He was running for his life, that much he knew. He couldn't remember who he was, or where, but he knew that if he stopped he would die. He ran, and dodged, and leaped, wondering briefly as he did so why he was running on four legs instead of two, but he couldn't take the time to think, because the footsteps were thundering behind him, getting louder and louder, shaking the whole house. Yes, he was in a house, but something was wrong, the scale was way off, chairs and tables towered above him. He was trapped in a giant's house, and the giant was after him, and he couldn't fight, and he couldn't hide, all he could do was run, and run, and hope to find a door left open, a window left unguarded, but there wasn't anything, there was no way out, and suddenly a giant hand swooped down, and grabbed him by a piece of cloth tied around his neck, and he was choking, and gagging, and gasping for air. A deep, mocking voice boomed out, "Look at this tasty morsel. Come, my little friend, I'd like to invite you to stay for dinner."
The room swung around him crazily, sickeningly, as the giant carried him to a huge pot of boiling water that looked to be the size of a bathtub. Water! If he could get to the water he'd be safe. Yes! But then the giant stopped, and pulled him back away from the water that was his only hope, saying with a laugh, "What am I doing? It would be much too cruel to cook you alive. Don't worry, I'll do the humane thing and relieve you of your suffering quickly."
His vision was beginning to blur, but he could make out the face of the being holding him, and somehow he knew that face, knew those hated features, twisted now in an evil grin, the black hair pulled back in a short pigtail.... Before he could put a name to that face, he saw the knife in the giant's other hand, coming toward his throat, and he seemed frozen in fear, he couldn't do anything but hang there limply, and then there was a searing pain, and he felt a chill begin to spread through his body, as his vision dimmed, and the world went black....
He sat bolt upright on his futon, his hands clutching his neck. He would have screamed, but his throat seemed paralyzed, and for a moment he was still caught in the dream, feeling his life draining from the gash beneath his chin. Then he came back to himself and shuddered, as his heart raced and the blood pounded in his ears. *It was only a dream, just a dream,* he thought, striving to convince himself. But his breath was still coming in short gasps, and his muscles trembled, as if he had been running at top speed. He closed his eyes, centered himself, forced his breathing back to a more normal rhythm, slowed his rebellious heart until it no longer seemed ready to leap from his chest. *What the hell was that about?* thought Ranma. *Why am I dreaming I'm Ryoga, with some twisted version of myself out to kill me?*
No answers were forthcoming. Normally, he might have gotten up and gone down to the dojo to work off some of his tension, but he was exhausted. He desperately needed some sleep. *And what if I ran into someone? What if I ran into Kasumi?* He gulped. *I know it wasn't my fault, but how am I going to face her? Or Akane?*
He lay back down. Surely things would look better in the morning. With the discipline instilled by years of training, he forced his worries from his mind, and was able, before too long, to drift back off. Ranma slept, and as he slept, he began to dream....
He dreamed that he was flying, high above the earth. He banked and soared as the sun shone warmly upon him. He was on his way to see his love. She had summoned him, and although she hadn't said it in so many words, he was sure that today she had realized that she should stop chasing a foolish dream, today she would admit her love for him.
He glided along effortlessly, picturing the upcoming reunion, as she ran at last into his arms, when he heard a distant roar, and then felt a sudden, shattering pain in his side. Stunned, he fell from the sky, his mind afire with pain. He spiraled into the ground, the impact breaking several ribs and driving the jagged ends through his lungs. He lay, unable to move, unable even to think of anything except the pain sheeting through him.
A blurred form loomed over him. "Shampoo would love a roast duck for dinner," a voice said. "What's this, not quite dead yet? Better finish the job." The figure raised a huge foot and placed it on his neck. Slowly, slowly, it began to crush the life from him. White flashes obscured his vision as he struggled for air; he heard a sudden crack, and....
Ranma shot up in bed again, heart racing as before. *Oh man, now I'm Mousse? What's going on? And what's the deal with me eating myself? I mean, Ranma trying to eat Ryoga and Mousse. This is crazy!* He glanced over at his father, sleeping nearby. *And he snores through it all. That's typical.* He pulled his knees up under his chin. *I don't get it. I almost never dream, least not that I can remember when I wake up, and now I got two in a row that scare me half to death? Maybe it's from getting hit with those potions last night. Getting that note from Ryu Kumon a few days ago probably didn't help either.* He yawned. *Man, I just gotta get some sleep. Maybe if I go work out a little I can wear myself out enough to sleep without dreaming.*
Ranma stole silently down to the dojo. He ran through a series of katas at varying speeds, and then began throwing punches and kicks against an imagined opponent, faster and faster, until his hands and feet were blurs. He strove to release the pain and terror of the vividly remembered dreams with each blow. Slowly he wound down, until he was standing in the middle of the dojo, chest heaving, covered in sweat. *If I can't get to sleep after that, I might as well give up.* After a quick bath, he lay back down, and soon dozed off. And as he slept, he began to dream....
