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. I am truly sorry for the heavy flashback parts, I feel it is the only way to accomplish what I want from this. Ahem, yes I am a little embarrassed but this is the reason I have diligent readers, for those who do not know Baiken only have one arm and one eye. It was pointed out that I have had her using both hands so I made some slight adjustments to stop this. I hope this will allow you to enjoy this story better. On to Chapter 3, and beyond.

Chapter 4: Nostalgia is a Prescription for the Damned.

The man walked towards the source of the presence, coming around a group of rocks to find a white kimono laying on the ground. It was folded nicely so it was not just abandoned here, next to it was a sash to hold it but nothing else. Ryouga scratched the top of his head with a finger before shrugging and kneeling down to take a closer look. He found the kimono to be in a quite ragged shape, in fact it was almost close to falling apart, and it looked like it had already fallen apart in places and then been sowed together again.

Returning to his standing position, Ryouga looked around, before he heard a humming sound coming from just over a bank of rocks in front of him. It was barely audible above the din of the waterfall and it seemed to have a definite tune to it which led Ryouga to believe that it was a human humming at least. One thing must be said about the martial artist, despite all the time traveling and all the time he spent talking to people he was still no more adept at thinking beyond what was right in front of him. And so, being interested in the fact that there was someone else here and not taking into consideration the fact that they were most likely naked, Ryouga walked towards the sound. If Ryouga had bothered to inspect a little more closely in fact he would have seen the underwear laying underneath the kimono and realized that a member of the opposite sex was probably taking a bath. Then again, if he had realized this, the scene that came next would probably not have happened, which would have been a good thing for him.

The man peeked his head over the cropping of rocks and found something very unsettling. Not so much the layout, it was a little strange to have a hot spring develop itself right next to a lake, one with a waterfall for that matter. No, it was the fact that he saw a person in the steam taking a bath that was so obviously female that his eyes nearly popped out of his head. It had been so long since he had seen someone female naked that his mind just shut down, and it was just the backside of the woman.

The woman continued to run her hand across her body to get the dirt off before she sunk down in the spring, her back still facing him, and undid her pink hair. Granted, it was a strange color for someone to have, and so long. Even with his mind shut down, or maybe because it had shut down, Ryouga could not take his eyes away from the scene. The woman started to run a hand through her hair and rinse the dirt out of her long tresses. Finally Ryouga's brain rebooted and he started to stand when the woman suddenly moved too fast for him to follow and with a splash of water a sword was launched like a missile toward the man's head. The martial artist launched himself backwards desperately and fell to the ground with a hard thud, his backpack getting crushed under his weight. The only thing that went through his mind was how he would have to find new supplies because of that.

A blur landed next to him with a sword in hand and before he knew it he was looking up at a very naked and very angry woman. Of course he did not dare to move his head for fear of turning himself into Ryouga-on-a-stick. Looking up at the woman's face a sudden flash of recognition flew across his mind and without thinking he blurted out the name that came to his mind.

"Baiken!"

The sword slowly pulled away, just a few inches, enough to put him at ease, "Ryouga? Why were you watching me take a bath?" her voice held no room for slipping.

"I uh," Ryouga was having trouble finding the words because he did not know himself, "I was just getting some water and heard you over here. I came to see who it was but I could not see through the steam."

The woman took her sword away from his throat and walked over to where her clothes were. She quickly dressed and walked back over to where the man was still laying on the ground looking like a helpless turtle. Sighing, the woman helped him sit up and he took the bag off his back and set it in front of him, taking an inventory on the supplies in his bag. His grill was fine, as was all his other cooking supplies, his food was alright for the most part accept for the things that were in bags, which were now all over his pack in thousands of pieces. Ryouga hung his head with a frown, this would take forever to clean out and all of his clothes were probably filled with crumbs now.

The woman sat down next to him, "Sorry."

Ryouga shook his head and closed the bag up again, "No, it's alright, I would have reacted the same way if I were you."

