Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Cries ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Ranma opened his eyes to find himself again in darkness, kneeling near a small familiar pond. He quickly looked down at himself and saw that he was male and unharmed. As he began to look around, he heard the sound of someone crying, and suddenly noticed he wasn’t alone. Kneeling across the pond from him was a short brown-haired girl that seemed somehow familiar. It was when he looked into the eyes of this girl that he realized who it was. He was looking at his girl-half. But she was different now. Where before she had red hair the same length as his, now she had brown hair that reached to the middle of her back. And the eyes that stared back sadly at him were not the same blue as his, but were now a deep brown, almost black. But the biggest change she had was the large pair of bat-like wings that were currently stretched out behind her…
After taking all this in for a moment, he noticed that she was heavily injured, so much so that the water in the pond was turning red from her blood and she was barely holding herself up. He jumped to her side and took her in his arms, trying to hold her up. She smiled at him and whispered’ “Thank you, Ranma, for caring. I am glad to have met you…”
“Quiet,” Ranma said as he lay her down and started treating her various deep wounds. He noticed that they looked like weapon strikes, then remembered what happened before he got here. “Are these the wounds my mother inflicted on me?”
“Yes, Ranma, they are… I took them to save your life, since you saved me from that pool… When you fell in, somehow you took more than just my cursed image, you took me as well… I have enjoyed being free from that pool where I was locked so long ago… Thank you…” At this, she took his hand in hers. Then her eyes closed, and her breathing became labored. Ranma began to panic, before he noticed that, while her breathing was labored, it was still steady. As he watched her breathing, he noticed a few other differences from what he remembered of his girl-form. First, she had teeth that seemed sharper, and a little longer, from what he remembered as his own. He also noticed that her nails were digging slightly into his hand, and that they were very sharp, and quite a bit longer than his. Where his nails were trimmed by years of martial arts, hers extended nearly an inch from her fingers and tapered to sharp points.
After a few moments of looking at her, he noticed that she was shivering, and that her wings were splayed out behind her. 'Maybe if I wrap her wings around her, that will help her stay warm?' Thought led to action as he reached for her wings to pull them around her, only to notice that she had not let go of his had, and was in fact holding it tighter. “Calm down, I'm not gonna leave ya.” This seemed to do the trick as she seemed to smile and the grip on his hand loosened. He noticed that she was still cold, as she was still shivering badly, and seemed to be getting worse. He also noticed that it seemed to be getting much colder, as he was starting to get cold, as well...
'We are all alone here... no one to see...' These were his thoughts as he gathered her into his one arm, since she was still holding the other hand, and carried her over to a nearby tree. He then leaned against the tree and held her against him to share his warmth with her. After a little while, he drifted off into sleep, not noticing the smile that crept onto his own face when sleep finally took him, or the matching smile on hers.

The young schoolgirl worked for a few minutes freeing Ranma from what seemed to be a mountain of garbage that she had apparently crawled under to avoid the sword. As she was digging, she began to wonder.. 'Why am I doing this in the first place?' Then it struck her. The bat-girl had done nothing wrong except maybe to splash some water on the katana-lady. She had not tried to attack her, or drain her life force, or anything. So why would the lady attack like that? These thoughts were the ones ringing through her head as she shifted a large piece of cardboard and uncovered her goal, the bat-girl's body. The young schoolgirl looked over the young bat-girl and noticed that her wounds were pretty bad, almost deadly. This thought led to her glancing around. After making sure no one was watching, she knelt over the injured girl and a warm glow began to emanate from her hands. The wounds on the injured girl began to heal, but the schoolgirl was getting tired. In fact, the closer she got to done, the more tired she got. It was at this point that she noticed that her healing power would not stop, and in fact was going stronger than she had ever used it before, draining her much further than she had ever felt in this lifetime. Finally, just as the last of Ranma-chan's wounds closed, the schoolgirl passed out and pitched forward onto the bat-girl just as she opened her eyes...
Ranma-Chan opened her eyes to see a young, dark-haired schoolgirl fall forward towards her. Her martial artist reflexes were enough to grab the girl in her arms to stop the girl from hitting the ground and instead onto her. Another instinct became action as her wings unfolded, seemingly of their own accord, and wrapped both Ranma and the young girl in a cocoon of fleshy wings. Soon the warmth provided by the cocoon was enough to lull Ranma back to sleep. Had he been able to stay awake any longer, he would have noticed 2 things. The first would have been the gentle purple glow that suffused the inside of the cocoon. And the second would have been the sound of explosions, followed by that of shifting trash from outside the cocoon as it was buried under a large amount trash and debris caused by a fight from the sailor senshi. It would unfortunately be several days before this debris would be cleaned up...