Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Unlikely Alliances ❯ New Friends ( Chapter 19 )

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. 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.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Elsewhere, a large, unkempt (if unusually clean), fanged boy wearing a black and yellow bandana sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking a small city (not a city whose name he could remember, though the odd tower looking sort of like a flying saucer on top of several very long bent poles looked familiar). He was watching the sun set. Ryoga had found that he rather liked sunrises and sunsets, perhaps he so rarely got to see them — in his wanderings, night and day could fluctuate wildly, and getting to see either was only occasionally a matter of simply waiting long enough.

As he sat enjoying the view, he frowned slightly. Something seemed off — something was missing. He felt ... light. Like a weight had vanished from off his shoulders. His simple enjoyment of the sunset faded as he focused inward. Then his eyes widened — he hadn't thought of Ranma or Akane in hours. And he hadn't been feeling angry, or depressed, or jealous....

Instead, his mind had focused on the faces of two girls that he'd never met and barely seen until the previous day, and a bubble of a barely remembered emotion had filled his core as he'd wandered almost unaware of his surroundings through deserts and jungle and icescapes to end up here.

Is this what it's like to be happy? Ryoga wondered, even as his mind turned to the events of the previous day.

* * * * *

Consciousness slowly seeped back into Ryoga as he once again became aware of his surroundings a little at a time. Let's see, he had found his way to Furinkan High School and seen that dishonorable betrayer and general scum of the earth that for some reason Akane cared for taking advantage of her in the yard—at least, that was what he thought was happening. He'd just started to move to save her, when Nabiki had shouted something about the crazy samurai-in-his-own-mind Kuno going crazy (how could you tell?) and attacking Akane. He'd looked over and seen ...

The part-time piglet fought to keep images of Shampoo and Ukyo and the state of dress (or rather, undress) their fight had left them in out of his mind, even as he felt slight trickles of what was probably blood run from his nose down both sides of his face. Desperately, he sought something — anything — else to focus on and realized that someone — no, two people, girls from the sounds of their voices — were standing beside him.

“Are you sure you really want this one to be your first?” the first voice asked. Her voice was confident, assured, strong — someone he would instinctively trust at his side in a fight if she was any sort of martial artist. “He isn't exactly a prize — the way he's blamed everything wrong with his life on Ranma is proof enough of that, and the way he treated Akane!”

“Yes, I'm sure.” That was the second voice, softer, diffident, and somehow gentler. “I know, he's treated Akane badly, but it wasn't because he's a pervert. I mean, just look at him, flat on his back, out like a light just because he saw a couple of girls wearing tatters of clothing! No, whatever reason he was pretending to be Akane's pet, it isn't because he wanted to spy on her when she wasn't decent. And from everything Akane's told us he's gentle, and caring, and really pays attention to the girl he's with. And he's certainly strong and skilled.”

“Yeah, so long as you don't splash him with some cold water or have a girl flash a little skin,” the first voice replied drily. “Still, if he's the one you want I might be able to arrange it.”

Ryoga cracked open his eyes to find himself looking at two faces, girls kneeling by him he vaguely remembered, one with light brown hair falling past her shoulders, the other with dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, both cute. Hadn't they said something about Akane ... ? Then he remembered, he'd seen them with Akane several times when his wanderings had brought him in contact with her — they must be her friends. But what had they been saying about him, being first, wanting him ... like anyone would want him after Akane's rejection.

He groaned slightly at the thought, and the two girls looked down at him. “Oh, you're awake,” the one with the dark brown hair said, smiling — the one with the confident, no nonsense voice. “How are you feeling?”

“I'm fine,” he replied as he sat up, the two girls leaning out of the way. He quickly looked around, but other than the three of them the schoolyard was empty. “Where is everybody, is Akane okay?” he hastily asked.

“Akane's fine,” the girl with the light brown hair assured him — the soft-spoken one. “She left with Ranma. Kuno left with Nabiki, and Ukyo and that Chinese girl that likes to make holes in walls — Shampoo, I think, what an odd name — left with the old woman that runs the Cat Café. I'm Yuka, and this” — nodding to her ponytailed companion — “is Sayuri. We're friends of Akane. We volunteered to stay here and look after you when the lunch break ended.”

Ryoga slowly stood up, offering a hand each to the two girls to help them up and looking around for the backpack he'd been wearing when starting his charge, finding it lying a few feet to the side. Picking it up and slinging it on, he turned to the two girls, rubbing his neck with a bashful expression on his face. “Well, I didn't really need anyone looking after me, I can take care of myself ... but thanks.”

