"Quit laughing at me Ranma!" Ryoga yelled as he punched through what appeared to be a carved rock statue of a young muscular man. A wave of sorrow seemed to sweep across his face as he examined the rubble, what had the stone ever done to him? Then Ryoga spun around as if he heard something
"Akane!" Ryoga jumped back from another statue, this one of a female with short hair, about the same age as the previous statue's figure.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to" Ryoga began then started as if he'd been cut off, "But that's not what happened! I… help me, please." he begged the impassive stone face.
"Fine." Turning away from 'Akane' he began to gather the rubble that had been a statue, "I'll take care of Ranma, just you see… then you can't be mad at me any more Akane!" Ryoga yelled over his shoulder.
"Ok?" he added, questioning and unsure he looked at the figure behind him. Still in that stiff pose 'Akane' refused to answer him this time. It was going to be difficult, but someday he would win her heart. Someday.
– – – – –
Ryoga looked back from the slab of rock he was working on. A sound had caught his ear and something was wrong. He stretched his senses out and felt the eyes on his back.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, straining his eyes to see the small form of the observer he knew was watching.
Silence.
Ryoga sighed and turned back to the block of rock. Sometimes they would do that, try to sneak up on him and watch what he was doing. Maybe they would try to stop him, but he doubted that they could. He had been as skilled as Ranma had been, now though he was sure he was better… though at what cost?
He'd practiced and trained, learned more martial arts, and practiced and trained even more preparing for his battles with Ranma. It had payed off too, though it was a source of anguish that he'd beaten Ranma like that. Now that he thought about it, it almost seemed that Ranma just stood there like some kind of statue.
Ryoga looked back at Ranma, he seemed to be getting better slowly. Maybe tomorrow or the day after he would have some of those telltale features that were uniquely his, that smirk or the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Why, even now he could hear Ranma was making some joke at Ryoga's expense.
Ryoga hummed as he returned to his work. He used a modified Bakusai Tenketsu to shape the stone. Again and again his straightened finger met the stone and the rock slab began to take human shape… that of a young man, perhaps twenty, with a muscular build of a martial artist.
– – – – –
There he was. Ranma Saotome, standing right in front of him as if nothing had happened, arrogant smirk and all.
It would have driven Ryoga mad once, and it irritated him now, but he was still glad that Ranma had recovered. A complete recovery, too. Miraculous, some said, though Ryoga thought it was simply that Ranma refused to be maimed just as much as he refused to die.
Swallowing his anger at some offhand, and yet profoundly hurtful, comment Ryoga told Ranma that he was glad to see him, but that he wouldn't be able to stay for long.
Ranma didn't seem to want to accept this, but eventually Ryoga got away from him. He could be so… Well, Ryoga didn't know what, but Ranma was definitely the epitome of it.
That's when he felt the eyes on his back again. He whirled around kicking at the presence he felt.
He didn't get a solid hit, but it was enough to send whomever it was arcing through the skies.
"That'll teach you, you annoying little spy." Ryoga muttered to himself as he pushed on again, only to realize in mid-stride that he was lost.
Turning in a random direction he took a few steps, thought better of it and took a few more in another direction. Then he found himself facing Soun and Kasumi Tendo and Genma Saotome.
– – – – –
"I really can't stay any longer." Ryoga tried to explain to Kasumi, who it seemed was ever the hospitable hostess.
"But we insist!" Soun said, tears seeming to be permeably etched into his face.
"Yes, after all you did for Ranma, never leaving his side during his recovery…" Genma said, frozen, stone-like in the middle of a shogi move, "well, it'd be a shame if you left before he was up and around."
"But…" Ryoga started, then stopped himself, the training could wait a couple of days. It wasn't often that he had a roof over his head and he was being invited… Ryoga sighed, "Alright."
– – – – –
"Damn it Ranma! How could you just sit here and let that happen to Akane!" Ryoga was beyond rage as he gestured to the pile of broken granite rubble at Akane's feet. "I didn't have any trouble, see!" Ryoga growled, "I don't see why you won't even protect your own fiancé."
Ryoga whirled at a sound coming from the rubble. "Oh no you don't! I'll destroy you for good Happosai!" Ryoga threatened the pile of crushed granite.
– – – – –
"Wahhh! No! It wasn't my fault!" Ryoga screamed and cowered from the statues that surrounded him, they all seemed to be glaring at him with hatred. Akane, Kasumi, Soun, Genma, Nodoka, Ukyo, Shampoo, Mousse, the Kuno siblings, and the principal. "Nabiki you promised me!"
The likeness of Nabiki Tendo smiled at him with that small, greedy smile, holding out her hand expectantly as if to take some sort of payment.
"No! I already payed you and you reneged!" Ryoga yelled as the other statues loomed over him. How was he to know that Akane finding out about his curse would cause her to take her own life.
