picked up and whirled away to somewhere else in an instant-long rush, only to open his eyes and find himself transformed, trapped in a curse of a body…
Heating up water would be useless until the rain stopped or he found cover; he wasn't strong enough to open his umbrella like this. He scrambled on top of his pack, hoping for a better view of the area, when he heard something. It was too loud to be the sound of the rain on the leaves…he turned to his right and glimpsed a form moving stealthily in the underbrush. A large form…
He had only a brief instant to think about what to do before a huge, furred animal burst out of the bushes. It was a wildcat; a leopard of some sort probably, the schooled part of his mind informed him. A predator…
It lunged for him, jaws snapping, claws extended. He bounced backwards as the thing landed on his pack, it's large paws spread where he'd been standing an instant before. He turned and ran, dismayed at how little ground he could cover despite the speed at which he moved his body. He could hear it tearing through the foliage behind him, could feel the vibrations in the ground beneath his feet as it pounded after him. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see it leaping for him, its feline eyes gleaming with anticipation. He veered wildly to the right as it crashed down next to him. In desperation, he extended his sprint into bounds, trying to gain as much distance as he could—he knew he wouldn't be able to keep this sort of pace up for long, a piglet's body was not well-equipped for jumping. He sprang off the sides of trees, rocks, anything in his path, hoping he could lose his fanged pursuer in his haphazard dash. But no matter what he did, it stayed right behind, its front paws nearly brushing his heels. Its hot breath touched his neck, and he wondered if he was going to die.
Ryoga forced his eyes open, letting in the brightness of the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. It was Ukyo's living room that he was in, not a dank jungle in China. The room was quiet, silent but for the beating of his heart. No sound of leaves and brush being torn asunder. No snapping of sticks as they broke beneath the weight of a determined hunter. There was nothing behind him, save for a smooth wall with its single window. No clawed nightmare chasing after him with bright, eager eyes…
But it hadn't been a nightmare. It had been real.
Ryoga shuddered. That had been years ago when it happened, and he hadn't thought of it since. Not until now, not really. With his lifestyle, he couldn't afford to become phobic of animals, whether they were the kind that chased him or not. And he hadn't allowed himself to. Instead, he'd transformed the experience into a careful, harmless package that could be brought to mind when he was exposed to any sort of suggestive trigger, from a housecat to the rare sight of a lynx in the woods.
Cats are nice animals, he'd told himself. Predators, though—need to be careful. It's not their fault they're like that…
Ryoga took a deep breath, trying to slow his heartbeat and relieve the nervous tension in his muscles. He'd lived—it hadn't caught him. A sturdy hollow log had been his salvation, he'd been nearly spent, but it had appeared just in time. The cat's massive paws were too large to fit into the hole he dove through, and despite the decay and dampness, the wood proved too strong for it to bother with beyond a few annoyed digs with its claws. He'd spent the night there, too terrified to think of stepping out until the sun was up and the majority of carnivorous creatures had retired to their dens. He hadn't slept—he'd been too afraid that his current shelter belonged to some other jungle denizen that might be no friendlier, albeit smaller, than the thing that he had so narrowly escaped. It had taken him over an hour to find his pack once dawn arrived, even though senses useful for tracking were usually heightened as a piglet. Every stir of the wind, every movement of a leaf or branch or blade of grass caused him to start in desperate fright. The sense of relief he felt when he changed back had been multiplied unimaginably, yet even after he had returned to his natural form he found himself barely able to quell the threatening panic he knew was trying to break loose as the day wore on. At one point, all he could do was lean against a tree, crying hopelessly out of fear and exhaustion, he was only fifteen then; he hadn't found his way out of the accursed, swampy forest, and the sun was readying to set. He'd run towards it, entertaining the wild notion that if he could just move fast enough he could catch up with the sun, and it wouldn't get dark. Finally, luck seemed to be on his side—by heading west, he'd come to the foot of a hill that had marked the end of the damp, wooded terrain he'd been trapped in. He'd reached the flat plain of grass at the top just as the first stars were beginning to emerge against the newly cloud-cleared sky, and it was there that he finally felt the bonds of fear loosening their hold.
