3: anicca (impermanence)
The sound of his heartbeat.
Low voices.
He opened his eyes.
They were talking about him, he knew. Downstairs, Ukyo, Ranma and the doctor were in quiet conference, using the kind of muffled, low and serious voices that befitted the discussion of a patient within the house. Ryoga, lying on his side with his ear pressed to the pillow, had less difficulty discerning the noise of the blood pulsing in his throat than in making out the strange and distorted voices of the people that he knew, muffled by the floor and the walls.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd been stuck in a bed for the length of time he'd been forced to endure here. It was nearly two days now, and unless a miracle occurred it was looking as if it would probably be three, or even four. Four days! It was unthinkable. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, he rolled onto his back and fixed his eyes on Ukyo's ceiling.
It wasn't that he never, ever got sick. It didn't happen often, but he'd had the flu a couple times in his life, and every few years when he was traipsing around the wilderness in winter he caught some kind of cold or throat infection or something. It happened, and was just a part of life. Ryoga knew that spending so much time so far from civilization meant that he didn't have any real way to comprehend how most people thought about illness—for them a cold meant staying indoors, hot tea (and probably soup, he mused, if Ukyo's spastic reaction yesterday had been any clue), and maybe baths and…things like that. He wasn't exactly sure what it all entailed, because it was part of a world he knew almost nothing about. Day-to-day living amidst people was something he experienced rarely, and since his childhood he'd gotten farther and farther away from that way of doing things, until the edge of memories dulled and faded and lost their brilliance, like newspaper clippings pressed between the pages of a book. It wasn't simply that he didn't know. It was like a foreign country to him. It would have been the same if he'd been air-lifted out of Japan and dropped in the middle of São Paolo—a possibility he didn't entirely discount in his life anyway. There were standards and behaviors he couldn't even begin to comprehend which other people understood intrinsically; he was a tourist in cities and in the countryside, a visitor from the wilderness of solitude to the world of ordinary men and women.
He sat up with a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck and the base of his skull. Downstairs they were still talking, though he couldn't imagine about what. This whole thing with that girl (Aka...Akane? Yes, he was sure that was right.) seemed to have upset them all a lot more than it had done him. Of course he'd gotten irritated at Ukyo, for ranting and raving at him about something so patently ridiculous—he didn't think he could be faulted for reacting like that. How would she like it if he'd grabbed some man at random off the street and declared that in fact she'd been in love with him for months and months, whether she remembered him or not?
It was against all logic. Ryoga knew he'd lost almost four weeks, but what she was suggesting was simply too incredible for him to seriously consider. He gave a brief, weak chuckle and massaged his temples. He was in love with some girl he'd never met. Right.
Dr. Tofu had been noticeably concerned, though. What did it all mean? The doctor seemed to have his feet planted pretty firmly on the earth; it did seem really unlikely, Ryoga had to admit, for him to have been suggesting what he'd been by his line of questioning if there wasn't...something to Ukyo's bizarre assertion.
"But it's impossible," he said, though not too loudly—he got the distinct impression that the three people downstairs considered him to be some kind of invalid (Ukyo had certainly said as much, loudly and repeatedly) and apparently mentally unstable—maybe even a danger to himself. Helpless, anyway, since they were keeping him stuck here despite all his protests.
Well, he would see about that. But shouting and breaking stuff wouldn't help his case any at this point, even if it was usually how he got things done.
The doctor had asked gentle questions in an apparently light tone. Was it true that he couldn't recall ever meeting Akane? Did he remember Ranma? How about Shampoo? Mousse? Could he remember how he met Ranma? Yes? What about the day he first came to Furinkan? Yes, there had been a fight...yes, and there was a girl...no, actually, there was a girl, and she'd had long hair at the time. No, no, Ranma had mentioned it sometime after the incident. Yes, the girl was Tendo Akane. No, no, Akane.
