When Will I Hold You?

A Ranma Nibunoichi x-over

by Matthew Talbain

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma Nibunoichi, nor do I own the lyrics to Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love".

------------Chapter Two: Glory Of Love--------------

I keep reliving that day, Sayuri. No matter how many times I get hit, no matter how often I forget what I learned in Hinako-sensei's class, I can't forget that day. You changed my life, and in no small way, that day. I thank you for it, Sayuri, but I cursed it at the same time. It's a blessing to me, and it always will be, in that I love and cherish every single moment we spent under that bridge, and every moment I was near you afterward.

I cursed it, then, because to me, it was impossible to be with you. you, with your untouchable beauty, your kawaii-overkill ponytail, and your elegance whenever you took on a more serious air...

Daisuke has no idea what he let go of back then.

You, with your perfection, and me, with my paddy-farmer talk and crude people skills, it was untouchable. You had calm elegance, I had a hick accent. You had beauty, I had a pigtail and gaijin clothes. You had friends, I had rivals and suitors out the yin-yang. So I cursed it.

Akane, Nabiki, hell, nearly everyone, even you for a time, thinks, or thought, I did what I did for attention. I did it all...to keep everyone's honor intact. The fiances didn't want to accept that, my rivals wouldn't believe it, and my "friends" thought I was keeping "their" girls away from them. Funny, they never believed I never wanted a single one of them. Just you, seemingly the one girl who didn't care for me one bit.

That day, everything changed. I'd been having a bad day. I woke up, expecting a reprieve from being thrown out the window into the koi pond. I'd never failed to get some leeway, some rest, on my birthday before. Why should my seventeenth be any different?

It started out as hell with Akane malleting my head into my pillow, I never found out why. I came down to breakfast and got, for my early awakening,a glass of cold water dumped over my head by an unrested Nabiki. I had to sit through my mother's disapproving glare, intensified to the tenth power, all breakfast while I was a girl.When I ws done eating, and was waiting for Akane to start blaming me for making us late, though school wouldn't start for another hour, Mom dropped the bombshell.

She expected me to concieve lots of children for her to spoil and carry on the "honorable Saotome legacy". Akane decided that my mother wanting me to make manly on my birthday constituted some form of perversion on my part and I found myself at eye level to the queen ant of the antpile under the kitchen floor. I shot my mouth of, carefully choosing every word I would call her that time. My father decided I was being a girly man and berated me for it. Still, I couldn't suppress the hope, even then, that I could be with you.

I left for school, earlier than Nabiki, and got accosted by a purple-headed whore. She thinks I don't know of her sleeping with every male who'll give her the time of day, besides Mousse. I hate her so much, I'm glad she had to leave when she got pregnant with Mikado Sanzenin's child. Anyway, that day, she grabbed me and squeezed my crotch, saying she'd give me lots of babies for "her future mother-in law" to spoil. That was overstepping my boundaries, and I let her know. Most of the population of Nerima thinks I don't hit girls. Shampoo found out that it's a wrong assumption. She woke up five hours later, Sanzenin above her.

Ukyou came next, saying that she was the girl I'd make children for my mother to care for with. She didn't touch me anywhere, but when I flat-out refused, saying that I had someone else I wanted to be with, to say it to for my birthday, she attacked me, yelling that she'd kill the hussy that enspelled me in such an evil way. I fougt back, angry at her for calling you, the most beautiful girl on campus, the most untouchable beauty, a hussy. I fought like a tiger, leaving her dazed. My shirt was slightly torn, and I stalked off towards school, angray at her claiming to love me when she was whoring herself out to Tsubasa and Konatsu. I swear, that whole freakin' group is gender confused.

Kuno stood in my way when I arrived, quite late, quoting crappy reinvented Shakespeare, yes I know that word, and saying he'd broken my hold over the "fierce tigress Akane, for surely her lonely arrival" must mean his "attentive ministrations to the bond" of their so-called "love" had broken my "spell" over her. I beat him into submission, tearing the left knee of my best pants in the process. I entered the classroom, trying to ignore Aken glaring at me because Hinako-sensei had "forgotten" to wear her bra that day and bent over my desk almost every minute of the class.

I never noticed you were gone until Ryouga and Mousse barrelled through the wall, claiming they would kill me for injuring the honor of their one true loves. By this time, having had only one "Happy Birthday" all day, though that one didn't count, seeing as it was followed by the equivalent of "you'd better make me some grandbabies or else!", I was pretty much pissed and depressed. I let the two have it, sending them on a one-way trip to the Nekohanten.

