Thyself Known

A Ranma 1/2 fanfiction by Zorknot

~~~~Disclaimer~~~~~

The lark doth sing a song anew.
The snake doth slither anon.
This fiction, while a fiction true
Is not part of Ranma canon.

~~~~~Ch.16: The Leaf or the Gardener~~~~~

"Looked like there was 10,000 people standin' round the buryin' ground
I didn't know I loved her 'til they laid her down

Yeah, it's hard to love someone that don't love you
You know it don't look like satisfaction, don't care what in the world you do"

-Son House, Death Letter

~~~~~wet~~~~~

Ryoga was wet. Wet and tired. Wet and in pig form. Wet, in pig form, tired and dragging his obscenely heavy back pack with his teeth. And it was all Ranma's fault. And it wasn't. And he wasn't sure which idea made him more depressed. Was Ranma okay? Sasuke had said there was a problem. Ryoga had wanted to help. He ran to Nerima. By the time he got there though, Ranma was nowhere to be found. He overheard Akane saying what happened. Ranma had killed Kasumi. Nabiki had killed her own father. Ryoga was too late.

And so he kept running, not sure what to do. Did he want to kill Ranma? No. Not really. And the sick thing was that he had a really good reason to right now. He should be angrier than he ever was. But instead he just felt hollow. How could Ranma do something like that? It was like she had died along with Kasumi and Soun.

She.

Sure. She. Why not? Why split hairs? Half guy or not, Ranma was really the only girl that Ryoga had ever had a meaningful conversation with. A conversation that wasn't one sided or based on a lie at least. It made perfect sense that she was a homicidal maniac. It made sense that it was a relationship doomed from the start.

Ryoga let his back pack rest at the foot of a large tree. He started to push on one side of it to tip it over onto the trunk of the tree. If he could make a lean-to with the back pack, he could at least start to get dry. Only not really since it was so humid in this place, where ever he was. Even when it wasn't raining it was wet. And the rain was better than the bugs.

He had to push, even though he put too many blasted things in his back pack. Mementos. Gifts for people he didn't want to ever see again. And an umbrella that could stop a giant boar in its tracks, but was about as good as a bot fly's anus against this oppressive humidity.

Ryoga was tired. He pressed his head against the side of the back pack, his hooves digging into the mud underneath him, but he was tired. And the mud sucked at his legs as it had for the last mile. And he had no idea where he was. No one would come to help him. If he just gave up, if he just relaxed and let himself sink into the soil, the world would remain unchanged. His parents? They'd be sad but they'd probably never realize he was dead. Akane? He was always Ranma's friend to her. Perhaps a pervert now. He had helped people, and they would wish him well, but they would keep on living. They wouldn't mourn him, because they didn't really know who he was. He didn't have any friends.

The closest thing was Ranma.

Ranma was the pinhole through which Ryoga could see the rest of the world. He had met Akane through Ranma. Ukyo too. Cologne and the Amazons. They only interacted with him at all because of Ranma. And now everything Ranma was was inverted. The pinhole was closed.

Why was Ryoga still struggling?

He faltered. His head slipped and he fell face first into a puddle. Black mud, smelling of death filled his nostrils.

He got up, snorted it out. He looked up at the fat rain drops falling from the tree canopy onto his back, his head, his snout. I get it, he thought. This is who I am. Who I deserve to be.I'm just a little, insignificant speck. A black little piglet rooting around in the mud, forever immature. A martial artist? Someone's rival? Someone's boyfriend? No. This is who I am. This is my true form. I should just give up.

Ryoga pressed his head against the back pack and pushed harder. The pack rocked and fell onto the tree. Ryoga crawled into the triangular space between the pack and the ground and wedged himself in the area farthest from the rain. He was tired. He needed to sleep. But even in the heat he shivered.

And he had bad dreams.

~~~~~fur~~~~~

Ranma immediately regretted it.

She knew what was happening as soon as she started shrinking. She had fur all over her. It was just like the worst nightmares she used to have before she merged with the Nekoken.

She was a cat.

How could she have trusted that lady? How could she allow herself to get cursed again, when she had just managed to get rid of all her curses?

The sickening thing was that there was a part of her that was elated. When Ranma licked the kitten on the bracelet that Bastet had given her and she found herself not only with the mind but the body of a cat, part of her was so happy. Because this was part of who she was, and until this moment something like this could only be dreamt of. She climbed out of Nabiki's robe and sat on her haunches. She looked at her paw. Colors were strange and muted, but it looked like she was some kind of yellow tabby.

What if this was permanent?

The trill of anxiety washed over Ranma, but then right in its wake was another question. So what? Didn't this solve all her problems? No fiancees, no having to be a man among men. She could stay with Nabiki if she wanted…

But what if Nabiki was in trouble? Nabiki wasn't her master. Nabiki was her mate. Her loved one. And she would fight whoever and whatever endangered her. Even if it meant being human. And the same thing went for all of her loved ones. Because she may be just a cat, but she was also a lioness, and her pride would be strong, and the largest ever known.

Ranma blinked. She looked at her other paw, her left. The one that had been her left wrist a few moments before. There were four white spots, three dots and a curved line, that looked like a smiling face. Ranma licked these spots, and found herself suddenly human again.

Her wrist was the smooth skin she was more or less accustomed too since changing her body three days ago. The bracelet was back. It was warm to the touch. Not uncomfortably so, just the same temperature as her body. It didn't feel like something foreign anymore.

Ranma permitted herself a small smile. If she could have had something like this for her Jusenkyo curse…

She closed her eyes. She did. She had had conscious control of her curse for almost a week. It had not ended well. Now that curse was gone. Was this just another curse? Would she start another Ijuu and go off the deep end again?

But she didn't feel like it. In fact she started to purr a little, which startled her. Then she relaxed. She would have more control over this. Being a cat was part of who she was too. A neglected part. She picked up Nabiki's robe and took it upstairs to her room. She didn't care at the moment if someone saw her naked. She put Nabiki's robe on its hook on the closet door and, after making sure the door to the room was open a little, she licked her bracelet again.

The change occurred more quickly this time.

A cat once more,she spent a little time getting used to her new body. This was the martial artist side of her her coming to the fore. She tested her range of motion, her sensations. She tested how far she could jump, jumping onto Nabiki's bed and onto her desk with equal ease. She tested her claws. She never would have suspected extending claws could be so…pleasant. It was like an especially good stretch. Finally, sitting on her haunches, she tried to figure out how she could use this to help her pride.

It was then that she heard a low, humming noise. It was coming from Nabiki's closet.

