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* Illuminations *
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* A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction *
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* By Freemage *
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*Author's Note: This story draws on both the anime and the manga.
This is a dark story, with several sexually suggestive scenes,
although no outright Lemon scenes. If such material offends or
disturbs you, please consider not reading this story--Unless, of
course, you like being offended and/or disturbed....
Thoughts are denoted by {X}, text by [X].*
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* Chapter Thirteen *
* Communication Breakdown *
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Ranma-chan burst through the surface of the waters of Tokyo Bay,
her burning lungs greedily drawing the fish and oil scented air as if
it were the sweetest fragrance on Earth. She had long lost track of
how many times she had dived beneath the waves, searching the
wreckage of the Maiden's Luck, trying, against all logic to find some
evidence of what had happened to Ukyou.
Bizarre theories swirled madly in her mind, creating small,
watertight air pockets under the ship's wreckage, or calling into
being fishermen who just happened to be in the harbor, and took in a
young girl who had lost her memory because of a nasty bump on the
head. Any thought, no matter how wild, was favored over the cold,
dead voice of reason that kept insisting that there was no way Ucchan
could have survived the blast, no way at all....
With one last gasp, Ranma-chan dove back beneath the waves, letting
the roar of the water smother the rogue train of thought.
****************************************************************
Ryouga skulked through the bushes, trying desperately to find some
sort of shelter, or at least a few unattended clotheslines. Thus
far, however, he had only seen women's clothes, and he wasn't that
desperate--yet.
{I'm not some pervert like Ranma or Happousai. Still, I'd better
find some kind of alternative soon, or I'm in trouble. If I don't
get back to the Dojo by the end of the week, either Nabiki will spill
the beans, or Ranma will to try to keep Akane from killing him. Oh,
Kami, I am a dead man, no matter what.}
Pulling himself out of the unpleasant train of thought, Ryouga saw
a sheet flapping in the fading light. {Well, I suppose it's better
than p-pan... better than women's under... things.}
Moving rapidly, he sprang from the shrubs providing him with cover
and snagged the sheet off the line. With a few deft moves, he had
covered himself in the satin rectangle, and now resembled a decadent
Roman. He ducked into one of the buildings nearby to try to find a
phone.
When he emerged from the building a few moments later, at the head
of a very large, very angry horde of partially dressed college girls,
he had only one thought: {Why would anyone stick a phone sign over
the door to the women's showers?!}
****************************************************************
Again Onna-Ranma dived. She had located another section of the
ship, and this one did indeed look like it had some passenger
compartments in it. Her lungs were aching, now, but she couldn't
allow herself to break off.
The water was darker know, and she had to rely on the light shed by
the search lamp she had "borrowed" from one of the other divers. He
hadn't objected... much. Not for long, at least.
She swung the beam of light as rapidly as she could over the shards
of metal embedded in the ocean floor. She was almost ready to move
on when she saw it, sticking up out of the ground like some obscene
parody of a grave marker.
Ukyou's battle spatula.
Her heart hammering in her chest like a runaway horse, Ranma-chan
moved desperately through the water, examining bits of wreckage for
some sign that her prayers had been answered.
Then she saw the hand, thrust out from under a large sheet of
metal, and knew that her prayers had been answered, after all.
But the answer was no.
****************************************************************
The door to the Tendou household slid open. Ranma-chan walked
through and just stood, staring at the occupants of the living room,
her eyes unreadable.
The Panda was sitting across from Soun Tendou, engrossed in the
game of Shogi on the board in front of him. Soun released his
Demon-head every time the Panda tried to make a move he didn't care
for. Ranma-chan's eyes paused on the pair for the briefest of
moments before moving the third person in the room, Kasumi.
The eldest Tendou daughter was carefully arranging flowers in a
vase. She looked up at the soaked red-headed girl. "Oh, dear,
Ranma, you'll drip all over everything. Wait right there while I get
you a towel and some hot water." As she reached the kitchen door,
she paused and looked back at the heir of the School of Anything-Goes
Martial Arts, a question in her eyes.
"Did Akane find you? She seemed to be in an awful rush to catch up
to you earlier...." Kasumi's voice trailed off as Ranma just stood,
eyes not really focused on anything at all. Looking unusually
flustered, she wandered into the kitchen. If Onna-Ranma noticed her
departure, she gave no outward sign.
"There you are!" Akane's furious shout caused Ranma to glance at
the stairs. "What's the idea of coming home so late? You've got a
lot of nerve! What happened, did Ukyou kick you out of your little
love-nest once she found out what an absolute jerk you are?"
Soun Tendou chose that moment to interrupt the conversation, Demon
Head flaring at full strength. "What's this? You've been off
womanizing again? Have you no shame at all, Son?!"
Ranma-chan looked at the Tendou patriarch, unimpressed. "Back off,
old man, I'm not in the mood."
Even as the demonic visage faded as a result of Soun's confusion,
Akane's blue battle aura began to coalesce about her as she drew
forth her trusty mallet. "First you run off with Ukyou. Then you
come back at this hour. And then, you insult my father." She hefted
the hammer over her head. "Ranma, why don't you just DIE!!" she
cried as she brought the weapon down in a vicious arc.
