CHAPTER NINE: JUNE OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR (THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS)

Everything was not okay.

Na-chan worriedly held on to his hand as he struggled to breathe. She was wearing a yellow paper gown over her white coat and scrubs. An N95 respirator was over her mouth, and a shield covered her face.

Again, a stiff rod rammed down his throat prevented him from speaking. Tubes and lines were once more protruding from every orifice of his body. Every part of him was heavy and on fire. This time, though, he was splayed out prone on the bed.

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It all began one morning about two weeks after Kasumi arrived.

Ranma woke up feeling unexpectedly tired and sore, more so than he had any other morning since they had brought Airyou home for the first time. Though Nabiki's voice had been calm and steady, she had turned deathly white when he told her. He knew too what she was thinking, vaccinated or not, and took the precautionary initiative of donning an N95 mask.

"I'll go to Kalorama until we can rule it out," Ranma told his wife.

"No. Stay here in case we need the medical center."

He noted that she could not bring herself to say the word "hospital."

"I'll take Kasumi and Airyou-chan now to Kalorama for a few days and have them ruled out." They had added a SUV to go along with her roadster in the months before Airyou had been born.

"Can you drive?" he asked worriedly.

"Don't worry about me." She offered him the brightest, most reassuring smile that she could muster. "In fact, try not to worry about anything other than my envy for you suddenly getting all this alone time. This will all probably be a fuss over nothing."

It was just past sunset when he woke up on the couch.

Nabiki was by his side placing a cool, damp washcloth on his forehead. His surprise at seeing her was evident as he looked up at her in wonder.

"Na-chan…. You came back?"

"Of course. I'm your wife," she told him. "I won't leave you alone. Besides, I'm vaccinated and low risk. You were able to get tested?"

He nodded. They would know by tomorrow.

"I had Airyou-chan, Kasumi, and myself tested too this afternoon," she told him. "We'll also find out tomorrow."

"Thank you for coming back," he said. His voice was heavy with grateful emotion.

Nabiki tenderly brushed aside a lock of hair that had come over his forehead. "I told you. I will also always be here to protect you," was her reply.

"Na-chan…."

"Shh," she whispered, placing a finger over her lips. "Let's stop before this gets too melodramatic. I made some curry rice if you're hungry."

He nodded eagerly. Na-chan was amazing in the kitchen.

Ominously, though, the meal was the blandest one that he had ever had. He was completely unable to smell or taste any of it, as if these senses simply did not exist.

Silent tears glistened in Na-chan's eyes when he told her.

"Put on a mask, Na-chan," he said.

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Nabiki was already up nervously logging in to the EMR the next morning when he awoke. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed by haunted black rings; her hands were shaking as she typed. He was not surprised though when she told him what he was already expecting. Fortunately, however, she, Airyou, and Kasumi were negative.

"We'll get through it together," he said. He drew himself away and moved to the far side of the room.

"How could it have happened?!" she lamented openly. "We did everything! What did we do wrong?!"

"Nothing," he told her firmly. He could see where her thoughts were very quickly going. "We didn't do anything wrong, and before your mind starts going in that direction, it will be fine. You'll see."

Nabiki was sobbing openly now as she followed him to the far side of the room and took him up in a desperate, loving embrace. "I love you," she told him helplessly over and over. "I love you. I don't want to lose you too."

By the morning of the third day, it was clear that he was getting worse rather than better. He was beginning to feel noticeably short of breath, having difficulty lying down, but suddenly too weak to walk about much or stand for that matter. The fever was now unending.

Nabiki was on the phone making calls. Her hands shook as she fought to keep her voice steady.

By late morning, he was admitted. By the early afternoon, he was in the same COVID ICU where Nabiki had endured her tortured month of nights. He was barely hanging together on the verge of intubation. She knowingly abused her privileges to follow him and stay by his side, but she did not care.

"I love you too," were the last words he mouthed to her as consciousness slipped away. He felt her hands desperately holding on to his as she looked back at him. Her broken heart was reflected in her beautiful, haunted eyes. Those were the eyes that would come and go for seemingly unending nights and days as he entered into the Netherworld between the blurred lines of reality and dreams.

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Ranma knew he was dreaming again.

He remembered being told that it happened this way when the body knew that it was about to die.

His eyes were closed.