It felt very much like a conspiracy, but what possible reason could a bunch of people largely connected only by their relationship to Ranma have in wanting Ryoga to think he was in love with some girl? And what was the girl's relation to Ranma? Because there obviously was one; every time Dr. Tofu brought up Ranma it seemed a foregone conclusion that this Akane person was somehow linked to him at the hip.
The whole thing just sounded really, really weird.
Ryoga got up carefully, twisting his clothes around into some semblance of respectability, patting himself down and tucking in his shirt. He left the room and cast about, but there was only one set of stairs, at the end of the hall, and making his way down them was not as difficult as he had feared.
At the foot of the stairs he stopped, and waited as the quiet, intense conversation died and three pairs of eyes turned in his direction. The restaurant was half-lit by the sunlight pouring in through the open doors and windows, and the noise of people going to and fro on the street was audible, though Ukyo's noren was propped against the wall inside.
"Um," Ryoga said, with a little shamefaced bob of the head, "...hi."
Their expressions ranged from a kind of sickly smile—Ukyo's—through slack-jawed idiotic gaping, to a self-contained look of gentle concern—the doctor's. Ryoga's eyes gravitated to Ranma's face, if only because he was seemed to be having the most, well, normal reaction.
Normal for him, anyway.
"Damn it all, Ryoga!" That was Ukyo, leaping to her feet and smacking her hands on the counter, "You are supposed to be in bed!"
Why?" Ryoga asked simply. "You thought me being up was okay this morning. Hell, I thought I was getting out of here this morning."
She opened her mouth at that, and shut it again. Then she said, "Things have changed."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because you're sick and stuff, man," Ranma interjected, laying a placating hand on Ukyo's arm as she bristled. Ryoga's eyebrow went up at that. Ukyo was Ranma's fiancée, after all. Maybe things were finally starting to work out between them.
"I don't feel sick," Ryoga said mildly, entering the restaurant proper and settling on a stool around the corner of the counter from where the other three were seated. "I feel just fine."
"So what?" Ukyo snapped, "You're not the judge of how healthy you are!"
Ryoga looked at Dr. Tofu, who was regarding him placidly. It was Ranma who spoke up.
"Is it true, though, what Ukyo said?"
"Is what true?"
"That you've forgotten all about Akane, about..."
Ryoga sighed. He wanted to fling his hands up in the air in exasperation, but restrained himself with some difficulty. He hoped his eyelid didn't start twitching or anything with all this unhealthy emotional suppression.
"I don't know exactly what is going on," he said after a moment in which everyone seemed to be waiting for him to speak. He saw Ranma fidgeting with an unopened pack of disposable chopsticks, printed with the Ucchan's logo and business hours. "Everyone seems to know—or to be telling me something that I don't know and I can't—I can't believe it. I mean, I really, really can't fit it into my head."
"Well, I'm having a real hard time with the idea that you don't—don't l...lll—"
"Love," Ukyo supplied.
"Right. That. I mean that you ain't chasin' after Akane n'stuff—it just…it's not right, y'know? I mean it's, well—it's weird, man."
"Weird," Ryoga repeated, flatly.
"Yeah."
Was it his imagination, or had Ranma actually flinched when Ryoga spoke?
What the hell was going on? Was he...were they...
Were they afraid of him? Or if not of him, then of something he might do...or not do?
A small snort of laughter escaped him. In another time he'd have given his right arm to have Ranma fear him. Now, though...
"I guess it is," Ryoga agreed quietly, "I guess everything is getting...I mean everything's gotten weird, hasn't it?"
"Yeah," Ukyo agreed. Ryoga's shoulders slumped, and he sighed.
"How do you know Akane, anyway?" he asked, looking up at Ranma. The question seemed to leave the pig-tailed young man momentarily unable to speak. He opened his mouth, and shut it again.
"Ukyo?" Ryoga looked to his erstwhile rescuer in a gesture of helplessness that was becoming a little more familiar than he liked. The long-haired girl was gaping at him too; maybe the question was too complicated to have an easy answer.
"Er...doctor?"
Tofu pushed his glasses up his nose again—a nervous gesture, Ryoga suspected--and cleared his throat.
