Permanent
Part 25
Shadows of demons.
To say Ranma Saotome was drunk would be an understatement. After Soun Tendo had 
passed out she turned a few thoughts over in her head. Ryoga and Akane were 
acting more and more distant, Nabiki was sitting nearby watching television in a 
pair of cut off shorts that she found herself staring at every few moments, and 
worse yet, something still didn't feel right in the air. Happosai was well on 
his way out of Japan and things still didn't feel much better. She was also 
starting to get visions about some strange traveler at night, the figure seemed 
familiar, and yet distant somehow. Whoever it was had something long and 
menacing across their back and a longing feeling accompanied them. She wasn't 
sure if the feeling was from her or the figure. Ranma sank lower and lower into 
an odd depression and started to knock back sake as if it was water.
"Ranma! Haven't you had enough?" snapped Akane as she snatched the glass away as 
the sun slowly fell below the horizon behind her.
Ranma looked up at her and turned away in a sort of disgust. "Ya know -kane, you 
don't -preciate nothin I do for ya! I got you a cute fiancée, a future, demonic 
super powers, and you don't thank me or nothin!" 
Akane froze and stared at the girl in shock dropping the glass on the ground 
shattering it as both her sisters and Ryoga stared at her. "W-what?"
Ranma giggled to herself and leaned on her shoulder. "What? You think-think, you 
can keep secrets from me -kane-chan?"
Akane slowly turned and looked at the room as they stared at her. "Akane, what's 
she talking about?" said Ryoga carefully.
The Tendo girl blushed and looked away. "I got stronger somehow, I wasn't sure 
why, but I think it might have something to do with this." She pointed at her 
eye and sulked for a moment. "I was afraid of what might happen if I told 
you..."
Ranma slapped her across the face and snapped at her angrily. "What are ya 
stoopid? I knowed it all along!"
Ryoga narrowed his eyes at the red head and sighed. "Akane, when was the last 
time you got some sleep?"
"I haven't slept since I woke up from my injuries," she replied turning an even 
deeper crimson.
"Damn you Ranma! How dare you engage me to a Youma!" snapped Ryoga angrily as he 
lifted the drunken girl by her shirt and shook her. A moment later he was 
sprawled across the ground with a look of shock on his face. 
Ranma stood over him with a hard glare as she lowered her fists and smirked. 
"Remember your place Mr. P."
The boy bowed his head and simply sat there staring at the floor. "This is 
beyond belief! You don't have any right to do this to me!" He jumped to his feet 
and stared her down.
"Ryoga, if I didn't know you cared, I would have never done it in the first 
place. Stop hiding your feelings fool, I know you love her," she sat down calmly 
and simply stared forward watching Akane closely.
"Youma?" said Kasumi as she stepped back away from her sister with her hand over 
her mouth.
Akane smiled and looked down at her hand, it was a bittersweet revelation. 
"So...that's it is it?"
Ranma nodded grimly and sat back. "You should be more careful Akane, every 
amateur demon hunter in the city will be after you if you push your luck and run 
around at night like you have been. Sooner or later one of them will get lucky."
"How?" said the girl simply as she looked up and ignored the others completely.
Ranma shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "Those things you fought in the 
mansion turned you into one, they assimilate humans. If they had killed you the 
change would have been complete. I managed to stop most of the transformation 
while you were out, that's why it took you so long to wake up. I almost didn't 
make it in time."
Kasumi looked between her sister and Ranma with a worried look in her eyes. 
"Isn't there anything you can do Ranma?"
"Without killing her? No," replied the girl simply. "She isn't a full youma, if 
she chooses to live as a human she can quite easily. She can have a family and 
grow old and die."
Akane slowly nodded her head and relaxed. "If that's true, I can't carry on the 
Tendo blood line without tainting it," Everyone in the room froze and looked at 
her in shock. "I can't accept the engagement to Ryoga."
The boy looked at her coolly and smiled, "She's right Ranma." A faint flash of 
disappointment appeared in his face for a moment before he looked away. "I'm 
sorry."
The girl stopped and stared at them as her plans crumbled slowly to dust. "If 
that's the way you want it Mr. P." 
For a long moment nobody spoke, Akane sat uncomfortably as Ranma started to 
drink directly from the bottle. The pigtailed girl idly wondered if she should 
tell Soun about it or not. If Akane didn't want him to know she really didn't 
have any reason to give the girl's secret away. She stopped drinking and looked 
at the room. "Damn, I wasn't gonna tell anyone about that."
They all looked at her for a moment and she shrugged and lifted the bottle once 
again. "Ranma! You're unbelievable!" screamed Ryoga angrily as he stomped up to 
his room and slammed the door.
"Is he going to be all right?" asked Nabiki; she had been feeling kind of left 
out of the conversation. She had known about Akane's nighttime trips, but this 
was a little more than she expected.
"He'll be fine, we get this way every once and a while," replied Ranma with a 
half-hearted shrug. She promptly fell face first onto the table as the alcohol 
finally overpowered her. 
"Well, that was certainly interesting," commented Kasumi as she started to clean 
up the mess.
