Do You Like Mummies? [Erica, Ranma]

It was as if she could feel the strength of his attacker just by her healing his wounds, sensing a maliciousness from them. The eyeball didn’t hold back and Erica shuddered to think about just what could have happened if things had gone wrong. Ranma was still underplaying the damage that he’d taken and the healer felt just a touch of frustration for a second. She was skilled in the healing arts for sure but there were limits to what she or any other healer could do. One day, he might just come to more harm than she could handle and that thought was enough to make her shudder.

“What you need is to be a little less reckless.” Erica uttered, relieved that the burn marks on his torso were now starting to fade as time passed. “Shoring up your defences is all well and good but there are some enemies out there where simple defence isn’t going to work. You’ve got to stop relying on your ability to take a punch and simply diving headlong into battle. One day, you might run into something who can and will kill you, luck be damned.” Her tone was becoming more unhappy with each word and while she hated having to say such a thing, she felt it was just necessary. “I’m not sure if I could live with that.”

Right on cue, a familiar smell would fill the air as Erica’s zanpakuto chose that moment to unleash a burst of its sweet scent, sensing the Shinigami’s mood. Its effects seemed rather muted though at the moment, with the green eyes of the healer not lighting up as they usually did. No, there was a noticeable lack of that.

It felt heavy. Her hands pressing on him, her Reiatsu pressing into his, and his wounds recovering at such a pace. Erica, as much as she loved her job and duty, didn’t like seeing him injured. Usually, Ranma would joke that it was just one of many opportunities to spend time with her, but…

What she said last betrayed that assumption, and it scraped his heart in a very painful way. He could only be reckless for so long, until someone or something actually committed fatality upon his soul. It wasn’t something he liked to think about, but Erica did. And by the atmosphere, it felt as if she thought about it every, single day…

“I’m not- I won’t… I’ll keep it in mind,” he promised in the end, “I’m not… I’m not just trying to get myself killed, y’know? Obviously not, but…” He had trouble wording his predicament – it just felt like his skillset leaned towards being a tank! Like… if he strayed from that for his own safety, that’d mean a lesser output from him, and thus the Hollow would’ve likely taken much longer to take down. It was a dilemma.

But it stressed Erica out. He could certainly be a bit more careful. “I didn’t mean to worry you like that…” he tried his best to comfort her, and when vigor returned to his arms, he’d gently try to grab her hands even in the midst of her performing Kaidō. He didn’t… find peace in that look in her eyes. He didn’t find joy, either, and they weren’t sparkling as usual. Upon gazing on them, Ranma’s own eyes widened, and his face saddened further.

“… Am I that big of a burden to you?” he quietly panicked, “That’s the last thing I wanted to be.” Certainly, he didn’t catch the meaning of a bond – they were both tugging on each end at times. That was a way of life, and it was what made partners bond to each other. Making each other’s hearts shiver and shake was part of the package, Ranma… but he saw it, initially, as a bad thing. Why make his partner, his love, look so… down? Wasn’t that a testament to his failure as a partner?