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A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fic
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Switch: Herbs and Spices Day 2
by Nikholas "Switch" F. Toledo
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Please do remember that Ranma 1/2 is a trademark and a copyright of and
by some big name people and companies I am not even worthy to introduce.
Anybody who says that I took any of their stuff better not find me
hiding. Also, great thanks to whoever reads this and likes it, good
thanks to whoever reads it anyhow, and teeny-weeny thanks to whoever else
even saw this.
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Eighth Hour's Sleep and a Moment's Dream
In an almost perfectly rectangular district of Tokyo, it became
quiet. It was quiet only because it was almost three in the morning;
even perverts weren't around doing their jobs at this time.
In the silence, a town slept.
While those awake rested from having fought forces of perversion
and insanity at their strongest (whether having made jackasses of
themselves or having inquired lodgings in the nearest mental institutions
they could locate), those asleep dreamt.
After exactly two-hundred-and-twenty-nine seconds, chaos returned
from recession.
Happosai blinked.
He had been lost in thought over the beautiful white that
surrounded him on the top of Fuji-yama. He clapped his hands three
times, and meditated for a while longer.
After that, he opened his icebox, and began enjoying life's more
pink pleasures.
Gosunkugi sat up, fully awake.
It never bothered him that for as long as he could remember, he's
only had three minutes and forty-odd seconds of sleep every day, at
exactly the same time of night, just before three in the morning. Too
bad that no one really needed to be awake this awkward hour: he was more
reliable than any alarm clock.
It had been useful, at times. During the school time, for example,
he could brush up on past lessons. During vacations, though, he could
get some work done on any of his little hobbies, like witchcraft. One
could never read enough of the lore.
"Happens every time," he muttered, looking for three candles (one
for the table, two for his head), the oil, and his five-inch nails. One
also could never be prepared enough, either.
On a bed in the second floor of the Ucchan's, two intertwined
bodies rolled over one another, switching their positions. Ryoga, being
the one on top, was the first to react.
Many people could attest to the fact that the senses worked better
before dawn, past midnight. In fact, Ryoga could immediately make out
the form and figure of one ninja-cook below his own. As a result, he
went against step one: he panicked like a headless chicken.
"AAppht-," he nearly shouted, before he had a mouthful of long
brown hair. He sputtered; he jostled. He tried to disengage their
arms, and failed. He tried to avoid the fragrant scent of her just below
him, and to avoid touching any part of her, clothed or not, as though
contact was acid. But, he couldn't; and her skin was not corrosive, in
any way. In fact, it felt... soft. Ohhhh... OK. This was it. He was
going to lose it, now... think cool thoughts...
He thought of the bed. He thought of Ukyo. He saw himself, and
Ukyo, on a bed. Oops.
He thought that it wouldn't be nice if he bled all over Ukyo and
her nice bed, with her on it, so he tried to roll off of it. He forgot
that he was twined with the young lady, and almost fell on her as they
fell off the bed.
Luckily, she carpeted her floor. Unluckily, she carpeted the
floor.
Nabiki rolled in her sleep. Had she woken, she would have
remembered all the nuances of her dream. She didn't want to; she
soundlessly continued her slumber.
"Aaaagh!" Ranma shook himself out of the dream. They were still
on the last and longest train ride they would take before hiking to the
top of Mount Fuji.
It was amazing that they caught the train this early, which would
take them within ten kilometers of the foot of the mountain in the next
five hours. He couldn't really remember a train that traveled this
route, but they were lucky to catch it anyhow. Hopefully, their luck
would hold in their oncoming match.
It was imperative that they catch the evil master before he could
do his mischief, because they were the only ones who could. A summer
ago, it took the Californian coast guard a whole month to nab the old
freak and his spirit friend (or fiend), and a week for the havoc to start
again. That was also the week classes started again, he recalled.
His mind wandered back to his dream. He had come back home, with a
present for Akane. But, in the dream, he had fallen into a hole,
dragging Akane along with him.
What did it mean? He drew a hand from within the blanket he was
wrapped in to scratch his hand. Was Akane's birthday coming up? He knew
it wouldn't come up quite yet. His stomach gave a small motion: it
didn't quite sit well with decidedly hostile dreaming.
He allowed himself a star and a moment to think of Akane by, before
he gave in to the night.
"Aaaagh!" Akane woke with a start. She sat up quickly in the
dark. Having checked her flower-motif watch, she knew that it was merely
a few minutes past three.
A knock on the door was followed by an inquiry: "What's wrong,
Akane?"
"Oh, nothing, Kasumi." A silence in the dark wanted to the filled.
