And it's not what you expected,
The way the world you built loves to cut you down,
The way your head gets twisted,
And you sit up all night trying to figure it out.
And they say; you've made your bed now,
Don't you see you've brought it on yourself?
And they say that you should move on,
But you can't even get your shoes on.
And it's the voices in your head now,
Saying; there's something wrong about,
The way I feel,
A broken link, a missing part, a punctured wheel.
"The Way I Feel" by Keane
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
The sound of a little girl crying pulls Ranko out of her reverie. It's late at night and she's been curled up in the tiny space she's taken most of the day, mostly staring at Ucchan's okonomiyaki.
She drops down into the alley, looking for the sound and eventually finds a scuffed and dirty little girl with black hair, crying next to a bin. There's nothing around, and no one else, but the girl doesn't look too bad. She's scuffed and a little dirty but doesn't look like she's living on the streets.
The girl looks up as the red-haired girl glides down from the roofs, the moon framing her. She brightens and stops crying as Ranko kneels down next to her. She's heard about the nice lady who helps people, and this looks like her. Plus, she's like a ninja!
"Hello." Ranko says, and the girl hears a voice that sounds ethereal and odd, as if it's not used much. Ranko gets a good look at the little girl. She's about six, black hair in twintails and wearing a cute pink ruffled dress. She's clean and well-fed so she's not a vagrant like Ranko. Ranko had expected her to not be pleased to see a stranger like Ranko, but the girl is beaming at her.
"H-hello!" The girl says. "Are you the Angel?"
Ranko looks confusedly at her. "Angel?"
"Yeah!" The girl says excitedly, her predicament forgotten in her excitement. "The Angel of Nerima!"
Ranko shakes her head. "I… didn't know we had an angel."
The girl beams. "They said she has red hair and appears like a ghost from above, just like you did!"
Ranko blushes. She had been helping a lot of people by dropping from the roofs, apparently that was enough for the rumour mill. "A-ah…" She coughs a moment. "…Why were you crying?"
The girl's face falls as if on cue. "I can't find my mama." She whimpers. Ranko looks from left to right and then shakes her head. It's far too late at night – the girl must have been wandering for ages. Why?
"When did you see your mama last?"
"It w-w-was th-this afternoon, a b-b-bad man tried to g-grab me, so I r-r-ran and and I escaped but I d-d-don't know where I ended up!" The girl bawls, grabbing onto Ranko's waist. Ranko shakes her head. She's not exactly clean, but the girl has a death-grip.
Ranko pats the girl's head. "I'm sorry to hear that. What's your name?"
"Ogino M-Miki, Angel-san." The girl says. Ranko smiles down into her blue eyes, very similar to Ranko's own.
"Pleased to meet you, Ogino-chan." Ranko nods. "Well, it's very late, let's see if the police box is manned, shall we? They should be able to help – everywhere else is closed." Miki nods into Ranko's stomach and the redhead gently pushes her away. She offers her hand and Miki takes it in hers. "Though you should be more careful talking to strange people, Ogino-chan."
"But you're not strange, you're the Angel!" Miki says happily. "So, I know you're nice!"
Ranko blushes again and the two set off.
Unfortunately, the police box is closed for the time being and the usual officer who's taken to thanking Ranko for her efforts isn't here at the moment. Ranko sighs. "Well, Ogino-chan, I don't think it's going to be tonight we'll find your mama." She says sadly.
Miki looks crestfallen. "But…"
"It's fine!" Ranko says. "You can stay with me tonight, I have a little attic place you can stay with me, and a bedroll if you don't mind it a bit mucky."
Ranko's not really been taking care of herself – what's the point? Her main thoughts are just to sit and stew in her pain or look for people to help. The end isn't too far away and she's not looking away from it.
Miki brightens at her words, though. "Oh! Okay! I get to stay with Angel-san tonight so that's fine!"
Ranko smiles at the girl and leads her to the alley where her attic is and then picks Miki up. She has to flush more of her chi into her system just to do so, but she leaps straight up into the small hole and pushes Miki through, then crawls in.
Miki makes 'ooh' and 'aah' noises at the dirty, open-to-the-elements attic in which Ranko's sequestered herself. She sits next to Ranko's pack and smiles. "Wow, it's like a secret base!"
Ranko tries to smile at that, at the thought of the hole she'd crawled into to wait for death being some kind of secret superheroine's base. If she wasn't so numb and shattered inside, she might even be able to believe it.
She pulls herself from the swirling black morass her thoughts threaten to lead her into and looks at the little girl who is her charge for tonight.
She sits on the bedroll next to Miki, who is still chattering away, picking up the box with the large okonomiyaki in.
