Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi owns Ranma ½ and anyone she sells the rights to.
A/N: Please tell me what you think. I really don't know what I'm thinking making this fic. I really want to draw pictures to go along with each entry so maybe I'll add a few links to my pictures next entry. Hopefully you guys like it, review if you do, and then I'll continue. This was written at three in the morning so excuse the errors, I'll change them in the morning but I wanted to get this up and I have work in 7 and a half hours. Enjoy!
Title: Mourning For Ranma
Chapter Title: The End of the Beginning
I had this dream once; I was driving behind this hot fire engine red machine. The wind was in my hair, blowing across my slick grin, and the windshield of this gorgeous thing was shining the sun's harsh light over my eyes. I was on one of those country roads you see going into the distance on those self help posters about choosing the path less traveled and heck, by the look of it, this was sure untravelled. The machine roared from beneath the sheath that held it together and produced a glossy finish that cried for a cocky smile and a jovial mind. I felt like a car ad behind this thing; the traction, the exhilaration, it felt like after you hit one hundred and twenty you were alive.
Then I woke up, in a cold sweat. That was the day I decided to learn to drive.
Funny how the smallest of things, like a dream, could catalyze my existence into a full stop. Then again, we never stop moving do we? Our breath is always going, our heart always pumping, our veins always coursing. Those are just actions though. What if death isn't the end, what if it's just another move on some chess board of the universe? Then again, what if some king is sleeping and dreaming up our world and when he wakes up, we're just a dream, forgotten in seconds and half told to his jester before he enjoys some superb juggling.
Enough about that though, more about automatic and stick shift.
After I got up, at a more decent hour than four thirty in the morning, I rolled out of "bed" and walked downstairs to have a little breakfast before school. I shook out the sleep still clinging to me and sat down to a breakfast full of yummy noodles and more of Kasumi's amazing food. Akane was already sitting next to me and after a few comments about her eating habits, which were hilarious by the way; she didn't take them so lightly and stormed out of the house, forgetting her lunch and everything. It wasn't that I cared about the girl, but I really couldn't help watching a poor lunch die without fulfilling its greater purpose and so I ran out after her.
I jumped into the street, looked both ways, even though I knew which way she was going out of habit, and scrambled after her.
"Akane, wait the heck up, why don't ya?" I hollered after her figure, walking a bit slower for me to catch up.
She would never admit to slowing down for me though, but that's just her style. Her short hair bobbed back and forth as she stuck up her nose and sauntered ahead.
"I do not eat like a pig, Ranma. If anyone eats like swine it's a dummy like you. I'm amazed you can even hold chopsticks." She told me, trying her hardest to make her words seem delicate and worthless. I knew she thought about every word though, because that's a technique I really couldn't master.
I hopped up on the fence before saying anything else that might make her take the mallet to me and focused on staring as steely eyed as I could.
I threw her lunch box down to her fumbling hands and rolled my eyes as she tried to catch it gracefully.
"Chump." I muttered under my breath, just loud enough so she could hear.
"I am not!" She fiercely objected, flinging her arms around like a mad woman and almost losing her box.
I winced. "Watch out for your poor lunch!"
Okay, so that was probably not the most on-topic thing to care about at the moment; but damn, did I love lunch.
She stared up at me and thought I wasn't looking. I decided to get nervous, it was totally my choice though, and flicked my eyes at hers for a second, breaking the contact and almost losing balance on the fence. I regained it though, coughing dryly, and scratching the back of my head.
"So," I said to break the silence, "I'm thinking of getting a car, learning to drive. Y'know, guy stuff." I said, staring away into the distance. The fence looked a little rusty today and I wondered if the rain the night before had really torn away at it.
Akane scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You? Behind the wheel of a car? Please, they'd never let an idiot like you on the road, you'd get into an accident the first day!"
Okay, so the non confidence vote wasn't the reaction I had hoped for, but I had sort of expected it by now. I smiled; it was the way we worked. This whole car thing was exciting though; I could take her somewhere maybe, just around the block, but there would be no room for pesky parents or ferocious fiancés to hide in.
'Well, if I did get a car, maybe we could, um, y'know, test it out?" I said quietly, stalling for a moment to see her reaction, hope hiding behind my eyes.
Her eyes shot out ahead and she swallowed hard. "What do you mean, Ranma?"
I loved when her voice got like that; a little softer, but a little more serious at the same time.
She played with the strap of her lunch box. She toed the ground and stopped to search me for any misconception she could have gotten.
I stared back, hand behind head, and laughed nervously; again, I was nervous on purpose.