She padded over to the closet. She rubbed her face against the door frame, happy to be able to add her scent to Nabiki's. Then she saw a glowing area in the wall. The humming was coming from this glowing area. The glow was odd. It wasn't lighting up anything other than the wall. Usually if something glows the things around it reflect the light. This was more like a double exposed photo or something. Ranma realized she was seeing things on a different plane.

She moved closer to the glowing section. She stuck her nose into it, letting her whiskers brush up against it. They tingled a little, but they didn't encounter the resistance Ranma expected. This was some kind of portal.

Ranma sat down and licked the pad of her paw absently in a human, she would have questioned this information. She would have wondered what the hell a portal was doing in Nabiki's closet. As a cat though, it strangely didn't seem that odd. What else would it be? Why wouldn't be there? The only real question was what was on the other side. Ranma raised her head to regard the glowing circle in the back of the closet once more. Then she sped forward, through the portal.

On the other side, the air smelled different. Sort of spicy. It was daylight and Ranma found herself in a field of grass on the border of a forest. To the distance lay a large castle with a medieval town spread around it. There was another humming sound, though. This time louder than the one before. It was coming from one of the trees in the forest. Not from the base, like the the tree Ranma had apparently come out of, but high up on one of the upper branches of an odd sort of maple with blue leaves. Ranma considered the tree.

All at once she knew why cats climbed trees all the time. And even though she wasn't sure if she could get down, she climbed.

The portal was some three stories up on the tree. The trunk in that area was almost too thin for a portal big enough for Ranma's body. But Ranma was a lean cat and the portal, being transdimensional to begin with, wasn't terribly restricted by spatial constraints. Ranma passed through without too much difficulty.

The place beyond this portal was not nearly as inviting however.

It was raining. Heavily. And it was hot. Ranma tried to turn around to go back but the portal was already gone. Apparently they only worked one way. Ranma was soaked in seconds. She was on a branch of a large tree. Looking down there was only blackness. But there was also the humming and it was louder than ever. Ranma definitely didn't want to risk just jumping off the branch. She could totally see how a normal cat could get stuck in this situation. She wasn't normal however. As awkward as it felt, she managed to climb down the trunk of the tree by going backwards the same way she had gone up the other tree. It was slow going, and she really didn't care for all the wetness but she made it down to the ground.

The extremely muddy, wet ground.

But her eyes could see details now in the gloom, and so she was able to see Ryoga's backpack leaning against a neighboring tree.

Immediately, Ranma licked her left wrist and turned human. "P-chan? You here?"

There was no answer.

Ranma was naked and wet, but it was so hot she didn't notice the lack of clothing, and if anything she was more comfortable now than she had been as a cat.

She couldn't see as well in human form, but she was able to feel out where Ryoga's backpack was and that seemed to be where the humming was coming from. The canvas fabric of the backpack was soaked, but Ryoga kept a lot of his stuff in plastic to keep it waterproof. There should be some materials for a fire or maybe a flashlight in there.

Ranma moved her hands to where she thought the opening of the back pack was, but her hands brushed against the handle of Ryoga's umbrella and she jerked away.

"Iron," she seethed. Standing she looked around, squinting in the dark. "P-chan? Don't be stupid, man, it's pouring out here!" She looked down at her bare chest. What if he had fainted when he saw her breasts? Ranma shook her head. Ryoga had seen her breasts before. Still, he could be passed out somewhere. She picked up the back pack by one of it's straps, careful not to get to close to the umbrella. The thing seemed to radiate out sickness, but it wasn't where the humming was coming from after all.

It was coming from the ground.

Setting the back pack down, Ranma knelt to the soil underneath her. She reached with her hands and found the form of a small piglet. P-chan was burning hot and shivering. "Dammit, Hibiki, what did you do to yourself now?" Ranma held the small creature in the crook of her arm like a rugby ball. The poor thing snuggled up to her, apparently wanting the heat. "You got a fever, pig brains. You need less heat, not more." It was sweltering, but the rain was still far too cool to trigger the curse and make Ryoga human again.

Ranma weighed her options. She might have actually had less of an idea of where she was than Ryoga would have had at that point. The portal she used to get here was gone. Ryoga needed a doctor. Before that, he needed to be human, and in order for that to happen, he needed to be dry. That wasn't going to happen anywhere near this place.

Ranma set Ryoga down on the ground. Then she licked her bracelet. A cat once again, and not enjoying wet fur much at all, she struggled to find another portal. She couldn't see anything other than rain, vegetation, trees, rain, and darkness. She strained her ears for another humming sound, hoping that might lead to another portal. There was something faint deeper in the forest.

Jungle, Ranma amended. She was in some kind of jungle! Which probably meant South America or Africa. How did Ryoga get over here? Ranma dismissed the question. If they were in a jungle, that meant there was a very real possibility of being eaten by something. She needed to get out of there quick. She didn't like the idea of going deeper into the jungle, but then, looking around her, all directions led deeper into the jungle. Typical, she decided. There's never a gluttonous logging corporation depleting natural resources when you need one.