His exertions paid off to the extent that he stayed asleep the rest of the night, but his sleep was continually disturbed by a variety of nightmares. In one series, he found himself first as Ukyo, then as Shampoo, and finally as Kodachi. In each case, he (or rather, in the dream, she) pursued Ranma, only to be scorned, derided, and finally rejected. Each time, in utter despair, she ended by taking her life, Ukyo by cutting her wrists, Shampoo by hanging, and Kodachi by poison. And each time Ranma went into another dream without rest or letup.
He dreamed of himself as Genma, his own father, watching as Ranma, his son and heir, disemboweled himself before the tear-filled eyes of a grieving Nodoka. After she had delivered the finishing stroke, he took the blade from his son and followed suit. And in the seconds before his wife brought the katana down on the back of his neck, his mind was filled, not with pain, or fear, but with overwhelming grief at the knowledge of how badly he had failed the son he loved so much.
The dreams repeated themselves, with minor variations, all through the night. Finally, as the early light of the morning began to fill the room, he had a new dream. Now he seemed to float, a nameless, disembodied observer, above the scene, as Akane married Ranma at last. He saw that it was not the joyous occasion he had sometimes dreamed of in his most private thoughts, but a union forced on them by their parents and the demands of honor. He watched as time flowed swiftly by, as Akane, trapped in a loveless marriage, endured the insults and abuse of an uncaring husband. At first she fought back, but as the months and years passed, even her spirit bent and finally broke, leaving her little more than a pale ghost, ignored by her husband and pitied by all others. And all this the dreaming Ranma watched, filled with grief, and horror, and rage at the man who had done this to her, until finally it was too much for him, and he awoke to the new day trembling, with tears spilling silently down his face and soaking his pillow.
He lay still for a time, unable to move. Finally he whispered, "What's happening to me? Am I going nuts? All these dreams with me as some kind of monster.... And I feel like I haven't gotten any sleep at all." He staggered to the bathroom in a daze and threw some cold water on his face, followed of course by some hot, and made his way downstairs.
Akane had awakened early that morning, feeling a little guilty about the beating she had given Ranma the night before. Not that he hadn't deserved it of course - but she had to admit that what had happened hadn't been entirely his fault. And things had been going along pretty well, too. Perhaps she had over-reacted a little bit.
That was the root of her problem. Ranma and Akane had been getting on quite well recently, Ranma several times passing up obvious opportunities to insult Akane, and Akane generally not thumping Ranma when he hadn't been able to resist. This last week Akane had made him curry for dinner and Ranma had eaten it without protest and without gagging, and she had actually listened to his explanation when she found him in yet another compromising situation with Shampoo.
Maybe she should apologize, she thought as she went downstairs. It wasn't as if Ranma would ever attack Kasumi in what passed for his right mind. As she thought this, she turned the corner and found Ranma and Kasumi lying on the floor, locked in a close embrace.
What happened when a tired, rather morose Ranma came down to eat provides an instructive example of the perils of eyewitness testimony. He slouched in and sat down wearily. Nabiki glanced up and said, with something less than her customary tact, "Ranma, what's up with you? You look positively awful!" He closed his eyes and said dully, "I had some pretty bad dreams. Nightmares."
Nabiki raised her eyebrows and said jokingly, "Guilty conscience?"
"Huh? No, no way. Probably just like a hangover or something from last night." Still, the thought stuck with him. After all, in terms of curses, Ryoga and Mousse were a lot worse off than he was, and he was responsible for them being cursed, directly in Ryoga's case, indirectly in Mousse's. As for the girls, it couldn't be much fun hanging around waiting for some guy to make up his mind, knowing that the odds were against them. Shampoo had had to leave her home, her family, and her friends behind. Kodachi - okay, he couldn't feel too sorry for Kodachi. But Ukyo - he didn't want to think about what knowing him had cost her. *It was my stupid father that got us engaged, and then ran out on her,* he thought glumly, *but that doesn't help her any. I don't know what I could do to help her, except marry her. And I don't want to marry her. She's a friend!*
His thoughts grew increasingly depressed. *Yeah, I sure treat her like a friend, don't I? Show up to bum free food off her, or complain about my life. And what do I ever do for her in return? Nothing.
*And my dad. My stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing dad. Most of my problems are because of him, but it's because of me that he can't ever see Mom again. Yeah, he's screwed up my life, but I don't want to see him dead.
*And Akane.... It wouldn't really be like that if we ... got married, would it? I mean, sure we fight a lot, and sometimes I don't know when to keep my mouth shut, and I say stupid things that hurt her feelings, but I would never ... I mean....* Somehow he couldn't finish his thought, and that depressed him even more.
Just then Kasumi came in carrying breakfast. Ranma's abstracted gaze happened to meet Kasumi's eyes, whereupon both of them blushed furiously and tried to look somewhere, anywhere else without being too obvious about it.
Ranma's take on events was fairly straightforward. *Oh man, I can't believe I did that, and to Kasumi! Now she's too embarrassed even to look at me. Great, the only person in this family I really got along with and now she can't stand me.*
Kasumi's thoughts would have come as a shock to the others in the room - for that matter, Kasumi herself was rather shocked. Younger men, as she had stated before, bored her, and Ranma was not only three years younger than she was, he was engaged to her sister, and they were obviously fond of each other, although for some reason they seemed to have rather odd ways of showing it. Last night, however, she had dreamed about Ranma, a vivid dream reliving the events of the previous evening, and as she fixed breakfast she had found herself remembering them again.
