Grave's New Life

By Philip Weigel

Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Same drill as before. Ranma ½ is owned by Rumiko Takahashi-sama and Gold Digger is owned by High Lord Fred Perry. Any other series and cameos that appear are owned by their respective owners. So, I don't own them, I never have and never will. Just writing for my own fun. Now you stupid lawyers, prepare for oblivion! *Summons an army of mother-in-laws to deal with the lawyers* GET THEM! They married your babies!

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If there was one thing about training in the martial arts ones whole life, it was the ability to control your Ki, even at a basic level, and manipulate it towards healing nearly anything. Even wounds that would leave most people in bed for months. Groaning, Ranma cracked his eyes open and sat up, or tried to sit up, as he felt a weight on his shoulders, around his neck. Blinking his eyes, the pigtailed martial artist looked to the side and was surprised to see Grave sleeping next to him, her body pressed up and rubbing against his body.

The cheetah-girl was practically glued to Ranma's side. Her eyes were tightly shut as she slept; her body trembling a little.

Ranma blinked, what was going on here? Last thing he remembered was that bastard Rook sticking a sword into his chest and... He then blinked. "Rook!" He hissed, before looking around the room. He then blinked again as he didn't recognize anything. "What the?" He muttered. Where was he? This didn't look like the prison that he was in on Jade.

Ranma's movements and speaking awoke the little Lycnathropoid. Sitting up quickly, Grave was relieved to see Ranma was awake... But still... "Ranma!" The girl cried out. "You should be resting!"

Ranma winced. The way she was yelling was way too early in the morning for this. "No, I'll be fine." He lied. His chest still hurt like a sunnavabitch. "I'm not bleeding anymore, if that's what you're worried about." While he wasn't sure about that as a fact, he was reasonably sure that his body had healed enough for him to move around. It would probably take a few more days before he could do much more than that, though.

"You sure?" Grave asked, her eyes misty with unshed tears. "Ranma, I'm so, so sorry this happened." Sniffling, the Lycanthropoid hugged onto Ranma's side. "This is all my fault."

Ranma winced, and not from the slight pain that her hugging caused him. The sight of her face, so full of sadness, crystalline tears threatening to break free and run down her face. Was he the cause of them? "Grave, you don't need to cry for me." He said, hoping that would help her out.

Sniffling, Grave shook her head. "But... But... It's my fault you got hurt." She sniffed more, trying to keep from sobbing. "I mean, I helped those meanies. And when you got free, you got hurt trying to help me..."

Ranma sighed. Damn, Grave had to keep blaming herself on this matter. "Grave, please... I'm okay." He said, smiling slightly. "Even if they hadn't captured me, I would have tried to save you, no matter what." She was Ranma's best friend, why wouldn't he try and save her?

Grave shook her head, now tears started to roll down her cheeks. "But you should have left me. I've been nothing but trouble for you Ranma... Trouble that keeps getting worse..."

Ranma frowned and grabbed Grave, before shoving her away. "Listen to me, Grave." He said, more forcefully than he meant to say to the Lycanthropoid. "Just because I keep running into trouble doesn't mean I don't want you as a friend of mine. So I got into more trouble for trying to save you?" He then shrugged. "Big deal." At least for him it was no big deal. Why did everyone else have the same hang-ups about saving other people? "I would have done it for you, even if I didn't really know you." He meant it too. He didn't care who a person was, everyone needed help sometimes. Everyone but him of course.

Now the tears were just pouring down the sides of Grave's face. Hugging onto Ranma tightly, the Lycanthropoid buried her face in her shoulder, thanking Ranma and apologizing to him again and again and again.

Ranma sighed, and hugged Grave back. No matter how many times he said it was alright, she just continued to cry and apologize to him. "Grave... You're my friend." That's all that really mattered to him, not much else really. Other than martial arts, that was the most important thing.

Finally, after a long while, Grave started to calm down, her tears finally having been used up for the time being. Raising her head, Grave looked into Ranma's blue eyes with her own puffy red ones, even though they were normally green and spoke. "I promise, Ranma..." The girl hiccupped. "I promise I'll make it up to you somehow."

Ranma sighed, but nodded. It was weird. Having someone owe him something. He was used to owing people something, usually after he and his old man had to escape from a town after they had wore out their welcome. Even after all his time with Grave, he was still used to having to take what was his, even if it was to get by. "No, it's alright." He said, before hugging her lightly.

Hugging back, Grave just felt so relieved. She finally allowed herself to accept Ranma wasn't mad. And he had forgiven her! He! Forgave!! Her!!

Ranma nodded to himself as Grave started to calm down. At least now things would hopefully get better. He blushed as his stomach started growling, demanding sustenance. He chuckled. "It's been awhile since I've ate."