Ranma used her mouth to pick up Ryoga by his bandana. Okay, Mr. P, she thought, I've got you. Now to find a way out of this dump…

~~~~~goldengate~~~~~

It wasn't that odd to see a man cross-dressing in San Francisco. You wouldn't even be able to tell really that the tattered rags the man was wearing were once a Chinese dress unless you looked very closely, and that was difficult in the fog and at night. Most of the people on the bridge at this hour were in cars. The pedestrian walk was supposed to be closed except for the bikers who had to buzz in at the chain link gate. Which is probably why the man was walking next to a bike, although the pink and white bike didn't match the man very well. And shouldn't he be wearing a helmet? The man was young. Really a boy…a teenager. He was lean and muscular. His hair was a messy black mop and he hung his head down as he shuffled forward leaning on the bike. This man was what Shampoo had become.

Shampoo had seen his reflection. It was the last straw. He hadn't even realized there was further to go. But to have the same face as Ranma? To see the man he once loved staring back at him in the mirror? The man who had forced him to betray himself not once or twice but three times over? There could be no hell worse than this. At first he had felt anger and fear as well as the shame. He had run to the street, knocked over a young woman in a helmet, tank top and exercise pants with pink reflectors, stole her bike and used it to gain access to the bridge, the only way back to Chinatown. He was going to go back home, to demand some kind of cure from his grandmother. But what kind of cure could there be? And why would his grandmother want to help him now? Why would anyone want to help him?

The fog clung coldly to his skin. His throat was sore, his eyes burning, dry now. There were no more tears left to cry. I deserve this, Shampoo thought to himself. I killed that man. Why should that matter? One random police officer? He was an Amazon warrior. What was one death amid the thousands he would slay to protect his people. Not his people any more though.

No.

He couldn't even be a warrior. Just a stupid, weak, boy.

He hadn't killed that police officer to protect anybody. He had killed him because he was a man. A threat. He had killed him because he had blocked his escape. He had pulled out his gun. There was barely time for the feeling of fear before instincts turned into action. The man was stupid.

But he hadn't deserved to die.

Shampoo was the one who deserved to die. He had failed in every mission ever given to him. He had tried to kill almost everyone who might have been his friend. He had saved Ukyo. Maybe. She was so beautiful. Her face hadn't changed when the exchange happened. Just the hair. Why did Shampoo have to have the face of the man they both had agreed to forget?

It was exquisite torture, this face. He could return to Nerima. Pretend to be Ranma. Ranma was dead by now after all if Cologne was to be believed. What sort of life would that be though? He imagined fiancees coming after him. Having to go to school. Dealing with Akane on a daily basis. Nevermind having extricate himself out of the relationship with Nabiki. But at least he wouldn't have to deal with a homicidal co-dependent amazon, hoping to use him to get back in her hometown's good graces. Hoping to use him to satisfy her wounded pride.

Ranma should have killed him. The moment Shampoo had threatened death, Ranma should have ended it. He could have. Shampoo would have. Shampoo had. But Ranma didn't. Ranma was a good person, and Shampoo had done nothing but make his life more miserable. Ranma was a good person, and now he was probably dead. And now Shampoo had his face.

Shampoo nudged a soggy cardboard box out of his path with his foot. A few cars passed him on the bridge. If he wanted to do this, he would need to hurry. The problem with what Shampoo wanted to do, though, was that it took so much effort to even move, much less hurry.

He was behind the left side of one of the colossal H-shaped structures in the middle of the suspension bridge. None of the cars passing on the street could see him now.

Climbing over the waist high railing on the outside of the bridge was like climbing a mountain. He almost fell by accident before his hand caught the railing just in time. He was already righted and secure before he could realize how counterproductive it was. The close call caused his heart to beat faster. He seemed to wake up a little. He couldn't see through the fog to the water below. He couldn't see much of anything. Now in order to do what he had set out to do, he would have to push off. He would have to do it on purpose.

"Etto…" a girl's voice said behind him, "Koko wa, doko?"

Shampoo turned his head around. The girl was naked, Asian, but with orange-red hair that almost seemed to glow a little in the yellow lights from the bridge. His language skills caught up with the rest of his brain and he realized the girl spoke Japanese. She was asking where she was.

"This Golden Gate bridge," He told the girl in Japanese. "San Francisco."

"In America?" the girl asked, apparently surprised. She shook her head and and smiled. She put something black in the crook of her left arm and held up her right hand in a semi-salute "Sorry about that, I'm Ra…" her eyes widened as Shampoo turned the rest of his body around and she could see his face. "Holy hell!"

~~~~~recognition~~~~~

It was a strange thing, Ranma noted, to look at a face you once looked out of. The eyes were different. Not quite the slate gray that Ranma's had been, but darker. It was difficult to tell the color under the yellow bridge lights. "You look just like…" Ranma realized this might just be some strange coincidence and cut herself off. She was already naked in a foreign country. She didn't want to seem crazy on top of things. Something about the expression on the familiar face struck her though. Ranma took in the rest of the scene. "What are you doing?" She asked.

The man looked away, out into the mist. Then he climbed over onto Ranma's side of the railing. "You need help," the man said simply. "I help you. Then I finish." Then he took off his clothes. "Here. Try to cover self. Should work better than on me."

Ranma took the rags the man who looked like she used to gave her. To her surprise they were made from a silky material. There was a Chinese design on them. It was the remains of a dress! Most of the material was still there, just ripped apart. Ranma laid Ryoga down next to the soggy cardboard box she had exited out of moments earlier. The rags already covered her chest pretty well, and by stripping off part of the dress and fashioning a kind of belt, Ranma was able to get the garment to work. "Hey," she said looking at how the material hugged her thigh, "I bet I don't look half bad!"

Looking up, she noticed that while she was dressing herself, the man had grabbed the box and was using it as make shift underwear. "Oh for crying out loud!" Without a second thought, she ripped a large section of material from the bottom of the dress so that it became a miniskirt for her and a minikilt for the man. It was while she was handing the man the fabric that she began to wonder why it was the man was wearing a dress. Did he have a curse too? Why did he speak Japanese so haltingly and with a…Chinese accent.

The penny dropped.

"Shampoo?" Ranma asked.

The man straightened, startled. "Used to be," the man admitted.

Ranma stared at her old face for a while. There was such sadness there. She wanted to hug her past self. To tell him it was all going to be okay. But, shaking her head she remembered this wasn't her. It was Shampoo, and if she hugged him, things would only get more complicated."How'd this happen? Last I heard you were living with Ukyo."

"You are not…" Shampoo palmed his face. "You are Ranma." The former Amazon looked like someone had kicked him in the stomach.

"Yeah? Didn't you recognize me?" Ranma nodded, "Right, I look a little different now, and with these lights I probably look like a completely different person."

"Move different too." Shampoo said.

Ranma didn't that idea so much. "How so?" she asked as she picked Ryoga up again.

Shampoo looked away. "Do you remember what you did to me?"

"What I did?" Ranma asked, confused. "I'm holding P-chan, so I know you're not secretly Ryoga. What's with all this brooding, Shampoo? I know you've got the whole men are weak thing, working against you, but you can get over that. I mean I did coming from the other direction. Sort of. Jeez your great-grandmother was right, we are kind of similar."

Shampoo held his hand up and shook his head. "I talk about Nekoken."

"Oh," Ranma said. The memory came to her then. She had been a male cat. Shampoo had been a female cat. There was a scent. A primal desire. A chase. And another cat, an interloper, but she had a human passion that confounded neko-Ranma's senses. And then there was sex. Violent mindless sex. And then there was Nabiki laying beside Ranma on the road. And she looked beautiful. "Oh!" Ranma repeated, holding a hand to her lip."I didn't know what I was doing, Shampoo. And who knew the Nekoken could be contagious?"

Shampoo advanced on Ranma. Ranma knew what the girl turned boy was going to do, but she didn't try to avoid it because, dang it, she was curious. Shampoo grabbed Ranma's head and kissed her on the lips forcefully. Then almost as quickly, he released her. "I feel nothing for you now. You need to go away."

"What? Hey, was that another kiss of death?"

Shampoo frowned. "No. I not Amazon any more. If you like, that me taking kiss of death back. You not my airen. I not be yours. I not kill you. You not kill me. No reason for us to talk. Just leave." Shampoo turned away.

"What has that got to do with anything?" Ranma asked.

Shampoo stopped.

"Shampoo…you're part of my family. All those times I had to work at the Nekohanten… it was a pain sometimes, but you know what got me through it?"

