Ranma ½

I Saw a Light Shining and Thought of You.

A R1/2 and GGX/XX crossover. I own none of the characters, so do not try to get any money from me. Another installment, I think I'll try to keep this series down to five or less pages, a little more manageable. This segment actually goes back in time to take a look at what happened to a certain couple during the time between chapter one of this story and the last chapter of the previous story. Do not worry it will join the first chapter eventually. And so here we go.

Chapter 2: I Was a Little Lost Boy When I Found You

He was really annoyed right now, not that this was an emotion that was not uncommon to him. In fact he was annoyed quiet a lot, recently he had been almost constantly in this state for one reason or another. Now the current cause of his annoyance was the fact that he was lost, which also was not unusual for him. What was unusual for him was the fact that he did not have anyone to blame for his current state. He had just become lost and there was no real reason for it, he was not angry at anyone, he was not trying to find the bathroom, he did not even have a map that he could misread. The only thing that caused him to be lost right now was the fact that he had lost the only man who had ever been close to being his friend, they had been rivals for such a long time.

It had been just a month ago and he could still remember the scene when he had arrived. That was the first time he had ever seen something so unbelievable, there was the Ultimate Gear laying dead in front of him, and across from the Gear was a man that he had always thought invincible laying on the ground. From where he stood he could see blood spreading out from his body and turning the snow around him to a steaming slush of red before the cold froze it once again. On top of the man was a woman that he had wanted to kill at first but those feelings had died down. Now he felt a stab of pain through his heart when he saw her laying on top of him, yelling at him, begging him to stay with her. He wanted to help but there was nothing he could do against death, for all of their strength, neither man was immortal, nor did they believe they were. Slowly he walked up to her, feeling a sense of disbelief with every step, despite the scene he wanted this to be a dream, this was not true, it could not be.

As he came near her she looked up at him with hateful tear filled eyes, those eyes that always hurt him, "I suppose you want to kill me. Go ahead and do it then, I know how much you hate my kind. I have no reason to live now. So just go ahead!"

The man felt regretful, he certainly hoped it came across in how he looked, she was still unaware that he had changed, "No."

And there it was, her stunned silence, tears came and she could not comprehend what he said, "You hate me so much you want me to live with my pain then, you do not want me to take the easy way out."

"You are incorrect," He said quietly, "He loved you, I loved someone once also, actually two people, it was very interesting in those days. I found out how easy it is to lie to yourself to make your own reality for yourself. There is no way I could kill you, because if I did that he would have died for nothing."

She dried her tears and looked down at the dead man's body, the blood was starting to turn dark, "Why? I did not have to be this way."

"Such are the words of those who don't understand life and death," the man said, "I said those same words a long time back, I was a bit younger then, still I have found no answer for such a question. Life goes on around you and you would like to stop and take a breather but before you can you get old and realize that you have wasted you're life. No matter how much you wish you could change things, the past is the past and the future is the future. Try to change either and what will happen?"

He knelt down and helped her stand from her position next to the body, she weakly accepted his help, "I know what you're saying, but he was always reckless, I should have been there to stop him, to help him think."

"And what would that accomplish?" Ryouga asked, "Do you know the consequences of any action you take. Sure you can guess, that's all anyone can do without knowing all of the changes to come."

The man knelt down at picked up a rock and he tested the weight twisting it around between his fingers and he continued to lead her towards where everyone was waiting for them. He had always been good at philosophy, that was his strong suit, he was never a genius in the art but he understood the technical side very well. It made up for the natural ability that he lacked, Ranma had that ability and that was why he was so good. Unfortunately it made him too overconfident for his own good, and that had what had been his downfall in the end. Of that Ryouga had no doubt, he had known the man long enough to know that if Ranma thought someone was down then he would let his guard down just enough to get a hit in. None of them had been fatal until now, he had been that lucky through his life, always when it came to the art. When it came to dealing with people, that was a totally different story. He stopped suddenly and brought the rock he was holding up in front of the face of the girl he was leading.

"See this rock," Ryouga said, and she nodded, "I can throw this with enough force to kill an animal," Ryouga closed his fist around the rock and turned in a random direction, "If I throw this rock here, where there is nothing around what do you think I will hit? An animal? Nothing? Can you say for sure?"