The younger one fixed herself in the dark, suddenly aware that her hair
was such a mess. "Can-... can you...?"
The door opened soundlessly. Although she couldn't discern the
colors, she knew that her older sister was wearing her lavender silk
pajamas. It showed her maturity on her, the way it flowed slowly from
her shoulders, like her hair, like the rest of her... slipping, sliding
into the floor of the house. She blinked. A little hesitantly, the
keeper of her home sat down on the foot of her bed, and she held her
blanket to her below her chin.
"Care to talk about it?" Kasumi started with a smile that closed
her eyes. Her younger sibling looked confused, and she realized that,
for her, it was a very prying question.
"I-... it was a ring."
She turned to the girl in yellow pajamas, who turned her eyes to a
point approximately a foot from the edge of the bed. She spoke without
looking at her listener. "He-... Ranma-... he gave me a ring. Then
he...," followed by a loss of words.
This troubled Kasumi for several reasons. Akane was not prone to
being excessively talkative about her and Ranma's engagement, or her
dreams. It had to have been a dream, and a rather disturbing one,
because she had the exact same one, with Ranma giving his fianc�e a shiny
ring, and the two of them being sucked into the ground. She had just
woken up from it.
But, most important yet, it had hit whatever had been troubling her
sister squarely on the head. She needed to talk to him, not to her. But
she was the only one there.
"Shhh... it's okay." She motioned to approach her distraught
sibling, but stopped a short distance later. She took the hands that
wrapped themselves on shaky knees into her own, and squeezed slightly.
She didn't really know for whom the gesture was for. Akane then looked
her in the eyes, and she gave her best impression of quiet confidence.
"I... what does it mean?" It was a desperate question, one she had
to answer. It meant a lot of things, things she wasn't going to reveal.
Not yet.
Kasumi thought she knew. "Nothing," she lied. "Nothing at all."
Kuno should have woken up; he usually did when he had such a
nightmare as he had just had. He would have then blamed it upon the fact
that Sasuke had neglected to continue the shadowplay he had not concluded
the other night. That would have resulted in such a foreseen disaster,
relayed to him by his subconscious as the earth engulfing his two true
loves. But he did not. He was content to lay where he was until the
dawn broke, sweating.
The trio on the top of the Cat Cafe was content to roll around on
the roof. The two that were locked in a vise-like grip (or, the one
locked in a vise-like grip by the other) merely rolled slowly from side
to side, with the female on top. (One would have assumed that the
particular female that was on top of the particular pair on top of the
particular roof would have wanted to be particularly on top, and would
have been wrong for thinking so.)
The third just rolled off the roof, and ended up two stories below
on a side street. The fact that the figure was in a sleeveless shirt and
boxer shorts could not predetermine the events resulting from the
discovery of only two not-so-primly-dressed people on the rooftop.
Dr. Tofu mumbled incoherently into the flat of the desk in front of
him. Because the desk was hard, and he was wearing glasses, he had lain
his head sideways. Many of those who sleep in the middle of classes
would find that, given a prescribed amount of time, a certain amount of
homeostatic imbalance would occur.
He startled himself awake by realizing that he had slept for four
hours. The desk lamp was still open, though his books had been arranged
rather neatly on the head on the table. What he was holding in his left
hand was a pencil, and that he only used... then he saw the letter.
It had a huge wet stain on it.
He patted the right corner of his mouth. He took out a
handkerchief and patted that at the offending trail. He then took a look
at what he had written, and found that the saliva had made the paper
translucent, and that the lead could not be made out, from the white
background. He crumpled the paper, and threw the wad into a wastebasket.
He then went in search for a basin to wash his hands in.
He left the handkerchief on one of the beds, then thought the
better of it, and took it to the back, to the clothes hamper. Wouldn't
want to be a messy bachelor. He wondered why the laundry bin was so
full, though. Didn't I just do the wash yesterday? He shook his head.
All this out-of-schedule sleeping was giving him some jet lag. Bad for
the body.
He went to the desk, and sat in front of it, out of habit. Or was
it that he was tired? He rubbed the bridge of his nose, having taken his
glasses off. No... just drained. He reversed the direction of rubbing,
and put on the glasses again. He thought about the reverie he had. How
Kasumi would look when she was older. How he still felt the same about
her. How she had forgotten about him...
No. There wasn't any need for regret. There was time, time enough
to spare. And letters, letters to send. He took the books and began to
return them to their shelves.