Shampoo turned around. "I never stop hassling you, Ranma. Even then."

"Oh you made some half-assed attempts at first, sure. But I was working there for weeks at at time. And who did I have to complain to about Cologne? Who else would help me pull those pranks on Mousse? You even went shopping with me a few times when Mom was on one of her 'make Ranko more feminine' kicks. When we were both girls, we were friends, Shampoo. More than that you were like… my favorite cousin."

"I look like your boy type. That not make me family." Shampoo turned away again.

"What the heck's a family anyway?" Ranma asked. She circled around Shampoo putting herself between Shampoo and the railing. A cool breeze from the water hit Ranma's back causing her to shiver. Water. Ranma swallowed as she realized what Shampoo had been about to do. Why the weird sense she could feel as a cat was still buzzing around Shampoo like a bee in a matchbox. "A family's what you make it. You're an important part of my life. I'm kind of getting sick of saying this to people, but it's true: I love you. And I'm not going to let you kill a member of my family, Shampoo. Even if that family member is you."

"You not move using ki anymore. You are slow," Shampoo said with a sadness to his voice. Then he punched Ranma in the stomach

Ranma saw the move coming. She tried to jump out of the way, but she had no ki reserves. She was powerless to stop the blow. The air flew out of her lungs in a gasp, and Shampoo was running past her. One second he was on top of the railing.

The next, he wasn't.

The buzzing turned into a screaming.

Then it was silent.

Ranma staggered toward the railing, but there was nothing she could do. She coughed and concentrated on catching her breath. Calming herself, breathing in and out, listened to the sound of the cars passing over the faint sound of water. Soon she found herself slipping naturally into her spirit vision. She could see the aura of Ryoga, weak and pulsating nearby. The auras of the people in cars speeding past, most of them a sort of glinty gunmetal gray, but every now and then someone bright. Through the bridge, down so many meters Ranma could see the dim twilight gray glints of the auras of fish moving perpendicular to the bridge. There was nothing else.

Ranma let out another shuddering breath as the tears came to her eyes. A day or two before she could have jumped down after Shampoo to see if he was alright. Now if she did that, she would likely die. She could run down the bridge onto either shore and try to find Shampoo there, but that would take a good fifteen minutes at best. And Ryoga was still sick.

Ranma found the bike Shampoo had left. She put Ryoga in the front basket, and she started down the bridge. Even with the urgency, she moved slowly at first. The tears in her eyes and the sick feeling in her gut were like molasses, slowing her down. Almost worse was the seething hatred growing inside her. Shampoo was so talented, so clever in her way even if she did have tunnel vision a lot of the time. She would have been an awesome friend. And yet at every opportunity the damned fool chose death over friendship. Ranma simply could not abide someone who would do that. Any part of her that could entertain the idea of life not being precious died during Tofu/Kasumi's purification ritual. The person that was Shampoo had violated a sacred rule and part of Ranma wanted to see that person punished. But what punishment could fit such a crime? Her hatred seethed in frustration. There was no outlet for it.

Ranma set her jaw. She tried to convert the hate into energy, to use it to pedal harder,go faster. But hate is not the tamest of emotions. "If she's still alive," Ranma heard herself muttering, "I'll kill the bitch myself." It made no sense, but being aware of the contradiction only made the hatred grow. "She better fucking be alive," she said. "She had just better." She hadn't seen the light of her soul, though. Even if she was moments away from death she should have still seen something. There was nothing there. She was gone. To think anything else was madness.

Ranma cried out in a gasp as the tears came again. "Damn you, Shampoo!"

~~~~~darkness~~~~~

Prison was not a good place to be, Hoko decided. Not a major revelation, perhaps, but it was something she didn't think about usually. She usually thought of prison as a destination. A place people went when they were bad or unlucky. She hadn't really thought of it as a place. This particular place was dark. It was wet. It was empty except for her, Detective Inamura, and Hiro, the man she loved.

He was sleeping now, thankfully. He was calm when he was asleep. Hoko could relax herself. It was when he was just waking up that things were the worst.

She sat in a simple wooden chair, its back against a cold stone wall. Above her, a torch burned, providing the only light in the area. Hiro was behind the iron bars of the cell to her right, sleeping on a cot with a thin mattress. The cot didn't seem to fit the dungeon chic this area of the prison had going for it, but it looked uncomfortable enough to mesh with the general air of unpleasantness. Inamura had just walked into the light of the torch from some darker area of the prison and was now leaning on the wall next to Hoko.

"Have you found anything yet?," she asked.

"No, Tomo-san, I'm afraid not." Inamura sighed. "You're the closest thing to a god we have handy, and you're still just a bit more powerful than Sergeant Suzuki."

Hoko nodded, remembering the fat and rude Sergeant with his detachable eye."You're more powerful than I am," she pointed out.

Inamura shook his head. "I'm only more skilled."

Hoko took a breath and released it. It hadn't been that long ago that she wasn't powerful at all. She was just a voice in Hiro's head. She was a dead girl, well on her way to being forgotten. Now she was a mythical creature who could control fire and bring people back from the dead. As long as there was someone available to guide their souls back. And as long as they wanted to live. Still it was a steep progression. Nothing she knew how to do was helping Hiro though. In the end all she could was be a voice in his head again. "I don't know why it's so hard to find a god. Aren't there a million of them?"

"Once there was. Unfortunately it turns out this monotheism thing isn't just a fad." Inamura joked darkly. He sighed. "No, the real problem isn't finding a god. I could probably reach Hades or Persephone if I used the prison, but it would require a major sacrifice. Probably someone's mortal life. Hades gets power from the stories of Satan, and Persephone has fallen into witchcraft. Just to talk with either of those gods is a major quest. Getting them to agree to cure some random human? Not likely. And you may turn into a god someday, but you're still young and weak and that goes for just about every other powerful person in Japan right now. The problem is finding a god that's just powerful enough and compassionate enough to help without asking for too much."

"What about a demon? Maybe we could find someone with just the right demon who could help?"

"Sure. That could work. Most people don't even know they have a demon though. And there are as many different kinds of demons as there are problems for people to run away from. The situation that cured that Kuno kid was a fluke. We couldn't have planned it any better, which is why we're having such a hard time planning it now."

Hoko looked down. Inamura was talking to her like an equal. Not his niece, even though she had known him the longest as "Uncle" Inamura. Not a high school girl. Even though she was asking the same stupid questions a high school girl would ask. Of course it was difficult to find a god willing to help or a demon afflicted person with the right ability. Of course Inamura was trying his best. But he answered her as if it was a good question to ask. As if she were a colleague of his or something.

"Did I forget to tell you?" Inamura asked, a playful glint in his eye from the torchlight.

"What?"

"You're a police officer now. On the fast track to detective if you play your cards right."

Hoko studied Inamura's face and realized he was being serious, albeit in a playful way. She stifled the urge to question the man. It made sense from his perspective. If you knew somebody who could keep people from dying why wouldn't you want them on your force of paranormal protectors? And as for how she saw things…School didn't seem nearly as important anymore. And her nascent career in journalism? That seemed somehow less real than what she had spent the last week or so doing. Helping people. Preventing death. She allowed herself a small smile. "I suppose you've got some sort of enchantment to make me look older and more boring?"

Inamura shrugged. "I think you can still go to high school. I wouldn't want to break your cover."

Hoko let out a small chuckle. "I can't even imagine going back there."

Inamura looked down for a moment. "Hoko, you know about phoenixes, right? You know where they come from?"

"Yeah?"

Inamura took out a cigarette and lit it using the torch. He took a pull off of it and blew the smoke into the dark of the prison. "This place is larger than any man or woman can know. It connects to a million different worlds, a million different times. It's at the edge of everything, like a dark, metastasizing tumor of the multiverse. This is a place that exists to contain evil. It is infinite and impenetrable and yet still it is not enough to hold all the evil in."

"O…kay…"

Inamura chuckled shaking his head free of the melodrama. "I've met a few versions of myself in this place. Most of them looked pretty miserable. I think if you don't allow yourself to appreciate the here and the now, you can get lost in it all. You may have lived other lives. Because of what you are, you may come to remember them. If you do…try not to let go of this one, okay?"

Hoko nodded. "You don't have to worry about that. I'm done with being dead for a while. I may love the guy…" She swallowed. "I love him, but I'm not stupid."

Inamura smiled. "Good to hear."

Hiro stirred from his sleep making a terrible moaning sound.

Inamura threw down the butt of his cigarette, drew his pistol, and cleared the chamber. "Maybe we'll get lucky and I won't have to kill him again."

