Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only swinging on
the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds cleaner than you found
them and please don't feed the Trolls.

"Summer Lightning" and "Thanksgiving Eve" are copyrighted by Garnet
Rogers; if you haven't encountered him before go out and buy his CDs,
he sings lots better than I write.

Gally, Hugo, Ido and Co. are characters from the manga/anime series
"Hyper Future Vision Gunmm", which belongs to Yukito Kishiro.

This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/

Release 1.1 (Dec. 07, 2000)

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Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part B: The Morning After the Night Before

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Akane woke up happy. 

This was a moderately rare event for her, but she noticed that it had
been becoming more frequent since the imposition on her life of a
certain red-haired girl. Regardless of the source of her new-found
contentment, however, she would normally _not_ have expected this
morning to be a good one. Too much fear and pain the day before, too
much expected stress today.

Somehow, though, she had managed to navigate the dark rapids of the
night and emerge in the hush of early dawn rested, loose-limbed and,
somehow, entirely content.

Quickly dressing, she picked Isileth from the stand on her dresser and
slipped the sword into her jacket. Passing silently out her door and
down the hall to the top of the stairs she stood silently for a moment,
listening to the silence of the house. Just below the normal limits of
audibility she could discern Kasumi's ministrations in the kitchen and
someone singing quietly in the garden.

     It's so easy to dream of days gone by,
     So hard to think of times to come.
     And the grace to accept every moment as a gift
     Is a gift that is given to some.

Nabiki woke up discontented. 

She had pinned some hopes on the night before, but her surveillance
activities had come up empty. She was _sure_ that Ranma and her sister
were lovers, but she had not achieved her lofty reputation as a
manipulator of events by acting ahead of _certain_ knowledge without
need. 

The remedy for the lack of which certainty had seemed simple, too;
lovers will tend to cling to one another in times of stress, and
yesterday's activities _should_ have provided _plenty_ of stress, which
_should_ have expressed themselves nicely last night.

But except for Ranma teaching Akane some sort of meditation thingy to
help her sleep, _nothing had happened_. 

It was annoying, was what it was. 

Worse yet, from her viewpoint, she had theorized that they might,
perhaps, simply have been too tired the night before; so she had woken
up at an entirely-too-early time in the morning to continue her
surveillance. But not only had Ranma already been up, but Akane had
woken early too, and _again_ they hadn't done anything. Not even a
kiss!

Ah well, maybe one of them was more aware than she had thought. She
would simply have to get more subtle. It would be a good challenge. 

Or, she might just strangle the gibbering pair of _early_ morning
songsters.

Blearily and grumpily, Nabiki sat down in the dining room and snarled
at merrily cheeping birds and cheery sunrise alike.

     What can you do with your days,
     But work and hope?
     Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
     What can you do with each moment of your life,
     But live til you've lived it away?
     Live til you've lived it away.

Soun awoke unsettled. 

This was hardly unusual, of course. Still, he thought, this was even
worse than normal. For all the griefs he normally felt, for all the
power of the terrors and regrets that he normally struggled with, they
were just that: _normal_, the common structure of his days. 

The changes that young Ranma seemed to have brought into his family and
his life might or might not be terrible, but he felt their abnormality
keenly nonetheless. Yet alongside this additional weight lurked an
additional variable, neither necessarily negative nor positive. 

With change comes the possibility of change for the better. 

Yet if that possibility is not fulfilled is it not more terrible than
if no such possibility had existed? 

At the bottom of every Pandora's Box lurks shining Hope. 

Whether that was a good or a bad thing Tendo Soun could not for the
life of him decide. 

     There are sorrows enough for the whole world's end,
     There are no guarantees but the grave.
     But this life that we live, 
     and the times that we spend,
     Are treasures too precious to save.

Kasumi had probably awoken with the same serenity which she always
showed the world. 

It's always difficult to tell, with Kasumi. 

