If only I don't bend and break,
I'll meet you on the other side,
I'll meet you in the light.
If only I don't suffocate,
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake.
Bitter and hardened,
Oh, aching, waiting for life to start,
Meet me in the morning when you wake up,
Meet me in the morning then you'll wake up.
- "Bend and Break" by Keane
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Akane's walking down the street when a voice calls to her. "Miss! Excuse me, miss!"
She turns and spots a man moving through the crowd, waving at her. Stopping nearby she notes he looks familiar. "Can I help?" She asks politely.
The man smiles. He's dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks and has an air of authority about him. He pauses to catch his breath and then nods once he straightens up. "Thank you. You can indeed! My name is Kanazawa Akira. I'm…"
"Tendou Akane. You're the police officer from the box near where I found Ranko!" Akane says, smiling back. "Thank you for your assistance."
"I did very little besides process those thugs." He says modestly. "But I recognised you and wanted to know – how is she doing?"
Akane sighs. "She's recovering, Kanazawa-san. Slowly. She almost starved to death."
Akira goes pale. "She did?" He curses a moment to himself. "I was going to find her as she looked ill, drag her to my family's home and feed her but she kept escaping. I'm sorry." He bows low to Akane who looks flustered.
"N-no, it's fine, I w-was looking for her!" She stammers. "I'm just glad I got to her in time… She's still very unwell and… In a bad place."
Akira sighs. "She didn't accept help whenever I offered it."
Akane blushes. "I didn't give her the option. I also made her promise to stay with my family at least until she's better."
Akira nods. "Good. Anyway, I'm glad to hear she's recovering even if it's rocky."
Akane bites her lip. "Why was she called the 'Angel of Nerima'?"
Akira laughs embarrassedly. "She spent three months cleaning up thugs. First night it happened to me I was in the box and this tiny little redhead drops four yakuza goons stupid enough to come into Nerima in front of the box, pressure-point paralysed. They'd been assaulting a woman. She just smiled at me and then jumped what seemed about thirty feet into the air onto the nearby roof."
"…She did that to me when she wasn't so bad, so I know the feeling." Akane smiles.
Akira laughs. "Well, she kept doing it and got quite the reputation. And a growing pile of reward money for some of the things she did. She rescued a lady's little girl, too, looked after her for the evening. Her and a few others gave some money and there's the usual reward money waiting."
Akane perks up. "Oh?"
"She wouldn't take it but at the station we thought when she needed it, she'd come, so we put it all aside for her."
The short-haired girl smiles. "I see. Well, my auntie's adopting her into her clan, so I guess we can get her to take it."
"Well, let me know when she's recovering enough to see people, there's a lot of folks want to thank her."
Akane looks at him. "…Really?"
"Oh, yes. She's generated a lot of goodwill. I'll be glad to pass along good tidings, people kept asking after her."
Akane's smile is wide. "Kanazawa-san, I have an idea…" She leans in and starts describing it and he lights up.
"I think we can do that, Tendou-san."
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Ranko sits against the wall of the dojo, watching Soun teach. She'd never seen this in all the time she'd been Ranma; but then really, in that version of the world he'd died about the same time his wife had. Here she's watching the younger class and she sees what a waste losing his wife made of him.
Soun is good. And she knows it. She would be too if she weren't recovering from starvation and her ki levels weren't catastrophically low.
He's not just good at the Art, he's a good teacher as well. The kids are eager, willing to learn and he supports them. What interests Ranko is how Kimiko helps out or occasionally, Akane.
Soun doesn't seem to have the attitude that a girl can't teach or take the Art seriously he had in the old world (she suspects Kimiko might have killed him otherwise), and it's clear Akane is much, much better than she was. Well, she reasons, it was less that a girl can't practice the art so much as inherit the school.
She wonders what happened to Happosai here for a moment before realising she doesn't care as long as he isn't around.
The children look at her and she grimaces to herself, looking away. She still looks a fright, she knows. It's kind of Soun to let her watch when she knows she's scary looking. A spectre, gaunt and emaciated.
She leans back, exhausted suddenly, and closes her eyes. When she opens them, it's to Soun gently shaking her shoulder and she blinks stupidly at him a moment, the fog in her brain eventually clearing.