He put the books straight in, each in their proper slot. He
noticed that the book of acupuncture poems had mysteriously returned, but
the book which was entitled "365 Days of Herbs and Spices: Proper Gift
Preparation" was now missing. It wasn't in its place alongside its
supplement, "Leap Year Seasoning", and he couldn't recall having needed
it today.
He couldn't remember hanging the phone up, but the receiver was off
its cradle, and it hung limply along the side of the low cabinet. He set
it back, hoping that he wouldn't be called in for an emergency in the
next three hours. In that case, he pondered, Ranma and Akane should put
off arguing among themselves or with other people for a short while.
He fixed some bedsheets, potted plants, tables, and low-lying
overhead lamps. He supposed that most clinics across Nerima had the same
state of dishevelment, due mainly to the nature and the breeding of the
clientele.
Finally, before he closed the desk lamp, he considered very
carefully whether or not he would redo the note he had ruined earlier.
He couldn't help but think back to that other letter. It was still the
best he'd ever written, but it was still... off. It was still lacking.
He wondered if he'd ever make it good enough for... for what it was
written for.
He picked up the envelope, one like hundreds before it. He sighed.
Maybe he should just send them to his mother. Maybe she'd know what to
do with them. He didn't.
Nodoka slipped from the dream into the still sleep. She knew
better than to wake up before she had to. And there was at least two
more hours before that.
Ryoga was almost able to disentangle himself from the knot that he
formed with Ukyo and her blanket. He tried to keep his bearings straight
to form a coherent picture of what exactly he was doing in Ukyo's bedroom
while Ukyo was in it, and, if worse came to worst, if there was something
memorable about it. He thought blindly into the concept. Then he felt
the need to donate some blood in the bathroom sink.
He stood up, took a few quick steps, then fell face-first into the
floor.
The man shifted unnaturally in his sleep. If he dreamt tonight, he
was sure that no one would have understood the dream.
Ryoga had sat down, carefully trying to remove the vise-like grip
Ukyo had on his left ankle. He rubbed his nose, and made sure that there
wasn't any blood spilled from that jolt. If he lost any more blood, he'd
probably be in shock for at least a week. So he just closed his eyes and
promised not to take advantage of the precarious situation made by Ukyo,
the light, and the not-so-absence of clothing in several places of Ukyo's
body.
He concentrated. He returned to the training he once had done for
the Breaking Point Technique. He sifted through his memory for some
"inner self" katas, and promptly got lost.
He found, instead, some memories of Akane. Her smile, her graceful
form, her aura of compassion. He saw her sitting down to his left.
"Ryoga," she said.
"Akane," he murmured, keeping hard to his focus, his Atman, his
soul, his inner child... he was lost again.
She took his left hand in hers, and he tried not to flinch.
"Don't," she said. "Just don't." She patted his hand with hers.
He almost went completely out of his mind, when he heard a tongue
clicking. He turned his head to see Nabiki. "My sister AND me? You
know how that would make her feel..."
He thought about it. He didn't.
Nabiki made a theatrical hand-to-chest movement, accentuating her
traditional tea-ceremony sitting position. She looked like a perfect
lady. "You men are all alike." She gave him a deceptively meek
expression. "Do you know how that makes me feel?"
No, he didn't. But he didn't need to say that, did he?
"I know what you make me feel." That one wasn't from Nabiki
though. It was from the Ukyo sitting in front of him, wearing her hair
askew, enrobed in her blanket. She gave a sleepy expression, and ran a
hand self-consciously through her brown tresses. She actually smiled, a
small simple smile.
He blushed uncontrollably, but forced his position. His brow
furrowed deeply, and he tried to confront this specter, amongst the
others. "What am I doing here? Why... why...?" His forefingers met,
and they pushed against each other in an pseudo-isometric exercise,
making rusty squeaking noises. "I... I mean...?"
Ukyo, who wasn't quite awake, but was quite disheveled (what were
they doing on the floor?), just wondered what was wrong with Ryoga. But,
after clearing her head a bit, she recognized the nervous bit. "Yes?"
she asked, after arranging her position to edge towards the traveling
artist.
Ryoga, not quite aware that he was out of his trance, forged ahead.
"Why am I here? In your bedroom? Did..." He faltered for a moment,
assessing the impact of his statement. "Did we DO something last night?"
It took Ukyo a few moments to digest the actual gist of the
question. She giggled a bit after that. Then, she giggled some more.
She stopped just before a snicker. "No, we did NOT do something," she
lightly replied. "I'm not that kind of girl, silly."
Ryoga was starting to wonder where this was leading up to. "What
am I doing here with you? The last thing I remember seeing, before the
bedroom, was Nabiki, and..."
