A Ranma/Futaba-kun Change crossover fan fiction
Started - 1 February 2001 Completed – 1 April 2001
Last revised - 10 May 2004 Reason - typos
Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all associated characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Futaba is also used without permission. This fan-fiction isn't intended for commercial use but is rather a tribute to the 'Ranma-universe' and Futaba ideas.
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Golden Lining by Cloud Dreamer
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Chapter two - Just Decisions
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"Oh, you're not in the mood to die," taunted Ryouga. "Well that's just tough," he snarled, "because I AM in the mood to kill you for hurting Akane's feelings at breakfast."
"Ryouga, I'm warning you, back off."
"What are you going to do to me girly?" Ryouga smirked. It had been a long time since he'd felt he had the upper hand over Ranma. He suddenly lashed out with his umbrella only to sense (it was too fast to actually see) Ranma's movement. He felt the bones in his forearm break though.
Ryouga fell to the ground, his arm clutched to his chest to support it. He looked blankly up at Ranma. Ranma was calmly standing there, his face a mask of stone. Ryouga belatedly understood. Ranma didn't want to come out to 'play', and if he forced a fight, Ranma would hurt him and hurt him badly.
"What happened?" whispered Ryouga.
Ranma momentarily looked puzzled at Ryouga's question and then seemed to understand that Ryouga wasn't asking about his arm. Ranma sagged, "I got caught up in some girl talk. It wasn't what I was expecting." He picked up a couple of straight sticks as he settled down beside the lost boy. He then motioned for him to extend his arm. As Ryouga carefully extended his broken arm, Ranma firmly grasped it and then as gently as he could, he settled the broken ends into place and crafted a temporary splint using Ryouga's bandannas to hold it in place.
He helped the lost boy to his feet as he remarked, "Come on, I'll take you to Dr. Tofu's . . . I heard his new address is close by. I'll explain as we walk." He grabbed Ryouga's stuff as he led the way, making sure to keep a grip on the lost boy's shoulder.
"Well?" Snarled Ryouga as the pain was beginning to unsettle him as well as Ranma's silence.
Ranma started, "Sorry, man. I was just lost in thought" He shrugged, he saw no way to sugar coat what Ryouga needed to hear. "I overheard Akane, Shampoo and Ukyou talking about us." He paused and plunged on ahead, "Akane knows about your curse. The only . . ."
"Damn you, you told, you . . . you honorless coward!" Screamed Ryouga as a sickly green aura began to flicker about him.
Ranma's aura blazed about him as he turned to face the enraged martial artist. "DON'T you ever call me an honorless coward you girl's sex toy."
Ryouga's aura guttered out at Ranma's surprising response. "Sex toy, gah, tee hee, what do you mean?" asked Ryouga in honest puzzlement.
Ranma's aura deflated as well. "Somehow Akane found out about your curse and she's been playing mind games with both of us since then. She deliberately teases us both. Me she teases by cuddling you. You she teases by exposing herself to you even as she secretly despises your lack of honor. She snickers to herself every time you faint and every time we get in a fight over her. In short, she gets her jollies by teasing you and seeing me get hurt."
Ryouga shuffled slowly next to Ranma. "That sucks."
"Yeah, tell me about it." Ranma sighed, "It gets worse; she hates me and has been trying to seduce Dr Tofu ever since she found out where he moved to." He added, "You are about to meet the man that Akane loves. Here is his office, let's get you fixed up."
With that he knocked on the closed door. It took a few moments before Tofu opened the door and peered out. He took in Ryouga's roughly splinted arm as he sighed and gestured for them to enter. "Why do I even bother to post my working hours?" He muttered to himself.
Tofu quickly and efficiently re-splinted Ryouga's arm after checking that the bone was straight. As he finished annotating Ryouga's medical record he asked, "What brings the two of you to my office besides the obvious?"
Ranma sat there a few moments before he began to talk. "It began this morning when Akane made breakfast. As usual it resulted in me taking a brief flight via Air Akane." He grimaced, "Also as usual, I landed in water." He sighed and muttered, "It's always water it seems." With a put upon sigh he continued, "This time I had a little bit of luck, as I landed in a 'wishing' fountain about ten blocks from here. I gathered up the coins and rewarded myself with a little ice cream." At the skeptical looks from the other two, he snarled, "Ok, so it was a LOT of ice cream." From there he began to relate to the other two men the conversations between the three girls that he had overheard as nearly verbatim as he could.
As Ranma finished his story, Tofu massaged his temples as he muttered, "I didn't move nearly far enough away it seems." He looked up at Ranma with compassion in his eyes. "How are you handling this Ranma?"