And that wasn't the worst of it… it had been a double suicide with his rival Ranma. Just when things seemed to be going well, too. It wasn't fair!
But he couldn't bring himself to hate Akane Tendo. After all, it was understandable when your fiancé hid something like his curse from her.
There was only one thing to do: Perfect Shishi Hokodan!
Ryoga Hibiki lay there, among the shards of what had only been statues of the people he'd known, dead, or at least not alive; not even the will to live remained in him.
– – – – –
"Honestly, it is too terrible a fate Hibiki." Tatewake Kuno, age four-hundred eighteen, said before putting his hand to his goatee and thinking a moment. "Obviously if I were to be rid of this curse, the pain of such a lonely existence would eat your very soul, my friend… and, unable to bear your grief, you got lost in your own cave." Kuno added with a bit of a chuckle at the inside joke.
"Well…What would happen if we were to change it so that I never got this curse?" Ryoga asked. "Alphred, please show us what would happen if I went back and stopped myself from going on that trip with Saotome and Kuno?" Ryoga addressed his sentient computer that they'd hooked into the alien time-travel portal.
"Yes Master Hibiki… Just a moment, I must recalibrate the interface with the device." Alphred said, pausing for a moment as the holo-screen flares to life in mid-air. "There, I believe that does it Master Hibiki."
"Thank you Alphred, now… please show us." Tatewake Kuno asked rather impatiently and eliciting a glare from Ryoga.
"As you wish." Alphred said as he began possessing the incoming audio/video feed from the alien device once again.
– – – – –
"But I love Ranma…" Akane whispered before she coughed, spitting more blood on Ryoga's yellow shirt again.
Ryoga couldn't believe it. He'd been too late, even though he'd been warned about this happening… "Damn my lousy sense of direction." He mumbled to himself, not willing to acknowledge that the woman he'd just poured out his heart too had rejected him.
"Damn it! Where's that ambulance?" Ryoga glared at the woman who'd ben driving the car. The car that had hit Akane Tendo. That scene would be forever etched in his memory, the sleekness, the shiny light-blue shade the paint was underneath the mud that covered the bottom portion the way the woman was smiling, yes smiling!, as she talked on her cell-phone.
Ryoga cried as he cradled Akane, knowing in the back of his mind that it was already too late, that her fate was sealed… all because he couldn't follow the simplest of directions. He didn't know when he'd started crying, but he really didn't care either. He just sat there crying and whispering 'I love you.' to Akane, though he would never be sure that she heard him.
- - - - - - - - - -
When the ambulance finally arrived the paramedics found a teen-aged boy holding the corpse of a girl and crying as he repeated 'I love you.' like a mantra that would save her. The two medics would remember the scene till they died and even relate the tale to their own families. The tale would, ironically, even gain a kind of immortality in print when one of those medics wrote his memoirs.
But that was all in the future, here in the present they took the body from the boy and started the procedures for handling DOAs. The woman that had killed the girl was retained by the police for vehicular homicide. And while Ryoga should have been retained for questioning, none of the officers wanted to make him talk about it just yet… there was something in his eyes, that searing, soul-eating, accusatory stare that made them leave him alone.
Ryoga wandered around the chaos surrounding the accident scene in a daze. Tt was the end of his life, Akane was dead and he could have stopped it if he wasn't always getting lost. He looked down at the paper he had crumpled in his hand, directions here, and laughed. It was funny, very funny, he thought, but only because he was hurting too much to even begin to describe. 'I failed.' He thought over and over as he wandered around, down alleys, side-streets, anywhere and nowhere. It was all the same to him now… it didn't matter, he was too depressed to care.
He collapsed into a rough sitting position and began radiating depressive ki that could be felt for miles around. It subconsciously urged people to flee the town, and some did, but many were caught in the general panic when their lives suddenly and abruptly ended.
"Shishi Hokodan!" Ryoga yelled as he fell backward, watching the massive orb of ki soar into the sky and come crashing down. It was actually kind of beautiful, Ryoga thought, as it reached its high-point and began its decent to Earth.
- - - - - - - - - -
"That didn't turn out any better for you than that last scenario." Kuno turned to Ryoga before continuing… "That and you killed a good number of people."
"I can see that." Ryoga said dryly, he really didn't like either of those outcomes, and even though Kuno could be rid of his curse, that he'd chosen not to condemn his friend to a life of madness did mean something. Ryoga sighed, "Well, I don't think we're going to get any further here."
"I concur." Kuno said, rising from his sitting position. "If we start breaking camp now we should be able to make Wolfe Station in a day."
Ryoga snorted at the joke, Wolfe Station was four days away by standard civilian FTL and three days away by military/government FTL… though Kuno did own a significant share of FTL drive production and development and had a prototype drive that was indeed better than the military version, it was Ryoga's sense of direction that allowed himfind and influencewormholes… and subsequently outpace any FTL in existence.