Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Bound to Stay ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x

 

“Blah, blah, blah” - indicates Japanese speech

# Nerima, Tokyo, Earth # - indicates locations

/Hmmm…/ - indicates thoughts

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x

 

Bound to Stay by Kalissa

 

 

Chapter 5

 

# Furinkan High, the roof of the school building #

 

Ranma landed softly on the balls of his feet without making a sound and put the girl in his arms down. It was amusing to see the famous Ice Queen squeaking like a schoolgirl that saw a rat near her desk. The mental picture of Nabiki running around a desk with a rat sitting on top of it made him chuckle. Nabiki in her turn

wasn't as amused so she didn't take very good to his merriment.

 

“I don't see anything funny! You could've warned me. Stop smirking like that dammit, I nearly had a heart attack!”

“But you didn't.” Ranma replied in cold and board voice. “Now lets get down to business. I have questions and you will give me the answers that I need.”

“It will cost you Saotome.” Nabiki quickly went into her `business' mode.

Ranma reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin with strange carvings on it. He casually tossed it to Nabiki who caught it and was now staring at the coin with wide eyes.

“Where did you get it?”

“That is not relevant. What you do need to know is that there's more where it came from. Answer my questions and you will leave this roof as a very wealthy person.”

“I'm listening.”

 

“Wise chose. How long have I been away?”

“What you were out of it the whole time and there wasn't any calendar to check up with? You poor dear!” her words were dripping with sarcasm but then she looked at Ranma's face and hurriedly answered “You were gone for a week, eight days if you count today.”

Ranma couldn't hide his surprise at the fact. He expected it to be at least a couple of years if not longer but definitely NOT a week. Nabiki saw the expression on his face and couldn't help but ask

“The time ran differently for you?” It was a wild guess though not entirely impossible in the light of all things that regularly happen to Ranma. Her suspicions were confirmed when Ranma absent-mindedly nodded his head.

 

“What's the `official' reason for my absence?”

“A training trip, of course. I take it that it wasn't?”

Ranma ignored her question and instead asked

“Who's great idea has it been?”

“Well, Happosai said that you had lost control and needed to be along for a while to get it back. He also said that he've done all he could to help you but it wasn't enough… to give you the time needed… t-to say good bye…R-Ranma?” - Nabiki's face had turned white and she was trembling in fear by the time she finished speaking. The reason for this would've been obvious to anyone who saw Ranma at that moment.

 

Ranma was seeing red. / So it was my fault, huh?I was the one to lose control and he was oh so kind to send me to HELL on the training trip to regain it. How noble of him! / before he could start a killing spree to calm his nerves Nabiki's voice returned him to the present. Seeing the state the girl was in quickly made Ranma self-conscious. The poor thing was going to pass out if he continued in this rate.

 

“It's ok Nabiki. Calm down. I'm fine now.” strangely enough Nabiki calmed down almost immediately and then looked at him

“Happosai did something to you, didn't he?” she sounded almost timid

“Hai. He sent me away and destroyed my only way to get back. I'm here by a pure accident. But that's not important now.” he spoke softly and quietly “Don't worry about it Nabs better tell me what happened while I was gone.”

 

Nabiki couldn't believe what was happening, it was so strange to actually talk to Ranma and the fact that she kept loosing her composure every few minutes didn't help a bit, last time it happened she caught herself at actually wanting to talk with Ranma some more. Moreover, she found that she enjoyed hearing his voice, so soothing and gentle like a caress…/Gahh! What is wrong with me? Get yourself together girl before you turn into a love-struck puppy! It's Ranma standing before you for god's sake! / Nabiki decided to finish this as soon as possible of the fear that she'll loose it.

