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The FFML Refugee List

Hello again, everyone!

Here we go, part eleven. =)

All feedback is appreciated. =)

-linda/echo

PS - all previous chapters can be found at the fragments website:

www.crosswinds.net/~echonymph/fragments.html

^*^*^

It had been years since Kimiko had been on high
alert for danger of any kind, and as such, it
took her a little over ten seconds to realize
that there was an intruder in her home.  It was
a sad comparison to her instantaneous danger
sense from years gone by.

Quickly and silently rolling off of the bed and
falling to the ground in a catlike crouch, she
walked towards her living room.  Hiding in the
shadows of her bedroom door, she narrowed her
eyes and spied a male figure lurking about her
house.

The scent was unfamiliar, musty, tired.  And
his ki vibrations were much too full of turmoil
to be Soichi's.

But as a musician who has long since stopped
playing picks up an instrument and feels the
tingle of notes and melody through their soul,
the profile of the lurker struck a chord in
her.

Her eyes snapped, and she covered her mouth to
hide the gasp of surprise.

Of all the people in the world, it just had to
be Hibiki Ryoga, didn't it?

^*^*^

He felt a soft twinge of something, but
dismissed it, turning back to his work.

He wandered towards the mantels, fascinated by
a shining photograph that stood there.  He
brushed his finger along the stainless-steel
frame, biting his lip as he stared at it in the
dim evening light.

Imprinted on that thick paper were two people,
happily oblivious in the comfort of each other.
The woman's dark red hair was pulled into two
loose braids that framed her pretty, peach-
shaped face, her eyes were hidden by a pair of
sunglasses, but her smile and the 'victory'
sign she made with her fingers was enough to
let Ryoga know that this was a pleasant memory.
The man was grinning, though much more softly,
a kind of a gentle, awed look on his face, his
eyes were covered by sunglasses, too, but his
dark hair was cut so the bangs hung rakishly
across his forehead and covered the tops of his
ears.  His left arm was wound tightly about the
woman's waist, and his right mimicked the
woman's action, the first and second fingers
making a 'v' at the camera.

Ryoga held that frame tightly, staring at the
image.

There was something so terribly familiar . . .

The woman was Yuki, he could tell immediately,
the way she smiled and the light she exuded,
Ryoga could feel her life pulsing even through
that photograph.

But the man, he was a mystery.

Could it be that she had just forgotten about
Ranma?  Forgotten that she'd killed a man that
she'd loved, incinerated him with her final
attack?  Had she been able to move on, to find
another?

Had Yuki been able to . . .

'Chikusho,' Ryoga thought angrily, 'doesn't
matter at all if she decided to whore around,
he's dead, isn't he?  She ran away, I guess she
isn't anyone's property anymore.'

But there was still a dark betrayal in his
heart, knowing that the woman his best friend
had loved so desperately had just decided that
she'd mourned long enough, and that she was
ready to give her heart to someone else.  Ryoga
shook his head harshly in the blackness of the
apartment:

'Stupid harlot,' he thought hotly, 'So what if
Ranma died - it was at your hands, and as if
that wasn't bad enough already - you have to
disrespect his memory?'  He growled quietly,
'You're going to pay for this, Yuki.'

The sudden sound of a refrigerator humming
caught his attention, and he drifted towards
the kitchen, drawn to its windows, each filled
with a million pinpoints of brilliant light.

Standing before the counter, his fingers sifted
through the letters and newspapers scattered
there.  And he stared next to the amateur
cookie jars, lovingly inscribed in someone's
handwriting.

On the table set near another large, welcoming
window there were scattered letters,
photographs, forgotten plates, some chopsticks,
and a pair of coffee cups.

Not the pretty, slender type with the stylized
handles that they sold in the coffehut down the
street with the four-dollar java.  These were
the stout, sound ceramic mugs with the thick
bottoms and liberal coffee stains ingrained
into the inside walls of the cup.  One was a
dark mahogany red, the words 'Yoshida Inc.'
across it in small, neat, white letters, a
hair-thin crack breaking the solid color with a
lighter pink.  The other was dark blue-gray, a
kitten playing with a ball of thread decorated
it, and there was a medium-sized chip on the
handle.

They were comfortable, familiar, completely at
ease sitting there alone in that house, giving
it a cozy, lived-in feel.  They fended off the
stark emptiness of a place without people.

Ryoga stared, reaching out a tentative hand to
touch the cool surface of them, but pulling
back as if someone had shocked him, a horrified
expression on his face.  He could not have felt
guiltier if he'd accidentally set a shrine on
fire.

