Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Balance of Power ❯ Journey A Helping Hand ( Chapter 14 )

Journey

Chapter 8

A Helping Hand

"Heh, we sure put on a show for those people eh Ryoga?" Ranma smirked.

Ryoga chuckled. "Yeah, I was pretty sure they were going to start bowing to us, declaring us gods or something."

Seiji's hopes that Ranma and Ryoga would not draw attention to themselves were quickly squashed when nearly the entire population of the park was drawn to the two young martial artists as they squared off. Luckily they were able to escape from the crowds and make it back to the subway before things got out of hand, like having the police show up.

Akane and Akari, despite their best efforts, found themselves looking at Ranma with sadness in their eyes, still thinking about the news of Ranma's mental difficulties that Seiji told them. This did not escape Ranma's notice and he quickly became annoyed.

"You know, you two have been looking at me like that ever since we got out of the park, and if I didn't know better I would have to think that it was with pity in your eyes."

Akane and Akari quickly averted their gazes but it was too late, Ranma was out of his seat and walking towards them. He quickly moved his head to try and look the girls in the face but they moved their heads to avoid.

"Hey, I want to know why you two are looking at me like that!" Ranma shouted. Just when he felt he had them worn down the subway car suddenly lurched, sending Ranma flying and right into the divider between subway cars. The lights flickered out and the subway train came to a stop.

Ranma slowly got to his feet, rubbing his head. "Oww, what happened?"

"It's probably just a power failure," Seiji answered from the darkness. "It happens occasionally."

"How long does…"

Ryoga was caught off when a number of screams were heard from the other subway cars.

"What the hell?" Ranma said as he peered into the other subway car. He watched as several bulky looking Chinese men entered the subway car; each man held an assault rifle and was stopping at every person and barking out orders. They were dressed in finely pressed uniforms; they reminded Ranma of the sort of outfits the commando teams would wear in movies. "Uh Seiji, I think you should come here for a second."

Seiji and the others joined Ranma and peered into the other subway car.

"Shit," Seiji cursed under his breath. He took a step back from the divider and motioned for the others to do the same. When he spoke his voice was deadly serious.

"There is unknown number of enemies in the subway cars. I say enemy because there is no doubt in my mind that they are here for us. Those are not regular PLA soldiers, and I would believe that they are a Special Forces team. The only option we have right now is to wait for them to come and get us. We cannot, I repeat cannot, initiate attacks on them, even if they were to through us to the ground and beat us, to do so would be an act of war."

Everyone took Seiji's words with a grave expression on their face. When his cell phone rang it made everyone jump at least a foot of the ground.

Seiji casually retrieved the phone and answered it.

"Hello."

*The soldiers in the next car will take a few minutes before reaching your own, that should give you enough time to escape.*

The voice was oddly familiar to Seiji but he could not find a face that matched the voice. There were always so many faces.

"Who is this?" Seiji asked, his voice guarded.

The person didn't bother answering him.

*The window beside you has a weak frame, you should be able to pop the glass out.*

Seiji walked up to the window and gave it a shove with one hand. He was surprised when the entire window, and frame, break free and fall to the ground below.

Seiji lifted his phone to his ear. "I shall ask again, who are you?" Seiji climbed through the window, with Ranma and the others following suit.

*If you would like me to waste the few precious minutes you have telling you then…*

"Alright!" Seiji said sharply. "Where do we go now?"

*Thirty feet in front of you is a door, go through it.*

Seiji complied and once through the door he found himself facing a very large, very black man holding a cell phone with a big grin plastered on his face.

"Always the inquisitive mind, eh Seiji?" the man asked.

"Phillip!" Seiji exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Damn it Seiji, you sure know how to get yourself into trouble," Phillip said happily.

"I haven't seen you in two years, what the hell have you been doing all this time?"

"Were going to have to catch up some other time Seiji, I don't want to be around here when those soldiers figure out where you went."

"Quite right," Seiji agreed. He turned to face the others, "Alright were going to follow this big bear out of here."

Phillip led them up three flights of stairs before exiting through a door and back out into daylight. He turned and smiled at the four young Japanese teenagers.

"You four get into those Sedans," Phillip said, pointing to the waiting cars. "I'm taking Seiji with me to Tiananmen Square to pick up his car."