The Tendos and the Saotomes had been eating dinner in normal fashion, with no more than the normal amount of desultory bickering between Ranma and Akane, Ranma and his father, Akane and her father, Ranma and Nabiki, etc. when suddenly Shampoo came bursting in through the wall, saying cheerfully, "Nihao, Ranma! Now you WILL go on date with Shampoo!" as she expertly tossed a specially doctored nikuman into Ranma's mouth. Now, in fact, there was nothing too unusual about that, and Ranma would normally have been able to spit it out, except that Kodachi chose that moment to come bounding in from the backyard crying, "Ranma darling! I've come to take you away from all this!" as she tossed a bouquet of black roses into Ranma's lap, which exploded into a dark mist (the bouquet, that is, not the lap). The paralysis powder caught Ranma by surprise just as he was inhaling, and he ended up choking on the nikuman and swallowing it. Everything seemed to freeze for a moment, as Shampoo and Kodachi stared at each other, and everyone else stared at Ranma, whose eyes were glazing over as he turned several interesting colors not normally encountered outside one of those really big boxes of crayons.
Kasumi was just about to invite their unexpected guests to sit down (Shampoo was a nice girl, if perhaps a bit forward, but she had a hard time warming to Kodachi - still, one should always try to be polite to guests, even if they have just broken into your house, especially since they were also Ranma's fiancées, or girlfriends, or something) when Ranma's eyes suddenly focused on her as he said loudly, "Kasumi, I love you!" Ranma followed up this unexpected declaration by leaping across the table, scooping her up in his arms, and then bounding outside and onto the roof. Kasumi was too astonished to react. At first, she couldn't believe what was happening. Not that getting carried off across the rooftops was unheard of in their household, but it had never before happened to her. Then too she was surprised at Ranma's strength, which she had seen, but never experienced firsthand. He carried her effortlessly, and his leaps and landings were made with such controlled power that there was hardly any sense of impact. It felt like ... flying.
Ranma stopped several rooftops away and set her down gently. She felt breathless and a little giddy. Then before she had quite recovered Ranma was kissing her passionately. Kasumi had been kissed before, but never quite like this. Most of the boys she had known in school had either found her intense devotion to things domestic boring, or had been intimidated by the fact that she always seemed years older than anyone else in the class. As one of her would-be admirers had put it, "It's like trying to date a really good-looking friend of your mother's. You keep thinking she's going to pat you on the head and tell you not to be silly." There had been those unfortunate incidents with a couple of her teachers, which she had handled by her usual policy of resolutely ignoring unpleasantness as long as possible, but there had been nothing to prepare her for being kissed, quite fervently, on a rooftop in the moonlight, by a boy who was really rather handsome, when you thought about it. Which you really shouldn't, of course. Think about, that is.
Just about then Akane had shown up, and Ranma had departed at high speed, aided by a powerful and well-placed kick. But the whole business had left Kasumi feeling curiously unsettled, and the dream she had had later that night, in which Akane had not shown up when she did, had only strengthened that feeling. So when she chanced to meet Ranma's eyes for the first time since the events of the previous evening, it's not surprising that she blushed. And not too surprising that as she started to back away from the table she uncharacteristically caught her foot and stumbled. Ranma leaped forward without thinking and managed to catch her just before she hit the ground, only to overbalance and fall on top of her. This was the point, of course, at which Akane walked in.
Akane's reaction was, for her, rather a mild one. She merely grabbed Ranma by his pigtail and threw him into the pond in back, screaming, "Why don't you do everyone a favor and DIE, Ranma!"
With a Herculean effort that would, alas, forever go unappreciated by the rest of the world, Kasumi regained her self-possession and sat up. "Ranma was trying to catch me after I tripped and fell, Akane," she said mildly. "I don't think you needed to help him up quite so vigorously."
Akane flushed, but couldn't seem to find anything to say. Stamping over to the table, she took her place and began eating while casting occasional glances out into the yard in what she fancied was an unobtrusive manner. She saw that the now female Ranma had gotten out of the pond and was sitting on one of the bordering rocks with her legs drawn up to her chest, resting her forehead on her knees. When Akane had finished eating, she was both annoyed and concerned (she couldn't quite decide which feeling predominated) to see that Ranma hadn't moved from that position. *What's his problem? Is he sulking?* She sighed in exasperation. *I'd better go talk to him.* But as she stood up she was startled to see Ranma get up and leap over the wall into the street. "Where's that idiot going?"
She didn't realize that she had spoken the last question out loud until Nabiki said idly, without looking up from the manga she was reading, "I don't know, but you might want to go after him. With his luck, he's probably hit his head and thinks he's a girl again. Or, since he was talking about nightmares, he might be having some kind of bad reaction from the drugs last night."
"What nightmares?"
