Pick a Path
*****Ranma*****
After a while of walking, talking, generally shooting the shit, we stumbled across a new challenge. Some kind of room with eight doors lining the wall facing opposite to us. There was no other way to go.
I let out a scoff, “So we just go through a door?”
The other redhead put his arm out in front of me, blocking me from moving forwards, “Wait.” I looked up at him, slightly concerned. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Maze Castle is known for having several deadly paths, once you pick one, you can’t go back. You’ll be dead before you even know what happened.”
A silence filled the air.
Mr. ‘Spirit Detective’ piped up, “Great, how the hell are we supposed to figure it out without killing ourselves?”
Kuwabara started to squint, staring the doors down, his fingers fidgeting at his sides. Shoulders tensing. The taller demon looked over at the wall, inspecting each part of it, pupils trailing over the door frames. “There’s nothing physically different about them. Though it’s possible someone-” he turned his gaze to Kuwabara, who started to walk forward, “Could discern which path.”
The punk looked his options over, and raised both of his hands up, pointing to the second door from the left, and the one right next to it, directly to its right. “It’s one of these two. I’m positive.”
*****Yusuke*****
“You sure?” It wasn’t so much of a question as it was a confirmation. Kuwabara’s hunches ain’t steered us wrong yet, and if he’s got that feeling then he’s got that feeling.
The blockhead nodded stoically, glancing back at me.
Saotome cocked an eyebrow, skepticism taking over his features. “Kurama just said there ain’t a way to figure out which’s which! How’d’ya know?”
Oh great, he’s gonna start rambling on about it. Wouldn’t you know it, he shut his eyes, and crossed his arms, “I… get these strong feelings, I’m super in tune with stuff. Like even since I was a kid, I could feel when ghosts were around, I could even tell that yours and ‘Ranko’s’ energy was almost the exact same. I just… know things. Even when Yusuke was haunting me, I could feel that there was some kinda presence.”
Yusuke nodded casually, “it’s true, freaked him the fuck out.”
The orangette whipped his head back at us, stomping a foot forward, “CAN IT URAMESHI! I WASN’T SCARED OR NOTHIN!’”
The former ghost snickered, “Oh, so you gettin’ the chills and waking up in the middle of the night screaming is just all hunky dory huh?”
Kuwabara scowled, letting out a growl through his grit teeth, “That’s NOT the same ‘n you know it! ‘Sides! Was probably your fault for givin’ me that freaky dream to begin with! I ain’t the one fillin’ your head with thoughts you kissin’ me!”
Saotome reeled at the comment, stumbling over his words, a finger half-raised. “Oh, you two are- you’re, you guys-”
I waved my hand at him dismissively, “It ain’t like that!” I ain’t got no problems with guys kissin’ guys, but I am NOT letting Saotome get the wrong idea about me. Even if I was like that, Kuwabara would be my last pick. “My body was being restored, and the only way to bring me back was to share life-energy, and it has to be mouth-to-mouth.”
The pigtailed guy-girl let out a half-snicker, “Yeah, uh-huh, keep tellin’ yourself that. You two can do whatever you want, just leave me outta it. I’m a man amongst men, I ain’t got time for queer shenanigans.”
I huffed, “Man amongst men my ass, says the guy with the squeaky voice and F cups callin’ me a weirdo.”
He did not like that one bit. I practically heard something snap in frustration from him. “HEY YOU’RE the one starin’, jerk-ass. I know I’m a total babe like this, but my eyes are up here.”
My eyes did cartwheels in their sockets, “I ain’t starin’, just pretty fuckin’ hard to miss.”
Saotome got an evil grin about him, leaning forward, and holding both of his tits in his hands, “Oh, it’s hard to miss THESE? I hadn’t noticed.” He snickered, “Maybe next time be a little less obvious, ‘sides, I ain’t worried, just try not to stare at my guy side, I’m probably your type.”
Kuwabara’s whole face went flush, and he began stammering. My cheeks got kinda warm I guess. “Perv.”
He leaned in closer.
“Asshole.”
I followed suit.
“Whiny bitch.”
He got on his tippy toes.
“Arrogant dick.”
I leaned down, our faces inches apart, electricity coursing between us, I could feel the intense breaths from him, the heat of our carbon dioxide blending together. staring directly into his eyes.
“Fuckhead.”
He leaned just a little more forward, on the absolute tips of his feet, some martial artist shit I guess, and our noses were a hair away from each other.
“Zombie.”
Oh? He’s gonna call me a zombie? Yeah right, like I’m gonna fuckin’ take that sitting down. Curse to curse, he wants to go after mine? Well, let’s see just how this ‘man amongst men’ likes THIS.
“Princess.”
Suddenly, his whole face went scarlet red. All the fight immediately shoved out of him for a sec as I watched the jenga tower of his brain all fall to pieces, and have to get rebuilt.
…
That was not what I was expecting.
Suddenly he started to wince, “Sh-shut up…” And grabbed his stomach, falling to his knees, breathing like he just got the wind knocked out of him.