     What can you do with your days,
     But work and hope?
     Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
     What can you do with each moment of your life,
     But live til you've lived it away?
     Live til you've lived it away.

Kodachi and Sayuri woke early, each separately deciding that they hated
hospitals. But we won't get back to them until a little later. 

     What can you do with your days,
     But work and hope?
     Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
     What can you do with each moment of your life,
     But live til you've lived it away?
     Live til you've lived it away.

And a new day in Nerima began, as Kasumi called her (now slightly
enlarged) family to breakfast.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The thing that Akane was most aware of as breakfast continued was
hunger; a great, growing void in her stomach that the breakfast Kasumi
had brought to table, double-sized though it was, barely dented. Ranma,
however, had put a surreptitious hand on her shoulder when she would
have asked Kasumi for more food, holding her to silence.
 
Once outside the Dojo on the road to Furinkan, Ranma led Akane and
Nabiki to a small side-street off the Nerima Ginza, wherein they found
what Nabiki immediately dubbed "the perfect hole-in-the-wall dive." It
was a very small restaurant, without even a window onto the street. The
door itself hardly advertised its status as a place of business; much
more resembling a service entrance for some larger establishment,
except for the small sign which held the single word, "Gally's". 

The inside of the restaurant was clean and neat, if small and dark. It
was dominated by the enormous grill that swept across the back wall and
left only a little space into which a counter with ten stools and half
a dozen small tables had been crammed. There were no customers, and the
only occupant, who was evidently the cook, looked up at them with an
expression of professional cheer that lasted only a few seconds. 

"Hi! Welcome to Gally's. What I fix may for you today ... _Ranma_?" 

"Hiya, Gally-kun, we need eight mega-burgers to go, please." 

"Eight ...? Right, eight Megas, to go, coming up."

Gally, if it were she, was a short, elfin girl with straight black hair
that barely reached her shoulders. She possessed the grace of a martial
artist in full measure and was almost superhumanly fast and deft. Her
only unusual features were the black lines beneath her eyes, but both
Akane and Nabiki received a clear impression of hidden depths, as
though beneath her unmarked arms and perfect skin a whole collection of
scars lurked: unseen, yet not unfelt. 

Akane, however, quickly found herself distracted from questions of
deeper reality by her stomach's reaction to the _enormous_ piles of
savory ground beef, bacon and onions being constructed at lightning
speed before her eyes. She _had_ been to a McDonald's before , of
course. She had even ordered a burger there, so she _was_ aware of the
concept involved. But the idea of 'burger' that she had previously been
aware of did not really seem to have much to do with the things that
were taking shape before her eyes.

"So, Ranma-kun," Gally said over her shoulder, "what doing were you
that touched off an eight-Mega hunger? I mean 'What were you doing?'" 

"Aaaactually ... it's closer to a three-Mega hunger, Gally -kun. But
Acchan here will probably need a little more."

"She's in the same, errr, 'business', Ranma-kun?"

Ranma smiled quietly, "I've taken her as a student."

Gally whipped around and stared at Ranma for a moment, big-eyed. Ranma
flushed slightly and mumbled, "She shows great promise."

One of the burgers chose that moment to expel some of its grease onto
the grill, hissing and spitting. Gally gave a small shriek and whipped
into a cooking frenzy, getting the burgers back under control. "Well,
I'm glad that it's just normal ..." she trailed off.

Ranma raised an eyebrow at her back and asked, "Yes?"

"It's just that I ... well, yesterday I suddenly got um... it was like
I suddenly got the idea that you were a lot of trouble in. Silly, huh?
Hugo told me that he had a bad feeling about mid-morning, too. Said it
was like 'A goose had walked across his grave.' Honestly, know where he
comes up with these things I don't."

Ranma sweat-dropped briefly. "Ahh, yeah. Silly. How _is_ Hugo-kun,
anyway? And Ido-sensei?"