"She's Ranma's fiancée."
None of the three seemed prepared for Ryoga's reaction, and the two younger martial artists leapt clear out of their seats when Ryoga exploded with laughter. The lost boy, for the second time that day, was unable to control himself and had to wipe the tears from his eyes as his frame shook with genuine amusement.
"I—" he gasped, pointing first at Ranma, "I'm supposed to be in love with your f--f--fiancée--" he choked, and then pointed at Ukyo, "But not this one—"
"Hey!" Ukyo bridled.
"And not Shampoo--"
"Uh—" Ranma's eyes were wide.
"—and not even K-K-Kodachi! In fact, in fact, according to everyone here, I've got the hots for some girl I've only ever laid eyes on for maybe two minutes in my entire life, and you're sitting there saying I'm the one who has a problem?" He wiped his eyes again, shoulders shaking.
"Yes," Ukyo said flatly, "we are."
"Oh, man," Ranma breathed as he slid back on to his stool.
"This is really bad," Ukyo said in an aside to Ranma. Ryoga sniffed.
"I'm sitting right here, you know," he informed them coolly.
"Mr. Hibiki, I think it's fair to say that your...mirth...strikes us as a bit misplaced at this time," the young doctor said, frowning slightly, and Ryoga suddenly felt as if he'd been caught in the middle of doing something he shouldn't have, withering under the gaze of the stern headmaster. He ducked his head, a little shamefaced.
"What...um, what should I do...now?" he asked meekly, hunching his shoulders and peering at the bespectacled man.
"Well, a good start would be not walking around when you should be in bed. Miss Kuonji is absolutely right—it is not up to you to judge when and even if you should be on your feet, for any length of time," the doctor said mildly, though there was a stern edge to his voice.
"Oh," Ryoga hesitated, then added, "...sorry?"
"Indeed."
"You're being pretty glib for a guy in your condition," Ukyo said acidly, leaning forward. Ranma nodded fervent agreement.
"What condition? Jeez, okay, I'm willing to accept on—on principal that maybe, just maybe, I've," he waved his hands about, describing a shape in the air, "I've fallen through a-a hole into some kind of alternate dimension where I'm in love with your fiancée—"
"Ryoga," Ranma said.
"But other than that I just don't see how—what?"
"We're worried about you, man."
Ryoga blinked rapidly, two or three times. A silence fell in the half-dark restaurant. Outside, people passed by on private errands and the murmur of voices and clattering of feet was audible.
Ryoga looked down at his hands. A long moment passed.
Finally, in a quiet voice, he said, "I'm not crazy."
"Nobody said you were—" Ukyo began, but Ryoga cut her off.
"You don't have to say it! You keep giving each other these meaningful looks and—and being obnoxiously secretive down here, like I shouldn't hear what you're talking about—"
"Mr. Hibiki, I think you should calm down."
"I just can't accept what you're saying!" This time he did fling his hands up, and didn't fail to notice both Ranma and Ukyo flinch at the sudden gesture.
"You people—I swear. Look, I'm the same—I mean I'm just me. Why do you want to dump—to put this on me? What does it matter if I'm in love with this person or not? So what if I can't remember her? If she's your fiancée you should be thrilled, not being all squirrelly about it. Ranma, Ukyo, doctor—" he met their eyes, trying to appeal to them, but they simply stared back with expressions too difficult to really discern in the half-light.
"You know what?" he said irritably, pushing back from the counter, "I think I will go back to bed." He pointed at them and narrowed his eyes, "but you'd better not make any plans or decisions about what's going to happen without at least talking to me about it. Okay?"
"Um. All right," Ukyo said slowly, then hesitated before adding, "If you're looking for the stairs you need to turn around, sugar."
"Oh." He looked around. "Heh. Right."
Trying to maintain an attitude of righteous indignation, shoulders squared and back straight, he marched up the stairs, turned sharply to the left, and promptly ran into the wall.
--
"Well," Ukyo said after Ryoga had disappeared and the thumping and cursing from upstairs had abated somewhat, "What do we think about that?"