She seemed to be thinking about what he was trying to say, "There is nothing around to hit."

Ryouga threw the rock and suddenly a dear jumped from behind a tree, the rock struck the animal dead on and caused it to stumble and fall, "That was a lot of nothing there. You get what I'm saying."

Dizzy stared at the animal as it tried to get back to its feet and started to go to it when Ryouga grabbed her arm, "Let go, I have to help it."

"What would you do?" Ryouga asked quietly, "You said there was nothing around and I cast the stone, aren't you to blame for this. Or am I the one to blame?"

The blue haired girl looked back at him in shock, "You said 'I should have been there to stop him' but what would that have changed? You can sit around and think of all that could have, would have, should have been, but the fact remains that nothing will change from that. The only thing we can do is learn and hope that we recognize the signs when it happens again."

Slowly the deer regained its feet and ran off as the two of them started to walk once again, "So are you able to just move on as if nothing happened?"

The man ran a hand through his black hair and adjusted his yellow and black bandanna, "No, I doubt anyone ever could, to just move on would be inhuman and I don't consider you or me that. All I'm saying is for you to greave and accept what has happened is fine, just don't do it forever. I don't want to see you like that and I know Ranma will not want to see you like that."

The woman looked at him in surprise, "You say this as if he's still alive."

Ryouga shrugged, "Dizzy, I have a question, do you believe in a soul?"

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," the woman answered in a tone that was unsure of itself.

The man sighed and looked off into the distance, his green eyes perceiving the building that everyone was waiting in standing in front of them. He was not sure how to explain such a thing, it was of a corporeal nature and was thusly hard to explain. It was not a ghost of a person, it was something like an idea, but even that was not right. For those who already knew what a soul was it was easy to make these comparisons, but to explain it to someone who had no idea what one was, that was difficult.

"I can't really explain what a soul is," Ryouga admitted, "It's like the essence of a person. You can't see it, but it's their in all things, it's what makes each one of us different. Whether you believe in it or not, part of Ranma's essence, his soul, has been left in you. All of those memories you still have of him, that's his soul. It's the love he had for you so that you will not be lonely, he would want you to move one, he does not like to see you sad. He never liked to see anyone he cared for sad. He put all of this weight on his shoulders so that others are not hurt. You get what I'm saying?"

The woman looked thoughtful for a second before she nodded, "I believe so, you're saying that a part of him is in me, but where in me?"

Ryouga stopped and turned to her, pointing a finger at the left side of her chest where her heart beat, "This is going to be a little cliché, but he is in here, you're heart."

"And this part of him wants me to stop hurting and be happy, right?" Dizzy said.

The man in the bandanna nodded once silently as the two of them continued walking into the building where everyone was waiting, "Yes, that is what I'm saying, I know him well enough to know what he would want for you. Be strong and live, that is what he desires of you."

"I see, thank you, Ryouga," Dizzy said as she bowed to him and turned towards a corridor where her room was.

"You're welcome," The man said before he turned with a sigh and hung his head, "This is the last favor I do for you Saotome, I hope to meet you later on the other side."

A woman with pink hair in a ponytail behind her head and a scar over one eye that drew it shut walked up to him, "I take it you had a good talk, huh?"

He looked up and shook his head, "I really don't feel like talking about it."

"I didn't exactly ask you're permission," the woman retorted.

Ryouga snarled in her direction and pointed a finger in the woman's face, "Leave me the hell alone. Who the hell do you think you are, just leave me the hell alone!"

The woman grabbed the front of his yellow shirt and drew him close to her, "I'm someone who has seen a hell of a lot people I care for die. Just like you, don't be so conceited as to think you're the only one who's lost people."

Ryouga was about to yell back at her when he realized suddenly that she was right about what she said. He suddenly felt tired, very tired, he pushed past the woman and went to his own room to lay down for a little while. The man closed his eyes and fell asleep for a while, he had no idea how long he was asleep but when he woke it was dark outside, and very cold. Though the cold had never bothered him all that much he decided to wrap himself up in a cloak anyway and go outside to take a walk. He wanted to know his way around this place if danger came, not that it would help since he just got lost all of the time anyways. Still, he needed something to do since he was not tired anymore and he needed to think about some things. So he dressed himself in his normal traveling clothes and donned his backpack with weapon/umbrella strapped to it, and walked out of his room. As he was walking down the corridor he heard crashing sound coming from a room nearby and curiously went to investigate what the cause of such a sound was. Getting closer he could hear the sound of someone who was probably quiet drunk yelling something incoherently. The closer he got to it the more it sounded like a woman unintelligibly screaming, not loudly, but screaming nonetheless. When he got to the door he saw who the person was, it was the woman that had yelled at him earlier, and apparently he had said something to offend her by the words she was using around his name.