Grave nodded her head. "I'll go to the kitchen and get you some breakfast!"

Ranma nodded. "Right." He said, before starting to get up. "I'll come out and eat, okay?"

"NO!" Grave shouted a bit more forcefully then intended. "You should still be resting. I'll get food for you. I promise."

Ranma nodded his head. He wasn't an invalid, just injured. But people always seemed to think that an injured person was an invalid.

Smiling, Grave nuzzled Ranma a moment before getting up and walking over to the door. Stopping at the entrance to the room, Grave told Ranma, "Be back soon!" And then she stepped out, closing the door gently behind her.

Ranma blinked, before rubbing his neck. The feel of fur like that was unique, to put it mildly.

(----)

Get food and make breakfast, how hard was that? For most people, it wouldn’t be much of a problem, unfortunately, for Grave Digger, her only memories of making food was from two people, neither of which could make a decent meal that didn’t require sandwiches or instant food from the microwave. Ranma had been able to make campfire food decently. Even he admitted that it wasn’t as good as it could have been. It probably had to do with the fact that there weren’t a whole lot of normal foods to eat on Jade. At least not through the areas that they traveled anyway. But that wasn’t the only problem Grave had. Nope, the other problem that she had was the fact that she didn’t know her way around the kitchen at all.

Sighing as she opened a cabinet door, Grave tried to find something, anything that would work for breakfast. She blinked as she came upon a gray clay vase with a pull-up top on it. Shrugging, Grave picked it up and opened it, hoping to see something, cookies, candy, she wasn’t sure. ‘Coins?’ She thought, surprised. Why the heck would anyone have gold-looking coins in a clay vase was beyond her. The only reason that Grave Digger knew they weren’t real gold coins was because the vase was far to light for them to be real gold. Still, she wondered what they were for. [1]

Shrugging, and not really knowing what they were used for, Grave placed the vase on the edge of the counter, before reaching back into the cabinets, hoping to find something that could be of some use to her.

As she stood on her toes to see up a little higher, Grave frowned. It wouldn’t take much for her to levitate upwards. But there were a couple of things stopping her. First off, while she could do so, she wasn’t sure if that nice woman knew about magic and didn’t really want to explain why she could float in midair. Strangely, the thought about that nice woman seeing her without her cloak on didn’t bother her any. The second reason she didn’t use any magic was to keep herself hidden from a certain Arch Mage. Grave didn’t know how far her “father’s” scanning abilities were, and she didn’t want to find out by using magic. If it was necessary, she would, otherwise, she’d not use any at all. She didn’t want to go back to where she was before. The cheetah-looking girl shivered fiercely. She’d freeze to death if she ever went back to being a part of Brianna’s mind again.

She frowned and lifted her left leg up to climb up onto the counter, only to watch, transfixed, as her knee bumped the clay vase off the edge of the counter and onto the floor with a crash. The little Lycanthropoid winced as the clay vase shattered into tiny pieces, and the coins scattered out in several directions. “Dammit.” She muttered, before bending down to pick the coins up. Thankfully, the coins didn’t scatter too far apart, still, they were numerous enough to keep her from grabbing them all at one time and placing them on top of the counter. All she wanted to do was get some breakfast for her friend, was that so wrong? ‘Apparently so.’ Grave thought to herself bitterly. She sighed as she picked up the coins. Although, she couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would have coins that looked like real gold, yet were obviously fake; Grave shrugged it off and started placing coins up on top of the counter.

After a few minutes, Grave Digger smiled as she grabbed the last coin with her left hand. At least cleaning up the clay bits would be fairly easy. Reaching her right hand up to grab the edge of the counter, she got to one knee, before she heard a gasp. Turning to her left side, she blinked upon seeing that nice lady again, only this time, she was dressed in a light blue bathrobe that was wrapped around her tightly. “Um, look. I’m sorry about the vase.” She said. When the woman gave no response, Grave whimpered slightly, figuring that the woman was really mad at her.

Her fears were dispelled a moment later when the redheaded woman cried out. “KAWAII!” She cried, before smiling brightly, and rushing forward, pulling Grave into a tight hug. “A lucky Neko-tama!”

As she gasped in surprise at the very powerful and seemingly desperate hug, Grave blinked, unsure of what was really going on.

(----) [2]

Padding down the hallway in some slippers and a light blue bathrobe, Nodoka Saotome rubbed her eyes, trying to dispel the sleepiness that she felt. Yesterday was slightly unusual. It wasn’t often that two people appeared out of nowhere and one of them bloody and hurt to boot. Oh well, she’d figure out what to do with them today. She doubted that the young one that wasn’t hurt was in any condition to answer, being seriously worried about her friend. ‘I was like that, back when Genma and I were still dating.’ She thought to herself with a sigh. What she wouldn’t give to see her son again. Even if only for a little while. The Saotome Matriarch sighed, who knew that waiting ten years could be so long? On paper, it wasn’t THAT bad, but in reality… Nodoka sighed, irritably.

