Chapter 2:

Survivors

by Man in the shadows.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Ranma 1/2, Gundam Wing, or
SailorMoon. Sunrise owns Gundam Wing, as far as I know. Ranma 1/2 belongs
to Rumiko Takahashi. Whoever makes Saliormoon is one hell of a better
artist then I. God Bless these people. I'm also low on cash. Please don't
sue. God bless these people's lawyers.

~ ~ is for phones and TVs. [ ] This is for thoughts.

WARNING: Spoilers, Foul language, and you better believe there'll be
violence.
*********************************************************
Genma sat in the bar, working on his third bottle of sake. He didn't really
give a damn about how much he had. He didn't really care that he couldn't
afford much more. There wasn't much that he cared about at that moment.

He spent more then a decade raising Ranma. He taught Ranma almost
everything he knew. Ranma had been his son. Sure he exploited that son, but
who didn't.

In the end it didn't matter. Genma didn't care that Soun had been the one
to tell Akane to call off the engagement. He didn't care Akane obeyed her
father. He didn't care that two other people had died. Only one thing
mattered.

Genma's only son was dead.
*********************************************************
Mamoru sat in a lone chair in his apartment. The lights were out. And he
sat in silence. His life had been shattered in the blink of an eye. All
because some girl had dumped her boyfriend.

Unlike most of the Senishi, Mamoru didn't blame the girl... He didn't blame
Akane. There was no way she could have foreseen what happened. Sailor Pluto
had been surprised by all of this. While scary, it wasn't planned.

There was no major conspiracy. No superpowered villains. No threat to the
world. Just a stupid accident. Nothing to strike out against.

Mamoru just felt dead inside. He didn't have the outrage of Rei. He didn't
have the tears that Luna showed. All he had was this empty feeling. Without
Usagi, he just didn't know if he could go on.

He looked at the bottle on his lap. Inside of it was enough aspirin for a
lethal dose. His hand shivered as he reached for it. It would just be easy
to pop down a few dozen and go to bed.
*********************************************************
Heero loosened his tie as he sat down in the room. The Funeral had just
ended. And the most surprising part was how many people showed outside the
church. After the accident a picture of Duo had been shown across the news
and he had been identified as the pilot of Deathscythe. He was an overnight
sensation with teenage girls. Of course he was only alive 3 hours after the
accident. The other two were DOA.

Now he was here, in a restaurant lounge room, reserved for himself, the
other pilots, Releena, Heirde, Lady Une, and Howard. Sally Poe had been on
assignment.

Quatre was the first one to speak. "I can't believe he died like that."

"How was he supposed to die, damnit," snapped Herdie.

"Calm down... There's nothing gained by attacking each other," said
Releena. "We need each other for support now."

"Such a waste," mumbled Wu Fei as he leaned against a bookshelf.

Silence enshrouded the group again. Then Heero broke it. "Duo was a friend,
and we shouldn't forget him, but we still have our lives to live. Anyway, I
want to suggest we start meeting every 2 years. I don't think we should
lose touch, Not after this." His Voice seemed emotionless and didn't crack.
Still, his words touched each of the others as they slowly agreed.
*********************************************************
The phone rang. [Please may it not be another prank call.] She yawned and
picked up the phone. "Hello. Poison Control Hotline."

~Hello.~ The voice sounded weak. ~I... need some... help.~

"What seems to be the problem?"

~I... took a lot... of aspirin.~

"How many, sir?"

~All of em'. I wanted to kill myself."

[Oh shit! This is serious!] She sat up straight in her seat and started
typing furiously on her keyboard. "Sir, I'm sending police and an ambulance
to where you are. Now how many Aspirin did you take."

~The bottle says... 50...~

"And how many did you take?"

~All of em'.~

[Oh shit... Oh fucking shit!] "Sir, I need you to listen closely. I'm going
to give you instructions to make yourself throw up."
*********************************************************
Ami walked slowly through the street. She had no destination. She just
tried to work out things in her mind. She kept asking herself one question,
again and again. "Why?"

Her best friend had just been buried. And she couldn't think of a single
reason why it happened. It was a question that haunted her. Why would there
be a reason for Usagi to die? She was the nicest person Ami knew.

She never saw the guy in front of her until she walked straight into him.
She fell back, as he did. "I'm sorry," she said as she looked up. From the
looks of the guy, he probably was of Arabian decent.

