Life lived in perfect symmetry,
What I do, that will be done to me,
As the needle, slips into the run-out groove,
Love, maybe you feel it too,
And maybe you'll find, life is unkind,
And over so soon,
There is no golden gate,
There's no heaven waiting for you.
- Perfect Symmetry by Keane
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Ranko sits on the bench, pack next to her. She stares at her hands numbly, Colognes words repeating in her head over, and over, her mind spiralling and her thoughts darkening until her emotions feel like a black morass from which she can't even be bothered to struggle out of.
"Ranko-chan?" A voice cuts her reverie in half and for a moment she imagines it fading away. She wonders if the isolation is starting to get to her before she looks up and sees an angel.
Well, no, not an angel, but the closest analogue to it in her current hell of a life.
Akane looks at her worriedly and looks over the dirty overalls and blouse Ranko wears. "Are you okay?"
Ranko looks up and Akane's heart catches in her mouth. There's a misery so deep in those blue eyes she can't even begin to see the bottom. She sits down next to the red-haired girl and draws her close. Ranko doesn't shudder, she doesn't sob. Tears just run down her face silently.
They sit like that until a breeze blows and Akane shivers. "Well, that's enough sitting." She says brightly, standing up and helping Ranko up. The shy girl puts her large pack on her back and Akane frowns as something occurs to her that she doesn't voice. A suspicion starts bubbling in her mind.
"Well, I was jogging but I figure it wouldn't be very ladylike to let you walk home alone." Akane says, smiling. "So… lead the way."
Ranko shuffles in place.
The suspicion blooms from a bubbling seed into a torrent of worry. "Ranko-chan?"
"I… ah…" Ranko's face is downcast, shame writ large on her features. She can't tell Akane. She can't tell her she's homeless, because Akane will offer to let her stay at the dojo. She knows Akane well enough to know that the short-haired girl would offer it to her without even thinking.
But she can't, it'll just make things worse. Why did she even bother to come see Akane at school? She could have watched from afar and then quietly disappeared; except she hadn't quite believed the wish had really happened.
"Ranko-chan, you need to be honest with me." Akane's voice is soft as she puts both her hands onto the redhead's shoulders. "Are you… homeless?"
Ranko flinches and looks down, misery on her face. She takes minutes to answer, minutes in which Akane's breath comes slowly, in which her worries increase moment by moment.
"…Yes." Ranko says, softly, ashamedly.
"Are you on your own?"
Another long silence. Another few minutes in which Akane feels her heart breaking for this girl.
"…Yes." Ranko replies eventually. "It had to be so."
"You're coming with me." Akane says, grabbing for Ranko's hand. Ranko moves back fast; faster than she'd though someone could move.
"I can't." Ranko says miserably. "I just hurt people."
Akane stares. "You're hurting me by not taking my help."
Ranko wraps her arms about herself. "I'm sorry, Tendou-san." She says formally. "But if I leave now, I won't cause you further pain." She moves back out of range of Akane's hands. "Goodbye, Akane."
"Wait, Ranko, no, I-" Akane yells, but Ranko's gone in a flash. "Ranko, come back!"
It's a tired, sad and tearful Akane that makes her way into the Tendou dojo a few hours of wasted search later. "Tadaima." She calls listlessly, and Kimiko emerges from the hall.
"Akane, what's wrong? Did you hurt yourself on your jog?"
"…I found Ranko, Mom."
Kimiko frowns as Akane changes her shoes and slouches into the main house from the genkan. "Oh, you were saying you have a date with her tomorrow, don't you?"
"I don't know anymore." Akane says bitterly. "I found her sitting on a bench like she was going to be there the entire night." She sighs. "She had this big backpack with her and was wearing these… dirty pink overalls. She looked like she couldn't see anything, so I said hello."
Kimiko leads Akane to the family room, empty for now, and fetches tea for the two of them. Soun was out at some fancy do, and her sisters were both busy – Kasumi with her fiancé and Nabiki in her room doing who knew what. Auntie Nodoka had gone to her old house in Juuban to clean it up ready for some new tenants in a few months, though she said she may not be back until then anyway due to it needing some maintenance.
