Oh my I'm so glad you are back! When I first read this I thought I will never read the ending since it has been such a long time! But WOW. I love this story and I can't wait to read the ending! Following all your Ryoga/Ukyo stories they are simply amazing.

OMG! Thanks for the chapter, i’ll be waiting the next one :)

Wow! I wanna know what happen next!

Wow that's thrilling! Only fair that Ukyo will be able to repay him for his sacrifice. And when will they finally be able to get some time alone? Well, probably not until the last chapter, I guess :p
Thanks for the update, and glad to know you're going to update again soon. Keep up the good work!

Yeeeii! Thanks for updating, love the chapter as always, i’ll ve waiting the next one. ;)

Nice quiet chapter... They deserved a break! But that's all it is, a break before all hell breaks loose again... I'm eager to know where this goes! Thank you so much for updating, Anya :)

OMG! Welcome back, i'll be looking for the next one.

Omgggg I'm new to this fic and getting till this part and I see it hasn't been updated since 2016 I swear I wanna cry! I just wanna say I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! I love Ryoga and UKYO and this is so well written probably you will never finish it but I wanna know what will happen to them

PART 2
- of my review/"fanfic of a fanfic" that I posted on chapter fifteen.

(I looks like a review can only have a certain amount of characters before it gets cut off, and only one review per chapter... So I had to split it up like this. Anyway, here's the rest):

At this point human Ryoga is not even fighting back anymore. The demon beats him up some more and says that there's only one way he can win (he wants him to use the shi shi hokodan). The human side falls for this trick, feeling he has nothing left to lose anyway. Human Ryoga uses his ultimate attack, without moving, and without uttering the words as he usually does, he's too depressed to do even that. It doesn't cause any damage though, all it does is transfer the negative chi from human Ryoga to demon Ryoga, making the former weaker and the latter stronger.

The human collapses on the ground, barely concious and almost transparent like a ghost. The demon picks him up by the neck and tries to console him in a twisted kind of way. He tells him not to worry, and that if he ever finds his "parents" again, he's going to avenge him and hang their skulls over the fireplace. He also tells him not to worry about Ukyo, and assures that he's was never man enough for her anyway, and she'll be happier with him. Finally, the demon explains that there's nothing left for the human Ryoga to live for and that it's better for everyone this way, including himself, to just be put out of his misery. Ryoga accepts this.

Ukyo had promised to not interfere with the fight. But nevertheless, she charges at demon with a tackle and grabs on to him, catching him off guard. She starts draining all of his aura and yells for human Ryoga to hurry and get the silver knife while she's holding him down. At first he barely responds, but eventually asks why he should even bother. Ukyo has to bring out her best arguments and warmest words to snap him out of his stupor. She'll probably try to point out that she's always thought of him as a friend from the start, even before they fell down the cliff and this whole mess started. She says that he was always important to her, even if she was too stupid to admit it then. That it was why they were always such a good team and why those ghosts in the tunnel of lost love couldn't defeat them.

She also says that in the last few weeks, he was the one that was always there for her, not the demon. The demon is only speaking a bunch of lies and half truths she explains, while he has never lied to her. Human Ryoga eventually snaps out of it and limps over with the knife and stabs his other half in the heart.

And on that bombshell, Ryoga is set free. He is now in full control of his life again, his personality is now back to what it used to be for most of his life, with a few exceptions. The whole experience in itself, and everything he's gone through with Ukyo has still changed him. But there's no longer a voice telling him what to do, he no longer feels any supernatural link to Ukyo (she still does, its only one-way now), he no longer has an uncontrolable urge to be near her (at least not due to some supernatural link, just emotionally).

Their relationship dynamic changes from this point on, and it is as if they have to get to know eachother all over again, partly because they had hurt eachother's feelings in their argument before, and partly because Ryoga is completely different in nature now. Ryoga is as cursed as ever, he turns into pig and he has no sense of direction, but he's no longer depressed, in fact he's pretty happy and positive (he can still use the shi shi hokodan but it's not as powerful anymore). After all, he destroyed his inner darkness (thanks to Ukyo, though it might take him some time to fully appriciate that), not everyone can brag about that kind of accomplishment.

Ukyo on the other hand, while happy for him, is slightly depressed over being rejected, since he seemingly doesn't care that much about her anymore. She doesn't like that he acts completely casual around her now, almost indifferent. She still has the instinctual urge to be near him, but he doesn't anymore. Before they were in the same boat, but now she feels alone and alienated.

