Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ A New Future 2 - First Blood ❯ Healing Hands ( Chapter 30 )

This was originally published by me under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice to make things clearer. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi, Naoko Takeuchi, or anything in the GURPS Ogre and GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol settings published by Steve Jackson Games. Everything else is mine.

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Vanguard sighed as she leaned back in her seat in the emergency room (remembering to keep her legs crossed in spite of the spandex shorts under her skirt — Akane had warned her about that when she'd learned of her lover's plans in one of their nightly telephone conversations, and Nabiki had enjoyed twitting her about showing off for the boys when she forgot).

It was a quiet afternoon, and in spite of her need for cases to practice on she was glad — some of what she'd seen over the past week had been nauseating. She turned a little green as she remembered one case in particular, a driver whose car had gotten rolled by a truck: blood everywhere, the tense voices of doctors and nurses fighting to save their patient, Vanguard fighting for the calm she needed to keep her center in the midst of the emotional maelstrom, to reach out with her ki and meld it throughout the patient's body, intermingle it with his own ki, sense where things weren't right, give terse reports of what she was sensing as best she could understand it to the doctors — and all the time ignoring the film crew that had shown up the same night she and Mercury had asked permission for Vanguard's `studies' standing back in one corner as out of the way as possible.

If only there had been some sort of manual in Ami's infomat! Vanguard thought to herself. If I had more than just descriptions of what the lifedancers could do, maybe —

“Hot chocolate?”

The redhead looked up, unsurprised. By now she was getting to the point that maintaining her center was second nature, and so she had sensed the approach of the camera crew's director — male, but safely familiar. “Thanks ... Inouoe-san,wasn't it?” she replied as she looked up, pensive expression vanishing into a smile as she accepted the steaming cup he was offering.

“You're welcome,” he said, and waited as Vanguard took a careful sip and grimaced at the heat. After a few moments, he asked, “May I sit down?”

“Oh, right, sorry, yes!” she exclaimed, blushing. As he took his seat with a chuckle, she added, “I never got the chance ta thank ya for yer suggestion the last time we talked — about the sword. It was brilliant.”

“You're welcome,” he repeated, and leaned back in the seat, looking across the room to the rest of his crew. “So, just what had you so thoughtful, anything else I can give you more good advice on?”

“Nah, afraid not,” Vanguard replied. I was just wishin' that the lifedancers had left some how-to manuals behind. Not that it would help much, most likely — I think they were a bunch of navel-gazers.”

“Navel-gazers?”

“Yeah. Ya know what I do is `cause I can control ki, right?” He nodded, and she continued, “Well, most everybody that does that uses emotions ta focus — confidence, anger, greed, depression ... l-l-lust. But it turns out that's a bad idea, the more ya do it, the stronger that emotion gets.”

“Yes, I can see how that could cause problems,” Inouoe said thoughtfully. “And these lifedancers don't do this?”

“I didn't think so at first — they were incredible healers instead a' fighters, could live as long as they wanted, didn't blow themselves up or become menaces ta everyone around them — but the more I think about it the more I think I was wrong. I think they focused their ki through ... calm ... peace ...”

“Serenity?”

“Yeah, that's the word. Eventually, they'd get ta the point that they were so serene that they couldn't care less what happened to themselves or anyone else. I bet that they'd just ... fade away.”

Breaking off for a moment to test her chocolate, she decided it had cooled enough and took a large sip before adding, “Which means that even if they'd left a manual behind, I'd still hafta just use it ta see what they could do and come up with another way ta do it.”

“Ah, so that's what you're doing here, we'd wondered,” he commented.

“Yeah, I thought I'd better figure out what I was doin' before I tried muckin' about with other people's bodies,” she agreed, before concentrating on the cupful of bliss she held.

Vanguard was halfway through her coming sugar high when suddenly she jerked, chocolate sloshing out across her face, at the feel of her communicator vibrating against her leg in its special sheath. Hastily setting aside the cup, she stood and popped the snaps holding shut a short slit in her skirt and slipped her hand through the opening to pull out the buzzing device.

Turning so that the tiny viewscreen couldn't be seen by the suddenly alert man beside her (and failing to notice the signal he sent his crew as he rose and stepped to the side), she hit the `accept' button and Sailor Mercury appeared on the screen, face tense. “Mercury, what's wrong?” an abruptly worried Vanguard asked.

“There's an ambulance on its way to you right now, with Saturn and a wounded child in it,” Mercury replied. “The boy took some hits during the latest incursion — Saturn's the only thing keeping him alive, and she doesn't have anything left to heal him.”

“What?” Vanguard shrieked as her face turned pale. “Mercury, I've never healed anyone, only sensed where the damage was and told the docs!”

“I don't see any scars across your blind eyes,” Mercury rebutted.

