Ryoga cursed to himself. "Have you seen Ranma Saotome?" No, of course not.
No one had seen him that day. "Pardon me, have you seen Ranma Saotome?" Of
all the rotten luck...! Ryoga had finally found Saotome's school, and he
wasn't there! He cursed again. Turning to another group of students, the
fanged boy asked, "I'm sorry to bother you, but have you seen Ranma
Saotome?"
The girl shook her head. "Nope. Sorry. Why don't you ask Akane?"
At least he was getting somewhere. "Who?"
The girl blushed lightly in embarrassment. "Sorry. I didn't notice that you weren't a student here. Ask for Akane Tendo; Ranma's staying with her for the time being."
"But she's gone home for the day," chirped one of the other girls in the group. "You could ask her tomorrow, though," she added hopefully.
The Hibiki boy smiled and bowed deeply. "Thank you very much!" He then turned to walk the two feet back to his traveling pack and sat down as the group of girls walked away, giggling amongst themselves.
Ranma Saotome was going to meet his doom at long last!
+++
It was a sunny day, and the wind blew gently through the trees. Children were filing into their school, their faces light and their voices cheery.
One boy, however, stuck out like a sore thumb. His sullen manner of walking; the way his eyes were always cast toward the ground; the slow plodding of his feet; all of these things contributed to the black aura that exuded from this particular boy.
His name was Ranma Saotome.
As he passed through the gates of the school, groups of boys all over the schoolyard stopped their conversations to stare at him. Their eyes followed him as he moved through the yard, toward the doors to the school proper. Hushed whispers turned into murmurs, and murmurs turned into outright jeers. "Freak!" "Go away!" "Nobody likes you!" "I wish you'd died in that accident, you weirdo!"
There were other, more quiet groups of children, boys who looked upon the merciless treatment of the Saotome boy with revulsion and sympathy. But though they were many in number, they were weak in spirit, and did nothing to stop the others from berating the crippled boy. They stood by silently, hoping against hope that the taunts and insults would miraculously stop one day.
"Well, Saotome. It seems that you decided to come back again, huh?" Ranma looked up to the form standing directly in front of him. The fangs protruding out of his mouth lent an eerie malevolence to the face of Ryoga Hibiki, the bane of Ranma's existence. "Didn't I tell you to stay away? Or do you think that you can beat me into treating you like a human being?"
Ranma held Ryoga's gaze for a moment, but let his eyes drop to the ground deferentially. He couldn't do anything. He simply couldn't. Oh, Ranma had no doubt about his ability; but his father had specifically prohibited him from getting into any more fights in school. That was part of the reason he had moved schools in the first place – aside from his training, that is.
Ranma ignored the rest of the fanged boy's taunts as he remembered what had happened the last time he had gotten into a fight at school.
*****
"C'mon, ya freak!" jeered Hiro, the boy standing in front of him. Ranma sighed and closed his eyes. He didn't want to get into another fight. He was in danger of getting expelled if he made that mistake again.
Suddenly, a fist impacted Ranma's face, sending the unsuspecting boy back and onto his rear. Shaking his head, Ranma looked up to the sneering boy. "You want some?" asked the cocky youth. "Come get it."
Ranma winced as he put his hand to his face. It came away bloody. The red of the blood on his hand expanded, consumed his entire field of vision. Crimson. Hate.
When his vision cleared, Ranma was sitting on some boy's chest. His hands were bloody and painful. Ranma flexed them, examined them, noting the blood that slowly dripped down his wrists and forearms. Not all of it was his. He looked down to see the mangled face of Hiro staring back at him, blood everywhere. Teeth were bent at odd angles; tissue was swollen; his nose was a disfigured lump of flesh. What had he done?
Ranma stood and looked around. Shocked faces regarded him. His classmates. His teachers. Somewhere in the distance, someone was calling for the police and an ambulance. There seemed to be a note of urgency in that person's voice. Ranma looked back down to his rival's prone form, and then back to his hands. Yeah, it was an emergency all right.
*****
Thankfully, the police, after hearing the testimonies of many of the witnesses, had declared that Ranma's problem was psychological, and that he would not bear any legal repercussions. However, he was sentenced to stay in a mental hospital for an indeterminate amount of time.
He had wasted two months there, answering doctors' questions, trying not to cry from fear and regret.
Ranma didn't want to repeat that. No, no he did not.
"Well, you gonna do something?" Ryoga's voice cut its way through the haze of memories. Ranma shook his head, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Well, then," said the other boy haughtily, "why don't you and I go for a walk?" Ranma could tell just by the tone of Ryoga's voice that he was smiling a cruel, evil smile. "Let's go back behind the equipment shed, shall we? We've still got some time before classes." With a shove from the fanged boy, Ranma started to walk toward the back of the school, where the equipment shed was – and where other people weren't.
Ranma's eyes got tears in them, but he was determined not to let them leak down his face. He'd taken beatings before, and he'd not cried once. He'd be damned if he was gonna start.
Reaching the appointed place, Ranma set down his book bag, removed his uniform jacket and turned to his tormenter. Behind the cruelly smiling face of Ryoga, Ranma could see some of the other boys of the school with evil smiles of their own. There was a larger crowd than usual.
Something struck the base of Ranma's skull, stunning him and knocking him to the ground. He lay there for a moment, dazed. Behind him? Since when had they positioned themselves behind him, too? They'd always just pelted him from the front, before. More rocks slammed into Ranma's body, knocking breath out of him in short gasps. Well, he'd not be escaping without bandages. Not that that was unusual.
+++
Ranma's eyes opened to see a shaft of light running through the window and onto the ceiling of Dr. Tofu's office. His whole body ached and throbbed, but he had gotten used to that. He had been accustomed to pain for as long as he could remember. He snorted derisively. He could take physical pain, but emotional pain crippled him like a pack of cats. Disgusting.
Akane had stayed for a while that morning, but had to leave for school after a time. Kasumi had spent the rest of the day with Ranma, soothing him and trying to talk to him. She asked him a bunch of questions about the reason he did what he did to himself, but Ranma didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about anything, but that least of all.
After a time, Dr. Tofu had asked Kasumi to leave the room so he could change Ranma's bandages. When Kasumi had said no, Ranma's heart dropped. He hadn't wanted her seeing his horribly disfigured body. She'd already seen it, sure, but that didn't mean Ranma was okay with flaunting it in front of her.
The changing of the bandages let Ranma see just how much damage he'd done to himself. He noted with some revulsion that the bandages he'd been wearing previously were thick and stiff with dried blood and pus. His legs were horrible; Ranma hadn't seen anything like them ever before. His body resembled nothing more than overcooked meat; the swollen tissue oozed disgustingly, and the surfaces of his wounds were dark and lumpy. Ranma's body had been trying to scab the wounds over, so it could heal itself, but there was too much damage.