Kimiko sits down next to Akane on the engawa on the family room and passes her tea over. "How was your young friend?"
"She looked… lost, Mom." Akane says sadly. "Like everything was crashing down. I sat with her while she cried silently and then helped her to her feet and then offered to walk her home."
"Most gracious, dear." Kimiko says, smiling.
Akane laughs bitterly. "She's homeless. She hasn't anyone or anywhere to go, Mom."
"What?"
"Exactly what I said. While I've been worrying over her or sitting with Yuka and Sayuri and lending her manga and trying to cheer her up, she's been living on the streets and probably starving. That'll be why she's not been bringing lunch. Kami above, I feel so selfish. Here's her, suffering all the time, and then here's me asking her to date like nothing else is going on in her life."
"Where is she?" Kimiko asks. "I'd have thought you'd have brought her here."
Akane starts to cry and Kimiko puts her arms around the short-haired girl. "She told me she just hurts people and leaving means she won't hurt me anymore." She sobs. "Then she ran away, Mom. I tried to catch her, find her…"
Kimiko keeps hold of her daughter. "Well, maybe you can still meet her at school."
But Ranko doesn't come back to school. Not the next day, not the next week.
Sayuri and Yuka fret with Akane, and Akane waits outside the school and wanders most nights, looking for her friend. She feels an almost primal need to find her and bring her to safety, but there's nothing to find.
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Ranko stares at the house that she'd come to love. It had been an annoying run to Juuban and she's glad she changed from the uniform into her overalls as she's roof-hopped a little. It wasn't ladylike, but it was necessary as she had no money. It would have been even less ladylike if she'd been flashing her underwear for all and sundry to see.
It'd taken courage to come here; more than she'd thought she had. It's her last hope, really. Of all the people who knew her, surely her mother. Surely Nodoka would remember her. She's her mother. She gave birth to Ranko, she loves her daughter so, so much that Ranko always feels safe with her, even with their rocky start. Her mother promised she'd always love Ranko.
She's not attended school since the first couple of weeks. Her classmates were getting suspicious anyway, and while she was in the bathroom she overheard teachers talking about how they needed to find her because she wasn't on any system. She'd caught the word 'abused' floating around. So they'd seen the bruises and how thin she was starting to get.
And Akane found out the shameful truth of her homelessness.
She's had her confirmation, anyway. Akane is… Her breath catches. Akane is breathtaking.
She's strong. Strong and wonderful and everything Ranko had hoped she would become, and the redhead's nursing a crush far, far worse than the one she'd had when she was still Ranma. Desperately she wishes she could have gone on that date.
Nabiki, too, is changed. It's subtle, but she's less the ice queen and more simply a gossip queen. Her tricks and information are less malicious, and from rumours she knows that Nabiki helps those who are bullied or need help.
She doesn't know much about Kasumi but given that she'd seen her on that first day dressed fancy and clearly going to a job or class, she's her own person.
She wants to feel happy for them, and underneath it she is, she's so pleased they seem so happy.
But she's not happy, she's miserable. She'd thought she was alone before, now she truly is, and there's something about her that puts people off.
Nerima was hurting her too much to stay in. Familiar streets that were unfamiliar too.
Now she's staring at her mother's house and the auburn-haired woman sweeping up in front of it. After a moment Nodoka looks up and smiles at Ranko and the girl's heart finally shears in two.
There's no recognition in those eyes – they're kind and ladylike and her gentle expression is soothing, but her mother looks on Ranko as a stranger she's never met. Ranko manages a trembling smile and then turns and walks away, her chest ice, her heart broken.
She finds a bench nearby and sits, wrapping her arms around her knees and starting to sob. It hurts. It hurts so much. It's so painful she feels like she's dying, like everything's shattering apart inside her. Why did she make that wish? What kind of evil price is this to ask of someone?
