Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ The Butterfly Effect ❯ a.ftermath ( Chapter 4 )

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[1.4]

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It was a beautiful Monday morning. The sun beamed generously down upon the earth, uninterrupted by any stratum of clouds.

Cooking rice burbled in the steamer in the Tendo kitchen as Kasumi happily hummed to herself, bustling about in preparation for breakfast. Across town, many other households also enjoyed this quiet, uninterrupted morning.

Several blocks down the street, the smell of okonomiyaki wafted through the air, its rich pungent smells, drifting dreamily through the air.

On the other side of the prefecture, the delicious aroma of roasted meats and fresh simmering vegetables added to the buffet of odors wafting through Nerima.

The residents of the prefecture stepped out of their houses, blinking unsteadily as if unused to this strangely calm morning. As body after body stepped out onto the porch, they glanced at each other, unasked questions filling the air just as surely as the scents of morning. Perhaps drawn by some inexplicable force, all eyes eventually flitted over to eerily still Tendo dojo. As if by unspoken agreement, the people calmy stepped back into their houses and sounds of every deadbolt in the neighborhood slamming shut echoed through the neighborhood.

The dojo's neighbors prayed to their ancestor tablets for deliverance and waited in hushed anxiety with chairs propped up against front doors for the inevitable hell to break loose.

Because nothing this good ever lasts.

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"Okay, Konatsu. What we're going to do first is assess your strengths and weaknesses," Genma began. "Find out what you're good at and where you need to improve."

"I'm so excited!" The kunoichi clapped his hands in delight.

"Just like old times, eh Saotome?" Soun stood on the other side of the ninja, rotating his left shoulder in a warm-up.

"Just like old times, Tendo."

Genma cracked his knuckles, eyeing the svelte figure clad in patched black before him. He would make a real man out of the effeminate ninja yet if it killed the girl. Boy. He sighed. Whatever.

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Ordinarily, Ranma would have enjoyed watching the resultant carnage, but other things had taken up haunt in his mind for the moment. The pigtailed boy sat in the dining room casting surreptitious worried glances at girl blearily picking at her food next to him. For the past few days, Akane had been in a state of perpetual lassitude, to the point of where even deliberately provoking her resulted in little more than momentary bursts of ire followed by a long, attention-diverting yawn.

The sounds of several explosions echoed through the yard and a burnt-and-blackened Soun flew by the door, howling and frantically wiping ruby-red lipmarks from his face.

"You're looking kind of wiped there, little sis," voiced Nabiki, the tip of her chopsticks paused at the edge of her lower lip.

Akane merely shrugged and continued to absently stir her miso soup.

Just then, a screaming Genma went running in the opposite direction towards the Koi pond, wildly batting at the flames crackling on his head and back of his gi.

The middle Tendo sister's eyes drifted over to Ranma, who studiously avoided her gaze.

Finally, a frazzled and lipstick-sprinkled panda staggered into the Tendo home with Soun slumped facedown over one shoulder. Littering the trail behind him lay bits and pieces of paper, kitchen utensils, and a miscellaneous array of pointed objects.

['I think I'm going to be sick'] A sign bearing freshly leaking kana wedged itself in the doorway before Genma dropped the dead weight to the floor. The Tendo patriarch fell on his back, his index, thumb and pinky extended from both hands, hair stuck out like a spiked urchin, and soot-and-smooch covered face pursed in goggle-eyed horror.

"Can't imagine you lookin' any manlier pops," Ranma snickered. "Though that shade of lipstick don't match you at all."

The panda glared balefully at the boy, then plopped down and began picking at the shurikens, bills, coupons and chopsticks imbedded in its fur.

Konatsu bounded into the room, clasping his hands in front of him as he hopped up and down on his toes, cooing, "That was so much fun, Saotome-san, Tendo-san! Thank you for the training session. I'm beginning to feel somewhat manly already!"

['Uh, no problem']

The kunoichi glanced up at the clock. "Ukyo-sama will be going to school soon. I must to return to the shop."

The damp and smelly ball of fur growfed and yelped when Ranma yanked a couple of slightly bent throwing spatulas out of its head. "Better get these back before she misses 'em, Konatsu."