And he had known that they would have to stay that way, or he would never make it home again. So he began to think about cats—big ones, small ones, wild ones, pets…he told himself how much he liked them, listed any good quality he could think of; beauty, strength, intelligence, anything. Slowly, it became solidified into a simple strand of thoughts that could be repeated whenever was necessary: he liked cats, they were nice animals, nothing to be afraid of, he just had to be careful of some of them, just like anything else… In the process of cutting his fear down to manageable levels, the memory of that experience had slowly begun to unravel, lost amidst the straightforward reasoning he forced himself to accept in its place until it almost didn't exist anymore. And it had remained that way for the past few years, carefully buried.
Buried, but not forgotten.
Thankfully, becoming more accustomed to his curse and how to deal with it had helped to ease many of the fears Ryoga had felt so strongly back then. He wasn't so helpless anymore. Even so, that didn't mean he'd ever disregard the dangers added to his existence courtesy of Jusenkyo completely. And now, now that he fully remembered what had happened to produce the lingering hint of nervousness that lurked behind his patent reaction to such creatures, he could feel the old terror trying to claw its way back into his consciousness. Before, if he'd wondered what had happened between his childhood affection for animals and the development of the careful mental response in his adolescence, something in the back of his mind had always rushed forth quietly to cover it over, assuring him that it wasn't important. That old defense had been broken by Shampoo's powder, and now he was…
An image of Shampoo in her cursed form sprang to mind, and he shuddered again.
Stop it, Ryoga ordered himself sharply. This was getting out of hand, housecats didn't even bring to mind their larger cousins anymore, being that they weren't really a threat to him even his cursed form. There's no reason to be afraid of them, he reminded himself. They can't hurt me, and they wouldn't even bother to, not so long as I don't get wet. That almost never happens anymore when I'm out there, that's why I have an umbrella and carry hot water when I can. And there aren't any big ones like that here, except for zoos, and that's different. Besides, Shampoo isn't a cat, she's a human being, it's just a curse. A curse that turns her into a little cat, it's not like she'd ever…
Another unpleasant memory took the opportunity to resurface, a memory of a young woman with violet-blue hair who had tried to…
"It was nothing," Ryoga muttered under his breath. "She didn't even try to cook me, really, not like the time…no, it was alright, hot water changes me back…"
Steam rose into his eyes from the massive pot of boiling water beneath him. His ankle hurt, but that didn't seem so important as the fact that he wasn't human anymore—a piglet, the spring he'd fallen into had turned him into a piglet, it had been cursed, that's what the man had said. The man was the guide, couldn't he tell that he wasn't really a piglet? He tried to tell him, tried to get his attention. He strained to pull his head up to see where the guide was, if he had heard. He had to find a way to tell them he wasn't…
A knife. The man was carrying a knife, a knife that would've looked big even had he been normal. He began to feel faint, this couldn't be happening, it just couldn't…the man was coming nearer, saying something, what was he saying? The knife was used to cut the rope. The bandana, he was being held by it, he struggled and bwee'd desperately, why didn't the bandana clue the man in? The guide started talking about the Spring, yes, that was it, he'd fallen into that Spring, he wasn't really a piglet, he didn't want to be cut up, he didn't want to be boiled alive, why wouldn't they listen?!
It was hot, searing hot, it hurt, he couldn't breathe, it hurt it hurt this couldn't be happening no…
"…the matter?"
Ryoga heard a worried voice cut through the haze, but it sounded far away, too far away to help him…
*
Elder Cologne, one of the matriarchs of the Joketsuzoku tribe, stood in the back room of a small restaurant in Nerima, Japan, and sighed.
Before her sat four young people, each of which was sending a venomous glare at one of the others. In China, she had often been responsible for training warriors. It had been a demanding, though satisfying, task. But as she was discovering, trying to settle a bout of name-calling amidst four bad-tempered teenagers was, in many ways, somewhat more of a challenge.
"Are we finished now?" she asked, eyeing the small group sitting around the table. Mousse and Ranma, already nursing bumps on their heads, grumbled an unintelligible reply. Akane continued to scowl, and Shampoo hmph'd under her breath.
Cologne refrained from sighing again as she realized this was probably the best she could hope for. "Alright, then," she said. "Now, Son-in-Law, what did you tell Ryoga about his past before he regained his memory?"
"…" Ranma muttered.
"Speak up," Cologne ordered.
The pigtailed boy scowled. "Nothing, really. Except for his curse."
Across from him, Mousse rose out of his seat. "You didn't tell him anything?" he asked incredulously. "What kind of a jerk are you?"