"When he came in he looked like death warmed over, and he said something about having some bad nightmares. He seemed pretty shook up."
As Akane vaulted over the wall in pursuit of Ranma, she thought, *Ranma admitted he had nightmares? It must have been pretty bad, the jerk's so paranoid about showing any form of weakness,* conveniently forgetting that this was one of the things she admired about him. *Now where ... there he is. Good grief, he's almost out of sight!*
Akane started to run after her and very slowly began to gain. Fortunately Ranma wasn't running at top speed or she'd never have managed it. She also wasn't trying to lose Akane; in fact, as far as she could tell, Ranma never looked back once. She wondered where Ranma was going. She just kept running in a straight line with no apparent goal in mind.
*This is no good,* Akane thought. *I don't have time to go chasing that dummy all over town.* She called out, "Ranma. Ranma, wait up a minute. Ranma! Where are you going, you idiot!" Ranma continued running without pause. Just as Akane was starting to feel confident of catching up, Ranma stopped in the middle of the bridge she was crossing and leaped up on the railing to look down at the water below.
"What!? Ranma! No! RANMA!" Akane put on a burst of speed just as Ranma stepped off the railing and disappeared from sight.
After Ranma had lain in the Tendos' pond for a time, staring blankly up at the sky, she climbed out slowly and sat huddled wearily on a rock. Akane's words kept resounding in her brain. "Do everyone a favor and die." Over and over, until the sheer repetition had lulled her into a trancelike state. Eventually she started thinking again, but her thoughts seemed curiously muffled and distant, as the sound of her own heartbeat started pounding away in her head, louder and louder, until her whole body seemed to reverberate with the bass line of an inaudible melody.
*If I died, it wouldn't cure Ryoga and Mousse, but I wouldn't be in their way anymore. Ukyo, Shampoo, Kodachi, and ... and ... Akane ... could find guys who could treat them right and don't have more than one fiancée or turn into girls. My dad could see Mom again. Mom would be sad I died, but at least she wouldn't have to watch me commit seppuku and then cut off my head. I guess ... I guess everyone would be better off if I was dead.*
Suddenly, she felt a sense of release. A decision had been reached. The problem, all her problems, were solved. There was only one thing left for her to do, and then she could rest. She was looking forward to a good, long rest; she was so very tired.
She got up, jumped over the wall, and went running down the street. She didn't worry about where she was going; somehow she felt she would know when she got there. She ran, unconsciously timing her steps to the throbbing in her head, until she got to the middle of a bridge, where she stopped at the prompting of some internal voice. She jumped onto the railing and looked down at the water. How appropriate. It was falling into water that had caused so many of her problems; it was only fitting that water should now provide the solution. She almost seemed to hear a voice somewhere, calling her, but it was far away, drowned out by the sound of the blood rushing in her ears. She stepped forward, and fell, so slowly it seemed, toward the promise of peace and uninterrupted sleep.
After what seemed several minutes, Ranma hit the water and plunged deep below the surface. She hung suspended, weightless, as the water seemed to lave away her sadness. She relaxed, and was just about to exhale, and then breathe deeply of the friendly water, when something collided with her. Her eyes popped open as she instinctively grabbed at what turned out to be a body. There was just enough light filtering down from the surface to make out the unconscious form of ... Akane! Snapped from her lethargy, Ranma kicked frantically for the surface. Just like the fall, her ascent seemed to take forever. She struggled for the shore, dragging a limp Akane with her.
She fought to hold back the panic threatening to overwhelm her as she began performing CPR. "C'mon Akane, breathe. You gotta breathe! I'm the one who's supposed to die, not you, you stupid tomboy!" Finally, Akane shuddered, coughed up some water, and commenced breathing normally. Ranma bowed her head and started to cry. She finally managed to choke back the sobs when she noticed that Akane still hadn't awakened. She picked up Akane and began to run, her mind so dazed that she had no conscious idea where she was going. Eventually one coherent thought emerged from her mental chaos. *I almost killed her. If she'd jumped a few seconds later, or a few inches to the side, she'd be dead, and I'd have killed her.*
Ranma looked up to see that she had stopped outside Dr. Tofu's clinic. After staring vacantly at the door for a minute she managed to open it and stagger through. Dr. Tofu looked up in surprise when Ranma walked in carrying Akane, a reversal of what he was used to. "Ranma, what's wrong? Put Akane on the bed over here and tell me what happened."
"She fell in the water. She almost died. It's my fault. I pulled her out. I got her breathing again. She won't wake up. She almost died. It's my fault."
Dr. Tofu stared at Ranma, who was speaking in a monotone while gazing blankly at Akane's still form without seeming to see her. Suddenly Ranma crumpled to the floor and lay unmoving. Leaping forward, Dr. Tofu picked her up and got her onto another bed, checking in the process to make sure that Ranma was still breathing. After a moment's indecision, he turned to check Akane. "Lungs seem clear," he muttered. Parting the hair on her scalp, "Continued unconsciousness probably related to blow on the head. Not a bad one, should be safe to awaken her if needed." Turning to Ranma, "Deeply unconscious, no external sign of injury. Something seems wrong with the balance of his ki, though I can't put my finger on it. Which is the cause and which the effect, I wonder." He thought a moment. "I'll have to wake Akane and try to get some answers. I'd better start heating some water too. Perhaps changing Ranma back to male will help."