Kasumi had gasped when the first bandage was removed, and she began to silently weep as Dr. Tofu continued his ministrations. As if that weren't enough to make Ranma want to crawl into a hole and die, the pained look that came over the Doctor's face struck deep into the teen's heart. He could see that Tofu wanted to comfort Kasumi, that he didn't want to hear her crying, but he was too busy with Ranma to do anything about it. If it hadn't been for Ranma, he would've been able to hold the woman he loved in his arms to comfort her. Hell, if it hadn't been for Ranma, she wouldn't have been crying at all.
So the bandages were changed, and Kasumi regained enough composure to fetch some food for Ranma. After he had been fed, Ranma was given a potent draught that swept him off to sleep.
Then the dreams had come, waking Ranma. Which was where the boy found himself, alone in the cold night, staring at the ceiling of his own personal prison, wracked with the guilt of the hurt he had caused so many people.
The door to his room opened, causing Ranma to turn his head sharply. Kasumi walked in quietly, clad in a white bathrobe cinched tightly about her waist. She closed the door and the bedridden teen turned his face away from the woman, not wanting to look at her. Not only was he ashamed to look into her eyes, but also he was profoundly disturbed by the way the robe seemed to cling to her in indecent ways. He could feel blood rushing to his face as he heard Kasumi seat herself by his bed. "Hey, Ranma," she whispered, taking his hand in hers. "I didn't know if you'd be awake, but I'm glad you are. I wanted to talk to you about what happened." Great. She wanted to talk, too. Everyone wanted to talk about his damned life, as if they were really interested. Fun stuff. "Ranma, after you left school, where did you go? I know that you came home after dark, and we all know what happened after that, but...what about the time in between?" Kasumi's voice had a tremble in it, as if she were at the verge of crying. When would these people realize that Ranma wasn't worth crying over? He was too far gone to have tears mean anything! He shook his head no. "Please, Ranma? Where did you go?" Ranma shook his head again. But where had he gone during that time? He seemed to remember walking around town for a while, until...Akane? No, that had been a hallucination of sorts. Ranma snorted; he needed psychiatric help if he was seeing things. "Ranma? Please tell me. I'm just trying to help you." After his little vision, Ranma had...had...he'd what? What had he done? What HAD happened during those hours? "Please talk to me, Ranma." Kasumi's voice was pleading in its concern for the boy. "Something horrible must have happened for you to have done this to yourself. Please tell me. If you talk to me about it, I can help." A flash of memory: Ranma staring up at the night sky, feeling cold drops of rain impact her delicate, female face. "Please, Ranma? Please talk to me?" Another flash: three young men, their faces grinning with lust and malice. "Ranma? Are you listening to me?" Ranma standing against a wall, her arms held out to the sides as one of the men rips open her shirt, steps back in horror. "Ranma?" Thoughts running through Ranma's head as the men move her to the wall; was she pretty? Did they find her attractive? He had almost let them rape her. Ranma Saotome had almost let a group of men rape her.
Sobs ripped forth from Ranma's throat. Had he any vocal chords to clench, he would have been gurgling and screaming in rage and pain, the memories running through his head again and again. He buried his face in his hands, trying desperately to hide from the images flashing through his mind. The physical pain was completely forgotten as mental scars reopened, flooding his very being with hurt. He shuddered and convulsed in his bed, trying desperately to remove the painful memories from his head. Hands beat and clawed at his head and face; he needed to get rid of those horrible events.
Kasumi's panicked scream cut through the silence of the night like a warm knife through butter. "DR. TOFU!!! COME QUICKLY!!!" The woman, with tears running down her face, tried time and time again to stop Ranma's savage beating of himself. Each time he would knock her away almost unconsciously, immediately returning to clawing his eyes out or beating himself in the face; Kasumi received several bruises from Ranma's blows. "TOFU!!! GOD, TOFU!!! COME DOWN HERE NOW!!!" The Tendo woman was hysterical, overcome with fear and anxiety. What was going on? Where was Dr. Tofu?
The door opened behind her and the owner of the clinic raced in, clad only in a pair of loose-fitting black pants. His expression quickly turned from one of confused worry to horror. The Doctor raced over to Ranma's side and grabbed hold of the boy's wrists, pinning them to the bed. "Kasumi! Get me some Valium!"
Kasumi's shaking hands clenched in front of her, she asked, "Where?"
"The cupboard to your left! Hurry!"
Rifling through the contents of the cupboard, she called frantically, "I can't find it!"
Tofu swore. "Blue box! It should say 'Valium.'"
The brown-haired girl whimpered helplessly. "I can't find it, Tofu! It's not here!"
"Yes it is, Kasumi! Now get it to me and get it to me quickly!" Tofu grunted in exertion as he struggled to hold the injured boy to the bed.
Kasumi finally found what she was looking for and rushed over to the Doctor. "I've found it!"
"Great!" Tofu's glasses glinted in the soft moonlight as he turned his face to Kasumi. "What I need you to do is open that and inject it into his arm. Can you do that?"
Gasping, the woman shook her head. "No! I don't have any idea what I'm doing!"
"Kasumi, I need you to do this. I can't do it. All you need to do is give him a shot. It's simple, really. I'm sure you can do it. I believe in you."
Kasumi's trembling hands moved to open the box and extract a sterility- sealed syringe in plastic casing. She removed it from that casing and stared at the syringe helplessly. "Now what?" The tremble in her voice was plainly evident.
Tofu's sweating face smiled confidently at Kasumi. "You see that big vein on his left arm, there?" He gestured with his nose.
"Y-yeah..."
"Good. What I need you to do is give him the shot right there. You don't need to worry about anything but hitting the vein; I'll keep him nice and still for you, okay?" Kasumi nodded dumbly. "All right, then. You can do this, Kasumi. Now, just place the end of the needle a centimeter or two above the vein." Kasumi did so, prompting Tofu to continue. "Okay. What you need to do next is slowly insert MMPH!" Ranma's body shook as he forcefully tried to break Tofu's grip, causing Kasumi to yelp and jump back. After he had gotten the injured boy under control, he turned back to Kasumi and said, "All right, Kasumi, it's time for try number two. Don't worry; I won't let him do something like that again."
"Do you promise?" she asked lamely, trembling violently, tears streaming out of her eyes and down her face.
A smirk preceded the Doctor's answer. "Promise. Now, just put the needle a centimeter above the vein again. ...Good, good. Now, just touch the skin with the tip of the needle." Another grunt escaped Tofu's lips, but he quickly returned to talking Kasumi through the procedure. "Don't actually puncture anything, yet. Yes, exactly like that. Okay, this is the tricky part, so be very careful. Push lightly but firmly, until the tip of the needle is about two centimeters beneath the skin. ...Slowly...slowly...there. Okay. All you need to do is to depress the plunger with your thumb, and we're all done, okay?" It only took about thirty seconds after Kasumi injected the Valium for Ranma to cease struggling and go limp.
Tofu collapsed on Ranma's body, his chest heaving from exertion. "Damn, that boy's strong!" he exclaimed between gasps. "I almost couldn't hold him down!" A clattering noise caught the Doctor's attention, and he turned his head to see Kasumi staring blankly at Ranma's slumbering form. The empty syringe had fallen from her lifeless fingers. "Kasumi?" he asked tentatively, stepping over to the woman. "Are you okay?"