"Shut up, Duck-Boy!" Ranma snapped. "Where do you get off sayin' anything? It ain't like you woulda told him nothin' but a load of-"
"Enough," Cologne said warningly, her patience thin. "This may make things even worse than I'd expected."
"Yeah, great," Ranma said, far too exasperated to listen to the old Amazon's usual half-cryptic speech. "Just tell us what the hell that crap did already, would ya?"
The old Amazon frowned. Her future son-in-law was certainly a talented martial artist, and was generally of good nature, but he could be such a brat at times. "That powder was the traditional Amazon memory-restorer. It was made mostly to counteract the effects of other such potions and techniques dealing with memory, such as the shiatsu Shampoo has already taken the liberty to show you. It happens to be very effective for almost all cases of amnesia and memory loss, no matter how they were brought about. Of course, basic amnesia almost always goes away naturally, but in some cases it doesn't, or it may take an extended period of time. So on rare occasions, it is used for someone who has suffered a mishap such as Ryoga's."
The scowl that had long ago settled itself on Ranma's features deepened. "Thanks for the history lesson, but we already know that part."
Cologne ignored him. "As I was saying, it is sometimes used for a case similar to Ryoga's. But it is only done rarely, for the potion's effects can be harmful as well as curative."
"Harmful? What do you mean, harmful? You knew that beforehand, and you used it on Ryoga anyway?" Akane demanded.
"He no supposed to get so much," Shampoo said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Shampoo no know stupid Mousse switch vials," she added, shooting a glare in the direction of the white-robed young man.
"So what does that mean?" Ranma wanted to know.
Cologne blinked slowly. "It means that Ryoga has remembered too much."
"What?" the pigtailed boy said flatly. "How can he remember too much of stuff he already knew? He woulda remembered everything anyway, right?"
"Not exactly," Cologne said. "The problem with this particular potion is that it is…almost too good at what it does. It does not simply bring back a person's recent past or their most conscious memories. It gives them all their memories back."
Ranma blinked twice. "What's so bad about that?"
"Think of it this way, Son-in-Law," Cologne explained. "The powder has the strength to bring back all the memories a person ever had. Not just the last ones, or the important ones, but all of them. Imagine it—forgetting everything, every moment of your entire life—and then getting all of it back. Not just the recent past, but the most distant past as well. Not just the favorite recollections, but also the unpleasant ones. Not just things you want to remember, but things you might've wanted to stay forgotten. Things that your mind worked hard to bury, to the point that you probably didn't know they'd ever happened. It all comes back."
It took a moment for those seated at the table to process this. Shampoo let out a soft, "Aiyah." Finally, Ranma looked up.
"So…what you're sayin' is that…Ryoga remembered everything that had happened to him—seventeen years worth of stuff, all at once?"
"Yes," Cologne replied. "Normally, small amounts of the powder would be given over a period of time, allowing the person to regain their memories in layers, therefore reducing the shock. Also…that way, those memories that had been pushed to the deepest recesses of the mind are not so likely to be brought back."
"But you gave it to Ryoga all at once," Akane said.
Ranma frowned. "So…?"
Cologne shrugged regretfully. "So, your friend's just been through a very rude awakening, the likes of which you cannot possibly imagine. I would also guess that considering the tricks that you pulled, he's probably feeling rather upset. And that," she said, "has no instant cure."
*
Ukyo drummed her fingers against the countertop idly, wondering what to do as the later hours of the afternoon began to set in. She hoped that Akane would come back today so she could hear the details of this most recent Amazon Special's effects. Ryoga's state was really starting to worry her. Ukyo could understand him being upset over the thing with Akane and what Ranma had done, and she supposed that getting his memory back all of a sudden might've been a little scary. Other than that, she wasn't sure if the way he was acting was a heightening of his usual overemotional ways, or if it was a product of something else.
Speaking of which, she hadn't checked on him in a while. Ukyo wondered if he was still asleep as she went down the hallway. Once in the living room, she found him sitting curled in a ball. The blanket had slipped down off his shoulders, and he was wearing a vacant expression on his face as he stared ahead at nothing. The sight concerned her—he'd been sitting in the position before, but he hadn't looked so…distant.