~~~~~drunktank~~~~~

The Golden Gate Bridge, as Ranma discovered, is rather long. Even pedaling the bike as she was, she felt like she wasn't moving fast enough. She wasn't even entirely sure where she was going. And so after about five minutes of growing anxiety, she had the bright idea of trying to flag down a car.

Three cars simply zoomed by, but Ranma had suspected that would happen.

Fortunately, the fourth car slowed down.

Unfortunately this fourth car was a black and white police car.

Fortunately, Ranma had taken English in high school

Unfortunately, due to her poor scholarship and Hinomiya-sensei's mercurial nature, the only words of English Ranma knew were "hello,""play,""candy,"and "thank you."

Fortunately, the cop that came out of the car to talk to Ranma was half Japanese himself, and knew enough of the language to be able to understand Ranma.

Unfortunately when Ranma tried to explain that she needed to bring Ryoga to the hospital, and it was revealed that Ryoga was the pig she was holding, the cop made a few inaccurate, if completely understandable assumptions.

"I'll have a vet look at your pig while you're in here," the cop said as he threw Ranma in a large room with metal bars and a bench in the center occupied by several unsavory looking characters. "He's not a pig, he's a human!" Ranma protested. She knew it was a stupid thing to say under the circumstances, but ever since her ordeal she found it more difficult to keep what she was thinking inside.

The man shook his head. "You said that earlier. Look, you were walking out into traffic, you don't have ID, and you sound like a crazy person. Unless you have someone who can come get you, you're just going to have to cool off in here." The cop slid the bars closed and locked them. They were made of iron, so Ranma backed off.

The bike had been made out of some kind of aluminum alloy. The police car was irritating, but the fabric and cushioning inside hid away most of the miasma from the metal in its frame. The bars of the cage Ranma was in now, though, were like the coils of an electric heater. Bearable, but only as long as she didn't get too close. She kind of had to get close though, if she wanted to escape.

She held her hand to one of the bars. An aching heat washed over her hand. Could she touch it?

Ranma knew that if she ignored the pain and grabbed the bars of the cell, she would die. Maybe not right away, but within seconds surely. From the very depths of her soul, she wanted nothing to do with the demon who had almost destroyed her. That demon had controlled iron, desired nothing but pain and death, had tortured and killed young girls out of some sick fantasy. So Ranma could never touch iron, could never allow herself to wallow in pain or death, never…

Ranma nodded grimly. She knew who she was. She was a girl because she had burned away all the parts of her that were male, all the parts that could have the remotest possibility of the kind of perversions that demon was capable of. And if she was honest with herself, the thought of turning male again sickened her. But she would have to do that eventually. Eventually, as much as she hated Shampoo for doing what she did, she would have to find some way to forgive her, and if she was truly dead… There were things she would have to accept. Painful things that would hurt worse than anything immediately in front of her. They were iron. They were pain. She had been imprisoned by pain before because she thought it was the only thing she deserved. Now that she found pain abhorrent, now that the very idea of damaging herself sickened her, would she allow it to imprison her again?

Ranma licked her wrist. There were a few gasps behind her from the other people in the drunk tank. Ranma ignored them. She could still feel the miasma from the bars even as a cat. They were a wall of heat, nausea, and an itchiness that magnified to the feeling of sandpaper on skin as Ranma got closer. She sat on her haunches, her tail flicking back and forth. She hated this. She needed to go as quickly as possible. Like ripping off a band-aid.

Ranma lowered herself in a pouncing position. She felt the tension between what she had to do and what she didn't want to do growing, growing… until finally it snapped, and she was halfway through the bars, the pain searing her sides. She almost stopped from the pain, but the pain pushed her forward as well, and she was through. She panted from the effort, something she didn't know cats did. Inspecting herself, she saw the fur on her sides was gone where it came into contact with the bars. She let out a pitiful meow at the sight. She really hated iron.

She didn't have time to lick her wounds though, literally or figuratively. She had to find Ryoga. She casted about for some sense of the buzzing she had grown familiar with. It was fainter now, but she could feel something coming down the hall. Oddly, the hall seemed to grow darker, as if the fluorescent lights were taking light away instead of adding to it. Just as Ranma was about to turn around to figure out this phenomenon however, she saw Hoko and Detective Inamura yelling into another cell.

Officer Kawagami was in the cell, only he was barely recognizable. His skin was pale, waxy. His hair had grown long and black on one side of his face. His eyes burned with cold, blue fire. He looked skeletal, his clothes hanging off of him.

"Stop this, Hiro. You're alive. You have to know that! You're my boyfriend, don't you think I'd notice if you were dead?" Hoko's voice was shrill and echoed against the stone walls around her.

Detective Inamura was turned away from Kawagami. His pistol was drawn, but pointed up almost as if he were about to storm a building in a raid, except his eyes where closed.