He found the appropriate pressure points and was soon rewarded by the sight of Akane opening her eyes and struggling to focus on him. "Dr. Tofu? Where...." She sat bolt upright and clutched her head in pain. "Ranma! Where is he? Is he all right? What happened?"
"Calm down, Akane. Ranma's over there. He's unconscious, but appears unhurt. As for what happened, I was hoping you could tell me. Ranma came in carrying you, saying something about you falling in the water and almost dying. Apparently he got you breathing again, and brought you here. He kept saying that it was his fault, and then he collapsed."
Holding her head as the ache slowly subsided, Akane fought to collect her wits. "Ranma was acting kind of weird this morning. When he took off running, I followed him. He came to the middle of a bridge and climbed the railing. I was yelling at him, but it was like he didn't even hear me. Then he jumped off. I thought - I was afraid he was trying to kill himself. I jumped in after him, and I must have hit my head on something in the water, because I don't remember anything after that."
Dr. Tofu blinked. "Ranma? Try to kill himself? Are you sure, Akane? Despite his problems, Ranma doesn't seem the type of person to do something like that."
"I know, but I thought it might have something to do with what went on last night. You see, Ranma got hit with a double dose of drugs, from Shampoo and Kodachi, and started acting a little strange. He grabbed Kasumi and ran off with her, and started kissing her, and ..." her voice trailed off as she realized what she'd said.
Dr. Tofu's eyes began to glaze over. "K-Kasumi?" Then he did a double take. "He WHAT??!!"
Fearing the possible consequences to Ranma, Akane hastened to try to perform a little damage control. "It's okay, nothing happened! After I - ah - got Ranma to calm down he passed out and I had to carry him home and put him to bed. He said something to Nabiki this morning about having nightmares last night, and then after we had a little - um - misunderstanding he went running off."
Shaking off the appalling vision that had arisen before him, the doctor strove to consider Ranma's case objectively. "Over the last several months he's been exposed to multiple head injuries, magic spells, and drugs and chemicals of various sorts. It's possible the cumulative effect could be some temporary personality change, even suicidal impulses." He poured hot water on Ranma, triggering the change, and examined him again, but was unable to bring him out of his unconscious state. He shook his head. "Something's not right here. Akane, could you bring Cologne here, please?"
"Why do you want her?"
"She knows the drug Shampoo used, she knows a good deal about Jusenkyo, and she knows things about ki that I don't. I'm hoping she can help. Since it's Ranma, I assume she'll be willing to." He studied Ranma a moment longer. "And Akane? Please hurry."
Hearing the unusually serious tone in the doctor's voice, Akane suppressed the rest of her questions and sped to the Nekohanten. Ignoring a startled look from Shampoo, who was waiting on tables, she went into the kitchen and told Cologne, "Ranma's lying unconscious in Dr. Tofu's clinic. Dr. Tofu's worried and wants you to come right away."
Cologne stared at her thoughtfully for several seconds and said simply, "Very well." Taking her stick, she hopped into the dining room and told Shampoo, "I have to go out. Take over the kitchen and tell Mousse he'll have to handle all the tables. And tell him to keep his glasses on."
Shampoo blinked in surprise. "Where you going, great-grandmother? And what that violent girl want? This about Ranma?"
"This is no time for questions, child. If there is anything you should know, I'll tell you later. For now, do as you're told."
Leaving an obviously troubled Shampoo behind, Cologne went outside, followed by Akane. Once outside, Cologne said only, "I shall meet you at the clinic, girl. Get there as quickly as you can." With that, she darted away, hopping on her stick at an incredible pace. Akane ran after, as quickly as she could, but had no chance of keeping up. She kept on doggedly, and soon arrived back at the clinic, where she found Dr. Tofu briefing the old woman on what had transpired.
When the doctor had finished, Cologne turned to Akane and commanded her, "Tell me everything that happened this morning from the moment you first saw son-in-law."
Akane would normally have bridled at Cologne's abruptness, but her concern for Ranma was great enough to overcome her pique. She told the old woman everything she could remember. Cologne gazed at Ranma silently for some time before Akane ventured to ask if she knew what was wrong with Ranma. Cologne hesitated, then stated baldly, "Ranma is dying."
"What! Why?!"
Cologne continued to study Ranma as she said, almost absently, "You have probably heard of people losing the will to live, during a serious illness perhaps. Occasionally it occurs that an extremely strong-willed person, such as a highly trained martial artist, decides for some reason to die. Such a one can simply will himself or herself to death fairly rapidly. Among our people this is known as the 'death spiral'. It seems that something similar is happening to my son-in-law. His spirit appears to be consuming itself at an incredible pace, almost burning itself up before our eyes. I would estimate that he will be dead in less than half an hour."
Akane stared at her, unable to credit what she had heard. "But there's something you can do, right? You can bring him out of this, can't you?"