Kasumi shook her head. She looked up into Tofu's eyes, and her gaze pierced Tofu's soul with sadness and regret. "Why?" she asked lamely, tears leaking down her face. "Why does he have to go through this?"
The Doctor shook his head and gathered the woman into his arms, saying, "I don't know, Kasumi. Sometimes life isn't fair."
The Tendo girl shook her head against Tofu's chest, and she could be heard whimpering, "I know, but why does it have to be so unfair to him?"
Dr. Tofu had no answer for that question, so he just stroked Kasumi's hair, whispering comforting words into her ear as she sobbed against him.
+++
Nabiki tentatively knocked on her sister's door. "C'mon in," came Akane's voice. The older girl opened the door and stepped in, closing it softly behind her.
"Nabiki. What brings you here?" There was no warmth in Akane's voice. She had a hunch as to who had told the entire school about Ranma, but she couldn't do anything until she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt.
"I..." started the brown-haired girl, looking to the floor. She took a deep breath and began anew. "Akane, I...I know about Ranma. I know what happened to him, and I know where he is right now." She really needed to find out what was going on, and this was the only way she could think of to go about it.
Akane delivered the expected information; she was always as predictable as time itself. Her face hardened further, if it was actually possible to do so. She stood and marched straight up to her sister, placing her face mere centimeters from the other girl's. "If you tell anyone," whispered Akane malevolently, "about Ranma, I will personally destroy you. Do you understand me? No one but Dr. Tofu, Kasumi, you and I are to know. Let me iterate. If you tell ANYONE – anyone at all – about Ranma's suicide attempt, I will personally make sure that you occupy the bed next to Ranma's, and I'm sure that Dr. Tofu won't mind giving you a little special treatment, if you catch my drift." Eyes glinting dangerously in the incandescent light, Akane growled, "Now get out."
Nabiki, however, did not move. She stood rooted to the ground, her eyes wide with horror and her jaw trembling. Ranma had...tried to commit...suicide? He'd tried to kill himself? Her knees suddenly weak, Nabiki fell to the floor. She knelt there, staring at the floor of Akane's room, a look of abject horror on her face.
The girl with blue-black hair was concerned. Sure, she had expected her sister to react badly to her words, but not THAT badly. "Nabiki?" she asked, kneeling next to the older girl. "Are you all right?"
Looking into Akane's eyes with shocked regret, Nabiki whispered, "I didn't know, Akane. I wouldn't have...if...if I had known." Nabiki's eyes filled with tears and she buried her face in her hands, wishing for all the world to hide the sorrow she felt at that moment. She didn't want Akane to see her so vulnerable.
All Akane could think about was the fact that Nabiki had tricked her AGAIN. "You mean that you were lying?!?" shouted the younger girl, standing abruptly. She couldn't believe what she was hearing! Nabiki had not only...but she'd...and..."What the hell is wrong with you, Nabiki?!? Where did your soul go?" Akane noticed that her sister was saying nothing, so she got even angrier. How could the girl just ignore her like that? "Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Now that you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're without any morals or scruples at all, what do you have to say? Are you proud of all you've accomplished? Are you happy that you've destroyed your relationship with your sister, as well as crushed a perfectly innocent boy? WELL?!?" She was making wild accusations – she had no proof that Nabiki had told the school about Ranma. But she didn't care. Akane was too far immersed in rage to notice anything but the red that tinged her vision. Nabiki still refused to answer, so Akane decided to get physical. She bent down and hefted the older girl to her feet. "SAY SOMETHING!!!" screamed the younger girl to her sister. Nabiki just continued to shake her head back and forth, maintaining the silence that so enraged Akane. "Damn it, Nabiki, say something for yourself!!!" Akane forced Nabiki's hands away from her face. What she saw there made her gasp in surprise. Nabiki was crying. The anger that had been so unyielding, so relentless, like the constant rolling thrusts of the tide, ebbed and waned, leaving Akane's mind strangely clear. She looked upon the tear-streaked face of her older sister and replayed the previous few minutes in her head. Nabiki had obviously been disturbed by something, but Akane had been too angry to notice anything. She had started yelling at the sobbing girl, not even aware of the fragility that her older sister exuded. "Nabiki," started Akane lamely, lowing her voice to a volume and pitch that she thought was soothing. "Nabiki, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said all of that. I shouldn't have accused you of doing that to Ranma. I know that you wouldn't- "
"BUT I DID, AKANE!" Nabiki's scream made Akane cringe, pulling her hands back to her chest. A tense moment passed before the older sister spoke again, this time in a soft, shaky voice. "I did, Akane. I told the entire school about him. I sold the information to Kuno. After that, I started selling information about the scars he has, and about how he lost his speech." Nabiki's form shuddered. "I'm a horrible person, Akane. I don't even deserve to live." Whispering, she added, "I hope I die. I certainly deserve it."
She HAD told everyone about Ranma? Why, that...no, Akane couldn't yell at her. That would just make the situation worse. She couldn't just let it pass, either, though. And...WHAT HAD NABIKI JUST SAID?!? "Nabiki, don't talk like that. You don't deserve to die." Akane wrapped her arms around Nabiki's shoulders and drew her into a soft embrace. "Yeah, Nabiki, you made mistakes. I'm not going to dance around that issue. But there is no way that what you did makes you deserve death. No way in hell, Nabiki, so just stop saying that right now." Akane hoped she was helping. She didn't want to lose Nabiki the way she had almost lost Ranma.
Nabiki sobbed into her sister's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Akane. I'm so incredibly sorry."
Akane just held her sister quietly, trying not to judge the fragile girl in her arms.
After several minutes, Nabiki's sobs slowed, then eventually stopped. She sniffed once and looked up into Akane's eyes shamefully. "Why don't we tell each other what we know? You can tell me what you know, and then I can fill in any holes in the story."
Nabiki's red eyes, while usually possessing a certain casual disregard for others, were filled to the brim with regret and remorse. For the first time that Akane could remember, her next oldest sister was obviously thinking of someone other than herself. "Yeah, we can do that," she said with a small smile. Akane brushed Nabiki's bangs out of her face as the older girl smiled tentatively. "We can do that right now."
+++
Ryoga Hibiki frowned yet again. Where was that stupid girl? "Excuse me, have you seen Akane Tendo?"
"No," replied the girl, "I haven't. I'm sorry." She briskly walked away before Ryoga could ask her anything more.
"HGHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!" seethed the eternally lost boy. "WHERE THE HELL IS AKANE TENDO?!?"
"Were you looking for me?"
Ryoga spun around to come face-to-face with a girl about his age. She had long, blue-black hair, and she was accompanied by a slightly taller girl with brown hair cut short. "Are you Akane Tendo?" asked the boy of the one with brown hair.
Unfortunately for Ryoga, she shook her head. "Nope. Sorry."
"WHY DO YOU PLAY GAMES WITH ME?!?" he roared, consumed with anger. His glare at the brown-haired girl caused her to flinch behind her friend.
