Cursed

When he'd felt the cold water hit his skin, Ryoga knew he'd have to move fast. Even as he tranformed, feeling his hands and feet become hooves, feeling his body shrink and contort, he'd kept running. He knew he was too late to get out of the way, the huge wave blasted out of the cold river from the fury of Inuyasha's strike hit him and Akane directly. But he'd started running the moment it has touched him because he knew what was coming, just like Ranma he too had the misfortune of visiting the Jusenkyo spring, although he liked to think he wouldn't have been so stupid as to have gotten himself cursed without Saotome's help. For all Ranma bitched and moaned about becoming a beautiful girl whenever he got wet, it was nothing compared to the kind of hell Ryoga endured.

He was a pig.

Not just any pig, the cutest, most adorable little black piglet that had ever walked the earth. On the one hand, it wasn't so bad. Akane had adopted him as her pet, her P-chan, and that meant getting to stay close to the girl. And even, the pig blushed at his thoughts, sleeping her bed at night. It had some definite drawbacks though, like the fact that if Akane ever found out about P-chan's true identity, Ryoga would die a most painful death at her hands. That much he didn't doubt, at the very least she'd never speak to him again and Ryoga honestly found painful death to be a more acceptable fate.

At least he wasn't lost, P-chan thought with a grimace, his little piggy legs flying. There was a well worn path from the river to the village that even someone with his utter and complete lack of directional sense couldn't miss. If he put so much as one hoof off that path, well then he might just find himself wandering in the forest for hours on end. This time he had a plan, Ryoga never thought of himself as the brightest guy around but he wasn't completely stupid. As they'd run through the village on their way to confront Ranma, he'd noticed a large pot of water left simmering over a fire. You did tend to pay attention to things like that when the least touch of cold moisture made your body alter into another form.

And what the hell was wrong with Ranma? Ryoga swore to himself as he ran, desperate to get rid of the pig and get back to protecting his Akane. Something Very Very Bad had happened to the young martial artist for him to go insane like that and while Ryoga had a list of Very Very Bad things he wanted to see happen to Ranma Saotome, becoming a homicidal maniac wasn't one of them. The white haired guy seemed to think this was the work of demons. Ryoga didn't know a damn thing about demons, but he knew crazy when he saw it and Ranma fit into that category very nicely.

He'd reached the village now and gave an oink of relief to see the pot was right where he'd last seen it. Score one for the good guys. He didn't hesitate to jump right into the low, simmering pot of water, he'd gotten used to being scalded by now, the gods knew it happened frequently enough. He plunged in and stood straight up, screaming as his pig form disappeared and he now found himself naked and standing up to his knees in boiling water. Shit!

Hopping out and cursing inventively, that left him with one more task before returning to Akane. Clothes. He wasn't going back down there in front of those people wearing nothing but his skin and and a bandana on his head. Luckily, it seemed to have been washing day in the small village and there were several yukata spread out carefully to dry in the sun. He grabbed the biggest one he could find and tied it tightly around him. Dignitiy and modesty satisfied, the young man gave an almost feral growl as he headed back to the river. If Saotome had hurt anyone, he was going to personally rip his ears off. No, he didn't care if Ranma thought he was some badass of a demon now, it didn't matter. He'd taken him down in the past and he'd do it again, whatever it took. If he couldn't find a way to beat sense into Ranma's head, he was grabbing Akane and making a run for that well.

What he found when he got back to the river made his blood run cold in horror. The villagers were milling around in confusion, Akane was lying on the ground with some girl in a school uniform crying over her and Ranma was...gone?

"What happened?" he demanded as he dropped next the crying girl. Then his eyes widened in shock. Akane's face was so pale, her lips tinged with blue and a horrifying bruise had half formed around her throat. He reached for her limp hand and whispered her name. When she didn't respond, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. "Akane!"

A hand touched his shoulder and he looked up to see a kind faced young man leaning over him. "I'm sorry," the monk said quietly.

Anger suddenly filled him. Akane couldn't be dead, not when he'd never even gotten to tell her how he felt! Ryoga refused to accept it and shoved the guy away. "She's not dead," he snarled.

Ryoga pushed the girl out of the way and went to look into Akane's face. Tenderly, he brushed her hair back from her face and slipped his hand under her neck to steady her head. "Akane," he murmured and pressed his lips against hers, exhaling into her mouth.

"Is he kissing the dead?" Sango murmured to Miroku, her eyes wide.