But after all that is said and done, there's still those other angels out to kill her, so the story is far from over. Ukyo and Ryoga will have to figure how to stay alive, and from there a romance could develop, now 50% less creepy (for me personally, like I said, aquired tastes). They now have to figure out their feelings for eachother without having the link as a crutch anymore.

-

Wow. When I started writing this review I was not expecting this to turn into some kind of weirdly formatted fanfic of its own. Although some elements of this story rubbed me the wrong way, I still love it in it's own right, and the writing itself is top-notch. After all, it inspired me to write this huge wall of text, so take that as a testament to how engaging your writing is overall :)

Anyway, I really hope my criticism hasn't discouraged you in any way (I'm gonna hate myself if it did, I still think you're one of the best authors around here). When I read your other stories like "Grandpa's Way" or "Crystaline" I never felt the need to change anything, I was 100% engrossed in those stories, and couldn't put them down untill I was finished. Keep doing what you do, and like I
said, I'm still seriously dying for you to finish "Shooting Star", so looking forward to that!

Thanks for being patient enought to read all my rambling. Much love!

I have read all read all of your Ranma 1/2 fanfics, (including your latest update on "Shooting Star" which I'm dying for you to finish). Each one of them I have been unable to put down once I started reading, because I guess I just love this pairing as much as you do (even though I just started watching Ranma 1/2 a few months ago.)

But this one... I don't know man, it's just not doing it for me, though I may be speaking too soon since I've only read to chapter 15 so far. What you're going for here isn't bad per se, but its clearly an aquired taste, and not for me.

Any sense of romance here is vastly over-shadowed by the creepiness and downright nightmare-fuel that this whole "link" and "demon alter-ego" implies. This has a lot to do with my own personality, but if I was in Ryoga's shoes, I would view any invasion of my free will to be a infinitely worse curse than turning into a piglet or having a bad sense of direction, and would gladly trade those back in exchange.

But while I don't find this story romantic at all, I do find it very intruiging, because it brings up a whole slew of philosophical questions. Like being who you chose to be, versus the idea of accepting that "you are who you are".

The fact that both Ukyo and Ryoga are overall so accepting with the fact that Ryoga's personality has done a near 180 is just really unsettling for me personally. You point out that Ryoga is clearly not the same person he used to be in many ways, and I feel like this should terrify him more than it does. And I don't mean just in regards to his confusing feelings towards Ukyo. Just the idea that he is not in full control of his own mind should be a bigger deal in it's own right. (I think you pulled off this kind of conflict much better in your "Memories" fanfic.)

It's a cliche with half-demons in anime that I really dislike, it's like with Yusuke in Yu Yu Hakusho all over again. He is pretty much unbothered when he finds out he's part of a demon race that eats humans. And even though his demon father made the choice to rather starve himself to death, Yusuke never shows any appriciation or respect towards his father's choice (instead he even offers to bring him some "evil" humans for him to eat... yikes. That last season really turned me off from the show). Then you have Inuyasha, and even though he wanted to become a full demon in the begining of the story, I really liked that he at least made that CHOICE.

I feel like this really comes down to a clash of easter and western ethics. ACCEPTANCE as a virtue, versus CHOICE as a virtue. I personally believe in the latter, so that's why this story is very much a mixed bag for me.

I would like to share how I would have liked the story to go, my fanfic of this fanfic, if you will. I know that might be a bit rude, but I couldn't help myself from building an alternate story in my head after reading this, and I thought I'd share it just for fun:

I would keep everything the same, up untill the point Ryoga finds out the Hibikis aren't his real parents, and that his real father was a demon. This would send him into a spiral of depression that eventually leads to a minor breakdown, and a major fallout with Ukyo.

First of all, remember that this whole story started with Akane being kidnapped by a demon that wanted to take her as a concubine! I think it's very logical that Ryoga would instantly assume that this is what happened with his real mother. That she was just some innocent girl like Akane, taken away from her life by a disgusting horned monster and then thrown in a shallow grave 9 months later.

This alone would be enough to make him utterly hate himself, but then he'd also realize that he was practically doing the same thing to Ukyo those times he had lost control and more or less forced himself on her when they kissed. This would really fuel his depression as he realizes he isn't even his own person anymore.

Here he would demand to the female angel that they back out of whatever deal they had. He asks if she can make him into a full human if she gave him his old curses back. She says that he can't back out of their deal, he is obligated to defend Ukyo and he can't do that effectively without his demon powers. Ryoga insists that he is strong enough to defend her as a human, but she disagrees and says she's not going to help him with his request.

