[fanfic][ranma][alt]ranma.ranmei.2 |
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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.
Ranmei--siaru 22may01/14jul02 Who you are depends on who you want to have been. Chapter 2 With one hand balancing her backpack on the tops of her shoes while she gave her shoulders a rest, Ranmei grimaced up into sunny brilliance at a clock near the post office: it was mid-afternoon. She'd wasted over a day walking more or less at random, resting from the heat in shady spots and avoiding all the places she might be expected to be, while she thought things out, or tried. She really needed to pick someplace to go, and in so doing choose how she would travel, because she needed to be gone from here. She hadn't meant to spend this much time anywhere near Nerima, but, quite aside from the difficulty with choosing a destination, the whole business of dealing with other people was just too frustratingly slow. Ranmei felt like she had somehow become the guy in the invisible-woman suit. She'd noticed it the night before, in the convenience store near the university high school. She'd stopped in there for a few supplies and a cheap snack. Dead-tired after a day's walk on top of staying up all night for the stealthy escape from Tendo-ke, and edgy after staying alert all day to avoid encounters with former friends, she'd resorted to shouting after standing for twenty minutes at the counter. The clerk had started, mouth agape, asked her, "Where'd you come from?", then apologized profusely for the comment and the startlement and the inattention. Today it had taken most of a half hour just for her to gain the attention of a woman selling bento, despite the lack of other customers, and the woman had been distracted by a passing truck before making change. If the food had already been in her hand, Ranmei would have left the change behind rather than wait the ten minutes or so it took to get the woman's attention again. That vendor hadn't been the only one, either. The only time Ranmei had been promptly seen was when she was occupying a place in line, and probably only because there was no way for the line to move forward until her purchase was made. It wasn't just her former friends and relations after all. Shop clerks, people on the street, all seemed to blithely ignore her unless she set her mind to being noticed. Somehow she had gone from being the kind of person who commanded attention, welcome or not, to the kind of person who had to try twice to get noticed. It was unnerving. It's like I'm some kind of ghost, she thought, but I have feet, and the sun feels good, and people can see me once they take the trouble to look. It's gotta have something to do with this Jusenkyo body of mine. Is it because of my ki? Is it because I can't raise an aura anymore? Thinking it over, she could only find one way in which it was anything other than just another curse she couldn't shake, a Umisen-ken she couldn't break. She'd long been expert at finding out-of-the-way places to camp out in the less populated areas, or in vacant lots in Nerima where the koban gave martial artists a wide berth as long as they weren't actively making trouble at the moment. She hadn't expected to find the urban texture so unfamiliar, so hard to read, so close to her former home. Finally, exhausted, she'd spent the night curled up in a small copse of trees and bushes in a park in the next ward south of Nerima, with dead leaves piled up on her sleeping bag and getting into her mouth every time she rolled over. She'd awakened to the sun in her eyes, ants crawling across her hand, and the realization that, as visible as everything around her was by day, the only thing that had kept her red hair from getting her badly-needed sleep disrupted by the police was that involuntary invisibility thing. She was mulling all of this over, standing under the post office overhang and idly looking at all the displayed printed materials in the window of the travel office next door while she made short work of a riceball, when lengths of weighted chain descended without warning onto the mailbox next to her. From the roof of the post office came indistinct shouting, too blurred by reverberation to make out words, but it was clear enough who was doing the shouting. She winced and dodged. Mousse. And where he went, others would likely follow. She was eyeing likely hiding places for her pack, already scanning the street as a battle environment and mapping resources, when the mailbox sprouted legs and stalked off, stepping delicately over the rounds of chain with its sturdy legs in colorful nylons and satin pumps. The shouting tracked the mailbox as it fled. She relaxed marginally as she realized who the mailbox was, though why Mousse would target Tsubasa was a mystery, and then tensed anew as she realized who was probably still in the post office. She stepped deeper under the overhang just as Ukyo emerged, looked around without noticing her, and walked off in the direction of Nerima. There was a moment of bitter longing as she watched her former best friend blend into the crowded sidewalk, head held high, and vanish into the crowd. As few friends as she'd ever had, she had been devastated by the loss of that friendship. She thought about Ryoga's Shishi Hokodan, and shook her head. I sure have the depression, she thought