Sayuri shook her head ruefully. “Right, you could have looked after yourself just fine, flat on your back, out like a light at the sight of a little — okay, a lot — of skin. I swear, you martial artists ... Listen, since nobody knew how long you'd be unconscious, the two of us are basically released from school for the afternoon. How'd you like to come to my house and get something to eat? You can use our washer and dryer, get your clothes clean — and you could use a bath, too.” Yuka nodded her agreement eagerly.

They want to help me? To spend time with me? But why ... ? Unbidden, the memory of Akane the night she learned of his curse, that he was her pet P-chan, rose in his mind and he opened his mouth to refuse their help as he was once again engulfed by the lonely depression that had haunted him ever since. “Sure, I'd be happy to, thank you.” What? Did I say that?

Sayuri grinned as Yuka's face lit up. “Great, let's go!” the beaming girl enthused and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the school gate. Sayuri fell in place beside them, grinning broadly.

 

Trying hard not to blush, Ryoga sat on a couch in the dining/family room of Sayuri's family's apartment, nervously clutching the towel that was his only article of clothing at the moment with one hand while he drank — make that gulped — from the cup of sake Sayuri had offered — was it his third, fifth? He couldn't remember. “And then Akane formed her hammer and Ranma grabbed me as he ran out of the room with her chasing us screaming that we were both perverts and she'd hammer us like she'd never hammered anyone before. Ranma was naked and in his cursed form, so he couldn't escape by running out of the house so Akane must have ended up chasing us through every room in it before her sisters got her calmed down.”

He closed his eyes as, unbidden, the image of what he'd seen in the school yard just hours before came back to him, Akane and Ranma-chan locked in a kiss, their hands underneath each other's shirt, and Ryoga's nervousness vanished, washed away by a fresh wave of depression. “And now she's forgiven him, was even kissing his girl form in public,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper as tears began leaking from his eyelids. “Once again, Ranma wins and I'm left all alone, with nothing.”

Suddenly, he felt the couch shift under the weight of one of the girls sitting next to him. His eyes flew open in shock, head turning to find a sober Yuka beside him. “I'm afraid you never had a chance, Ryoga,” she said softly. “Akane would deny it in a heartbeat, but she's bisexual — Ranma's perfect for her.”

“B-b-bi-bisexual?”

“Yes — she's attracted to both boys and girls.”

“I know what it means, but — Akane!? She hates boys, thinks they're all perverts! Bisexual?”

Sayuri spoke up from where she was sitting beside the dining table. “Oh, that's just because of the Hentai Horde and that idiot, Kuno. But Ranma's proven he's safe — if it wasn't for some spillover from her fear of the Hentai Horde and Kuno, or her insistence that lesbians are perverts, she'd have hauled him into bed long ago.”

Ryoga stared at her, desperately trying to convince himself she was wrong, but suddenly some of Akane's ramblings from when she was spilling her heart out to him alone in her bedroom had new meaning — meaning not even, or rather especially, Akane hadn't understood at the time. Sayuri winced in sympathy at his despair-filled eyes, then rose and refilled his cup with the last of the sake from the bottle at her elbow, then took the cup when he emptied it with a few deep gulps, grabbed her and Yuka's empty cups, and disappeared into the kitchen with them and the empty bottle.

Ryoga was staring unseeing at the minimalist print on the wall across the room, when a hand gently grasped his chin and turned his head to face Yuka's sober face. “Ryoga, why did you do it — pretend to be Akane's pet?” the light brown-haired girl asked.

For a moment, he considered just stalking out of the apartment, getting away from the questions, the memories — but the memories wouldn't go away and he was only wearing a towel. Still, she was cute, and harmless, and she wasn't shouting at him or calling him a pervert, she actually seemed to care, as hard as that was to believe ...

“Because ... do you know what it's like, to go from being a strong, trained warrior to a weak, helpless animal with a splash of cold water — one people like to eat?” he asked bitterly. “And then there's my sense of direction ... I'm alone all the time, no one to help out if I find myself in trouble, possible death a splash of cold water away. And then Akane found me as a piglet and took me in, kept me safe, trusted me with her thoughts — she loved me.”

Yuka glanced over to where her friend was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and nodded, and Sayuri nodded back with an oddly bittersweet smile. “Actually, you're wrong,” the ponytailed girl said. “She didn't love you, she loved P-chan — and P-chan was a lie, if a well-meaning one, and that's not what you need.” She sauntered toward the two sitting on the couch. “What you really need is someone that knows all about you but loves you anyway.”

Ryoga stared at her in disbelief, but she wasn't looking at him. Instead she was focused on the girl beside him ... and then the same soft touch from before again captured his chin to turn his head, and for a moment he was staring into gentle brown eyes before Yuka leaned in to gently kiss him.