Akane looked at her sisters and sighed, "Look, don't tell daddy about this OK?"
"As if he'd believe us," commented Nabiki dryly. She knew that he would if she 
said something, especially considering what he had seen since Ranma had come 
into their lives. Still, it seemed to make her sister feel better. "You do 
realize that you'll have to come up with something to break the engagement with 
Ryoga if you don't want him to know about this."
Akane froze and looked up at the room where her former fiancée was. "Oh, yes. 
I'll have to talk with him about this."
 
Ryoga Hibiki was not happy, Ranma had betrayed him terribly. The Hibiki 
line...he stopped and realized that the Hibiki line would have to carry on 
without him anyway. His responsibility to his family ended the day he signed the 
contract with his master. As far as he was concerned he belonged to her. "There 
in lies the problem." 
He hung his head and sighed trying to sort through his problems. "What am I 
going to do now?" It was becoming more and more obvious that Ranma wanted him to 
be independent and live his own life from now on. Unfortunately that conflicted 
with what he felt was a sacred and honorable duty. "I can't just leave her...can 
I?" He hung his head and mulled over the problem turning it over and over again 
and again in his mind. "Damn you Ranma, this is all your fault!"
Akane pulled Ranma up by her arms and grunted as she hefted the girl up the 
stairs helping her stagger along the ground. She had almost forgotten Ranma was 
drunk for a moment before she keeled over on the table. She was halfway awake at 
the moment though. Ranma held onto the rail and allowed herself to be placed in 
her old room. 
Happosai's things still lay in the room scattered across the floor. Ranma took 
one step into the room and shuddered as the evil energy of the old man enveloped 
her body. She stood upright screaming in terror as a deluge of imagery flooded 
her mind and the perverted feelings washed over her body. Instinctively she 
lifted Akane up into her arms and jumped from the room. 
The Tendo girl screamed a short cry of protest as she was thrown from the room 
and landed with Ranma on top of her just outside the doorway.
The pigtailed girl chuckled slightly and rubbed her head against her chest. "You 
know Akane, you're kind of soft here."
She blushed and jumped away pulling Ranma up with her. "What's wrong with you?"
"How long has that old man been in that room?" said Ranma flatly as she gave the 
door an evil looking stare.
"I donno, about a week?" said Akane as she tried to remember the exact number of 
days.
"I can't sleep in there," replied the girl simply as she shrugged Akane's grip 
off. "I'll just walk home."
Akane frowned and grabbed her again, "You aren't going anywhere like that, come 
on." She shoved the girl into her own room and lay her down on the bed.
Ranma giggled slightly and allowed Akane to push her into her bed. She smiled 
and sprawled out on the bed for a moment before reaching down and pulling Akane 
into her arms. "I love you Akane!"
The girl smiled at this and gently pushed her away. "I love you too Ranma, now 
come on. You've got to get some sleep or you'll feel even worse tomorrow 
morning."
Ranma grabbed her again and kissed her on the lips, Akane fell back with a blush 
forming on her cheeks as she shoved the girl back instinctively. "What are you 
doing?" she asked as Ranma pushed herself on top of her forcing her onto the bed 
and kissed her again.
Akane felt heat rush into her face as Ranma rubbed her body gently and probed 
her mouth with her tongue. She pushed gently away as he struggles lessened 
slightly under the girls forceful prodding. Finally Ranma stopped and relaxed on 
top of her clutching her shoulders and wrapping her legs around her torso. Akane 
froze in shocked horror as the girl suddenly stopped moving and simply lay there 
with her on the bed. After a moment she shook her head and stared down at her 
friend in shock.
Ranma was snoring softly curled up in a little ball with her head resting 
against Akane's chest. The strong smell of sake dominated Akane's senses as she 
simply watched her for a moment unable to become angry with her for some reason. 
Finally she sighed and put a pillow over her head as the confusion of her 
emotions took over at last.
"It was probably just the alcohol," she muttered under her breath. She looked 
down one last time and vowed never to let her friend drink again.
Something else popped into her mind as she watched the redhead sleep peacefully 
in her bosom. The way Ranma had reacted to being in Happosai's bedroom, perhaps 
that had something to do with the slightly upsetting events that had taken place 
only moments before. Akane mulled over it for a long time before looking down at 
the girl one last time, "Shouldn't I be angry with her?" She pushed the thoughts 
away and lay down to stare at her ceiling for the rest of the night.
Hikaru Gosunkugi stared at the book in front of him and tried his best to hold 
his head up as the night dragged on. He wanted badly to find a cure for himself, 
and luckily most of the students never even noticed him. If he managed to cure 
himself soon there was a good chance nobody would notice any change at all. He 
sighed and looked down at the pages of the powerful white magic tome that sat 
before him on the desk, after a long moment he felt his eyes droop shut as his 
head slammed into the center of the book. He began to snore violently not 
noticing the white light that emanated from the pages surrounding him 
completely. A golden shadow fell behind him as the light poured fourth through 
his body in a blinding and spectacular light that seemed to vanish suddenly. 