"He is struck by grief, Sango," the monk said sadly. Miroku raised his hand to make a blessing for Akane's soul. "It is so unfair for such a lovely girl to die so young."

Kagome watched as Ryoga kept trying to breathe for Akane. "Of course," she whispered, her eyes lighting in hope. "CPR, why didn't I think of it?" She crawled over to Akane and pressed on Akane's chest, counting as Ryoga leaned back from giving her a breath. "Don't forget to breathe for yourself," she reminded him. Oh gods, please. This has to work!

Ryoga had often dreamed of pressing his lips against those of Akane Tendo. Having finally accomplished his dream, he was heartsick at the circumstances. He couldn't give up on her, he couldn't let go. Stubborn love refused to let him accept that she was gone from him forever, stubborn love and a will that it not be so. "Akane, don't give up on me!"

He went to breathe for her again and this time he thougth her lips felt warmer. Could it be true? Briskly, he slapped the sides of her face, hating himself for striking her. "Akane," he said sternly. "You have to wake up."

She moaned suddenly, twitching and taking a deep breath. Kagome pulled her hands back, eyes wide. "She's alive," the girl cried joyously.

Sango knelt next to Kagome, hugging the girl's shoulders. "I've never seen anything like that, it was amazing, Kagome!"

Ryoga cradled Akane's head in his lap. "Can you hear me?" he asked gently.

Her eyes opened slowly, she looked dazed. "What happened to me?" she asked in a cracked voice. Her hand fluttered up to touch her bruised throat and she winced.

"Just rest," Ryoga answered, patting her head. Now that he knew she was going to live, he could treasure the memory of their lips touching. Our first kiss, the young man thought with a flush. The kiss of true love that restores life itself, the love that can't be defeated by death. The romance that..

"Are you okay?" the girl Kagome asked curiously. "Your face just turned bright red."

"I'm fine," Ryoga snapped, then his face softened as he looked at Akane. She was alive, resting in his lap and he couldn't ask for more. Except for one thing. "Did Ranma do this?" the young man asked in a soft, dangerous voice.

Kagome's shoulders slumped. "Yes," she answered, her voice low and sad.

Ryoga bit back a snarl. "Where is he? I swear I'm going to make him pay for hurting Akane!"

"You don't have to," another voice said sourly. They looked up to see Inuyasha standing on the riverbank, his arms tucked into his sleeves and his face looked tired. "He's dead, Kagome. Ranma is dead."

*****

Night had fallen and the village had returned to a peaceful state. In Kaede's hut, Kagome tried to comfort a sobbing Akane. At her side were Miroku and Sango, offering what comfort they could by their presence. Ryoga stayed close too, miserable as he had to witness Akane's grief. Everything had gone wrong, everything they'd tried to do, to help Ranma had been undone by Naraku's malicious spell. Now there was nothing anyone could do. In the morning, Kagome, Akane and Inuyasha would have to take Ranma's body back to his family.

First Akane had cursed Ranma for being so stupid as to get himself killed, then she had exploded in denial that he was actually dead. She wouldn't accept it until Kagome and Inuyasha had taken her to see his body. Then the girl's reserve had crumbled and she'd collapsed in sobs of grief. Wordless, unable to comfort her, Inuyasha had just picked her up and brought her back to Kaede's hut, Kagome following silent and tear streaked behind him. The old priestess had soothed the girl, held her and rocked her like a baby before gently pressuring her into drinking a cup of tea. Inuyasha suspected it wasn't your ordinary dinner tea that was served but he kept his mouth shut as Akane soon relaxed and fell into a quiet slumber.

He'd gone outside then, knowing that Kagome would follow him. "Inuyasha," she said quietly, wiping at her red eyes.

The hanyou shook his head. "I know, Kagome. I'm sorry too."

"It wasn't your fault," the girl told him, reaching for his hand. Whatever fear or anger she'd been harboring for him had seemed to disappear, her fingers curled warm around his. "Don't blame yourself," she whispered.

"I don't," he snapped. He did actually, he blamed himself for not being able to hold Tetsusaiga back when it had attacked. The surge of power had felt unlike anything he'd ever experience, anything he'd ever summoned from the sword himself. Even in his transformed state, Inuyasha hadn't wanted to kill the other youkai. It wasn't the punk's fault he went crazy, it was Naraku's. Just one more crime in a growing list of evil.

Kagome's hand moved up to grip his sleeve. "Nobody blames you," she began, seeing the closed and angry expression deepening on his face.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Nobody blames me, but it was still me that killed him."