She blinked upon seeing the light on in the kitchen. She was sure she had turned it off last night. Frowning lightly, but not overly concerned with burglars, since Nerima, and various other wards, didn’t have a whole lot of problems with house crime for one reason or another. Though, Nodoka really didn’t know why that was. True, there were a bunch of martial artists in the area, most of them with weird and unusual styles of fighting, but she highly doubted that they were the reason crime, at least most normal crime, was so low.

Nodoka was right, to an extent. It wasn’t just the martial artists in Nerima that kept the place so safe. The fact that there were Demons, monsters, martial artists, aliens, machines and whatever else that frequented the various wards of Tokyo was what kept most normal criminals in line. The Yakuza were still fairly bold, but then again, they were the Yakuza. [3]

Peering inside the kitchen, Nodoka blinked as she saw someone, a little shorter than her, kneeling down and picking up coins. Nodoka blinked as she took in the appearance of the person before her. Other than the fact that the girl was a little shorter than her, she had hair that went just past her shoulders, a skin-tight purple body suit. Nodoka really didn’t approve of something so scandalous, even though it covered the person’s body, it really didn’t leave much to the imagination. She blinked as she saw a long, golden and black spotted appendage coming out of the girl’s backside. The redheaded woman gasped as she realized that not only was that appendage a tail, but it was similar to a cat’s tail.

When she gasped, the person, who had been reaching up to the counter, stiffened and turned around, letting Nodoka see the girl’s green eyes. If Nodoka had to describe them, she’d say the eyes were nearly feral. But that wasn’t on the redhead’s mind at that moment. The way the person, a girl Nodoka realized, was kneeling, with her right hand up and her left hand holding a coin over her belly brought back some childhood memories and old beliefs. She didn’t hear the girl say anything, but rather, the older woman was comparing her to a statue that she had seen many times throughout her life at New Years.

After mentally comparing the statue in her head with the girl in front of her, Nodoka came to one conclusion. “KAWAII!” She cried out, smiling brightly, before rushing up to the Cheetah-looking girl, picking her up and hugging her tightly. “A lucky Neko-tama!” She couldn’t believe it. Finally, something that could bring her fondest wish to life was here. “WHEE!” Nodoka smiled and carried on like a young girl in an amusement park. Spinning around and around with Grave in her arms, she couldn’t help but giggle. “You finally came to grant my wish, didn’t you?” She blinked as the “Neko-tama” wasn’t answering and stopped spinning. “You okay?” She asked, worried that her wish wouldn’t come true.

Grave shook her head to dispel the dizziness she felt. “Um, yeah.” She mumbled. Though, what a Neko-tama was, she wasn’t sure. Heck, the only reason she was able to speak Japanese at all was because of that translation spell that had been cast on her awhile back. “But... What wish?” She asked, not knowing what the woman meant.

Nodoka smiled brightly once more. “Oh, don’t be bashful. You know that my wish has always been to see how fine a young man my son Ranma has grown up to be.” The Neko-tama had to be playing games with her. All Neko-tamas knew what a person’s wish was. That was why they were sent to people, to grant their wishes, they were like genies, in that manner, at least according to legend.

“Wait, I didn’t...” Grave broke off, blinking as the woman’s words came back to her. “Wait, Ranma? As in Ranma Saotome?” That was the only Ranma she knew of, and thinking on it, the woman did have darker red hair than Ranma’s female form, but their eyes were very similar.

“WAI! You DO know!” Nodoka exclaimed giddily, before hugging Grave tightly, nearly suffocating the little Lycanthropoid.

“Ah! Aiiir!” Grave gasped out, her arms flailing around Nodoka’s sides.

Nodoka blinked and then blushed slightly. “So sorry, dear.” It wouldn’t be a good thing to accidentally kill a lucky Neko-tama. She waited until the Neko-tama caught her breath and coughed a couple of times. “You know my son, don’t you, Neko-tama?” She asked, hope flooding her words. Her smile got bigger when said “Neko-tama” nodded. “Where is he?” Oh, she couldn’t wait. Had Genma lived up to his promises for once?

Grave nodded slowly. “Uh huh... You, um, met him last night. He was the person you wrapped up in bandages.” She said, with her head lowered. What kind of friend let their best and only friend’s get hurt like that?

Nodoka went silent for a moment, taking that in. “WAI!” She exclaimed happily. Grave snapped her head up, confusedly. The Lycanthropoid was about to ask what was going on, when Nodoka spoke up again. “I haven’t seen my son for ten years!” She exclaimed, her joy lowering when she admitted that.

