Hand of Glory

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum 

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakukan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

This copy of the story is from my centralized fanfiction archive
at http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic.  I can be reached by
e-mail at harnums@thekeep.org

***

     "Ryoga-kun?"
     
     Ah, yes.  There was a voice out there, somewhere, beyond 
the barriers of depression that he'd lain between himself and the 
world.  The shattered wreckage of the wedding lay about him 
across the dojo floor; the sprays of trampled flowers, the 
devastated toppled tower of the cake, the broken chunks of wood 
blackened by explosions.  

     "Ryoga-kun?"
     
     Ryoga raised a hand and brushed back dark forelocks from his
eyes, gazing up into the depths of Kasumi's large eyes as she 
knelt down in her elegant wedding kimono to speak to him.  Her 
hair had become slightly dishevelled from the elaborate bun it 
had been bound up into for the failed ceremony of the marriage; 
wisps of it teased gently about her face.  She looked 
uncharacteristically weary, faded, a slightly wilted flower.

     "Yeah?" he said finally, with an effort.
     
     "Everyone else has left.  We took Ranma inside and put him
to bed.  We finally got Shampoo, Ukyou and Kodachi to leave him 
alone and go home.  I need to clean up the dojo now."

     "Hmm," Ryoga commented as he stood up, brushing a stray bit
of ash from his sleeve.  Some part of what she'd said managed to
get through to him, and he looked around at the aftereffects of
the wedding carnage.  "Clean up?  By yourself?"

     "Yes, Ryoga-kun," Kasumi said.  He could see a veritable
army of cleaning supplies arrayed against a lone undamaged wall;
mops and brooms stood at attention alongside the lower ranks of
buckets and dustpans.  "Father's very upset and had to lie down,
and Akane's never been very good at housework, and Mr. and Mrs.
Saotome are having a talk, and Nabiki... well, Nabiki doesn't
really want to help."

     He slowly moved his head from side to side, taking in the
damage.  "But there's so much."

     "I have the time," Kasumi said.  A chance movement of her
head dropped a few loose strands of hair in front of her eyes,
and she pushed them up again with one slim hand.  "Now, I need
you out of here so I can clean, please."

     "Would you like some help?" he said hesitantly.  There 
really was a lot to clean up, even for a dozen people.  One by
herself would likely take the remainder of the day, and deep into
the night.

     "That's very sweet of you," Kasumi said with a smile.  "But
no."

     Ryoga hesitated, trying to think of something to say, but
the odd flatness of expression on Kasumi's face finally stopped
him.  "Okay."

     He began to walk towards the doors that would lead him
outside and to the lonely safety of the streets when a strange
itching at the base of his spine made him turn back, to face the
intent gaze of Kasumi.  "Is... everything okay, Kasumi?"

     "Take care, Ryoga," she said, turning away and walking
towards where the cleaning instruments lay against the wall.

     Shrugging, and feeling oddly troubled, Ryoga pushed open one
of the tall doors of the dojo that led outside and stepped into 
the back yard of the Tendo house, walking across carefully-kept
grass to the tall white wall and putting his hand on it.

     Then, he carefully followed the wall until he reached the
gate.  It was one of the tricks he'd learned in a lifetime of
getting lost, one of the methods that sometimes almost let him
feel as if he knew where he was going.  

     He stepped out of the gate and into the street beyond,
hearing from far away the sound of children laughing, little more
than a barest whisper.  The midday streets of Nerima were crowded
with people walking, their faces fixed in expressions joyful or
melancholy.  Ryoga had seen a lot of faces in his time, and in 
his experience, people tended to look sad most of the time.

     What to do now, he wondered.  The wedding was over.  Ranma
and Akane hadn't gotten married.  
     
     But his chances for Akane, those were long over, however he
might wish for things to be different.  They had been over since 
Ranma had wept, with Akane still in his arms, beside the flooded 
bowl of Jusendo, the stone of the mountain shattered by Ranma and 
Saffron's battle, scattered as if cast down by a god's hand.

     He remembered that all of them, even Kima and her troops, 
had simply stood and watched, in almost total silence, for the
few long, awful minutes in which no one knew if Akane was alive
or dead.  

     She had lived, oh, thank all that was good, because Ryoga
could not imagine what Ranma would have done had Akane died.  He
could not even imagine what he himself would have done.

     Ranma had won that one battle, at least.  How did the words 
go again?  May the better man win.

     And Ranma had proved it, finally, at Jusendo, when Saffron
had fallen sheathed in ice.  He had proved it with Akane in his 
arms, because Ryoga had always been a step behind Ranma the 
entire time, and had never even realized it.