grimly, but even if I wanted to... Why can't I raise my ki? I can't have changed that much. I used to be able to put together a Mouko Takabisha when I was female. What's different now? She was just resuming her walk when a vague feeling of threat registered, and she stepped to the edge of the sidewalk crowds again, gently pushing her way through a stream of people who gave way seemingly without ever really registering her presence. Low ki or not, her danger sense seemed to be working. Ryoga was coming up the crowded sidewalk, heading away from Nerima, bulldozing people aside with his pack, oblivious to their annoyed stares. His gaze automatically scanned the crowd, yet it somehow missed her entirely as he brusquely pushed past her, shoving her a little off-balance. Amazed at that, she was turning to follow, to see what it would take for him to recognize her, when she heard him mumbling his current catechism: "...making Akane cry. For that you will pay, Ranko! Just as soon as I find you... and find you I will..." She stopped trying to keep up with him then, she just stood and watched his pack and umbrella recede into the sidewalk crowd, watched numbly until even the turbulence of his passage through the sunwashed waves of people was lost to view. I'm not in the places where they're used to seeing me, she thought, and now they're as blind to my presence as everyone else because they don't think to look. This is what it's like to be able to observe and see clearly, undistracted by being the constant target. I really wanted this, back when there was one of me and everyone wanted a piece of that... but how can I trust it? There shouldn't be that many of them here, this far from the neighborhood. Maybe they can't see me, but something still draws them. I gotta get out of the area completely, now. I don't have medical backup anymore, not Tofu, not even my father; I can't afford a fight with them now. She thought about backtracking to the Seibu Shinjuku rail line, then she thought about how going back into Nerima would put her back into the arena, where she would be expected and noticed; that would be asking for it. She guessed that the highway was closer anyway, and maybe she could hold onto her money. Half an hour later, watching the expressway lights make streaks of sparkles on the windows as they crawled past, she was congratulating herself on a good guess. The streetlights had been flickering on over a mounting rush hour riptide when she had walked over to the southbound entrance ramp, dropped her pack in front of her and looked around. Martial artist or not, Genma had had a fine appreciation for the value of a free ride. When Genma had been cold or tired, or just in a hurry to get to the next free meal, and a likely highway was handy, he and Ranma had hitched rides. As unprepossessing as he knew he looked, he had always made certain that they stood at the roadside just so, with Ranma in front of two packs side by side, and Genma behind them with his hand casually on his son's shoulder. A driver who would have cringed slightly and sped up on seeing just Genma would pull over and ask Ranma where they were headed, and often take them at least partway, affected by the child's enthusiasm and his pride about the path to martial arts mastery that he traveled. He got them rides because he looked safe. Now she looked over at the young couple holding a hastily written sign that read "Kobe" under their thumbs, smiled and nodded to them, and unzipped her jacket. The lights overhead were throwing shadows she could see on her hands, so she stepped back, dragging her pack, until she felt that her face was clearly illuminated. She pulled her jacket back on her shoulders as if to keep its heat off her neck, and adjusted it twice more before she felt she had her breasts properly highlighted. Fifteen minutes later, or about five minutes after the couple were on their way at least in the direction of Kobe, she was leaning down over an open window to explain to an older man that she wanted to head south along the coast, and anywhere, in his case outside Atami, was fine as long as it was well away from Tokyo. From there, she thought, she'd hitch rides if she could, walk if she had to, and the only person she'd have to watch out for was Ryoga, who, with his aimless wandering, could show up just about anywhere. With luck, she could avoid being found by the Lost Boy while she figured out her next move. Now she sat back, her pack seated in the footwell before her, and kept the driver's small talk conversation going, while she idly thought back over the way she had overcome her apparent invisibility while looking safe enough to be offered a ride. This body... I'm stuck with it, but there are things I can do with it that I never could with my other one. I might as well make use of what I've got. That's Anything-Goes, isn't it? Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea after all, she thought glumly a couple of hours later as she hunkered down a bit further in her seat, surreptitiously drawing her jacket a little tighter closed about her too-evident chest and trying to ignore his still stealthy appreciation for her face and figure while keeping up her end of the conversation and keeping it light. As far as she was concerned, that was her payment for the ride, conversational company to keep the driver awake and and a little less lonely, and that was all. She was less and less sure that she wouldn't have to explicitly define the limits of that job for him before the ride was over. Thanks to the time spent in the stop-and-go creep of rush-hour expressway travel, by now she knew or could infer a good deal about the day-to-day life of Mr. Kazushi Takamura, including the surplus electronics parts sales and distribution job which had him driving to most anywhere within greater Tokyo six days a week making emergency deliveries to keep production lines from stopping, his wealth of knowledge about the American state of California derived from frequent business trips there, his onetime ambitions as a jazz trumpeter, and his gardening skills with his secret blends of fertilizers. Nowhere within the conversation had he hinted at a wife or significant other. Now the car was part of a herd making its daily migration southwards down the coastal highway, already within his home city's limits according to signs, and he had yet to bring up where to drop her off. She hoped he hadn't simply forgotten about it. Not that it would be that hard to walk from wherever he lived back to the main highway, but it was getting on towards the hours when she'd have to expect unwanted attention, including the official kind, on such a stroll through residential areas, invisibility effect or not, and it didn't feel like she was far enough away from Tokyo yet for relative safety from discovery by Ryoga and others. She'd managed to steer the conversation away from herself several times, making light of how noteworthy it was to see a teenage girl hitching alone with such a heavy backpack, passing it off as shuttling from one set of relatives to another. Fortunately, he hadn't known or hadn't thought to add that the girl was out on the highways while the schools were in session. Now the car slowed and left the main highway, its headlights sweeping the steep embankments as it turned, and she started looking around, paying attention to the placement of entrance ramps and nearby landmarks, and stores, gas stations and other likely resources. Preoccupied in re-engaging this hitchhiking skill, she was surprised when he pulled over and parked. She looked; they were in front of a seedy-looking tavern. He smiled over at her as he unfastened his seatbelt. "We can get supper here." "I..." She tensed. "I will of course pay for your meal." His eyes casually swept her form, his gaze now tangible across her skin. Her blood went cold; something about his manner was making her suddenly far more aware of being female and small than of being a martial artist. She unlocked and opened the door on her side, put one leg out, and hooked the other's toe into the pack's strap. "I'm grateful, but... I really should be seeing about my next ride while the traffic is heavy." She gave him a smile that thanked him with her lips but fended him off with her eyes, reached to the rim of the passenger-side doorway and pulled herself out to stand facing him with one hand on the open door, pulling her pack towards her with her foot, close enough to grasp the frame without really leaning back into the car. "Thank you very much for the ride, Mister Takamura; I really appreciate it. And good luck with your garden." She bowed, lifted the pack free of his car in that motion, swung it up to one shoulder, and gently but firmly closed the car door and turned away, walking steadily towards where she remembered seeing the southbound ramp, trying to shake the feeling of vulnerability that had spooked her so in the car. The mercury-vapor streetlamps gave a light that was almost as cold as how she felt inside, painting the high roadside shrubbery past the storefronts almost black, with deep-carven shadows. The coastal air had turned chill and thickly damp with night, reducing distant lights to hazes and halos. As she neared the ramp entrance, her danger sense started pricking at her. She looked around once, saw nothing to provoke it, but dove into the bushes anyway, reaching around to push back into place the branches which her pack tore awry. Behind the first line of shrubbery, she dropped to her knees, hunched over, and watched through the gaps in the leaves. Sure enough, Takamura's car crept past twice within the next five minutes; she felt his attention seeking her out and failing to find her. She stilled her thoughts, pulling herself inward behind whatever that invisibility effect might be. Still following hunches, she surveyed her surroundings, choosing what might have been an animal track between bushes which led to deeper darkness. Working at keeping silence as much as possible, aided in that by the damp air that slicked the leaves, she worked her pack sideways before her through the gaps, following that path. It was only a meter or two, but covering that distance while creeping in silence took a few minutes. Meanwhile she was working at the roots of her fear, worrying at its reasons and pulling them off one by one. She was stuck female, but the automatic vulnerability of having such an opening down there meant nothing if he couldn't get at it. She was not a helpless little girl, she was a fighter, a damned good one even if right now her ki was weak and her durability was down. If she had to she could maim or kill this man with her hands and feet. What about this encounter was different