I looked over to Kuwabara, he was bug eyed . I shrugged at the guy, and he looked down at Saotome, back to me, back to him, and so on, like he just saw a car crash, or maybe a miracle. I couldn’t really tell.
Hiei was just inspecting the two doors, trying to figure out a difference between them, his eyes boring holes through them, wanting zero part in this.
Kurama… looked both amused, and concerned. Like he saw a clown fuck up their whole routine.
I decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and walked next to Hiei, “Any progress?”
Hiei looked over at me, with a cold, empty stare.
I sighed, scratching the top of my head. “Right, gonna take that as a no.”
*****Ranma*****
What… The FUCK. Was THAT.
What the FUCK.
I can’t believe I got all fuzzy over that, over being called a- a-
My stomach twisted, more, like a baseball player took a sledgehammer to it, and I groaned.
I reacted like such a fucking GIRL.
Ugh.
This is all wrong.
All so, so wrong.
I should not feel like that. This stupid fucking curse is messing with my head. How fucking dare he call me that.
…
𝚊̶𝚗̶𝚍̶ ̶𝚑̶𝚘̶𝚠̶ ̶𝚍̶𝚊̶𝚛̶𝚎̶ ̶𝚑̶𝚎̶ ̶𝚜̶𝚝̶𝚘̶𝚙̶
I felt myself on the verge of throwing up, what a shitty intrusive thought. That’s not ME.
I am a MAN amongst MEN.
I am RANMA SAOTOME.
HEIR OF THE SAOTOME-SCHOOL OF ANYTHING GOES.
I AM THE FIERCE, FUCKING, TIGER.
NOT SOME SISSY ASS GIRLYBOY.
I will NOT stand for this.
I don’t care what I have to do to get these thoughts to go away, but I’ll do it. Strength training, endurance training, even some weird thing from the old ghoul–
No.
NO.
A man’s gotta fix his own problems. I can’t let anyone ever know about this.
I’ll fix this.
I can fix this.
I can fix myself.
I didn’t even like it 𝚝̶𝚑̶𝚊̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚖̶𝚞̶𝚌̶𝚑̶ and it won’t ever happen again.
It won’t ever happen again.
I’ll make sure of it.
*****Yusuke*****
There was some silence, Saotome’s heavy breaths, the mutterings of people trying to figure out this damned door, until finally, I heard two, light footsteps.
Guess he got up.
Saotome walked over, and looked at the two doors. Still wincing. “So… It’s one a’ these two… right?”
I nodded, not making eye contact with him.
He hummed weakly, and then, his posture shifted, and he got a small grin on his face, like a lightbulb appeared above his head.
And he looked at the left one, then the right one, repeated this a few times, and then yanked the first one open, and started walking through.
I took several steps back, complete disbelief and shock in my voice. “ARE YOU FUCKIN’ CRAZY!?”
He just kept walking, took about ten more steps, and turned around.
He was… fine?
The door hadn’t even shut on him yet.
I blinked “How the fuck…”
He got a big, cheesy grin on his face, and giggled.
Kuwabara walked in after him, “Yeah, it’s this one, one hundred percent. Now that the door’s open I can tell for sure.”
The two started walking.
I stomped forwards after them, “No no no no no no, NO, no. You are not getting off that easy. How in any universe could you POSSIBLY have known that this was the right one?”
He shrugged, “I didn’t.”
My jaw hit the ground.
He continued, “I just looked at them both and thought, which one would Ryoga take? And then took the one that wasn’t that.”
Is THIS how Botan feels??!?
*****Keiko*****
That jerkface! He stood me up at the movies. AGAIN. We made plans! I can’t believe him. When I see him next I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind.
Suddenly, I saw some guy with a big travel pack, and a yellow and black spotted bandana sneeze really loudly. I sighed, and walked over, handing him a tissue from a little travel sized one I keep on me.
He smiled, “Hey, thanks.”
I kinda shook my shoulders in an affirmative shrug, “Yeah, of course.”
He cocked his head, “You doin’ alright?”
I let out another long, exasperated exhale. “Yeah… just the stupid jerkface left me high and dry, we made plans to go to the movies. He ditched on me, again!”
He groaned, “Tell me about it, I told someone to meet me for something super important, and when I showed up, they weren’t even there! I didn’t get to see ‘em again for another 2 years and that’s because I found them !”
I nodded, “Sounds like a real piece of work.”
Before I knew it we were walking and talking, and I could swear that I saw that weird blue haired girl Yusuke’s been real chummy with. But I must’ve been seeing things, because I blinked, and she was suddenly gone.
“...self…?”
I snapped out of it. “H-huh? Oh, uh, sorry, what were you saying?”
The fanged boy repeated himself, “I was saying I should probably introduce myself.”
My face went kinda flush, I felt so sheepish for needing to hear something so basic again. “Oh, uhm, of course!”
He smiled, his peculiar fangs prominent on his face. “I’m Ryoga Hibiki and I-”
He made some kind of a wincing face, before he slapped at his neck.
Huh, guess it’s mosquito season.