"Hey!" exclaimed the longhaired girl. "What the hell is your problem? She didn't do anything to you!"
Clenching his teeth, the fanged boy asked quietly, "Are YOU Akane Tendo?"
"Actually, yes I am."
Ryoga, not expecting this answer, was struck dumb. He just stared at Akane for a full minute before asking incredulously, "Really?"
She nodded, a frown on her face. "Yes, and this is my sister, Nabiki Tendo. I'm kind of wondering why exactly you chose to scare her half to death just now, if you don't mind."
The boy blushed and bowed. "I'm really very sorry about that. I've just been looking for you all morning, and I haven't been able to find you until now. I hope you'll forgive me."
Peeking out from behind her sister, Nabiki nodded hesitantly. "Sure, no problem."
"That's better," said Akane, a bit more relaxed. At least the boy had apologized. "So, you were looking for me?"
"Ah, yes," he chuckled nervously. "I was told that you know the whereabouts of one Ranma Saotome?"
"Ranma?" Nabiki and Akane chorused.
Nervously taking a step back at the girls' hard stares, Ryoga replied, "Y- yes, Ranma. I was told he was staying with you?"
"How do you know him?" the two girls replied in unison, looking directly into the boy's eyes. If this boy wanted to mess with Ranma, the two Tendo sisters had to get rid of him.
Another nervous step backward put Ryoga's back to the wall surrounding Furinkan. "Um...he and I went to the same junior high school." He gulped audibly. These two were intimidating, to say the least. Fortunately, both girls smiled after he said that. Inwardly, Ryoga sighed in relief. The situation had defused itself at last. Or so Ryoga hoped.
"You're a friend of his?" The whole 'two bodies one mind' thing was getting kind of freaky.
"You could say that," came the enigmatic reply. Ryoga wasn't exactly open about his feud with the other boy.
"Then come on!" Each girl grabbed one of his hands and started dragging him away. "He'll be so happy to see you!" the pair chirped in unison.
The eternally lost boy was far too confused and scared to think about his duel with Ranma.
+++
"I'm so glad that our children are getting along so well, Saotome." Soun Tendo was walking along the streets of Nerima with his oldest and dearest friend, Genma Saotome. The pair was walking toward the clinic of one Dr. Ono Tofu, the Tendo family's doctor for many years. The reason for this was that they thought that their children had conceived a child. In such a case, Akane would surely have gone to Dr. Tofu about it, and that was the rationale behind the visit. They were going to confront the good doctor and force him to spill the entire story. At first the Doctor would deny it, trying to save the reputations of his two young patrons. However, after a long and grueling staring match, the man would relent and spill the beans. Subsequently, Soun and Genma would go out and get very, VERY drunk. Yes, the whole day was planned out.
"As am I, old friend." Genma Saotome was smiling. He was also looking forward to the day's planned activities. Of course, he had no doubt in his mind that things WOULD go as planned. That's just the way Genma was.
"Yes, Genma, I always knew that it would be so." Gazing off into the clear, blue sky, Soun reminisced about his days training with Genma. "We were such good friends, Saotome, that it is only natural that our children would carry on that friendship into the next generation – and possibly beyond."
Genma exploded in laughter. "Right you are, Tendo! Right you are!"
Soun joined in on Genma's joyous laughter for several minutes – drawing stares from several other people walking along the street – but suddenly stopped as he realized where he was. "Oh! Genma, the clinic is just around the corner!"
Suddenly serious, Genma nodded. "Let's go, Soun."
"Right."
As they rounded the corner they both caught sight of Dr. Tofu's clinic. However, that wasn't what made them stop in their tracks. No, what made them freeze was the earth shatteringly loud scream of, "RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!!!"
///////////////////////////////////////
Author's notes: Okay, this chapter is a bit off. I can tell already. I lost a whole lot of momentum on this story, and it was fairly hard to write it after so long a break. I honestly need anyone and everyone to give me some feedback on this.
About the whole Ryoga thing toward the beginning: the reason for Ryoga's merciless beating of Ranma day after day will be explained next chapter, so just hold your horses. The reason the rest of the school joined in on Ranma's beating sessions will also be explained later. As for the reason Ryoga used rocks instead of his fists? Well, the school frowned upon fighting. There were some extremely harsh punishments if one was caught fighting, so the boys at the school had to find ways of injuring our protagonist without leaving any marks on their clothes or hands. Though the school suspected that something fishy was going on in Ranma's case, they couldn't prove anything, so they had to let it go. Genma's tolerance of the beatings Ryoga gave Ranma will be explained away next chapter, too, so BACK OFF.
Pickles in a bucket with tartar sauce.
This chapter was extremely slow, I know. It was set-up for action in the next chapter, so don't worry; I'm not going to just leave you guys hanging. It'll pick back up next chapter.
About the extra super mega mondo 'I'm-so-stupefied-I-actually-wet-my-pants' 'Good-Lord-I-thought-he-was-dead' wait, I'm sorry. No excuses. No evasions. Just a whole lot of sorry.
Nabiki's change toward the end of the chapter: if you were a person who had based her life around a set of values, and you suddenly realized that those values were the things you hated most in the world, how would you react? You'd be vulnerable, that's for sure. Nabiki has just had a complete change of lifestyle. She has found herself without anything on which to base her life. She's extremely vulnerable right now, and is basically depending on her sister for support until she can sort out her life. Also, she hasn't been getting much (any) sleep because of the guilt and shame she feels, which will also mess with her physiological and psychological self. That's why that happened.
Now, I am anticipating getting a bit of 'guff,' as it were, about my portrayal of Nabiki. I know a lot of people who think that Nabiki is a cold- hearted ice queen, and that she is more closely related to a snake than to her sisters. Well, I just find that hard to believe. I mean, yeah, Nabiki has done some pretty nasty things in her life, up to and including extortion, fraud, blackmail, and a whole laundry list of other things; but the whole reason she's the way she is stems from her mother's death. If her mother hadn't died and scarred Nabiki permanently, she wouldn't be the Nabiki we all know and love (at least I love her; I can't speak for the rest of you). That knowledge makes Nabiki seem like a much more fragile and vulnerable girl than is normally presumed. When she realized that she had hurt someone else in the way she herself had been hurt by her mother's death, she descended into a pit of self-loathing and despair. (I don't think anyone that had gone through that kind of grief would ever wish it on anyone else.)
So that's that. Jingle bells, and all that rot.
I don't know anything about the laws in Japan concerning a situation such as the one in which Ranma found himself at the beginning of the chapter. If he were to have actually injured a classmate in that manner, I'm not sure what would have happened. I'm also unsure about what would have happened had he in fact been declared mentally unstable. Hell, I don't even know the laws regarding that kind of thing in the U.S., and I live there! If anyone can help me with that kind of thing, I'd be most grateful. I don't want to seem ignorant or uninformed, but I'm ignorant and uninformed, so it's kind of hard, you know?
ANY discrepancies concerning ANY of the situations in this story should be reported directly to:
A Depraved Sociopath with Psychotic Tendencies
RevChuck@PenPen.com
Earth – your country, your city, your place of residence, your room, right behind you
Thank you for your cooperation, and look out for that anvil above you.