"Nabiki," Ukyo echoed.
"... we came to have lunch coming from the bank," he finished. He
paused. "Don't... don't tell me that... that I..."
Ukyo started to wonder why Ryoga was caught nonplussed at all.
"No, you didn't walk in on me. I took you in after she..."
"... kissed me." He was surprised to have remembered at all.
He... he sort of wanted to remember. He couldn't. But... he remembered
a tree. Being up in a tree. And Ukyo was there.
"Yes," she said, and felt silent, sullen.
The hand on his ankle went cold, and Ryoga had no idea why. Ukyo
wanted to kill the silence, but kept the tone neutral. "You passed out.
I... I wanted to take care of you...."
The Freudian slip went flying past Ryoga's keen sensibilities. He
kept trying to remember details of his dream, in an effort to clear his
latest set of confusions. It really didn't matter that he kept on mixing
in elements from yesterday's bizarre events; they completely coincided
with each other's facts, overall. Besides, he was used to confusing
situations.
Ukyo simply couldn't believe the change in heart Ryoga had. One
moment, there was a certain passion (towards her, she had thought, but
she rectified her opinion), but now he was... cold. Dissociated. She
wanted, badly, to know. But, also, she realized as a shiver shook her
slightly, that she needed...
Ryoga hugged her, hard. She almost wasn't able to breathe, but
then he changed his grip to a lighter one. He held her, his arms meeting
in the middle of her back, under her own arms. She had held on to him
involuntarily when he had hugged her, and felt the way his shoulders were
nudging her arms. She closed her arms tighter, and closed her eyes,
smiling.
The wearied wanderer noticed the change in external body
temperature. Namely, the cold hand left his ankle, and a hot, ragged,
stream of wind beating somewhere on the junction of his neck and his
body. This, at last, withdrew him from his trance.
He was holding his arms loosely around someone's back. This
someone was likewise wrapped around him. He knew without wondering that
it was Ukyo, and was glad, because he was a friend, and she needed a hug.
When she had hugged him tighter, and had virtually jumped into his arms,
which, because he was sitting, caused them to lean backwards, he felt a
kind of bounciness he had only dreamt of. He was unconscious before he
hit the floor.
Ukyo just whispered into his ear, "I love you."
Kasumi entered her room quietly, and faced away from the door to
close it. She let out a low sigh, and wondered how her mother would have
dealt with this situation. She sent out a prayer to her mother, thanking
her for keeping watch over all of them.
She turned on the light, knowing full well that she would never get
any sleep in the hour she had before she was scheduled to wake up. She
had to get her mind off of... things. But everywhere she turned, there
was some sort of distress. If you can save the world by helping each and
every one...
She went over to her bed, and found the book she had borrowed from
Dr. Tofu. She could read that. She opened the book up to the page for
the 18th of April, and perused that the best gift was an herb called
Demon's Kiss. Never on a Sunday, she thought, as she listed it down,
recalling that she had a few friends who have their birthdays on that
date.
As she turned to the next page, her marker fell open on the ground.
As she turned to pick it up, she had noticed faintly the clean scribbles
of the chiropractor's handwriting. It was so faint, that she hadn't
noticed it before. She probably wouldn't have bothered with it, and
would have returned it without incident later today, but that's not how
these things were to work out; she had read the first line.
She picked the letter up, absent-mindedly closed the book, sat, and
read.
And read.
Ninth Inning and Outing
Ki is an unusual thing.
During the earlier years of the sciences, they had thought that
heat was a type of matter, flowing from body to body as a liquid would as
it is poured from a container into another. Enlightenment had started
when they had begun to realize that heat was a manifestation of entropy
in matter.
Latter-day developments in this field of physics are already of the
notion of the ultimate unification of all the forms of energy; that all
forms of energy in nature are different shades of the same basic
material, present in all forms.
In this sense, maybe ki is a form of energy.
Ki also has a tendency to be attacked by more down-to-earth forces,
like gravity, and inertia. The Earth, not only being a large
electromagnet, is also a large ki-magnet, but the chi (as compared to
your normal person's ki) that the Earth keeps in its reservoir is mostly
on its surface, and is sedentary, much like a large lake. Instead of
being completely static, the chi of the Earth follows a current, much
like the clouds in the sky, due to planet's rotation on its axis.
In today's modern day and age, man is going speeds increasing,
keeping with a brisk pace that society sets for it. This means that a
larger amount of stress can be caused by going against the currents set
by terrestrial chi.