Finally all that remained was the strange shadow behind him; it seemed almost 
like there was a spot of pure gold on the ground behind him as he lay there 
peacefully. His stump rose up as if to scratch his head as he lay there 
dreaming, not knowing of anything that had just happened.
 
Tatewaki Kuno stood on the roof of his home watching over Nerima in the darkness 
for a final few moments before retiring for the evening. Something in his mind 
pulled away that he felt he should be aware of, but it faded away. Most people 
would dismiss such a feeling easily, but Kuno had learned that actions like that 
were not wise. In his dreams he had seen a dark shadow standing over Akane 
Tendo, and a golden light that could be both savior and demon to him. The 
uncertainty and vagueness of the dreams haunted him, but since his present 
condition had been caused they always seemed to come to some true in some way or 
another. Even that did not bother him though, the wizard Saotome should be able 
to handle anything that came. What worried him was the darker feeling he was 
getting from the future, an evil presence that seemed to threaten all that he 
held dear with a strange familiarity.
"Perhaps I worry too much for the future, when the present is so turbulent as of 
late," it seemed like an intelligent thing to say, in the past he would have 
written such a thing down; but now he seemed to become enlightened more often 
with such musings. A wisdom long forgotten to his old self. His speech was far 
more normal nowadays, but it still amused him to think that way on occasion 
while in private. 
The wind blew from the east sending a whirlwind of fallen leaves through the air 
as he looked out over Nerima one last time. "The wind is changing." He spread 
his wings and gently landed in the courtyard before heading inside the home for 
the evening to settle down for the night.
The next morning at the Tendo Dojo the sky seemed calm as the sun peeked over 
the horizon. The birds began to sing and life started to turn as the streets of 
Nerima slowly crawled to life. All seemed peaceful with the world, that is until 
Akane Tendo and Ranma Saotome woke up.
Ranma slowly opened her eyes, it took all of her willpower to do so, she 
struggled to raise her head from the pillow and fell face first back into place 
as a thousand daggers of pain slammed into her head at one time.
"It's about time you woke up, it's a good thing it's the weekend Ranma," snapped 
Akane angrily. She looked down and saw the redhead in her chest and smiled at 
her with a little maliciousness in her eyes.
The pigtailed girl snapped to attention and fell back onto the bed again as she 
realized where she was. "What happened?" she struggled painfully.
"You got drunk and accosted me you pervert!" snapped the girl without much heat. 
"I think you must have absorbed some of the perversion from that room last 
night. I guess you're a little sensitive to things like that when you're drunk."
Ranma's eyes went wide, "Accosted? Drunk?" that would go a long way towards 
explaining the headache. She slumped back into the pillow after rolling on her 
side to allow her friend to get up. "Wait a minute, what do you mean accosted?"
Akane snorted and kicked her leg lightly. "You almost raped me last night you 
pervert!" She had time to think it over while Ranma slept off her liquor, she 
had concluded that Ranma had absorbed some of Happosai's perverted energy. That 
must have been why her best friend had acted that way, there was no other 
explanation. The thing that scared her the most was that she had almost let her 
do it.
Ranma was having different thoughts as she lay there staring at the wall in 
silent horror. "I did what? Oh, oh no..."
Akane seemed to understand her distress. "Ranma relax, I'm not angry, you were 
drunk...and after what happened in your old room I think I know what happened to 
you."
Ranma felt comforted slightly by this, but not too much. If what Akane said was 
true she could have let her personal little secret slip very easily last night. 
"Did I say anything strange last night?"
Akane thought about it, "No, not really. You stay here for a while and I'll call 
Cologne and tell her what happened."
Ranma rolled over and looked up at the ceiling shielding her eyes from the 
sunlight that came through the widow. "Thanks." Ranma felt a new fear in the pit 
of her stomach, how much had she done last night? What had happened exactly? She 
felt the surest way to find out was to ask Akane, she might get an honest answer 
from her, but then again she had been keeping a pretty important secret from 
her, or trying to until last night. Revealing that was one of the few things she 
remembered. 
"What the hell have I done this time?" She rolled over and felt the pain that 
seemed to cover her entire body now slowly throb. "I'll worry about it later, I 
don't need this right now."
TBC...
Sigh, more foreshadowing for things yet to come, some things way later. This one 
was more of an exploration of the characters and a set up for some things I've 
been wanting to do with the characters.
The thing with Akane, Ryoga, and Ranma has actually been requested many times. 
It was planned that way since the beginning, but I've been getting a lot of mail 
asking me to break up Ryoga and Akane, and hook her up with Ranma despite the 
fact that she's a girl.
This is by no means decisive and Akane isn't going to just decide she's a 
lesbian either. There's to much that lets them deny anything that might have 
happened in this chapter right now; besides, I'm not so sure I like the idea of 
Akane the raving lesbian either. If and I say -if- it happens it will be a slow 
and gradual process.
Next time: All kinds of stuff, Gosunkugi's changed, but is that a bad thing? And 
what's it got to do with Akane? Plus Ryoga, Ranma, and Akane deal with their 
torrid love triangle some more. Things aren't looking good for some reason as a 
jealous interloper interferes, but who could it be?
 
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