In a cloud of smoke and kisses, the ninja vanished.

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The youngest Tendo daughter unsuccessfully tried to suppress a series of yawns as she trudged down the street towards Furinkan. Akane made no comment as Ranma walked closely beside her instead of his usual position on the fence. Normally she would have immediately become suspicious (after all, you couldn't be related to Nabiki without picking up at least a few things), but-- the stream was cut off by another yawn and she tiredly rubbed her eyes, dropping errant thoughts from her mind as a familiar form at the gates of Furinkan slid into view.

She heard knuckles crack behind her and paused to let the pigtailed boy pass as the sempai drew his bokken -no, wait- the glint of metal flashing in the sunlight revealed the same sword Kuno had brought to the aborted wedding. Evidently he had not given it up just yet. Well, it wasn't as if it mattered. Wood or steel, the upperclassman still couldn't touch Ranma. Sure it was about as challenging as beating up a--a -*yawn*- . . . a really unchallenging person, but a fight with Kuno would at least distract him, if only momentarily, then maybe he wouldn't be so annoyingly hovering around her like some . . . annoying hovering . . . thing. Lack of sleep was distinctly wreaking havoc with her similes, reflected Akane sourly.

Then a wave of almost unbearable nausea hit, a flash of being submerged, of struggling against the pulling waters. She gasped and stumbled, nearly stumbling face-forward to the asphalt.

water.everywhere.scrambling.swim,swim, havetoswim.struggling.fighting.

cantbreathecantbreathecant--;drowning-in-a-hue-of-blue.sky-closing-over-her -head.

dying.flailing.dying.sinking.

dying,

dying,

dying . . .

The girl folded, trying to gasp, to force air into her chest, unsuccessfully hyperventilating through frozen lungs. She thought that it might have been Yuka screaming her name, gripping onto her arm, but she couldn't hear much over the roar of the water in her ears.

"Akane!"

Ranma's head jerked up in the middle of an aerial kick meant to imbed itself into the sempai's oft-mangled mug, just in time to see the object of Yuka's scream collapse to her knees with one hand pressed to her throat. Momentarily frozen by the distraction, the martial artist lost his position and midair momentum. Flailing for a better landing, he thrust his legs out out, trying to regain balance, but Kuno had also reacted to the shout and snapped his head towards the source of the yell. Ranma's right foot slammed into the upperclassman's left shoulder, wrenching the taller boy around and spinning the katana out of suddenly nerveless fingers, straight towards the girl.

"-ch out!" came the shout from the pigtailed boy, even as his other foot landed in the middle of Kuno's forehead. Using the kendoist's skull as a springboard, he launched himself towards his fiancee, panic adding extra speed to his forward momentum. One arm wrapped around her waist and swung her away from the glittering edge as it passed by her head. With his left foot, he kicked the flat of the blade so it spun vertically, hilt up, then drove his heel down against the pommel, slamming the point straight down into the ground. The hilt quivered as the crosspiece smacked dirt.

"-ay attention, -upid!" the boy yelled, as he brought the both of them around in a full circle. "You coulda bee-" Words drowned in the waves as a slight line on the right side of Akane's neck began to form, then blossom. The girl beneath the waters barely reacted to the sudden displacement in the universe, not even the bite across her neck shook her from stupor, until he was there in her face, yelling in garbled fragments of words.

And then he was silent. Frozen. Pupils pinpointed where the blade had kissed her.

Akane brought her hand up to the place where it began to sting in the open air and gazed uncomprehending at the smudge of red adorning her fingertips.

Ranma stood there, welded in stone, staring the stain against her neck, seeing yet another drop pulse up ever so delicately and trickle a line down the inner corded groove by her throat to spread against the white collar of her uniform.

Before anyone could utter a word, he leapt over the walls of Furinkan high, the girl in his arms, and vanished.

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"Honestl y, Ranma, it was an accident," Akane gesticulated helplessly to the pigtailed boy pacing restlessly back and forth across the room. She winced slightly as Dr. Tofu carefully applied a topical adhesive to her neck. "I wasn't in any danger at all."