"Ohh, Hugo's _just_ fine. He and Ido are both doing things at Nekomi
Tech, you know. Techy stuff." She grinned briefly, and fairly lit up
the room. "It's entirely too geekly for me to be interested in, but it
makes them _so_ happy...." 

"Yee-es," Ranma drawled, "I _do_ seem to recall you being more on the
side of, mmmm, _practical implementation_, shall we say?" 

"Be nice, Ranma-kun. So I like moving fast and blowing things up good.
Is that any reason for you to be mean to me?" Ranma smirked. "Oh! That
reminds me," Gally continued, "Hugo and Ido have joined a motor club at
NIT. Would you come out to the races with us?"

"If nothing, mmm, _serious_ intervenes, sure. When and where?" 

Gally finished the first burger and whipped it in front of a nearly
drooling Akane, who launched into it with vigor. 

"I'll get word to you when I know when the next race will be held." 

She put together a smaller burger that she had somehow hidden amongst
the others and wrapped rice paper around it, handing it to Nabiki.
"First hit's free," she winked. 

A short time later on the way out the door, loaded down with a _huge_
fast-food sack, Ranma turned back briefly. "... soon, Gally-kun. For
some reason I think that we're about to suffer from an enormous
addiction to ground beef," and winked in turn.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nabiki was somewhat amazed at herself, but exceedingly amazed at her
companions. 

The burgers were as good as anything Kasumi could have made, and the
relatively smallish one she had eaten was still larger than anything
that she, an experienced consumer of munchies, would have believed she
could have found room for so soon after breakfast. Yet it was less than
a third the size of the _eight_ that the slight chef had made for Ranma
and her sister. 

Nabiki was not sure whether to be more amazed that Ranma had finished
_two_ of them, that her _sister_ had finished two of them, that Akane
had eaten them with such voraciousness, that Ranma had put _three_ of
them back for later in the school day, or that she was still carrying
one of them in her hand, perhaps to eat on the walk _to_ school.

But what Nabiki was _really_ amazed by was that Akane could pack away a
major Kasumi-style breakfast, follow it with _two_ piles of meat,
cheese, vegetables and bread that must have tipped the scales at a kilo
each, and _still_ have the energy to jump about like a moderately
demented ping-pong ball while "attacking" Ranma. 

At least Ranma was being sensible and remaining serene in her manner.
Though it was a sobering exhibition of just how good she truly was to
note that she was facing down a sword with a folding fan ... and
kicking Akane's butt without so much as breaking a sweat.

Nabiki stole a moment from admiring the martial arts exhibition to take
another searching look at the fan. Nabiki harbored suspicions about
that fan. Normal fans, after all, do not deflect sword-blades, nor can
they be used as leverage to flip an opponent fifty feet into the air. 

The thing was, though, that it couldn't be a gunsen at all. It was
plainly visible to anyone's sight: a simple, folding bamboo frame,
covered with plain rice paper that had never even been died or
patterned. To Nabiki's eye it seemed to be a well-used three or four
years old, and the only thing on it was a small calligraphed phrase
that appeared to be an autograph, or similar, running along one edge.

"Umm, Ranma-san?" Akane slid forward along the fence, Isileth at
mid-guard. Ranma looked down towards Nabiki's upturned face and flicked
down beside her as Akane slide-stepped forward along the fence-top. 

"Yes, Nabiki-kun?" Ranma lightly rapped Akane's ankles, sending her
forward another dozen paces as she struggled to control herself. 

"I was just wondering where you'd gotten that fan from?" Nabiki
indicated the fan in question with a gesture as Akane regained control
by jumping up and high into the air.

"Well, I bought it for Sensei, once ..." Ranma gestured widely with the
folded implement.

"Haaaah!" Akane came down in a falling pear-splitter. *whsssh* Which
Ranma dodged, gently guiding the blade past with the fan before *whrt*
flicking her high into the air again. "Whooaaa!"