Akane pelted me into the park while my back was turned, for leading on "another of my goddamned hussies" and for "picking on poor P-chan!". I knew, at this moment, that she'd known all along about Ryouga's curse. Nobody could be THAT stupid, after all. I ran to my bridge, the beginnings of tears forming in my eyes. It all added up. Akane beating me for no reason, my parents only caring about their hopes and dreams, my so-called fiances screwing everyone else and treating me like an object or bet between them. I'd pelted Kodachi, offering the same things to me as the other two while she was pregnant with either Gosunkugi or Sasuke's child, I forget whose, out of the way before I reached the bridge. I jumped over the side, sobbing.

I never noticed you until I felt your hand on my shoulder. I'd been crying at the hopelessness of it all, of everything happening on my birthday, for a good minute before you touched me. And I saw you crying and my heart jumped. I stopped caring about my troubles as you spilled the news to me of Daisuke treating you like dirt, then dumping you, all because he wanted to score a chance in bed with Akane. I never wanted to kill anyone, even Pops, as much as I did just then. But I didn't show it. I just held you, comforted you, and stroked your hair. I swear, Sayuri, I was crying myself, though you couldn't see me, because I was actually holding my dream come true in my arms, right then.

Nobody had ever caught my longing stares at you in the classroom before, nobody having reason to. Everyone assumed I kept my head down to sleep, but I was really peeking under my arm, looking at you. I memorized, achingly, how you would toss you hair just so when you laughed. And when you were in a bad mood, you would always toy with the end of your chestnut ponytail. Oh, gods, Sayuri, I'd wanted to hold you so badly it hurt, and there I was, holding you, crying in my arms. I pinched myself to wake up. It didn't work.

All I could do then, Sayuri, was hold you, like you wanted. You began to talk to me, so I poured my heart out to you. I never once expected to hold you and kiss you as the sunset made itself known to us under the bridge. I promised you the only thing I could right then, that I'd always be your friend, that I'd always be there if you needed me. It hurt me to say that, but if I said anything else, you would have run from me. How could you like me, femboy, when you yourself were so perfect?

Time began to pass, and I found myself spending more time than I intended with you, and I began to have more than just a fantasy crush on you. It turned into a love fresh out of the movies. As I found myself eating pavement in other districts, fighting brutal battles against Akane's cooking and meeting mallet-sama, only to have to fight my way back and limping through the city streets to the place I was supposed to call home, I would always see you watching me through your window, and I'd always give you the only smile I ever meant that whole day. Just for you, only for you, Sayuri.

And then, one fateful day, I found myself running to you when Akane and Ryouga "accidentally" met in the furo. I held you, cried on your shoulder when I realized I had been played, been lied to. We kissed, for the second time ever, and I stopped cursing the day we met under the bridge. I told you how much I loved you, desperate to get that festering weight off of my chest. And, to my surprise and joy, you said it back. we kissed passionately, deeply, and for the first time, my body met with yours the way a man's body was supposed to meet with a woman's body.

I woke up the next morning and kissed you deeply, tighteining my arms around you and sobbing again. After that day, I handled all of my problems, one by one. Akane, I exposed to our fathers. She and Ryouga were (unhappily) married the next day. Mousse found himself watching Shampoo drag the man who got her pregnant away to her village. I haven't seen either of them since. Both Kunos I had put into an asylum, Happosai I had sent to a men's prison. He can't handle being around so many men, so his ki is so low he can't escape. Ukyou gave up on me, and my parents went to prison for child abuse, endangerment and gross negligence of minor, and Pops' petty crimes.

And, after all that, I moved out on my own. I opened my doors and arms to you and made public that I loved you. And after that...

We did it all for love!

After you held me, after you accepted me...

We did it all for love!

After you took my heart, after everything to be said then was said, when all that had to be done was done...

We did it all for love!

After all of this, even after we both moved to Juuban, I asked you, Sayuri, the most important question in the world to me. The one question that would change my life more surely then even that day under the bridge...I asked you to marry me. And your answer, Sayuri, to that oh-so important question was...

We did it all for love!

"Yes!"

-----------------Author's Corner-----------------

Yeah, short and WAFFy I know....but, hey, if you want more, R&R! I'd really like your opinions. It's up to you whether or not this fic is complete!