[fanfic][ranma][alt]ranma.ranmei.1 |
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Disclaimer: All Ranma-1/2 characters and plot elements used here are in fact the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her assigns, and are used without their knowledge or permission. This is fan-fiction: an open fan letter in prose. Precedence: This story is preceded by events in "Two Sides of the Coin" by Benares (Jason Wages) and "Misuteru" by Jason Drozd, and proceeds along lines other than those of David Johnson's "Bie Liao / Dare Mo" and JPBuckner's "The Ghost of Curses Past", though much inspiration was lifted from Johnson's work.
Ranmei--siaru 22may01/14jun02 Who you are depends on who you want to have been. Chapter 1
Ranma Saotome... Ranko Tendo... Nobody... By night's end, while sitting with a light jacket over her legs, huddled against her backpack to fight off the cold on the damp ledge, she'd puzzled out a suitable replacement. Not that she'd had much else to do while sitting under that bridge to while away the hours without giving in to the bitter despair. So much of her life didn't even belong to her anymore that it didn't bear contemplation at this point... so she'd settled on devising a new name for herself, one that was hers, not someone's castoff, and yet as close as she could reasonably get to the one she'd been born with, back when she was usually male... one that said something she could relate to. She had a sense of finality, of commitment to purpose, almost like pushing up her sleeves before the first punch, as she settled on it... of facing down a shadowed and unknowable but ominously immediate purpose and path, a wild destiny, and engaging it as an adversary in a battle to the death or to life. "Ranmei." She whispered it, tasting it on her lips, listening to the clipped echo from the other abutment, hearing the word shimmer and fragment between the curved arch of the underside of the bridge and the smooth dark canal waters it spanned. She nodded. One word, the sole product of most of a night's work, and it would have to do; it was her as much as she could make it so. "Ranmei. I am Ranmei." After that, it was an effort to stay awake and alert, but soon the fractured sky reflected in the water ruffled by the dawn wind began to show an angry edge of unruly red. There was fresh bite in the chill of that wind, and she cast about in her mind for something else to think about so that she could ignore the cold. Kasumi would have now roused, dressed, and found the note. Would she have roused anyone early as a consequence? She went down the list in her mind. Ranma, Genma... Nodoka... Nope, she was an embarrassment and a walking hazard, a living piece of history that stubbornly refused to stop breathing, threatening their desperate fiction... and a rude disappointment who had dodged or blocked all efforts to mold her to propriety, a nail that would not flatten. No sympathy there. Akane, Nabiki, Soun... Get real. They'd be glad to have her martial artist's appetite away from their table. To them she was a trouble-magnet drawing property damage into her wake, a hapless victim of her own foolishness. She was the dross finally skimmed from their manly prize so that he could be cast and forged to their design, the Musabetsu Heir, now that he was freed of the taint of sometimes thinking his manly thoughts through a woman's brain, fighting his manly fights with a woman's fists, bleeding a woman's blood. Then why the hell hadn't she hiked out of Nerima as she'd planned when she left the Tendo compound at 3:30? Why hide under the damn bridge where anybody who really knew her, anyone who knew that the thought-patterns she carried were unbroken since she first drew breath as an infant boy named Ranma, and knew what habits those patterns carried, would be sure to discover her? Inside her mind, she levelly faced down the imaginary accusing voice. Because I have to know that I was right, that what I thought about them is true, before I turn my back on them for good. I have to know that I was discarded before I can discard them in turn. In a coupla hours I'll know for sure, and then I'm free. With that thought came some feeling of urgency. She sat up straight, stretched, and put the jacket on, then fished around behind her in her pack for some of the dried fruit she had bought in preparation. She brought out a few pieces and glumly started to nibble at them. It was a sparse breakfast. I'd better get used to it now, she thought, it's what I'll be eating for a long time to come. She heard pebbles being dislodged from the slope by the bridge's eastern side. Dried fruit forgotten, she tensed, stood, seized her pack, swung it up onto one shoulder, and prepared to leap for her life through the broken rock barricade at the dark edge of the bridge where a larger person would have trouble following. Ryoga knew about this place. If it was Ryoga, she would only have that much chance at getting away from his physical and verbal harrassment. The encroaching dawn reduced the arrival to a silhouette, that of a woman in a long skirt, clinging with difficulty to the cement face of the bridge with one hand while holding something safe with the other. The long fall of hair, swinging free as she ducked under the overhang, identified her: it was Kasumi. She took in Ranmei's stance, still poised for flight, and raised her open hand. "I came alone." Her gaze and her manner had none of her usual deference, and