Miki's stomach grumbles as Ranko's does, and Ranko looks down at the box she'd received only this morning from her sister in another life. Miki's a girl with her parents somewhere looking for her. She can go hungry for a while.
Ranko looks at her hands and then the box, then at Miki and then feels a deep shame. She doesn't deserve it anyway.
She opens the box, smiling painfully at the little girl. "Here." She says warmly, holding out a pair of chopsticks that Ukyou had put into it for her. "I hear a grumbly tummy. Best fill it."
Miki takes the box and smells the okonomiyaki. It's cold by now, but it's still Ucchan's and half of it's gone before Miki slows down and smiles happily. "Oh, thank you Angel-san!"
"Call me Ranko." The redhead says, watching the okonomiyaki disappear. Her stomach clenches in on itself. A feeling of wanting to cry breaks into the numbness and she swallows it down, pushing the emotions down. They won't help.
"Don't you want any, Ranko-nee-san?" Miki asks, pausing.
Ranko swallows, trying not to salivate. "I ate earlier." She half-lies.
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Ranko spends most of the night while Miki is awake telling her very heavily edited stories of her time as Ranma. Miki seems to find half of them very funny, though Ranko does take some of the more dangerous elements out and makes them far more fun than they had been.
She seems to like Akane and Ranko smiles at that. "I like Akane too. I've got a friend very much like her who's not quite so bad tempered."
Miki likes that idea, but eventually the stories slow down as Miki tires out and eventually sleeps. Ranko lets her take the bedroll, putting over the ragged sleeping bag and leaning against her pack.
Her stomach hurts again, but the gnawing, biting, clawing ache is a constant companion, as is the headache that feels like someone drilling into her skull. She sits and contemplates her life, and the hell she is in.
"What did I do?" She asks the sky through the hole in the roof. "I made a wish, yes, but everything before? Why do I deserve that? Do even I deserve this?"
Miki grumbles so Ranko shuts up and looks down at her hands. Her skin is filthy – what's the point in bathing, she'll just get dirty again and now she's not at school there's only so much she can do. She winces as she moves, her back sore.
Eventually she falls asleep and dreams of happier times. The dreams are happy but waking to the nightmare existence she lives now is just as awful as the first time she dreamed she was back in her bed in her mother's home. Waking up in the night, she pulls the still-somehow-pristine pyjamas in their plastic wrapping and clutches them to her like a stuffed toy, like a lifeline.
Those dreams can crack through her numbness for a short while.
She's woken by the tapping of small hands and opens her eyes to find Miki staring at her with blue eyes so similar to her own. Miki smiles. "Ranko-nee-chan was sleeping very heavily!"
Ranko blinks and stretches her cricked back, trying to limber herself up. "Good morning, Miki." She says in her soft, disused voice, harsh with not having yet recovered from overuse yesterday.
Miki smiles at her. "Thank you for letting me stay."
"You're welcome." Ranko says as she stands. She pops her head out of the roof-hold and looks to the clocktower nearby. 8AM, so most places are probably starting to open, and the police box should be manned now.
Ranko holds her hand out to Miki, who takes it. Ranko then picks the little girl up and hops out of the hole, keeping her battle aura up to feed chi into her weakening body. She hops over some roofs and then drops down into the street, setting Miki down who now has a bright smile.
"That was so COOL, Ranko-nee-chan! Are you a ninja as well as an angel?!"
Ranko shakes her head. "I'm just Ranko, Miki-chan." She says softly, taking the girl's hand and walking down the street.
The two of them make an odd pair – the girl in the cute, slightly dirty dress as if from playing and the gaunt spectre of a girl with red hair in filthy and ragged overalls. Ranko catches sight of herself in the windows of a shop and looks away immediately. She's not sure why Miki hadn't run away screaming from that hollow-cheeked, blank-eyed nightmare she sees reflected back.
The body reflecting the soul, she supposes. She's felt broken, empty and numb for the whole time she's been here, so why not look like it on the outside?
Miki chatters at her and she makes noises of assent as they turn the corner onto the main street of the industrial district and the sight of the police box. Officer Kanazawa is there as always and he smiles at Ranko. He'd once tried to follow her to where she was, having correctly guessed she was homeless, but she's sneaky and fast enough to evade him.
He won't arrest her while she's useful, she knows, and she plans to make it so he can at least know when she dies, if she gets enough time to let him know.
He eyes her as she approaches with the little girl holding her hand and raises his eyebrow.
"Angel-san." He says. Ranko blushes. He laughs. "I see you heard that name from your little friend?"
Ranko nods. "Y-yes. This is Ogino Miki-chan, Officer Kanazawa-san." She smiles painfully. "She was lost last night, and the box wasn't manned so I had her stay with me."