Ranma caught the hammer and held it.
Akane blinked.
Ranma-chan stared at her.
Slowly, Ranma drew the hammer's head down so it was level with her
chest. For the first time, Akane saw the pain in her eyes. "Ranma,
what... how?" She wasn't even sure how she should phrase the
question.
"Like I've always told you, Akane, I don't like fighting girls. It
doesn't mean that I can't if I don't feel like getting beat on,
though." Akane flinched back, stung by the anger in Ranma's voice.
"Of course, I shoulda known better than to come back here, to the
warm, loving embrace of my 'family', just 'cause one of my best
friends is dead? Right?"
Akane felt like she was swimming in murky water, with no sense of
up or down. "Dead...? Who...?"
Ranma-chan, voice dripping with pain and anger, cut her off. In a
clenched fist, she raised a spatula-laden bandolier into Akane's
field of vision. "Ukyou. She was on that ship. The one that blew
up. She was leaving, for good, because she thought she'd put me at
risk if she stayed." A portion of Akane's shell-shocked mind
realized that Onna-Ranma was covered with saltwater, and that the
hoarseness of her voice was from coughing up the same.
Onna-Ranma glanced at the hammer. "Thanks for being there for me,
Akane." Looking over at their fathers, she shot out savagely, "Don't
look so glum, you two. After all, that's just one less
'complication' for you two old farts ta worry about the next time you
try screwin' around with my life, right?
"I'm outta here." She walked out of the doors and jumped to the
neighbor's roof, effortlessly.
Akane stared, shocked into numbness, as her fiance bounded off into
the night. "Ranma, I'm sorry...." Her voice failed her at the same
time as the last of her self-control, and she fled back up the stairs
to her room.
Kasumi came back into the room, carrying a couple of large bath
towels and a steaming teakettle. "Oh, did Ranma leave again? He's
so active." She went back into the kitchen.
Soun and Genma were totally speechless.
***********************************************************
Ranma-chan sat on a roof and stared at a house. Her mother's
house. {*My* house,} she reminded herself, {if it wasn't for my
shit-stupid father and his shit-stupid promises and her damn family
honor.}
She clenched her eyes shut, hard. "I won't cry, I won't cry, I
won't cry." She repeated the mantra until the urge was under
control. {I'm not gonna find what I need here.}
Standing up, she dusted herself off. {I'm beginning to wonder if
having a screwed-up family is a requirement for being a martial
artist. My folks are total lunatics, Akane's pop has all the
emotional control of a two-year-old--and he's getting worse.
Shampoo's folks care about her so much they let her get dunked in the
Spring of Drowned C-cat and come after me to Japan, and Ukyou's
dad...} Her thoughts broke off, disjointed by a pain too recent to
just ignore. "Ukyou, I'm sorry. I never wanted any of you to get
hurt." And now the tears did come, and she let them. "I'm so
sorry."
***************************************************************
"I'm so sorry, Ranma...," Akane said to the moon outside her
window. "I didn't know...." She broke into another sobbing fit.
{Ukyou. I can't believe she's dead. It wasn't even two weeks ago
that she sent him that Okonomiaki after the Guide died. Another
death. And all three of the Kunous. Happousai. And Nabiki nearly
died, too. And the Amazons are gone. What's happening to us? And
what's going to happen next?} Alone in her misery, Akane slowly,
fitfully, fell into a troubled sleep.
***********************************************************
Ranma-chan woke up coughing.
{Brilliant, Saotome. Sleep on a roof in soaking wet clothes all
night, just 'cause your widdy biddy feelings got hurt. Keep this up,
and you'll end up as stupid as the Panda.}
She leapt down to the street and made her way back to the dojo.
Sighing, she berated herself, {C'mon, you know what you've gotta do,
so you might as well take it like a man--even if you don't look the
part just now.}
***************************************************************
Akane came down to breakfast listlessly, her eyes puffy and red
from crying in her sleep all night. She sat at the table and just
stared, unseeing, at the breakfast Kasumi put in front of her.
Soun and Genma-Panda ate quietly, not commenting on either Akane's
dishevelled appearance or Kasumi's running monologue on how Akane
should really try to keep up her strength.
Akane herself was also ignoring the litany of feminine virtue,
instead focusing her attention inward. {I hope that idiot comes
home. If I have to go out and find him, that'll make this even
tougher.}
"... and you know, Akane, I really think you need to think about
what kind of--Oh, look, everyone. Ranma's back." Kasumi changed
tracks mid-sentence as the redhead landed softly on one of the koi
pond's boulders. Both fathers remembered chores that needed doing in
other rooms of the house, and Kasumi took their plates into the
kitchen.
Without a word, Onna-Ranma strode forward and grabbed the
teakettle, pouring over her head to effect the change. As soon as he
was finished, Ranma set the kettle back down and just looked at
Akane, who flinched at the blank look in his eyes.