"…Sorry." She says softly. "I fell asleep and I was supposed to watch…"
Soun smiles at her in a fatherly way, and with a pang she suddenly misses her own father terribly. Genma was hardly a good person, never mind a good father, but she can at least attribute most of his actions to well-meaning stupidity or selfish greed rather than outright malice. She wonders if Soun knows what happened to him in this world. Her mother won't tell her for now, she says to concentrate on getting better.
Ha. Getting better. Ranko knows she'll never really recover from what's happened to her. Yes, her body might fill back out until she looks like she used to but that stain on her soul, that black morass of isolation will never leave her. It haunts her even now, threatening to drag her into back into the pit of darkness.
It squirms in the pit of her spirit, writhing and disgusting and slippery.
She still finds it hard to care. What's the point? Once she's physically better and discharged her promise to Akane, she can find a hole no one will ever find her in and wait for the end then. Maybe then she can atone.
She belatedly realises Soun is talking to her and drags herself back to the present. She blinks and he shakes his head, then helps her to stand.
"My apologies." She says in her quiet voice, "I drifted away a moment again. What did you say, Tendou-san?"
Soun smiles at her again. "Call me 'Uncle', Ranko-chan. And I said that I cannot wait to see you spar when you're better. Akane told me she's seen you move so fast."
Ranko sighs. "Perhaps Ten- Uncle." She mumbles. She totters towards the door, legs still weak even after the time she's recovered and Soun follows on, sighing as she nearly falls over.
"Perhaps you should watch the next class before heading inside, Ranko-chan." He says gently. He pulls a cushion out, setting it against the wall and lets her sit on that so she's at least comfortable. He also pulls a large towel to cover herself with.
She leans against the wall and closes her eyes. A moment, an eternity later she opens them to see children filtering in – a younger group than the last one, kids about six. She sees Kimiko and Akane make their way into the dojo, Akane first walking over to Ranko and sitting by her, taking her hand and squeezing it once. Ranko doesn't say anything back, but she at least nods to Akane. A small bottle is pressed into the redhead's hands – it's been filled with that sweet drink she's been given lately.
Kimiko looks over and has a short discussion with Soun, shaking her head, but Ranko's distracted by an excited voice before she can overhear.
"Ranko-nee-chan!"
A black-haired, blue-eyed blur runs over and throws its arms around Ranko
"M-Miki-chan?" Ranko asks in her quiet voice and the little girl nods from where she's wrapped her arms around Ranko.
"Yes! You look sick, Ranko-nee-chan, are you OK?"
Ranko looks helplessly at Akane who smiles gently at the little girl. "Miki-chan, was it? Ranko-chan's been sick, but she's getting better."
Miki looks at Akane from where she's buried her head in the crook of Ranko's neck and her eyes widen.
"Are you Akane-san?"
Akane looks taken aback a moment, but then she nods. "I am."
Miki brightens. "Ranko-nee-chan told me all sorts of stories about someone named Akane!" She beams and then asks in a loud whisper, "Is she your girlfriend?"
Akane goes bright red as Ranko blinks. They both clear their throats and stammer answers until Miki's mother comes across. She smiles at the redhead in warm surprise.
"Ranko-san, I didn't expect to see you here. Thank you again, so much, for looking after my Miki."
Ranko's eyes flick from the little girl still hugging her to the girl's mother and nods. Miki stands and wanders over with Akane at Soun and Kimiko's call for the class to get to order.
"You're welcome, Ogino-san." Ranko says. Her head cants to one side. "Why did you come here today?" She asks, watching as Miki warms up in a tiny and cute gi, along with the rest of the class.
"I wanted Miki to learn to defend herself, and she was rabbiting on about martial arts after she met you." Miki's mother laughed, "She was very taken with your stories. When I saw the name 'Tendou Akane' on the list of assistants I knew it had to be this dojo. You really inspired her with all those stories, Ranko-san."
Rank blushes. "O-oh." She says. "I don't think I did all that much, Ogino-san."
"Please," Miki's mother says, "Call me Kaname."
"…I only looked after her for a night, Kaname-san." Ranko says, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "She wasn't any trouble."