"I wish I could believe you, Hoko, But you're just a figment of my imagination. There's no way someone like you could be my girlfriend." As Ranma watched, Hiro seemed to get paler and thinner. Hoko actually faded for an instant and Inamura tensed.

"I'll give you a figment of my fist! Did you forget all the hell we went through? You saved my life, I saved your life, and we kissed beneath a silvery moon that exploded for no adequately explored reason. That's your basic love story right there. I mean sure we got a little age difference, and I want to wait till after graduation before we get really serious, but we love each other, sir. And I don't love dead people. I think they're pretty stupid actually. So If I love you, it means you're alive. Ipso facto, quod era demonstrata."

Immediately, Kawagami seemed to be alive, if a little gaunt, and Hoko was solid again. But in the short time Ranma was watching, she had seen enough to be concerned. Had this been going on since three days ago? It had probably been four days by now. Ranma licked her paw and returned to human form.

"What the heck are you?" Kawagami asked. "Some kind of cat demon?"

Ranma smiled. It wasn't long ago that cats would have terrified her. That she would have considered being called a cat a grave insult. Now she was only a little miffed about the demon part. "Demons are parasites, officer. I'm walking around talking to you. So I'm no demon." Remembering how the denial demon worked, Ranma decided to try to take a little advantage of the situation. "Also, get your mind out of the gutter, jackass. I'm wearing clothes."

Ranma was now wearing a rather fetching skirt and blouse. Not what she would have picked for herself, but it was better than being naked as she had been a moment before.

"Miss Saotome, is it?" Detective Inamura spoke, "Please don't play with him. I know it's tempting but these things have a way of backfiring."

Ranma nodded. "He's got what Kuno had, right?"

"Yes," Inamura confirmed grudgingly, "We've been able to contain him so far. This place is more real than most places, so he can't get out, and his influence doesn't effect anything outside, but it makes us the only targets. Have you ever had your beard turn into a snake?"

"I've never had a beard," Ranma said truthfully enough.

"Well, it's not pleasant. Doesn't help when you're halfway convinced that it was always a snake."

"I said I was sorry about that!" Kawagami said, "I thought it was just an odd character trait. I mean we work with a guy with a detachable eye."

"Seargent Suzuki" Ranma nodded. "I remember him."

"Oh good," Inamura said relaxing. "It's hard to keep track of what's real sometimes."

"Where're Nabiki and Akane? There were looking for Hoko earlier." Ranma asked.

Inamura looked up. "That so? They won't be able to get here. I'm a bit surprised to see you actually."

"Funny story. I met a goddess who gave me the power to turn into a cat. I can also find portals to other places somehow. Maybe it's part of the gift she gave me, or maybe it's something all cats can do and I just never noticed."

There was silence for a moment. "I'm sorry, did you just say you met a goddess and she gave you a gift?" Detective Inamura asked.

"Yeah. Bastet, queen of the cats, goddess of family and freedom." Ranma felt a glow as she said the words.

"You're making that up," Kawagami said.

Ranma thinned her eyes at the man in the cell. She could feel the force of the denial demon try to change things but it was like a spider web trying to stop a bowling ball. "Are you trying to be difficult?"

"I'm sorry," Kawagami said with a sigh. "You won't believe the sorts of things I thought were true recently. I've started to question everything out of habit. Inamura had to shoot me a couple times when things got too weird."

"I almost got turned into a motorcycle," Hoko offered brightly.

"Yes, thankfully killing Kawagami-san resets everything for the most part."

"Killing him?" Ranma asked.

"The cell he's in is temporally locked. It's an extra fail safe. If a day passes or if he dies, it resets, giving us an extra chance. It's only been a day for him, but it's been the better part of a week for us."

Hoko lifted her camisole up, revealing chrome tubing embedded in her skin, curving along her waist until they became two small exhaust pipes at the small of her back. "Uncle Inamura says I didn't always have this, but I don't believe him."

"Uh…"Ranma said intelligently, wondering why Hoko wasn't more frightened at this.

"So is there any chance you could get into contact with this Bastet?" Inamura asked, a strained expression on his face. "The situation is a bit urgent."

"I don't know. She did give me a gift, but…"

"Great!" Hoko said, "That means you can just rub it and she'll come out in a poof of smoke like a genie, right?" her eyes darted meaningfully to Kawagami's cell.

"Uh…right," Ranma said.

"Well?" Hoko said impatiently, "Are you going to rub it or what?"

Ranma rubbed the bracelet with the fingers of her hand.

Nothing happened.

"Sorry," Kawagami moaned. "I tried to believe it, but…"

Ranma nodded. "I didn't think it would work either. Listen, I'm trying to make it back to Ryoga. He's very sick."

Hoko's expression turned serious. "No. You aren't going anywhere."

"I've got to. I'm not even sure how I got here in the first place, but I need to help my friend. I barely even know this guy," she said nodding at Officer Kawagami.

"I don't care," Hoko said. "The way I hear it, he is here because of you. You're the one who started all this ijuu mess. I know you didn't mean to, or whatever, but I don't care. He's a good man. And he's in this hell because of you. Maybe you can't help him, but I'm not going to let you leave her until you at least try."

In her mind's eye, Ranma saw Shampoo falling from the railing again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the memory. She took a breath. "I haven't much luck with helping people so far today. I don't know if you really want me involved."

Detective Inamura stepped forward holding out a hand. "We are desperate, Miss Saotome. He was a friend of mine as well. Please just take a few minutes."

Ranma let Inamura take her hand and lead her to the wooden chair next to the bars of Kawagami's cell. Ranma scooted the chair a little further away from the iron bars, then she sat down and examined Kawagami once more, this time using her spirit vision.

The sight sickened her. Five souls seemed to be roiling around in a single body. Four of them struggling to get to the surface but they were all held back by the larger, fifth soul.

"How did this happen exactly?" Ranma asked.

"He was saving Kodachi. She didn't want to return to her body, so he he grabbed a different spirit so he could at least save some one, only the body rejected the spirit…or something. The denial demon makes it hard to figure anything out."

Nabiki had told Ranma how Kawagami's powers worked. It was pretty complicated, but she had thought she had the basics. "Wait a minute, is he in Kodachi's body or his own body?"

Hoko shrugged. "We can't figure that out either. Our best guess is that either the other body with whoever was inside it ran off, or the two bodies merged somehow."

Ranma could see the effect on Kawagami's physical body. His left leg was small, like a child's. The left side of his face looked like a woman's while on the right side the jaw jutted out and the face was of a man with extensive stubble. He had a woman's hand at the end of a man's arm. But even as Ranma saw this, the pieces shifted, bones lengthening muscles tearing and reshaping. Kawagami cried out and it sounded like a woman's scream for a moment before returning to his normal tone.