Ranma said, "Looks, it's not like—well I mean even on his best days Ryoga's not exactly what I'd call 'normal'".
"True," Ukyo mused.
"And he seemed pretty calm—I don't know how I'd react in his place. And he wasn't screaming his head off about vengeance or tryin' to kill me or nothing'--"
"Out of character, if you ask me."
"Well, yeah..."
"I thought he was trying really hard to control himself," Ukyo said, tracing a pattern on the surface of the counter and looking into the middle distance as she contemplated the little scene that had just played out. She looked at the doctor.
"What'd'you think, doc?" she asked.
"Well," the young doctor pushed his glasses up his nose again, an unnecessary gesture since they were already as high as they would go, "Well, it's difficult to know at this point what the best course of action is. I'd thought to move him to my clinic and I still think that may be the best solution, but I can't imagine—"
"Ryoga'd never say yes," Ranma put it. "'s no way."
"So I thought as well," the doctor concurred. "But sending him to the hospital seems pointless since this seems more mystical or spiritual or perhaps mental in nature, and there are simply no facilities in Tokyo which are prepared treat someone like Mr. Hibiki. The actual injury is incredibly minor—a mild skin laceration at worst, with no sign of concussion." He sighed lightly.
"Mental?" Ukyo laced her long fingers and looked hard at the man.
"It's difficult to make a clear diagnosis at this point. The field of psychiatry…well, lets just say much of the human mind remains largely a mystery, despite the great strides have been made. But with that injury on the side of his head, I tend to feel that it's necessary to leave open all possibilities, and not simply say that your friend is suffering from, say, a stress-induced fugue or some sort of amnesia. Otherwise hospitalization would be my first course of action. But I honestly don't believe this to be simply a normal affliction as you would find outside of the...special world inhabited by the two of you and Mr. Hibiki, and all the others."
He paused, apparently considering, then said, "I would like to observe him further, but the fact is he hardly seems to be treating this situation with the gravity it warrants."
Ukyo nodded, lips pursed. She looked at Ranma, who shrugged.
"Ryoga not bein' depressed or tryin' to kill me is too weird, man," he said, and Ukyo nodded. "And laughin'...I guess maybe I should feel glad he ain't chasin' after Akane, but it just...this is wrong. It's just flat-out, totally wrong. I keep thinkin'...like he looks like Ryoga an', an' talks like him, but maybe deep down…like that isn't really Ryoga at all."
"Yeah," Ukyo agreed softly.
The doctor looked grave. He said, "Ukyo, Ranma, I'd like your help. I want to move Mr. Hibiki to my clinic for observation and some tests, but I don't know if he'd willingly do so at my insistence. It seems that he does believe himself to be well and healthy. Perhaps, though, he might listen to you."
Ranma snorted. "Ryoga's never listened to a thing I told him," he said, waving a hand dismissively.
"He'll listen to me," Ukyo said grimly. She cracked her knuckles. "If he knows what's good for him."
"I must really ask you to refrain from any unnecessary use of violence," Dr. Tofu nearly squeaked.
"Unnecessary, sure," Ukyo muttered. Ranma didn't grin, but Ukyo could tell it was a near thing.
"Then," the doctor said, standing, "I leave it in your hands. I'll be waiting at the clinic—please bring him as soon as possible. Before the end of the day, if you're able."
"Yes, doctor," the teenagers chorused. With a smile and a few final words of parting, the doctor excused himself, leaving Ranma and Ukyo alone in front of the counter.
"This has been so bad for business," Ukyo grumbled, turning to lean her elbows on the counter. "I had to turn off the sign and bring the curtain in so we could talk, and I don't think I'll be putting it back out the rest of the night. Dammit!"
"Well, I know the two of ya don't exactly get along or nothin', but don't be so pissed at him, all right? He probably really can't help what's goin' on."
"Oh, I know." Ukyo sighed heavily. "He's just so damn irritating!" she straightened her arms, pushing to her feet in one swift, sharp motion. Ranma stood up too.
