A metafiction by Brian Randall
Disclaimer: Original source is Ranma 1/2, which is the property and creation of Rumiko Takahashi. Her paints, my easel, and the brush is borrowed without permission (hence this disclaimer) from Kenko and Chris Jones, as this metafic is inspired by 'Fair Warning' and 'The Tomboy Solution'.
Note: Fans of the above fics will probably not enjoy the effects of this one. Consider yourselves warned. Divergence. You'll know it when you see it.
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-0-
"Ranma, I just-"
"Shouldn't even be here," he growled, pausing in the large glass doorways of the hospital, shooting a dark look over his shoulder at her. "You know that you did it. If you're in a room with Cologne and Shampoo, I don't expect either of them to let you go without trouble. So stay away, you macho gorilla!"
Akane made a face and shook her head, fighting to keep back tears. "Why are you so mad at me?" she protested. "I just tried to help!"
Ranma sighed slightly, and stepped past the automated sensor that opened and shut the door before turning around and looking her in the eye. "I dunno what to say, Akane. I just ... don't know. If you can't figure out why I'm mad, well, maybe you should go home and tell your dad what you did. Maybe he can tell you."
She opened her mouth to protest, but the mechanism holding the door open suddenly hissed and slid the glass panes closed. Ranma spun and walked away, not glancing back until he was nearly to the front desk.
-1-
Her stomach hurt, and her entire body from the center of her chest and radiating outward to her right arm was a dully throbbing mass of indistinct pain. Mousse had been sent away by her great-grandmother, mercifully shepherded into oblivion when she had plaintively asked him to shut up.
Now the old woman sat in a chair beside the bed, humming thoughtfully, her expression grim. Her husband-- Former husband, she corrected herself, closing her eyes as another surge of angry grief welled up beneath the layers of pain Akane's battle had left her with. It wasn't fair! She was a better fighter, a better cook -- hells, she was just plain better at being a wife to Ranma!
How could Akane have beaten her? "I'm s...sorry," she wheezed out, turning her face away, trying to hide the bruises she knew must mark her.
"Son-in-law," Cologne said quietly. "I'll leave you a few minutes alone with Shampoo. But afterwards, I think we should speak."
"Uh... Yeah. Okay." Ranma sighed, though his feet made no noise. "What're you sorry 'bout, Shampoo?"
"Shampoo is... Is no longer worthy of..." She trailed off and shook her head minutely, a pair of tears burning across her cheeks.
"Oh, uh... Oh, man..." Gentle pressure brushed the tears away. "Don't mean nothin'," Ranma said after a moment. "Akane ain't got no right to try and just say how things'll be. Don't... I mean, you can..."
He sighed again, and she opened her eyes, heart skipping beats uneasily. He hadn't run away, at least, which would make the next part easier. "Ai... Ranma."
He wasn't meeting her eyes, instead staring at the flowerpot that Mousse had left on the bedside stand. Flinching, he looked away from it and over to her. "Are you gonna try and kill Akane for revenge?" he asked tiredly.
"Have to," she said weakly. "Is Joketsuzoku way."
"Ah," he replied, looking away and sighing. "Did you give her the kiss?"
"No," she breathed, eyes closing. "Not today. But before. Now must act on it."
"Is... Is there any other way around it?"
"Shampoo has no husband until Shampoo kills outsider girl who steals him," she said resolutely. "Is law."
"I don't... I don't want you to fight Akane, Shampoo," he said, shaking his head. "I'm... I'm real sorry. I just don't think it's a good idea."
"What, you no think Shampoo's honor has value?" she snapped back, watching him flinch away, unable to keep meeting her gaze. "Akane humiliate Shampoo. Shampoo will show kitchen-destroyer where she belongs!"
"I guess," he said shakily, "that I can't say she didn't earn that. But isn't there any other way? What if..." He swallowed, licking his lips and looking at the flowerpot. "What if it wasn't her? What if ... it was some cursed magical thing that made her do it?"
Shampoo blinked, considering. "Akane is no so skilled," she allowed after a moment. "Also wore specially ugly suit. Is cursed? Is what really beat Shampoo?"
"I think so," Ranma said uneasily. "And if it is, then I'm gonna tear it apart. Listen ... I want to talk about this with the ol'--" He cut himself off with a cough. "I'll talk to your great-grandmother about this. Can you promise me you won't hurt Akane?"
"Will do no such thing!"
"Can you promise me that you won't hurt her until I have a chance to prove she didn't do it herself?" Ranma pressed. "Please, Shampoo. If ... if we can do that, I'll say that it don't matter. Akane can't beat you and decide that... Well, it's between us and shouldn't involve her."
