InuYasha Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ The Guardians of Earth ❯ Friendships Renewed ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A Ranma 1/2 fan fiction

By Dmitri 'Ranshin' Antonov

The Guardians of earth

Chapter two: Friendships Renewed

Fate can be cruel, and fate can be the bringer of mercy. With one Ranma Saotome
it has always been the former, but maybe
for one day. One day. The gods would smile upon him, and the things he has
accomplished as a human being. What if that
day would be today? That is a question Ranma has asked himself almost everyday
for the past few months. And finally, he
may recieve his answer.

Ranma awoke peacefully the next morning, nothing woke him up. Which was nice. He
felt really tired last night.
After inhaling his own food at dinner last night, plus the seconds that he asked
for, thrice. And not to mention the
fact that he ate almost all of his fathers food. A full stomach leaves a person
tired and lazy. The latter never affected
Ranma but the former sure did. When the body has energy it wants to store it,
not waste it in a few hours through training.

Ranma looked to his left and saw the familiar face of his fathers transormed
form; a panda. After seeing that his old man
wasn't waking up he decided to go take a shower. A good long shower. Boy he
needed it. The only thing he could smell at the
moment was his own sweat. Even though he was long used to it, other people were
not. He didn't think that people would like
it very much if Ranma walked around smelling like a pair of underwair that
hadn't been washed for a week. So, Ranma took his
covers of himself and stepped out of the guestroom. He smiled at the small irony
of it. After all the time he stayed here
and no matter how much he had done for everyone in the dojo, he still wasn't
fully considered a tendant. He probably would
be if he started paying Nabiki rent. Like that would ever happen.

Ranma walked into the changing room, and memories filled his thoughts. Memories
from when he first came here. When Akane had
walked in on him, and ten minutes later bashed him on the head with a table. He
didn't think much of the old memory, it was
just a memory, not all that important. He took of his sleeping clothes, this
time them being a pair of boxers and a tank-top.

He opened the door to the bathroom and entered. And was greeted to the sight of
Nabiki of all people taking a bath. She was
sitting in the big bathtub by herself. His first reaction was to apologize and
quickly leave the room before getting bashed.
But suprizingly his brain worked before his mouth or his foot. He quickly
covered himself up with a towel and said to Nabiki:
"Hey Nabs whatcha up to?" He was grinning, he knew that. The reaction from
Nabiki made him grin even more. She quickly went
under the water so Ranma wouldn't see anything she didn't want him to see. Then
she asked: "Ranma what are you doing here?
What would Akane say if she knew that her fiancée was trying to peek at her
sister?" She said all this keeping a straight
face. "She would probably bash me on the head with her mallet, or punt me into
LEO" Answered Ranma. "I'm kind of tired of
lower earth orbit so I would prefer The mallet." What he said shocked Nabiki a
little.

"Are you saying you want to be bashed like that?" she asked him. Ranma looked at
her like she was the weirdest person on
earth. "Would you like to bashed on the head like that every day of you're
life?" She shook her head no. "I thought not."
"Anyway Ranma, what can I do for you?" she asked him looking amused at his new
attitude. "I was going to take a bath but
since you're here I'll delay that. I would like to know how much I owe you at
the moment." he managed to shock her again.
*Ranma's asking how much he owes me?! Since when?!* she thought. But she needed
to be in control, so she tried to remember
the number in her book last night. She looked thoughtful for a moment looking at
the ceiling. Then she answered him in a
little surprised yet amused tone: "I'm actually surprised. You owe me only 1200
yen. No more, no less." "Are you sure?" he
asked her, just to be sure she wasn't tricking him. "I'm never wrong when it
comes to numbers, you should know that."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I'll pay you today at breakfast." he said. He really
wanted to pay her the debt so he could have
some money for himself. "Uh, Ranma. Breakfast was two hours ago. You slept
through it." Ranma looked shocked. Nobody had
woken him up? Usually they sent Akane up to wake him up. She splashed him with
water and he would go take a quick bath.

"Why the hell didn't anyone wake me up?!" he asked a not angry but very anoyed.
"Because, first of all you slept like a
rock. Secondly you were emitting an aura while sleeping, the aura was so intense
that a bucket of cold water turned to half a
glass of warm water, which didn't wake you up." she answered. At this Ranma
looked really shocked. He stood there stuttering
for a few minutes before collecting himself and asking Nabiki one other
question. "Are you finished in the bath yet? I could
really use a soak at the moment."