Following the path that Ranma and company took from Nerima, in
Tokyo, to Mount Fuji, their route takes them from east to west, which
goes in the same direction as the rotation of the earth. This rotation
causes the clouds to run from west to east, as would the chi-currents.
Thus, the ki of the high-powered martial artists would, effectively, be
immersed in a stream of counter-flowing chi.
Needless to say, blowing into the wind would just get spit into
your face.
"... princess... no... no coffee, please... cooking... hmmm,"
Shampoo murmured into her forearm in Chinese. "... gotta... keep...
awake," she continued, as a pot began to boil nearby. "... might cause a
fire...." She dozed off, turning over, and accidentally hit the knob for
the stove, shutting off the burner. Her mouth opened to different widths
regularly, softly.
"... Daddy. I love you, Daddy."
Ukyo saw her father look over her from their embrace. He pulled
away, still within her arms' width, to say, "so, what has my tiger been
doing today?"
He looked a lot larger than she could remember... almost as huge
and imposing as he was when she was still an apprentice chef, back when
she was six. She could swear that she was wearing that yellow headband
she used to wear... but, no. It was just matted hair, on a sweaty brow.
She looked up into her father's confident but amused gaze, "I've
been training for the time I'd meet Ranma." She didn't wonder why she
was using that caring tone she had whenever she mentioned his name, just
at the sad note which she carried it with. She felt the tears in her
eyes. "Tell me again, Daddy. Why he left me."
"I didn't leave you, Ucchan." Ranma kept the warmth in his arms in
his eyes. "I never would."
"But... Ranma." She cut off what she would say as she lay her head
on his chest, his manly chest, and stopped.
"What?" Ranma had a questioning glance.
"Ranma... I... I... don't think you love me." She wouldn't afford
to return the caring link he extended, afraid.
"Why? I... I love you." His hesitation was bridged by a painful
gap.
"As a friend," she supplied. "Nothing more."
"Isn't that what matters?" he said, his innocent tone beckoning
her to open up, to care.
"No, it's not." She looked into his eyes, then. Ryoga's eyes.
"But, what could there be between us? You have Ranma, I have
Akane."
"But I don't, and you don't. They have each other." She kept her
chest coming closer to Ryoga's. She let a shuddering sigh out.
"You want substitutes. For you and me." Ryoga didn't sound hurt,
just curious. "A happy ending."
"NO," she intoned. "Well, yes, a happy ending. But... Ryoga..."
"I can't believe that you're giving up on him. That you'd want me
to give up on Akane. Or Nabiki." Ryoga's voice had a chastising, sharp
tone, beneath its lack of volume.
She shook a bit, when he mentioned Nabiki. "I... I haven't." She
was a bit surprised with her own answer. She couldn't loosen her grip on
him. She spoke into his chest. "It was just... just that when you...
and Nabiki... came in yesterday. She... she wanted to... take you away
from me." She ended that statement awkwardly.
She felt her face moisten. A hand lifted from her back, and
pectorals stretched obliquely. She looked up to see Ryoga offer her a
bandanna. She took her own hand from his back, and graciously accepted
it.
She was able to put in, "I-," *sob*, "I... didn't know what to do.
I did," *sob*, "what came," *sob*, "to me first.... I really didn't,"
*sob*, "think about it..." She gave herself a good half-minute to clear
her sinuses. Ryoga sort of let his left arm drape across the small of
her back, his hand brushing her left waist, while his right arm held her
shoulders reassuringly.
"I... I guess I didn't want her to. To get you. From me. I- It
felt right for a while, and it was so silly," she was smiling to herself,
"because I, I wanted you to care for me, too." Under her breath, she
added, "I thought you did, too."
Ryoga lay, calm-as-you-please, where he was. Where he was under
Ukyo, on the floor. He was amazed. He was touched, but he felt... at
peace. Shock, he thought.
"Ukyo," he began, having only entered the conversation during the
time Ukyo had mentioned Nabiki, "I... I care for you."
"Don't give me that crap," her voice became savage, "not as a
friend, dammit. I wouldn't have bothered as much as I have if I wanted
to make a friend, Ryoga." She said nothing, her heart beating as much as
it was doing.
Ryoga couldn't really say much. He wanted to be completely honest;
a strange thing, since he couldn't be completely honest with Akane. But
he really didn't know what to say. All he knew was that when he saw the
tears roll down her cheek was that he wanted to hold her tight and make
the tears disappear. Nothing you would call love immediately. But what
was? Gazing into the eyes of someone who kissed you, but thought you
were a pig?
He held her still form closely, tucked his head, keeping his face
in her hair, and rocked them side to side.