"I…I really don't think I can help." Ranma said. Something about the way the spirits held on to each other made her think of something, though. "I can't help you, Kawagami-san," she said quietly, "But I can tell you a story."

"Sure, Saotome." Kawagami said wearily, "Just don't ask me to believe it."

~~~~~thestoryoftheleafandthegardener~~~~~

Pops and I were training in China. This was before I got the curse. I was thirteen I think? Feels so long ago now. We were staying at this Shaolin Temple, or I guess I should say I was staying there. Pops was shacking up somewhere in town. They wouldn't let him in and the only reason I was let in was because I had managed to climb the wall and get past their guards something like three times so they figured what the hell, let's maybe teach the kid something and get her off our backs for a day. I mean, I was a boy at the time, but I have a hard time thinking of myself as one, so let's just pretend I was a girl okay? All I wanted to do was learn some martial arts moves. That's what Pops told me I was there for. But they said that if I wanted to learn martial arts, I had to let them teach me about gardening, and meditation, and philosophy and all that mumbo jumbo.

I figured I could tolerate that for a day or two, and if nothing else I could watch some of them spar and get some moves that way. I managed to pick some things up that way, but they never did actually teach me any moves directly. It was nothing but those dumb classes. It was like I was in school or something! They kept on talking about these old sages who would say things like the best way to win is to lose and the best way to know things is to make like you don't know anything. None of it made sense to me then, though I did figure out some things from other teachers. Priests that got kicked out of the temple, you know? And after I got my curse I was a little bit more ready listen to the mystical crap.

Anyway I remember the day when I finally had enough. All that day they had been teaching me about how the best way to be was to be like a leaf on a river, letting the current take you wherever. Then in the next minute they were teaching me all these rules for caring for a tree. You've got to snip off the dead parts, you have to water it just the right amount and at the right time so on and so forth. "Well, look," I said, "You were just now telling me I should just let the current take me where it wants me to go and now you're telling me I need to cut branches and water plants, and pull weeds out of the ground. Which is it?"

The priest laughed at me then, which pissed me off, but it looked like he might answer me so I stayed quiet for a minute. "You ask a good question, young one. When should you be like the leaf, and when should you be like the gardener?"

"Yeah," I said, because I was a rude little brat, "That's what I asked."

"The answer…is that you must do whatever you can live with."

I rolled my eyes at that one! What a complete cop out! I left the temple that night, met up with Pops and we were traveling to a new village by the next morning.

But it kind of stuck with me, you know?

Pops was never good at cooking, and one morning a week or so after I left the temple we had burnt rice and a fish that was half salt, half charcoal, and I thought back to what that priest had said. I kind of chuckled a bit and said "Well, I can't live like this!"

I picked up a book on campfire cooking in the next town. I learned the rules. I followed them as best I could. I didn't know much, I still didn't have many ingredients. I didn't get really good until Kasumi and Mom showed me how, but I was like the gardener. I did what I had to.

Now I'm not completely stupid, so I had to give the priest some credit when I thought it over long enough. I mean why do we do anything? If we can stand not doing it, we pretty much don't do it. It all comes down to knowing what you want and going for it. But then I was thinking "Yeah, but why would I ever want to be the leaf? Even if I'm not doing anything for a while, isn't that because it's part of a strategy? Like a gardener doesn't water the plants all the time, just when they need it. I should be like the gardener all the time."

I didn't really think much about the question after I got my curse. Lots of distractions, plus I felt like I had pretty much solved the riddle. When should you be the gardener? All the freaking time, dummy!

I didn't really think much about the question until now, looking at you.

I've been able to see things on a different plane since I've had my ordeal. Maybe it's because I was a goddess for a while there, even if only in an illusion. Maybe it's because I'm kind of friends with a goddess now. I don't know. But this is what I see: I see you in there, Kawagami-san. I see Kodachi too. I see another soul, something small and dangerous. I see something cold and still. Finally I see something dark and smoky. They're all inside you. Most of them are struggling to leave.

You think you're holding them back, but really…you're holding on to all of them.

They're killing you, Kawagami-san. They're tearing you apart from inside. If you want to live, you're going to have to do what I was forced to do, but there's no one here who has the power to force you. Kasumi and Tofu had to destroy a god and sacrifice their way of life, just so I could be saved from all the things I was holding on to. All the fires I I was struggling to put out. All the plants I was rushing to water.

No one's here who can do that again.

All my life I've tried to be the best. To win in the end no matter the cost. But I'm not the best. There are so many ways that I'm a piece of shit. I've let my friends down. My family down. I've gotten people killed…

I have to try and save as many people as I can. But…but I can't save everybody. I couldn't save Shampoo. There's nothing I can do for you. I have to be like the leaf, Hiro-kun. I have to let you die, if that's what you want.

But I really wish you wouldn't.

~~~~~cell~~~~~

Hiro watched as the young woman with the red hair stood and turned away. "Wait. Just now, you called me Hiro-kun, instead of Kawagami-san. Why?"

The girl closed her eyes and took a breath before opening them and replying. "I realized as I was talking to you, that you are my brother."

Somehow the words cut through everything. They seemed like the truest thing Hiro had ever heard, even though they couldn't possibly be true. It was more than that. When the Saotome girl spoke them, they became true. In some indescribable sense, she was now his sister.

"Well…well that's nice and everything, but I can't just give up. That's just what it wants!"

"What who wants?" Ranma asked, cocking her head to one side.

The word "denial" came to Hiro's mind, but it seemed wrong. In fact no answer seemed to really fit. But he hadn't said a "who" wanted anything. He said "it." Denial is what it wants. No. It is denial that wants…

"I can't watch this," Ranma said to Hoko. "I'm sorry. I…You're amazingly brave to do this for him. I just can't. I have to go."

Hiro watched as Ranma turned into a cat and sped away into the inky black corridor. His sister had left him.

Hoko was still there. Inamura was still there. His lover and his friend. He was hurting them. They were being punished for loving him.

Ranma left. She was his sister.

She asked him who wanted to give up.

"It's me," he realized. But that didn't make sense either, did it? But who else could it be? Who else wanted anything?

Can I just…give up? Hiro wondered? Can it be that easy?

He had tried relaxing, meditating. But it was strategy. It was maintaining a calm center to keep from being attacked.

If he gave up, he might not be himself anymore.

Ranma, his sister, said it would be okay.

But she left!

She left because she couldn't bare to see her brother suffer.

Hoko was brave, she said.

She was brave to love him and watch him like she was.

He had to do something!

Ranma, his sister had told him to give up. Be like the leaf.

Inamura was his boss. He had become a friend. He had brought him here. The easy thing would have been to kill him. The sensible thing.