"... and when, later, I left his school, so to ..." Ranma flowed around
to Nabiki's outer side with respect to the street as Akane flipped in
mid-air and came back down.

"Not that ..." she began to snarl *hfff* as Ranma guided to sword-blade
past herself again. Akane evaded a fan twist and lunged, perfectly in
control. There was a *klng* as Ranma blocked the blow close and a
rapid-fire *klk-klak-klik* as they fenced for fractions of a second
before *whf* another blow went past and Akane's ".. eas.." trailed off
behind another *whrt* "... eeeeee!" *THUD*

"... speak, he gave it back. It's just a keepsake, really." Ranma hid
her face behind the fan in a moderately provocative manner as Akane
thumped into a telephone pole down the street.

"But you're blocking a _sword_ with it! _And_ flipping my little sister
umpty-dozen feet in the air. Why doesn't it break?" Nabiki asked
plaintively as Akane pushed herself away from the pole.

"You should try not to pay so much attention to the world's little
illusions, Nabiki-kun." Ranma winked. 

Akane put Isileth away and threw her arms out in a great, wrenching
yawn as Ranma and Nabiki came level with her. "Ahhhh! Ranchan, I don't
think I'm going to get that one easily on my own. It ought to be
easier; just what are you doing, anyway?"

The explanation Ranma gave Akane lost Nabiki in martial arts
technicalities almost immediately, and she tuned it out to concentrate
Ranma's comment. 'Try not to pay so much attention to the little
illusions? Huh?'

She was not able to concentrate her attention on the question for long,
however, as she was distracted by a loud growl next to her. Looking
around, she saw that Akane was paper-white and holding her stomach with
both hands.

"Ranchan ...," Akane whispered, in a small, panicked voice, but Ranma
had already unwrapped the burger she had been holding and put into her
hand. Akane looked at it in shock for a moment before all but falling
on it slavering.

Nabiki looked on with concern as her sister ravened her way through her
(effectively) fifth full breakfast of the morning. She would have been
far more distressed, of course, had Ranma herself not so obviously
anticipated it, but still ....

Akane herself was no little worried. "Ranchan, what's happening to me?"

"You used up a _whole_ bunch of resources yesterday, Acchan. In fact, I
would estimate that you used up about twice what you had available. So
you , we, had to borrow some more, so to speak. This is just the
pay-back. Well, and the interest too, of course."

"Me and my big ideas," Akane muttered.

"So you'll stay behind, next time?" Ranma asked hopefully. 

Akane's glare required no translation. "You _did_ say that you _did_
need me along, _right_?" she purred.

Ranma sweat-dropped and blushed, grinning weakly, "Errr. Yeah." 

"So there."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The room was mostly dark, if you didn't count the TV. Normally, Sayuri
was as capable of vegging out as any teenager, but that was when she
had a choice whether to do so or not. Of course, she could have turned
the lights up, then she could have spent whole ... seconds ...
cataloging the flowers and plants. 

As of the last time she had done so, fifteen minutes ago, there had
been 35. 

Or, she could read. The signs on the wall, for instance. Why, there
must be ... twenty of them. That had been half an hour ago. 

Of course, looked at objectively, it was sufficient of a miracle that
she was alive for the sheer lack of anything to do to drive her crazy
in the first place. She certainly shouldn't complain that her family
had been too distracted by her miraculous recovery to remember to leave
her any books. Or even homework.

Or, she could review her suspicions about the source of that 'miracle'
for the ... twenty-third ... time. Or, she could get right up and
wander about in the _lovely_ hospital, wearing the _lovely_ hospital
gown that was actually _more_ embarrassing than if they'd left her
naked. 

At least there weren't any IVs left. Although there wouldn't be anyone
out there to talk to except patients she didn't know and who certainly
had worse problems than her and staff members who certainly wouldn't
have time to amuse one teenage girl.