Ranma sat there twiddling his fingers. "I don't know. It really hasn't hit me yet. Everything I thought I had . . . I don't really have. I'm just kind of numb right now. I want to hit something but there isn't any target; there's nothing that any martial arts I know of, that is of any use in this situation. I truly feel helpless for the first time in my life." He paused and looked ashamed for a moment before looking at Ryouga. "I'm . . . I'm sorry for breaking your arm Ryouga. It wasn't a very honorable thing to do." He sighed, "It seems that most of the times I lose control, and you somehow end up hurt. Like just now and again at the 'cursed springs'. If I hadn't been so angry at pop for cursing me, then maybe I wouldn't have caused you to be cursed as well. Sorry man."
Ryouga looked at Ranma. As Ranma had talked earlier, other memories had been slowly surfacing, memories of this same young man leading him to and from school, helping him with his homework and stopping by occasionally to play a game or just talk.
"Yeah, me too." Ryouga awkwardly shouldered his pack from where Ranma had laid it aside for him.
Ranma looked forlorn for a moment. Then he turned and asked, "Want me to lead you home?"
Ryouga bristled for a moment, and then sighed in resignation. "Yeah, I'd appreciate it. It's been awhile since I was last there."
Tofu shook Ranma's hand and patted Ryouga's shoulder. "Thanks for telling me your story Ranma." He shuddered, "I still have feelings for Ka, Kasu, Kasumi, but somehow I still can't completely control them. I'm not sure I want to try anymore if getting close to her means having Akane and Nabiki as part of the family as well. I'm not sure I can deal with that." He grimaced and added, "I'm not sure I can deal with Akane in any case. She's not the cute little girl I remember watching grow up anymore."
Several hours later, Ranma watched as Ryouga hugged his dog Checkers and then entered his house, softly closing the door behind him. Ranma stood there a few moments wondering what to do next.
Just as he turned to go, Ryouga opened the door again and called out, "Ranma, come on in man. I'm guessing you don't have any place else to go do you?"
Ranma hesitantly shook his head and gratefully entered the house. Both young men quickly got ready for bed. Ryouga in his room that he hadn't seen in nearly a year and Ranma in a guestroom that Ryouga wasn't sure he'd ever seen before.
Ryouga was having a weird dream. There was a girl crying and it was HIS fault and he couldn't find her. No matter where he went, he could hear her but he couldn't find her. Finally he woke up in frustration. Well, he thought he woke up. He wasn't too sure since he still heard the girl crying. Exasperated, he followed the sound to the guestroom. He hesitantly opened the door only to see what he least expected.
Ranma was crying. The sobs were muffled into the pillow to be sure as he, no SHE was trying not to be heard. Ryouga stood there confused for a moment before his glass heart forced him forward and he enfolded the weeping girl into his arms and let her tears soak his shoulder.
"Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to wake you, sorry, sor . . . "
Ryouga placed his finger over her lips, "I heard you. It's ok. He grimaced, "Just like I needed a splint for a broken arm, you need tears for a broken heart. It's ok, kami knows you deserve some healing."
With that Ranma's tears started anew. But something was a bit different. Ranma felt something she'd missed for a long time, she had a friend again. She quickly cried herself to sleep and Ryouga gently covered her with the blankets before carefully making his way back to his own bed.
The week passed mostly in companionable silence. Neither felt much like talking but neither wanted to be alone lest they begin to brood. They played a few games, Ryouga turned out to be surprising adept at video games and nearly had Ranma fuming in anger with his taunting after repeated losses. Ryouga ignored him. 'He had finally beaten Ranma and with a broken arm to boot . . . ahh, revenge was sweet.' He chuckled to himself.
On the second day, Ranma had noticed that Ryouga made a phone call in the morning and by that evening; a large order of supplies had been delivered. Not only was there a lot of food, some of it fresh though most of it was designed for long storage. But there were a lot of other items as well. Things like a couple of new fully equipped backpacks for Ryouga, a dozen new sets of his trademark clothing and lots of other useful stuff like soap and the like.
That and a few other things piqued his curiosity. Finally he asked Ryouga. "Ryouga, you know, as long as we've known each other, I don't think I ever heard what your folks did to support the family."
Ryouga blushed, "Well dad started his own business and mom helps out." He obviously intended to leave it there. But Ranma was still just as perceptive as always.
In other words, he totally missed the fact that Ryouga didn't want to talk about it. Not only that, he made some dumb assumptions as well . . . as usual, unfortunately.
