When the pair had returned to the house, they decided a shower was in order to wash off all the dust and grime they had accumulated during the battle. Ranma had been content to keep watch while Motoko went first.
Finished with her shower, Motoko found Ranma in the dining room with his array of weapons laid out on the table in front of him. She watched him silently as he finished reloading the 590's extended magazine tube to its eight-round capacity and then cycled the action to chamber a round before he slid the ninth round into the tube.
Finished with the task, he set the shotgun aside and looked over at her. Motoko blushed faintly as their eyes met and quickly informed him the shower was free. Ranma gave her a nod and a quick smile as he left to go shower, leaving Motoko alone with her thoughts.
After he left, she decided to take a cue from him. Motoko reloaded her SMG before locating a whetstone and proceeding to hone the minor nicks out of the blade of her sword. The katana was well-maintained but whoever had sharpened it last hadn't been up to her standards with their technique.
As she tended to her blade, she thought about her companion. Motoko wasn't sure if it was just the situation they were in, the memories that they shared from their progenitor, or if there was something else at work, but she had never felt as connected or attracted to a male as she did to Ranma. Somehow, she felt that they were two of a kind, possibly even before the vampires had turned them.
When she had fought by his side, it was almost as if she knew what he was going to do before he did it. They flowed together seamlessly in a way that went beyond just teamwork; it was more of a partnership. The part that really dismayed her, however, was the absolute trust she felt in him, as if she had known him all her life instead of just a few of hours.
While Motoko had relaxed her stance on men thanks to her experiences with Keitaro, she still viewed most males with suspicion and disdain. She was shocked to find that, instead of disgust, she actually enjoyed it when he looked at her with that certain, slightly hungry, look that wordlessly stated that he liked what he was seeing and would enjoy seeing more of it. Of course, the look was fleeting. He usually suppressed it very quickly. The thought of the sheepish look on his face that usually followed, made Motoko smile softly.
Feeling restless, Motoko put down her katana and the whetstone. She stood and decided to go for a little walk through the mansion. There might be something useful they had yet to discover.
'And maybe I can find one of those female Death Dealer uniforms,' Motoko thought with a blush. 'I wonder how Ranma would react to seeing me in one of those shiny latex catsuits and corsets?'
Ranma glared at the showerhead as if the fixture had mortally offended him. In spite of the intensity of the pigtailed martial artist-cum-neo-vampire's hateful glower, the spray of water issuing forth remained unrepentantly cold. Finally, Ranma sighed in resignation. It wasn't as if she honestly expected the curse to conveniently vanish just because she was a vampire now and it seemed to also be part of the curse that the water heater should choose now to malfunction.
There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. The explosions during the battle had probably damaged the wiring and Motoko had used up the hot water left in the tank when she took her shower or something equally as mundane, yet overly coincidental.
Thinking of Motoko made Ranma cringe. Considering how everyone else had reacted to the curse, the young swordswoman was probably going to try and kill her before she could explain. Even if she lived long enough to explain, Motoko would probably reject her and that was a thought that Ranma found entirely to painful to contemplate—not after what had almost happened between them. If Motoko rejected her now, she would be well and truly alone.
Ranma clamped down on those thoughts. If she kept thinking like that she would turn into Shinji Ikari or something. Maybe once she finished with her shower she would be able to sneak into the kitchen to heat up some water before Motoko saw her. She would have to tell Motoko about the curse, of course, but if Motoko was prepared for it, she might not react quite as badly.
Motoko giggled to herself as she walked down the corridor with a gym bag filled with purloined items she planned to take with her. The bag included a Death Dealer outfit among a few other things that would have her friends back in Hinata freaking out.
'Gods, I'm turning into Haruka,' Motoko thought to herself wryly.
Feeling a bit peckish, she decided to stop by the kitchen and grab a bag or two of blood. It was surprising how quickly she had become used to the idea of drinking the stuff. Maybe Ranma was right: it was no worse than some of the things normal humans ate and they did have to eat.
Ranma stood, nervously shifting from foot to foot and absently biting at a fingernail as she waited for the cup of water to heat up in the microwave. Using the Umisenken invisibility technique, she had made it safely to the kitchen and found a cup which she quickly filled with water and set to heating it. It seemed to take forever as the timer on the microwave slowly counted down to zero—much too slowly for Ranma's comfort.
Stepping into the kitchen, Motoko froze upon spotting unfamiliar girl pouring a cup of water over her head. She dropped her bag and her other hand was reaching for the pistol that was riding in a holster on her thigh when she saw the stranger's bright red hair turn jet black and the body rapidly grow six or seven inches in height while filling out into a much more familiar figure.