MADE YOU LOOK!!!
Please don't hurt me.
-A Depraved Sociopath with Psychotic Tendencies
The girl shook her head. "Nope. Sorry. Why don't you ask Akane?"
At least he was getting somewhere. "Who?"
The girl blushed lightly in embarrassment. "Sorry. I didn't notice that you weren't a student here. Ask for Akane Tendo; Ranma's staying with her for the time being."
"But she's gone home for the day," chirped one of the other girls in the group. "You could ask her tomorrow, though," she added hopefully.
The Hibiki boy smiled and bowed deeply. "Thank you very much!" He then turned to walk the two feet back to his traveling pack and sat down as the group of girls walked away, giggling amongst themselves.
Ranma Saotome was going to meet his doom at long last!
+++
It was a sunny day, and the wind blew gently through the trees. Children were filing into their school, their faces light and their voices cheery.
One boy, however, stuck out like a sore thumb. His sullen manner of walking; the way his eyes were always cast toward the ground; the slow plodding of his feet; all of these things contributed to the black aura that exuded from this particular boy.
His name was Ranma Saotome.
As he passed through the gates of the school, groups of boys all over the schoolyard stopped their conversations to stare at him. Their eyes followed him as he moved through the yard, toward the doors to the school proper. Hushed whispers turned into murmurs, and murmurs turned into outright jeers. "Freak!" "Go away!" "Nobody likes you!" "I wish you'd died in that accident, you weirdo!"
There were other, more quiet groups of children, boys who looked upon the merciless treatment of the Saotome boy with revulsion and sympathy. But though they were many in number, they were weak in spirit, and did nothing to stop the others from berating the crippled boy. They stood by silently, hoping against hope that the taunts and insults would miraculously stop one day.
"Well, Saotome. It seems that you decided to come back again, huh?" Ranma looked up to the form standing directly in front of him. The fangs protruding out of his mouth lent an eerie malevolence to the face of Ryoga Hibiki, the bane of Ranma's existence. "Didn't I tell you to stay away? Or do you think that you can beat me into treating you like a human being?"
Ranma held Ryoga's gaze for a moment, but let his eyes drop to the ground deferentially. He couldn't do anything. He simply couldn't. Oh, Ranma had no doubt about his ability; but his father had specifically prohibited him from getting into any more fights in school. That was part of the reason he had moved schools in the first place – aside from his training, that is.
Ranma ignored the rest of the fanged boy's taunts as he remembered what had happened the last time he had gotten into a fight at school.
*****
"C'mon, ya freak!" jeered Hiro, the boy standing in front of him. Ranma sighed and closed his eyes. He didn't want to get into another fight. He was in danger of getting expelled if he made that mistake again.
Suddenly, a fist impacted Ranma's face, sending the unsuspecting boy back and onto his rear. Shaking his head, Ranma looked up to the sneering boy. "You want some?" asked the cocky youth. "Come get it."
Ranma winced as he put his hand to his face. It came away bloody. The red of the blood on his hand expanded, consumed his entire field of vision. Crimson. Hate.
When his vision cleared, Ranma was sitting on some boy's chest. His hands were bloody and painful. Ranma flexed them, examined them, noting the blood that slowly dripped down his wrists and forearms. Not all of it was his. He looked down to see the mangled face of Hiro staring back at him, blood everywhere. Teeth were bent at odd angles; tissue was swollen; his nose was a disfigured lump of flesh. What had he done?
Ranma stood and looked around. Shocked faces regarded him. His classmates. His teachers. Somewhere in the distance, someone was calling for the police and an ambulance. There seemed to be a note of urgency in that person's voice. Ranma looked back down to his rival's prone form, and then back to his hands. Yeah, it was an emergency all right.
*****
Thankfully, the police, after hearing the testimonies of many of the witnesses, had declared that Ranma's problem was psychological, and that he would not bear any legal repercussions. However, he was sentenced to stay in a mental hospital for an indeterminate amount of time.
He had wasted two months there, answering doctors' questions, trying not to cry from fear and regret.
Ranma didn't want to repeat that. No, no he did not.
"Well, you gonna do something?" Ryoga's voice cut its way through the haze of memories. Ranma shook his head, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Well, then," said the other boy haughtily, "why don't you and I go for a walk?" Ranma could tell just by the tone of Ryoga's voice that he was smiling a cruel, evil smile. "Let's go back behind the equipment shed, shall we? We've still got some time before classes." With a shove from the fanged boy, Ranma started to walk toward the back of the school, where the equipment shed was – and where other people weren't.
Ranma's eyes got tears in them, but he was determined not to let them leak down his face. He'd taken beatings before, and he'd not cried once. He'd be damned if he was gonna start.
Reaching the appointed place, Ranma set down his book bag, removed his uniform jacket and turned to his tormenter. Behind the cruelly smiling face of Ryoga, Ranma could see some of the other boys of the school with evil smiles of their own. There was a larger crowd than usual.
Something struck the base of Ranma's skull, stunning him and knocking him to the ground. He lay there for a moment, dazed. Behind him? Since when had they positioned themselves behind him, too? They'd always just pelted him from the front, before. More rocks slammed into Ranma's body, knocking breath out of him in short gasps. Well, he'd not be escaping without bandages. Not that that was unusual.
+++
Ranma's eyes opened to see a shaft of light running through the window and onto the ceiling of Dr. Tofu's office. His whole body ached and throbbed, but he had gotten used to that. He had been accustomed to pain for as long as he could remember. He snorted derisively. He could take physical pain, but emotional pain crippled him like a pack of cats. Disgusting.
Akane had stayed for a while that morning, but had to leave for school after a time. Kasumi had spent the rest of the day with Ranma, soothing him and trying to talk to him. She asked him a bunch of questions about the reason he did what he did to himself, but Ranma didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about anything, but that least of all.
After a time, Dr. Tofu had asked Kasumi to leave the room so he could change Ranma's bandages. When Kasumi had said no, Ranma's heart dropped. He hadn't wanted her seeing his horribly disfigured body. She'd already seen it, sure, but that didn't mean Ranma was okay with flaunting it in front of her.
The changing of the bandages let Ranma see just how much damage he'd done to himself. He noted with some revulsion that the bandages he'd been wearing previously were thick and stiff with dried blood and pus. His legs were horrible; Ranma hadn't seen anything like them ever before. His body resembled nothing more than overcooked meat; the swollen tissue oozed disgustingly, and the surfaces of his wounds were dark and lumpy. Ranma's body had been trying to scab the wounds over, so it could heal itself, but there was too much damage.
Kasumi had gasped when the first bandage was removed, and she began to silently weep as Dr. Tofu continued his ministrations. As if that weren't enough to make Ranma want to crawl into a hole and die, the pained look that came over the Doctor's face struck deep into the teen's heart. He could see that Tofu wanted to comfort Kasumi, that he didn't want to hear her crying, but he was too busy with Ranma to do anything about it. If it hadn't been for Ranma, he would've been able to hold the woman he loved in his arms to comfort her. Hell, if it hadn't been for Ranma, she wouldn't have been crying at all.