"Ah come on man, you don't mean your pop is a deadbeat like my old man and Mr. Tendou too." whined Ranma.
"MY POP is NOT like YOURS!" Snarled Ryouga as his battle aura started to flicker.
"Whoa, sorry," quickly apologized Ranma. "I guess it must be a pretty embarrassing job since you're so reluctant to talk about it." Ranma grinned, "What's he do. Is he a pimp for some wandering street walkers or something like that?"
"RANMA! I'm warning you. I'm proud of my old man, so don't talk trash about him."
Ranma's face settled into a longing and wistful expression. "I wish I could be proud of my old man. All he ever thinks about is himself." Ranma sighed sadly. "He sold me out again. And all my mom thinks about is me being a 'man among men'. She doesn't really care about me as a person."
"Ranma, you sure about that?" asked Ryouga. "I've met your mom a few times and she seems really nice."
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, she's really nice. She just doesn't care about ME, me . . . her son, the person named Ranma. All she cares about is family honor."
Ryouga looked over at Ranma from where they were sitting in the back yard a few meters apart. He was startled to note the single tear that traced it's way down Ranma's cheek as Ranma continued. "Ryouga, my mom gave me to my pop to raise when I was only 5. Sometimes I feel like she just threw me away because I was too much trouble for her to be bothered with. Even now she's not really interested in who I am . . . she's only interested in what I can do for her to continue the family." He looked over at Ryouga as he surreptitiously wiped the tear away. "I'm an orphan Ryouga. As far as I'm concerned, I have no folks, certainly none to be proud of like you do." He added quietly, "even if you can't say why."
Ryouga grinned. He reached over to the nearby backpack and opened up a small side pocket and withdrew a small business card, which he then tossed to Ranma. "I work for my dad too."
Ranma looked at the card. 'Silver Linings Security Evaluators – agent Ryouga Hibiki' he read. He looked over at his friend, confusion on his face.
Ryouga sighed and began to explain. "My folks couldn't hold down a regular job because of the family curse. Both my parents have it since they are second cousins." He grimaced, "that means I have a double dose of it unfortunately."
He shrugged and continued, "Pop decided to not let the curse get him down. He decided that it was like some dark cloud over him so he was determined to find its silver lining." Ryouga grinned, "The curse gets us lost, but lost in some of the most unusual places. Pop set up a company that appears to specialize in evaluating the security measures of its 'targets'." He smirked, "anytime I seem to be someplace I really shouldn't be, I drop off one of these cards. If it's a 'no-never-mind' then we never hear about it. On the other hand, if one of these cards suddenly shows up in a top-secret building or such. Well, somebody is gonna scream." His grin was ear to ear now. "They call our attorney's number on the bottom of the card and he bills them for 'our' security evaluation." He chuckled, "you'd be surprised how much some of these agencies are willing to pay to NOT have our unauthorized presence in their facility to become public knowledge."
Ranma's jaw hit the floor. After he recovered he hesitantly asked, "ah, Ryouga, isn't that a bit dishonest. Almost like . . . extortion?"
Ryouga shrugged, "nah, we never publish the data. I was really surprised myself to find out that a lot of the major players that we have encountered have actually established long term evaluation contracts with us. It seems that our unexplained access has prompted a lot of them to tighten up holes in their systems that they didn't even know existed. They attribute the changes to our work. Maybe they're right."
He snickered, "with our curse, no one has ever captured a Hibiki during one of these security evaluations and it's a matter of company policy that we don't explain how we penetrated anybody's security. Some really don't like that but all of them live with it."
Ranma paused and muttered, "silver linings. That's kind of neat. Look for the silver lining in life's storm clouds." He snickered, "MY life's storm clouds have got to have golden linings considering how totally screwed up my life is!"
"Golden linings, what the heck are you babbling about?" wondered Ryouga. "I mean your life is about as messed up as the worst soap opera that I've ever heard of; humph, golden linings my ass."
"Actually, it does make sense if you consider the lining to be fool's gold" sadly replied Ranma. "It glitters like the real stuff but is totally worthless. That's my life." He got up and left to prepare some lunch for the both of them.
More supplies arrived at the end of the second week. Bad news as well, the first was a phone call from the Hibiki family attorney and business manager. Ryouga frowned as he hung up the phone. He looked over at Ranma, "Nabiki's on your trail. That was a warning from my attorney that she's been snooping around. Seems they found out we might be together." He looked around, "sorry, Ranma, I guess that means you can't hide here anymore."
Ranma shrugged fatalistically, "I'm not surprised. I'm some THING she considers pretty valuable; and her property as well."