"Is no place for those who are not warriors," Shampoo said uneasily, discomfited by Ranma's attempts to defend the Tendo girl. "Shampoo must restore honor to--"
"What if I challenge you?" Ranma asked, eyes closed, the index finger and thumb of his right hand pinching the bridge of his nose. "Then it don't matter what she says or thinks. Once you get out of here and into fighting shape. Then will you let her go?"
Another surge of tears threatened to escape, and she managed a minute nod. "Yes," she said shakily. "A...Airen?"
"Yeah," he sighed, forcing a weak smile. "You rest, okay Shampoo? Just recover. I gotta talk to Cologne, but I'll be in the hall."
"W...wo ai ne, Airen." She nodded, biting her lower lip and watching the boy she hoped to one day marry leave the room. Somehow, he seemed to have aged a dozen years in the course of the last day, heavy footsteps carrying him away from her side and to her great-grandmother. Settling back into the bed and wincing, she wondered at what the future would bring.
One way or another, Akane wouldn't be tolerated as competition anymore, that much was certain.
-2-
She watched him stumble into the hallway, his eyes practically unseeing as he stopped and crouched on the ground, struggling to catch his breath. "You're taking this harder than I'd expected," she noted. Not as hard as she'd hoped he would, but hard enough to allay her concern that he was responsible for it somehow.
"Shampoo got beat up," he said dazedly. "I mean ... I knew she could use the dougi to beat me, but I never expected her to ... to..."
"To brutalize someone?" Cologne prompted. "It's not that different, really. She's just choosing your friends instead of yourself as the target. I only wonder at her improved skill. Tell me about this dougi."
"First, you tell me if your laws let people who are possessed off the hook," he countered, recovering some of his bearing.
Cologne allowed her right eyebrow to drift upward. "Ah, so it's a cursed relic, is it? Well." Her eyebrows knit together as she mulled it over. "Restitution would still need to be offered. If you want her to be 'off the hook', you would need to first either contain or destroy that relic. Then you would have to convince her to renounce her warrior status; a common workman who defeats a warrior with only a cursed relic, or the aid of magic may be dismissed as a fluke at the warrior's option."
"Meaning?"
"If you beat Akane, take away that dougi, and convince Shampoo to forgive Akane, she'll be in no danger from myself or Shampoo. Of course, this is all dependant on Tendo Akane admitting that she is no warrior."
Ranma crossed his arms over his chest, and Cologne added, "If you do that, and accept your engagement to Shampoo, I'll send Mousse back to China for good, where he can't threaten Akane. Won't that be a neat solution?"
"Somehow, I don't think so," he sighed, rubbing at his temples. "Okay. Thanks, uh, Elder." He looked to one side, flinching slightly. "Tofu-sensei?" he called.
"Ranma," the doctor returned levelly, walking down the corridor to approach Shampoo's room. "There's... Someone is here to see you in the lobby."
"Huh?" he asked, frowning. "Well, okay. Cologne, I'm sorry, I need some time to think about this."
"Take your time, but be sure you do think about it," she warned. "If it is allowed to happen a second time, it will be very difficult to consider a ... fluke."
"Yeah..."
-3-
Tofu looked at the dazed young man who followed him to the lobby. He stopped both of them in the hallway before the entrance to the large room. "Ranma," he said quietly. "I need to let you know something. Akane's here to see you."
He grunted, shaking his head and rubbing at his forehead. "Okay," he said quietly. "I dunno if I want to talk to her right now."
"Well, she's been very shaken," Tofu countered. "I know you care about her. I think you might want to talk to her at least briefly before we discuss Ukyou."
"Ukyou?" he asked, looking up from the floor, his eyes dimming in concern. "What happened to Ucchan?"
Tofu hesitated, then shook his head. "Forget about her," he said insistently. "For a minute or two. Talk to Akane, and then I'll explain. It ... will be much easier that way, I think."
Ranma nodded blankly and turned to walk into the lobby. Akane was dressed in an older outfit, one that looked a little frayed. Her eyes were as distant as his own. Tofu drew close enough to listen, not wanting to intrude, but suspecting that Ranma might need guidance afterwards.
"Akane," the boy said quietly.
"Ah... Ranma..." She swallowed and stared at her lap. "I'm sorry," she said very quietly.
"You should..." He shook his head. "Look. We gotta burn that dougi."
She looked up sharply. "What?"
"It's cursed," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Look what it made you do to Shampoo -- broke her nose and her left arm, gave her two black eyes, cracked her ribs -- that's not you, Akane. You could never do that."