Kasumi closed the letter neatly, by twice folding it, then firmly
enforcing the crease onto the paper. She put it on top of the book,
which already rested near the potted plant near the head of her bed. She
slipped silently into bed, and lay into it, thinking. She had forgotten
that dawn was to break in half an hour.
Genma woke, bursting his bubble with an audible *pop*. He had had
a wonderfully unremarkable night's sleep; he had half-expected to dream
of his estranged wife, and half-expected to have a nightmare involving
her katana.
He blinked in the spring early morning, aware that the days were
starting to grow longer and that the purples of dawn were coming out
earlier. Since it was still too dark to play a decent game of go, he
returned to sleep.
Shampoo came to almost immediately. Luckily, the stew had not
cooled to the point where the effects of the cooking would have been
nullified. She went to wash her hands, and douse herself with a
negligible amount of cold water. It wouldn't do well to shrink in her
skin now, as she took a bowl of the potion concocted, and went on a
bicycle to find the terrible transvestite.
Akane woke up, quite refreshed, despite having woken up two hours
earlier. Talking to Kasumi had helped, but not by too much. It was just
the smell of the dew of dawn which held her breathing in and out and
lying on her bed for the next ten minutes.
Soon, the odor of cooking oil on a shallow pan wafted through the
air, cutting through the communion nature had with her. The hues held a
parade, and it was well into orange when she sat to stretch the kinks out
of her system.
She chose not to have her bath yet, and opened her closet to find a
change of clothes appropriate to her light mood. She arbitrarily opened
drawers, hoping that the clothing would catch her attention, instead of
her having to look for it.
The middle drawer opened to an appropriate pair of a yellow tank-
top and a set of short denim shorts. She immediately closed the drawer,
unaware of the origin of a cold draft that entered her room.
She settled for a short-sleeved dress, which was frilly and satiny.
It felt cool to the skin, and for a moment, she felt irretrievably calm.
She wondered if she had ever worn this when Ranma was around, because the
calm which she felt mixed with the warmth she felt just by thinking of
him, of him, in those brief moments of want, gave her a heady,
intoxicating sensation. She sat on the floor, her knees giving ever so
slightly, and she laid her hands on her lap, one atop the other.
She yawned, bringing her thoughts into perspective. She stood,
giving the room a once-over, then closed the door, bare feet on the
hallway wood.
Nodoka woke up, finally satisfied that time had come. The day
looked good, and the sun didn't glare into her eyes as much as shine.
She had a good feeling that today, she would at last meet her husband,
and her son. She was sure of it. She wore her smile with her through
cooking her breakfast, and she actually was able to sing a lullaby she
had forgotten. The tune wasn't obvious at first, but as she came to the
refrain, she had enough to go on the rest of the song.
"There's a candle, shining true,
in the window, just for you.
Red and yellow, blue and gold,
always hot against the cold.
Mother's waiting; she's inside,
nowhere can there shadows hide.
Keep you safe, and keep you warm,
sleeping sound on Mother's arm."
After leaving the eggs in the frying pan, she started fishing for
some fresh milk, which she set on the table along with the plate and
stainless steel utensil. She forgot the glass.
"She'll never forget that smile you had.
She'll never forget you say 'I love you.'
She'll never forget that smile you had.
She'll never forget you say 'I love you.'"
She had nearly forgotten that she was singing, as she got some rice
from the cooker. She put this on the plate, as she poured some milk into
her glass.
"There's a candle, shining true,
in the window, just for you.
Almost gone, it's flickering,
rain outside pit-pattering.
Mother's waiting; she's inside,
looking where the shadows hide.
Are you safe? Who keeps you warm?
Mother wishes you no harm."
The healthy crackling of her scrambled eggs told her that three
minutes had already elapsed. She took the pan in one hand, and closed
the burner with the other. Making sure that none of the oil went in the
plate, she extracted her serving.
"She'll never forget that smile you had.
She'll never forget you say 'I love you.'
She'll never forget you left with Dad.
She'll never forget you say 'I love you.'"
Somehow, when she ate her breakfast, her spirits dwindled, but kept
high.
The man slammed the door, not bothering to switch on the lights.
It was a long day, and he was desperate for a bath. If only he could
afford to get a place with a bath. If only he could afford to get a
place with one; he might have to get his bath tomorrow, after he woke
up. If he'd remember to do so.
He tried to conjure the strength to wonder if all that he's done
was right, but he felt he really didn't have that much of a choice. Free
will, in his case, was simply to keep ignorant of the world, and the
world ignorant of him. He still had a hundred destinies to fulfill, most
important of which has his own.