"It's alright," he said. "I wasn't looking where I was going." He got up
and offered her a hand up. Ami noticed that the guy was dressed in a black
suit and had a black band about his arm. "A friend of mine died recently,"
he simply explained when he noticed what she was looking at.

"A friend of mine died too," she said sadly.

After a few moments of silence the guy asked, "So, where are you headed?"

"No where certain."

"Oh..." He looked towards a near by restaurant as an odd thought came to
him. "Can I buy you dinner?"

She looked at him and smiled softly. "Sure. I'm Ami."

"My name is Quatre."
*********************************************************
Akane sat in her room. She had her legs pulled tightly against her body and
she softly cried. She felt so responsible for the entire horrible accident.
Three people were now dead.

And Kuno didn't help her. First he came to the funeral with his Boken to
challenge her. Then he spoke ill of Ranma. She just snapped. Now Kuno was
in the hospital.

She was lucky that the police let her go. Nabiki said that she was lucky
Kuno was armed and that he had provoked her. Akane could have been thrown
in jail.

She didn't care. In her mind, she had killed Ranma and two others. And from
this point, she had nowhere to go.
*********************************************************
Luna sat on Usagi's bed crying. She had lost her ward. To her, Usagoi was
like her own child. Now Usagi was dead. She felt rudderless.

Down stairs Usagi's mom was thinking of giving Luna away. She couldn't bare
to see the cat that Usagi cared so much about.

For Luna, she made a decision to spend only one more night in that house.
Come the morning sun, she'd start wandering. And she had no idea what she'd
wander too.
*********************************************************
"So, you're friend was in the same accident as Duo?" Quatre was surprised
about the thing he had in common with this girl he had just met.

"It just doesn't seem right. She wasn't even able to have a open coffin
funeral."

"I know... I've seen so much death in my life... For once I'd like to see
something else." Once again the silence that seemed uniform with the day
had come up again.
*********************************************************
Ryouga looked at the piece of paper in his hands. He was now looking for
the truck driver, Kelly Anise. [You've stolen my revenge. You made my
friends cry. Now I'm going to make you pay, Kelly.]
*********************************************************
Hirde looked at the papers in her hands. Duo had died without any family.
No siblings, parents... Not even a child... In Hirde's hands was a chance
to give Duo a final legacy.
*********************************************************
Nodoka stared at the room that Ranma had lived in. It seemed so bare. There
was little to show of the boy who had lived there. Just a pack, a futon,
and a few clothes.

She had only gotten to know her son for barely a year. It didn't seem like
enough. There was no way in Hell that it was enough. Her son had been taken
away from her. And it wasn't right at all.

Nodoka slowly slid to the floor, while tears ran down her face.
*********************************************************
Heero sat in a motel room in silence. He had lost a good friend. And Heero
had a hard time dealing with it. On the outside it didn't show.

On the inside he was a raging pit of anger and hate. He wanted something to
lash out against. He wanted a heavy ordinance to lash out with. He wanted
to cause someone pain for all of this.

He wanted to at least have had a chance to tell Duo want a good friend he
was.

In the darkness a tear ran down the emotionless features of the perfect
solder's face.

*********************************************************
Wu Fei walked to a cliff where Duo's cremation was held. It was bigger then
life, as Duo would have wanted to go. Even now people where laying gifts at
the edge of the cliff.

He walked to the edge and waited till no one was near him. "Duo, you idiot,
why couldn't you keep an eye on what was happening around you. Now look at
where you are... In a urn... waiting top be spread across the colony you
lived on."

Wu Fei took a bit of a breath to calm him. "You seemed to be one of the
most... human of us... next to Quatre. Hell, your passing is felt... and
not just by those of us who knew the idiot behind the Gundam."
*********************************************************
"Then he's just like, 'What is it with the bad guys and kidnapping
Releena.'" Quatre finally got a small chuckle from Ami on that one.

Ami was enjoying the company of this nice fellow. She felt guilty on the
inside. But it did help to trade stories, about their departed friends,
with Quatre.
*********************************************************
Akane walked out of her room, having cried all she could. She could hear a
soft crying. She looked down the hall to see Nodoka by Ranma's door. No one
else was home.

She slowly walked over to Ranma's mother, kneeled next to her, and just
hugged her.
*********************************************************
Author's notes:

Who will descend? Who will come out of this fore the better? What will the
world do without Sailor Moon? Will Ranma have an impact on the rest of the
world with his death? These questions and more won't be answered in the
next chapter. We're going back to purgatory to check up and the dead
fellows.