Ranmei stepped back automatically: this was a Kasumi she had never before seen except when being admonished for some failing. "I'm sorry about the money--" Kasumi waved the issue away. "Keep it. I am sure that Nabiki made more than that with her little collections of your likeness. Money is tight but we will manage... and you were right, you were shamefully treated." She held out what she carried, a plate-sized bundle wrapped in a cloth, and something indistinct. "Food for the journey." She turned her hand, exposing the other article. "I had a spare thermos; right now it has hot tea." Ranmei looked at the thermos, then at her face, unsure how to interpret the gifts' presentation, what accepting them would mean, and Kasumi saw her confusion. "Ranko..." She shook her head. "Ranmei. It's what I'm going to call myself from now on." "Ranmei Tendo?" "No... just Ranmei. Until they're willing to acknowledge me as a Saotome, if ever. I'm not a lie." Kasumi nodded. "I... see." She thought a moment, eyes downcast, then looked up, renewed firmness in her expression. "Nevertheless there is a name, and a place, within the Tendo clan for you, and will be so long as I live in that house. You are not alone except as you choose to be. "And I do know who you are in there. I overlooked it in the rush of things, and I do apologize, I am so sorry for that lapse... but I have not forgotten. I have faith in you." Ranmei's face softened into a hesitant smile. "Thank you... That means a lot to me. That, and... you came looking for me here..." "I knew that this is where you went to get away, back before you were... divided. I guessed that, if you were still in the area, you would be here; and I knew that someone had to come, and no one else could be trusted." Carefully on the rubble-strewn cement ledge, she stepped close, and pressed her burdens firmly into Ranmei's free hand. "Take them. Please." She fastened Ranmei with that uncharacteristic steady gaze, and waited, communicating her care by eyes alone, until Ranmei relented and accepted the gifts. Then she turned. "Now I must get back and attend to breakfast; and I think you'd best be on your way, before Akane's pet finds you here and brings you more trouble." "He was there last night? I didn't even notice." She nodded. "I found him nosing around in the hallway upstairs and told Akane to either keep him in her room or put him outside. That should keep him in until she wakes up, but nothing is certain. You'd best use back streets until you're out of the immediate area. I will keep your letter to myself until this evening." At the bright rough entrance she turned once more and favored Ranmei with a look that summed concern and confidence into her quiet smile and piercing gaze. "Ran-- Ranmei... Don't give up." After the last sounds of Kasumi's leaving had ceased, Ranmei swung her pack down off her shoulder to find storage within for the gifts. Then she stood for a while, thinking things through, blinking tears. She slowly shook her head in almost-amazement. Someone in that house actually cared. Kasumi, of course, but still... someone cared. In the end it amounted to the same thing. There was still no room for her at Tendo-ke as she thought of herself. She still had to set out on what was probably a lifetime's journey into the unknown, after a life-to-date of close parental control, and she still had to set her mind towards doing so. It was like stepping off a cliff, not quite trusting the evidence of her eyes that the ledge a few feet down actually existed and would stop her fall. She knew that, with her decade of training, not only in martial arts but in living by her wiles as well, she could do it, but the open-endedness of it was still daunting. And now it was harder, she discovered. She had not been totally abandoned. Someone in that house cared that she lived, and it meant that the lines that connected her to that house, however tenuous, were too strong for her to break. It was an additional burden she would rather have not had to carry, though she was abjectly grateful for it. She hurriedly wiped her eyes, swung the pack back up onto her back, checked the fit of the shoulder straps and the hip strap, and set about clambering up out of her dark shelter into the uncaring light of Tokyo's day. Somewhere further off in that light was Jusenkyo. Getting from this sunrise to that one would be a challenge, even without her father's impatience at her side to push her into ill-considered decisions. She was going to have to find ways to support herself for the journey, ways that someone her age and sex would be allowed to use. First, though, she had to get away from those areas of Tokyo where she was likely to encounter former friends she was still too weak to fend off quickly.
Credits: Ginrai alpha-preread this chapter. FFML beta-readers Don Granberry, Mike Noakes, Jason Drozd and Angus McSpon took the time to give their comments and helpful criticism. My thanks to all of you: this story is better for your help.
The stories mentioned under Precedence may be found as:
All four of these tales are indexed on Rakhal's site: http://www.rakhal.com/FFIndex/lstmain.html Johnson's "Dare Mo" has been extended with a prequel episode and both stories are presented on Benares' "Two Sides of the Coin" page as the sequel "Bie Liao": http://formula119.com/fanfic/2coins/ C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org
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