"I'm finished, you can have it now." she was going to stand up expecting him to
turn around and look away. But when he
didn't she delayed standing up and asked him. "Are you going to stand and watch?
It'll cost you a LOT more than you can
afford." At this Ranma just turned 180 degrees to the right and closed his eyes.
Nabiki saw this and stood up, quickly put
a towel around herself and left the bathroom. The minute the door to the
bathroom closed Ranma opened his eyes and looked
around the bathroom. Then he heard another door close, which was the door to the
changing room. Then he quickly threw the
towel off himself and sat down in the bathtub.

*Too many changes are happening, and I don't understand them. I hate not
understanding things.* Thought Ranma as he sat in
the bath. The bandages on his arms has come loose and eventually fell from his
hands after he entered the bath. He still
had a long bandana like bandage around his head. After soaking in the bath for a
few moments trying to figure out his own
questions, he took a deep breath and submerged under the water.

*This is all too weird. One normal day and then all of a sudden I have these
marks on my forehead and hands. And then I find
out that while I sleep my arua radiates like crazy. If what Nabiki says is true
then it even kept me from changing because
of it's heat. My head is starting to hurt. After the bath I'll take a walk. I
need to clear my head.* Ranma thought while
underwater. The bandage on his head had loosened and also fell from his head
like the other bandages. All of a sudden Ranma
quickly resurfaced and stood up. He towelled himself off and exited the
bathroom. He put his clothes on, exited the bathroom
and quickly bound for the rooftops.

He hopped around the roofs for a while. Relaxing against the slight breeze that
was outside. This was one of the things he
loved doing. This was one of the only things that could relax him when he was
frustrated. The breeze against his face,
blowing his hair backward and the wind pushing the fabric of his shirt against
his skin. He hopped around for quite a while.
Since this was Saturday he didn't have any school. He had already missed
breakfast and lunch wouldn't be for a few hours.
He hopped around until he saw a familiar figure walking on the sidewalk. He was
wearing a yellow shirt and a yellow bandanna
with black stripes. The figure was currently looking at the back of his hands
for some reason.

Ranma instantly recognised the person. And he called out to him "Hey Ryoga!
What's happening man?" before jumping from the
roof he was standing on and next to the eternal lost boy. Ryoga looked a little
surprised and quickly looked up, stopping
the research of his own hands. "Oh, hey Ranma. What's up?" Ryoga wouldn't admit
it but he thought Ranma as a friend. After
the wedding fiasco Ryoga found himself at fault of the situation. He didn't take
full blame but still felt bad. After that
day Ryoga apologised to Ranma and promised to stop attacking him. He could still
remember that day...

***Flashback***

Ranma and Ryoga were sitting together on the roof of the Tendo dojo. The roof
happened to have a few holes in it. Both boys
were sitting with their legs crossed and looking at the sunset. After a shile of
silence Ranma decided to break it.

"Man, this is really messed up. I come here after the thing at Phoenix mountain
hoping for some peace and quiet and look
what happens." Ranma didn't really look pissed or angry, but you could see the
tiredness and frustration in his eyes. He was
sick of this and if you had a good eye, you could see it. Unfortunately most of
the people that live in Nerima don't have
that good eye. They can't see when a person is at an emotional peak. Ryoga had
always had that eye, but he never bothered
to use it. Now on the other hand, when he looked at Ranma he could see
frustration, tiredness, sadness and more feelings that
the pigtailed martial artist almost never showed. At that moment Ryoga decided
to voice his own opinion.

"Yeah. I agree, this is pretty messed up. And is partially my fault." At those
words Ranma looked shocked. Never would he
have thought Ryoga to admit something like that. Before Ranma could say anything
Ryoga continued. "I'm partially at fault.
You know that. I know that. I don't hold this against you, you didn't do
anything wrong. This was supposed to be the
happiest day of you're life, and I ruined it, I'm sorry." Ranma looked at Ryoga
and what he saw actually scared him a little.
He saw sadness and also truth, he could see that what Ryoga was saying was true,
that he really meant what he was saying.
He didn't really blame Ryoga for this, he blamed his father and Soun. He also
blamed Ukyo and Shampoo. But Ryoga he did not
blame fo this.

"It's not you're fault man, I mean it was Nannichuan right? Anyone of us would
kill to get it." Ranma told Ryoga. Ryoga took
look at Ranma and spoke again. "No, Ranma this is also my fault. Please accept
my apology and tell me what I can do to make
it up to you." Now at this, Ranma almost facefaulted. Ryoga saying words like
that was not normal, not normal at all.
Intead of looking like a deer caught in headlights forever, he quickly thought
about what Ryoga just said, and answered
truthfully.