The words she had spent all night thinking about just spilled from
her lips. "Ranma..., I-I want you to know that I-I'm sorry. I feel
terrible about what I did to you, and I want to try to make it up.
Can you ever forgive me?"
Ranma stared for what seemed to Akane to be an eternity. Then,
without any sign of emotion at all, he just shrugged and said, "Sure,
whatever. Look, I gotta get some sleep. Do me a favor and start
making the arrangements for her memorial service, wouldja? I need to
contact her father, and I'll need to beat the info outta the Panda."
As Ranma made his way to the door, Akane asked, her voice laced
with confusion and distress, "Couldn't you just ask him for the
information?"
He paused at the door, and without turning around, he replied in
those same flat, unemotional tones, "Yeah, I could. But my way's
more fun."
After he had gone, Akane realized that the words, which would have
been so reassuring if he had been displaying his usual brash
confidence, were highly unsettling when said in that dead manner.
{Oh, Ranma, please forgive me.... I'll do whatever it takes.}
Slowly, her mind, reeling and desperate for an anchor, fixated upon
one thing. {I swear to you, Ranma, on my mother's grave, I _will_
make sure that Ukyou's memorial service does proper honor to her
memory!} Her fist clenched with the passion of the vow, she went
into the kitchen to see what Kasumi could tell her about what would
be appropriate. {Maybe I should go see Auntie Saotome, too....}
****************************************************************
Ranma led the group heading to the memorial service. The others
(Akane, Kasumi and the two fathers) understood, instinctively, that
he needed a little space right now. He had been withdrawn for the
last two days, and all attempts at breaking him out of it had proven
unsuccessful.
His mind was in a kind of numb shut-off mode, unable to even
attempt to grasp what they were about to do. He just plodded along,
unthinking.
If Ranma's mind was a blank slate, Akane's was a chaotic maelstrom.
{Oh, Ranma, I know this is hard for you... Please, please, try to see
that I'm hurting too... If I could bring her back to you, I
would--Schemes, better cooking and all... Just don't shut me out--}
Her thoughts were cut short when a large paw violently shoved her
aside.
When the cold water struck Ranma's back, everything he had been
holding inside bubbled up to the surface. Ranma-chan turned,
prepared for violence. And stopped short when she realized that her
father was now in Panda form.
"This is too much...," she said, in a low, dangerous voice, "Not
only do you try to ruin my life every chance you get... Not only do
you completely let me down every time I count on you... Not only do
you entangle everyone in your schemes, no matter who gets hurt... But
now, on the way to a memorial service of one of my best friends, the
third one I've been to in a month, you pull this... this SHIT! I am
gonna introduce you to a whole new world of hurt, you worthless piece
of--" Her vow of violence was cut short when Akane grabbed her arm
and spun her around to see...
Her mother.
"Ranko-chan, is that you? Oh, dear. I would have hoped that you
could have worn something a little more traditional...," Nodoka
said, her voice trailing off as she looked disapprovingly at
Ranma-chan's dark suit, now soaked and ill-fitting. Then she looked
over the redhead's shoulder. "Now, I know you are all attached to
that animal, but really, a memorial service is no place for a
panda--even one in a mourning outfit."
Later, Ranma-chan would speculate that the only thing that kept her
from losing control right there and then was a total inability to
choose between laughter, tears, screaming and the total obliteration
of everything she could lay her hands on. As it was, she simply
nodded dumbly.
"You're right about the clothes, Auntie Saotome, but I, umm...
didn't really have anything more appropriate to wear...." As her
voice trailed off, a small, hidden gleam came into her eyes. She
continued, "But you know, Akane, she's right about 'Mr. Panda',
too... Why don't you _send_ him back home--I don't think it would be
a good idea to just let him wander around, and we don't have time to
walk him back to the dojo..."
Akane had caught the stress Ranma-chan had placed on the word
"send" a little before Genma-Panda, and was now striding rapidly
towards her target a little faster than the stunned aquatranspecieist
could backpedal. {This one's for Ranma, you tub of lard!} she
thought to herself as she whipped out her mallet and struck
Genma-Panda with an uppercut swing.
The group watched, with varying degrees of contentment and
consternation as the hapless creature sailed in a high arc before
coming down several blocks away with an audible splash.
"Right in the koi pond. Accurate as ever, tomboy."
Akane whirled around and stared at Ranma. She could have sworn
that in the banter she had heard subtle undercurrents--admiration,
approval, maybe even affection. {Is that how he's always meant it?}
she wondered, confusedly. Outwardly, she decided that it would be
best if she didn't do anything too dramatic until she was sure.
"Baka," she muttered, before returning to the group's previous
course.
The rest followed suit, once more somber at the task ahead of them.
****************************************************************
End Chapter 13
Author Ramblings:
In addition to the two worthies named at the beginning of this post, I would like to thank the following for their insightful and encouraging commentary:
Gary Kleppe
D. B. Sommer
Ryan Erik
Ronny Hedin
and a special thanks to Harrison C, who had the courage to jump into a fic at Chapter 13.
Chapter Fourteen
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