Why did she make the wish when it would hurt so much?
A weight settles on the bench next to her and a gentle arm wraps around her. "There there, young miss, it's alright."
Ranko's head snaps up and she looks into the kind eyes of her mother. Nodoka's brown eyes look into her blue and there's nothing there but the kindness of someone who dislikes seeing people unhappy.
Ranko swears she can hear her heart breaking, shattering, burning, freezing all at the same time. Her breath catches and she can't force another one out, in. Everything's spinning around her and her stomach churns like she's eaten bad apples.
She falls off the bench, scrambling to a nearby trashcan and heaves. She's not eaten for a day or two, and that was a block of instant noodles she got from a vending machine, so all she does is throw up yellowish bile into it, the burning in her throat adding to the gnawing in her belly.
A soft hand pats her back, another pulls her hair out of her face as she heaves and eventually slides down to the floor, head bowed as she breathes heavily, tears splashing onto the ground.
She has to get away.
Nodoka makes soothing noises as the girl with red hair cries, kneeling in front of the bin. She can't understand why such a pretty little thing can cry so horribly; like her heart had been pulled out of her chest, torn and battered. Who has hurt this lovely child so?
Somehow, Nodoka senses it's about her. Something about Nodoka herself has caused the girl to cry – she only reacted when Nodoka looked at her, smiled at her, greeted her. But why?
Nodoka has never seen this girl in her life. She seems oddly familiar, but Nodoka sees a person in need and helps. It's the honourable thing to do, and even if tradition never helped her with her awful ex-husband she still believes in some things.
"It'll be alright, dear. Come on, dry your eyes. Such a pretty young thing as you shouldn't cry so – it's painful to see…"
The crying worsens into a horrible, horrible wailing.
Nodoka can't stand the noise, it's a keening, wounded sound she'd never expected a person to be able to make. She can't imagine what would make someone sound so utterly broken, and it's a noise she hopes never, ever to hear again in her life.
And just as suddenly as it worsened, the girl is gone. There's just an afterimage of her.
Nodoka stares in shock at the empty street she's left kneeling in. The girl is so fast. The backpack she had is gone, too, though she sees some things were left behind in the redhead's hasty escape. A small wallet, looking like a photo wallet and a bentou box. She picks the items up and carries them into her old house.
Opening the bentou she finds it's old and smells musty though there's no food residue in there. It also doesn't look like food's been in there a while and given what the girl was throwing up into the bin outside it's likely she hasn't eaten in a day or two.
"Homeless?"
The girl was a little gaunt and there was a hollowness in her eyes. Something she'd recognised from people like that before.
She picks the wallet up and unzips it. It's a photo wallet, and the first one captures her attention immediately.
That's the girl there, but around her are a family. She looks a little younger, though not by much, and to her shock it's the Tendou family, along with a large panda. She's smiling shyly at the camera, sitting next to Akane. Nabiki stands next to them, and Kasumi behind her. On the other side is the panda bear and Soun, though she notes Kimiko isn't in it – probably taking the photo.
The next few are of the girl and the Tendou family; candid shots; but no Kimiko. She'd have expected Kimiko to be in these if the rest of the Tendou family are. Her family, really. But she is away a lot lately.
She flips a page over and gasps. There's a photograph of her. Well, not exactly her, it's her in full formal getup. Kimono, makeup, hair ornaments. Next to her stands the girl, both of them beaming.
The date written underneath is only a few weeks ago. Nodoka's hands shake as she turns the page over, showing herself still in kimono (though not a formal furisode) with her arms around the girl who's in a white sun dress. They both look happy. The date is the day before that. Underneath is written "Ranko and Nodoka".
The next photo is the girl in a pair of green pyjamas, looking tired and leaning on a large boy with fangs in his mouth. It's obviously a candid shot, though the way it's been taken makes her think she took it.