"Ryoga, you don't have to worry about it. I don't really blame you, accept it.
But if you really wanna repay me. Then lets
stop our fights. I don't want to be you're enemy Ryoga. I never did, I want to
be you're friend. So, what I ask of you is,
lets end our meaningless fights and become friends."

Ryoga looked at him at him surprised. He had though that Ranma would ask him to
be allowed to kick his ass. *I would want
to kill the person that would ruin my own wedding.* But with Ranma that wasn't
the case. He saw the longing in Ranma's eyes.
He saw the need for a friend, not an enemy or a rival. Ryoga didn't wait long
before answering him. "Alright Ranma. I agree
with you. Let's be friends. Thank you for not blaming me." Then Ryoga reached
with his hand out to Ranma, and after a quick
moment Ranma clasped his hand in Ryoga's and shook it. "Alright then Ryoga,
friends." "Yes, friends. Although we will have to
end the rivalry with a fight you know."

Ranma looked at Ryoga. He was right, you can't end a rivalry before finding out
for sure who was the best. So Ranma summoned
his words fast and spoke. "Alright how about his, the next time we meet we fight
with everything we've got, both of us.
No holding back, a full barrel fight. Deal?" Ryoga waited for a minute. He
though that the idea was perfect. Just like the
way they were going to do when they were kids. This fight would be probably be
their last one against one another. He looked
at his greatest rival and agreed happily. "Deal, Ranma. It's a deal. The next
time I see you I'm gonna kick you're ass."
Ryoga said with a deadly smirk. "Yeah right Ryoga, you couldn't beat me even if
I had my hands tied behind my back." Ranma
countered with his cocky grin.

Old habits die hard. But that's just the way they were. Two best friends wanting
to beat the living snot out of each other.
And yet at the same time, stayed best friends.

***End Flashback***

"What's up? Not much." Ranma replied. *I may be lying but I'm not ready to share
this problem with anybody yet.*
Ryoga looked at Ranma and saw the doubt in his eyes, doubt at his own words.
"You were never a good liar Ranma. Now, tell
me what's wrong." Ranma looked a little shocked, but it passed away. Then he
just looked at Ryoga and said. "Alright, Ryoga
I'll tell you. But not here, somewhere more private." "Ok that's fine with me.
Besides, a private place gives us somewhere
to fight. You didn't forget did you?"

"No of course not. We'll talk and then fight. It's kind of like it's always
been. Except insulting first, then fighting and
then talking." Both boys laughed at this comment, remembering old times. They
had gone through many things together.
And both of them came on top in the end. Once they were bitter rivals, and now
they are the best of friends. But still,
the more things change, the more they stay the same. A perfect way to talk about
Ranma's and Akane's relationship.

"Alright then, lead the way." "Since when have you wanted me to lead the way?"
Ranma asked the lost boy with a grin. Ryoga
just smirked back and said. "Since I figured out being stubborn is stupid."
Ranma just chuckled and jumped on a nearby roof.
Ryoga followed close after him, and soon they were hopping away. Roof hopping
that is.

After about ten minutes of hopping from roof to roof they came to a stop in a
house. A two story house that looked kind of
familiar to Ryoga. He decided to voice his thoughts. "Hey, this place looks kind
of familiar." Ranma just chuckled and
answered him. "Of course it does, it's you're own house idiot." "What?! My
house?! How could I have forgotten my own house?!"
Ryoga said loudly, not a scream but still pretty loud. "Jeez Ryoga, you don't
have to shout. I just took us here because
I thought it would be perfect to talk here. Nobody knows where you live, except
maybe for Akane but she wouldn't be able to
find the the place." Ryoga looked at Ranma like he was weird. *Ranma's using his
head an awful lot lately.*

They entered the house and with Ranma's help, located Ryoga's room without any
problems. Ryoga set his large traveling pack
near his bed and sat down, legs crossed. Ranma followed suit and also sat down
in a lotus position. That's when Ryoga
finally ask Ranma what was going on. "So Ranma, you said you're gonna tell me
what's up. So talk." Ranma looked a little
nervous for some reason. He took a few moments, deciding on what words to use.
Then he took a deep breath, gulped and spoke.