"Ryoga?" Ukyo said nervously, kneeling down next to him. The Lost Boy didn't respond—in fact, he didn't even seem to know she was there. "Ryoga," she repeated, louder this time. He still didn't reply. Ukyo was about to say something else when she heard him start talking under his breath. She leaned forward, thinking he was finally answering her. It was kind of strange, though, he was speaking so quietly and rapidly…
"…try to cook me, really, not like the time…no, it was alright, hot water changes me back…"
Ukyo drew back, startled. "Ryoga?" she said again, and he fell silent. "Sugar, what is it?" She was starting to feel the first hints of real concern rising in her. What did all this mean? What was he talking about? Why wouldn't he answer her? She thought about how he'd been sick earlier, and wondered if he was really coming down with something instead of just suffering from too much stress as she'd originally thought. Cautiously, she brushed a hand across his forehead, wondering if he was growing delirious from a fever. But instead of feeling hot, he actually felt rather cool.
Now Ukyo was completely puzzled. Without thinking about it, she took him by the shoulders and shook him slightly. "What's the matter? Ryoga…Ryoga!"
The pitch of her voice seemed to finally yank him into realization, for he jerked his head up to look up at her, his eyes clearing. He seemed surprised to find her there. "Ukyo?" he questioned softly, unsure what to make of her expression. She simply stared at him, a mixture a concern and consternation in her eyes.
"Ryoga," she said finally, "what…what just happened?"
The Lost Boy looked at her, trying to think of something to say. Then he dropped his gaze to his arms and rubbed at them furiously for a second, trying to rid himself of the burning sensation that had set in. "I…I don't know…" he mumbled.
Ukyo frowned at the gesture. "Are you cold?" she asked him, mistaking the movement for one intended to warm.
Ryoga's eyes seemed to glaze over again. "Cold…no. It—it was hot..."
Ukyo's frown shifted to a look of confusion. "What was hot?"
Ryoga blinked, not understanding. Then he shook his head, trying to clear it of the last lingering threads of the memory. "N-nothing," he said. "Nothing was." Dimly, he remembered hearing something before, from down the hall. There was something important about that, something he meant to ask about…
"The door," he said. "Someone knocked on the door, didn't they?"
Ukyo sat back on her heels, considering. Obviously, Ryoga hadn't been sleeping very heavily. "Yeah," she replied, a little reluctantly. "Akane came over. She wanted to..."
It took her half an instant to realize that had been a mistake. Ryoga blanched visibly, his dark eyes going wide. "A-Akane?" he breathed, his voice full of dismay.
Ukyo rushed to try and fix the upset she'd inadvertently created. "No, Sugar, it's alright, she's not really mad at you," she said quickly, but the words were lost on him.
The name rang through Ryoga's head, a distant echo accompanied by a soft hum that grew increasingly louder.
Akane…Akane knew…
…lies…all lies…his, theirs…and Ranma's…
Ryoga practically leapt to his feet, his mind reeling. Ukyo tipped back in surprise, then followed suit as she saw his face go whiter still. "Ryoga?" she said fretfully, stepping in front of him. "What-"
"No, I—ugh," he gasped, pressing a hand over his mouth as he pushed past her and darted down the hall.
Ukyo watched him go, her fists clenching unconsciously. At least he knew where the bathroom was. It was a good thing she'd taught him to count the doors long ago. She leaned against the wall, and sighed in frustration.
Things didn't seem to be looking up.
*
Ranma was silent as Akane walked alongside him on their way home from the Cat Café. The sun was rapidly lowering in the sky, its rays consequently shifting from yellow to golden as it moved closer to the horizon. Akane blinked as a wayward beam of light reflected off of something on the street, creating a tiny star-shaped glare. He hadn't said much of anything to her on the way there, either.
Akane felt tense at the silence, but Ranma seemed detached from it. He was keeping his face turned away from her, as though there was something exceptional to see on his right. There was nothing of sort there, Akane knew—he was avoiding her even though she was only a few feet away from him.
"Ranma," Akane said finally, trying to keep her voice free of anything that might be taken for negativity. The pigtailed boy lifted his head slightly, and it took him a long moment to turn to her.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Akane asked.
Ranma paused in his steps. "Tell you what?" he said, his words sounding stiff. Akane wondered if he'd guessed what she was asking about and was reluctant to talk about it, or if he just didn't want to talk to her at all. Whatever the case, she tried not to be put off by it. It wouldn't solve anything for her to get angry with him now.
"About Ryoga," she clarified, still forcing herself to be calm. It was a difficult task, given that emotional restraint wasn't exactly one of Akane's stronger points.