“Yeah, but I slept through that — that's why it's called a healing trance!”

In the communicator's tiny screen, Mercury sighed, eyes sympathetic. “I know, and if there's nothing you can do, then there's nothing you can do — ask any paramedic or emergency room worker, and they'll tell you that it happens — a lot. And maybe the doctors can do more than I think. But, Saturn's giving everything she has to keep the boy alive, you have to at least try.”

Pausing for a moment, she slowly added, “Ra — Yasuko, I've been thinking about it, since we failed to find any manuals — how you healed yourself while essentially unconscious. The body knows how to heal itself already, maybe you just need to ... encourage it, provide the energy for the healing, something like that. Or maybe you can take over keeping the boy alive from Saturn, and she can heal him. Either way, it's something to try.”

Vanguard took a deep breath, and nodded firmly. “Right. I'll do what I can, an' maybe we'll get lucky.”

/\

By the time the ambulance arrived, Vanguard was a bundle of nerves, pacing back and forth, rubbing her arms, actually shivering slightly. Then the doors were opened by Sailors Neptune and Uranus, and two nurses carefully pushed in a gurney. On the gurney was a bloodsoaked stretcher, and on the stretcher was the purple, maroon and white fukued form of Sailor Saturn, still crouched over a very young boy — barely more than a baby.

One glance at Saturn, and Vanguard knew that there would be no help there, beyond what the younger girl was already giving — her raven tresses were plastered to her forehead and cheeks, sweat was running down her face and dripping from her chin onto the child beneath her, and her hands and arms trembled lightly.

Right, so it's up to me, Vanguard thought, suddenly calm, her own shivering gone. She waited until the nurses had carefully moved Saturn and the boy from the stretcher to an examination table, then stepped forward to the head of the table, placed her hands on either side of the boy's head, and closed her eyes as her awareness sank into the wounded body. In practically a monotone, she began reciting the injuries as usual — lacerated liver, punctured kidney, sliced blood vessels and heavy internal bleeding.... And what she didn't report, the flickering, fading sense of unfamiliar life cocooned and mixed with that of her friend.

Report finished, Ranma simply `stared' at the scene for a long moment, lost, not knowing what to do. Then, remembering Mercury's suggestion, she thought back to her own healing, the image she had wrapped herself in as she sank into the healing trance: the happy, if rueful, redhead at the ice cream parlor as her friends worked on a costume for her. And while the boy was a complete stranger, perhaps he could remember....

She focused on the dying life, somehow `pushed' herself toward it, until they merged together. Instantly, she found herself caught in a whirlwind of fear, pain, shock, fear, a constant scream reverberating: “Mommmmyyyy!” and she “yanked” herself away, and found herself staggering back from the table. One of the nurses caught an arm just as she started to fall, and for a moment she clung to him as she gasped for breath, uncaring in her shock that he was a strange man.

“Okay, first calm down the kid,” Vanguard murmured as she fought to reacquire her center. But how? Maybe some happy memories of her own? But from the child's reaction, she was going to need a mother figure....

Again, bracing herself for the onslaught, she stepped forward to touch the boy's temples and sank in, sought and merged with the still-dimming life. As the fear and pain whirled `around' her, she fought to maintain her calm. This time, she thought back to the lunch she'd had with her mother, how she and her sister and friends had spirited the Saotome matriarch away from her home and Genma, the way her mother had insisted on holding her in her arms at the last Senshi meeting.

As she remembered the good times, she tried to harness the memory of the love and happiness that she'd felt, both her own and her mother's, suffuse it somehow with her own ki, project it out to the frightened child — and found herself back in the emergency room, as the calm pool of her center shattered under the wave of emotions.

Damn! As she took a moment to catch her mental breath, Vanguard glanced up at Saturn. The other girl's tremors had grown worse, and Uranus was actually holding her up while Neptune kept Saturn's hands in place — they were almost out of time.

Again, Vanguard let go of her emotions, sought out her calm center (even more of a struggle this time, she was beginning to lose it), and reaching out to lightly grip a tiny hand, sank back into the fading child, sought out that spark of light — a spark that was even dimmer, its flickering even more pronounced.

Again they merged, Ranma ignoring the pain and fear battering at her. Okay, dumbass, so you can't merge emotion with yer ki an' keep yer center, why ya thought ya could — later, the kid first. But how about a partial merger, just enough ta let the emotions ride along, twisted together, like corded rope? Again, she sought out the memories, friends and family, how good life had been since leaving the dojo, again let those feelings of love and friendship touch her center, her life, but this time strained to keep them separate but together and reached out to the boy ... if only those emotions would “stick” —

The scream of pain and need she had been fighting to ignore abruptly broke off. “Mommy?”