Blinking a few times, Grave thought about that, and some of the discussions that she and Ranma had had in the past. “Wait, that’s right.” She gasped and snapped her fingers. “Ranma said that he didn’t even remember his mother.” She winced when Nodoka started to look extremely saddened at hearing that. “But, he’s really nice. And I’m sure he wants to get to know you some more.”

Nodoka snapped her head up so fast that Grave wondered if whiplash was real or not. “Would you mind... May I see my son again?” She asked suddenly.

Grave blinked again. She had been doing that a lot recently. “Um, yeah. He’s awake. I had come to the kitchen to get him some food.” The next thing Grave knew was weightlessness for a moment as Nodoka took off out of the kitchen. A moment later, she fell to the floor with a thud and landed on her rear. “Owwies.” She whimpered, before standing up and rubbing her abused posterior. A moment later, Grave smiled slightly. ‘If that nice woman is Ranma’s mother, then he and I can stay here.’ It wasn’t just the fact that she could stay here that was good for her. The fact that she had a place to hide from her “family” was another thing that got to her. [4]

(----)

In China, a meeting was taking place. One that had an entire village behind it.

Literally in this case as a five-foot-six, buxom, long purple haired, red eyed sixteen year Chinese girl with her hair done up in a couple of balls on the top of her head, and the rest of her hair done up in a long pony-tail. On the ends of her hair were some small metal balls that could be mistaken for bells. She was wearing a blue Chinese silk dress, one that was extremely short and showing off her legs, while hugging her body tightly. On her back was an over-sized backpack as she ran through the woods, chasing, what looked to be an extremely wrinkled lump wearing green robes. Looking closer, instead of a lump, one would say that the creature was actually some sort of small gargoyle. Two feet tall, long white hair, bulging eyes, extremely wrinkled skin that was so pale that one could mistake her for a ghost or a wraith. The creature spoke up in Chinese. “Hurry along, Xian Puu.” The voice was crackled and dry, sounding similar to sandpaper when it was crinkled up.

Behind them as they ran, one could see quite a few buildings that were grouped closely together in the form of their village.

The girl, now known as Xian Puu nodded. “Yes, Great-grandmother.” She said, before picking up her pace to catch up to the old woman. “So, what did the council decide?” Why it had taken a couple of weeks to make the decision was beyond her.

The old woman didn’t answer right away; instead she ran a couple dozen more yards before speaking up again. “Even though you didn’t bring the body of the girl back, the fact that you managed to mess up, what appeared to be a teleport spell means that the girl is probably as good as dead.”

The forest around the two was nothing but a blur to even the most skilled of eyes, at the speeds they were traveling. “However, because we cannot confirm a kill, I shall accompany you to Japan.”

Xian Puu blinked. “Japan? Why that small island?”

“The girl was Japanese. So we assume that she’s there. We will search the island for a place where the girl can be.” The old woman thought about it for a moment and nodded. “More than likely a dojo.” She looked back at Xian Puu, before jumping up and landing on the girl’s backpack. “Where that is, I’m not sure. If we find her, then we’ll kill her off. If we don’t find her, then we’ll assume that she’s dead.”

Xian Puu nodded. “Of course, Great-grandmother.” She said, respectfully.

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Preview of Next Chapter: “Hey, it’s me, Ranma Saotome. Okay, so now we have those crazy Amazons to deal with soon enough. We’ll be skipping ahead a little.”

“Is that all you’re going to say, Ranma?”

“Not much else to say, Grave. The writer lost the script for the next part.”

“Hmm... True.”

Notes and some personal thoughts: Okay, thought I should put some notes here, mostly because I don’t have anything better to do with my time. (Sheeyeah right.)

Anyway… Some people may wonder why I chose to write this. The reason I did was very simple… I wanted to. Between Real Life, and the writings that I do on the Anime Addventure, I felt this story was starting to get neglected. I do hope you can forgive me for it. Real Life’s a pain in the ass.

What else? Oh yeah… The REAL reason why this fic is getting out slower is because of ONE little, TINY, small reason really… I have another project in the works. Not going to say what it is, or give any clues to it. Other than it’s huge. It took me over a month to get it as far as it is now.

[1] Was told that this has some special significance to the Japanese at New Years. They use these coins to make wishes, or so I’ve heard.

[2] Normally, I don’t like doing this, showing one scene, then going back and showing the scene again through someone else’s eyes. But it helps sometimes.

[3] Don’t expect characters from other series to pop up for no reason. Though, I might have Nuku Nuku show up for fun. *Shrug* It’s just an idea in my head. It may not happen.

[4] Don’t expect me to do an emotional reunion scene. Sorry. I MIGHT do it. But for right now, I’m not going to do one.

*Sigh* I think I may have painted myself into a corner. *Shrug* I’ll see what I can do with this right now.