He fell asleep as his body hit the bed.
Tsubasa rolled in the trash. His nap would not have ended, had he
not rolled over to stuff his nose into a smelly old boot.
"Hrrr-pbht!" He was about three seconds too late to stop olfactory
contact. He was reeling for the next three minutes, until a cold gust of
wind sent him shivers in the alley.
He took a good look at his undershirt, and the light blue boxers,
with little ducks and "Quack"s on it. "Ugh," he said, with a little
blush.
Finding some suitable attire (rearranging to find a relatively
odorless, dry and clean cardboard box), the master of disguise could
barely make out sounds coming from the top of the building to his left.
Not knowing better, he jumped into the middle of a drama.
Kuno woke up. He blinked. Ahhh... the summer wind. He had missed
it so much.
He left his quarters, donning a dark-toned kimono, and left to
practice swipes at assorted dummies.
Cologne fully opened her eyes, as she had only been half-asleep.
The peak of Japan's most revered volcano was fast growing before her, but
it was not as large as she had needed it to be. She continued her
meditation, summoning the reserves of ki she would need.
Traveling as they had, they were, quite effectively running counter
to the normal path of the Earth's own chi. It would not suit them to
exert at all, as they would no doubt have to readjust their orientation
before they would reduce their velocity.
She rested, keeping her eyes on the sleeping forms.
Akane entered to kitchen, hoping to catch a few quick cooking tips
(or maybe even to try a recipe). "Good morning, Kasu..."
She trailed off at the sight that greeted her after turning the
corner. Across from the table in the center of the room, a figure was
audibly chopping on a board, near the sink. The table itself had
foodstuffs organized into piles of vegetables, cooking additives (along
with cooking oil, baking soda, flour, and some soba noodles), and
seasonings. Some cooking oil was already in the process of being heated,
and a small cloud was starting to come from it.
Nabiki turned from her cutting. "Where'd you put the eggs, Kasumi?
They're not in the..." She noticed the expression Akane was wearing.
"...'fridge."
"We're all out of eggs, Nabiki. Kasumi said that they were all out
when she bought the groceries yesterday."
"Oh" was all her older sister said.
Nabiki was tempted to wipe the sweat from her brow, but just
wrinkled it. She reached out for a towellette from the roll under a
shelf, and dabbed at her brow with that. She wiped off some oil from her
fingers on the side of the apron, taking care not to touch the jumper
underneath.
"So," Akane started.
"... what am I cooking?" Nabiki chuckled under her breath. Maybe
she could just talk her way past her little sister. "Breakfast."
"All this," her baby sister said, indicating the preparations on
the table, "just for the three of us?"
"Well, I was thinking of making us brunch, really."
"Where is Kasumi, anyway? Isn't she awake yet? Is she sick?"
Akane knew that her eldest sister was always awake before anyone else,
making breakfast before waking the rest of the family. Her lilting,
worried tone carried that.
Nabiki shook her head. Such a creature of status quo... afraid of
change. Actually, both she and her beloved husband-to-be were such
beasts. That's probably been a reason why they've been so slow in
their... proper consummation. She gave such a smirk at the thought of
her meek and clumsy sister... well, when she's not given to temper, that
is.
"No, she just overslept, I think."
Akane focussed her guilty-party staring at her toes. It clearly
indicated that she had an inkling as to why their eldest sibling was
still asleep. This, Nabiki thought, was a better thought, than that.
"Don't worry. I'll check up on her later," Nabiki offered.
Her blue-haired sister just nodded, and excused herself. "If you
need to get Dr. Tofu..."
"... I'll call you." Nabiki was glad she wasn't even going to try
to help in the kitchen.
"... um... Nabiki... would you need help...?" Akane was partway
out the door.
Nabiki kept her sigh. "No, I'll be fine. Maybe you should check
on big sis."
Akane sighed. "Oh, okay." She closed the door behind her softly.
Nabiki let out a breath, then remembered the pan. As she toned
down the burner, she looked at her mother's cookbook again. She looked
at the recipe for "Homemade Okonomiyaki", and found no way of making do
without the eggs. Dismissing her own particular needs, she leafed
around, trying to find something she could even try to cook for her
family.
Tsubasa had almost gotten up the wall, when he heard the breaking
of a bowl. He had caught a ladle that jumped from shingle to shingle
onto his noggin. It smelled of something else, really. He let go of it,
like the wet, dirty old sock it reminded him of.
"You witch! What did you just feed me?" an enraged male voice had
shouted.