"I have never known anyone to be brought back after entering the death spiral, girl."
Akane sat next to the bed, looking at Ranma, her mind trying to grasp what Cologne had told her. She'd denied their engagement, fought with him, even broken up with him, but it had been a long time since she had given any real thought to the prospect of life without him. "You idiot," she whispered, "why are you doing this? Is your life really that bad?" She struggled to hold back the tears that sprang to her eyes. "Please don't do this, Ranma. Please don't die. I didn't mean what I said earlier. I don't mean most of the things I say, I just get so angry sometimes." Behind her she heard Cologne and Dr. Tofu engaged in a heated discussion, but she couldn't summon the energy to look around, or even to listen. She reached out and gently stroked his cheek. "When was the last time I touched your face without hitting you? I can't even remember." Then softly, almost inaudibly, "Don't go. Please don't go."
Suddenly she heard a choked off cry from behind her. She turned around in time to see Dr. Tofu slump to the floor, unconscious. "What's going on?"
Cologne said with a slight smile, "The doctor and I disagreed on the best course of treatment for son-in-law. At my age you don't have time for a lot of long, drawn-out arguments, so I decided his outlook might be improved by a short nap."
"What treatment?" Akane asked in confusion. "I thought you said there wasn't anything you could do."
"I may have been too hasty. Ranma's problem is that he is willing himself to die. The best way to combat that is to infuse him with a will to live. You want to live, don't you my dear?"
"Well, sure. Do you mean you can borrow some of my willpower to keep Ranma from dying?"
"That's the idea. Of course there is one slight complication, which is what our sleeping friend objected to. In order to infuse Ranma with your will to live, I'll have to kill you first," said Cologne pleasantly.
"What! You're - you're kidding, right?"
"No. Ranma's life is more important to me than yours is, and with you out of the way he'll be free to marry my Shampoo." With that, Cologne lashed out with her stick and hit Akane in the shoulder. Pain exploded through her mind, and her right arm hung limp. She cried out in shock, only barely managing to leap aside as Cologne struck again. She was as close to complete panic as she had ever been. Ranma, using the cat fist, might have a chance against Cologne. By herself, she had none. She continued to dodge while hurling every object within reach, tables, chairs, whatever. She risked a glance at Dr. Tofu, but he was still out. The distraction, though momentary, gave Cologne an opening, and she caught Akane in the knee. The pain was even more intense this time, and Akane screamed as she fell heavily to the floor.
Cologne approached, observing, "Time to end it now, girl." She raised the stick for what Akane knew would be the final blow.
Akane cried out in desperation, "Dr. Tofu! Ranma! Somebody! Help me!" As she gathered herself to try to avoid the next blow, she caught sight of Ranma's still form behind the menacing figure of Cologne. Even in her panic, she was dumbfounded when Ranma's eyes suddenly opened. Before she could react, twin beams of pale green light leaped from his eyes and struck Cologne. The old woman disappeared, blown out through the wall of the clinic at incredible speed. Stunned, Akane looked at the hole in the wall, and then back at her fiance. Ranma, a confused look on his face, asked her weakly, "Akane, are you okay?"
"Y-yes, I am, Ranma."
"Good. I was worried." With that, he closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep.
Akane sat and stared at him. Ever since she had awakened in the clinic, things had been happening so fast, she hadn't had time to think. Ranma had tried to commit suicide, Ranma had saved her life, Ranma was dying, Cologne was trying to kill her, and finally Ranma had defeated Cologne, with some attack she had never seen before, without even getting out of bed. And now, after being trapped in some "death spiral" from which no one had ever escaped, he had just spoken to her and then decided to take a nap. *Well why not?* she thought, feeling that a slight bout of hysteria might be just the thing. *He's had a pretty busy morning so far.*
Just then she heard a groan behind her, and turned to see Dr. Tofu struggling to his feet. "Dr. Tofu! Are you all right?" Without giving him a chance to answer, she rushed on, "Cologne went crazy and knocked you out, and then attacked me, and then Ranma woke up and blasted her with some kind of rays out of his eyes, and then he asked if I was okay, and now he seems to be asleep."
"So her plan worked," Dr. Tofu muttered. "How are you doing, Akane? Are you all right?"
"What? No, I'm not..." her voice trailed off, as she realized that the paralysis in her arm and leg had been only temporary, and that she apparently didn't even have a bruise to show for her ordeal. "I guess I am. But I thought she was trying to kill me! She said something about killing me in order to save Ranma."
Dr. Tofu shook his head. "No, that wasn't the idea. We both thought that whatever compulsion was driving Ranma to will himself to death was likely the same one that had led him to attempt suicide by diving off that bridge. From what you two said, it sounded as if what saved him the first time was that you jumped in after him, and that the need to save you overrode the compulsion, and permitted him to pull you from the water, give you artificial respiration, and bring you here. Cologne's idea was that if she put you in danger again, it might serve to help him break free of the trance he was in. Which it seems to have done," he said, examining Ranma. "She didn't want to tell you any of this, so that when you called for help, it would sound genuine, because you would truly be fearing for your life. I thought that was unnecessary, and needlessly cruel to you, but she seems to have won that dispute," he concluded ruefully, rubbing his neck.