The deep-throated growl of the inline-six rang sonorously in his ears. The rigid chassis and the seat beneath him hummed with soothing vibrations. A cool breeze whipped around the uncovered windscreen and beat pleasantly on his face and fluttered through his hair.

A sweet, delicate waft of her peach blossom scent drifted by.

He opened his eyes.

She was beside him in the driver's seat wearing a mini-length white shirtdress. A royal blue leather belt was cinched around her slim waist. A silk chiffon scarf with blue irises on a midnight black background was done up in an elegant cowl around her neck. Her slender, delicate arm confidently clicked through the long, visceral throws of the six-speed gearbox. Her bare legs were exposed to the sun, and her feet were adorned in strappy white wedge pumps.

She sensed his eyes on her and answered him with a warm, knowing smile. Then she slammed the throttle pedal hard into the floorboard, brazenly pushing the BMW to its electronically limited top speed of 155 mph. The roadster shot forward toward the Bay Bridge, which loomed majestically just over the horizon.

His chest throbbed with the weight of something deep and profound. He found himself realising all over again just how much he loved her and how beautiful she truly was. Her angelic face was delicate and heart-shaped with a porcelain doll complexion. Her hair was dark, shiny, silken, and cut in an elegantly smart and practical Italian bob style. Her brown eyes were fierce, luminous, and soul-piercing. The world had just irrevocably tilted again on its axis.

Then came the Moment. Strangely, it was amazingly anticlimactic in its merciless lack of any preamble or warning. The car was thrown forward into a violent flat spin, careening toward a steel side rail before smashing through and falling toward the infinite blue waters of the Bay.

"Nabiki!" he screamed. In that one word were all of his prayers for one last reprieve of grace and salvation. Her name was all that he had in the world and all that he could offer

He wondered if the End had been the same for Akane when it had been her time.

He did not want to die. Not yet.

He wanted to live.

"So don't," Nabiki's beautiful voice suddenly said. He snapped his head up to regard her, except she was not there anymore.

Akane…!

She was the one sitting in the driver's seat now. She appeared as a beautiful eternal teenage girl wearing a white summer dress and a fuschia sun hat. Her entire essence was imbued with an otherworldly blue ethereal glow.

At some point, the roaring wind, blue sky and unending waters around them dissolved into a silent nothingness.

"Ranma no baka," she muttered sadly. "We're here again. You keep coming back to me every time you're at a crossroads of Life and Death. You have to stop!"

"I'm sorry," he replied forlornly, his head bowed under the sudden but familiar weight of shame. "I didn't forget my promise. I don't want to die."

"No. I know," the apparition agreed. "The problem though is that living and not wanting to die are hardly the same thing. Your promise to me was that you'd live! I agree that Nabiki-oneechan has pushed you to do a lot better than you were doing before, but there's still a part of you questioning if you deserve to live. What's worse is that you're still doing this even though you now have a wife like Nabiki-oneechan and a daughter like Airyou-chan."

He found himself frowning, confused and even indignant. "Hey! I couldn't save you, and I can't forget that! I'm not going to, and I don't want to!"

"Baka!" she shot back at him. She now started to glow red. "It wasn't your place to save me, you misogynistic jerk! I may be a girl, but I'm a martial artist too, and I made the same choice that you would have if you were me! You don't get to tell me what I deserve, what's best for me, or what I should want! Not you. Not anybody. Not anymore."

"Hey! Plagiarist!"

"Don't be like that, Ranma!" she chided. "And at least you're paying attention! Maybe not the best way to put it, but you should go easy on me! I'm the one who's dead, and you know that I wasn't ever that good with words!" the eternal teenage girl told him grouchily.

Ranma found himself smiling despite himself as he recognized Akane really was still Akane - even in death.

"While we're at it, what else did you say that night to Nabiki-oneechan? Something about the three of us, right?"

"I told her that I needed to love you to grow up enough to be ready to love someone like her. Maybe if you'd lived, you would have been my wife, and she would have been my sister, but that's not what happened or who we've become."

"Yes, it's true" the ghost agreed. "That's not who we are or who we will ever be, not in the cards for the three of us. You said that, but it's also true that you still think you're doing something wrong. I trained you too well, and you're right that you're guilty of something, but it's not what you think it is."

Now he was really confused. He told her so.