"So it's operation 'convince Ryoga to really go to the doctor,' right?" he asked, hands in pockets.
"Ayup."
"Let's go."
They clattered up the stairs together, and Ukyo tried to ignore Ranma's closeness, just behind her, completely casual and comfortable in her presence. She ground her teeth. She was tough. She was strong.
She was his stand-up gal.
"Ryoga!" she roared as she slammed aside the door to her room, and froze. Behind her, Ranma swore under his breath. The smell of late spring filled the little room and the curtains stirred gently in the breeze. She could hear birds outside, and the ever-present noise of the street and the neighborhood all around. A woman was calling somewhere, the name of her son over and over.
"I'm not sure if I should even be surprised," Ranma said from the doorway, as Ukyo walked disbelieving into the empty room. Her feet felt light, as if she barely touched the floor.
"Check next door," she said through gritted teeth. "Check the other room! Now!"
She leaned out the window and peered into the lot behind her shop as the sound of Ranma sliding the other door open and calling Ryoga's name in a half-hearted way filtered into her consciousness. But she already knew. She already knew.
She already knew.
"Shit!" she spun on her heel and met Ranma coming out of the other room. Together they dashed downstairs and out into the street without a word between them. Outside, Ukyo slammed her front door shut with a clatter, thrust one arm straight to the left and said, "You, go that way! I'll go this way—call Nabiki, Akane, call everyone you can because if we don't find him he could wind up in god-damned Yokohama, or worse! We have to cover ground faster than him, we have to look everywhere!"
"Call the doctor," he told her, but she shook her head.
"No time! We need a search party, not an inquisitive physician!" And without another word she spun away and dashed down the street, pounding her heels into the asphalt as she ran.
Damndamndamn. Her jaw throbbed from the force with which she was grinding her teeth together, and her throat worked from resisting the urge to shout out the lost boy's name, because she needed the energy for running. Instead, bunching the muscles in her legs, calling up the nearly-banked fires that fueled her battle aura, she leapt clear from the ground onto a roof and sprinted along the heavy tiles, blood pounding in her ears.
He's going to get lost, her traitorous inner voice wailed, He'll get lost, he's already lost and--and it's all my fault!
And why the hell do I care anyway? She mentally snarled at herself, grabbing that voice in the back of her mind and throttling it until it whimpered for mercy. I'll kill him when I find him!
I'll kill him!!
--
Customers in the Nekohanten were generally a rambunctious lot. Right now, however, only a small group of students were congregated in the corner, and Akane was grateful for the relative quiet this provided. She stared at her hands in her lap. She was still clad in her powder-blue high-school uniform and couldn't help feeling plain and ordinary seated across from Shampoo, resplendent in her usual Chinese silks that nevertheless seemed far from ordinary even on her worst days—something in deep green today, trimmed with gold, sprinkled with tiny flowers like stars.
Akane cleared her throat and looked at old Cologne from under her lashes. The matriarch was hmming to herself as she considered the strange news Akane had brought. Really, Akane wasn't sure if the old grandmother would do anything—or even why she should particularly want to. If it were Ranma, of course there would be no question whatsoever. Ranma forgetting Akane would be a cause for celebration and dancing in the streets; Ranma forgetting Shampoo would warrant the mobilization of all the mystical forces the woman had at her command, possibly moving heaven and earth to unwork the effects of whatever spell or trick had so benighted the young man. As for Ryoga...well, honestly Akane thought the old woman probably couldn't care less, but where else could she turn for help at a time like this?
Finally Cologne cleared her scratchy throat.
"It disturbed you greatly, his reaction?" she asked without preamble. Akane blinked.
"He didn't really—I mean, um, I guess it b-bothered me a bit." She was rubbing the back of her left hand with the thumb of her right, pushing the skin over the knuckles and tendons. "Ryoga's always...he's always been so nice to me...I guess he—I mean I know he and Ranma fight a lot, but I think, deep down, that they're really good friends. Either one would stick up for the other, if they really needed hep. And I've always...I've come to think of Ryoga as my friend too, I guess." She looked up. The old woman hmmm'd again, tapping her tiny fingers on her long stick.