While Dr. Tofu busied himself checking Ranma's condition, Akane sat beside the bed and gazed at her fiancé. "So you came back twice to save me. Oh, Ranma, I...." Her thoughts trailed off, unwilling even in the privacy of her own mind to examine the exact state of her feelings at that moment. Instead she thought with a wry smile, *So you gave me the kiss of life. It's strange. The first time you kissed me, you were trapped in the cat fist, and didn't remember it later. This time, I was unconscious, and don't remember a thing. I wonder if we'll ever kiss when we're both in our right minds.*
Hearing the door open, Akane looked up, and leaped into a defensive stance when she saw Cologne enter. "Calm down, girl," the old woman said testily. "I assume the doctor has explained I wasn't really trying to kill you. You might have figured that out on your own, since had I intended it, you'd be dead." Cologne nodded to the doctor as she went over to Ranma's bed. "Is he dead?"
"No," said Dr. Tofu, "he's still alive, and seems to be out of danger. Your plan appears to have worked, although I can't countenance your methods."
Cologne snorted. "I didn't get to be as old as I am by paying any attention to what doctors say, young man." She studied Ranma for a time before shaking her head.
This worried Akane enough to cause her to ask, "What is it? Is something still wrong with him?"
"No. In fact, just the opposite." The old woman regarded Ranma in a puzzled manner. "Son-in-law keeps surprising me. He was minutes away from death when I pretended to attack you." Recalling the pain she had suffered, Akane gritted her teeth but kept silent. Cologne continued, "I hoped he'd rouse himself and perhaps attempt to get up. I didn't think he could possibly summon enough ki to attack me, let alone with a form of attack I've never seen or heard of before. I came back expecting to find him dead, given the amount of energy he expended. Instead, though still far weaker than normal, he's resting peacefully, and is actually in slightly better shape now than when I first saw him." She shook her head again.
Reassured that Ranma was going to be all right, Akane asked, "Do you have any idea what started all this? Where this compulsion came from?"
Cologne sighed. "I don't know. The doctor asked if the potion Shampoo gave him last night could have caused this. I told him not by itself, probably not even combined with whatever that crazy Kuno girl used. But when you add in the cumulative effect of everything that's happened to son-in-law since he got here.... I just don't know." She sighed again and said reflectively, "I've never had this much trouble getting someone to do what I wanted him to. I've been so determined to bring him back to the village with us that I never stopped to sum it all up. I'd hate to think that my carelessness could have killed him."
Hearing what sounded like a tinge of sadness in Cologne's voice, Akane said gently, "Then why don't you leave him free to make up his own mind? I'm sure you can find some way to square that with the laws of your village. If you have any feelings for him, can't you do that?"
The old woman retorted crabbily, "It's not a question of the laws, or feelings. Yes, I can interpret the laws as I see fit. As for feelings, I'm a Chinese Amazon, girl. I don't like anyone outside our village, nor most of the ones living there. But I respect Ranma, and there are very few under fifty I can say that of. That's why he needs to marry Shampoo. My priority is the welfare of the village." She fell silent. "Which I may have put in jeopardy by my thoughtlessness. I'll have to think about this. Goodbye." And with that she hopped away.
As Akane stared after her, she heard a weak voice asking, "Akane? What's going on? What are we doing here?"
Turning to find Ranma awake again, she smiled and touched his hand. "How are you feeling? And how much do you remember about what's been happening?"
"I feel pretty weak and real confused. I remember getting up this morning, feeling pretty down." A shadow crossed his face. "Kasumi tripped, I caught her, and you threw me into the pond." Akane turned red and opened her mouth to say something until she noticed that Ranma continued to talk, his unfocused gaze looking not at her but somewhere into the past. "You told me to do everyone a favor and die." To Akane, his words seemed to have the physical impact of a sharp blow to the stomach; she couldn't seem to catch her breath. "Those words kept repeating in my head. I realized that everyone would be better off if I just died. It would solve everyone's problems if I died, even mine. Especially mine." No, it wasn't like a blow to the stomach, it was more as if all her insides had been scooped out. Her chest, her whole body felt hollow, ready to collapse in upon itself. Had she been responsible for starting all this?
Ranma seemed to warm to his subject, although he still sounded ... absent, distracted, the bulk of his attention focused elsewhere. "You know, I used to spend a lot of time worrying about my problems. What could I do about this situation with my mom? How could I get rid of this curse? How could I deal with my fiancees and would-be fiancees without a lot of bloodshed or people's lives getting wrecked? And all along it was so simple."
A potent mix of guilt and anger impelled Akane to burst out, "You IDIOT! That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!" Ranma's attention snapped back to the present as he gave her a startled look. "You think we'd be better off if you were dead? I ... Ukyo and Shampoo are in love with you, for some reason. You think if you die they're just going to say, 'Oh well, guess we'd better switch to some other guys?' Do you really think your death is going to make your mother happy?" She calmed slightly. "There aren't any easy answers, Ranma. All I know is that suicide may be the honorable thing to do sometimes, but here and now it's a cop-out."