"Well, you left an impression. I kept looking for you, you know?"
"Why?"
"Because, Ranko-san, you seemed very alone, and you were obviously starving. And you aren't doing too well are you, even now?"
Ranko sighs. "I am… recovering slowly. I don't know why she rescued me, but I was so close to being done."
Kaname is silent for a short while before leaning back and watching her daughter go through katas with Akane. Ranko watches her friend move and the martial artist in her approves of how gentle and yet strict she is with the younger, promising students.
"I've been where you are now, Ranko-san." Kaname admits quietly. "Perhaps not as far, perhaps not as deep into the despair but I have been at that point where it just seemed better off I wasn't there."
Ranko looks over in shock. "What?"
"Miki's father was… Is… not a nice man. He played mind games. Liked to destroy people, reduce them. I think the sick waste of a man found that power intoxicating. He did it to me, and then at the worst possible time, with Miki a toddler, he beat me and left us." Ranko reached over and took Kaname's hand in her tiny, now-bony one at seeing the unshed tears standing there in Kaname's eyes as she thinks on old pain. "I don't just tell anyone, but you rescued my baby. I can recognise when someone is in that same, dark place; and you took care of my daughter for no reward save the work itself."
Ranko shrugs. "I don't do things for a reward. I don't deserve rewards, doing such things is just the right thing to do before I go." The matter of fact tone in which the red-haired girl says it cuts deep into Miki's mother.
Kaname sighs. "I nearly ended it so many times but… I'd look at Miki. So innocent. So small and yet full of nothing but love for me." She says, watching her daughter move with a smile. "And… You don't have a child. Not yet, but you have your friend there. She cares for you."
Ranko sighs. "For all the good it brings. All I do is cause pain."
"I used to think that too. And it's a hard pit to climb out of." Kaname smiles at Ranko. "But I just think of living for Miki. And for me, living for myself took time, and it slips sometimes. But you can heal."
Ranko pulls her knees to her chest. She doesn't say anything, but Kaname takes her hand and squeezes it. "Think on that, Ranko-chan." She says gently, squeezing the hand again. Ranko doesn't reply but she does uncoil again and start drinking from the bottle Akane had brought to her.
Kaname purses her lips as she recognises what the fluid is, one designed for children who were recovering from starvation. Ranko finds a card in her other hand and looks at it. It has the phone number and address of Kaname's house.
"You're welcome any time, Ranko-chan." Ranko looks up at the second time the honorific changes and Kaname smiles at her. "And you can even bring your girlfriend." Her eyes twinkly.
Ranko starts and then goes as red as her hair. "She isn't my… I-I mean, we're n-not… Um… I d-don't des…" She sighs softly, looking down, and then looks back up. "Y-you don't… mind that I l-like her? I kn-know people are f-funny…"
Kaname shrugs with a smile. "Miki's stepmother is a lovely woman. She really helped me to pull myself out of the hole I was in. What I'd do without my Akemi-chan I don't know." She winks conspiratorially at Ranko. "Maybe when those magical girls get the marriage law through the Diet they're trying to do, we'll be able to marry as a double ceremony?"
Ranko blushes. "I-I…"
Kaname pats her hand. "She cares for you a great deal, Ranko-chan. And I know you do her. But here's some advice I think might help. Talk with her about it, but don't do anything while you're recovering physically. You need to focus on getting better."
Ranko sighs. "I'll… I'll try, Kaname-san." She says as her head leans back and exhaustion overtakes her again.
She misses the class ending, and the tiny arms that squeeze her, and a tiny kiss on her cheek wishing her goodnight.
Waking up with her head on her mother's lap in the family room, Ranko blinks stupidly a moment before her mother gently shakes her and asks if she wants a bath.
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Ranko sits on the stool in the furo, staring blankly at the wall while her mother gently scrubs her back.
"Ranko dear, it looks like your skin's getting better." Nodoka comments as she runs the cloth down. She doesn't comment on the ribs, still standing out so starkly, or the hips, or that there are still sores and blotches.
She doesn't mention how scared it makes her when Ranko just stares at nothing, her mind lost somewhere dark and cold and terrible. She's always scared that wherever she goes in her mind, Ranko won't come back, won't come home. That or can't.