But she can't have. She can't have taken or been in any of these and yet…
"What on earth is this?" She wonders aloud. "Am I going crazy?" She turns the photos back to the one of her and the girl, and looking closely, she sees their resemblance. The girl looks just like her daughter would have looked, does look in her few dreams of being a mother. Of her dream since she miscarried, and her ex-husband started demeaning her for being unable to have a child.
"Who are you, Ranko?"
She doesn't notice the figure in purple shorts grin with sharp teeth to herself as she moves away from the garden of Nodoka's house, hopping over the wall.
"Whoever fucked my plans up needs addressing." Chirp. "You said it, Bob. Glad I was able to grab that album and leave it there." Chirp. "Yeah, I know, I know. But this'll tickle her brain. I've a feeling I know who messed with that little romance I was building."
Rachel looks up and down the street, sighing as a Youma wanders along, punting it into a wall and proceeding to tie it up for the local magical girls. "Man, these guys just aren't a challenge. I miss daemon fighting."
Chirp.
"No kidding, Bob." Rachel says. "Well, at least we can try to get things back on track. We'll see about getting Akane to find her and I need her Mum to go seek that dumb old woman's advice before I give her this." She flips a bobbin of thread in her hands. "She's gotta accept some stuff before she's ready."
Chirp.
"Yeah you said it."
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Ranko curls up in the small cubby-hole she'd vaulted to; the attic of a long disused shop in the commercial district of Nerima. It's partly open to the elements but no one lives here so she's not taking it from anyone, and it's at least out of the wind and covered.
She's been here a week or so now. Time keeps slipping from her and it's more the next meal to the next meal, sparse as they are. Sometimes she finds money on the floor and she can buy something that quells the clawing pain in her stomach and the headache drilling in her head. Most days she doesn't.
She's avoided going back near her old homes.
Cologne is right, she thinks, Cologne is entirely right. She only ever brings pain. Even now, when no one knows her – she makes her friends lives worse by just being there, making them fret, making them worry.
Staying near them is a mistake.
She only brings pain.
She only ever brought pain, even when she was Ranma.
The evidence is all there if she but looks. Ryouga is happily married with two spouses who clearly adore him as much as he adores them. Xian Pu, Mousse are happy together with Ryouga. The Tendou family is whole, unbroken, Soun being a pillar of the community and his wife too. Kasumi doing a medical degree, Nabiki being someone who almost seems to run the school gossip and social scene.
Ukyou is probably able to be a girl all the time, no loss of honour. She doesn't know if Yuka and Sayuri were going out in the previous version of the world, but if that's changed then it's obviously for the better given how in love they are.
Even her mother, when she remembers how she saw, seems… younger, more vibrant and less lonely. If she's lived with the Tendou family and not spent twelve years alone, waiting for a son that will never come home as he was, then her life can only have been better.
And Akane is…
Akane is beautiful in a way Ranko almost can't describe. Like someone took the rough gem that had been her friend and polished it until it shone. She still has her bad temper and she still has such issues spitting out that she likes someone that it makes Ranko smile, but that pain and that rage are gone. That red and grey, and she's everything a martial artist should be.
Ranko can easily admit to being smitten – it's Akane after all, and she's found she's attracted to strength like that, casual wonderful strength and it's still Akane and she still has lingering feelings from being Ranma. Combined with her own likes it's no surprise she's already fallen in love.
Which is why she has to leave, stay away from her. Akane deserves better. She deserves so, so much better than a girl who doesn't exist, who wished her life away and now is trapped in a hell that never ends.
A girl who brings nothing but pain.
So Ranko, the last remnant of a world wished away, curls up further and cries herself to sleep, gnawing hunger in her belly and abject misery in her heart.
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Oh boy, you ought to leave this town,
Get out while you can, the meter's running out,
The voices in the streets you love,
Everything is better when you hear that sound,
Spineless dreamers, hide in churches,
Pieces of pieces of rush hour buses,
I dream in emails, worn out phrases,
Mile after mile of just empty pages.
This chapter made me cry to write, but it had to be written. I just couldn't not write it. I need this story out of my head or else it lives in there. We're near the nadir of things now.