Ryouga grinned, "Want to take a walk after breakfast"
"Sure, where too?"
Ryouga just grinned at him. After a few moments, Ranma slapped his forehead, "oh, right; as if you would have any idea." Ranma smiled, "Sounds great to me." He looked pensive, "I . . . I don't have any camping gear or anything though."
Ryouga just chuckled, "I think I might have some stuff around here you can use. Let's eat breakfast and talk it over."
As they ate Ryouga noticed something unusual about the milk container. He picked it up and showed it to Ranma. There, staring back at him were color photos of both his forms. 'Missing – reward offered' was the bold red caption. "Nabiki," Ryouga guessed.
"Damn" sighed Ranma. "I might as well give up. With these all over the country, she'll be able to track me where ever I go." He groaned, I can't even use my girl form as a disguise this time."
Ryouga thought about it for a moment before getting a glass of water from the kitchen sink. He tossed it over Ranma and as she sputtered, he reached over and examined her hair and the photo on the milk box.
"Do you mind!" snarled Ranma as she jerked away from him. "Baka," she hissed under her breath.
Ryouga chuckled; he was going to enjoy doing this considering how Ranma had tormented him a few times with his girl form in disguise. "You know, Ranma, you could use your girl from to hide from them IF you dyed your hair." With that he pulled out a dark marker and carefully colored the hair in the photo so that Ranma's girl form appeared in dark hair.
Ranma argued, "Well, why don't I just dye my regular hair instead?"
Ryouga responded by coloring the hair of the male Ranma photo red. The difference in effect was obvious. The dark color made the girl almost anonymous, but the red color made the male Ranma's picture almost glaring obvious that it was fake.
Ranma studied both the modified photos before shrugging in resignation. "You're enjoying this aren't you?" she snarled.
Ryouga put his face only inches from hers, "yes." He snickered and dodged her fist. He added, "Maybe we shouldn't travel together after all." He grinned, "I can be your decoy. Given the way I travel, Nabiki can waste a lot of effort tracking me if she thinks you are with me."
"So, what cha going to do, Ryouga?" finally asked Ranma of his restored friend.
The lost boy shrugged, "I think it's time I got serious about Akari." He added, "I was nearly over Akane anyway when you two almost got married." And then he grinned, "I think the main reason I kept coming back was to see how miserable your life was . . . that and to fight you."
Ranma smiled back, "Best of luck, ya hear me?"
"Yeah, thanks."
The next morning found Ryouga gone. But on the table was an envelope addressed to Ranma. Ranma opened it up and found 5 million yen in large bills. The letter from Ryouga explained:
'Ranma, this isn't a loan. It's payment of a debt that I figure that I owe you. You ended up paying for all the damage we both caused to the Tendou home, but I estimate that this is my share of the cost. It's yours; you earned it. We're even.
Your friend, Ryouga.'
Ranma sighed and began to make plans. 'Her plans' he whispered as he poured a glass of water over his head.
Ranma undid the ponytail braid and retied her hair in a loose ponytail high on her head. She thought for a moment then used hot water to restore his true form. Grabbing a ball cap he tucked his hair under it and smiled at the reflection. To the casual glance, his hair did not look long. He exchanged his clothes for some of Ryouga's and left to go shopping. He needed some special supplies to make this work.
The next morning Ranma looked at her reflection in the mirror just before preparing to leave . . . for somewhere. She saw a short but busty girl with black hair in a short pageboy cut. She was dressed in a slightly large denim shirt and oversize jeans held in place with an elastic belt. She was cute and she definitely looked like a tomboy. Ranma tugged at her underwear, she admitted to the necessity of a sports bra, but men's briefs worked just as well as panties and that was as far as she would go. It certainly made things easier if hot water accidentally found her. That is, providing she hadn't pulled the briefs too tight.
Ranma sighed as she walked out the door. She was mostly happy with this first round of choices she had made, but she had some more decisions to make. She wanted revenge, but first she needed some time and some information. She'd get neither if she were to be discovered too early. At the edge of town she paused and glanced back to her brief home in the distance. She snickered when she recognized Nabiki approaching Ryouga's house. Without another backward glance, Ranma left. But she planned on returning . . . when she was ready.
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Author's note: Additional Ranma fan-fiction can be found on my Web Pages.
C & C to cloud (underscore) dreamer2000 (at) yahoo.com
Web-page - www.geocities.com (slash) cloud (underscore) dreamer2000
And - mysite.verizon.net (slash) cloud-dreamer/index.html
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