Baiken placed her sword on the ground in front of her as she sat in the lotus position and stared at him. Ryouga had picked up his backpack and started rummaging through a smaller section on the backside before he came out with can of food and started digging for the grill from main part of his backpack. Taking it out he opened it, lit it off, and used a can opener to open the can before he placed it on the grill. The whole time he was doing this, Baiken stared at him in wonder, he was laying on the ground one second and the next he was cooking food. She felt her stomach, hunger had been her companion for a while now and she could use some food. Ryouga saw this and produced another can from his pack and placed it on the grill after he opened it.

"Sorry, wasn't thinking," Ryouga said apologetically.

The woman blinked her single eye in confusion, "No, I'm fine, it's nothing."

Ryouga shook his head, "It's alright, you need some food to keep healthy. I won't let your pride speak for you this time."

The two of them waited for the food to cook in silence and when it was done, Ryouga handed the woman her food and produced eating utensils from his backpack. He always carried extra ones just in case he lost one pair or they broke, in this case he would let her used them though. The two of them ate in silence also and the woman ate the small meal as if she had eaten her first meal in months. Ryouga shook his head, it probably was her first meal in a while, he was sure that she did not eat too much while on the road. Baiken set the can down next to her, raised her single hand in the air so it was vertical to the ground and bowed, which caused the martial artist to blink.

"Hey, what's that all about?"

Baiken looked up and with a mischievous grin, "Thank you teacher for this wonderful meal."

Ryouga took a second before he realized that he had just been the victim of a joke before he dumped the rest of the contents of his can down his throat and took off after the woman who had started fleeing as soon as she saw what he was planning. Of course it took a second to put his things away and so was a ways behind her. Luckily he was a faster runner than she was and quickly caught up to the woman.

"I'll teach you to mock me," Ryouga yelled in mock anger, he really could not remember when he had this much fun.

The woman looked back and waved, "You have to catch me first."

Ryouga laughed, "Just watch me."

With those words the man poured on extra speed and pulled ahead of the woman before he turned and caught her. Unfortunately he did not compensate for her momentum and the two of them crashed to the ground hard. The man took most of the impact however and Baiken recovered almost immediately, noticing her position. Ryouga groaned in pain and opened his eyes only to find himself looking into Baiken's eye, a strange color he had never seen before, red so light it was almost pink. He felt a blush come over his face and looked up to find that she had the same thing however she was grinning like a wildcat.

"Baiken," Ryouga gasped, "What are you thinking?"

The woman started tracing small circles on his chest with her finger while laying her head down on his shoulder, "Oh, nothing you'll regret."

"No!" Ryouga felt a wave of panic come over him and he pushed her off roughly before he stood suddenly, "We can't, I mean it's too sudden."

Baiken stood and looked slightly hurt by his words but shrugged, "Oh well, your loss," The woman walked back towards the direction they had come, or started.

"Wait!" Ryouga ran up to her.

The woman turned around with her mask gone suddenly, "What the hell do you want?"

Ryouga recoiled and was suddenly unsure, "I can't find my way back if you leave."

"No," Baiken said angrily, "You have your bag so get lost."

"What did I do?" The man asked in irritation, "I don't remember doing something to piss you off!"

The woman pulled her sword out and held it to his throat, "Get out of my sight you bastard!"

Ryouga narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, "Tell me what I did!"

"Don't play stupid," Baiken yelled as she brought the blade closer to his neck so the blade was against his throat, "You act like you want me then you act like you don't want me. I don't play games, now get out of here."

With a sigh, Ryouga closed his eyes, "No, that's not it, it's been so long since I've felt like this and I don't want to move too fast. I don't want this to be one sided, can you really say that you feel the same about me as I do about you or are you relying on the fact that I'll never see you again?"

"Don't even play that game," Baiken narrowed her one good eye and spoke again, "I don't give a damn what you think. Now leave!"

Ryouga shrugged, "Alright, goodbye, Baiken," it was a rather sad sounding phrase.

The woman removed her sword from his throat and watched as he turned around before she sighed in relief. That man caused something crazy to happen in her and she was not all that sure that she was fine with that. As he disappeared out of sight, Baiken realized that her eyes were getting wet for some reason. Maybe she had something in her eye, she started back to where she had been before and sat down next to a rock. Pulling a jug out of her sleeve, Baiken used her teeth to pull the cork out before she took a healthy chug of the sake that was contained in the jug. Taking the jug away and wiping her lips the woman growled and took another gulp of the alcohol. Then she kept drinking until the jug was gone and tears flowed down her cheeks and she threw the bottle into a tree at high velocity. It shattered and she put her head in her hand as she was overcome with a wave of dizziness.