He brought him here because he was his friend. And he was making sure he was okay.

Ranma ran, because she knew that he was not okay. She ran because he was going to die. She knew this, because she was his sister.

She told him to give up.

Hiro felt the choice before him acutely. He was more lucid now than he had been in a while. He could believe what Ranma said, and risk losing everything, or he could keep on trying the same things he had been trying.

Hiro closed his eyes. "I'll believe in you, Ranma. Just this once."

~~~~darkcorridors~~~~~

Ranma kept running, trying to find some sign of Ryoga. The portals had been so clear before, and now she couldn't seem to find a single one. Maybe that meant Ryoga was okay. Maybe it meant he was dead. She had to know which.

She had been running for a few minutes when she felt a sensation on her sides. The long furless burns on her sides were healing! The fur was coming back in, only it was in white so now she had two wide white stripes on either side of her coat. Lights were fading into view as well. Portals, she realized.

What happened? Did she do something? Was it a thought pattern?

It didn't matter now. She had to find Ryoga. She couldn't lose him too. She tried the closest portal.

She was underwater. It was cold, the pressure made her ears pop painfully. All she could see was another portal in the distance. She became human and swam toward the portal and became a cat again to go through it.

She was back in the forest with the castle. She found a portal in the side of a large boulder.

She was on a snowy summit, a vast mountain range stretched out below her. She couldn't find a portal at first. She started breathing more rapidly. Her sight grew dim. Her paws numb. Finally she found a cave and in the inside of it, a portal.

Now she was in a room with a bunch of other cats. A lady was watching television. There was another portal on top of a multi level scratching post, but a fat cat was in front of it. Ranma licked her paw to became human, picked the cat up, and deposited it on the ground where it waddled away annoyed. It had tried to scratch, but its claws were removed. Ranma's relief fought with disgust. A cat without claws was like…well it was just wrong. Ranma turned back into a cat and went through a portal. She had the feeling she was forgetting something, but she dismissed the feeling.

Now she was in a hospital, but it was a hospital with only old people as patients. As she passed one of their rooms she paused. The man in the room she just passed would die in a few hours. How did she know this? It didn't matter. She had to find Ryoga. There were several portals in the old person's hospital. There was one that smelled more like Ryoga than the others. Ranma tried that one…

~~~~~ceilingtiles~~~~~

Ryoga didn't know what he was looking at at first. A bird's eye view of a burnt out landscape? Hell? It sure didn't feel like heaven. It hurt too much. He had a headache, his joints ached, and he felt hot. He tried to sit up, but even though he pushed himself into an upright position, he felt dizzy, sick. His eyes started tearing up from sinus pressure. He wiped the moisture away and looked around him.

He was in a hospital.

A nurse walked in the room with a professional air. "Good afternoon, Mr. Hibiki," She said in English, "I'm glad to see you're feeling better. You're at Nemo County Hospital. Can you tell me your name?"

Ryoga answered this and several other questions. English was a language he ran into frequently enough in his travels, but he was only barely fluent.

"I'm just going to a quick check up on you if that's okay?"

Ryoga nodded. "How did I…here?"

The Nurse gave him a polite smile. "You were brought in by your girlfriend there." She nodded toward a redheaded Asian girl sprawled out on a visitor's chair wearing disposable scrubs, snoring softly

"That is not girlfriend. I don't even…" Ryoga was about to say he didn't recognize her. But while the girl was taller, the features a little stronger, and the hair had a little more orange and gold…it was Ranma. Ryoga slumped a little. How many times did he have to find a new girlfriend only for it to turn out to be Ranma? It was getting ridiculous.

The nurse put on gloves and used a device to scan his arm band, then she ran a thermometer over his forehead, and checked the computer readouts "Hmm…you're still recovering, but there's definite improvement. She brought you in late last night. You were in rough shape. Your fever was so high Doctor Rouleaux was surprised you were still alive.

"Doctor Rowrow?" Ryoga asked.

The nurse chuckled. "I'm sorry. It's Dr. Rouleaux. It's a French name. We have it written on the board there do you see it?"

Ryoga nodded when he found it.

"Do you feel any stiffness in your neck?" She moved Ryoga's head around a little.

"No. Everything hurts though."

"Where would you put it on a scale of 1 to 10?"

"Uh…5." It wasn't nearly as bad as Bakusai Tenketsu training had been, but bad enough.

The nurse nodded. "We've put you on some broad spectrum antibiotics. With any luck the pain should go away soon along with the fever. She's been here since last night. If she's not your girlfriend maybe she ought to be."

"She…has somebody," Ryoga said.

The nurse tutted this away. "She loves you."

After the nurse left. Ryoga watched Ranma sleeping for several minutes. Despite the pain and the horrible feeling of everything else, Ryoga got out of his bed.

He carried the top blanket from his bed and draped it over Ranma.

It was hard to believe that this girl sleeping in front of him could have caused Kasumi to die. In fact, Ryoga decided, he wouldn't believe it. For once, he would give Ranma the benefit of the doubt. He would believe in her.

He knew Ranma didn't love him in a romantic way. Maybe it would be nicer if she did. But she did love him. Which meant that there was was at least one person in the world that cared for him.

Which meant…maybe the world wasn't so bad after all.

~~~~~End of Chapter 16~~~~~

Thank you for reading!

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I'm getting close to wrapping up this story finally. Maybe within five chapters or so. I have a vague plan, but I'm not sure of anything yet. What happened with Shampoo had to happen, I think, based on what she did, and all the things done to her. That said, the exact consequences have not yet been determined. Ranma doesn't know for sure what happened to her, and neither do we. Well, I sort of have idea, but I still haven't figured out whether it will work or if it's just wishful thinking.

I suppose I should have put some sort of trigger warning on this chapter, but I have a hard time with the idea. On some level I know that there are people out there who aren't as emotionally jaded as I am, just as there are people who seriously cannot eat the spicy foods that I enjoy. Such people are not immature or pansies, even though that's my initial thought. And yet how do I accommodate these people? I also believe very strongly that pain, both emotional and physical, is necessary to make life interesting. So it becomes an affront to my very belief system for someone to say that they can't take seeing certain things or reading about them. And yet...I realize I'm probably just being a dick.

Regardless, at this point this fic has had enough creepy and disturbing scenes that the more sensitive souls have been filtered out, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. If this brings up some past trauma for you though, please know that I'm sorry, and that I write about such things because I've had dark thoughts. If you have them you might try writing about them too, because that's what dragged me out of the suicidal ideations I was having in high school into the relatively chipper chap who writes to you now. I consider depression a friend of mine now, and he's kind of funny sometimes, so I've kind of grown fond of having him around. That said, I realize not everyone is going to like him as much as I do. He is rather a bore at parties.