Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Seasons out of Time ❯ Journey Begins ( Chapter 2 )

 

Chapter 2: Every journey begins with a single step.

 

 

Another day at Furinkan high school came to an end, Ranma and Akane left, walking home in silence, each lost in their own thoughts and insecurities. 'bring bring' A bicycle landed on Ranma's head, ridden by Xain-pu, one of Ranma's 'fiancées'.

 

"Ranma is too too beautiful day, you go on romantic date with Xain-pu?" The amazon asked. Akane kept walking but she listened to see what would happen.

 

"No, Shampoo I've got training today."

 

"Xain-pu Train with iren?"

 

"No Shampoo! I got invited by this guy and his wife to train with them I can't just show up with an extra person the first day! Now leave me alone I have to go!." Akane smiled, she'd waited a long time to hear him actually say no to Shampoo.

 

Ranma and Akane continued towards home, Xian-pu watched suspiciously before turning her bicycle towards the neko haten, maybe her great grandmother Khu Lon would have an idea for getting Ranma to go on a date with her.

 

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They got home, went to change and tell their respective fathers where they were supposedly going, but just as they were about to leave Akane spotted P-Chan her little pet pig. She stopped to pick him up and cuddle him before they left, unfortunately Ranma reacted as he always did when he saw her with the black piglet, like a jealous boyfriend. Akane couldn't understand why P-Chan always made him react like this, how could he be jealous of a pig? As usual it escalated until Akane and Ranma were yelling at each other and P-Chan was attacking Ranma.

 

"Fine!!!" Ranma yelled, "Have fun with your boyfriend!" Then he stormed out slamming the door behind him. Akane watched him go feeling as if she were about to cry, they were supposed to be leaving today! Stopping only to put P-Chan in her room, she left and walked to the park where she had agreed to meet Lani, too lost in her misery to notice Khu Lon watching her from the roof of a nearby building.

 

 

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Akane sat in the same swing with the same look on her face as the last time, when Lani arrived to pick her up.

 

"What happened?" she asked the melancholy girl. "Did you two have a fight?"

 

"Yeah, I picked up P-Chan, my pet pig, to say good bye and Ranma jumped down my throat again. I just don't know why he hates P-Chan so much, its so stupid, he keeps acting like he's jealous.

 

"Maybe he is." Lani suggested.

 

"Wha? Why on earth would he be jealous of a pig?" Akane asked, mystified.

 

"P-Chan takes your attention away from him, and perhaps Ranma has other issues with him too, you'll have to ask him. Right now though its time to go." Lani Replied. Akane nodded and hoped Ranma wouldn't back out because he was mad at her.

 

The two disappeared from sight missing the wide eyes of the ancient amazon.

 

 

 

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Akane looked around the two bedroom guest cottage that would be her home for the next few years and sighed. Lani had told her her husband was talking to Ranma and he would get here in a little while, but still she worried. She also spent some of her time thinking over what Lani had said about P-Chan taking her attention from Ranma, and wondered if there was more to it than that. His reaction seemed a little extreme if it was just about him feeling neglected, he had never struck her as a particularly needy or clingy guy.

 

While she pondered this perplexing issue she explored her new surroundings, she had chosen the bigger of the two bedrooms, it had a queen size bed with pretty dark blue bedding and creamy gold accents. She had found a lot of lovely clothes in her size in the oak wardrobe and many outfits suitable for martial arts training in the matching dresser. She smiled when she saw that Lani had framed several photos of her family and placed them around her room.

 

The rest of the cottage was spacious and beautifully decorated. In the living room she found the TV cabinet full of anime and movies. Browsing the titles she noticed a series labeled 'Ranma 1/2', she frowned. Thinking that it couldn't be what she thought it was she pulled the case out and put the first one into the DVD player.

 

Immediately she realized that it was exactly what she thought it was, it may as well have been titled 'Akane Tendo this is your life'. she watched the anime for several hours in a trance, some places she fast forwarded through, but she watched every minute. suddenly she stopped rewound and played back the last few minutes of the DVD. It was the night she found P-Chan in her room, Ranma was sitting talking to her neighbors dog, reassuring it that he would never reveal the secret of its jusenkyo curse.

 

He thought the dog was Ryoga. Her mind swam with possibilities, then she saw the anime version of herself hand anime Ranma the little black piglet so he could give him a bath. She watched as Ranma dunked P-Chan into the bath, and watched as he came out as Ryoga.

 

Her mind froze, as she watched the rest of the scene play out. P-Chan was Ryoga. Ryoga had a jusenkyo curse, cold water turned him into the little black piglet she hugged, that she has kissed on the snout, that she had cuddled to her chest while she slept. She felt sick, faint, betrayed, enlightened.

 

When she gasped, filling her lungs with much needed oxygen, she realized she hadn't been breathing. Ranma's behavior around P-Chan suddenly made so much more sense, terrible, horrible sense. She turned off the TV and went to stand by the window, staring out she let the thoughts run around her brain.

 

 

 

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Ranma stormed toward the agreed upon meeting place, furious at Ryoga, Akane and himself. Ryoga just had to show up today! He had been cautiously optimistic about this training thing, thinking he and Akane might finally have some time to talk to each other without everyone in town going into fits. He was particularly furious at himself for his irrational fury at Akane.