Phillip surprised them when he spoke nearly flawless Japanese; he carried a small accent that they could not place. He seemed to be trustworthy so they complied. Ranma and Akane got into one car and Ryoga and Akari got into another. It felt good to be out of the subway.

"Where are they going to be taken?" Seiji asked as they made their way down Beijing's crowded streets.

"I've instructed the driver to take them to the British Embassy for now," Phillip replied as Seiji spotted his car.

Seiji smiled at the news. "I suppose that would be the last place you would look for four Japanese teenagers." Seiji was happy with his friend's arrival but he could not understand just how he could have possibly known they were in trouble.

Phillip saw the confused expression on Seiji's face and decided he should explain.

"I just finished graduating from the Ranger school (Special Forces unit) when I heard some rumblings about some kind of power shift in Japan and I had a feeling that you were somehow involved. I called my father and asked him if he knew anything and he told me to use whatever leave time I had saved up and get to China as fast as possible. It seems that whatever you have been doing has not escaped the notice of my father, not that I would expect anything less."

Phillip Sheridan Parker IV came from a long line of military men. His father served with the Green Berets and had met Seiji Inafune while on operation in Vietnam. Seiji was there as an interpreter because there was a shortage of people that actually had the ability to speak as well as write the Vietnamese language. Seiji had been assigned to Parker's unit and the two became friends. Before the war was over the two had gone on a mission that neither man would talk about and no matter how many times Phillip had tried to pry the truth from his father or Seiji he would be shot down.

His father soon retired and was picked up for work in the Pentagon. He said he was just a simple paper-pusher but when a man is assigned a protective detail, he is obviously a little more than a simple paper-pusher.

"So," Phillip continued, "do you want to tell me just what exactly you have been doing these last few years?"

"It's a long story my friend, so I think it would be best if I started from the beginning."

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Shampoo and Mousse arrived at the Cat Café without a word spoken between them. Shampoo because she was gripped by the sudden sadness that one receives when realizing that the one person in their life that they loved will never be theirs, and Mousse because of a helpful "suggestion" from Cologne.

Summing up some courage, Mousse finally broke the silence between them.

"What do we do now?"

"We shall wait for great grandmother to return before we do anything."

Shampoo surprised Mousse by speaking in their native tongue. He decided to oblige her and respond in kind.

"I meant what do we do until she returns?"

Shampoo gave Mousse a cold stare. "If your implying what I think you're implying Mousse you are in for a world of hurt."

Mousse quickly raised his hands in front of himself to ward of the incoming attack. "I-I wasn't trying to imply anything Shampoo, honest!" he said, trying to get her to calm down.

Shampoo dropped her aggressive stance and smiled at the confused boy.

"I'm sorry Mousse; it has been a very long, very hard, start today."

"I understand," Mousse replied thoughtfully. He sat down at the table occupied by Shampoo. Mousse hated seeing Shampoo so depressed, he wanted desperately to be able to take Shampoo's pain away but he was smart enough to know that the only thing he could do right now was either piss Shampoo off or try and take her mind off of her troubles. "At times like these I usually find myself thinking about home." He paused and smiled as Shampoo looked at him. "I'd remember waking up and looking outside my window, seeing the sun just rising above the tree line, bathing everything in an almost heavenly glow. Then I would make my way towards the village, smiling and waving at everyone I'd pass. Everyone always seemed to be doing something. The children would be running errands, laughing and playing as they went. Before I would reach the center of the village I would always stop and try and take in the entire scenery, hoping that I would never forget it."

Mousse paused again and looked at Shampoo. She had leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed and a serene look on her face. He knew she was imagining almost the exact same thing.

"Once I reached the center of the village I would always find Cologne going through some morning exercises with some of the more dedicated fighters. No matter what day it was I could always count on you being there. I would watch contently for awhile but I would get restless and make my way towards the group. I'd always move in beside you so that meant removing the person beside you, which was usually by means of tossing them away. After awhile I guess everyone got it through their heads and would always leave the spot next to you open."

Shampoo opened her eyes and stared at the smiling Mousse in surprise.

"I always wondered about that."