Baiken raised her head and looked at her wet hand as if it were a foreign object until another tear fell from her eye. She could not believe she let herself be hurt again, she told herself it would never happen and yet it happened again against her will. Her head fell back against the rock she was leaning on as she let out a groan of despair, she was now in the sitting position. Her eyes closed and she drifted off into an alcohol induced coma.

Some small distance away, Ryouga was leaning against a tree in irritation, he was not even sure how he felt about the woman. She was a friend sure, they were by no means enemies, but did he want her like she said he did. The two of them were alike in many ways but also different. Ryouga looked up at the tree canopy as he thought, catching a few stars shining through. He had to admit that she was very attractive, strong, and appreciative of his cooking, even if in jest some part of it was true. They got along well enough, well not including what had just taken place between the two of them. What was that all about anyways? No matter what he thought of he could not see anything that would cause her to react that way. Before he tried to figure that out he turned his thoughts back to what his feelings were, he was attracted to her, he would have been a fool not to be. Despite missing an arm and an eye she was still very sexy. Of course he realized that she carried enough emotional baggage to bury an elephant, but he did also. He was the only person from Nerima left. The two of them were the only Japanese people left as far as he had seen.

That should not be the only reason for him though, he had to know if he felt strongly enough for her to love her. After a while, Ryouga ran a hand through his hair in frustration, he hated trying to figure out his feelings. Before he had always been able to express his feelings to himself freely but never to the one those feelings were aimed at. Now he found it hard to admit his feelings even to himself, this was not right, and he knew it. He had been thinking about her an awful lot lately and whenever she was close he got a warm feeling in his chest. There was also the fact that he was able to lose himself next to her and forget about all the hardship he had gone through. It certainly sounded like he was in love to him, now he just had to convince himself that it was okay to admit this to her. Oh well, you only live once they say.

Ryouga stood strait and searched for the woman's aura, and found it not far from his own position. Using all of the concentration he could muster, Ryouga started walking in the direction of the aura. He could not get lost, he would not get lost, this was too important for him to get lost. Fortunately he was able to find his way back to her without getting lost and when he did she was in a bad state. He was not sure how long he was away but it must have been a while as she had drank herself into a stupor. Rushing forward he knelt down and peeled back the eyelid of her one good eye, and when he did he found that here eyes were dilated. He could barely tell in the dim light of the moon but he could see enough to know that this could be bad. Ryouga was forced to wonder how much she had drank in order to make herself like this, then shook the thought off. It would do little good now, he had to find a way to sober the woman up before the alcohol ran through her and caused more damage. Unfortunately he only knew one way to wake someone out of a drunken coma and that he did not want to use, but then he had not much of a choice.

Picking the woman up in his arms he walked to the edge of the pool and with a sigh he submerged her head in the pool. It was a little harsh, he knew, but he would rather her be alive to yell at him about it than dead. Besides, he had to either splash his head or submerge at least half his body in water to activate his curse. Ryouga felt her start to stir in his hands then he felt a desperate movement and let the girl up from the water.

"What the hell, are you trying to kill me?" The woman screamed, her wet hair plastered to her face.

Ryouga did not answer her, but instead embraced her happily, "Stupid woman! Don't scare me like that, did you even think of how I would feel if you did that. Trying to leave me alone, damn it."

Baiken blinked for a second, "I what? What's going on Ryouga."

"You tell me," The man said as he leaned back and looked at her in the eye, "I came back and find you in an alcohol induced coma."

The woman shrugged, "What would you care? You don't even like me anyways."

Ryouga felt his hand start to move before he thought about it but luckily stopped it a centimeter from the woman's face, who apparently saw it coming and had closed her eyes. The martial artist lowered his hand and just stared at his hand before he looked up slowly once again.

"You're wrong," The man said quietly, "I do care for you. If I did not I would have left you for dead. I care for you more than anything in my life right now."