 

Intellectually he knew she didn't know, he himself had helped hide it from her, but every time he saw her cuddle the little porker to her chest and speak to him in that nauseating tone he wanted to hurt something. He threw himself down on the park bench where he was supposed to wait and dropped his head into his hands.

 

"Akane is right I am a stupid jerk." He muttered as someone sat beside him on the bench. Ranma was immediately on alert, he hadn't felt the presence of anyone else before whoever it was sat down. That told him whoever it was had been a martial artist for years and was likely very good.

 

"Why?" came a deep gentile voice from the figure next to him. Ranma looked up and over to see a tall lean man with dark gray hair, who seemed to be examining a cloud high above.

 

Ranma couldn't explain why but he felt safe with this man, like he had been in this head space and would understand without mockery or judgement. Still he had never really had anyone to confide in before and the impulse to tell the man what was going on inside him disquieting, though in the end the compulsion proved too great for him to ignore.

 

"I'm angry." He said at last, seeming to address the same cloud the stranger was watching. "Its a really complicated situation, but basically I'm mad at myself for being mad at someone else."

 

"Your fiancé?"

 

"Yeah, my fiancé, Akane. I'm so mad at her and she didn't really do anything wrong."

 

"do you wanna start at the beginning?" The stranger asked compassionately.

 

"I'm not really much of a talker about this stuff." Ranma muttered

 

"That's okay, I wasn't much of a talker either for a long time. My wife though, I believe you've met her, told me once that if you can't tell someone what's wrong, it just makes it harder. That cutting yourself off from the people who want to help you, makes it harder for them too. She has also pointed out that there is only so much space in the humanoid body if you don't let things out once and a while one day you'll just explode, then everything comes out in the worst way possible in front of whoever is around and someone will get hurt, usually everyone." He snickered, "hard to believe she's been just as bad at it as you or me, huh?"

 

Ranma smiled weakly. "I guess, I just never had anyone to really talk to before. I've tried I guess, a few times to talk to Akane but something always happens or she gets mad at me, though that's kinda my fault too. Everything always seems to be my fault."

 

"Kind of a narcissist too aren't you?" Ranma snorted and the stranger continued. "People are complex creatures, my wife has watched them for millennia, from the first people to climb out of trees till now and sometimes they still surprise her."

 

Ranma blinked as he assimilated that concept. "Your wife watched the first humans climb out of the trees?!?!?"

 

"Looks good for her age doesn't she?" He smiled. Ranma nodded, dumbfounded. "It probably wont help but I've been around that long too. We've only met recently though, almost six years ago. Before that we were both very lonely, I'm from a reality parallel to hers, and she lost a friend to my reality when I came to stay with her. I was worried for a while, that his leaving would turn her against me, because it was my fault you see, but when I told her she said that she was okay because they had both finally found a love they had searched for as long as she could remember. Things are almost never exactly as we perceive them. There are always layers to the truth that you need another view to see."

 

"Was she in love with him?"

 

"I think she wanted to be, all of our kind came in pairs, she had watched all her friends find each other and there was never anyone for her. He was the only other of our kind she had ever come across that had been alone like she was, but when she and I met it was different, incredible. If she had stayed with him and I had stayed in my reality with the female version of him I had been seeing, all four of us would have lived only half alive. If we hadn't talked it out we would still be walking on eggshells around each other and it would have caused a lot of fights."

 

Ranma nodded and then he began at the beginning. Lost in their conversation he didn't notice Xian-pu watching them from a tree branch across the courtyard near the fountain.

 

When he had finished, the stranger sat quietly for a few moments.

 

"You realize you love her right?" He finally murmured. Ranma sighed.

 

"I was afraid of that. I guess I knew I just never wanted to admit it. She's usually angry at me, we've always said we cant stand each other, but sometimes I look into her eyes and its like the world falls away and then we get interrupted. What do I do if she doesn't feel the same way about me?"

 

"This is the Akane my wife picked up an hour or so ago right?"

 

"An hour?!?! Oh shit, she is gonna be so pissed at me!" Ranma panicked, jumping off the bench.

 

"That would be a yes then? My wife is a hopeless romantic, if you were better off with one of your other girls that's who she would have told you to bring. If she brought this one I would bet the girl is just as in love with you."

 

"Of course she's in love with you!" Lani said as she appeared suddenly in front of them, out of thin air. "She was nearly in tears, she was so worried you wouldn't want to come, all because you were mad at her and she didn't know why!"

 

The stranger smiled up at her from his position on the bench, and flicked his eyes at the spy in the tree. She smiled and held her arms open for a hug.

 

"I see her there." she laughed. "I promise she cant hear a thing over that fountain." The stranger enveloped her in his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin, then he said to Ranma:

 

"If the reward is holding the woman you love in your arms, even for a moment, there is almost nothing in this world that isn't worth fighting to get there. If you want her, tell her. She hasn't learned to read your mind......yet."

 

Ranma frowned in dismay. "yet?" Lani laughed again and as the world disappeared around him he heard:

 

"I'll teach you to read hers too."