 

“Well… When you didn't come for dinner that night they wanted to go and search for you but then Happosai returned from his panty raid and told us about the `training trip'.” She was careful not to go into the details. Angry Ranma is not a pleasant thing to see, and she already had had enough of that sight to last her for a month if not longer. Ranma nodded for her to continue. “I think you can imagine what happened next. Fathers started wallowing in self-pity and cursing at you, Akane went to the dojo to work out her anger at you for presumably `leaving to be with one of your hussies', all Kasumi said was her famous `Oh my!'” After a bit of thought Nabiki added “…though I think she was really worried about you. Nothing out of the usual. Next day the word got out, but everybody took it rather well I'd say and just went on with their lives. And seeing as you weren't here nothing major had happened since then.” She didn't `bother' to mention the fact that she was the one to sell the information to everyone interested.

 

“You want to tell me that nobody followed me to get me back or get their revenge while I was weakened?” Ranma was curious, that had never happened before. Every time he tried to find some peace and solitude somebody always followed him and just made things worse.

“Are you kidding?” Nabiki had the `are-you-an-idiot-or-just-pretending-to-be-one' look “They may be stupid but they're not suicidal. Only those with a death wish will annoy a person who killed a demi-god, when he's out if control.” Only when the words already left her lips did Nabiki realise what exactly did she say. /Oh shit! I just called him a killer and dangerous for the society… I hope he doesn't take it too bad. / To her surprise Ranma didn't even flinch. Seeing the expression on the girls face Ranma let out a bitter laugh

“Don't be so surprised Nabs, you would be very surprised if I told you how often I hear those words. It's just, I didn't realise that you people knew it with all the `treat-Ranma-like-a-thing-and-a-dumb-jock-he-is' routine so popular around here”

 

Nabiki flinched, she felt hurt and ashamed at his words. Hurt because he said them to her face. Ashamed because deep down inside she knew they were true. Until now she never realised it but she always thought of him as a doll in her schemes or as an easy way to make money but never did she consider him as a person. She was interrupted from her thoughts by that gentle voice of his

“Don't beat yourself over it. What's done is done, you can't change the past.”

 

Ranma carefully took her hand and put two more coins in it.

“I may have couple of more tasks for you later on but right now you should return to your class, the bell is about to go. See ya later.” - with that said Ranma back flipped from the roof and when Nabiki looked down a mere moments later he wasn't anywhere in sight. Just than a bell rang reminding her that she had two more boring lessons to attend.

 

# With Ranma #

 

Ranma was roof hopping away from the school at insane speed, no more than a black blur for even a trained eye.

 

Now that he had the basic information Ranma had a lot to think about and to do that he needed to find a quiet and secluded spot to make sure that he won't be disturbed by anyone. Ranma briefly considered his once favourite spot under the bridge but then realised that everybody knew about it and will most likely look for him there in the first place. After some thought, he decided on a park located in the centre of Nerima. Ranma found an old tall tree near the lake and jumped up the branch four meters above the ground. The leaves and thick branches made it impossible to notice him from the ground and at the same time gave him a wonderful view of the ground and water below.

 

He made himself comfortable and entered a trance like state. First things first, Ranma needed to remember his life as a human and meditation was the best way to do it. Gradually it all came back to him, the fights, the fiancées, his father, mother and the life with the Tendo's. They were not happy memories but they were important if Ranma was to come back to living with his `family' even for a short while. He remembered everything from his arrival at the dojo on that rainy day to the night when he was banished by that old pervert of a cockroach.

 

Ranma wasn't angry or upset he just felt tired. Tired of the chaos in his life, the fights, of the girls who wanted him and of the life itself. At that one moment all the years that he spent in his travels caught up with him.