"Actually," came the chiropractor's mild interruption. "You were very lucky. Any deeper, or even at a slightly different angle, and your jugular might have been pierced. The Dermabond will hold for a while, but you should visit your physician to see if you need stiches." Holding her chin in place as he waited for the skin glue to dry, he studied the girl before him. "You look tired as well. Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"Not really," she admitted.

Tofu frowned, peering closer at her, or rather, at something in the air about her.

Ranma paused in the middle of his pacing to shoot him a glance. "What's wrong, doc?"

"It's just that her ki seems weak." He adjusted his glasses thoughtfully. "Almost diminished somehow."

"Well, I have been having some strange dreams," the girl said quietly.

"Oh? What have they been about?"

"It's always--" she glanced up at Ranma and lowered her eyes. "It's probably nothing important."

They both watched Akane settle into silence, her fingers twined absently in the folds of her skirt.

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"Will you stop hovering? It's really starting to creep me out."

Akane rubbed her temples in irritation as her fiance zigzagged behind her, alternating between annoying her over her left shoulder and annoying her over her right as they trod back to Furinkan. "Why didn't you tell Doc Tofu 'bout your dreams?" Left. "Why didn't you tell *me*?" Right.

"Because they're just stupid dreams and you'd probably just laugh."

"You mean like that stupid dream that almost got your head cut off just now?" Left again. "Yeah. Real funny there." Sulking to the right.

"Look," she turned to Ranma who skidded to a stop to keep from plowing into the girl. "It's probably just delayed post-traumatic stress or whatever they call it and I'm sure it's not a big deal and will just go away in a few-- and you're not even paying attention!" Akane huffed.

No indeed, the pigtailed boy was looking over her shoulder at the figure bent over an imbedded katana panting and grunting in exertion as he tried to draw the sword out of the ground. Unlike Arthur Pendragon, however, the bokken wielder was failing miserably in all efforts.

"Vile sorceror," the ashen-faced sempai stood, huffing hoarsely as he unfolded upwards. "Because of your despicable actions, I must--"

He never got to finish, as a blur propelled him into the stone wall surrounding Furinkan's gate. Fissures crept out in a slow spiderweb from where his back impacted against the rock. Though Tatewaki Kuno was nearly four inches taller than Ranma, the smaller boy wrapped his left hand like a loving python around his neck, dangling the upperclassman a few precarious inches off the ground.

"You. Bastard -"

**CRACK**

The voice was a barely strangled whisper, every word or so interspersed with the slight wrist snap of using the Kuno's head as the pestle to the wall's mortar.

"Wasn't" **CRACK** "-nuff-" **CRACK** "-you-" **CRACK** "-brought it-" **CRACK** "-then-"

**CRACK** "-Had-" **CRACK** "-to bring-" **CRACK** "-here-" **CRACK** "-too!"

He raised his arm to full extension, drawing Kuno higher off the ground. His fingers tightened. With one quick flick of his thumb, it would be so simple to just push and--

"-nma, stop!" The pigtailed boy blinked, then turned, as her voice somehow pierced through the cotton in his ears. "Please. Just stop," Akane whispered. "Let's just go home."

Whatever fueled Ranma's fury drained almost visibly out of his body as he sucked in a long shuddering breath through his teeth. His hand went slack, unceremoniously dropping Kuno to the ground, turning away as the kendoist's head bounced limply against the grass.

The crowd of students that had gathered to gape parted like the Red Sea as Ranma followed the girl out of Furinkan. Passing by the imbedded sword, he paused. Then his left foot angrily shot out, snapping off whatever was sticking out from the ground from the remainder that lay flush in the dirt.

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Tatewaki Kuno woke up in the infirmary to the strange feeling of his back pocket being lightened.

"So you're finally up, Kuno-chan," a voice began conversationally. "You know, you made a big, big mistake this morning."

He rose as indignantly as one could with a neck brace on to face the girl perched next to him on the bed. "Nabiki Tendo," he grated swollenly through vocal cords that sounded like they'd been scoured with a brillo pad. "What wretched creature hath perpetrated such an injustice upon this form?"