So now he is faced with a unsolveable dilemma. He realizes that he has to bear being a disgusting freak in order to keep Ukyo safe. He calms down a bit, but is still far from happy about it.

This is where Ukyo tries to cheer him up, but instead makes everything worse, leading into a big fight. She tries to explain that she knows what he's going through, but he claims she has no idea what she's going through etc. She's part angel, so all she gets is the urge to help people, while he gets the urge to rip people's heads of (or even their clothes).
He proclaims that the real Ryoga would never do the things he's done the last few weeks, that he would never dishonour a woman like he's done or be as violent as he's been, that it's not really him.

She admits that he has changed a bit, but asks if that's really such a big deal? She tries to explain that he has done a good job in handling the situation and that he shouldn't be so hard on himself, that she likes him the way he is right now.

That last part of the pep-talk has the opposite effect Ukyo desired. When she says that, something clicks in Ryoga's head that makes him more angry and depressed than ever. He realizes (in his mind at least) that she doesn't like the real Ryoga, and she never did. He starts accusing her, saying its why she couldn't stand his guts before the accident, when he was just a spineless bum, but now she can't keep her hands off him. It's why she always liked Ranma. It's why she likes Ryoga now that he's an even worse person than Ranma (in his mind), it's why she "joked" about being attracted to Alexios when she thought he was going to kill her. He accuses her of only liking guys who treat her like crap, and that she's some kind of disgusting pervert who just wants to be taken by force.

Of course she doesn't appreciate any of his nonsense and gets upset to say the least. She calls him a pig and sends him flying halfway across the room with a slap. He gets up and says he'd rather be a pig than a demon, and that he's going to find a way to become a full human again. He claims he doesn't need any fancy demon-powers to babysit her, and then he storms out of the house. Outside the door, he calls Alexios and tells him to keep an extra eye on the place while he's gone. Ukyo goes to her room and starts crying, now just as depressed as Ryoga was. She cries partly out of self-loathing, because she realizes there was some truth to his words, but mostly because it hurt her to hear that Ryoga thinks so little of her. She knows that she's not actually that shallow, and that the real reason she likes him is because he's genuinely the kindest person she knows and that he really cares about her (or so she thought). She hates herself for having played with his feelings like that, but also feels betrayed and starts wondering again if she really is anything more than a obligation to him at this point. She feels betrayed that he would want to sacrifice his new powers and her safety, just to feel normal, and at the same time she is disgusted with herself that he's forced to even make that kind of choice.

Ryoga then goes off and talks to Ranma and Happosai for help after he explains the situation. This is where they bring up that episode where Ranma was split into a male Ranma and an evil female Ranma. He demands that they do the same thing to him.

They warn that it's pretty risky. Male Ranma was turned into a mindless husk and female Ranma was turned into an evil spectre that could only appear at night. He convinces them that he's different and wont turn into a mindless husk, since he already has more clearly defined good and evil personalities. They agree and conclude that the seperation should result in a clear split into two entities, human Ryoga and demon Ryoga.

So they use the incense on Ryoga. He instantly feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He no longer feels the link to Ukyo (but she still feels it to him), Ranma throws water on him and is surprised that he does in fact turn into P-chan again. But there is no sign of "demon Ryoga" yet. Since it's late (and because he feels bad about the fight) he decides to sleep in the dojo and go back to the house by morning.

In the middle of the night, demon Ryoga appears out of human Ryoga as a spectre. Human Ryoga wakes up from this and sees his alter ego in front of him. They have a brief talk, where the demon mostly taunts him and thanks him for finally letting him free, even if he can only appear at night, as was the case with Evil Ranma (so far at least, but he has plans to gain a permanent body.) The demon assures human Ryoga that he doesn't have to worry about Ukyo anymore, that he'll take good care of her, real good. The demon runs off and human Ryoga tries to run after and stop him, but finds that his sense of direction is gone again (so it takes a while before he catches up and finds the house).