Baiken was looking down at the ground in front of her, her damp hair was already starting to dry but it still hung over her face, "No you don't, you just feel pity for my, that's all anyone has ever felt. All the guys think I don't hear them 'look at how deformed she is' or 'must be hard to look like that'. I'm not beautiful, hell, I'm missing parts! How could you find that attractive?"

Ryouga could not take it any more, with a sudden movement he embraced her tightly, "No! You stupid woman, it's the fact that in spite of all of that you are still the most beautiful woman I've ever met. I won't let you push me away because you feel sorry for yourself."

"You're only deluding yourself," Baiken said as a stream of tears started flowing down her cheeks, even though she lacked both eyes, her tear ducts worked fine, "Thank you, Ryouga, you dummy."

The man smiled and kissed the woman lightly on the cheek, removing some of the tears before he kissed her full on the mouth. It lasted a while with the woman wrapping her arm around his neck and matching his embrace. Ryouga finally leaned back and took a breath before he brought a hand up to her face and used his thumb to gently wipe her tears off of her face.

"Baiken," She looked up at him as he spoke, "I just want to know why you got angry at me."

The woman smiled and shook her head, "Shut up before you make me angry again."

"I just don't want to do it again," Ryouga said.

The woman kissed him briefly, "It doesn't even matter now, it's not important because it will never happen again anyways."

There were a few blinks from Ryouga before he shrugged, "Alright, but whatever it was I'm sorry anyways."

Baiken kissed him again, "Shut up idiot."

The woman felt her kimono slipping off of her shoulders and let out a gasp as the cold air touched her bare skin. She felt Ryouga kiss down her body, caressing her as he did so. The two of them became lost in their passion, nothing around them mattered to either of them except the person in front of them. For hours they lost themselves in each other and then drifted off to sleep in the arms of the person they loved.

In the morning Ryouga awoke and made sure that Baiken was covered, he had the feeling she would be asleep for a while between the sake and the emotion of last night. Ryouga left a spare blanket covering her and her clothes underneath that, then he took out a pen and some paper and wrote the woman a note. He was just going to get some firewood but some things could happen that might prevent him from returning and he did not want her to get the wrong idea. After he wrote the note he left a half opened can of food behind just in case and some of his water reserve, she would probably need some of that also. With a slight regret the man turned and proceeded to walk off in search of some firewood, of course he could have used his grill but that had hardly any fluid left in it and he had no extra. And so the martial artist walked off and disappeared for what would be a year.

When Baiken awoke, she smiled, until she opened her eye that is, and looked around frantically. The first thing that occurred to her was exactly what Ryouga had feared, she thought he had abandoned her. Then he noticed the blanket on top of her and a little to the right of her there was a note held in place by an opened can of food and some water. Forgetting about the clothes, Baiken wrapped the blanket around herself and made her way over to the note. When she reached it she picked it up and started to read it.

Baiken,

If you're reading this then what I feared has happened, I just want to say first of all that I am so sorry. I know we'll meet again and I hope it's sooner rather than later. I love you, I realized that last night and I really hope that you feel the same… what am I saying? Of course you do, because if you didn't you would not be reading this right. Please take care of yourself, I left you some supplies so put them to good use, as for heating the food, sorry again, I was looking for firewood to do just that but like I said, if you're reading this I got lost. Just don't kill me when we meet again, because we will meet again. Until then, I love you.

Ryouga Hibiki

The woman could hardly read the letter with all of the tears that formed in her eyes, she was becoming quiet the crybaby lately, oh well it felt kind of good after so long. The woman folded the letter and tucked it in one of the hidden pockets inside of her kimono before she turned to the food that was left with a sigh, well she did not really mind eating it raw, it was canned after all and would not hurt her. Quickly she shoveled the food into her mouth so she would not taste it too much and quickly drank the water that was left. After she finished off the water, Baiken dressed in her usual clothes, her white and black kimono with pink trim. Before she headed out she turned towards the food and imagined Ryouga sitting there, and though it was just a ghost of his image she bowed deeply before placing her sword in it's usual place and walking off. She could swear she felt Ryouga smile from wherever he was right now.