"Ranko-nee-san has a secret base and everything!" Miki says proudly. "It's so cool!"
The policeman sighs and smiles at Ranko. "Glad you found her; I know her mother's been having kittens. She had wondered if Ogino-chan here had wandered into the industrial and commercial district. If you two sit down, I'll let her mother know so she can pick her up."
Ranko nods, sitting heavily on the nearby bench with Miki, exhausted already. Miki chatters away and Ranko tries to interact until a voice speaks in shock.
"M-Miki? MIKI!" There's a rustle of cloth as a blur picks the little girl up and crushes her to its chest.
Ranko recognises a mother seeing her daughter and moves off the bench to give them some space. She watches as the mother alternately scolds and praises the girl for running away from the bad men but too far, and for trusting a stranger.
"But Mama, she's the Angel of Nerima, not a stranger!" Miki protests, and the woman turns, her blue eyes like her daughter's zeroing in on Ranko. The woman smiles at her.
"Thank you, Angel-san."
"Ranko."
Miki's mother looks over the girl, noting she can't be out of high-school age yet. She takes in the filthy and damaged clothes, the half-wrecked footwear and the girl's hollow eyes that contain a pain she can't even understand. Not to mention how scarecrow-thin the girl is.
"Thank you, Ranko. For looking after my daughter and bringing her back to me safe. How can I repay you?"
Ranko shakes her head. "I didn't do it for payment, Ogino-san." She says softly.
Officer Kanazawa nods. "She never asks for the rewards we offer or takes them, Ogino-san so it's probably best to let it lie."
"But…"
Ranko shrugs. "It's the right thing to do, and I can at least do some good with my life if I help. Goodbye."
Ranko leaps onto a nearby roof and slips out of sight and Miki waves while her mother looks on in amazement.
Officer Kanazawa chuckles. "She does that. It's one reason she's also known as the 'Ghost of Nerima', at least to the idiot yakuza or gang members that come around here causing trouble.
Miki beams. "Ranko-nee-san is so cool!"
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Akane sits in class and growls, frustratedly, to herself. She's been out at least once a week, looking for her friend. But it's like the girl's a ghost. No one knows who she is, she doesn't exist on anything formal. Even Nabiki cannot find her.
It's like she never existed – she'd have said that she'd been lying about her name, but for the fact that Ranko responded to her name instinctively.
She sighs as she finishes class for the day and heads out of the school to walk home with Yuka and Sayuri, who both seem as down as she is.
"Still no luck?" Yuka asks, squeezing her girlfriend's hand.
Akane shakes her head. "No. I think I'm going to stop."
Sayuri looks at her sadly. "Really?"
Akane nods morosely. "Really." She says softly. She scrubs at her eyes. "I don't know. I just… It's been three months. If she was starving before, she's probably… you know."
Yuka's face falls. "Oh, I hope not. She seemed so nice."
Akane sighs and nods. "She was. She seemed to like hearing about my family, like she enjoyed hearing about people being happy."
The three of them are silent the rest of the walk until Akane turns to her home's gate. "You two lovebirds take care."
Yuka and Sayuri nod and walk off, while Akane makes her way to the genkan and changes her shoes. Kimiko smiles at her softly. "Good evening, Akane dear. Not looking tonight?"
"I… think I'm going to stop." Akane admits. Kimiko sighs.
"I thought this would come. I'm sorry, dear. I hope wherever she is, she's happy."
Akane nods. "Me too, Mom." She says, giving her mother a hug. "Me too."
She's eating her dinner at the table with her family when the feeling comes over her. A strange, nagging, tugging feeling. She tries to ignore it and finish her dinner, but while she's breaking bricks it comes again. Akane frowns. As a martial artist of some skill, she knows better than to ignore her senses.
She walks into the house, looking around. Kimiko's baking a batch of cookies and Kasumi's sat at the table in the kitchen with her laptop out doing some work and idly chatting to her mother.
"Akane?"
Akane ignores them, looking through the house. The tugging feeling leads her to the genkan, and she wonders a moment. Then she looks behind her at Kimiko, who stands there with her hands full of a mixing bowl. "Go on, dear. One last time." Her mother smiles at her encouragingly. "You know how I've always told you to follow your instincts and I can see something's grabbing you."
Akane nods, slips her shoes on and runs out the house, following the feeling.
"Hey, Akane Tendou-san, right?"
Akane stops and stares at the girl that had just appeared in front of her. She's western by her looks, and stands taller than Akane's height, probably about 5 feet 8 or 9. Her skin's practically translucent it's so pale, and her veins stand out as they're almost completely black and purple. Purple eyes stare into Akane's brown, and the girl grins with sharp teeth.