     So what to do now, then?  
     
     Easy question, simple answer.  Walk.  Walk, and don't stop
walking until you found a reason.  

     His thoughts turned, for the briefest second, to Akari, but
he forced them to be still.  That was not a thing he wanted to
think of now.  

     As he began to walk, he reached into his pocket and pulled
out half of a torn photo wallet.  The half he had held Akari's
picture, her face softly graced with a smile.  She was beautiful,
and she loved him, but he did not even know if he could give her
what she wanted, whatever it was.  How could he hope to give her
what she desired, if he did not know what he desired?

     So he tucked the photo away, and began to walk.  He let his
feet guide him, and let his mind drift away, let sadness settle
across him like comfortable old clothes, familiar as a lover.

     How long he walked, he could not say.  Images of houses and
people, of streets and streetsigns, began to blend in his memory,
into one tangled web.  The sun crept into the west in the time he
walked, and, as he crossed a bridge across a canal in a place he
did not recognize, he paused for a moment to watch the slow roll
of the dying fires across the sky.  

     And as he waited, arms folded over his chest and elbows
resting on the old wood of the bridge, night began to flow like
ink across the sky, the last rays of the sun vanishing below the
horizon.  It seemed almost as if the sky were peeling back,
laying bare the darkness beneath.  He could see a few stars, the
brightest stars, dangling in the sky like jewels.

     "Hey there."
     
     Slowly, he turned, recognizing the voice, though not knowing
why she might be speaking to him.  "Hey."

     Nabiki inclined her head slightly and smiled at him, a
slender figure hid dimly in the falling of the night, a white
shirt clinging tightly to her body, almost too tightly, revealing
the definitions of the form beneath.  Hours ago, she had been in
a bulky kimono, awaiting the wedding of her sister that had not
occurred.  
     
     "What are you doing out here?" Ryoga asked, realizing his
eyes were wandering.  He cast them down, but that only drew his
attention to her long, slender legs, their shape obscured but not
hidden by the dark pants she wore.  

     "You're a block from my house, Ryoga," she said flatly,
smiling slightly.  "I was out for a walk and saw you looking all
depressed, so I thought I might try and cheer you up."

     "Who says I'm depressed?" Ryoga said defensively, not
trusting Nabiki in the least.  

     "You're almost always depressed, Ryoga," Nabiki said,
shrugging her shoulders and taking a step closer to him.  

     True enough, Ryoga thought silently.  "Why did you get so
nice all of a sudden?"

     Nabiki shook her finger at him, still smiling.  "I've always
been nice, Ryoga.  People just never seem to realize that under
my cold exterior, there beats a warm heart."

     She leaned forward slightly, her smile growing.  "And I
understand you, Ryoga."

     "You don't even begin to understand me," Ryoga said, his
voice very soft.  Far off from the night, there came the sound of
weeping, drifting on the flows of the evening breeze.  

     "Oh, but I do," Nabiki said, just as softly.  "You want to
be better than Ranma, don't you?"

     Ryoga half-turned away from her, scowling, but he said
nothing.  Her hand on his shoulder made him turn back, gentle but
inexorable pressure.

     "He's better than you," Nabiki said.  "He's been better
since you met him, and every time when it seems as if you might
have gotten better, he comes back and gets better than you."

     She laughed softly, a cruel sound.  "And he has Akane, and
you never will."

     "Go away, Nabiki," Ryoga said, looking deep into her dark
eyes, the expression of his face hard.  "If this is your way of
cheering me up, I'd hate to see what you'd be doing if you wanted
to depress me."

     "But I haven't got to the good part yet," Nabiki said,
disappointment in her tone.  "I haven't got to the best part of
all."

     She raised a slender hand and gently brushed his cheek,
feather-soft, her nails scoring lightly down his flesh.  "You
could have had her, Ryoga.  In the beginning, before she really
began to get attached to Ranma, you could have had her if you'd
tried.  She liked you, Ryoga.  She thought you were sweet.  If
you'd tried, she'd have been yours."

     Now her voice turned chiding, mocking.  "But you were a
coward.  You were so afraid that if you reached out she'd push
you away that you never bothered to try.  You were content to be
her little pet, cuddled to her breast while she slept."

     "You know about that?" Ryoga said in a strangled voice.
     
     Nabiki laughed again, and gently cupped his chin in her 
palm, tilting his head down to look again into the darkness of
her eyes.  "Ryoga-chan, I know you.  I know you in more ways than
you could ever imagine."

     "What do you want?" Ryoga said.  
     