"And he had no clear recognition when he looked at you?"
She shook her head. "It wasn't just that. He started to introduce himself. He d-didn't know me at all."
Shampoo, sitting across from her, was uncharacteristically silent, a slight crease in her porcelain brow, lips pressed together in something like a frown. Akane couldn't understand her reaction; typically Shampoo and Ryoga barely interacted at all, except when the girl needed some poor soul to torture in her endless campaigns to turn Ranma away from Akane.
Ahh. Well, perhaps that was it. But would Cologne really care about Shampoo's various doomed attempts to set Akane up with Ryoga? Cologne wasn't really the type to play such a simplistic game as that; she was usually working something like fifteen levels at a time, and generally kept her own counsel.
"Very well," the old woman said eventually, thumping her stick on the table with a sharp, decisive rap. Akane jumped, startled. "I will visit young Mr. Hibiki tomorrow and see what I may discover."
"Thank you, granny!" she burst out, feeling in spite of herself a great sense of relief as a weight lifting from her chest that she hadn't even known was there. Cologne smiled at her and it was almost kind, Shampoo's face remained inscrutable, and Akane with another few bows and some polite words excused herself from the lair of one of her two great rivals, wondering at the complexity of her life.
--
The stillness of the sky was difficult to see from his position on the ground. He shielded his eyes and peered upward, but the white radiance of the sun was blinding, and he could barely see anything at all.
There was, he knew, an edge to the world, and after that an ocean huge and cold, and then another shore. Far away on the opposite side was a great conflagration that burned without ceasing. A whole world on fire. He remembered having seen it, once, though it had seemed like a dream at the time. Something far away, so distant that its light was barely visible where he stood on the far side of a great, un-navigable sea.
He recalled feeling a sense of sadness at the sight, though now he couldn't remember why.
Ryoga poked at the ground in front of him with a short stick he'd picked up somewhere, and pondered his memories as they flowed like water, each spark of sunlight on the surface a reflection of a moment in time.
He was in a park somewhere, after having walked for only about twenty minutes. The familiarity of motion was comforting, and his feet itched to be moving again—on a typical day Ryoga could walk from the moment that false dawn lightened the sky until even after dark, with a steady ground-devouring stride that ate up the distance between any two strange places. All the world was more or less the same to Ryoga, neither terribly strange nor very familiar, but being in motion was to him as much a home as an actual house was to someone like Ukyo, or even Ranma these days, he considered.
He'd only been forced to stop after such a short time because his head had started to come detached from his body. Or that was how it'd felt anyway; thankfully a little experimental prodding about the neck area had reassured him that both essential parts were more or less still joined. He was trying not to think about what he would do if the case had been otherwise. But he'd had to surrender the idea of continuing on for at least a few precious minutes and accept the fact that even he, Hibiki Ryoga, was not indestructible, and as much as Ukyo's and Ranma's and the doctor's warnings grated on his nerves he probably did need to make some allowances for what Ukyo had called his "condition."
"Like I'm pregnant or something," he muttered, and made a face at the horrible images that conjured up.
Well, he hadn't died of boredom at Ukyo's, though it'd been a very near thing, and so far he seemed to be surviving these restless, interminable minutes of having his butt planted on a park bench waiting for the world to settle down and his head to stop flashing weird images across the TV-screen of his mind. His brain was currently parading grotesque pictures of a horribly gravid female Ranma in front of his inner eye; he decided that if they became Ukyo he'd start beating himself in the head with his stick. Or maybe a handy rock.. Actually, why wait? Pregnant Ranma was a pretty horrible thought…
He got to his feet, a little unsteadily, and realized that bending or reaching down was not a possibility. He didn't want a repeat of his near-collapse in Ukyo's storage room. He sank back down again and growled in frustration.