"Um… Yes?"
The girl's smile grows wider. "Hi! I'm Rachel, Rachel Turner." She hefts the thing in her arms, which appears to be a tiny shoggoth. It chirps. "This is-" She makes a noise for two minutes solid that sounds like a dial-up modem connecting. "…But I call him Bob for short. I'm a magical girl."
"You're a magical girl." Akane's tone is flat and Rachel laughs.
"Yep! Don't fuckin' look like one but trust me. Transformation sequence and everything! Anyway, you're looking for that cute redhead, Ranko, right?"
Akane stares and then nods. "…Yeah. How do you know?"
"Magical girl stuff." Rachel laughs and puts Bob on her head, the little thing curling into a bucket hat and appearing to go to sleep. Rachel sticks her hands in the front pocket of her purple hoodie, but not before Akane can see the purple crystal talons where her fingernails should be. "Technically I'm "Magical Girl Desco-Chan. I fuse with Bob here and become a tentacly… monster girl, I guess. It's really fuckin' weird looking so don't ask me to do it without reason out here with the normies."
Akane looks confused but then shrugs. "Alright. I hope your skirt isn't too short. It's nice to see it in manga but real life…"
Rachel grimaces. "It's no Sailor Scout outfit but trust me, being a tentacly monster girl is bad enough for the jokes. Anyway!" She brightens. "Kicking demon arse is great fun!" She shrugs and then looks serious. "But you were looking for her, right?"
"Yeah." Akane says. "She just… disappeared."
"She didn't want to be a burden on anyone. Personally, I think she's being fucking stupid but what do I know? I'm only three hundred years old and dealt with guys with low self-esteem like her most of that time."
"Three… hundred?"
"What? Oh, yeah. Don't ask. Anyway, sorry. Always was easily distracted. Ranko. Poor kid, she woke up a new person and was barely formed when she made her wish. We told her there'd be consequences but she's a stubborn little thing." Rachel laughs, "Impressively stubborn. Buuuut also has all the self-esteem of a dead gnat so eh. Anyway, you heard of the 'ghost of Nerima' or the 'Angel of Nerima'?"
"It's her?"
"Bingo!" Rachel grins. "She's staying in the commercial district at the moment, though she did wander around a bit. Even fought a couple of Youma that started bothering her, though she never starts the fights I'd noticed."
Akane starts as if to run and Rachel smiles at her, waving. "Go get 'er, tiger."
The magical girl watches the short-haired girl run off and plucks her chibi-shoggoth from her head. "I think she'll be fine, Bob." Chirp, "Yeah, well, this Akane doesn't seem to be too hung up on things. Maybe they'll finally fuckin' get together this time. And if not, she'll be with her family again." Chirp chirp. "Yeah. Well, I just hope the poor kid's not entirely gone. To still be cooking in your personality and then to not exist… Eeesh." Chirp. "We've done all we can. Already not looking forwards to the convo with the bureaucracy, you know how those idiots are."
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Three months.
It's been three months, Ranko finds, and somehow she's survived on water and the little food she's able to scrounge or that she's occasionally been handed on the few times that Konatsu's managed to catch her. The kunoichi doesn't seem to be quite as skilled as she had been before, and Ranko wonders if it's because Ukyou maybe rescued her early?
Either way there have been occasions where she's had to shake the persistent girl after having had a small okonomiyaki dumped into her lap when she sits on a bench.
Somehow, it's let her survive this long, but she's starting to feel it more and more and she sees the girl less and less. Her battle aura is harder to call up, her chi sluggish, her movements not as quick, and it turns out that when you fight gang members who somehow have guns, that that slowness can stop you in your tracks.
She's caught off-guard by a trio of idiots who come to the alley she was vaulting to her attic from and is surrounded quickly. She calls up her battle aura and it flickers in her vision, and she knows that this is real danger. She's past the point where she can trust her speed, especially with the one who has a gun pointing it right at her.
She frowns at them, shaking her head, the much longer pigtail of her hair brushing her back. "G-gentlemen. This is a mistake." She says softly, trying to spook them.
The fight is brutal and short, and she finds herself hitting them harder than she normally would, trying to get their pressure points, but they get their own hits in, which has been happening more and more often.
She staggers back as she drops two of them, then the click of the pistol in the last one's hand brings her to look at him. He points it at her and his finger squeezes on the trigger.
Akane, running through the district, hears a struggle that tells her there's a fight going on, and she rounds the corner to an alleyway as there's a loud 'crack' and a small burst of light in the darkening evening. She gasps at what she sees.
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
A/N: I really am an evil person for cliff-hangers. But here comes the sun.