It was certainly a better policy to wait quietly until someone came to
visit her. If she avoided straining anything, they might let her go
home, she supposed, sometime next week.

Sayuri leaned back in her bed and watched the television's flickering
glow for a few moments, then slung her feet over the edge of the bed
and found a spare gown. This she put on over her original gown, but
backwards. She topped off with a towel from the bathroom wrapped around
her waist. Then she opened the door and went out into the corridors. 

It was either that, or another dubbed episode of Wheel of Fortune.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Kodachi lay back in her bed with the TV off, and gathered her strength.
Her leg was still very weak, in her estimation, and her face ached in a
pattern that suggested to her that she might well end up with a
permanent scar. Her eyes were closed in concentration, because she was
attempting something that she had only heard stories about. 

She was trying to visualize all of the relevant acupuncture points for
legs and arms and to connect them in a chi circulation circuit. It
didn't help that she had never actually even felt her chi per se, of
course, but it was something to do to pass the time until her torturer/
therapist showed up. 

And keeping her eyes closed to concentrate on her visualization meant
that she didn't have to look at her room. 

Which didn't have anything in it to look at but the flowers that
Ranma-sensei and Akane-san had left. 

And she knew what _they_ looked like.

Unfortunately, self-hypnosis had never been among the skills she had
mastered, nor was she particularly skilled in mediation. Despite her
best efforts the necessary distance from the red dust of earth would
not come to her. Thus, the unexpected opening of her door came as
something of a relief. It _was_ a little odd, since it was outside the
nurse's and therapist's schedules and no-one was likely to come by to
visit _her_ in the middle of a school-day, but _some-one_ appeared to
have done so. She sat up in bed and raised her lights. 

The appearance of a small, long-haired girl in two hospital gowns and a
towel was thus somewhat unexpected.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The school-yard before first bell was a hotbed of rumor and specul-
ation. 

The only sure information was that Sayuri had come out of her coma at
last and that Ranma had had something to do with it. Persistent rumor
whispered Akane's name as well; said that she had died curing Sayuri's
illness; said that _Ranma_ had died curing Sayuri's illness; said that
Ranma and Akane had died _together_, and in each other's arms; said
that the "in each other's arms" part was right but that they were still
quite alive, thank you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, etc.); denied all of
the above for the thought that Sayuri's "illness" had been induced by
The Forces Of Darkness, who had finally been defeated by Magical Girl
Ranma and her apprentice; and threw around other thoughts, some of
which were very strange and inaccurate indeed. The absence of
Furinkan's normal source of rumors and hearsay, Tendo Nabiki, did
nothing but add fuel to the fire.

Yuka had originally been besieged, but since she had been otherwise
occupied worrying about Sayuri she had little data to give. This had
caused the crowd to fragment and so she had had to latch on to Daisuke
and Hiroshi in order to have someone to speculate with. Nonetheless,
she was the first to hear the distant voices, silver and gold. 

     I was riding west, through Ontake Mountains.
     The hills were heavy with new-fallen snow,
     And the sun-bright hills were dappled like a pony,
     I was riding hard, I had miles to go.

     And a magpie flew, 'cross the mountain highway,
     It flashed and tumbled, through the golden trees,
     And I thought of you, and my heart was lifted,
     And floated with that magpie, on the morning breeze.

Hiroshi and Daisuke noticed her silence and then, moments later, the
reason for it. Caught up between going to hear the voices better and
gaining height so they could see better, the Average Pair settled for
trying to shush people instead.

     We are brief Summer lightning,
     We are swift as swallows' flight.
     We are sparks that spiral upwards,
     In the darkness of the night.
     We are frost upon the window,
     We won't pass this way again,
     In the end only love remains.

Across the Furinkan schoolyard ripples of silence spread, as the spell
of leaping flame and swirling wind touched briefly here and there and
then passed on.