So the bandages were changed, and Kasumi regained enough composure to fetch some food for Ranma. After he had been fed, Ranma was given a potent draught that swept him off to sleep.
Then the dreams had come, waking Ranma. Which was where the boy found himself, alone in the cold night, staring at the ceiling of his own personal prison, wracked with the guilt of the hurt he had caused so many people.
The door to his room opened, causing Ranma to turn his head sharply. Kasumi walked in quietly, clad in a white bathrobe cinched tightly about her waist. She closed the door and the bedridden teen turned his face away from the woman, not wanting to look at her. Not only was he ashamed to look into her eyes, but also he was profoundly disturbed by the way the robe seemed to cling to her in indecent ways. He could feel blood rushing to his face as he heard Kasumi seat herself by his bed. "Hey, Ranma," she whispered, taking his hand in hers. "I didn't know if you'd be awake, but I'm glad you are. I wanted to talk to you about what happened." Great. She wanted to talk, too. Everyone wanted to talk about his damned life, as if they were really interested. Fun stuff. "Ranma, after you left school, where did you go? I know that you came home after dark, and we all know what happened after that, but...what about the time in between?" Kasumi's voice had a tremble in it, as if she were at the verge of crying. When would these people realize that Ranma wasn't worth crying over? He was too far gone to have tears mean anything! He shook his head no. "Please, Ranma? Where did you go?" Ranma shook his head again. But where had he gone during that time? He seemed to remember walking around town for a while, until...Akane? No, that had been a hallucination of sorts. Ranma snorted; he needed psychiatric help if he was seeing things. "Ranma? Please tell me. I'm just trying to help you." After his little vision, Ranma had...had...he'd what? What had he done? What HAD happened during those hours? "Please talk to me, Ranma." Kasumi's voice was pleading in its concern for the boy. "Something horrible must have happened for you to have done this to yourself. Please tell me. If you talk to me about it, I can help." A flash of memory: Ranma staring up at the night sky, feeling cold drops of rain impact her delicate, female face. "Please, Ranma? Please talk to me?" Another flash: three young men, their faces grinning with lust and malice. "Ranma? Are you listening to me?" Ranma standing against a wall, her arms held out to the sides as one of the men rips open her shirt, steps back in horror. "Ranma?" Thoughts running through Ranma's head as the men move her to the wall; was she pretty? Did they find her attractive? He had almost let them rape her. Ranma Saotome had almost let a group of men rape her.
Sobs ripped forth from Ranma's throat. Had he any vocal chords to clench, he would have been gurgling and screaming in rage and pain, the memories running through his head again and again. He buried his face in his hands, trying desperately to hide from the images flashing through his mind. The physical pain was completely forgotten as mental scars reopened, flooding his very being with hurt. He shuddered and convulsed in his bed, trying desperately to remove the painful memories from his head. Hands beat and clawed at his head and face; he needed to get rid of those horrible events.
Kasumi's panicked scream cut through the silence of the night like a warm knife through butter. "DR. TOFU!!! COME QUICKLY!!!" The woman, with tears running down her face, tried time and time again to stop Ranma's savage beating of himself. Each time he would knock her away almost unconsciously, immediately returning to clawing his eyes out or beating himself in the face; Kasumi received several bruises from Ranma's blows. "TOFU!!! GOD, TOFU!!! COME DOWN HERE NOW!!!" The Tendo woman was hysterical, overcome with fear and anxiety. What was going on? Where was Dr. Tofu?
The door opened behind her and the owner of the clinic raced in, clad only in a pair of loose-fitting black pants. His expression quickly turned from one of confused worry to horror. The Doctor raced over to Ranma's side and grabbed hold of the boy's wrists, pinning them to the bed. "Kasumi! Get me some Valium!"
Kasumi's shaking hands clenched in front of her, she asked, "Where?"
"The cupboard to your left! Hurry!"
Rifling through the contents of the cupboard, she called frantically, "I can't find it!"
Tofu swore. "Blue box! It should say 'Valium.'"
The brown-haired girl whimpered helplessly. "I can't find it, Tofu! It's not here!"
"Yes it is, Kasumi! Now get it to me and get it to me quickly!" Tofu grunted in exertion as he struggled to hold the injured boy to the bed.
Kasumi finally found what she was looking for and rushed over to the Doctor. "I've found it!"
"Great!" Tofu's glasses glinted in the soft moonlight as he turned his face to Kasumi. "What I need you to do is open that and inject it into his arm. Can you do that?"
Gasping, the woman shook her head. "No! I don't have any idea what I'm doing!"
"Kasumi, I need you to do this. I can't do it. All you need to do is give him a shot. It's simple, really. I'm sure you can do it. I believe in you."
Kasumi's trembling hands moved to open the box and extract a sterility- sealed syringe in plastic casing. She removed it from that casing and stared at the syringe helplessly. "Now what?" The tremble in her voice was plainly evident.
Tofu's sweating face smiled confidently at Kasumi. "You see that big vein on his left arm, there?" He gestured with his nose.
"Y-yeah..."
"Good. What I need you to do is give him the shot right there. You don't need to worry about anything but hitting the vein; I'll keep him nice and still for you, okay?" Kasumi nodded dumbly. "All right, then. You can do this, Kasumi. Now, just place the end of the needle a centimeter or two above the vein." Kasumi did so, prompting Tofu to continue. "Okay. What you need to do next is slowly insert MMPH!" Ranma's body shook as he forcefully tried to break Tofu's grip, causing Kasumi to yelp and jump back. After he had gotten the injured boy under control, he turned back to Kasumi and said, "All right, Kasumi, it's time for try number two. Don't worry; I won't let him do something like that again."
"Do you promise?" she asked lamely, trembling violently, tears streaming out of her eyes and down her face.
A smirk preceded the Doctor's answer. "Promise. Now, just put the needle a centimeter above the vein again. ...Good, good. Now, just touch the skin with the tip of the needle." Another grunt escaped Tofu's lips, but he quickly returned to talking Kasumi through the procedure. "Don't actually puncture anything, yet. Yes, exactly like that. Okay, this is the tricky part, so be very careful. Push lightly but firmly, until the tip of the needle is about two centimeters beneath the skin. ...Slowly...slowly...there. Okay. All you need to do is to depress the plunger with your thumb, and we're all done, okay?" It only took about thirty seconds after Kasumi injected the Valium for Ranma to cease struggling and go limp.
Tofu collapsed on Ranma's body, his chest heaving from exertion. "Damn, that boy's strong!" he exclaimed between gasps. "I almost couldn't hold him down!" A clattering noise caught the Doctor's attention, and he turned his head to see Kasumi staring blankly at Ranma's slumbering form. The empty syringe had fallen from her lifeless fingers. "Kasumi?" he asked tentatively, stepping over to the woman. "Are you okay?"
Kasumi shook her head. She looked up into Tofu's eyes, and her gaze pierced Tofu's soul with sadness and regret. "Why?" she asked lamely, tears leaking down her face. "Why does he have to go through this?"