"Yes I could!" she protested. "It ... it wasn't easy! I ... had to really make myself do it. But I did!"
Ranma stared blankly, his face a mask of shock. "Oh," he said after a moment, his voice not modulating at all. "I see."
"For you!"
"I need to go now," he said in that same curiously level tone of voice, spinning on his heel and marching into the hallway, stopping just behind Tofu. "Sensei?"
"Ah," the doctor said, shaking himself from his distraction. "I'm sorry, Ranma."
"Ucchan?"
"Oh, right." He rubbed at his cheek, mentally cursing himself for forgetting about the other girl. "Ah ... someone called emergency services. She was found in a lot near her restaurant. She's in the operating room right now."
"Operating room?"
"It shouldn't be that critical," the doctor said quickly. "Her... Her hip was shattered, so they're trying to put some pins in. There ... could be lingering complications."
"She could be crippled for life," Ranma said in a curiously emotionless tone. "Ucchan might--" suddenly his voice hitched, and his eyes closed. "What can I do?"
Tofu hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I don't know that they'll need it, but they are operating, and you've got type O blood. That makes you a universal donor. Why not donate some for a transfusion?"
A spark ignited in the boy's eyes, and he nodded quickly. "I'll do it," he replied. "Anything to try and help!"
"Come with me," Tofu instructed. Oh, the entire thing would be pointless busywork, more likely than not. But it would give Ranma a link to cling to, and while the doctor wasn't certain what Akane had done ... he knew that he could at least give the boy that.
-4-
Nightmares sometimes turn into dreams, and sometimes it's the other way about. This time, a dream had drifted briefly into nightmare and was slowly on the mend. Recent memory was a hazy blur of white ceilings and masked doctors snapping terse commands over her. Most poignant was a sensation of everything going dim as someone mentioned a transfusion, just before a sensation of secure safeness seemed to seep into her body, leaving her relaxed.
There had been a transition from that room to the one she was currently in, and she knew that at some point her tenuous link to consciousness had faded out entirely. Now she blinked up and saw her fiancé staring down at her in concern. "Oh, good," he sighed, tension visibly draining from his features as his eyes bore into hers. "You're awake. How are you feeling, Ucchan?"
She tried to sit up, but couldn't. Straps bound her to the bed, and when she tried to fumble them away, one hand was also restrained, likely to keep her from pulling out the permanent IV stuck into that arm. "Ranchan?" she asked, surprised at how cracked her voice was.
"Stay down," he urged, pressing his hands against her shoulders and ending her struggles quickly. "Now, I talked to the nurses and doctors, and Tofu-sensei ... and you're gonna be okay. It'll ... take a while to get to where you were, but..." He offered a weak smile. "In a month or two, you'll be ready to go out on our training trip, then we can try and get you all caught up, right?"
"Ranchan," she groaned, her eyes closing as the nightmare came back and she remembered. Here she was, lying broken and humiliated in the hospital. Tears escaped from beneath her eyelids as she rasped out, "Aka... Akane beat me. I said ... I'd... I'm sorry, Ranchan." A shuddering sob wracked her, incidentally causing her bump the restraints keeping her hip in place.
She hissed in pain but before she could cry out Ranma's hands held her still. "It's okay, Ucchan," he said, his voice almost cracking like hers had. "It don't mean nothin'."
Another unwelcome memory came, of Akane's quavering voice saying, "Now you lose anyway," before one of her own mini-spatulas was swiped towards her face. She vaguely remembered thinking she had been missed, and desperately ignoring the arc of crimson that trailed behind Akane's weapon before she tried to return the favor in kind ... but then it all faded away into noise and a reminder that she had been beaten.
"I c...can't be your ... cute fiancee like this," she choked out, eyes closing.
"Yeah you can," he assured her. "You're gonna heal up just fine. Lemme ... talk to Cologne a bit. I know she's got stuff to keep scars from forming, and even if you don't..." He sighed and offered her a crooked smile. "You'll be cute to me anyway, okay?"
"Ranchan," she sobbed, eyes closing as her unrestrained hand convulsively gripped and squeezed the one he'd left on her shoulder. "I'm sorry! I m...meant to win, for you."
"Don't worry about that," he sighed. "I don't want you fightin'. Come to think of it ... Ucchan, I want you to promise me you won't try fighting her again. Or Shampoo or Kodachi, either."