     Tonight the Harvest Moon hangs over the valley,
     I see the hills shine, in its silvery light.
     It's the same old Moon, that shines down upon me,
     And'll light my way, till I'm by your side.

     For where I go, You go with me, 
     Though the miles keep us apart.
     Your kisses on my lips, and your arms around me,
     And your gentle hands, always on my heart.

Some heard in the song confirmations of theories. Some did not. 

     We are brief Summer lightning,
     We are swift as swallows' flight.
     We are sparks that spiral upwards,
     In the darkness of the night.
     We are frost upon the window,
     We won't pass this way again,
     In the end only love remains.

Nabiki, walking just behind Ranma and Akane, marveled. She had always
known that her little sister was good at martial arts, but who would
have thought that _this_ was hiding under there, too. 

     Well who scattered these diamonds,
     through the vault of Heaven?
     Who drew the curve of the magpie's wing?
     Who shaped your face, and what made you love me?
     Where is the heart of every living thing?

     Well, I guess I don't know, and I don't care either.
     I know you love me, how could it not be?
     And I am yours, now and forever,
     'Til my lips fall silent, and my eyes can't see.

Somewhere in the back of her mind words like 'Idol' and 'Agent' were
flashing, surrounded by scads of beautiful yen signs, but for the
moment even Nabiki was lost in the song.

     We are brief Summer lightning,
     We are swift as swallows' flight.
     We are sparks that spiral upwards,
     In the darkness of the night.
     We are frost upon the window,
     We won't pass this way again,
     In the end Dear, only love remains.

Ranma and Akane entered the schoolyard to a wall of stunned silence. 

Akane almost blushed, but Ranma smiled broadly and spread her arms wide
and the walls of Furinkan picked up her shouted "Good Morning,
Furinkan!" and blurred it back into a roaring cheer. 

Yuka hurtled from her position by the doors with a cry of "Ranma-san,
Akane-chan!" Like a hyperactive heat-seeking missile she hurled herself
into Ranma's arms shouting "Thank you! Thank you for saving Sayuri-
chan!" Slipping free from a slightly staggered Ranma she turned on
Akane, and froze with a cry of shock.

Yuka's wailed "Akane-san! What happened?!" pretty well silenced the
cheering and when Yuka gently grasped Akane's blushing face by the chin
and turned her head everyone could see the scars - and see, also, the
night-black void of the eye beneath them, lit now by nebulas of flaming
red and swirling gold.

The stunned silence lasted for several seconds as Akane's blush
achieved near nuclear proportions but the blush faded instantly when
Yuka broke the silence ... by bursting into tears.

Akane swept Yuka into her arms and hugged her hard. "Shh, Yuka-chan.
It's all right. I'm not hurt, it's just a scar, like; the eye still
works."

"But ... *snff* ... I mean, are you sure Akane-san? It looks like ..." 

Akane blushed again, but rallied, "I'm _sure_, believe me. It looks
weird as hell, but everything works just fine."

"But _how_?" Yuka said.

"Oh, well," Ranma said, dryly, "she _is_ a hero, you know." 

"But then why don't _you_ have one, Ranma-san?" someone called. 

Ranma ran a possessive hand over her flaming hair and said, "Each to
their own." 

A small wave of chuckles was broken by another cry from the rear ranks:
"Three cheers for Ranma and Akane!"

"Banzai!!" 

Ranma smirked and covered her mouth with her fan as Akane's blush went
beyond Mega-Nuclear to Don't Point That At My Planet. 

"_Banzai!!_" 

Akane resolved to kill the person who had spoken, but afterwards.
Still, no-one had ever cheered _her_ before. When you came down to it,
it was kind of nice.

"BANZAI!!" 

And the left eye in her thrown back face flamed, briefly, a solid gold.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Next:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part C: When I Was A Fighting Man, The Kettle-Drums They Beat


'Til next,
Eric Hallstrom, 01/16/2001