from one with Ryoga or Kuno or Mousse, to drive this mounting panic into her? "Ranmei. Ranmei the runaway." As she reached the sheltered clearing on hands and knees, pushing her pack before her, she looked up, to see his face, almost pure shadow, looming over her. The packing tape he held, roll in one hand, unrolled clear tape in the other, was visible enough. He chuckled. "You should not be so rude; I was going to buy you dinner first. But, since you're here already..." Indistinct in the cloaking shadows, he shrugged. Her danger sense was screaming at her, screaming that she was in the presence of malice for its own sake. He stepped forward and she exploded upward, dodging the tape, drilling his middle with near-Amaguriken-speed punches. As he folded, she jumped, slammed down on and then used his shoulders for a leap upwards, hands high, into the dark closeness of overhanging trees. Thin branches slapped her hands, then a large limb. She seized that, pivoting her grip to face him where he hunched below, driven down by her leap, and pushed off, coming down on his back with a foot at each kidney. She hopped sideways off him as he crumpled, compensating for the bushes that crowded her, and put a combat-force heel to his head, kicking him through a meter or so of bushes. She stood, controlling her breath to keep it silent, listening for him but hearing nothing. Lightly stepping forward, willing her eyes to finish adjusting to the darkness, she came upon him suddenly, crumpled sideways, bleeding from the mouth and nose. She listened; his breath, hard to hear beneath the sounds of highway traffic and the distant surf, was slow and steady. She quietly went back to her pack. The roll of tape was hanging from it by its free end. She pulled that up, went back to Takamura, and began using it. When he was bound hand and foot, she dragged him to the middle of the dark little clearing. She looked around briefly, her eyes now seeing what was about, but she saw nothing but vegetation, nothing to indicate that he'd had anything more in mind than her rape. She glanced down at him. Even in the darkness she could see the mottling of a bruise where her foot had caught him across the cheek and ear. Still, he might not stay unconscious for long. She knelt again and encased his hands in more packing tape, down to his fingertips, taped his hands to his torso, then used the rest of the roll to tape his feet to the base of an adjacent bush. Finally satisfied that he would not be coming after her before she could catch a ride or decide to walk, she went back to her pack, swung it up and belted in, and slithered out the way she had come. The highway entry ramp, when she got to it, was empty, but Takamura's car was parked the wrong way on the other side of the overpass, ten meters or so away, pulled to the side and left dark. There was a police cruiser nose to nose with it, top lights flashing, the spotlight shining into the empty passenger compartment. One police officer, thin and ratlike, was leaning over, visibly trying to work out with the aid of the spotlight and a flashlight what might be in the back seat. Another officer was indistinct, a mere uniformed shadow, at the wheel of the cruiser. Still on edge from the brief fight, Ranmei looked over at the scene and thought about telling the police where they could find Takamura and why. Then she considered how they were likely to take anything she might say, and resolutely turned to take up a position near the 'No Pedestrians" sign, her tightly-closed jacket glistening in the overhead lights from the moisture condensed onto it. From there she could watch the proceedings unobtrusively. Eventually a tow truck arrived and took the car away, followed by the police cruiser. No one seemed interested in looking through the bushes, and Ranmei started to feel some concern for Takamura, despite his actions towards her. Thinking about that brought to mind the vibes she had gotten from him, which were why she'd dealt with him so harshly, vibes which suggested that rape was merely the first stop on the journey into darkness which he intended for her. But where would he hide the remains? Not in the clearing, from what she could see while she was there, and, impelled by that feeling of danger, she had looked around for such. Then she thought about the garden that he'd talked so much about, and how he'd hinted at very special fertilizers for it, which she now guessed might have included her if she'd been less skilled. Now she started actively watching her surroundings again, worried that he might somehow free himself and come at her again. Two very nervous hours later, she caught her ride, an eighteen-wheeler bound for Kyoto with a burly middle-aged man at the wheel, a man who said little, not even his name, and who occasionally spared appreciative glances at her form and then fidgeted with the plain gold band that he wore. The vibes she got from him were that that was as far as things would go, and, recalling her time as a guy to see it from the driver's perspective, she viewed it as an acceptable tradeoff, but she struggled to stay awake nonetheless.
Credits: Tom Ladegard vetted the fight and made suggestions. Ginrai 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. C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org
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