A Ranma ½ fanfict by Tangent

DISCLAIMER: ‘Ranma ½’ and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This fanfict has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfict may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanficts, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even *GASP* American comic books!).

A WORD FROM TANGENT: In this chapter is an event that Lord Talon, for one, had been looking forward to when I first described the idea to him. Rather than spoil the surprise (such as it is), I’ll leave you to try to discover what it was. If you’re really nice, I may drop a hint (Pansuto) or two (fight), but then again (Who am I kidding, anyway?) I might not…

Ryoga approached what appeared to be Ranma’s female form at long last, after another week of being lost. After Akane’s private confession to ‘P-chan’ about what she had unthinkingly done to Ranma, he had finally gotten over his crush on her. True, she hadn’t meant what she had said to his onetime rival, but she had said it just the same. It broke his heart to finally realize that his ‘kind and gentle angel’ was neither kind nor gentle in real life. Fortunately, Ryoga had already fallen in love with a new girl by then or his poor heart of glass would have shattered on the spot.

Still, even with Akari in his life, Ryoga had been unwilling to give up being ‘P-chan’ and spending time with his first love. Partly it was to get a rise out of Ranma, but mostly it had been because he knew it would break Akane’s heart to suddenly lose her precious pet like that. That…and part of his heart had still belonged to Akane.

Well…no longer. While he still had some affection for Akane, that’s all it was now – just the shattered remnants of dreams past. He couldn’t even hate Ranma anymore, for what Akane had done to him had hurt his old rival far more than anything he himself could have done to him. Ryoga remembered telling Ranma once that he would ‘destroy his happiness!’ He now regretted those words as he witnessed the result of Akane having done just that.

Ryoga returned his attention to Ranma-chan as he walked toward her. Even without the pigtail, there was no mistaking Ranma’s female form. With Akane’s confession still fresh in his mind, he had thought briefly on trying to mend the differences between himself and his old rival. Before he could get Ranma’s attention, Pansuto Taro had attacked her out of the blue for some reason. [Like pantyhose-boy needs one…] Ryoga thought. Still, it wouldn’t do for Ranma to get creamed after Ryoga had finally forgiven him… er… her.

"Leave Ranma alone, Taro!" Ryoga shouted, running up to where Taro was pounding on the listless redhead. Oddly, Ranma didn’t seam to be putting up any kind of resistance at all to Taro’s unwarranted assault. In fact, she barely seamed to notice it at all, other than picking herself up again and again, and trying to continue on her way.

"Stay out of this, Pig-boy!" Taro commanded arrogantly, not letting up his attack despite the lack of response he was getting. "This is between me and Fem-boy!"

"Like Hell it is!" Ryoga shouted, striking Taro away from Ranma with a vicious backhanded blow. He turned his attention towards Ranma briefly. "Are you all right, Ranma?"

"Oh…" Ranma responded almost lifelessly. "Hi, Ryoga-kun." [Akane’s always telling me to treat Ryoga better…] was the path that her mind was taking at the moment.

"Are you feeling okay?" Ryoga asked, a bit nonplused at Ranma’s response. Unfortunately, he had kept his attention away from Taro for too long, and got blind-sided himself.

Taro was a bit annoyed. Partly because Ryoga had interfered, but mostly with himself for forgetting how blasted strong Ryoga was in human form and letting him get such an easy hit in. Well, there was a quick way to fix that, and it was only a stream away.

Ryoga found himself in a bit of a fix. While he and Ranma had always been more or less on par with one another, sometimes with one having the advantage over the other and sometimes not, Pansuto Taro had been a tough opponent ever since anyone had known him. Not that he was that much better as a fighter (although that did contribute to the problem). It was that he was even more prone than Ranma to exploit a known weakness unfairly.

Case in point: Ranma didn’t usually go out of his… er… her way to transform Ryoga into P-chan in the middle of a fight, and when it did happen, Ranma either stopped fighting or adjusted his... er... her tactics and pulled her blows accordingly. Taro, on the other hand, would not only turn Ryoga into a pig on purpose and keep fighting at his full ability, he saw no problem with turning himself into a monster and pressing his advantage even further.

Such as now, as Taro body checked Ryoga into the small stream that Ranma had been following and just let himself fall right in after the lost-boy. This did not bode well for ‘P-chan’, who had an impending sense of doom as he thought about the pain that he was about to be put through. And then something odd happened…

"You leave P-chan alone!" Ryoga heard a voice cry out. Not Akane’s voice, although she was the usual source of the phrase. No, Akane’s voice was typically a mix of anger and protectiveness when she uttered that particular statement, while this voice was different. The anger was there all right, but it seemed to play a minor counter to a wash of utter hopelessness and despair. A voice full of pain and emotional torment so great that P-chan could not help but to feel compassion for the owner of such an obviously broken heart. A voice that incongruously belonged to Ranma Saotome, one of the most self-confident people that P-chan knew.