Her eyes flew open. "But-"
"No," he said forcefully, moving his own free hand to press a fingertip against her lips, silencing her. "If you think you need to fight over me, you might as well fight me yourself. 'Cause I don't like it. Bad enough when you don't get along, but this..." He groped for words for a moment before deflating, drawing his hand away from her mouth. "It ain't your fault," he said uneasily, shaking his head. "Don't matter. Just you rest and get better, okay? And maybe then we can make sure it doesn't happen again. I ... gave some blood, and now you've got it, so even if you don't see me around all the time, I'm here for you, 'kay, Ucchan?"
"'Kay," she said back tiredly, relief robbing her of strength. "No more fighting. I promise. Love you ... Ranchan," she managed, before she was surrounded in comforting darkness. She thought he might have said something back, but it was lost to the rush of time-release painkillers and their arbitrarily imposed oblivion.
-5-
Ranma stalked out of the hallway and into the lobby of the emergency room, where he'd been led to get to Ukyou's side. Akane watched from a corner, sitting on an out-of-the-way bench. After walking to stand near her, Ranma shook his head, unable to find words.
"I'm..." Akane broke off and licked her lips, staring at the floor. "Kasumi told me I should come here. She said you'd ... want to stay. And that I should bring you some of your things."
"Yeah," he mumbled, seeing the pair of bags that had been stowed beneath her bench. "I don't got that much stuff."
"Daddy said I should stay with you," she added, raising her head but staring at a point just past Ranma's shoulder, not able to bring herself to meet his eyes.
"Uh-huh," he said, unconvinced. "Kodachi ain't here. So I guess you didn't-"
He broke off and turned to one side as a team of emergency medical technicians bustled through the doorway with a stretcher, a familiar form lying prone on it. "She's going into systolic shock," one of them noted. "We need to get her into the operating room, stat!"
Both of them watched in silence as doctors emerged from the large doors that had admitted Ukyou only a few hours prior, their team expanding to surround Kodachi's stretcher before it vanished along with the doctors through the door.
"I don't think you should stay here," he finally said. "I think you should go home."
"But... Why are you staying here?" she protested. "Isn't... Shampoo and Ukyou will be okay, won't they?"
Surely Ranma couldn't feel bad about Kodachi getting what she'd had coming to her. Certainly, Ranma might be upset over her beating Ukyou, but Ukyou had asked for it by not staying down, just like Shampoo. She shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably, wondering why Ranma would be upset about the Chinese girl.
"I don't know if I want to talk to you right now," he finally said. "M...maybe later."
"Oh, so you're just going to run off after I did that for you?" she snarled, unable to restrain herself when her temper flared. "Spend all your time here with your lovers instead of with your fiancée?"
His eyes narrowed dangerously, and she flinched back at the spark of fire glowing there. "Yeah," he snapped back. "I'm stayin' at the hospital with my friends. Assumin' you don't decide they'll look better in the morgue. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm type O, which Tofu-sensei says is the universal donor. I'm gonna do what I can for Kodachi." He brushed past her and grabbed the bags, not looking back as he stormed back into the hospital interior.
-6-
"I'm sorry, Sir, I'm afraid you can't donate blood more than once in a six week period," the nurse said apologetically. "It's simply not healthy for you."
"I gotta do something!" Ranma protested.
"And we don't have enough for the transfusion she needs," Tofu noted from the boy's side. "They're transferring some more from Minato General, but it'll be an hour before it gets to her and they need to operate now."
"Policy is policy," the nurse said resolutely. "Making an exception and putting you at risk by drawing too much blood would open us up to a malpractice suit, not to mention who knows what other liabilities, and we simply can't have that."
"Ah," Tofu sighed, rubbing at his temples. "Politics. Yes."
"That's not-" Ranma began, cutting off with a strangled noise as Tofu tapped the back of his neck, locking his vocal cords.
"Well, Ranma, let's go fetch your twin sister. She has the same blood type, after all. I don't think there will be any problems with her making the donation, will there?"
The nurse frowned. "As long as she hasn't donated recently," she agreed.
"Good. Ranma, how long will it take you to find her?" The doctor tapped the back of Ranma's neck again, restoring speech to him.
He hefted the bags Akane had left, realizing that one of them had her outfits in it. "I can get her in a minute," he said. "'Fore I do that, can I talk to Kodachi?"
The nurse shook her head. "I can't allow you into the operating room, I'm afraid. Only friends and family are allowed inside, and then only briefly before we begin operating."
"Ranma's actually in a relationship with the young woman in question," Tofu noted. "I can vouch for it, as will the headmaster of Furinkan high-school, the girl's father. Will that suffice?"