It would only be a matter of time, he knew, before Ukyo's violently Good-Samaritan tendencies brought her out hunting for him—maybe with Ranma in tow. If not actually out of a desire to help, as the meaning of the word was generally understood by sane people, at least she would pursue him out of a desire not to be thwarted in whatever plans or decisions she'd made regarding his fate. Chances were pretty high that she'd catch up to him, too. He personally had no clue where he was, and even without knowing the direction he'd gone it wouldn't take long for Ukyo to canvass the entire area which a person could possible traverse on foot in less than half an hour—especially if said person stopped to rest.
He needed to cover ground, and he needed to move steadily in one definite direction—difficult in a populated area full of walls and corners and dead-ends. He needed a clear shot at the horizon, or he'd never even make it out of Nerima, much less the endless sprawling man-made wilderness that was the entirety of Tokyo. He ached for the stillness of the deep woods, the galleries of great trees and the damp fecundity of the earth. In the wild things went deep; here everything was on the surface, waiting for a stiff breeze to blow it all away and turn the city-state into a waste of sand and burning sunlight.
How did it go?
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream…
A train was coming, somewhere close; Ryoga could hear the ding-ding-ding! of the warning klaxon and he imagined the red lights blinking in and out of life.
"A...a flash of lightning," he murmured to no-one in particular, "in a summer cloud." He paused as the approaching noise of the train rent the late afternoon with a dark and horrible shriek. His head turned in the direction of the sound, hidden by houses but getting closer, rising to obliterate all other noise, all possibility of thought: a black and thundering scream.
"A flickering lamp," he said softly, and grasped the stick, "A phantom, and a dream."
He walked in the direction of the noise.
--
She didn't know why she cared. She shouldn't care—what did it matter to her if that-that idiot, that moron, that jackass...got himself stranded without money, food or shelter in the middle of flipping Tokyo? There were vagrants all over the damn place; he could sleep on the street with the rest of them. Hell, he'd probably done it plenty of times before. It wasn't like it was her problem, he wasn't her responsibility, she had a business to run, and classes to sit through, and—and a fiancée to pursue, for dog's sake! Ryoga wasn't a variable in the equation of her life, he wasn't an...an ingredient in the okonomiyaki of her existence. Not even one of the weird ones, like bleu cheese or squid lips or something. Ryoga wasn't anybody. He didn't mean anything.
So why was she sprinting along the roofs of Nerima as if an entire platoon of tax auditors waving small business filing forms were after her?
"Stupidity," she fumed through gritted teeth. "I must've caught it from him."
She hadn't tried to stop, though, or turn back. She couldn't consider it. The moment the thought arose in her mind, another one emerged like its dark and evil twin: that of herself, cold, alone, lost and wounded on the streets of Tokyo. She couldn't imagine it, she couldn't think to endure it, and the mere idea of trying to settle down to sleep tonight knowing Ryoga was out there, in exactly that situation, lost and confused and injured, and she could have found him but she didn't filled her with a combination of sick fear and self-loathing.
She wasn't that kind of person. She couldn't stomach the thought.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to acknowledge them and did not lift a hand to her face. She wasn't going to cry over something so stupid. But she couldn't shake the sense that if something happened, if Ryoga was hurt (more, a little inner voice whispered), it would be her fault her fault.
"No," she hissed through clenched teeth.
She pounded on, casting from side to side, gaze sweeping the roads below her as she ran. The fact that the heavy tiles did not split or crack beneath her feet was a testament to the quality of roofing in Nerima—any aged, crumbling tiles had long ago been replaced by sturdy solid, hard-wearing types, designed to withstand all the day- and nighttime traffic the town's upper stories supported since Ranma had moved into the area. Ukyo was relatively light and she'd forgotten even to strap on her oversized spatula, but she was running on adrenaline and fumes from her battle aura now, and her heels were slamming heavily into the ceramic with every step she took.
When she screeched to a sudden halt after about fifteen minutes hard sprinting, it was not because she'd spotted anything but because she'd run out of rooftops; she was in an area where train tracks cut cleanly through a street, and Ukyo, after a moment's hesitation on wobbly legs, leapt to the ground and bent her knees, absorbing as much of the impact as possible. Her thighs, shins and Achilles tendons burned and her lungs ached. She clenched her fists and swung her head from side to side, snarling like an animal, fighting her weakness, fighting for breath.