Now that Ranma-chan was fighting back, Taro-Yoma had a much harder time hitting her. Not that the monster-boy was actually hurt by any of the blow’s from Ranma’s female form, other than just a little from the modified amaguriken technique that she had to use against Ryoga. Oddly, what few of Taro’s strikes that connected with Ranma-chan didn’t seem to faze her either.

After all, what possible damage could Taro do to Ranma-chan that could cause her greater pain than that which already existed in her heart?

Then Ryoga witnessed what a heart in pain could do to a person. Ranma, who had never been depressed enough to pull off a perfect Shi Shi Hokodan before, had let loose one the likes of which Ryoga had never seen. Ryoga thought that his own seemed to pale in comparison to what Ranma had unleashed on Taro’s monstrous form. Pansuto Taro then lay broken and defeated at the end of a quarter-mile long trench that cut clean through two hills as if they weren’t even there.

That had arguably been one of the greatest victories Ranma ever had, perhaps even greater than her defeat of Saffron back in China, judging from the sheer amount of raw power that she had unleashed. Ryoga half expected Ranma to cheer up on the spot after such a decisive victory over Taro’s monstrous form. He certainly never expected her to return to the listless misery that he had seen before the fight. The only times Ranma had been like that before had been when Akane had been presumed dead.

[This is not good,] P-chan thought to himself.

"P-chan, where did you come from?" Ranma-chan asked as she picked the little black pig up, giving all indications that she had apparently forgotten that P-chan was Ryoga’s cursed form. "Akane must be worried about you. I… I had better… I… (Choke) I… AKANE HATES ME! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[I stand corrected,] the now shocked pig thought to himself as Ranma hugged him tight against her bosom (which the pig did his best to ignore) and bawled her eyes out with a fountain of tears that easily rivaled any of Mr. Tendo’s. [This is really not good!]

In the end, P-chan watched as Ranma-chan heated some water to turn Taro back into his true human form, took him to a hospital and left him there. The little black pig then spent three days traveling with his old rival, trying to cheer her up somehow. Never once, during those three days, had Ranma bothered to change back into a guy, despite plenty of opportunities to do so. Never once, did the boy turned girl seem to remember that P-chan was actually Ryoga (much to Ryoga’s discomfort, as they wandered farther and farther away from his things). Each day, Ranma put up a painfully obvious false front of cheerfulness for the sake of Akane’s ‘pet’, but that never lasted long before she was reduced to tearful misery and self-loathing. Each night, Ranma had cried herself to sleep, not caring that P-chan watched on silently.

For three days, P-chan could only watch helplessly as Ranma wandered in aimless misery, barely acknowledging the world around her. Each day, the lost-boy turned pig bore silent witness to Ranma-chan sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of depression and despair. Twice, he had seen his once hated rival come to the vary brink of taking her own life, only to stop at the last moment, crying that she couldn’t do that to Akane.

Thus, it was with great alarm when, after the third day, P-chan realized that he had somehow gotten separated from Ranma. He had resolved to try to get Ranma and Akane back together, before the pain in their hearts claimed either of their lives. It was obvious (to him) that they still loved each other. Only broken hearts still hopelessly in love could feel that much pain.

How could he have ever wanted to destroy someone’s happiness?

SCENE SHIFT: back at the Tendo estate…

Every one had gathered at the table while they tried to figure out what to do next. Shampoo sat huddled next to her great-grandmother as she withered under the glares sent her way from Ukyo and Akane. Both had questioned her right to be here after what she had done to Ranma, but she had to make amends somehow. That she loved Ranma dearly wasn’t in doubt, but the pain she had caused her beloved had cost her any right to his heart. She owed it to Ranma to try to fix the damage she had done, to bring him and Akane back together again if at all possible. On top of that, she owed Akane and Ukyo her life, because they had prevented her from committing suicide while her potion enhanced guilt tore at her soul.

Granted, Akane had said something about not letting her off that easy, and Ukyo had agreed, but Shampoo figured that whatever their plans, she deserved what she got. Even her great-grandmother, Cologne, had been very angry with what she had done, and Shampoo’s status as an amazon was now in question.

Throughout it all, Mousse had stayed by her side. He too, had kept vigil by her bed after her suicide attempt, concern for her well being never leaving his face. Although even he agreed that she had gone too far this time, he could not find it in his heart to hate her. Be angry, yes, but hate her? No, that was the one thing he could not do, even now. He would be there for her till the very end. He would help her find her way back to the proud warrior she once had been, even if she never came to love him in return, such was his devotion.

For once, Shampoo did not blind herself to this fact. But did she truly deserve such devotion? Or was it possible that she could once again make herself worthy of it? Only time would tell, and she hoped that when she had finally redeemed herself, that he would still be waiting for her.