     She released his chin and backed away slightly, a sardonic
expression on her face.  A single bead of sweat gathered on her
forehead, near the edge of her hairline, and trailed down to 
reach the bridge of her nose.  Ryoga's eyes followed it, followed
her finger as it reached up and wiped it away, then brought the
bead of sweat to her full lips.  They parted slightly, red like
rubies, red like cherries, red like blood, and the barest edge of
her tongue flickered out for a moment to taste it.

     "I want to help you, Ryoga," Nabiki said, in a voice like
the wind.  "I've helped so many people.  So many, many people."

     She stepped forward, reached up with her slim arms and
wrapped small hands around the back of his neck, interlacing her
fingers.  Ryoga was helpless; it was as if his blood had turned
to lead, his limbs to stone.  He could not move, as Nabiki came
in closer, body pressing against his.  The soft roundness of her
breasts beneath the thin shirt caressed the muscles of his chest,
and one of her long legs wrapped around one of his and drew their 
bodies closer, as her lips whispered against the hollow of his 
throat, the feel of her breath as hot as the summer night and as 
cold as the winter wind.

     "I will take you places you have never, ever been," she 
said.  "And I will show you things that you have never, ever
seen."

     He felt the light pressure of her tongue, tracing across his
throat, up to the ridge of his jawline.  He moaned softly, a
sound with longing in it, even as the rest of him repelled at
this.  "Nabiki..."

     And then she was gone from him, like the wind, standing back
again, her left hand extended, eyes darker than the night sky, a
smile on those lips, those, red, red lips.

     "Come on, Ryoga," she said softly.  "Take my hand.  That's
all you need to do for now.  Later on, there will be things to
sign.  The start, though, is when you take my hand.  I can start
to help you then.  I want to help you, Ryoga."

     She licked her lips.  "I want to help you so bad..."
     
     Ryoga felt his left hand, his left arm, tremble, begin to
rise as if by their own volition.  He saw Nabiki's eyes, like
hard and bright chips of flint, follow the motion of his hand,
and for a moment, just a moment, a look of such utter, terrible
hunger passed across the slender prettiness of her face that his 
very soul seemed to shrivel in the face of it.
     
     "Go on," she said.  "Take my hand.  You'll be better than
Ranma.  Akane can be yours.  Akari too.  I can give you what you
want.  I can give you things you don't even know you want."

     "You're not Nabiki, are you?" he heard his own voice say,
from far, far away, buried as if by long darkness.

     "Does it matter?" she said.  "I can give you what you want."
     
     Her eyes seemed to bore into his very being, and he realized
with an absolute and total terror that she had told the truth
before.  She knew him, in ways that he could not even begin to
imagine.  She knew his soul, his desires, the definition and span
of his fragile heart.  "Take my hand."

     Their fingers were inches away now, her hand steady as a
rock, his trembling like a leaf.  In moments, they would make
contact, their fingers intertwined, their hands embracing.

     "Take it," she said, like a command.  
     
     Ryoga's hand shook, as the time of the touch grew closer,
and he found his eyes drawn upwards to the dark sky, and the full
moon that was like an eye.  

     "Take the hand," Nabiki's voice said, distant and echoing,
rising from the air around him, the earth below.  

     Ryoga stopped.
     
     His left hand dropped to his side.
     
     He took a deep, shuddering breath, and spoke.  "Get back to
wherever you came from and leave me be."

     The hand of the girl in front of him dropped as well, and
her face twisted into an expression of awful fury, ancient as 
time.  "You fool.  Do you know how many search all their lives 
for what I have offered you?"

     "You can't give me what I want," Ryoga said, and turned
away.

     When he turned back, their was only emptiness, and a faint
stench, a vague scent of something burning.  

     Ryoga rested his elbow on the railing of the bridge and drew
another long breath.  He felt very, very tired.

     Slowly, like he had before, he reached into his pocket and
drew out the torn photo wallet.  He studied the definitions of
Akari's face in the dim evening light, the shape of cheekbone and
lip, the brightness of her eyes, the soft fall of her hair.

     Then he smiled, and, holding the photo in his cupped hands
as if it were the most precious thing in all the world, he began 
to walk again.  Overhead, the stars seemed to shine just a little
bit brighter.

                             THE END
                             
***

Author's Notes:

This story was written for a little contest that the folks at the
Church of Ryoga (http://www.ecr.mu.oz.au/~caseawr/cor.html) held
about a month back.  I'm proud to say it won second place.  ^_^

Thanks goes to Kun-chan and the other devotees of the Lost Boy,
without whom this fic wouldn't have seen the light of day.