 

At the beginning of his `new' life he tried to count every year that went by, then his count slipped to every hundred and a bit later he caught himself counting thousands… after all what's a year or a dozen for the one who lived through more then ten millennia. And through all this time his body stayed that of twenty-three year old, the age when he was reborn and his `new' life began…

 

It wasn't all that uncommon though. Many demons didn't even hold that account. It is a hard thing to do when a minute in one dimention can be a year in another. The time difference varied greatly from one dimention to the other, usually the count was held by the reference to the well-known and highly respected dimention, located at `the Crossroads' (1) more often than not. Hell was one of such dimentions. If you looked at the situation closely enough you would see that for many Hell was a centre of their existence just as it was the Central Crossroad. (2)

 

On contrary to the Christian beliefs, prisons and torture chambers occupied only fife `Lower Levels' of Hell. The remaining four so cold `Upper Levels' could be compared to the metropolis city on earth. One could find there literally anything. Nightclubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and casinos shared the First Layer with various shops and market places where you could buy anything you can imagine and much more. The Second Layer was filled with hospitals, banks, infrastructure and offices of all possible businesses. There were travel agencies, legal firms, and main offices of manufacturers of virtually anything, all kinds of service agencies that varied from an escort service that supplied you with a beauty of any race for any occasion to The Hunter's office that supplied you with a body of anyone who makes you uncomfortable enough for you to pay for their death. The Third and Fourth Layers were the `living' area. There were numerous apartment blocks, houses and mansions but only a select few were rich enough to live there.

 

As such Ranma or the Dragon (as he was known there) was an eighty-six years old by the Hell's calendar, a relatively young demon that achieved great heights. On the First Level Ranma gradually built a restaurant chain where the best dishes from all over the universe are served. He owned the `New Age Tech' on the Second Level, a huge technology&magic-orientated company where the tech. and magical achievements of different dimentions were put together to create the best products found on the trans-dimentional (TD) markets. Bounty Hunting was more of a hobby, after all any business gets boring after a while and he made sure to employ the best so he didn't worry about not being there to personally control and supervise everything. Ranma lived in a mansion on the Fourth Level. It was surrounded by thick forests and provided him with sometimes much needed privacy.

 

Ranma contemplated all of this while sitting on his tree. He didn't need to work while staying here in fact he was rich enough not to work for the rest of his LONG life and still leave with all the comforts possible but it was just not his style. He LIKED to work and meet challenges while doing so and starting a business here, with no foundation at all was more than enough of a challenge for the first time, maybe later he would think of something more fun to do.

 

Now to make sure that his little `vacation' won't affect his life in Hell. From what Nabiki told him it would be quite inconvenient where timeframes were concerned. If eighty odd years in Hell was only a week here he would be gone longer than what was acceptable, nothing a little meddling with Space and Time won't correct. Withdrawing even deeper into himself Ranma found his centre and began the delicate task of adjusting the Streams of Time to his liking. Every experienced Dimentional Traveller knows how to do it as it makes ones travels much less time consuming and there's no risk that you will return a thousand years after you left.

 

That problem solved, Ranma concentrated on the next one. He was going to meet his one-time family in less then one and a half hour and he needed to decide what exactly to tell them and how much of the truth to reveal. He couldn't tell them everything that wasn't a question, but even so they deserved to know at least some of the truth. The fact that he couldn't predict their reactions to him being a demon now only made things worse. On the other hand not telling them could backlash on him later on. There were more then enough people that would wish for his death and even more that will gladly take to the job of getting rid of him. (3) Usually they weren't anything but annoyance but now they actually could become a threat. Killing him was close to impossible but destroying a world was relatively easy and killing those close to him even easier in this particular case. (4) Now that he was bound to stay in this world, if it was destroyed he will go down with it. An opportunity his enemies won't miss if they manage to figure his predicament. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Ranma will do all possible and impossible to keep his stay here a secret or at least not to let his lack of the ability to leave this place at any given instant to be known. Easier said than done.

Ranma decided on one thing, nobody would destroy this world in the near thirty years. After that he may blow up the damn hellhole himself for all the trouble it caused him.

 

Mind set, his near future decided and grinning like a maniac Ranma left the park and headed for the Tendo Dojo to make `re-acquaintances' with his so called `family'.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx< /div>