"R-Ranma?" Motoko gasped from the doorway, causing the person in question to jump as if jabbed with a hot poker and whirled around to face her.
Motoko stared at the face of her companion with eyes wide in alarm.
"I-I can explain!" Ranma shouted desperately, taking a step toward her.
Motoko's pistol was in her hand, pointed at him as she backed away, shaking her head in denial. She had trusted him. He had been her anchor—the one person that could understand what she was going through—the one person that made her feel like she was not alone in this situation. She hadn't realized how much she had been depending on his presence to keep it together. Until now. Now that she discovered he was some sort of shape-shifting...thing...that was probably trying to gain her trust only to betray her later. Suddenly, Motoko felt more alone and vulnerable than she ever had before.
"Please! It's me, Ranma. It's a curse. I was going to tell you about it, I swear," Ranma pleaded frantically.
"Stay away from me, you...whatever you are!" Motoko shrieked as the tears of betrayal started welling up in her panicked eyes. "I trusted you!"
"Please let me explain!" Ranma begged, his eyes casting about desperately for some way to convince her to give him a chance. Then it struck him. If she tasted his blood and got a few of his memories, that would convince her he was really her friend. Ranma reached up and snatched the collar of his shirt to the side, baring his neck. "Please, bite me. My blood will prove I don't wanna hurt you and that I really am your friend. If I'm not, then you can kill me. Please, just give me a chance!"
Motoko paused and appeared to consider Ranma's words. Ranma held his breath and silently urged her to accept the offer. Her friendship had become crucial to him. He didn't want to deal with this alone. It was at that moment that he realized she was the only thing standing between him and a dark depression beyond even Ryoga's imagination.
"Why?" Motoko asked.
"Because I want...no...I need you to be my friend." Ranma wasn't sure which of his statements her 'why' was referring to, but his answer covered pretty much all of them. "If it takes my blood to convince you that I'm your friend, then I'll happily let you bleed me dry."
"Alright," Motoko said after a few moments of thought. "But if you try anything, I will kill you."
Ranma cocked his head to the side and tried to look non-threatening as Motoko cautiously approached him. Soon there was almost no space between them as she leaned forward toward his exposed neck. Her warm breath caressed his skin raising goose-flesh in its wake. The position would have looked almost intimate has she not been holding her pistol to the other side of his head.
Ranma winced slightly as he felt her fangs penetrate his skin and his blood begin to well forth. The pain was only fleeting however; it was soon replaced by a surprisingly pleasant sensation, almost as if she was sensually kissing his neck, giving him a hickey.
When Motoko's body suddenly tensed, Ranma felt a moment of fear that maybe she was going to shoot him after all, but it soon passed as moments later the tension left her body and she seemed to melt into him. Motoko pressed her body against his and began to suck harder on his neck. The swordswoman moaned slightly and the hand holding the gun drifted down to wrap around him joining her other arm to pull him closer.
Ranma soon began to feel light headed and absently wrapped his own arms around Motoko, holding on to her tightly to hold himself up.
Motoko wasn't certain what to expect when she bit into Ranma's neck. She was a little wary of drinking blood right from the source. It was more than a little creepy. However, when she got her first taste of the warm fluid, she was in awe. It tasted even better than the stuff from the bag, though it did have a somewhat different taste, most likely due to Ranma being a vampire.
And then the visions began to hit her, causing her body to tense. They were somewhat disjointed but they were coherent enough to give her the gist of what she was seeing and feeling. And what she was seeing and feeling was a heck of a lot more than she bargained for.
The earlier memories were merely snapshots with some emotions attached. Motoko saw Ranma being taken from his mother when he was just barely six years old. She saw images of the Nekoken training and the pain and terror Ranma had felt. She saw years of training so insane she was sure it amounted to torture rather than training. As the memories became newer, she was getting more details and they were beginning to actually become entire scenes rather than just snapshots.
Then she got to Jusenkyo. It was almost like she was a passenger in Ranma's head as he got knocked into the spring. She was looking through his eyes when he looked down, opening his gi to see two moderately sized female breasts standing out proudly on his chest. She felt the horror and despair that welled up inside him in that moment.
Next she saw Nerima and Ranma's life with the Tendos and all the craziness that went along with it. The rivals, the fiancées, the glorious highs and the bitter lows—Motoko experienced all of it, right up until the vampire version of Akane had shot him.
