Torn Chapter 5 Lost and Found, a ranma fanfic

Notes: Chapter 5 as promised I will be working on chapter six just after the launch of this chapter.

Forgive the fact I am not fluffing the content as much as I would one of my stories, any fluffing that may get added will be in the chapters I add after the 19th chapter and no sooner. To change the original content too much would be disrespectful to my friend and I do not wish to honor her memory that way so as said before I plan to keep most the original writings intact only adding detail where I believe the readers might be confused. -Zeltronica

Ranma 1/2: Torn Chapter 5:

Lost and Found

By Kit'ari

"Ranma!" a voice yelled from behind said, boy.

He turned around and spotted Yuka waving. His eyes narrowed as feelings of anger and humiliation flashed through him. Abruptly, he spun back around and marched on. While he wasn't in the mood to talk to her at the moment, part of him wanted to know why she did it. "Ranma! Wait up!" He tensed, ready to take to the high road.

"Wait! Please, Ranma!" He closed his eyes. He thought of all the trouble she was going through. The fight with her mother and her friends. Yet, she had told Nabiki. "Thanks for waiting up, Ranma," Yuka huffed, as she tried to catch her breath. "I thought you were going to take off there for a second."

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why'd ya do it, Yuka?" Ranma asked as he finally spun around to face the girl. "Do what?" Yuka responded, truly puzzled.

"Tell Nabiki about me," Ranma sniped, though the pain was clear in his voice and eyes.

"I didn't tell... Sayuri," Yuka growled. Her expression darkened.

"What does Sayuri have to do with it?"

"She must have told Nabiki."

"And how did she find out!" Yuka turned slightly away, suddenly no longer able to meet his gaze.

"I-I kind of told her."

"What!" he yelled.

"I had to, or Akane would've..."

"You told Akane to!"

"I didn't have a choice!"

"Who else ya been blabberin' to?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"Then what was it like?" "Sayuri made it sound like you were cheating on Akane with me." Ranma continued to stare at her. "Look, you were acting off all day. You need to talk to someone about what you're going through."

"So, that means ya gotta tell the whole school?" "No," Yuka answered. "Sayuri figured out I knew something, and when I wouldn't tell them, she made it sound worse than it was."

"Worse? How can it get any worse?"

"If I didn't say anything, would you have when Akane came up demanding to know what was going on?"

"Of course not!"

"Akane knew I knew something, and with Sayuri implying something going on between us, how do you think that would've looked?"

"There ain't nothin' goin' on between us."

"I know that, but it wouldn't have looked like that."

"Not like she'd believe me anyway."

"Well, you are hiding things from her."

"Nothin' she needs ta know about."

"She's your iinazuke."

"That's our folk's idea."

"So you don't care what she thinks?"

"Of course I..." Ranma looked away. "Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters, Ranma."

"She ain't never gonna trust me."

"Ranma, Akane trusts you a lot." Ranma snorted. "She trusts you with her life." Yuka stepped up to him and, with a soft gentle touch, turned his head so they were looking eye to eye. "But how can you expect her to trust you with her heart when you lie and keep secrets from her?" Ranma flinched at the girl's words knowing full well they held a certain truth.

XXXXXX

"Hey, Ken! How's the arm?" one heavy-set youth asked of his lanky companion. "Ryu!" Ken responded with a smile. "It's still a little stiff," he said as he flexed his right arm.

"To bad about your knife."

"That's okay, I got something better now." Ken's smile changed into a decided evil smirk. "Really, what is it?" Ryu begged to know.

"I was thinking of heading to the park later, you feel like coming?" Ken asked as he produced a black plastic box about the size and shape of an older cell phone, only this had grooved finger grips, a thumb switch, and two sets of silver probes sticking out the top.

"Sure!" Ryu responded cheerfully.

XXXXX

Ranma looked up at the darkening sky. It was going to rain some time tonight. With his luck, he'd probably still be out in it, looking for his wayward iinazuke.

He glanced back at Yuka. They were heading back to the Tendo house, hoping that Akane had already returned for dinner. 'I should be so lucky,' he thought to himself. Yuka wanted to talk to Akane, but he hadn't asked what for. After learning Akane knew his latest secret, he wasn't as eager to find her.