"The Tetsusaiga," she said quietly.

He cut her off, turning around looking down into her eyes. "If it wasn't me, it wasn't anyone," he said. "I'm gonna go watch over his body. I...I don't want anything to bother him tonight."

And that's how he found himself, sitting up at night with the company of a corpse. Ranma's body lay still and quiet in the moonlight, his skin cold and pale against the dark grass. Inuyasha crouched nearby, his arms resting on his knees and an unusually thoughtful look on his face. "You sure were a lot of trouble," he muttered, picking at his claws.

"I'm still sorry you died," he said gruffly, feeling somehow compelled to talk since it was just the two of them. "Naraku is a bastard. Akane's right, if he wasn't coming after me, he never would have gotten his claws into you."

And that made him feel guilty, however much he tried to deny it, nobody else had killed Ranma. It was him. He wasn't strong enough to fight the Tetsusaiga, hold back that awful wave of power that had claimed Ranma's life. Funny, he'd seemed to be coming out of it when the sword took him, he'd looked like he knew what he was doing. Inuyasha scowled. Ranma maybe wouldn't have wanted to live after what he'd done.

"I know what you were going through," he said at last, watching the sky as the stars twinkled unconcerned. "I know what it felt like, punk. To have no control over what ya did, wake up finding out that you'd done stuff you never would have done in your right mind. I don't even remember what happened, but if the way you were acting is any clue, I don't wanna remember it. I've done enough bad shit when I knew what I was doing."

His golden eyes glittered in the darkness as he stood and walked silently over to the corpse. Weird how he'd become human in death, the hanyou thought, one claw reaching absently out to touch the boy's shoulder. "I hope you found peace," he murmured softly.

"Such sentiment will be your downfall, brother," a cool voice sneered. Inuyasha looked up to see Sesshomaru appearing out of the darkness like an ancient ghost. Inuyasha stood, glaring at him. His older brother's face was cold with contempt.

"What are you here for?" Inuyasha asked, matching his older brother's expression of hatred. "Are you disappointed you didn't get to kill him yourself?"

Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow, moving smoothly over to stand at his brother's side. "Yes."

"You're such a bastard," Inuyasha hissed. "That's the only thing you can think of, right? Revenge and death."

"I am youkai," Sesshomaru answered in his inflectionless tone. "What else is there?"

The two brothers stared at each other over Ranma's body, mutual contempt thick between them, making the air crackle with hatred. Finally, Sesshomaru smiled faintly, catching the scent of Ranma's death. "You killed him yourself, brother."

Inuyasha flinched involuntarily. He wondered how Sesshomaru always knew such things, it wasn't right for him to have all the answers. "Yeah," he said at last. "Stupid fucking sword took him, I don't know why."

"And you still doubt your unworthiness to wield our father's heirloom?" Sesshomaru inquired. When Inuyasha refused to answer, his brother made a soft hiss of annoyance. "Better the Tetsusaiga should be destroyed than in the hands of an incompetent fool such as yourself."

"Shut up," Inuyasha answered harshly, his fists clenching. He ached to attack his brother, wipe that superior smirk of his face. "He was a snotty little punk but he didn't deserve to die like this."

Sesshomaru looked bored. "Your compassion will be your undoing, Inuyasha. And is useless. If you had not slain this demon, I would have done so myself."

The hanyou snorted. "Guess Naota never caught up with ya, huh?"

The last thing he'd ever have expected was for Sesshomaru to show any emotion. His brother turned on him, moving like a flash of lightning when he seized his younger brother by the front of his clothing and snarled into his face. "Where did you hear that name?"

Inuyasha shoved him away, breaking the youkai's grip with relative ease. "From his own fucking mouth, you asshole," he snapped. "This punk is his grandson or something like that. You got all the answers, how come you don't know that?"

"Naota was here?" Sesshomaru's already quiet voice was almost inaudible, a strange and reflective expression on his face. "You are certain it was he?"

Inuyasha gave a snort of disgust. "Not here, idiot. In the Western lands. He said he was going to stop you from killing Ranma if he could." The hanyou frowned and looked over his shoulder at his brother. "Would you have stopped?"

"No." Sesshomaru's voice was like ice. "Naota is dead to me, his words are dead to me. If he begged me to restore this creature's life, I would not."