Finally, Motoko saw herself from his eyes. These images were very clear. She saw herself naked when they had first awoken. She saw herself when Ranma had first laid eyes on her in her purloined leather outfit. She saw herself in the heat of battle. She felt what her body had felt like when pressed against his. But what had a bigger impact were the emotions attached to those memories. She felt his strong desire for her, his awe of her beauty, his respect for her skill and strength, and his budding...affection for her. She also felt his despair and anguish at how she had reacted to his curse and that made her feel small and petty.
Motoko suddenly became aware of Ranma sagging heavily against her and realized that she had been a little overly enthusiastic, caught up in the sensations and underlying sensuality she was experiencing while feeding on Ranma's blood. She quickly removed her fangs and softly lapped at the wounds until they closed. Most movies depicted vampires as being messy eaters, allowing huge streams of blood to escape and run uselessly down the victim's body or something. That was a horrible waste and she doubted any civilized vampire would feed that way. She certainly wouldn't.
Motoko maneuvered Ranma over to a chair and sat him down before going over to the refrigerator and retrieving several bags of blood. Pinching the top off one, she slid the tube into the groggy Ranma's mouth and squeezed the bag gently. Tasting the fluid, Ranma begain to instinctively drink greedily.
After a bag and a half, Ranma perked up enough to begin feeding himself. Motoko backed off and leaned against the counter while she parsed through her thoughts and feelings about what she had been shown. It was clear to her now why she instinctively felt they were kindred spirits. Ranma shared her dedication to excellence in the art. They had both made sacrifices to attain their level of skill, although his seemed to be far greater than her own. While she was insecure in her femininity, he had a weird gender changing curse. She had an irrational fear of turtles and he had an irrational fear of cats. In fact, they shared more parallels than not.
One thing that had been an underlying motivation through out Ranma's life was a deep loneliness in spite of the people around him vying for his attention. It was the loneliness that made him easily forgive numerous betrayals that would have had Motoko declaring a blood feud on a number of the people in Ranma's circle had half the things done to him had been done to her. Still, Ranma did feel that nobody truly appreciated him, even though he was the one everyone turned to to fix things when they got out of hand.
Motoko couldn't lie to herself though. While Ranma wasn't quite up to Keitaro's level of winding up in compromising situations, she knew if she had been a part of Ranma's circle in Nerima, she likely wouldn't have treated him any better than those other girls. She felt the pain and betrayal he felt every time that Akane girl jumped to a conclusion and then refused to give him a chance to explain. She also felt the hurt he felt each time the person he cared most about proved she didn't trust him even after all the things he had done for her.
Had she been on the outside, Motoko knew she wouldn't have trusted him either. But seeing things from his point of view, she now knew that Ranma was loyal to a fault. It had taken the Akane girl shooting him to break his loyalty to her. On the other hand, she also knew that none of them deserved his loyalty. It was heartbreaking.
Now she was being given a chance to have that loyalty, perhaps even occupy the position in his heart that Akane had. It was awe-inspiring and yet humbling for Motoko to know how he really felt about her even though she had very nearly behaved no better than that Akane bitch, rejecting him for something he had no control over without even bothering to hear him out. It was as if she had nearly thrown away the most fantastic gift anyone could ever receive simply because she didn't like the way the bow was tied on the otherwise gorgeous wrapping paper. Motoko didn't like to think of herself as being that shallow.
"So do you believe me now?" Ranma interrupted her thoughts.
Motoko looked up at his desperately hopeful expression and instantly felt like a complete fool. Tears of remorse welled up in her eyes and she flung herself at him.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed into his shoulder. "Of course I'm your friend as long as you'll have me. Please forgive me for doubting you."
"Shhhh," Ranma consoled, catching her in his arms. "It's okay. I don't blame you for being confused. I would have been too. At least you gave me a chance to prove myself. Thanks for that. I guess I should explain about the curse."
"No," Motoko shook her head, "I know all about it. I saw everything, including Jusenkyo."
"You did?" Ranma asked. Motoko felt his body tense under her. "W-what else did you see?"
Evidently he hadn't anticipated all his secrets being laid bare before her.
"Everything," she replied. "The Nekoken, how people treated you...how you feel about me."
Motoko couldn't help but giggle through her tears as he began to stammer out incoherent apologies and excuses. She silenced him with a finger to his lips.
"It's okay," she said softly. "I don't mind. Really." And then to prove it, she kissed him softly on the cheek before laying her head back on his shoulder with a sigh. "I...I like you too."
