Chapter Text
The first thing Ranma felt was the cold bite of glacial ice ripping through her bones as the churning, black waters swallowed them both. A moment before they were exploring ruins in the misty edges of the Mekong, the third stop on their grand training journey. Then the next moment…
Cold.
Salt.
They were drowning. Ranma breached the surface, her hand iron-tight on Akane’s own, both legs kicking furiously against the crashing seas. Despite three years of training since that first meeting in the dojo, Akane had never learned to swim.
“Ranma!” Akane sputtered, flailing.
“I got you!” Ranma coughed back. “Don't let go!”
Another towering wave engulfed them, pulling them under. Ranma fought desperately against the pressure, clinging to Akane the entire time. It was only after spending too much strength and too much time under that Ranma managed to breach the surface again with the both of them. Despite all of Ranma's martial strength, she was losing. She was no ordinary swimmer, but these were no ordinary waters.
Their heavy travel packs were making the struggle that much harder. Akane’s pack hugged her frame, straps cinched tight. Ranma’s shift to his cursed form had loosened the cinch of her own pack. She could probably shake it loose, ditch the weight, but she dared not risk relaxing her grip on Akane for even a moment.
Ranma looked at Akane. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused and she was taking sharp, wheezing breaths. She had taken in too much water when they went under.
They were going to die, Ranma realized.
“LADIES!”
Ranma’s salt-stung eyes snapped to the direction of the voice cracking through the wind and waves.
“I sense LADIES in PERIL!” the deep, male sing-song voice continued.
Ranma scanned the blackened skies, searching for the voice’s owner. What she saw was ridiculous. It was… a man? Running through the air? He had blond hair and wore a dark suit that made her almost miss him amongst the billowing clouds. Reverberations of displaced air followed behind each impossible step he took.
Ranma’s tactical brain went into overdrive. However impossible his air running was, he had to come from somewhere. He was moving fast. Could he take Akane to shore? A ship? Somewhere where someone knew CPR?
“Your shining knight is here!” the ridiculous man declared as he closed on them, an equally ridiculous expression plastered across his face.
Ranma marshelled the failing embers of her strength and heaved Akane from the water into the air. The stranger caught her gingerly in her arms.
“TAKE HER!” Ranma croaked. “SHE’S DROWNING!!”
The ridiculous man’s ridiculous expression softened into genuine fear and worry.
“I can take you too!” the man called back, only for another wave to tower and fling Ranma far from him.
“SHE DOESN’T HAVE LONG!” Ranma cried, as loud as her hoarse voice would allow. “I’ll be fine!” she added, though she could no longer see the stranger amidst the tumbling seas. She hoped he heard her, that he would focus on rescuing Akane.
He could come back for Ranma after Akane was safe (she had to be) and Ranma could focus on her own survival now that Akane was clear. She shrugged off her pack, shedding it into the black deep. She could survive. She would last. She and Pops had swam across the Sea of Japan to China before. Except the bungee hooks that wrapped her bedroll had snagged her pants. Still connected to her heavy travel pack, it suddenly anchored her leg like a corpse.
The currents sucked her under and she couldn’t kick free. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t breach this time. As her last breath seeped away, the darkness took her.