"S-Stupid!" said the voice that made his heart stop. "You leave
now!"
"Damned right! I can't believe that I stayed as long as I have
with you! Go to your stupid Prince Charming, and have your happy
ending!"
Tsubasa was able to clamber up faster, catching a glimpse of a
long-haired young man in a white tunic turn away from the love of his
life. She, on the other hand, looked like she had a frog in her throat.
The pent-up look, and her barely restrained emotion, in his honest
opinion, made her seem all the more animated, more desirable. She had an
almost teary-eyed expression. "Leave! Shampoo no care!" She turned on
her heel.
Mousse had simply wanted to be very, very far away from Shampoo.
Except that he still had to get his meager belongings, which were in the
cellar. Her cellar.
He angrily took the frilly pink dress tatters that stuck to him,
and threw them in the carton which he saw on the roof. He then bodily
tossed the cardboard package into the open trash bin floors below. He
made a show of clapping his hands to clean them, crossed the top of the
Cat Cafe, then jumped down to the front of the restaurant, which was the
fastest way to the cellar, in his opinion.
Too bad that he hadn't seen a truck coming across, which he got
onto and away.
Tsubasa wondered, as consciousness fled him, if this was one of
those days when waking up just wasn't worth it.
Kodachi, otherwise unnoticed on the roof, did not care much. She
was still fast asleep, and now quite alone.
"Son-in-law," Cologne arced the end of her staff at Ranma.
"Wh-" The staff hit. "What? What you do that for?"
She indicated the foremost object in their periphery.
"We're here."
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(Detach here)
Gwaaaaahhhh. The FFML has been doing the belly-flop, and the world
is a dark and lonely place. 'Nuff said.
I'm back to murder grammar and chuck spellcheckers, and there's
only one way to flow: outward. I'm probably going to work on several
stories in the Odds and Ends line, like Dr. Tofu's take in "Letter #361"
and the hopefully successful fight scene at Mount Fuji in "Battle of
Witlesses", while trying to ply wares and to offer slots for other
writers to take on the backgrounds (and possibly concurrent side-stories)
for Switch. (The fic... not me... Argonaut says he's organizing a DBTFH
group for me.)
I'm very happy to mention my pre-reader group, with Joseph Sutedja,
Keener, Shadow Dancer, TimeRunner, Magic Knight Kyone, Andrew Huang, and
Mr. Panda. Of course, much thanks to the people iRL, as well as the rest
of the Zu.
Talking about the zoo, this week I can get to bunch them all in a
room, and hopefully we can get some stuff done.
As for the story (which, of course, is flowing as it does), much of
the waking up is taking too long. *sigh* Getting too much attention
from the Ryoga-and-Ukyo-forever group... wonder how they all would feel
after the Herbs and Spices arc, when I ewrascasasc. Ooops. Spoilers
later.
Waiting for part ten, we're revamping the list. Thus:
Ranma: on the way to Mt. Fuji, with Soun, Genma, and Cologne
Akane: in the Tendo-ke, with her sisters, waiting for Kasumi to
wake
Nabiki: in the Tendo-ke, cookin' up a storm
Soun: on the way to mortal combat at Fuji-yama, with the Saotomes
and Cologne
Genma: on a train to Fuji-san, transformed, with the shock troops
Happosai: icebox-toting on top of Mt. Fuji
Ryoga: with Ukyo, in Ukyo's bedroom, rocking
Ukyo: with Ryoga, in Ukyo's bedroom, rocking
Kasumi: asleep in the Tendo-ke
Tofu: asleep, where he should be
Betty: being a good model
Cologne: fight, Mt. Fuji, three young males...
Shampoo: left an angry Mousse on the roof of the Cat Cafe
Tsubasa: unconscious, in a trash bin, outside the Cat Cafe
Nodoka: breakfasting in the Saotome house
Kuno: in the Kuno estate, honing skills
Sasuke: gwah... missing in action
Kodachi: on the roof of the Cat Cafe, unconscious
Mousse: on top of a truck cruisin' past the Cat Cafe, blind as a
bat
Mr. Turtle: doin' the 'gator thing
Gosunkugi: oilin' some nails... when'd he come in?
The man: asleep, in the fourth floor of some unnamed building
Next up, ten to one against. Odds of the fic finishing? Odds of
anything major happening in the next chapter? Odds of the next part
coming before a lemon? Odds of the agreeability of seasickness medicine
with the fic? Odds of the Spin Doctors getting a hit album again? Or,
odds that things get better before they get worse?
Please somehow send C&C.
(Detach here)
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