Ranma stared up at the ceiling and frowned in thought. "You're right. I know that. So why'd I start talking like that? Why'd I jump off that bridge in the first place? Akane, whatever was screwing up my mind is still in there. I feel okay right now, but when I began drifting just now, it started again."
Akane was now extremely worried. Was somebody going to have to be with Ranma day and night to check on him? To buy herself time to think, she asked, "What do you remember after you jumped off the bridge?"
"I remember I was ready to drown myself when I felt you going by me. It was weird. I was all set to die, then I saw you, and the only thing I could think of was that I had to get you out of there. I got you to shore and started giving you mouth-to-mouth." Ranma looked puzzled. "When you started breathing, I should have been glad, but it was like my mind just wasn't working. The next thing I knew I was carrying you here, and I kept thinking over and over, 'I almost killed her. She almost died, and it was my fault.'" He shivered. "When Dr. Tofu told me you were going to be okay, it was like that was the only thing that was keeping me going. I just fell over, and I couldn't stop thinking about almost killing you. The next thing I remember is knowing you were in trouble and trying to save you."
Akane recalled the way he had saved her. "Do you remember what it was you did to Cologne?"
"Sure! I hit her with a ... funny, I can't seem to remember the name of that attack. Anyway, what I did was ... uh, I don't exactly remember what it was I did. What is all this? When I did it, I knew what I was doing. Why is it all gone now?" He looked at her, bewildered and frustrated.
"I don't know. I do know that whatever it was, I've never seen you do it before. And Cologne said she'd never seen or heard of it before."
"What? She came back? Where..." he yelled as he struggled to sit up. As she pushed him back down - surprisingly easy to do, she found - Akane explained Cologne's "cure".
"I always knew that old woman was nuts. Are you sure you're okay, Akane? I mean, first you almost drowned, then I wouldn't put it past Cologne to try something funny." He looked at her with real concern in his eyes and voice.
"Really, Ranma, I'm fine." As she said this, Akane knew it was not completely true. A warning bell was going off in the back of her mind. Akane found herself going back over the whole conversation they'd had. Something was wrong. Then she had it. Ranma hadn't insulted her once. He hadn't even seemed to have to fight back the impulse. Yes, they had been getting on better recently, but he was acting way too much at ease around her. She decided on a little test.
"I'm sorry if you were worried about me. I know it was kind of dumb to jump after you like that, since I can't swim very well, but I guess it worked out okay, huh?" Akane said brightly.
"I guess so," Ranma agreed with a smile, "since you did save my life doing it. Just try to be more careful, okay?"
"Okay." Now Akane had something else to worry about. Ranma hadn't denied being worried about her, had freely acknowledged that she had saved his life, and had missed an obvious opportunity to make reference to the fact that she swam about as well as a large rock. This was definitely not the Ranma she knew and lo- was engaged to.
After telling Ranma to rest, she went to Dr. Tofu and told him her concerns. He remarked thoughtfully, "This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Could he believe he's a girl again?"
"Let me think ... no, he said something about his curse and his fiancées. He's just being too nice."
The doctor laughed. "Most people wouldn't complain about that! But it does sound like some sort of personality change going on. Not too surprising, since the depression and attempted suicide is most unlike the normal Ranma. I'm not sure how much to make of it. I think the first thing to do is to watch him for the next couple of days, till he gets his strength back. From what you say, someone ought to be keeping an eye on him at all times. I can keep him here if you like."
"I guess Ukyo and Shampoo and I could take turns. Kasumi - no, on second thought that might be a bad idea. Nabiki, maybe, if she doesn't charge too much. Our dads.... We'll have to ask his father, Dr. Tofu, but why don't we take him back to our house. We'll set up a schedule for people to stay with him."
With Genma's help, she managed to get Ranma back to the house and into bed, a process he managed to sleep through despite being dropped a few times. He slept on, through Ukyo's visit, and then Shampoo's, on into the next day. When he finally awoke, he saw Nabiki sitting in the room with him, making notations in a large ledger.
Glancing up, Nabiki said, "Well, well, the sleeping beauty awakes."
He closed his eyes, not sure he was quite ready for this yet. "If you're supposed to be Prince Charming, I think you've been miscast."
She snorted. "Don't worry, I haven't kissed you - yet."
"Be still, my beating heart," he gibed, then groaned as he managed to struggle up to a sitting position.
"I must say, your repartee is rather snappier than usual. Other than that, you look like crap," Nabiki informed him.
"Oh? That's better than I feel," he said glumly. "Man, I'm about as weak as a kitten."
Nabiki blinked, and frowned at him.
"What? What is it?"
She looked at him appraisingly a moment longer, then shook her head. "Nothing, I guess."
As she turned her attention back to her work, Ranma took in his surroundings. It was his room, all right, or rather the room he shared with his father. So why did it seem so strange at first? He had noticed the same phenomenon before, when he woke up in the clinic. Everything was the way he remembered it, but he hadn't recognized it immediately. Was this - thing - affecting his memory now?