"Oh, come on," the middle Tendo sister yawned. "Who else beats the snot out of you on a regular basis?"

His neck brace attempted to tilt to the left, then to the right as he actively cogitated that brainteaser over. After a long moment: "That vile sorceror Saotome must have--"

"That vile sorceror Saotome hath done you a favor, Kuno-chan. Because what I had planned was infinitely worse than the ass-beating you received today for your stupidity. I mean, bringing a *sword* to school?"

"The Kuno blade hath served for generations of mine family as symbol of its honor. It is only righteous to wield against such a magnitude of--"

His speech choked off abruptly as Nabiki lifted the broken hilt of the blade. "You mean this thing? I'm afraid the Kuno family honor is suffering a little setback at the moment." She then stood up, casually dropping the bit of wrapped steel onto his chest. "But don't think you've gotten off that easily, Tatewaki. I'm still going to hurt you." The kendoist's expression etched in confusion at her abnormal usage of his name, at least until leather smacked painfully into his face, and he looked up to see the girl tallying up his wallet's former contents. "Consider this as down payment."

She left the sempai stare at the remains of his blade and his now bereft wallet. Opening the door of the infirmary, Nabiki walked into a swirling cluster of fluttering rose petals and the painted hauteur of the Black Rose.

"Tell me, peasant, who did this?"

"Why, were you planning a little retribution?"

The other girl grimaced, then assumed her former pose. "Though I am loathe to admit to sharing the same blood as Tatchi, and I would rather bestow upon them a medal, lineage obligates me to extract certain measures for injustices visited upon my family."

"Your precious Ranma-sama did it. Still want revenge?"

The gymnast cocked her head to one side thoughtfully, then to the other, in an genetically familiar motion, internally weighing all the factors before coming to a logical conclusion.

"If Ranma-sama deemed it fit to mete out such a punishment, then it was most likely wholly deserved."

"You bet it was."

Kodachi opened the door slightly and tossed a bored, cursory glance inside, before shutting it again.

"Very well, commoner, I shall let this one pass for now."

"Kodachi." The St. Hebereke girl paused in mid-leap formation, swiveling an upturned nose around. "Granted, you're not exactly the freshest cookie in the bag," the middle Tendo daughter began. "But DESPITE certain appearances and great deal of evidence to the contrary, you seem to have a better grasp on reality than Ranma's other . . . women."

"Comparing me to those harlots does me a great disservice. I am not as oblivious as my brother, nor do I have the fortitude for that sort of humiliation. I know Ranma-sama does not care for me in that way, though I can't possibly fathom the reason. Am I not more skilled with controlled narcotics than the Amazon witch? Do I not use a better and more dangerous variety of weapons than the okonomiyaki chef? Can I not deal more exquisite pain and suffering than the harridan you call your sister?"

"Right. Can't imagine why." The other girl wiped a drop of sweat from her brow. "But why do you even bother? Why did you show up to the wedding in that dress?"

"Just because Ranma-sama's god-like countenance is not mine to have doesn't mean I cannot play with the goods in the meantime. Besides," The taller girl scanned the hall for witnesses before leaning conspiratorially towards Nabiki. "He's quite fun to tease."

"Yeah, I suppose he is."

The gymnast rose, ribbons twirling in the air. Then paused, whipping her head back.

"Peasant. If you're going to loot my brother's wallet . . . " The other girl froze. "You should know his credit cards are worth much more." And with a spine-chilling laugh accompanied by a burst of ebony petals, the Black Rose was gone.

Kodachi, Nabiki mulled. Who'd have thought?

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If okonomiyaki were art, Ukyo Kuonji would be painting entire galleries of Red Skelton crying clowns. Where smiley faces or the symbol for 'luck' or even cutesy interlocking hearts for the couples that came in to dine were her usual signature, that special touch that made Ucchans stand out from the others, everything the chef created recently wound up as depressing abstract art.

"Uh, miss?" One customer looked up from the artful arrangement of shrimp, egg and vegetables that bore more than a passing resemblance to a Cubist's Blue Period. "What is this?"