When she glanced to the right, her glance fell on a tell-tale flash of yellow amidst the greens and greys of the surrounding homes and little shops. Her eyes widened.
"Gotcha..." she said, and with a command to her legs and lungs to shut the hell up she sprang after him in pursuit, dashing alongside the tracks, weeds whipping at her legs, smacking aside the laundry as she sprinted through tiny yards and vaulted low walls.
"Hey you!" She shouted, voice pitched to carry over the distance and the noise of the warning lights at the intersection behind her. "Yo—squid lips!"
Of course he didn't answer to that, and Ukyo kicked into overdrive, shouting, "Ryoga! Hey! Ryoga!!" at the top of her voice.
He'd been walking easily, with a slow and comfortable pace, and now he turned finally to regard her with a lazy wave of a hand.
"You jackass!" she hollered at him, over the rising noise of...something...behind her, "You made me chase you over half the damn town! What the hell did you think you were..." Her voice trailed off as she turned, in sudden horror, and saw the oncoming train. Far away now, down the tracks, the noise came on like a wail from deep within the earth.
Ryoga saw it too, apparently. He had to, since he was standing in the middle of the tracks.
He didn't seem to be too concerned. In fact, he was...he was...
He was turning around and proceeding to walk away.
"Ryoga!" Ukyo screamed at him, legs almost buckling with the fiery agony of exertion and sudden mind-numbing disbelief. Her voice cracked and her fists clenched. She didn't have time to cough or swallow against the pain, didn't have any time for sound or breath or thought, just to run, to run, onto the gravel, onto the tracks, no thought against the wall of noise, no bright candle against the thunder and crash of the train, against the darkness no shining light, no hope, no brilliance, no life—
She slammed bodily into Ryoga, propelling them both off the tracks and down the slight gravel incline, into somebody's property. The train howled past behind them, shaking the ground, ratting the laundry poles, rattling Ukyo's bones deep within her body.
Even her shoulders were shaking.
"You idiot..." she gasped, getting up with difficulty. Ryoga was half-sprawled on the ground, looking up at her with wide, confused brown eyes.
"What. Were. You. Doing?" she demanded, twisting both her long hands into his thick black hair and wrenching him upright, to his knees. She saw him wince, and didn't care.
"What were you doing?" she screamed again, into his face, ignoring the hot tears that were spilling out onto her cheeks. Her shoulders were trembling, and her chest, and hips, and her legs from the exhaustion of running and the fear, the fear oh god I almost got hit by a train, Ryoga almost got himself killed he almost got us both killed ohgodohgodohgodohgod.
"What..." he started to get up, slightly unbalanced, and Ukyo released her death grip on his hair. She wondered suddenly if she'd upset the bandages...not that it mattered...
"Ukyo? Why are you—why are you crying? Don't cry, Ukyo—" he started to reach out but Ukyo, jaw clenched against the impossible agony in her chest as she fought for control, unable to halt the tears or quell the gasping, hitching sobs that wracked her frame, reared back and brought her hand crashing around into Ryoga's face with a report so loud that the birds perched on roofs across the street rose suddenly into the air with a rush of wings. Ryoga actually staggered with the blow. Ukyo hissed in pain and shook her aching hand, then wiped her face with her arm. Tears clung to the fine hairs on her bare skin.
"Idiot," she whispered again, while Ryoga worked his jaw, then brought his hands halfway to his face.
"Ow," he said, then clapped his hands to his ears as his eyes widened.
"Oh my god!" he blurted. "I'm—I'm deaf! Ukyo, I'm—I can't hear! You hit me so hard I've--I've gone deaf!"
"Oh...shut up," she growled, grabbing him by the ear and stalking back toward the road.
"Ukyo? Ukyo! Hey! Where are we going?"
Next: explanations! Complications!