"I dunno, around the block, to school. Y'know, helpful stuff. That way ya can stop complainin' about me free loadin'."
She flicked an angry glance over at me and I nearly lost my breath.
"'Cause I feel bad and stuff." I managed through my teeth, worried if she would throw down her box, laugh in my face, and spit on my idea.
She didn't, of course, because I am insane, but she didn't jump up and down and offer her services as backseat driver for life or anything.
She muttered something along the lines of "Oh, that's nice" and continued walking.
Man, if I could get inside that woman's head I would unlock the secrets to many a life. Hell, I would be a millionaire; explaining the truth behind the weird stuff woman do would definitely get me a Nobel Peace Prize or two.
That was all that was spoken of the whole 'driving' issue for a long time. I kept to myself about it, trying to save enough to afford it, but not let anyone know I was saving. If you were saving, in Nabiki's mind, it was to pay her debts you might acquire in the next ten years and for nothing else. That is, unless she could blackmail you about what that something was.
To my surprise, in about four months I had saved enough for the insanely expensive lessons and, to the great surprise of my family, paid upfront for my lessons before telling them.
"Ranma, how back handed of you!" Soun howled.
Genma threw up his hands in sobs. "Your poor father brings you up all proper and you ruin it all on yourself!"
Nabiki shrugged; with the money gone, she really didn't have much to say on the matter. "Don't kill anybody on your first run."
Kasumi smiled kindly when she heard. "Would you like early lunch, Ranma?"
I shrugged. Now, I tried to act nonchalant, but it failed miserably when the smell of those wonderful delicacies she created rose to my nose. I hovered over to the table and enjoyed a hearty lunch that could feed a small village. It was amazing; the quantity of food Kasumi could make in one go, even a little odd.
I sat there, stretched out after finishing, and burped loudly.
"That's gross, cover your mouth at least, caveman." Akane scolded with a disgusted look on her face.
"Real men don't hide their talking tools." I told her slyly.
Wow, what a lame line.
She scoffed. "That's funny because they're just fine hiding their manners."
In the absence of something wicked to retort with, I hopped up, patted my stomach, and moved to leave the room.
"Yeah, you would know, macho chick." I managed, before running for my life out of the room.
I heard a loud grunt and stomping feet coming near me as I bee-lined for the door. I had slid the door open, noticing the bad weather with a chill down my neck, and had one shoed foot out before she got there.
"Ranma, you jerk!" She screeched, hands on hips, biting her lips. Her face got all flushed and her knuckles were white with rage.
The fear that instilled in me was monumental; she made me want to strangle her, provoke her, and kiss her at the same time. That was real frustrating when you didn't hit girls and you were too shy to kiss them. It left the taunting, which made you go farther from the kissing and the only strangling that was going to happen was my own neck at the power of those delicate hands.
I froze, straightened out, and let my defenses take over. I cooled until I was resting against the door so much we were pretty much one being.
She shook her head and clenched her fists at her sides. "Ranma, I am going to do you the huge favor of making sure you're not late for your lesson. Have fun, and don't forget not to crash!"
All I managed was a slurred "Huh?" before she whipped her mallet out of who-knows-where and I was flying at fifty miles an hour over the rooftops of Nerima. The wind whipped little pellets of rain at my face but I left my arms crossed as a sign of strength and closed my eyes to shield them. This wasn't the first time and definitely wasn't the worst, but that chill that the rain had set in wasn't going away. I landed outside the school gates, her accuracy was pretty solid, and brushed myself off. I tried to shake off the feeling that it wasn't the rainfall after all and waited outside the school for my driving instructor.
The school was deserted. Pools of water flowed and grew around the entrance. The gates were locked and menacing, tall and guarded. I slunk against them and yawned.
Morning lessons were not my idea. The guy told me I could get them a lot faster if I chose a time no one else wanted. There was a reason no one else wanted to wake up an hour early; it was terrible out and I only had one shoe with no coat.
In a moment I heard a rustle from the other side of the gates, the brooding school in the distance, cut off from all civilization. I turned around to lazily see what kind of squirrel had penetrated the incredible fortress gates and saw three huge, growling dogs running at me at full speed. I bolted three steps back, teetering on the edge of the side walk and yelped. The dogs kept running, gnashing and drooling as much as their little black heads could and kept on running and mashing until they slammed into the gates. They continued to whine and scratch at the gates, trying to catch me like lunch.
I tried to balance on the side of the sidewalk and almost fell over into the road. If it wasn't for my training I would've been lying face flat in the road. I managed to sit back on the sidewalk, looking back to see my predators still trying to break down the barrier that separated us.