For several moments, both fledgling Newtype vampires just sat there blushing incandescently. As Motoko sat in his lap being comfortably held in Ranma's arms, it occurred to her that she had been feeling lonely herself. The one boy she had ever been interested in before this was clearly in love with someone else. But Ranma was hers if she wanted. All she had to do was claim him. Any other contenders for his heart were either dead or had irreparably broken his trust. Even if more showed up later on, Motoko knew they would never be able to come between the bond she and Ranma shared, just like the other fiancées hadn't been able to come between Ranma and the loyalty he had for Akane. If anything, Motoko's connection with Ranma was stronger, both because of the parallels they shared and because of their situation.
But for now, Motoko decided to wait. If she still felt the same way once things settled down some, then she would act on it. Right now wasn't the time to make decisions like that.
Which didn't mean she wasn't going to take advantage of the closeness they were currently sharing. She needed it more than she would ever admit with all that had happened to her, especially since she still wasn't sure how her sister and the council were going to react to what she was now.
The sun was almost to the horizon as the Mercedes pulled up to a police roadblock. Ayane, the driver, rolled down her window as one of the officers approached the car.
"Sorry, Miss, this road has been closed," the officer explained. "You'll have to turn around and go back."
"I'm Ayane Mitsurugi and we are with the Department of Public Safety Special Affairs Division," Ayane informed him, flashing her ID. "Why have you closed the road?"
"Oh, sorry, Ma'am. I guess you are the ones we've been waiting for," the officer said as his demeanor went from polite to respectful. It was good to have official authority. "We had reports of gunfire and explosions up on the mountain and our spotters reported a burning vehicle further up the road. We were ordered to contain the situation but not to go in."
"I see," Ayane said coolly.
"Good work, officer," Tsuruko spoke up. "Now if you don't mind, you can let us through now and return to your regular duties. We'll take over from here."
"We'll be glad to provide backup for you, ma'am," the officer offered.
"That won't be necessary. We have backup coming. For your own safety, I can't let you get involved," Tsuruko explained.
"Yes, ma'am," the officer agreed reluctantly before turning to his comrades. "Okay, boys, pack it up. The DPS is here to take over."
In short order, the barricades were removed and Tsuruko's team were allowed to pass. Ayane swiftly guided the Mercedes sedan up the road until they encountered the first sign of the trouble the police had reported.
"I recognize this work," Tsuruko frowned in concern as Ayane carefully maneuvered the car between the burned out halves of an SUV. "This damaged was caused by the Evil Splitting Sword. Looks like Motoko had some trouble after she called."
A little bit further up the road they saw an SL 55 parked off to the side of the road. It appeared to be empty though, so they moved on for another half a mile or so before turning into the driveway of the location Motoko had given them. Ayane guided the car up the drive until the house could just be seen through the trees. There they stopped and everyone got out.
The five members of the advance team made their way swiftly across the yard, alert and ready for nearly anything. As they approached the house, Tsuruko noted that several of the windows on the ground floor had been shattered outward. The elder Aoyama picked one and leapt gracefully through the opening. However as soon as she hit the carpeted floor inside, a metallic click froze her in her tracks. She let her eyes adjust to the dim interior of the room and looked around for the source of the sound.
"Who are you and what do you want?" a young man's voice challenged her.
The voice drew Tsuruko's gaze toward a large, plush easy chair positioned in the corner of the room. Her eyes widened a bit as she found herself looking down the steady barrel of an immense handgun being pointed at her by the young man in the chair, but what she really wasn't prepared for was the sight of her little sister curled up in said young man's lap with her face buried in his neck, apparently fast asleep.
Tsuruko smiled mischievously at the intimacy conveyed by Motoko's position as well as her current mode of dress. This was filed away as teasing material for later.
"I am Tsuruko Aoyama, of the Shinmei Ryu," Tsuruko introduced with a small bow. "And you must be Ranma. I trust you have been taking good care of my little sister, yes?"
The young man lowered the firearm and sighed in relief.
"She's fine," he said. "She...um...had a little too much to eat and fell asleep about an hour ago."
"In your lap?" Tsuruko quizzed teasingly.
"Well, I tried to put her on the couch but she wouldn't leggo," the boy said nervously. He subtly nudged the girl sleeping in his lap.
"I see," Tsuruko smirked as he nudged her again.
Motoko groggily picked her head up and blinked owlishly at the young man.
"You had better have a good reason for waking me up or I'm going to hurt you. I was quite comfortable," Motoko growled at him.
"It certainly looked that way, little sister," Tsuruko laughed.
Motoko instantly sprang out of the boy's lap and landed several feet away from him, blushing madly.
"Big sister! It...It's not what it looks like!" Motoko offered lamely.
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(Posted Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:18)
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