There was something sacred about those cups, so
comfortably set about each other, knowing,
expectant.  They belonged there, side by side.

Ryoga slid into a seat at the table, eyes still
trained on the two mugs.

He'd been engaged to Akane for near five years,
they lived in the same house, ate the same
food, and they even shared a bed, much to the
consternation of Saotome Nodoka.

But when he was with her - it didn't feel
right, like a pair of brand new shoes, still
uncomfortable after years of wear.  The awkward
discomfort of not being able to have good
conversation, being too distracted by his
shyness or her temper, the nearly foreign way
that she treated him when her family was
around, almost as if they were back on old
terms, friends instead of lovers.

So Ryoga sat in that kitchen, distracted,
enchanted, amused, jealous of . . .

Of two coffee cups that sat next to each other,
casting two shadows that became one on the
surface of the wood.

He and Akane weren't even as close as those two
coffee mugs.

Throughout their courtship and engagement,
there had always been an odd uneasiness
surrounding the two, an inexplicable
awkwardness that should have worn off weeks
after their first meeting, and instead, it hung
in the air and stained their relationship dark
gray.  There were no rich tones of friendship
beneath their love, in fact . . .

Ryoga sighed.  It was starting to become
apparent that beneath their friendship, there
wasn't any love to begin with - at least not
the kind that he wanted.

The kind that he deserved.

He wasn't a masochist, his parents had never
abused him as a child, in fact, he'd grown up
in a practically perfect way.  This mother and
father had been supportive and loving, trying
to help him cope with his horrible sense of
direction in practical ways, buying him maps,
hiring people to lead him places when it was
absolutely necessary.  He knew what love was,
and he knew that he, being the good and decent
human being he was on the whole, was deserving
of it.

So why was he engaged to Akane?

Because she was beautiful, that was why,
because in his eyes, she was perfect in every
way, flawless to the eye and delightful to the
soul.  Because she stirred feelings in him that
he couldn't bear to resist, and because he
needed her like a plant needed the sun or the
rain, because his existence depended on her
approval.

'Is that even love, though?' his mind
questioned softly, 'Isn't that more like
obsession?'  Ryoga grunted darkly, leaning
forward enough to see a note on the
refrigerator more clearly:

"Four, you were late, weren't you?"

It was written in loopy, graceful hand, though
hasty and a little bit smudged, it was easy to
see that a woman had penned the note.

"Eight, I wasn't, remember, two to one odds."

This next line was scrawled messily, and Ryoga
smirked as he realized that some gender
stereotypes did remain true to form even after
years of being politically correct.

"Four, I called your office, don't lie to me,
you'll go without for longer than you could
possibly imagine."

Loopy again.

"Candy's in the jewelry box.  New rule:
threatening me with the lack of sex is an
unfair advantage and therefore disbarred from
the betting forum."

Ryoga grinned, it didn't take handwriting
analysis to figure out exactly which gender
wrote * that *.

For a brief moment, he wished he was anyone
else in the entire world.  Anyone else who had
love and knew they possessed it.  He would have
even rather been that man in the picture
holding Yuki - because at least he seemed to be
able to touch love, instead of just yearning
for it.

He wanted to be anyone except for Hibiki Ryoga,
the lost boy who was engaged to Tendo Akane,
the lost soul

^*^*^

Kimiko hid in the doorway of the kitchen now,
staring curiously at the man at her kitchen
table.  He'd wandered into the room, read a few
notes on the refrigerator, and then started
staring rapturously at her coffee mugs, as if
they held the secrets to life.

She rolled her eyes.

This was getting twisted.

'Chikusho!' she thought angrily, 'our cover's
been blown to hell anyway; Nabiki came to my
office for crying out loud!  Can't they just
call and ask what the hell is going on instead
of breaking in?'

She took a deep breath and decided that enough
was enough.  Ryoga had to be dealt with;
everyone had to be dealt with.

Kimiko was raring for a good fight.

It had been weeks since she'd had a good
sparring session, and she'd felt antsy for
quite a while.  Usually, if Soichi had time,
they'd meet down at the local gym and work out
for hours at a time, forgetting everything and
just focusing on the liquid beauty of the art.

In her current state, Soichi would sooner
impale himself against sharp rocks than lay a
hand on her.

She was feeling a little bit bloodthirsty.

And Ryoga was the perfect candidate.  A
violent, utterly dense blockhead who would not
think twice about striking at full-force.

So in a moment of excitement, she stepped out
and walked towards Ryoga.  Putting her hands at
her waist, she stood with her legs slightly
apart, set in a firm offensive stance.

Ryoga looked up at the sound, and saw skin,
lots of pale, cream-colored skin, broken
occasionally by the rise of a bust covered by
black lace and a triangle of the same material
in between the legs.

There was blood, and there was fainting.

Yuki looked down at herself, noticing she still
only wore her underwear.

And narrowing her eyes in disgust, she dropped
her stance and glared at Ryoga's twitching
form, muttering:

"Damn."

^*^*^

"Kimiko-san?" he whispered weakly, his voice
still hoarse from disuse, and his eyes were
blurred from sleep.  Naka recognized that hair,
though, the brilliant red color that sometimes
clouded his thoughts when he didn't mean for it
to, and a peaceful smile that made him blush.

The redheaded woman on the chair next to his
bed opened one eye quickly, focusing on Naka,
awake and aware in bed.  She broke out into a
bright smile and leaned forward, whispering:

"Naka-kun!  You're up, boy!  Knew you were more
resilient than that!"

Two things occurred to Naka at that point.

The first was that sometime between when he'd
fallen asleep/passed out/went
unconscious/whatever the hell happened to him,
Kimiko-san had butchered her beautiful red
locks into something that would make a
hairdresser weep.

And the second was that she was speaking
roughly, like a man.

He didn't like either of these things, so he
reacted as anyone who had just gotten out of a
coma would typically do, and slipped promptly
back into unconsciousness.  Once again
blissfully safe from the horror of his new
reality.

^*^*^

"Moshi moshi!"

"Hey, Ki-chan, how are you doing?  I didn't
wake you, did I?"

"Nah, I've been up for a while, how's Naka?"

"He was sort of conscious a few minutes ago,
but I think he saw 'your' hair and then decided
to pass out again.  Can I change back to a guy
now?  I'm pretty certain if the kid sees that
you butchered your 'do again he'll die on the
spot."

"Fine, change back."

"Oh, yeah, I talked to a social worker this
afternoon, one that works closely with my
office, she said we have a good chance."

"Really?  That's great!  Are we talking about
adoption here, So-chan?"

"You of all people should know that it's not
that easy, Ki-chan.  We've only got temporary
guardianship, but it's better than nothing,
besides, they visit us every few months, if
we're doing a good job, we can opt to sign
permanent papers."

There was a sad pout heard over the line, "I
suppose that better than nothing.  Poor Naka-
kun, I wonder how he's going to handle this."

Soichi sighed, "The same way all of us do, Ki-
chan, slowly, but he's got us, and that's more
than we ever had."

Kimiko cradled the phone between her ear and
her shoulder.  She decided that tying a good,
sturdy square knot with just one hand would be
too challenging, what with Ryoga struggling
against the nylon rope like his very existence
depended on it.  Good thing she'd gagged him,
Kami-sama knew what type of horrible thing he'd
be screaming if his mouth was uncorked.

She pushed her foot up against Ryoga's thigh
and tugged hard on the cord, determined to
tighten the knot as much as possible.  It
wouldn't do to have him wandering around her
apartment - again.

"Right," she replied, her voice more cheerful
this time around.

There was the sound of impatient struggles in
the background, the rough sound of woven . . .
something, and Kimiko's occasional grunt of
exertion.

"Um, Ki-chan," Soichi started nervously, "what
are you doing?"

She paused her labor for a moment, thinking
about what she should tell him, and finally
concluded that the truth would have to come out
eventually.

"Nothing much, I'm just tying up Ryoga.  Honey,
do you know where the good, thick rope is?  The
kind we kept from the moving vans?"

"The rope?  That's in the back of the hall
closets, you know, behind the-"

And then there was a long, painful pause.

"Kimiko, did you say that you were tying up
Ryoga?" Soichi asked in an insanely calm tone
of voice.

"Yes," she said, her tone mimicking her
husband's.

She pushed her foot against Ryoga's stomach,
and used the hold to lever her weight as she
pulled the ropes harder around his midsection,
all the while ignoring his deadly expression
and attempts to speak around the gag.

Ryoga stared at this strange woman in contempt,
and glared at the phone in her hands.

Mentally, he kicked himself.  'Dammit, Hibiki,
didn't Nabiki tell you that Yuki was dangerous?
You didn't even bother to check the premises
before you busted on in!  BAKA!  Now look,
she's tying you up while she's practically na-
na-naked!'