Ranma stared straight ahead instead of meeting her eyes. "What'd you expect me to tell you about him?"
They were stopped in the middle of the sidewalk now. There was nobody else around; the only sound was the wind. Akane watched a piece of paper blow down the other side of the street, twirling and fluttering like an oversized butterfly gone out of control. She shifted her gaze to the young man beside her, and saw how the deep golden sunlight caught in his dark hair and pooled in his eyes. The sight made her heart ache, though she didn't know why—all she knew was that something was going to change soon, more than things had already, and it wasn't going to be easy.
"The curse," she said finally. "Why didn't you tell me about the curse?"
Ranma remained still for a long moment, and Akane realized that he'd known what she was asking about from the very start.
"It wasn't mine to tell about," he said.
Akane stared at him for several seconds, unsure of what to make of his answer. It wasn't what she'd expected, though she wasn't sure exactly what she had been expecting anyway.
"I know," she said. "But…when he-"
"I knocked him into the Spring, Akane," he interrupted her.
The dark-haired girl blinked in surprise. "Y-you? But I thought…"
"Then you were wrong," he said. He turned to her at last, his expression unreadable. "I did it. He didn't know it at the time, because I was already cursed. I was chasing my father, and something happened. I didn't find out until after he got here."
Akane took a moment to process this. Ranma…had knocked Ryoga into the Spring? "You…" she said, her voice becoming faint. "You knocked him in, and you didn't even notice?"
"That's right," Ranma replied flatly. "I figured it out about the same time Ryoga did—that first night, when you made me take your new little pig to the bath."
"That's why you were fighting," Akane realized aloud.
Ranma drew back slightly and swallowed hard. "Right then, yes."
"You started to say something about it, didn't you?" Akane asked. "You started to say something about him, but you stopped…"
"I promised I wouldn't," he said. "That was when I thought he'd got it just because he followed me to Jusenkyo. If that'd been true, I might've told anyway. I couldn't, after I found out I was the one who did it to him."
Akane glanced down at her feet. It made sense, in a way. All the pieces had begun to fall together the day before, when Ryoga had unknowingly revealed his secret to her himself. But there were other things bothering her about it...
"What was he like?" she asked suddenly. "When you went to school with him before?"
Ranma looked at her oddly. "What're you talking about?"
Akane's brows creased slightly. "What was he like? You knew each other…"
"He was like he is now, I guess. But he wasn't so angry back then," Ranma told her. "He wasn't happy, if that's what you want."
"He wasn't as angry at you?" Akane said, confusion filtering into her voice.
Ranma's expression darkened. "Not with me, or the rest of the world. We were too young."
Akane thought about what he'd said for a moment. "Why wasn't he happy?"
Ranma turned to her, his eyes brightening with anger. "Why are you asking me this?" he demanded.
"Because I want to know," Akane replied, her voice rising to match his.
"I don't know," Ranma said heatedly. "He couldn't find his way around back then, either. The other guys at school bothered him all the time, and his parents were never home when he was. Maybe that had something to do with it."
"Why did you take the bread?" Akane asked him. "If you knew he was getting teased all the time and everything, why did you do it, too?"
"I didn't!" Ranma snapped. "That's not what I was doing, he just took it the wrong way!"
"Took it the wrong way?" Akane echoed. "What do you mean, he took it the wrong way?"
The blue-eyed boy turned away from her. "I mean I wasn't doing it to tease him," he said tightly.
Akane regarded him silently for a moment. "Then what were you doing?"
Ranma appeared to flinch at her question, but he straightened so quickly it was impossible for Akane to tell for sure. "It don't got anything to do with you," he said, his voice hard. "Don't ask me anything else."
With that, he started walking again, away from her. Akane watched as he moved farther and farther ahead, not turning back once to see if she was following.
Author's Notes:
Don't know about you guys, but if I'd been knocked off a cliff into a pool of water that made me turn into a piglet, then grabbed by a giant panda, held at knifepoint and told I was to be eaten, and then dumped in a pot of boiling water, I'd have been hella traumatized. And I would've beat the shit out of the panda and the guide. Ryoga's obviously a nicer person than I am.
In the original version, the first caution against couple-anticipation was posted here. But despite saying it earlier, I'm still getting a lot of 'who's going to be paired with who' type comments, so I guess I might as well say it again now—this is not really a couple-friendly fic, at least not in a romantic sense. Ok?