Akane sighed as she took a seat on the edge of an invisible perch, demurely crossed her legs, placed her hands on her knee, and gestured with her chin to the space beside her. Ranma obliged and took a seat beside her on a leap of faith, surprised that he did not fall as he did.

"As long as you're looking back over your shoulder wondering if I think you're doing the right thing or not, you won't be able to keep your promise to me."

"I'm not – "

"The first time you were admitted and your kidneys were failing? Who did you turn to when you were alone lying there in the dark on your hospital bed?"

You.

"As you were lying on the floor that time in clinic while drowning in your own blood? Who did you think of?"

You.

"When you first found yourself attracted to my sister, Jekyll-Hyde enigma of the lady and mischievous, fire-breathing, profanity-spewing dragon that you think she is? Who else did you think of?

You.

"When you asked her if the two of you could date? Who else was there with you at that moment?"

You.

"Even that night when you told her for the first time that you love her?"

"Hey! You were in her head too that time!" Ranma protested.

"Yes," the ghost conceded. "Oneechan has her own issues, but I'm not the one who can go back and fix that."

Ranma stared back at her wordlessly.

"Seriously though! Who is with you here even now as you lie out there dying?"

You.

"You see, Ranma? Even when Oneechan's the one keeping your vigil, you're here with me instead." she said. He was surprised to see exasperated tears welling up in eyes that were suddenly impossible depths of sadness and despair. "Funny how it's so easy to tell you the truth now, isn't it. I gave everything up for you because I love you, and I believe in you. What's left of me is part of you now. You're supposed to go on to do the talking, the thinking, the living, and the believing for us both."

"I love you too, Akane. What are you asking me to believe in?"

Akane shook her head and smiled. "That's not for me to tell you. It's not my destiny that we're talking about. The right question is what do you believe in?"

"Akane, I — "

"We'll all meet again one day, Ranma," Akane said kindly. Her was now voice ringing now with great love and tenderness. "But you said you don't want to die, so fine. It's not supposed to be today or even tomorrow. Again, the question is what does Ranma Saotome believe in? You won't be able to go back this time until you know what that is, and if you don't go back, then this time someone else will also die with you."

"No! Na-chan…!"

"Yes," Akane agreed. "You don't have to worry about me anymore, Ranma. I'm fine. No one can hurt me anymore. Nabiki-oneechan is the one who we should worry about now. You love her with your whole heart, but she loves you with her whole being. You've become everything that she has."

... I'd like for you to just think about getting back on your feet so you can walk hand-in-hand with me, even if it's just for a little while...

... I think someone should tell you this at least once about someone like Kiki. Girls like these do not ever show or give out their hearts. When they do, it is only once. It is for keeps. And it is forever...

... I've always liked you, even from the beginning when you and your father first came into our lives. You were my first real crush, always larger than life. You made me realise that there were things about the world that I truly didn't understand, and you made me believe again in possibilities...

... Maybe one day my hair might be just long enough to do up with a kanzashi. I might have penned a Tanabata wish on tanzaku like that if I were someone who believed in doing such things...

... Seeing you here now in this kitchen eating my bread and drinking my flat white, I find myself thinking for the first time that maybe I don't need to go back to that moment at Fushimi Inari Taisha. Not anymore...

"Even now, she's out there risking everything, still trying to prove to you that she's worthy of you: her safety, all that she's worked for in her career, even being a new mom who would leave her baby to do it. Everything — just whatever it takes to not leave you and for you not to leave her."

Ranma found himself weeping into the palm of Akane's hand. He felt his face burning with a new, unbearable shame.

"The point," she continued, her countenance turning deadly serious as she pressed on, "is that you made a promise, and you have always kept your promises. It's one of the reasons she and I both fell in love with you, why you're enough for each of us to risk everything. So please. Keep your promises to Nabiki-oneechan; that's how you'll keep yours to me. Can you love your wife just as much as she loves you?"

Na-chan….

"The next time you come to the crossroads of Life and Death, will you think of her instead of me?"

I love you….

"Nabiki told you, right? She's not just my sister; she's my best friend. Will you protect her reasons for living?"

Watashi mo, itsumademo eien ni anata no koto wo… mamoru…. (I will also always be there to protect you….)

"Can you make the world different for all of us this time around?"

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once in the sky, that would be the splendor of the mighty One. Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds….

"NABIKI!"

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