"Hah, dumb dogs, probably Principal Kuno's, eh? Well, ya keep on at that and see if it gets ya anywhere." I taunted, sticking out my tongue and making faces at them as they thrashed and hopped.
Right behind me, in a matter of seconds, a huge truck, bellowing a large horn, zoomed by. It ran exactly where I would've still been, had it not been for my prowess.
My eyes bulged and I gulped hard. My mind tried to wrap around the situation, but I gave up and sat in reasonable calm, deciding not to think about it.
The clock rang six times and, at that exact moment, a white Cadillac zoomed around the puddle corner and screeched to a stop in front of me as I got up. It screeched as it ran past, leveling me with a 5 foot wave of water from the street.
"Ugh, great." I muttered, wringing out my hair and letting out, a very masculine let me tell you, sneeze.
The door opened by itself and I heard a voice with a funny accent calling to me.
"Ranma Saotome, nice to meet you, please take off your shoe before getting in, I like things to be a bit immaculate." It asked sweetly.
I raised an eye brow, stared up at the pouring sky and shrugged. If this person was trying to kidnap me and use me as a gladiator in Mexico, at least it wouldn't be raining.
I walked up to the car, sat myself in first, took off my shoe and was about to move my feet in when a warm hand rested itself on my shoulder.
"Socks too, Mr. Saotome, they're blacker than a smoker's lung, I'm afraid. Oh, you don't smoke do you? You're not offended? No, you don't smoke. Alright, then you can laugh, it's a funny quip, isn't it? Not very hip anymore I suppose, hopefully smoking is not either." The now-embodied voice chuckled in a cheery, sing-song voice. I didn't turn to see his face, just whipped off my socks, threw them out of the car and slammed the door shut, shivering now that I was out of the rain.
"Thanks man, I sure ain't goin' back out there. We ain't gonna change tires or anythin' today, right?" I asked, finally turning to see my instructor.
He smiled jovially. He was a good looking, well fed sixty year old with rosy cheeks and a kind demeanor. His hair was white as a sheet of paper, with wisps falling on each side that gave the effect of a delicate, unnecessary comb over.
That was the first thing I noticed. The next was that everything, the controls, the seats, the steering wheel, and his teeth were all sparkling white as well. Even his suit, along with vest and tie, were a pearly absence of color. It was a little alarming because I was a mess of red and black and, definitely, dirt brown.
"Uh, sorry for . . . being colorful." I searched for the right words to describe why I felt like I had betrayed him.
"Oh don't worry there, son, you won't be in those clothes very long. Why, I once knew a man who wore a certain pair of slacks, his favorite of course, for ten years!" The man told me with a jolly chuckle.
I was starting to think this guy was drunk or something. That, or Santa.
"Oh. . . really?" I trailed off, too polite to show that I really didn't care.
He nodded feverishly and slapped his hands on nine and three o'clock on the steering wheel.
"Why, the only reason he took them off in the end was because they were white and he thought it quite rude to go to a funeral in white pants. Especially, his own!" The old man laughed, trying to nudge me into laughter to.
I didn't really see the joke in that, but I laughed along, nodding with him and putting on a smile so he wouldn't axe murder me and ruin his upholstery.
"Why, look at me, what is the time?" He asked me, pulling a golden pocket watch out of his round bodied vest. He stared intently at the little clock, squinted harder and sat back, sighing, in defeat. "I'll have you read this, boy, I can't seem to make it out without my glasses and I can't seem to find those anywhere."
I nodded, staring out the window to make sure we were still on Earth, and turned back to find him thrusting the watch in my face.
I jumped at it and then brushed myself off, coughed to clear my throat and head of confusion, and stared at the face of it.
In small, red letters in the middle of the blank face it read "ALMOST". At first I thought I was seeing things and squinted, just as he did.
"I'm seein' the same thing you did, Buddy. It just says 'ALMOST'. Maybe ya can take it to the repairman when we start movin'." I suggested, really wanting to start the lesson and end the creepiness.
He stared at me for a second, unsure if he should say what he was going to, and then nodded resignedly.
"Right m'boy, well without further ado, let's trade seats. You'll have to endure the rain for another few seconds, sorry. Please, try not to step on the ground; your feet will get quite dirty and, as you know, I like things neat as a new pin."
I tried not to think about his sound advice of getting out and not touching the ground and flipped the door open, stepped out, and fell back at the sound of those damn dogs roaring away at the gates.
"Geez," I muttered at the mutts, "don't ya ever give up?"