So demon Ryoga shows up at his house. Alexios instantly understands what's up and tries to fight him off, but is easily and discretely knocked out by demon Ryoga with his demon/ghost powers. Realising that he's been beaten, Alexios manages to escape before he gets killed (he informs his boss, and she orders him not to interfere again untill Ukyo and Ryoga has resolved the situation themselves). With that taken care of, demon Ryoga goes up to Ukyo who is still awake, unable to sleep. Demon Ryoga comforts and smooth-talks her and tells her how important she is to him, apologizing for what happened etc. U is overjoyed and buys into it, so demon Ryoga procceds to try and seduce her. But Ukyo doesn't want to hurt his feelings again, so she tries telling him they shouldn't do anything hasty. Demon Ryoga doesn't care and starts getting more forceful. Considering what Ryoga had accused her of earlier, Ukyo finds this sudden change in attituide suspicious, and insists that he should back off for now, but he starts getting increasingly agressive. She realizes something is wrong and before things get too violent, human Ryoga shows up and attacks the demon in blind rage.

They eventually take the fight to the backyard. The demon keeps taunting human Ryoga. The more demoralized, the more angry and the more depressed he gets, the more powerful the demon side gets. He's completely outmatched and beaten to a pulp. Once Ryoga is incapacitated, the demon side begins absorbing all of his aura. Human Ryoga starts becoming more transparent and ghostly, while demon Ryoga becomes more solid and real. Before the demon side takes over completely, the human side is saved by the bell. The sun rises and the demon/ghost runs away screaming.

When human Ryoga wakes up, Ukyo is there along with Ranma, Happosai, Cologne and a few others maybe. They go over the situation and explains that there is only two ways to get rid of evil Ryoga. Either they stick a spirit ward on his face, which will make both sides merge back together into one. OR human Ryoga has to stab the demon with a silver knife, which will permanently destroy it.

Once in private, Ukyo and Ryoga have a conversation where they both apologize and see eye to eye a bit more, but are still on pretty shaky terms and have broken trust towards eachother. She still tries to convince him that they should just fuse back together and that he should learn to control his darker side. He stubbornly refuses, but at least explains a bit more of his reasoning this time.

Basically, he explains how he never really accomplished anything in his life, he never had any control of where he was, or where he was going, no control of of the present or the future. The only thing he ever had any control over was WHO he was, his honour and integrity and freedom was the only thing he had. He was never perfect, and he made mistakes, like pretending to be P-chan, or wasting years getting lost while hunting for Ranma, but those were HIS mistakes, his CHOICES.

She asks him if that's more important than his life, and to consider the possibility that demon Ryoga could kill him. He answers that he'd rather die now than live half a life, sharing it with that thing. It has to end now, by the end of the day, one of them has to be destroyed once and for all.

She then asks if he has thought at all about his promise to her, about protecting her. He answers that demon Ryoga will take care of her if he dies, as well as implying that she'll probably be happier that way. She tries to explain that it's not true, that she still feels linked to human Ryoga (even if he can't feel it back anymore, now that he doesn't have any supernatural powers), that even if she can be a bit air-headed at times, she's not as shallow as he thinks. That she knows he's the one that has really been a friend to her and cared about her, not his demon side. But she goes on to say that he trusted her when she insisted they go to China, so now she's going to trust him too if this is really what he wants.

He's not really convinced that she's being entirely truthful, but feels a bit more at ease. They both decide they need to be prepared before nightfall so they ask Cologne and Happosai for advice on how to defeat demon Ryoga. The elders explain that the only way he can defeat the negative energy of his evil side, is by being in a state of mind where he can channel positive energy.

Basically, if he goes into the fight feeling depressed or lost, he will surely be destroyed. He has a "I'm so fucked..." moment but Ukyo tries to be supportive and encouraging. He handwaves her words and says he needs to meditate and mentally prepare himself before nightfall, and he needs to do it alone.

As he meditates he does actually manage to stay somewhat positive. He knows that if he can just find one light to cling to, something to hope for, he has a chance to make it out of this alive. That light used to be Akane, but he knows that ship has sailed, everything surounding Ukyo is too much of a confusing mess at this point, so putting his faith in her would be too risky. He decides that if he can just hold on to the hope that his parents do actually care about him, the Hibikis, that it's his best bet. He remembers everything they did for him in the time they were together, and some of the life lessons they had passed on to him. He remembers something his dad once told him, that he now realizes the full meaning of.
"You are who you chose to be."

That becomes the positive mantra he keeps repeating in his head up untill the fight. Not really that positive but it is the best he can come up with.

Then the big fight comes at nightfall. Ranma and some of the others are gathered to support him, but he has forced them to swear that they wont interfere, even if that means he dies. Eventually the ghostly demon Ryoga appears. It might begin by him trying to flirt with Ukyo, just to piss off his human half, but it has limited effectiveness since Ukyo isn't taking any of that at this point and tells him to buzz off. They soon start fighting for real and although human Ryoga manages to hold his own for a while, it's clear that demon Ryoga is vastly superior. The demon starts laying down more smack talk and taunts, hitting every possible insecurity he has.