Another regular glanced from his Salvador Dali ebi-tamayaki over to the sad navy strokes that decorated the plate next to his. "I believe that's Picasso's 'La Vie'," the connoiseur commented helpfully, "Quite stunning in the way she shaped that curl of onion to resemble the nose, don't you think?"

"I guess."

The okonomiyaki chef simply went through the motions of grilling absently on as unshed trappings of angst swam furiously through her guilt-ridden mind. Ukyo always thought she'd eventually win the race for Ranchan's heart through sheer perseverance, superior culinary skills, and the pronounced principles of general cuteness; that the silly boy would snap to his senses one day and recognize her for the true paragon she was.

And yet, when news of the impending wedding came about, hand delivered by her greatest rival's very own sister, all patience, perseverance and logic went straight out the window, replaced by blind, unmitigated rage. Next thing she knew, she'd mixed enough unstable compounds to reduce the Tendo dojo to an unsightly smudge on Nerima's map.

How could she have been so stupid? She couldn't believe what she'd tried to do. What she DID do.

All those years of anger, revenge festering in her soul, all the years of pent up fury and betrayal let out when she'd tracked the Saotomes to Nerima. She'd beat the ever-living shit out of Genma, and boy did she enjoy every single pain-inflicting moment. But still, she couldn't kill the man who destroyed her life.

Yet at that wedding she'd happily lobbed those explosives about, trying to blot out the bride-to-be.

A girl whose crime was to be born to the right family.

A girl who'd considered her . . . a friend?

The only saving grace was that when she hadn't been looking, the kunoichi had cut her mixture to less than a quarter of their initial concentration.

But this morning she'd seen it. She'd seen everything, and never, even during their first fights, had she ever seen Ranchan this furious before. He was angry. Truly angry. Full-blooded, murderously angry.

And standing there, hidden among the gawking masses of the Furinkan crowd, that tiny niggle of self-doubt had festered into flown blown wild speculation as she wondered:

-If Konatsu hadn't diluted her explosives

-If she'd actually hit her intended target

Would he have turned on her as well?

"Konatsu?" The okonomiyaki chef finally spoke, as the last of the late-afternoon customers cleared out of the shop.

The ninja looked up from clearing dishes from the counter. "Yes, Ukyo-sama?"

"Am--am I a bad person?"

"Of course not!" Shocked. "You are the most generous, caring, sweet, kind, selfless, wonderful human being I've ever known."

She flinched as each fatuous compliment twisted the knife further in her, leaving her guts hollow and empty like a brutally cored apple.

"But I'm not," she whispered. "I'm not caring or kind or selfless or any of that. I've made some really big mistakes."

"Everybody makes mistakes, Ukyo-sama." The kunoichi brightened. "In fact there's even a--"

"Please. No showtunes. Just not right now."

Konatsu self-consciously tucked his microphone away.

"Shoplifting's a mistake. Joyriding's a mistake. I tried to kill someone, Konatsu. It's not the type of mistake most people tend to make. I mean it's not as if you've ever--" she paused as the ebullient, sweet smile on the his face faltered for a nanosecond. "I mean--You've never killed . . . anybody . . . right?"

It could have been an illusion or perhaps her imagination because as her eyelids lifted again from an involuntary blink, that smile he always wore was there again.

"Oh, Ukyo-sama, talk of such matters will only upset you," he giggled, then, as if she'd never asked, gathered up the trash, and with his box of matches, silently padded back through the kitchen.

A few moments later, two sharp snaps of phosphorus striking sandpaper, followed by the hiss of combustibles igniting echoed from the alley.

Over the static hiss and pops of burning garbage, the soft timbre of a voice drifted through the early evening.

Ukyo paused in scrubbing the grill. Slowly tilting her head to the side, she stilled her hand on the scraper, and drifted into the back. Cracking the door open slightly, she watched the profile of Konatsu glowing orange and blue in the burning firelight as he hummed to himself sans his ubiquitous microphone and karaoke machine, a lone alto accompanied only by the crackle of the consuming bonfire.

'Hard to see the light now

Just don't let it go.

Things will come out right now

We can make it so.

Soneone is on your side,

No one is alone.'

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Everything Konatsu knows he learned from musicals:

No One is Alone, Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim