Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi and its characters belong to
her, and her alone. I'm just kinda borrowing them. The story below is
for entertainment purposes only, and not to be used commercially.
...Obviously.


"Learning Curve"
        Part XII    (v1.3)

by:   J. Wagner



"Look! Up there!" Ukyou wiped a layer of dust from her brow and
shielded her view as the clouds cleared, letting the sun shine
fiercely down from above. The Hiryu Shoten Ha blast seemed to be
dissipating as quickly as it had manifested, and as the winds faltered
and weakened, the practiced martial artist could see that high above,
silhouetted against the now crystal blue sky, hundreds of suspended
shapes, though only the large ones were easily visible.

"What? I... I can't see a damn thing!" Mousse blinked a few times, but
as expected, his vision didn't improve. His glasses were gone, now,
and though he usually carried a spare, he didn't want to risk putting
it on in case the winds picked up again.

"Is it Nabiki? Where is she?" Akane ran out of Mousse's arms, toward
Ukyou, her eyes scanning the heavens. Her voice was desperate and
hoarse. "Ukyou! Do you see her?"

"...No." Ukyou answered, after a momentary silence. "Um... we better
scatter. All that stuff's coming down, and it's doing it FAST!"

"You no have tell Shampoo twice!" The Chinese girl threw a still dazed
Kuno over her left shoulder. "Come on, stupid stick-boy. Shampoo save
you for some reason."

"But..." Akane began, again, and started to look around frantically.
Everyone else was already running in random directions, as the sky
began to rain debris of all shapes and sizes. The small bits that had
been caught at the bottom of the tornado were the first to come down,
like a light drizzle, followed by the slightly larger, but still not
too heavy, bits, like plaster. Then, finally, the shards of glass, by
the thousands, rained down, the sound of them shattering on the ground
bordering on deafening. Akane dove for cover under a large sheet of
metal before they came, fortunately, but had to leave her shelter as
the massive chunks of concrete, metal and wood began to fall with
increasing frequency.

Then, a thunderous impact that was felt, more than heard, caught her
attention. Turning, the youngest Tendo saw a small cloud of smashed
asphalt, and slabs of pavement upturned by the fall of something. Her
mind told her it was probably just a piece of an I-beam, or something
else large, but otherwise noteworthy only as one less piece of deadly
falling debris. But a feeling, a gut instinct, disagreed. Half in
shock over what she was thinking, and half numb with the thought of
what she might see, Akane crept closer to the impact site, still wary.


Around her, the last bits of what was once a regular part of Nerima
fell, and settled into a dull backdrop. It was like a bomb had gone
off, and leveled an entire street block. Car horns were blaring, dogs
were barking, and some house alarms had even gone off. Akane only now
noticed them amid the devastation of the Hiryu Shoten Ha. the barely
audible creaking of broken concrete on concrete relaxing into position
was the only sound she could hear. Feeling slightly bolder, Akane kept
forward, a single word escaping her dry lips.

"Nabiki?"

Akane reached the edge of the crater, and carefully pushed aside a
two-meter long length of the road that was stuck in the air, blocking
her view. There, in the center of the devastation, two forms were
visible, nearly motionless. Akane gasped, leaned all the way over, and
reached down to where her sister lay, limply cushioned by the body of
Hibiki Ryouga. Amazingly, miraculously, both seemed to be breathing.
Akane wiped her eyes, and half laughed, half choked. Nabiki was alive.

"N... Nabiki..." Ryouga coughed, his voice strained.

"Ah..." Nabiki seemed to snap out of a stupor, and carefully moved her
arms a little, resting them on his bare, bruised chest. Turning her
head, she saw his face, for the first time since he'd caught her in
the Hiryu Shoten Ha blast funnel. "Ryouga-kun..."

"Nabiki." He choked back any more of a reply. "Nabiki..."

"Yes?" She leaned in a little closer, and felt his breath, still hot,
but now soft and labored, on her lips.

"Could..." He took a deep breath in, and completed his sentence.
"Could you get off me, please? I've got a fight to finish."

Akane blinked. Hard.

"What?!" Nabiki huffed.

"I can't fight with you on me like this," he said, plainly.

"You sure know how to ruin a moment, Hibiki!" Nabiki shook her head,
and pushed off him. She was still a bit unsteady, but otherwise fine.
She felt a bit sore in places, and unusually tired, but otherwise the
pain was largely gone.

"What moment?" Ryouga was even slower to get up.

"What happened to me? To ...us?" Nabiki added, now on another topic
entirely.

"Looks like you healed up really well." Ryouga gave her a small smile.
"It comes with the territory."

"And... the other things?" Nabiki looked away, blushing a little. "Did
you see...?"

"Worry about it later." Ryouga's voice became steady, again, and more
than a little cold. "Ranma's coming... He thinks he's won. But ...
This isn't over yet. I'm not finished... yet."

The two girls climbed out of the rubble and wreckage just a few
seconds before Ryouga did. Indeed, as they looked towards where the
building had been, they saw a familiar figure, walking on measured
steps, through the haze and the remaining dust clouds, towards them.
He looked pale, and dirty, but at least he was male, thanks to more
than a few boiling pools of water Ryouga's Ki had created. Torn and
ragged clothes were barely hanging onto his shoulders. Bloody
splotches covered his ripped pants, and flowed freely from more than a
dozen open wounds. It looked like he had a few broken ribs.

Ryouga stood, with visible difficulty. Another deep breath filled his
lungs, and he stood straight and tall, again. If Ranma looked bad,
Ryouga looked worse. The lost one was the perfect picture of a beaten
man. While his eyes were unharmed, and he could still see perfectly,
he had bruises across virtually the rest of his visible body - a
slight limp hampered him noticeably, and he had what looked like one
or two broken ribs on his right side. Akane also noticed something
else a millisecond after Ranma did, even as Ryouga tried to disguise
it. It was the reason Ryouga had asked Nabiki to get off him.

His left arm was dislocated at the shoulder.

"I've seen hell because of you, Saotome." Ryouga took a few steps
forward. His battle aura was non-existent.

"Ryouga... it's over. You really do look like you've been through
hell." Ranma's words were sincere, but he warily raised his hands in
defense. "Don't make me put you down."

Ryouga, somehow, perhaps beyond pain, laughed.

"What?" Ranma's pride got to him, quickly. "You think I'm bluffing?"

Ryouga held out his good arm, and gently pushed Nabiki aside. As he
did, she resisted, and grabbed him by the elbow. "Ryouga-kun! Stop!
It's over!"

"No!" That one word left no room for argument, or debate, but he still
went on, and using a fraction of his still formidable strength, pushed
her out of the way. "This doesn't end... until one of us is beaten,
broken... crushed!"

Akane was about to say something, when Ryouga cut her off.

"And I am far from beaten!" Ryouga closed his eyes, as if
concentrating on something deep and hidden away, and opened them,
renewed by some inner strength. "The Cycle ends today. I'll never
endanger those I care about by letting this happen again."

"Ryouga-kun! Ranma-kun! Please!" Akane tried to reason with the two,
but it was too late. Ranma was growling, and concentrating his Ki.
Ryouga was like a statue, and several times as immovable, when he set
his mind to it.

"If that's the way you want it, Ryouga." He started to move into the
Umisenken stance.

"Ah. No you don't." Ryouga reached to his shoulder, grabbed it firmly
with his good hand, and with an audible pop, put the joint back into
place. "Me first."

"You know, just when I think you can't get any more inhuman..." Ranma
smirked. "You're still too wounded to fight, Ryouga. You're too badly
hurt to beat me."

"A remedy... then." Ryouga felt his mind begin to switch to combat
mode, narrowing and focusing on a single, solitary point. He was
hurting, and the damage was limiting the amount and intensity of Ki
that he could manifest and use. Ranma was going to use the Umisenken,
and unless Ryouga could manage to get him angry enough to attack
recklessly, he would barely be able to fight back. The lost boy's mind
raced, and ultimately came to the same decision he knew he'd have come
to anyway. A desperate man couldn't afford to be picky.

The lost boy growled, and the world fell silent. The earth was calm,
for a moment at least; even the wind died. Two hundred feet away, and
closing, Ukyou, Mousse and Shampoo all felt it coming before it hit; a
sense of gathering, in the air and all around them. It was as if some
terrible bomb shelter, packed with munitions and explosives, that had
laid dormant for years, buried and forgotten, capriciously decided to
simply give up and explode in one gargantuan, city-shattering
cataclysm. The sense of immeasurable pressure building grew when
Ryouga closed his eyes, lowering his head and raised his clenched
fists, as if in pain.

Ranma instantly realized what his opponent was doing.

Ryouga wasn't just dipping into the Abyss... he was diving head first
into it.

A wind, like dry ice, descended around those present, and there was a
faint, barely-noticeable tremor in Ryouga's body, for just a moment,
as if his power was fighting to escape from his body, but he kept
holding it in. Crackles of white Ki, a color none present had ever
seen Ryouga manifest, appeared with rapidly rising frequency, and
then, suddenly, and without any further caveat, his Ki exploded into a
hurricane of uncontrolled light and fire. Akane and Nabiki stumbled
back from the sudden explosion, and Ranma nearly recoiled. Ryouga's
mouth opened, and a roar loud enough to be heard almost thorough
Nerima exited, assaulting their eardrums.

Ranma stumbled back. What the lost boy was doing was suicide - he'd
burn out like a light bulb!

Ryouga's face was frozen in mid-shout, his eyes blazing, and the
corners of his mouth slowly starting to bleed and tear from the
strain. Across his body, Ryouga's wounds began to close, and heal;
muscle groups became more defined, and the lost boy's aura seemed to
become a small sun. Blood dripped from his clenched fists, and new
wounds began to appear, across his body at almost the same rate they
began to close up and suture themselves. And then, abruptly, Ryouga's
voice gave out, and he fell forward, gasping for air like a fish out
of water. His Ki alternated glowing green and red and black, and
slowly began to recede. Slowly getting back to his feet, Ryouga
smiled, and raised his hands into an open-handed stance.

"What... the hell are you?" Ranma's gasped for words, as he got a good
look at the lost boy. Most of his wounds were now just red, sore
looking spots. Even the nail-impressions in his palms had stopped
bleeding. "What was that?!"

"Everything has a price, Saotome. Sacrifice, and pain... those two are
the only currency of true value in this world. I've paid my due. It's
worth it... to keep fighting... to make you pay..." Ryouga's voice was
still a little shaky. Ranma noticed, and everything began to snap
together. The moment the thought came, he attacked with an almost
berserker fury. Ryouga seemed totally unprepared, despite his stance,
and his bravado. It had been a show - he'd been able to heal himself,
though Ranma couldn't imagine how intense the pain must have been to
force Ki out and back into his body at such a massive rate, and in
such a short period of time, instead of a period of hours like normal
Ki enhanced healing required.

However, he had not truly exceeded his limits, despite appearances.
Instead, he had carefully consumed the Ki as quickly as he channeled
it from within, while maintaining his impressive battle aura. However,
while Ryouga's battle aura, as always, had been impressive... and
intimidating, it was, in truth, nothing more than a false impression.
A true battle aura was representative of the power that its user had
at his physical disposal. Ryouga, however, was drained and weakened
from the healing, and buying himself time to recover by talking. It
was smart, sound, and risky. It would have worked, too, if he hadn't
seen Akane and Nabiki, now behind him, looking at his back with shock.


Three hundred blows to the cheek sent Ryouga spinning, blood and
spittle pouring from his mouth and nose, and Ranma saw that his guess
had been correct. He'd only healed part of his back - most of it was
still scarred and bleeding. He'd put everything on display in front of
him, so Ranma could see it. That minor mistake was costing him. Ranma
kept attacking, forcing Ryouga onto the defensive, where he was
weaker, skill and technique-wise. Ryouga was panting heavily now;
barely able to keep up with the barrage of strikes Ranma was throwing
at him. In the back of his mind, Ranma realized he was short of breath
himself, and running on fumes.

"I have to end it now!" Ranma reared back, right arm tensed.

"Kachuu Tenshi Amaguriken!!" The two teens echoed, and both flew
backwards from the cacophony of blows. They hung, in midair, for the
blink of an eye, before flying backwards and away from each other.
Ryouga landed on his shoulder, scraping a bloody furrow in the ground,
while Ranma landed on his back, ungracefully, with a hard crunch of
weakened bone on unyielding pavement.

Ryouga rolled and got to his feet first, holding up a slab of
concrete. "Hey, Ranma! Bakusai Tenketsu!"

The block exploded savagely, and all in one direction - at Ranma. By
now also on his feet, Ranma got into a low crouch, as if to block the
shotgun like blast. Ryouga leaned forward, just slightly, to see what
he was going to do, and Ranma took that instant to move, faster than
he felt he'd ever moved before. Closing his eyes, Ranma plowed through
the Bakusai Tenketsu fusillade, bits of blood trailing from where the
larger, sharper points hit, and kept going until his fist, now
crackling with Ki, drove home, burying deep into Ryouga's torso, all
the way up to the wrist.

"Aa... aahagh!" Ryouga's mouth heaved specks of black blood, and he
stumbled back, gasping like a drowning man.

"Hiryu..."Ranma set himself in place, swirled his hands, and brought
them forward.

"Shoten..."

Ryouga's aura, still angry and hot, began to distort and flow forward,
into and around Ranma's hands. The pigtailed martial artist poured
every last drop of his own ki into the mixture, and the air suddenly
smelt of ozone. The clash of temperatures, and Ranma's final lunge,
pushing the forming tornado up and into Ryouga's lower chest, did the
rest.

"HHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

Ryouga's chest glowed, and for all of a second, he was able to fight
back the blast, even in his half unconscious state. But, inexorably,
his feet began to give way, and, in that instant of weakness, he was
enveloped and disappeared into the horizontal Rising Dragon Wave. The
tornado stream first widened, and then narrowed, and a blurred black
form was swept up in the current like a leaf. Hundreds of feet away,
in the same direction, a thick concrete wall, that had survived even
the fury of the last Hiryu Shoten Ha blast, shook, cracked, but
ultimately held, as a humanoid shape, beaten and battered, imbedded
several inches into it. The limp form of Ryouga Hibiki hung there, for
a brief moment in time, or perhaps an eternity to some, before
slumping forward and falling to the ground.

Unconscious.

"He's out cold." Half the length of a football field away, Akane
turned Ranma over, and opened one eyelid to check.

"Good." Nabiki didn't sound concerned with him in the least. "I'm
going to go get Ryouga. If the idiot's alive, that is."

Ukyou and Mousse looked at each other. Finally, Ukyou ran up to
Nabiki. "Let's go. Mousse... you know what to do with Saotome, here."

"I do." Mousse chuckled softly, a truly evil sound.

Before anyone else could speak up, Ukyou grabbed Nabiki by the waist,
and jumped. It only took three quick jumps to cover the distance, and
see the motionless body of the lost boy. Both girls gasped, but Ukyou
was far quicker, and checked his neck for a pulse. Nervous, and
fighting panic, she fumbled for a second, before finding his carotid.
A look of relief washed over her features as she found a pulse, weak
but steady.

"Ryouga..." Nabiki helped roll the deceptively heavy martial artist
over. Ukyou frowned, and stood over the two, as Nabiki checked for
herself, cradling his head in her lap. Silently, Ukyou cursed herself
- she could never imagine herself acting like that. Saotome Genma and
his worthless son had seen to that. Sighing, she stood by her friend,
who, she had once thought could have been more, and watched over
him... and her. After a few seconds, Ukyou reached down, and picked
Ryouga up. He was damn heavy considering his frame, at least two
hundred and fifty pounds, all jammed into a body only slightly larger
than a normal man's, but she could handle it.

"We have to get him... both of them to Dr. Tofu's." Nabiki couldn't
think of a better place. The Tofu Clinic was judiciously stationed
equidistant to most of the Nerima 'hot spots' and it wouldn't be the
third or fourth time these two patients had been admitted for a visit.
Hopefully, after this, they'd only visit for social reasons. Looking
around, as she ran after Ukyou, trying to keep up with the other
girl's moderate pace, Nabiki saw, for really the first time, the
devastation that the battle between the two martial artists had
wrought.

In the distance, Firefighters and Police were cordoning off Furinkan
High. It was still pretty much intact, but large chunks of displaced
rock and stone covered its roof, and in some places, had even punched
through into, thankfully, empty classrooms on the top floor. The
athletic fields were a total write off - the soccer field was now a
jagged, smoking crater, and everything else, from the baseball diamond
to the tennis court were covered in a thick layer of debris that had
toppled and covered bleachers, stands, fences, everything. Luckily,
the Principal seemed both able and happy to repair damage to the
school, as well as renovate it at a whim.

The street below them looked like it had been bombed. There were small
craters here and there, and literally tons of debris of all shapes and
sizes and types. Broken glass was strewn about liberally, and off to
the side, one truck was still burning away, and three parked cars had
been crushed, one beyond recovery. All were blaring their car alarms
like a trapped animal would scream for help. Of the construction site,
there was now only a clean circular crater. Nothing was left standing
save a few twisted skeletal ribs of tenacious steel. It was a
disaster, but it looked like no one had gotten badly hurt except the
two that had caused the damage in the first place. The famous Nerima
Construction Corp would be busy the next week cleaning it up, no
doubt, but they'd never press charges.

They never did.

Business here in Nerima was far too lucrative. Construction companies
loved Nerima like Insurance companies hated it. Besides, martial
artist duels were a major tourist attraction for Nerima Ward, drawing
people from all over Japan, and even overseas, here, as well as the
numerous wandering martial artists looking for a challenge. Not that
either Ranma or Ryouga really thought of such things before they
decided to start tearing things up all around them. Nabiki then, out
of the blue, realized something else. She had no idea which one of
them had won. Ranma had fallen down and out after his final attack,
and Ryouga was unconscious when she and Ukyou got there to check on
him.

Nabiki made a quick decision to tell Tofu to tie them both down very,
very securely while they were in his clinic.

***

One-week prior to Ryouga's return:

Ranma smirked. He'd shown up at school, on a lark, to pick up some
things, and Mousse and Ukyou had confronted him. Apparently, the two
had just finished dealing with the Principal's plans to give the
entire school hideous haircuts, something having to do with coconuts
or pineapples and the Kunos... Ranma really didn't care, except that
the two seemed to have gotten around to making themselves some sort of
student's champions. ...It was a spot that had been held by him for
over a year.

Ranma cracked his knuckles. "You two better move. I'm not in the mood
for this."

"Too bad." Ukyou twirled her megaspatula and advanced.

"We've been receiving some... special training." Mousse's claws
glinted in the light. "You won't find us so easily beaten this time,
Saotome."

The pieces began to fall in place. "The old freak?"

Well, that explained things - notably Happosai's recent deficit of
mischief, and his daytime disappearances. Ranma became wary. Happy was
an erratic sensei, but the odd behavior hadn't been going on for any
longer than a week at the most, and Ranma had been practicing and
working under the tutelage of Cologne for even longer. Confidence
quickly overcame concern, and Ranma shook his head slowly.

"You two really are pathetic!" He dismissed them with a flick of the
wrist. "Well, come on, then. I don't have all day."

"That arrogance will cost you, Saotome!" Mousse ducked and came in
fast, claws cutting through air. Ranma dodged the flurry of strikes,
noting that they were at near Amaguriken speeds. Of course, Ranma was
still faster, and avoided the strikes with apparent ease. Ukyou,
meanwhile, was circling them, waiting for an instant to strike.

So far, it was nothing to worry about.

Ranma was about to retaliate, and put Mousse down, when everything
became dark. He back flipped, and realized Ukyou had blanketed the
area in a smoke screen, a new and improved one, thicker and darker
than he'd ever used before. It had a sooty, oily quality, and began to
accumulate around Ranma's eyelashes, and it became apparent that he'd
have no chance of seeing as long as he stayed in the smoke. Already,
it was building up in his nose and throat.

"Damn it!" Ranma felt a sharp blade nick his side, as he dodged a
millisecond too late. He tried to back out, and get out of the cloud,
but the attacks kept coming, from every angle, and it was impossible
to tell which of his opponents was actually in the cloud with him.
Cursing mentally, Ranma lashed out, hoping to hit something with the
sheer volume of blows he was throwing. He came close, and felt a whisk
of long hair brush past his fist, but nothing solid.

And he was rapidly running out of air.

He tried to jump, but without a direction to jump to, he was simply
leaving himself a helpless target. Rolling forward, just as something
large, fast, and sharp passed overhead, Ranma felt creeping panic rise
up his throat, and it tasted like bile. He was losing! He was
helpless! All these weeks of intense training, and he was going to
lose to a stupid trick like this?

"No." He opened his eyes a crack and looked around desperately.

"Ranma!!"

Akane's voice.

Ranma smirked, and kicked out, heading in that direction.

"Damn it!" Another voice, Ukyou's, came from behind. "Mousse!"

"I'm on it!" Mousse's voice came from the side, to intercept, forcing
Ranma to step aside and avoid a strike that hit only ground. Mousse
was good, and kept at the pigtailed martial artist, hoping to get him
lost and confused in the smoke again, but Ranma was ready. Somehow,
Mousse could see him in the cloud, and Ranma took advantage of it. He
drew Mousse into a quick spiral, but the blind one jumped out before
it was complete, no doubt recognizing it for what it was and bailing.

Ranma kicked up and out in that instant, hitting Ukyou as he jumped in
to change places with the male Amazon. Oddly, Ranma felt padding give
slightly from the impact, and realized that his former friend must
have been wearing it to try and dampen the strength of Ranma's blows.
Ranma sneered at the thought. Uuchan had reached an all time low, it
seemed.

Finally, Ranma felt himself leave the cloud, and he sucked in a deep
breath, burning lungs a tribute to Mousse and Ukyou's trap. While
physically weaker than he was, generally slower and comparatively
overmatched in skill, the two opponents were consistently crafty.
Unlike the Kunos, Ukyou and Mousse planned traps that worked,
sometimes too well. Ranma landed roughly due to his exhaustion, but
recovered quickly.

He looked up, and saw Mousse helping Ukyou up. They were both wearing
goggles, and Mousse's were probably his prescription. Clever, if not
very honorable, but their trap had failed. He'd escaped, and now...
now they'd take their beating like men. Still breathing heavily, Ranma
charged, and body checked Mousse just as Ukyou got to his feet,
holding his chest as if in pain. Ranma ignored him for the moment, and
laid into the male Amazon with a combination of blows, culminating in
an uppercut that sent Mousse airborne and into a nearby tree's
branches.

Turning, Ranma barely had time to catch Ukyou's megaspatula between
his hands a half second before it could cut into his throat. Using his
superior strength, he forced it aside, and used his momentum to drive
his left elbow into Ukyou's face, giving her a black eye. "I'm tired
of this crap, Ukyou!"

Ukyou grimaced, and tried to respond with a backhand, but Ranma caught
it, and bent the arm into an arm lock, twisting Ukyou until his back
was against Ranma's chest. "I'm tired of these stupid traps... and
attacks!"

He pushed Ukyou forward, and tightened his grip. "And I'm tired of
you! We were friends once, but if you cross me again, you'll regret
it, do you understand me?"

"B... Bastard!" Ukyou struggled. "Let me go!"

"Why? So you can try and cut my head off again?"

"One of them, at least!"

"Oh, very funny. Why do you hate me so much anyway, huh? What'd I ever
do to you?"

"You..." Ukyou struggled again, with greater intensity, but to no
avail. Chest heaving, Ranma could see tears in his eyes, and suddenly
realized Ukyou's voice had increased in pitch.

"Ukyou?" He leaned in. "Geez, don't cry! You're actin' like a girl!"

"I AM A GIRL, you ...you ...JACKASS!!"

"Wa... what?"

"I'm a girl!" She broke free as Ranma's grip loosened to nothingness.
Turning to face him, standing tall, she took his hand and placed it on
her chest. Ranma's hand trembled like a leaf, and he quickly drew it
back like it'd been in the hottest of fires. Stumbling backwards, he
almost tripped on his own feet.

Ukyou was a girl.

Ukyou was a girl.

Ukyou was a GIRL!!

"Ukyou... You... you're..." Ranma's mind raced, unable to totally
comprehend and deal with everything that had been revealed. Looking at
him - her, Ranma suddenly felt sick. He couldn't have... he couldn't
have... no! He'd never do that to a girl! Jusenkyou! Maybe, maybe...

"I've always been a girl!" She advanced, and Ranma fell back, his
question killed before it left his lips.

"Oh, kami... Ukyou... I'msosorry! What... I mean, why?"

Ukyou gritted her teeth, tears streaking down her cheeks. "I'm the
fiancee you left behind, you bastard! I'm the girl you and your damn
father abandoned!"

"You mean... Aw, man, I've got another fiancee?"

The slap was like Akane, times ten. It was the sound of a small
thunderclap, and then there was silence, broken only by Ranma falling
limply to the ground. Ukyou looked down at him, and choked back a sob.

"No. You don't."

***
    "It's been a week," Hibiki Ryouga poked his bandaged left hand
experimentally. "Still hurts."

    Sighing, he looked up at the sky.

The roof was his quiet place.

    It was a place where he could escape from the madness, and the
mundane, and the complicated nuances of being around others, and
return to something simpler. The sun was slowly setting, and the sky
was briefly ablaze in color. There were hues of red, orange and blue,
all on natural display, only slightly marred by the lights and noise
of the surrounding human world. It was the colors in the sky he loved.
It reminded him of the sunsets he'd seen in China, filling him with a
sense of comfort, and humility - of the insignificance of being.

    And Hibiki Ryouga knew he needed both of those things.

    Across the sky, a flock of birds took to the air, perhaps to wait
the night out somewhere else, maybe the park where Ryouga had spend so
many Nerima days and nights. Did Mousse ever fly with them? Was Mousse
ever lonely enough to find companionship in the loss of his humanity?
Ryouga knew the answer before he'd asked it. Mousse may have been
desperately obsessed with Shampoo, he may have been a blind duck, but
he'd never given up what made him, him.

    Ryouga smiled. Mousse seemed to have found companionship, now,
regardless. He'd woken up and seen the two of them, talking
animatedly. He'd recovered from the fight before Ranma had, naturally,
though the pains of his desperation ploy at the end still haunted him.
Brief flashes of pain occasionally reoccurred, but it was just that:
physical pain, a factor long since dealt with. A minor annoyance at
most.

    Before leaving, he'd spoken with Ukyou privately. She didn't want
the feud with Ranma to continue. She'd explained what had happened.
Despite Saotome, or in spite of him, she had decided that enough was
enough. Ryouga tended to agree. There had been a time in both their
lives, not very long ago at all, that revenge had been all they had
left to cling to. Ukyou was moving on. She had already started down
that road when Ranma and Ryouga had fought, days ago.

    She was healing her soul.

    Ryouga was still nursing his back into being.

    The sun was almost gone, now, and soon the world would be dark,
like it always was, and he'd be alone in the night. He'd been along in
the night since they day he was born, and it had always been
preferable to being alone in a crowd, like he was on the occasions
he'd tried to socialize and join the bulk of humanity. Ryouga closed
his eyes, not wanting to see the sun leave for the day, to see it
abandon those who depended on it. Instead, he concentrated on the
smells and the sounds, and even the Ki of the world around him.

    Footsteps.

    "Hey."

    "Hey." Ryouga opened his eyes, and looked up at her.

    She sat down in the roof tiles, next to him. "Watching the sun
set, huh?"

    "Not really." He admitted, and leaned back, looking up at the sky.
"I don't really like watching the sun set. It's depressing."

    In his mind, the sun setting and the sunset evoked very different
feelings.

    "That's too bad. It really is beautiful." Nabiki took in the
colors, and the contrasts.

    "Never a camera handy, eh?" Ryouga straightened his vest.

    "Never." Nabiki nodded, and slowly reclined against him, her head
on his chest. To her surprise, he didn't flinch. They lay there, in
silence, as the sun slowly disappeared, abandoning the earth for
another half day.

    "Ryo-kun," she tested.

    "Yeah?"

    "You never really said much about what happened between us. During
the fall."

    "I'm not too sure myself, Nabi-chan." He blushed a bit, despite
his best efforts not to. A part of him feared she'd be insulted by the
nickname, and waited for the look of revulsion on her face. When there
was none, however, it filled him with unfamiliar self-confidence.
"Something special, I'd say."

    "It was."

    Somewhere in the distance, a duck quacked.

    "I think I might stick around for a while," Ryouga finally said.
"If... if... you don't mind."

    "You can't have another fight with Ranma like that last one. You
know that. ...That's why you're really up here, isn't it?"

    "I don't need to be downstairs when he comes back from Dr.
Tofu's." Ryouga hesitated a bit, but sensed what Nabiki was thinking.
"I want to bury the hatchet with him. I really do. I want to move on.
But... but it's going to take some time. I just, I just don't want to
deal with that tonight. It's too nice out."

    "Put it off for a rainy day, is that it?"

    "I can't do much else on those, can I?" He smiled, half
melancholy, half content.

    "Besides," he continued. "Here I am, up on the roof with the most
beautiful girl I know, watching the sunset."

    "Not watching the sun set," she corrected.

    "Yeah." He shook his head, giving up on this one. Against his
previous inclinations, he and Nabiki sat up, shoulder to shoulder, and
watched the star dip into the horizon. On a whim, a saying he had
heard somewhere before came to Ryouga's lips.

"Love will die if held too tightly; love will fly if held too
lightly." He sighed, but smiled. "Lightly, tightly, how do I know,
whether I'm holding or letting love go?"

"You're an incurable romantic, Hibiki."

"You better believe it, Tendo."








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