The Doctor shook his head and gathered the woman into his arms, saying, "I don't know, Kasumi. Sometimes life isn't fair."
The Tendo girl shook her head against Tofu's chest, and she could be heard whimpering, "I know, but why does it have to be so unfair to him?"
Dr. Tofu had no answer for that question, so he just stroked Kasumi's hair, whispering comforting words into her ear as she sobbed against him.
+++
Nabiki tentatively knocked on her sister's door. "C'mon in," came Akane's voice. The older girl opened the door and stepped in, closing it softly behind her.
"Nabiki. What brings you here?" There was no warmth in Akane's voice. She had a hunch as to who had told the entire school about Ranma, but she couldn't do anything until she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt.
"I..." started the brown-haired girl, looking to the floor. She took a deep breath and began anew. "Akane, I...I know about Ranma. I know what happened to him, and I know where he is right now." She really needed to find out what was going on, and this was the only way she could think of to go about it.
Akane delivered the expected information; she was always as predictable as time itself. Her face hardened further, if it was actually possible to do so. She stood and marched straight up to her sister, placing her face mere centimeters from the other girl's. "If you tell anyone," whispered Akane malevolently, "about Ranma, I will personally destroy you. Do you understand me? No one but Dr. Tofu, Kasumi, you and I are to know. Let me iterate. If you tell ANYONE – anyone at all – about Ranma's suicide attempt, I will personally make sure that you occupy the bed next to Ranma's, and I'm sure that Dr. Tofu won't mind giving you a little special treatment, if you catch my drift." Eyes glinting dangerously in the incandescent light, Akane growled, "Now get out."
Nabiki, however, did not move. She stood rooted to the ground, her eyes wide with horror and her jaw trembling. Ranma had...tried to commit...suicide? He'd tried to kill himself? Her knees suddenly weak, Nabiki fell to the floor. She knelt there, staring at the floor of Akane's room, a look of abject horror on her face.
The girl with blue-black hair was concerned. Sure, she had expected her sister to react badly to her words, but not THAT badly. "Nabiki?" she asked, kneeling next to the older girl. "Are you all right?"
Looking into Akane's eyes with shocked regret, Nabiki whispered, "I didn't know, Akane. I wouldn't have...if...if I had known." Nabiki's eyes filled with tears and she buried her face in her hands, wishing for all the world to hide the sorrow she felt at that moment. She didn't want Akane to see her so vulnerable.
All Akane could think about was the fact that Nabiki had tricked her AGAIN. "You mean that you were lying?!?" shouted the younger girl, standing abruptly. She couldn't believe what she was hearing! Nabiki had not only...but she'd...and..."What the hell is wrong with you, Nabiki?!? Where did your soul go?" Akane noticed that her sister was saying nothing, so she got even angrier. How could the girl just ignore her like that? "Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Now that you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're without any morals or scruples at all, what do you have to say? Are you proud of all you've accomplished? Are you happy that you've destroyed your relationship with your sister, as well as crushed a perfectly innocent boy? WELL?!?" She was making wild accusations – she had no proof that Nabiki had told the school about Ranma. But she didn't care. Akane was too far immersed in rage to notice anything but the red that tinged her vision. Nabiki still refused to answer, so Akane decided to get physical. She bent down and hefted the older girl to her feet. "SAY SOMETHING!!!" screamed the younger girl to her sister. Nabiki just continued to shake her head back and forth, maintaining the silence that so enraged Akane. "Damn it, Nabiki, say something for yourself!!!" Akane forced Nabiki's hands away from her face. What she saw there made her gasp in surprise. Nabiki was crying. The anger that had been so unyielding, so relentless, like the constant rolling thrusts of the tide, ebbed and waned, leaving Akane's mind strangely clear. She looked upon the tear-streaked face of her older sister and replayed the previous few minutes in her head. Nabiki had obviously been disturbed by something, but Akane had been too angry to notice anything. She had started yelling at the sobbing girl, not even aware of the fragility that her older sister exuded. "Nabiki," started Akane lamely, lowing her voice to a volume and pitch that she thought was soothing. "Nabiki, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said all of that. I shouldn't have accused you of doing that to Ranma. I know that you wouldn't- "
"BUT I DID, AKANE!" Nabiki's scream made Akane cringe, pulling her hands back to her chest. A tense moment passed before the older sister spoke again, this time in a soft, shaky voice. "I did, Akane. I told the entire school about him. I sold the information to Kuno. After that, I started selling information about the scars he has, and about how he lost his speech." Nabiki's form shuddered. "I'm a horrible person, Akane. I don't even deserve to live." Whispering, she added, "I hope I die. I certainly deserve it."
She HAD told everyone about Ranma? Why, that...no, Akane couldn't yell at her. That would just make the situation worse. She couldn't just let it pass, either, though. And...WHAT HAD NABIKI JUST SAID?!? "Nabiki, don't talk like that. You don't deserve to die." Akane wrapped her arms around Nabiki's shoulders and drew her into a soft embrace. "Yeah, Nabiki, you made mistakes. I'm not going to dance around that issue. But there is no way that what you did makes you deserve death. No way in hell, Nabiki, so just stop saying that right now." Akane hoped she was helping. She didn't want to lose Nabiki the way she had almost lost Ranma.
Nabiki sobbed into her sister's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Akane. I'm so incredibly sorry."
Akane just held her sister quietly, trying not to judge the fragile girl in her arms.
After several minutes, Nabiki's sobs slowed, then eventually stopped. She sniffed once and looked up into Akane's eyes shamefully. "Why don't we tell each other what we know? You can tell me what you know, and then I can fill in any holes in the story."
Nabiki's red eyes, while usually possessing a certain casual disregard for others, were filled to the brim with regret and remorse. For the first time that Akane could remember, her next oldest sister was obviously thinking of someone other than herself. "Yeah, we can do that," she said with a small smile. Akane brushed Nabiki's bangs out of her face as the older girl smiled tentatively. "We can do that right now."
+++
Ryoga Hibiki frowned yet again. Where was that stupid girl? "Excuse me, have you seen Akane Tendo?"
"No," replied the girl, "I haven't. I'm sorry." She briskly walked away before Ryoga could ask her anything more.
"HGHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!" seethed the eternally lost boy. "WHERE THE HELL IS AKANE TENDO?!?"
"Were you looking for me?"
Ryoga spun around to come face-to-face with a girl about his age. She had long, blue-black hair, and she was accompanied by a slightly taller girl with brown hair cut short. "Are you Akane Tendo?" asked the boy of the one with brown hair.
Unfortunately for Ryoga, she shook her head. "Nope. Sorry."
"WHY DO YOU PLAY GAMES WITH ME?!?" he roared, consumed with anger. His glare at the brown-haired girl caused her to flinch behind her friend.
"Hey!" exclaimed the longhaired girl. "What the hell is your problem? She didn't do anything to you!"
Clenching his teeth, the fanged boy asked quietly, "Are YOU Akane Tendo?"
"Actually, yes I am."