From what he could see when he cracked the door open was the fact that she was very drunk. On the ground was a broken bottle that probably held the liquid that had caused her to be in the state in the first state. This woman was obviously not a calm drunk, and she seemed to have quiet the supply of drink with her. The man sighed and pushed the door open all of the way, causing the woman to look up at him as he came through the door. She did not seem happy to see him there by the look in her eyes, in fact he could see her start to turn to the place where her sword was laying just a couple feet away from her. Ryouga sighed and slowly drew his umbrella from the top of his backpack, it was a special umbrella that served the purpose of a weapon also. He would try to calm her down but he had a feeling that that would be difficult with her current state, so better to be prepared.

"Look, I don't want to fight," Ryouga said as he readied his umbrella and stared at her ultra sharp looking sword the woman carried, "You just looked like you needed to talk."

The woman narrowed her one good eye at him and rushed the man with such speed that he was immediately sent on the defensive. Ryouga was so surprised at the how fast the woman was that he did not have time to put up a good fight. The woman kept pressing her advantage until Ryouga and her were out in the hallway, allowing Ryouga to jump back and try to maintain distance between the two of them. Of course this failed because as soon as he jumped back she ran forward in an attempt to meet him on the ground. Ryouga grunted as he barely caught an obscenity about to slip past his lips, and looked around for a way to change his momentum in the air. Right now he was at the floating point in his jump just before he started his descent and time was running out.

This time Ryouga allowed the curse to slip from his lips as he grabbed one his bandanna from his forehead and started to twirl it around. He was glad that he still had the tendency to wear multiple bandannas even if he had not needed to use such a weapon in a long time. He was not trying to aim for her, but for her weapon, hopefully it would buy him some more time. With the bandanna becoming rigid with his spirit energy he flung it at the woman, though they were just rigid enough to fly and not actually hurt her if he had miscalculated. Apparently he had been right as she went for his bait, allowing him to land safely a ways away.

"Look lady," Ryouga yelled in frustration, this was not what he wanted, "I just want to talk, okay, so cool you're head."

"Why the hell did you just barge into my room then?" The woman retorted, "You were probably hoping to catch me changing."

Well that about did it, "You arrogant woman, I would never do something like that!"

With that, the man rushed forward and brought his heavy umbrella down hard, the woman barely managing to block the attack. He could see she was struggling with the attack and so he pressed it and saw her start to retreat back. Ryouga did not want to hurt her but nobody called him a pervert without him trying to defend it. All he wanted to do was help someone out and it turned out that they tried to kill him, this must have been how Ranma felt all of those years back. The woman was still fighting his strength, which surprised him as most people would try to back off or give up by now. Still, the man had some strength to spare and he decided to let her know that fighting him would not be the wisest thing to do. With a slight flex of his arms, the man tensed himself for his next move, it would be risky. He allowed her to start forcing his unorthodox weapon back before he stepped around to the side of her and with great force threw her across the room with his own weapon providing the leverage. Then something happened next that he did not intend, and he cursed himself for not taking into account his surroundings, the woman was flung back into a wall hard enough to leave an indention in the hard stone wall.

The scene caused the man to lose his anger as if a rubber band had just snapped back on him, a sick feeling making itself known in his stomach. Putting his weapon away he quickly ran up to her, cursing at himself for being an idiot the whole time, and knelt down to check if she was alright. What he found was not promising, she was unconscious for one, and she had blood coming from her mouth, indicating internal injuries. The thing that surprised him was that despite the fact that she was out like a broken light she still had a death grip on that damn sword of hers. Ryouga cursed, he had really screwed this one up, he picked the woman up and took her back to the room that she had been staying in, and with any luck he would find what he needed to treat her there.