Ranma hesitated for a split second, then “sent” somehow, “Yes, Mommy's here.”

“Mommy, it hurts!”

“I know. Let Mommy make it better, it'll go away in just a little bit.” An easy promise to make since it would, whatever happened, but ... Ranma `reached' out, and gasped as the pain hammered into her, through her. Fighting to hold her calm, she let it wash through her and felt the child she `held' relax as the shared pain eased.

Okay, that had calmed the kid down, now for the memory. “You know what will make things better? Think of a happy time, that will help. How about the last time your mo — I took you out for ice cream?” Surely all mothers took their children out for the food of the kami, right?

If not, at least this boy's mother did, and Ranma found herself sitting at a table in an unfamiliar ice cream parlor, watching as the boy sitting across the table dove into a small bowl of chocolate and vanilla ice cream with a gusto to match her at her worst ... and even worse table manners as he managed to spread his treat across his cheeks, down his chin, over his hands — good thing he was wearing a bib.

His spoon scraped along the bottom of the bowl, and she felt herself rise, walk around the table, reaching out with some napkins to wipe gently at his face and hands. “So, was this worth waiting a little bit?” she heard herself ask as her hands opened a packet with an already damp cleansing wipe.

“You bet!” the boy responded happily. “Thanks, Mom, you're the best!”

Ranma felt tears prickle at her eyes at the wave of love and happiness that washed over her. Yes, this will more than do, she thought. Remembering how it had felt before, she focused on the happy, healthy energetic boy whose face she was wiping. Like this — I want us to be like this. And she took the memory and wrapped it around them as the world slowly faded away.

/\

Saturn gasped with relief, Uranus catching her as every quaking muscle in the Senshi of Silence's body went limp at once and tried to dump her on top of the boy she was still kneeling over. She knew she was going to be overjoyed when she'd had some rest, but now the only thing she wanted was sleep.

Opening her eyes, the teenager forced herself to look up at the doctors and nurses gathered round. “It's done, I think she did it, everything should be all right, just don't separate them,” she managed to get out, before sheer exhaustion hammered her under and her head dropped, heavy beads of sweat a light shower down onto the stomach and chest of the boy beneath her.

Neptune released her adopted daughter's bloody hands and stepped back as Uranus gathered the limp girl up in her arms. “No, you both did it,” the short-haired blonde whispered. “Well done, my little one — oh well done!”

Neptune smiled at the two briefly before turning her eyes on the doctors and nurses swarming forward. “You heard her?” she asked the closest doctor.

“Yes, don't separate them,” he acknowledged as he closely watched a nurse sponge away the blood on the boy's abdomen. His eyes widened as the cleansing revealed a nasty — but closed — pair of scars. “Yes, definitely don't separate them,” he repeated fervently, and quickly order that the boy's and Vanguard's hands be strapped together at the wrists ... carefully, making sure not to break Vanguard's loose grip on the boy's hand.

Once that was done, the nurses cautiously rolled the boy onto his side and gently pulled away the bloody shirt stuck to his back. A sponge bath revealed matching scars there as well, and the doctors sighed in relief. “How long until we can untie them!” asked one.

“I'd say wait until Vanguard wakes up and ask her,” Uranus suggested. “She's the one that's doing the healing.”

“She'll wake up on her own, then?”

“She did when she healed herself.” Uranus looked back down at her daughter's sleeping face. “Why don't I put this one in a bed next to those two? She'll want to know everything's all right as soon as she wakes up.”

“Certainly, we can do that,” the doctor agreed, and turned to the nurses. “All right, let's get them out of here and into a bed.”

/oOo\

“That is very good to hear,” Setsuna said softly into her Senshi communicator, her eyes roaming her New York hotel room, what little could be seen in the streetlamp and predawn light leaking around the edges of the room's curtains. “I'm glad they managed to pull it off.”

“You didn't know how it would work out?” Mercury asked.

“I knew how it was most likely to work out, and it did, but I've already told you that unlikely things happen, and there's nothing as chancy as a battle. At any rate, Yasuko won't be waking up for hours, so give Akane a call, let her know why her lover isn't calling on schedule. And pass my congratulations to our two healers for me, I can always repeat it when I get back to Tokyo in a few days.”

Mercury agreed, and after a quick exchange of goodbyes Setsuna lay back on her bed for a time, watching the room lightening as dawn arrived, reassuring herself that all of her loved ones had gotten through the gauntlet whole once again. Finally, deciding that she wasn't going to get any sleep before she had to get up, she rose and headed for the shower. If she couldn't sleep, she could review her offer — the better to lure another budding computer specialist to Japan, where he could be safely steered away from speculation about the possibility of transistors by different research assignments and large bundles of yen. It was a good thing Ranma had remembered she was Yasuko when she had, if she had been much later it would have been too late.