Ryoga, not expecting this answer, was struck dumb. He just stared at Akane for a full minute before asking incredulously, "Really?"
She nodded, a frown on her face. "Yes, and this is my sister, Nabiki Tendo. I'm kind of wondering why exactly you chose to scare her half to death just now, if you don't mind."
The boy blushed and bowed. "I'm really very sorry about that. I've just been looking for you all morning, and I haven't been able to find you until now. I hope you'll forgive me."
Peeking out from behind her sister, Nabiki nodded hesitantly. "Sure, no problem."
"That's better," said Akane, a bit more relaxed. At least the boy had apologized. "So, you were looking for me?"
"Ah, yes," he chuckled nervously. "I was told that you know the whereabouts of one Ranma Saotome?"
"Ranma?" Nabiki and Akane chorused.
Nervously taking a step back at the girls' hard stares, Ryoga replied, "Y- yes, Ranma. I was told he was staying with you?"
"How do you know him?" the two girls replied in unison, looking directly into the boy's eyes. If this boy wanted to mess with Ranma, the two Tendo sisters had to get rid of him.
Another nervous step backward put Ryoga's back to the wall surrounding Furinkan. "Um...he and I went to the same junior high school." He gulped audibly. These two were intimidating, to say the least. Fortunately, both girls smiled after he said that. Inwardly, Ryoga sighed in relief. The situation had defused itself at last. Or so Ryoga hoped.
"You're a friend of his?" The whole 'two bodies one mind' thing was getting kind of freaky.
"You could say that," came the enigmatic reply. Ryoga wasn't exactly open about his feud with the other boy.
"Then come on!" Each girl grabbed one of his hands and started dragging him away. "He'll be so happy to see you!" the pair chirped in unison.
The eternally lost boy was far too confused and scared to think about his duel with Ranma.
+++
"I'm so glad that our children are getting along so well, Saotome." Soun Tendo was walking along the streets of Nerima with his oldest and dearest friend, Genma Saotome. The pair was walking toward the clinic of one Dr. Ono Tofu, the Tendo family's doctor for many years. The reason for this was that they thought that their children had conceived a child. In such a case, Akane would surely have gone to Dr. Tofu about it, and that was the rationale behind the visit. They were going to confront the good doctor and force him to spill the entire story. At first the Doctor would deny it, trying to save the reputations of his two young patrons. However, after a long and grueling staring match, the man would relent and spill the beans. Subsequently, Soun and Genma would go out and get very, VERY drunk. Yes, the whole day was planned out.
"As am I, old friend." Genma Saotome was smiling. He was also looking forward to the day's planned activities. Of course, he had no doubt in his mind that things WOULD go as planned. That's just the way Genma was.
"Yes, Genma, I always knew that it would be so." Gazing off into the clear, blue sky, Soun reminisced about his days training with Genma. "We were such good friends, Saotome, that it is only natural that our children would carry on that friendship into the next generation – and possibly beyond."
Genma exploded in laughter. "Right you are, Tendo! Right you are!"
Soun joined in on Genma's joyous laughter for several minutes – drawing stares from several other people walking along the street – but suddenly stopped as he realized where he was. "Oh! Genma, the clinic is just around the corner!"
Suddenly serious, Genma nodded. "Let's go, Soun."
"Right."
As they rounded the corner they both caught sight of Dr. Tofu's clinic. However, that wasn't what made them stop in their tracks. No, what made them freeze was the earth shatteringly loud scream of, "RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!!!"
///////////////////////////////////////
Author's notes: Okay, this chapter is a bit off. I can tell already. I lost a whole lot of momentum on this story, and it was fairly hard to write it after so long a break. I honestly need anyone and everyone to give me some feedback on this.
About the whole Ryoga thing toward the beginning: the reason for Ryoga's merciless beating of Ranma day after day will be explained next chapter, so just hold your horses. The reason the rest of the school joined in on Ranma's beating sessions will also be explained later. As for the reason Ryoga used rocks instead of his fists? Well, the school frowned upon fighting. There were some extremely harsh punishments if one was caught fighting, so the boys at the school had to find ways of injuring our protagonist without leaving any marks on their clothes or hands. Though the school suspected that something fishy was going on in Ranma's case, they couldn't prove anything, so they had to let it go. Genma's tolerance of the beatings Ryoga gave Ranma will be explained away next chapter, too, so BACK OFF.
Pickles in a bucket with tartar sauce.
This chapter was extremely slow, I know. It was set-up for action in the next chapter, so don't worry; I'm not going to just leave you guys hanging. It'll pick back up next chapter.
About the extra super mega mondo 'I'm-so-stupefied-I-actually-wet-my-pants' 'Good-Lord-I-thought-he-was-dead' wait, I'm sorry. No excuses. No evasions. Just a whole lot of sorry.
Nabiki's change toward the end of the chapter: if you were a person who had based her life around a set of values, and you suddenly realized that those values were the things you hated most in the world, how would you react? You'd be vulnerable, that's for sure. Nabiki has just had a complete change of lifestyle. She has found herself without anything on which to base her life. She's extremely vulnerable right now, and is basically depending on her sister for support until she can sort out her life. Also, she hasn't been getting much (any) sleep because of the guilt and shame she feels, which will also mess with her physiological and psychological self. That's why that happened.
Now, I am anticipating getting a bit of 'guff,' as it were, about my portrayal of Nabiki. I know a lot of people who think that Nabiki is a cold- hearted ice queen, and that she is more closely related to a snake than to her sisters. Well, I just find that hard to believe. I mean, yeah, Nabiki has done some pretty nasty things in her life, up to and including extortion, fraud, blackmail, and a whole laundry list of other things; but the whole reason she's the way she is stems from her mother's death. If her mother hadn't died and scarred Nabiki permanently, she wouldn't be the Nabiki we all know and love (at least I love her; I can't speak for the rest of you). That knowledge makes Nabiki seem like a much more fragile and vulnerable girl than is normally presumed. When she realized that she had hurt someone else in the way she herself had been hurt by her mother's death, she descended into a pit of self-loathing and despair. (I don't think anyone that had gone through that kind of grief would ever wish it on anyone else.)
So that's that. Jingle bells, and all that rot.
I don't know anything about the laws in Japan concerning a situation such as the one in which Ranma found himself at the beginning of the chapter. If he were to have actually injured a classmate in that manner, I'm not sure what would have happened. I'm also unsure about what would have happened had he in fact been declared mentally unstable. Hell, I don't even know the laws regarding that kind of thing in the U.S., and I live there! If anyone can help me with that kind of thing, I'd be most grateful. I don't want to seem ignorant or uninformed, but I'm ignorant and uninformed, so it's kind of hard, you know?
ANY discrepancies concerning ANY of the situations in this story should be reported directly to:
A Depraved Sociopath with Psychotic Tendencies
RevChuck@PenPen.com
Earth – your country, your city, your place of residence, your room, right behind you
Thank you for your cooperation, and look out for that anvil above you.
MADE YOU LOOK!!!
Please don't hurt me.
-A Depraved Sociopath with Psychotic Tendencies