He tells human Ryoga that he's a hypocrite. That he always thinks he's so much better than everyone else, always blaming everyone else for his own problems, always on a high horse, but that in the end he's just as selfish as anyone else. It is pointed out that he was actually willing to share body with Ryoga, but that it was the human side that wanted to be seperated, and how unfair it is that the demon is still being pinned as the bad guy. He also points out how selfish it is to try and get rid of him when Ryoga knows he can't protect Ukyo on his own. If Akane is present, he also threathens to reveal Ryoga's secret, by calling the human half things like piggy and pork-chop, like Ranma always does.

This makes human Ryoga's fighting more sloppy, but he's still hanging in there. Ukyo and the others keep trying to cheer him on, telling him to ignore all those comments.

The taunts keep coming. The demon starts pointing out how human Ryoga has been in charge for 17 years and that it's been a complete waste of life with nothing to show for. No friends, no woman, no money, no future, a worse sense of direction than a fly and no education. That maybe it's time he takes the wheel and actually makes something out of him, and that on his own, Ryoga would be lucky if he ended up as someone's christmas roast.

But most important of all, he points out the reason why everybody thinks he's a joke, why nobody respects him. Why everyone likes demon Ryoga more than spineless Ryoga; because the first one is a man and the other one is just a little boy. He explains that in this world, if you want something, you gotta TAKE IT! If you want respect you gotta TAKE IT! If you want love you gotta TAKE IT! He claims that if he had just lets the demon side be in charge he would have had everything he wanted, the perfect life, but that it's too late now. Demon Ryoga was now going to get all of that for himself and proclaims how easy it will be for him to get either Akane or Ukyo, or maybe even both if he wants to. After all, if Ranma can have at least 3 fiancees, so what's stopping him from having 2 concubines?

This makes human Ryoga go into a rage (which only makes his evil side grow stronger) and he starts getting his ass thoroughly kicked. He's now completely at the demon's mercy who is only torturing him at this point. The human side brings out the only weapon of positivity he has, pointing out that he's not like him, and reciting those words his father had told him. That "he is who he choses to be", and that he's not going to sacrifice his honour for power or to get what he wants.

The demon mocks him and laughs at him for quoting his "so called father". The same father that couldn't wait get away from him when he found out what a dangerous freak he was. He reminds him of an incident when his "parents" had told him they would pick him up after school, but never did, and asks how long he waited for them? The human side answers that he waited for 2 weeks... The demon repeats the answer out loud to make sure everyone heard it right and to mock him even further. Then he continues to explain to everyone how he had to sleep on the playground and only left after 2 weeks because he ran out of money to buy food from the cafeteria. Then he mentions another incident when they left him at an ice cream bar, with an orphanage just across the street. He asks again, how long he had waited that time. Ryoga answers 3 weeks this time. 3 WEEKS, the demon repeats, 3 weeks of eating nothing but ice cream and waffles, which isn't as great as it sounds. That's how long it took for money to run out that time, and how convenient it was that they always forgot their wallets with him whenever they disapeared, the demon points out.

At this point human Ryoga is not even fighting back anymore. The demon beats him up some more and says that there's only one way he can win (he wants him to use the shi shi hokodan). The human side falls for this trick, feeling he has nothing left to lose anyway. Human Ryoga uses his ultimate attack, without moving, and without uttering the words as he usually does, he's too depressed to do even that. It doesn't cause any damage though, all it does is transfer the negative chi from human Ryoga to demon Ryoga, making the former weaker and the latter stronger.

The human collapses on the ground, barely concious and almost transparent like a

Such a cliffhanger... I do hope you'll finish this story! I liked this dark Ryoga, as well as his scary-but-soft-inside father... And I want to read more! And why have Ranma and Akane been tagging along? This eludes me, except from a couple of funny lines from Ranma. And they would be leaving now? What would be the point? Maybe they're going to Heaven too despite what Alexios said?

Sure it was steamy... Oh god they're hot! And so sweet too the rest of the time... When they're not fighting, that is. I seem to never get enough of them, the way you write them at least

Is this complete? If not, please complete it! I love it so much! Im on duch a ryoga and ukio binge!

Update soon please, please

OMG! Yei an update! Thanks I love the chapter, please please continue dont be late to update ;)