Scowling, Inuyasha looked at the ground. He knew that Sesshomaru's Tenseiga could revive the dead, he also knew that he'd burn out his own tongue before he begged a favor like that from his brother. Sesshomaru knew it too and did not comment. Finally, Inuyasha sighed and looked at his older brother. "Is he really our cousin?"

The youkai didn't move, didn't meet his eyes, instead staring down at the dead Ranma like he expected answers to rise from the corpse. "Naota is hanyou, worse than hanyou. He has denied his demon heritage, such as it is. And he has betrayed me in the past, I do not claim relation to an outcast such as Naota."

"Figures," Inuyasha sneered. He leaned down over Ranma, looking into the dead boy's face. Catching sight of the pendant, he reached for it and lifted the thin chain. "Looks like this didn't do ya a hell of a lot of good. That old woman must have been more senile than I thought."

"Old woman?" In spite of himself, Sesshomaru sounded curious. "What old woman do you speak of?"

Inuyasha looked up. "Just an old hill witch in the Western mountains," he answered. He lifted the pendant so the moonlight fell upon it and made it sparkle. "This is what she gave him, told us it would help seal his demon blood."

Sesshomaru leaned over him, his sleeve brushing his brother's shoulder as he reached for the tiny crystal. "No," he breathed, his eyes going wide. "This should not be."

"You recognize it?" Inuyasha asked, startled.

His brother snatched the chain from his fingers and gave a hard yank, breaking it. Sesshomaru straightened, holding the pendant up so he could examine it closely. "By the gods of hell itself," he breathed, fascinated. A poisonous object, hatred and malice given a physical form. He was one of the very few who had no need to fear of its magic. Why should he, when it had been crafted by his own mother's hand?

"What is it?" his unbelievably stupid brother had to ask. Sesshomaru shook his head, all the stories told to him by his father were running in his head, every last detail of his mother's death, her clan's destruction and the betrayal of a demon lord's beloved brother. And one more thing, an act of mercy by his father that he had questioned in his own mind, although he had never met the old woman himself.

Silently, not answering his brother's question, he looked down at the dead young man. It was not compassion or pity that stirred his heart, rather an oblique sense of duty to his father. If Inutaisho had known that this pendant survived the destruction of the Azaryu clan, he never would have stopped until he'd hunted it down and destroyed it. Ironic that such a treacherous piece of youkai magic had found its way to one of his uncle's descendants. Inutaisho would not have been pleased.

Inuyasha stared as his brother drew the Tenseiga, holding the glimmering blade aloft for a moment before bringing it down in a sweeping movement. Power ran from the blade's surface like water over ice, catching the slight glow of the full moon and lighting the small glade. Inuyasha felt the hair stand up on his scalp from the echo of the katana's magic. Not for the first time, he wondered about it. Why had his father placed something like that in the hands of his brother? Why, for that matter, could a cold hearted bastard like Sesshomaru even use it?

Ranma gasped, suddenly alive again and disoriented as all hell. He stared up at an implacable and cold demon's face, watching as a sword was sheathed. "What happened?" he whispered.

The demon didn't answer, just turned away with a sweep of long white hair. Ranma sat up, feeling a bit nauseous, but otherwise just fine. He rubbed his face and tried to remember what happened to him. Something felt different. He looked at his hands and wondered again when he saw that they were normal, human looking fingers. "My claws are gone," he whispered.

A hard hand grabbed his shoulder, but the grasp turned gentle and Inuyasha helped the dazed young man to his feet. "It's a long story, punk," he said, his voice quiet and dark. "I don't understand it all myself, but right now it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?" Ranma asked. He still felt wobbly and his feet didn't seem to know how to move. He leaned gratefully on the hanyou's shoulder, letting Inuyasha guide his steps back to the village. "I feel like shit, I had a terrible dream that I died."

Inuyasha grinned in spite of himself. "You look like shit too," he said cheerfully, holding on to Ranma's arm so the young martial artist wouldn't fall over on his face. "Don't worry about it, they're gonna be happy to see your ugly face no matter how it looks. Especially Akane."

"Did something happen to me?" Ranma demanded, reaching up to rub his head. It hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before. "I don't remember anything, did I do something stupid?"

"No stupider than usual," Inuyasha grunted. "You're a real pain in the ass, you know that Ranma? Must be a family trait or something."

"Family trait?" Ranma asked, beginning to be irritated. "What do you mean by that, asshole?"

Inuyasha grinned at his cousin. "You ain't gonna believe it."


A/N: Okay, okay. I know I said this was going to be the last chapter, but there's one more. It will be on it's way very soon. Please review!!!