"So that's why you want to give blood so badly?" the nurse asked in surprise, looking at Ranma in an evaluating manner. "Well, fine, then. I'll let you in. I don't think the doctors will let you talk long, though."
"I gotta hurry to get ... my sister here anyway," he said, nodding quickly.
"This way," the nurse said, shrugging, leading Ranma into the operating room.
It was clean, and surprisingly large. Two nurses tended the machines that Kodachi was connected to, while a doctor spoke into a tape recorder, making observations in a clipped tone. He broke off at the sight of Ranma. "I'm sorry, this is-"
"We're, uh, dating," Ranma said nervously.
The doctor blinked before nodding, wincing sympathetically. "We're going to operate as soon as we get enough blood for the transfusion," he offered. "From what we can see the shattered ribs pierced the left lung here." He indicated the right side of Kodachi's chest, almost bare where the leotard had been cut away.
"Is ... she gonna be okay?" Ranma asked tremulously.
"Maybe," the doctor hedged. "Her collar-bone has been shattered, along with the breaks in both legs. Her spine has taken a substantial amount of damage, but she still appears to retain sensitivity in her feet, and her toes react to reflex tests. Due to the splintering of several vertebrae, she's going to need to be in traction for a month or so until we can make artificial replacements. So she's not... Well, what was your girlfriend, Son? What did she do?"
"She was a gymnast," he said dully, taking in the blood covering Kodachi's lips, and the tube that had been thrust down her throat, likely into the punctured lung. Her eyes were open, but glassy, and didn't seem to track him when he drew closer, looking down in concern. Instead they lazily drifted, chasing something he couldn't see. "And a martial artist."
The doctor sighed apologetically. "Son ... in all honesty, I think that your girl is going to need to find a new career."
Ranma shuddered, a morass of rage and sorrow forming in his gut, threatening to drown out his ability to think. "I see," he heard himself say distantly. "Kodachi, can you hear me?"
Her pupils dilated slightly, though her eyes still didn't track towards him. "Nnng," she managed around the tube in her mouth.
"Her pulse is spiking," the doctor said, shaking his head. "Sorry, we need to operate. I need this room cleared -- and someone get me that transfusion!"
The nurse's attempt was a failure, but Tofu was able to wrestle his uncooperatively locked form out into the hallway, washing away the emotional paralysis with a splash of cold water. "I gotta give some blood," she mumbled, as Tofu led her back to the nurse who had earlier taken a transfusion for Ukyou, not bothering to use Akane's clothing as a disguise.
After that was done, Tofu found a spot where they could sit in private, in a currently unused office. "Are you alright, Ranma?" the doctor asked quietly.
"I think I need to break something," she replied quietly. "I'm just not sure how to do it without hurtin' Akane."
Tofu sighed, taking a deep breath and leaning backwards in his chair, a massive plushy leather affair presumably belonging to the doctor whose office this was. "Ah," he groaned. "I hadn't expected that this would happen. I ... ah ... don't really know what to say."
"Maybe Akane does," Ranma mumbled, rubbing at her temples. "Maybe, once we blow up that stupid dougi, everything will go back to normal."
"Maybe," the doctor said doubtfully. "You've given a lot of blood. You should just rest for the moment to avoid straining yourself."
-7-
"What... What are you doing back here?" Akane asked, her voice wavering as she looked up to see Ranma before her, female at the moment.
"I'm not going to try and be nice about it. I'm not going to be sneaky," Ranma said shortly, closing her eyes. "I'm challenging you to a duel, Akane. I'm gonna beat that dougi until there's nothin' left. I ain't gonna let it turn you into a monster."
"Monster?" she protested indignantly, leaping to her feet. "What are you talking about? All I did to those girls was the exact same thing they would have done to me!"
"No, they wouldn't have," Ranma rasped, eyes opening. Her voice sounded strained and weak. "They wouldn't challenge someone who couldn't defend themselves. They wouldn't pick on someone who couldn't save themselves. I bet you anything that Shampoo would love a chance to humiliate you. I know Kodachi thinks you deserve to take a few hits. But I don't believe for a second that they woulda done this to you."
"Of course not," she asserted, bowing her head. "Because they know you'd protect me."
"Yeah," the redhead sighed. "But you know what, Akane?"
"What?"
"I'd protect any of my friends. Right now, I don't know if you're one of them. Meet me at Furinkan at sunset. We'll settle this."
Without saying anything else, Ranma turned away, heavy footsteps leading back into the hospital before she vanished.
Unsure why things were going so badly, Akane rubbed the tears from her eyes and shook her head. "It's not fair," she whispered.
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