"Hey, Yuka?" Ranma prompted, attempting to get his mind off of things. "Yes, Ranma?' "'Bout Saturday, what happened?" Behind him, he heard Yuka give a big sigh. "What do you want to know?"

"It was me, right? I mean, that your mom was upset about." "Well, kind of," Yuka responded hesitantly.

"What did I do?"

"It wasn't any one thing you did, Ranma," she responded with resignation. "It was a lot of little things that, well... that added up badly."

"Oh."

"She thinks you're a delinquent and is afraid that you'll be a bad influence on me."

"Hey!" Ranma countered spinning to face the girl. "I'm not a delinquent!" Flashes of Miss Hinako charging after him ran through his head.

"Ranma, you skip class whenever you feel like, you haven't worn the school uniform once since you got here, you flagrantly violate the school's rules and policies," Yuka counted off as she marched a slow circle around the pig-tailed youth.

"Not my problem if the principal makes up dumb rules," Ranma asserted as he spun to follow her movement. Yuka stopped her march to glare at Ranma. "So that makes it all right to sleep through class, or make fun of the teachers," Yuka finished with a huff. She leaned slightly forward, with her hands planted firmly on her hips.

"Ranma, you are a delinquent."

Ranma flinched then looked away. He really couldn't deny anything she had said, he just really hadn't thought of it that way before.

"Do you even realize how much Akane's grades have dropped since you showed up?"

Ranma winced again.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"If she's not careful, she's gonna fall in," Ranma responded. "Huh," Yuka returned confused.

He pointed toward a lone figure standing on the bridge rail, overlooking the canal. The winds had picked up and he could see her clothes snapping in the open air. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear the water pounding against the embankment as it flowed from somewhere up North, where the rain had already started to fall.

"That's Shiori!" Yuka gasped.

XXXXX

The sweet smells and sounds of food preparation wafted into the family room were Nabiki sat in indecision. While the soft clack of shoji tiles in the background seemed to punctuate her mood. Two months ago, a certain Doctor had the tenacity to simply up and vanish. So unexpected was this event, that she didn't have a clue where to start looking.

While some things were obviously packed up and moved, most of the clinic's equipment had been left behind. While it might have looked like he planned to return, it was highly irregular for him to just up and vanish like that without informing any of his regular patients. And she had checked with all of them.

He hadn't left any forwarding address with the post office, but neither did he receive anything more than junk mail.

As it turned out that the Ono family owned the clinic, so there wasn't even a rent trail. But now she held in her brief the fruition of two months worth of work. Dr. Tofu's new address. He hadn't even moved that far away. Looking toward her elder sister's domain, she considered her options. Part of her wanted to wait until Akane and Ranma were home, then suggest they and Kasumi go for a walk, and then they could "happen" upon Dr. Tofu.

With both her sisters and Ranma there, she was sure she could get the good doctor to fess up to whatever was keeping him away. While that sounded good, she didn't yet know what the answers to those questions were. Until she knew what he would say, why he had left, and if he still even cared about her older sister; she didn't need to run off half-cocked. That was her sister and Ranma's job. She smiled a little at that thought, then it faded as she returned to the problem at hand. No, she would have to go talk to him herself.

XXXXXX

"Shiori?" Yuka called out tentatively as she struggled to get her breathing back under control. The run-up here combined with her fear for her friend, making that rather difficult.

Shiori turned slightly at their approach, her hair flapped messily in the wind, as did the long skirt of her uniform. The dark blue of her school's colors seemed almost black under the poor illumination of the street lamp. "Yuka?" she pronounced, just barely audible over the roaring water below. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Yuka replied, forcing a friendly smile to her face. "Nothing important," Shiori answered and swept a gaze over the edge again before returning her look to the both Yuka and Ranma.

Yuka had put her hand in front of Ranma, hoping that would be enough to keep him in place. He seemed to hold his place, at least for the moment.

"Why don't you come down here?"

Shiori took a hesitant step back as she shook her head. A sob escaped her and she almost seemed to collapse in on herself. She went to wipe at her face and stumbled.

"Shiori!" Yuka shouted as her friend disappeared from view.

Notes: I am going to say this part hits home with me in some ways...

Coming soon chapter:6