"Yeah, the combined efforts of watching you, the ghoul, and doing all the exercises was quite exhausting so I would usually make some comment about the old ghoul along the lines of `how can that old crone manage to keep going when people ten times less her age are collapsing from exhaustion?', which would cause Cologne to stop the exercises in order to introduce my head to the ground at an alarming speed."

Shampoo found herself giggling uncontrollably which soon turned into heartfelt laughter as Mousse joined in.

"Thank you Mousse," Shampoo said, switching back to Japanese. "That very nice thing you do for Shampoo."

"It was my pleasure," Mousse said, smiling at the girl that he loved with every fiber of his being.

Shampoo smiled back and thought to herself, if this was what life without Ranma would be like, than maybe it would not be as hard as she thought.

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"Are you okay Miss Ukyo?" Konatsu asked. He had followed Ukyo throughout the entire estate and he felt quite exhausted. Partnered with the fact that the Kuno estate was a virtual maze, and the kunoichi had no idea where they were. This made following Ukyo all the more harder.

Ukyo had no idea where they were or where she was headed, all she did know was that she had to keep running. As if that by running she could get away from all the problems and truths that she had been forced to see.

Getting tired of the kunoichi's presence Ukyo wheeled around and glared at Konatsu. "You can't take a hint very well can you?"

Despite Ukyo's prominent anger, Konatsu smiled cheerfully for her. "I am only concerned for your well-being Miss Ukyo. And if everything is alright then we should start to head back."

Ukyo turned her back to Konatsu and spoke sharply. "Everything is, not, alright Konatsu."

"Then may I ask what is wrong?" the kunoichi asked as softly as possible.

Ukyo hesitated before turning around to face him. She knew he had feelings for her, and the thing bothering her was her relationship with Ranma. But the fact that the only other options she had were to confide in Nabiki and Kuno made Ukyo's reluctance fade.

Konatsu's smile was infectious and Ukyo found herself smiling too.

"Now Konatsu," Ukyo said, surprising herself with happiness in her voice, "I can't very well have a serious conversation with you when you cute smile keeps distracting me."

Konatsu dropped the smile and adopted a serious look. But inside he was ecstatic. Ukyo had called him cute; the rational part of his mind quickly bashed the thought away. Ukyo needed him right now; he could not be bothered by such trivial thoughts right now.

"Is this about what Nabiki said?"

Sadness immediately overwhelmed Ukyo and she had to lean against the wall, lest she fall over. Ukyo had known some of the minor points in Ranma and the others trip to China, but the bigger details were conveniently left out of the story. But now she knew everything. Instead of Ranma simply winning a fight at the end, she now knew that Ranma had not simply won he had fought with his entire soul, sending an icy blast through Saffron's body, sending the demi-god to the afterlife (if only for a few moments) and only so he could save Akane, not for the cure.

And now, instead of the Phoenix people leaving and the others coming home right after the fight, now the story went that the Phoenix people stood in silence watching as Ranma cried over Akane's body. The rest Nabiki had directly quoted from Ryoga, "And then Ranma cried out, he screamed Akane's name. I had never imagined that one cry could carry such pain. But the gods must have heard Ranma's cry and felt his anguish, and they must have realized that to take her from him, after he fought so hard for her, would be the cruelest of acts. So they sent her back, they returned her to him."

Once Ukyo heard this she realized that Ranma was lost to her, no, he had always been lost to her, even in the beginning.

Ukyo's whole body was wracked with sobs. She vaguely noted that she was no longer leaning against the wall, instead she was being held in a warm embrace. The person that held her to his chest so tenderly was Konatsu. He was whispering into her ear, over and over again, "Its okay, everything's going to be okay."

A small part of Ukyo's mind wondered if that could be true, but the thought went unnoticed. All that mattered was she needed to cry, and a warm shoulder was infinitely better than a pillow.

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Author's Notes: This chapter introduces the character Phillip Sheridan Parker IV. This character is not an original creation, though I will be basing everything about him on my own creation. The character is from the Brotherhood of War series, created by W. E. B. Griffin. I recommend that everyone that enjoys stories about the military to check that series out. I am using this character without the approval of Mr. Griffin, and I hope that he doesn't mind (not that I would ever suspect him to come to learn of this story).

I hope everyone has been enjoying the story so far, and I hope everyone has been reviewing the story.