In response, one tried to bite through the iron and I took that as a good sign that they weren't ready to give in any time soon.
The old man was already at my side and shooed me to the other with jolly hand movements. He had an umbrella, white, that he shook briskly three times, right before shutting the door. I wiped my bangs out of my eyes and shrugged. I walked over to the other side of the car, trailing around the trunk and stretched out my arms to get ready for an hour of awkward silence with the KFC Colonel.
Many things were on my mind. Many things, but not trolls. Not the creepy ones that live under bridges, but the ones with flamboyant hair and naval jewelry, probably naked. One such truck of these, the new "Trolly Fantastico"s, was heading down a dirt road not three blocks away. The driver, a man with a burly mustache and a bald head, had had very good luck with a bar maid the night before and, in a show of good karma, had picked up a stranger traveling down the road.
Ryoga Hibiki was his name and the truck driver got to hear about the fantastic girl he had waiting for him as soon as he got into town. The truck driver grinned and regaled about the night before. Hibiki listened intently and asked for advice on how to woo such lovely ladies. The truck driver was flourished with pride and took the young Hibiki out for lunch to go over the grand plan that had gotten him the lusty maiden the night before. He left his truck parked over four parking spots, a doll and a very important manhole.
Beneath this manhole, shyly daring each other to light the match, were two best friends who had found a huge birthday candle that said "Dan's Dy-no-mite Destructo Firecrackers" on the side, but was really just a stick of dynamite. They took down, into the sewer, a bucket of sand and stuck the firecracker in. The plan was to run up the stairs before it went off, shut the manhole, and wait until it dented up the tunnel, leaving a forever mark of their friendship in the septic system. Finally, the boy Gori, lit the wick with a light from his mother's matchbook, and followed Kari up the steps. She pulled herself out, crouching under the big truck and held a hand for him, letting him fall on top of her as she pulled him over. They shared a moment where they stared into each other's eyes and were not children anymore before they remember the explosive present beneath them, rolled out from under the truck that had come up while they were in the depths of the city, and ran off, holding hands and laughing.
The only thing wrong with their plan was that very important manhole. In their haste, too gleeful holding hands to remember, they had not pulled it back over into it's respectable position. The seconds ran like milliseconds and the milliseconds ran faster than I can think and finally there was no wick left and, with huge gusto, the stick of dynamite shot up, through the manhole, and into the depths of the lucky driver's truck. The explosion was magnificent, dolls flying everywhere, and horror filling the eyes of all children watching the trolls attacks everything, take over the world even. The trucker turned from his food to see this and his eyes glazed over, his mouth dropped, and so did his chopsticks. He had left the lusty lady's number in his truck. A single tear trickled down his cheek as Hibiki pulled him under the table for cover.
Three blocks is a lot of flying for a troll to do. Honestly, it didn't know it's important destiny and would have been quite content to be combed by a little girl or chewed by the family dog. Three blocks through the rain it traveled, flattening its pointy hair into a tussled up do. It flung, faster than I could count, and kept flinging over the school and the mutts and directly into my head. In its defense, it really didn't have any say in the matter.
The Colonel frowned. Now he would have to go through the car wash again; white cars were a big responsibility. He shrugged to himself as he took out his pocket watch and held it right up to his eye, just to make sure. What he saw made him drop the blasted thing and fumble around, even though it was attached to him by the hip, until he held it again in sheer disbelief. In the blank face of his pocket watch, where it should have said something very different, it read "ALMOST", just as before. This was a big problem and he hated problems. It would take a lot to clean up this mess.
I had never experienced dying before and didn't really experience it when I did. It just sort of happened. One second I was breathing, the next I wasn't. It was pretty simply I guess, but it meant the world to me. The second before my imminent doom I was wondering why I still had that chill in the back of my neck, what Kasumi would make for dinner, and, mostly, how I'd look behind the wheel of a Cadillac. Everyone told me something different about death. Everybody just wanted a reason; they wanted to know why people, especially good ones, died. They wanted to know why their grandma died before she turned 100, two days before, even though it had been her life goal. They wanted to know why their cat had to get sent to a "farm" and wasn't there to cough up gross hairballs and be a stupid cat in general. I knew though.
I was killed when it was still "ALMOST" my time. I was killed by two people who were going to get married someday and have plenty of kids. I was killed by a lucky bald man and his protégé. I was never even taught how to use my car before I was killed, wasting all my savings on it.
I, Ranma Saotome, was killed by hormones.
A/N: So, what do you think? Reviewing would be lovely and I will have another update soon with more base plot and it will clear up a few things. Thanks for reading!