Akane, whose own burden of guilt and grief had lessened considerably with the revelation of Shampoo’s plot and the concoction that she had overdosed Ranma with, was awash with mixed emotions. While she still felt a little guilty over what she had said to Ranma to cause him to slap her, she felt a whole lot better once she had found out that it hadn’t been entirely her own fault that he had reacted the way he had. On the other hand, she was now worried sick that he may have killed himself or otherwise come to harm. From what Shampoo had said, Ranma had inhaled much more of the potion than she had, so the emotional torment that she had caused was not only that much worse, it would last that much longer as well.

And Shampoo, a girl whom Akane hadn’t been sure even had a guilty conscience, had tried to commit suicide over having caused Ranma pain.

Ranma, whom Akane knew to be over protective of her, had to be experiencing a kind of emotional hell much worse than what the amazon had put herself through. She could only hope that he had not succumbed to any such urge, that he would pull through and endure the pain in his heart until the potion wore off. And that he would return to her once it had.

Such hopes and prayers were all that she had to keep her going now. Watching the news, hoping for some mention of Ranma, no matter how obscure, had become a daily ritual at the Tendo home. The sense of dread that she felt every time there was a report that a body had been found had, thus far, been abated by a sense of guilty relief when the bodies turned out not to be Ranma.

It was a wonder that she made it through the school day, but she was back in school again. And fighting off the boys again. And pounding Kuno into a pulp every time he said anything disparaging about her Ranma. Which was daily. Several times a day in fact.

One would think that even he would learn after a while, but there you have it…

Ukyo was also worried about her Ran-chan. While she had been disappointed that he had chosen Akane over her, she decided that she could live with it if it made him happy. She loved him enough that she could let him go. He didn’t even have to leave her life, if she could patch up their battered friendship. If she got the chance to, that is.

Thanks to Shampoo, Ranma had run off, and may have committed suicide over having hit his beloved Akane. If that were the case, then Ukyo would never forgive the lavender-haired amazon. She wasn’t sure if she ever would even if Ran-chan turned up tomorrow, all bright eyed and smiling. Like Akane, Ukyo had not prevented Shampoo from killing herself because she felt that; deep down, she deserved another chance. No, Ukyo firmly agreed with Akane’s sentiment in this case. Shampoo was not going to get off that easy.

Ukyo and Akane had already talked it over with eachother, once they had found out the whole truth about what Shampoo had tried to do, and what had actually happened. The ultimate arbiter of the amazon’s fate would be Ran-chan himself, if he was still alive. Shampoo would have to apologize to him for what she had done, and beg his forgiveness. And live with his response.

If (and this was a big if) Ran-chan forgave her, then fine. Ukyo and Akane would forgive her too. They might not like it, or her, but they would not go against Ranma if he decided to be big hearted about it. If he wanted Shampoo punished, then she would be punished to whatever extent he demanded. In all likelihood, he would demand that she leave, and never bother him or Akane ever again. And that would be enough for Ukyo and Akane.

For what worse punishment could be given to Shampoo than the knowledge that she had passed out of her beloved Ranma’s heart forever?

SCENE SHIFT: Days later, on some bridge or other near a metropolitan area…

Ranma walked, a bit unsteadily, along the railing of the bridge. Her emotional torment had finally begun to relent enough to allow rational thought again, but the fever she had caught was still making her judgment muddled. She felt incredibly drained and tired beyond belief, but currently lacked the sense to go somewhere safe and rest, let alone avoid her penchant for walking rails and fences while in this state. She was dizzy and mildly aware that she could fall to her death if she fell the wrong way, but she was incapable of caring about that at the moment.

What Ranma didn’t know was that the potion that Shampoo had overdosed her with (back when she was a guy and trying to find Akane so he could propose to her) had finally worn off. While the damage it had wrought was still there, it had left a kind of emotional numbness in its wake. After two weeks of emotional lows so terrible that they had nearly caused her to give in to the impulse to commit suicide several times, despite how doing so would hurt Akane, Ranma’s battered psyche had reached the point of shutdown.

With an exhausted sigh, and pretty much running on automatic, Ranma slumped down clumsily against a support and stared out into nothing. Only pure luck had kept her from falling in either direction, and she lacked the energy and motivation to try to move again, despite her precarious seat.

As she stared blankly out into space, she pondered what she would do next. She seemed to have broken through whatever emotional wall had prevented her from doing something constructive about her situation. So far, she had done nothing more than run away from her problems, just like her father always did.

Well, not any more. Tomorrow, Ranma would truly begin her journey out of the darkness her life had become. Tomorrow, Ranma would set herself firmly on the road to redemption, and stay there until her heart had healed and she was ready to face Akane again. One way or the other.

Tomorrow…