Nodoka bites her lip to choke back a sob. Her daughter, her baby is so thin and broken and she doesn't know what to do. She feels like a failure, even though rationally she knows it isn't her fault.
Ranko hears the choke and turns, seeing tears running down her mother's face. She feels guilt. Guilt for doing this to herself, guilt that her mother suffered for her. What kind of daughter is she, to inflict such pain?
More examples of Cologne being right.
She tries reaching for her mother but only manages to slip off the stool. When her mother doesn't move, she struggles onto her knees and moves to embrace Nodoka, though it's more akin to slumping over her. Why is she so weak, still?
"Don't cry, Mother." She pleads. "Don't. You shouldn't cry."
Nodoka pulls in great heaving sobs and wraps her arms around her daughter, burying her face in Ranko's hair. "I f-failed you."
Ranko's head shakes. "N-no Mother, I failed m-me." She says, shuddering. "I-I'm… I'm so sorry."
Nodoka holds her as they both sit in the bath. Part of Ranko wonders if she's too old for this kind of comfort from her mother, but the rest of her relishes the closeness. They don't speak until Nodoka hesitatingly cups Ranko's chin and lifts her daughter's eyes to meet her own. She takes in a deep breath and prepares for a potentially bad fight with her daughter.
"Ranko, I'm going to take you to a friend of Toufu-kun's, okay?" Nodoka asks. "She's… a therapist. I think she'll… she'll be good for you." Ranko looks away, shame in her face and Nodoka's grip tightens. Ranko's blues snap back to her mother's eyes. "There is no shame in needing help, daughter." Nodoka says softly. "And don't you think you need it?"
"But I don't des-" Nodoka's face tightens.
"Ranko, that is not for you to decide. Whether you are deserving of our love and our care or not is not your decision to make, nor should it be. Do I deserve love in your eyes?"
"Y-yes, but you're…"
"That's your judgement, is it not? I don't tell you I don't deserve your love, do I?"
"No… B-but… I f-failed…"
"Ranko." Nodoka's voice is firm, controlled, a hint of anger there. Ranko flinches. "You have failed no one. What you have done is selfless. So very selfless and so very stupid. But it's done, and you cannot take it back. You can continue to wallow in the regret, or you can try to move forward. The choice is yours, but wallowing will only push everyone away."
Ranko heaves a long sigh. She knows her mother won't be swayed. "Yes, Mother." She says in shame. "I'm sorry."
Nodoka brushes her hair from her face. "Don't be sorry, dear." She smiles. "Get better. For me if not yourself. I love you."
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
Tendou Akane isn't a stupid young woman. She's not a meathead as her next older sister implies about martial artists. She considers herself clever enough to work hard and get excellent grades.
Piece by piece she's trying to put together the puzzle of Ranko. The photos, the album, Ranko's odd connection to her, how neatly she seems to slot into the household, as if she'd been there before for enough time to become part of the furniture. Part of the spirit of the house.
And what she'd overheard during the reunion of her Auntie Nodoka and Ranko…
"My baby, I forgot you, everyone forgot you, how could we? Why did you do it?"
She's starting to think that something in the world had changed, something big, or someone had made everyone forget the redhead. She doesn't know how anyone could – when she'd first met Ranko she'd realised that the girl was something special. Especially with that hair, and again there was that connection.
She knows whatever happened must have been self-inflicted. Ranko's mumbled, delirious words when she rescued her clued her in on that. And in the hospital, thinking on it.
"I made my wish, and I gave being a person up."
Akane isn't Nabiki. Her older sister is like a dog with a bone when a mystery arises, and she wouldn't leave it alone. But Akane pays attention and she has information Nabiki does not. Akane's thought processes are a little slower, more patient than her elder sister's, and she listens. She has to after learning the lessons young from her mother. She can still be impatient, but Kimiko had tempered that with thoughtfulness.
She surmises her thoughts as she's pumping iron that night. "We know Ranko. She knows us. Auntie Nodoka is definitely her mother, especially by blood, but we don't know who the father is unless it's her ex-husband."
