FicWad

EPILOGUE

Yatra yogeśhvaraḥ kṛiṣhṇo yatra pārtho dhanur-dharaḥ
Tatraśhrīr vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama

(Wherever there is Shree Krishna, the Lord of all Yog, and wherever there is Arjun, the supreme archer, there will also certainly be unending opulence, victory, prosperity, and righteousness. Of this, I am certain)

-Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, Verse 78

Nearly two months had gone by since he was first admitted. He had survived both ECMO and the vent against the odds. He still could not smell, but he was no longer infectious. Things were very different from a year ago when she had been unable to save Lisette’s father, Nabiki had told him assuredly, but she was still always visibly shaken whenever their conversation approached how very, very close she had come to losing him.

He himself was afraid to dig just yet into how much she must have endured to remain there steadfastly by his side through it all, being unable to see and hold Airyou for so long. He too was desperately missing Airyou. The videos and pictures that Kasumi had been sending tugged painfully at the strings of his heart. He looked forward to seeing her and holding her again soon.

"How does the Bhagavad Gita end anyway?" Ranma asked. Nabiki was behind him, pushing his wheelchair back toward the now very familiar dome and the towering statue of the Christus Consolator. He was being discharged tomorrow again.

She locked the rear wheels of the chair and seated herself on the edge of the statue's pedestal before answering him. She still had not yet regained enough of her pre-partum strength and endurance to stand for long on her own. "Arjuna the prince goes on to fight and meet his destiny because he now knows all that he needs in order to believe. The outcome of the battle that he will fight is irrelevant."

"But it is relevant," he countered. "Yeah?"

"Of course it is, but the point is that because Arjuna has found the essence of his Faith in the Divine, he will succeed – regardless of whether he wins or loses, lives or dies."

"I see. So that's why I was able to come back…." he mused, recalling the visage of the eternal angry teenage girl who had confronted him and scolded him in the Netherworld.

"What do you mean?"

He had not told her about it yet, the very moment in which he was sure his life truly hung in the balance, the one actual intersection between Life and Death that had determined his Fate and Destiny. He told her about it now.

"You chose me…." she whispered to herself once he had finished.

"Yes." He could see where her thoughts were going.

Oneechan has her own issues, but I'm not the one who can go back and fix that….

Hastily, he added, "Please don't hold it against me for having had to talk it over with her though. It's really about me talking things over with myself."

"I don't," she said, taking his hand and holding it to her cheek. "Believe me when I tell you that I'm more grateful than I'm able to say that I still have you, that I'm not alone with Airyou-chan. I just hope that one day I will be able to earn a place like her as one of your better angels," she said sadly.

"It's not like that, Na-chan, not about angels or hierarchies of any sort. It's about what ya said, that Arjuna can go on to fight and meet his destiny because now he knows all that he needs in order to believe. The outcome of the battle that he will fight is irrelevant."

Nabiki was quiet, lost in thought for along time before she was finally asking him the right question, the only one that really mattered. "So, Mr. Tendou, what is it that you believe in, what you think you know now that has given you this will to live even when you're supposed to have died?"

Ranma found himself laughing with pure, unbridled joy. He couldn't help it.

"You! I believe in you, Na-chan. That's everything and the only thing that matters."

Nabiki broke down in tears as her face slipped naturally into the space between his shoulder and cheek. "Come home with me to Airyou-chan. Just come home with me," she begged desperately as she wept.

"I will."

"They – my own people – told me more than once I should prepare myself to be a COVID widow, and there was more than one occasion when I was asked to choose if I should let you go, let you rest."

"You believed in me too," he realised. Yet, obvious as it was, he was no less moved, down into the very essence of his bones.

He felt her nod wordlessly against him.

"I will not leave you alone. Never," he told her. A renewed sense of resolve and purpose suddenly was burning brightly within him now.

"Good." An old, familiar smirk that he had not seen in a very long time suddenly alighted in her eyes."I'm driving by the way tomorrow."

"Fine," he laughed. "You're driving."

"I knew you'd see it my way."

END