"Alright, I'm not going to stall this trying to avoid it, so I might as well
tell you." He took one final quick breath
before continuing. "It started yesterday. I remember having some kind of dream,
it was really weird. It was inside some kind
of weird room. The room was like a circle, instead of the usual square floors.
The room was all silver coloured and had a
spiral on the floor. There were people there. At least, I think they were
people. One was emitting this crazy white aura, while the
other one a huge black one. Around the room were somekind of casket things. Then
the two people started to mumble something.
I didn't undertand what it was, it was all hazy. Then these bright clours
started to emit from the caskets. I don't
remember more."

Ryoga had looked more and more shocked after each sentence that Ranma finished.
Now he had this baffled look on his face.
The contents of Ranma's dream wasn't really what had shocked Ryoga. But
something else. "R-Ranma?" "Yeah, what is it Ryoga?"
Ranma looked like he missed the look of utter shock on Ryoga's face. Ryoga
quickly shook his head and quickly spoke to
Ranma again. "Nothing, nothing at all. Was there something else that happened?"
Ranma looked thoughtful for a moment and
then remembered the other mystery. "Actually now that you mention it, after the
dream I woke up with some kind of weird
type of marks on the back of my hands and on my forehead."

Now at this Ryoga almost fell over from surprise and shock. But instead of doing
that he collected himself, and adressed
his companion. "Ranma, may I uh...se the marks?" Ryoga said in a rather nervous
tone. Ranma didn't notice it though.
"Sure, they're a little hard to notice but, here take a look." That said Ranma
took of his headband and the bandages on his
arms.

On his forehead was a very thin outline of some kind of kanji. It looked like a
scar and was rather hard to notice. Ryoga
looked shocked upon seeing it. Then all of a sudden the mark on Ranma's forehead
started to glow. It glowed in a bright
yellow light. And Ryoga was even more shocked at this. Then he saw the look on
Ranma's face, the pigtailed boy was stuttering
something that Ryoga couldn't quite hear ans was pointing a finger at his
forehead.

Then Ryoga felt a familiar strong and hot sensation on his forehead. He took his
bandana off and quickly looked in a mirror
in his room. On his forehead was a kanji that glowed in a darksalmon colour.
Like Ranma's the kanji was not japanese but
for some reason he could still read it. The kanji said 'Earth'. It glowed bright
like dark sand that was only found in the
weirdest of places, places that Ryoga had seen, so he recognised the colour.
Ranma's mark wasn't really yellow, it was
kind of steadily changing back and forth between gold and goldenrod in
colour.

Both boys were astonished at this discovery, especially Ranma. After a long
minute of just glancing at each other and then
at the mirror and then back at each other, Ranma finally broke the silence.
"Y-y-you have on too?" he managed to stutter out.
"Uh, yeah looks like it." Ryoga answered weakly, and then continued "I have no
idea how I got one though. I just woke up
yesterday morning and I had it." Ranma looked at Ryoga kind of sadly. "Just one
more problem in my life." Ryoga chuckled at
that. "How would you know? We have no idea what these things are yet. How do you
know they're trouble?" Ranma looked at
Ryoga like he had grown a second head. "Everything that happens in my life is
trouble." They both laughed at this.

Then Ranma lifted his hand up to Ryoga's glowing forehead and touched his mark.
"I wonder what they are? Some kind of magic
maybe? Considering my luck with magic, quite possible." Ryoga just chuckled and
lifted his own hand and came in contact with
Ranma's at the moment gold forehead. Then all of a sudden the back of their
hands started to glow. The marks that were
hidden under the skin were now visible. Ranma's marks were 'V' like marks
glowing in a navy colour, and were like an aura
that surrounded only his hands. The back of Ryoga's hands on the other hand had
a square like marks only with a
small circle within. They glowed in a sienna like colour.

Both boys had their mouths handing open at this. And they were stuttering words
faster than a rapper can say the F word.
They were even more shocked when both auras, the ones on their forehead and
hands started to fully envelope them. But they
couldn't move a muscle. Either because of the shock or the fact that the auras
had paralized their bodies. They managed to
stutter out a few words that sounded like 'W-w-w-what heck i-i-is this?!'
'W-w-what's going on?!' 'I-I c-c-can't move!'
when the auras had fully enveloped them they flickered out of existense and with
them went the two martial artists.


Authors notes: Took away the colour descriptions. I mean, what kind of an author
actually describes colour types? Jeez, I'm stupid.


-This is Ranshin, signing off! (Not my style eh? Fine!)