"Ki-chan, * why * are you tying up Ryoga?"

"Because he was wandering around the apartment-
oh, stop moving!  Soichi, sorry, Honey, but
I've got to go, call you when I get a chance!"

-Click-

^*^*^

Soichi stood mystified in the hallway of the
hospital, and slowly, he took the cellphone
away from his ear, pressing the 'end' button.

Ryoga wouldn't just randomly show up at their
apartment - someone must have told him where
they were, and more than likely, the only
person who would have access to information
like that would be Nabiki.

Which meant that she'd been digging around,
looking for something, or more likely, someone.

He had * known * that Kimiko had been keeping
something from him.  The way her eyes had
nervously skittered from one corner of the room
to the other every time he'd asked her what was
wrong, the way she avoided talking about how to
deal with their exposure at all costs.

It wasn't that he didn't trust her, Kami-sama,
he trusted her more than anyone else in the
world, and it just hurt him to think that she'd
been keeping problems to herself.  He could
have helped her; he could have helped her think
things through, figure out a plan.

But he supposed that she had a reason for doing
what she did, Kimiko always did, even when they
were younger, and more rash, she'd always had a
plan, always knew exactly what she was getting
herself into.

At first it was just a bubbling, insane
funniness that flooded him, and then it became
a grin, which eventually grew to a full-blown
laugh.

It was just too fitting.

His very existence was a catalyst for
weirdness, and now, Kimiko, too?

Shaking his head, he wandered back into Naka's
hospital room - there would be plenty of time
for questions later.

'We hid for twelve years, Ki-chan, that's more
than we ever thought we'd have,' he thought to
himself, 'now, I guess we have to pay a few
past debts.'  He bit his lip and sighed as he
remembered Kimiko's opinion of her current
companion, the unfortunate lost boy.

"Oh, man," he whispered mournfully, "Ryoga's
going to die."

It wasn't that Kimiko was violent, per se.

You'd never meet a sweeter creature, what with
her glowing smiles and twinkling laughter,
lightning wit and charm, she was a wonderful
person altogether.

But she did have a temper, and she did hold
grudges, and for what Ryoga had done to her in
the past, Soichi would be amazed if he lived
through the experience without scars.

He shrugged unhappily at the thought.

He'd started to suspect the night when he had
Kimiko had discovered she was pregnant.  Sure,
she was under a lot of stress recently from her
job, what with her biggest client leaving and
all, but there was some sort of deep panic in
her eyes he had not enjoyed seeing.

And he was certain that she'd manifest whatever
stress she'd been withholding from him in the
form of physical violence and extreme pain.

^*^*^

Ryoga knew now without a doubt that he was in a
very bad place.

Had it been anyone else in the world, he would
not have bothered to stay tightly controlled in
the weak bonds of those ropes.  He would have
broken out of them in a second and beaten the
daylights out of whomever had tied him up in
the first place.

Unfortunately, this was Tanakawa Yuki he was
faced with, a girl who had her fair share of
experience with lethal techniques, incredible
speed, and an utterly merciless gleam in her
eyes.

None of this made Ryoga any happier to be
gagged and tied, bonded and stuck on the cold
tile floor of her kitchen.  Especially since
she was sitting casually on her countertop, a
ruthless expression on her pretty face.

It bothered him even more that she was
currently caressing the blade of a long,
painful-looking knife.

It really worried him when she started to grin.

"Ryoga-san," she purred, pressing the point of
the blade to his throat, hard enough so it drew
blood, but not enough to cause any real damage,
"it's so nice to see you again."  She idly
twirled the knife handle, twisting the point
that dug into his neck and making Ryoga wince
from the stinging sensation of flesh being
broken.

She raised an eyebrow at the sight of a single
droplet of blood sliding down his neck.

"It's been, why, near twelve years now, right,
Ryoga-san?" she giggled softly, and hopping
from her perch, she flipped the knife expertly,
the handle landing in her hand again, but the
long blade was now snuggled tightly against
Ryoga's quivering throat.

"But that doesn't really matter does it?" she
asked innocently, "because I'm certain I still
know exactly what you think of me."

Her eyes darkened.

Ryoga's eyes flooded with a black, ink-colored
hatred, tainted with undeniable fear.

The tone in her voice alone was enough to make
him remember what he'd done to her, done to the
woman that stood before him with a knife at her
throat.

His memory was enough to remind him that she
had no reason to spare him an ounce of mercy.

^*^*^

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