She makes a few reps before dropping the weights to the floor of her room and lying back on her bed. Ranko had gone to take a bath, and when she imagines it, she doesn't imagine the current version of her friend, emaciated, gaunt, but healthy and beautiful and… Akane shakes her head. Fantasising isn't productive right now, even if it's very tempting. She blushes and moves her thoughts along.
"Ranko made a wish. She says she made a wish and gave being a person up. So that wish made her no longer exist as a person? Auntie Nodoka didn't lie about her miscarriage, but someone can't just… materialise out of thin air." She pauses. "Then again, I didn't think someone could make a wish and erase themselves so…" Akane mumbles to herself. "So, the question is… why? Why do something so drastic?"
She can't think of anything that would be worth the price, or that would cost that to begin with. Ranko paying that price she can absolutely see happening, even if it wasn't obvious that it had happened. All she has to do is think back to that little girl Ranko had rescued, Miki-chan. Miki had said that Ranko had given her a big okonomiyaki, and she'd not eaten any for herself. That parsed in with what Akane had already seen – Ranko's self-worth was less than nothing, and she'd give anything of herself to someone else because she felt she deserved it less.
Stumped, she stands up and walks downstairs to see if the furo's empty as right now she really needs a bath. She'd gone a bit overboard with the training this afternoon, needing to process her thoughts. Akane always thought better when working out.
She does like Ranko, she knows that, she feels it. But she knows how badly damaged Ranko must be.
Her father is right, she needs to go into anything with Ranko with her eyes open, and that includes the damage that seems to have cracked the redhead's heart more than it already was when she first met her.
Stripping her clothes off outside, she slides the door open to see Ranko and Nodoka in the bath, Ranko sleeping in her mother's arms. The amount of time Ranko spends out of it worries Akane frantic. Surely by now she'd have more energy? It's been a few weeks.
Maybe it's something to do with her ki?
Nodoka looks up and presses a finger to her lips but indicates the bath. "Room for one more, Akane-chan." She whispers.
Akane flushes, but she's used to sharing the baths with her family, so she cleans herself down on the stool before slipping into the bath on the other side from Nodoka and her daughter.
"Her skin's looking a bit better." Akane says softly.
"Yes, though she's always tired and still semi-catatonic half of the time." Nodoka looks at the girl sadly, her eyes full of love and worry. "Soun told me she zoned out several times in the middle of a conversation, as well as when watching you assist him with teaching earlier. I'd hoped that most of that was behind us but…"
Akane sighs. "I think… we'll have to let her find herself at her own pace, Auntie."
Nodoka smiles and nods. "Yes. Well, you'll have to forgive me for being a little impatient for my child to be well again dear." Ranko stirs slightly and Nodoka reluctantly lets the barely-coherent girl sit against the wall on her own, blue eyes staring at the opposite wall, not seeming to see anything. "I've told Ranko about sending her to Mitaka-sensei. I assume Soun and Kimiko have advised you it's best you go along too?"
Akane nods. "Yeah. I've been thinking – even if I don't need therapy myself, Mitaka-sensei can help me deal with Ranko in the best way to support her."
Ranko looks over at Akane, then back to the wall. Her gaze narrows in thought. "Thank you." She eventually says, closing her eyes for a moment, then stands shakily, stepping out of the tub and picking a towel up.
Akane tries not to stare and instead focuses on the wall. Her idle fantasy from earlier pops up in her head, but she squashes it down and is reminded how bad Ranko still is physically when she catches sight of how thin she still is.
"You're welcome." Akane manages after a few moments of awkward silence. "You'd do it for me."
Ranko nods and manages to get out of the furo and dress in her nightgown. The red-haired girl puts her head in, staring at the wall a little to the left of Akane's head. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Ranko-chan." Akane says, smiling at her friend.
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
A/N: I'm not sure when the next chapter is going to be, but happy halloween!
Madoka references like woah! (Also kind of accidental too)
I'll be working on a NaNoWriMo project for most of November up to 18/11 (hopefully finishing by then) and then likely busy at least a week with FFXIV: Endwalker but I'll see about updating isomething/i in that time.
As always, comments and yelling at me feed the needy idiot at the keyboard that is me!