---Paste Here---
***
It might have been two weeks later-- certainly not sooner, and
it could quite possibly have been as much as two or possibly even
three months later-- not more than four, surely-- time was so hard
to judge here sometimes --when Ranma came back to the Flower
Palace. Ten'imuhou was the first to know. One day she woke up in
her chambers, humming an unknown song absently, without realising
it.
The sun was extra warm and the day extra bright, though there
was no glare and the heat not oppressive. A --let us not call it
gloom, too drastic a term that would be-- lessening of happiness
was lifted. Fruit tasted better, flowers were extra sweet; all
senses sharper and clearer and everything just a hint more
beautiful.
Akane noticed the marked change, and said as much over
breakfast, in the set of rooms put aside for her and Ukyo's and
Shampoo's use. The three of them sat down at a table, dressed in
identical attire (though arranged to suit their own personal
tastes): gowns, strictly morning wear and made the colour of
mother-of-pearl and so soft they made silk feel rough. "Something
seems different, today," she said, staring out through the open
balcony doors as she ate a traditional Japanese breakfast.
"Shampoo agree." Shampoo looked about the room, her gown
cinched in certain places to accentuate certain attributes of which
she had in excess of Akane or Ukyo.
Ukyo murmured some form of agreement in between bites.
Ten'imuhou swept in, artlessly graceful in a way Akane especially,
the most self-conscious of the trio, envied, but would never, ever
be able to emulate. "Are you still eating? Why aren't you dressed
yet?" Ten'imuhou asked, perplexed.
"Why should we be?" Akane asked peevishly.
"Isn't it obvious? Can't you see it? Don't you feel it?"
Ten'imuhou replied. "Ranma is coming back today."
A flurry of activity ensued, as the trio quickly ate and flew
about the room hastily, looking for the right dress, the right
make-up, where's the bath? get out of my way, you!
And they were dressed immaculately, by themselves and with the
help of some servants. Akane in a very traditionally made and
traditionally worn kimono, although it must be noted that she did
need some padding to fill it out a bit, not being quite tall enough
or thin enough and possessing perhaps just a touch too many curves,
for it to be otherwise. The kimono was a pattern of pink and red
cherry blossoms, falling from the light green leaves of her attire
and she carried the thin book Genma had entrusted to her-- she
always had it on her person. Ukyo dressed similarly, though her
kimono was of quick and sleek fish and scales, racing through the
water of her blue kimono. Shampoo's clothes were oddly modern,
compared to the other two. A short skirted one-piece, the kind a
flapper from the '20s might have worn, woven of spun silver or
platinum and shining brightly. The material was loose around the
waist, but rather tight both above and below the waist, and went
not much longer than her shortest dresses.
It was sometime around late-afternoon before Ranma arrived at
the palace gates, to the waiting eyes of Akane, Shampoo, Ukyo, and
of course, Ten'imuhou. He came in from the west, the sun at his
back. One step a silhouette with no discernible features, and then
another step resolved him into Ranma. He smelled of forest: of moss
and clover and treesap, more than anything else. Stray twigs
sprouted from his hair, grass and leaves stained his clothes, but
his eyes, his eyes and the rest of his face-- so alive, so happy
and smiling and open and shining! "Ten!" he greeted, running
towards her, and then stopping three, maybe four paces in front of
Ten'imuhou, suddenly noticing his fiancees, and frowning slightly
in thought. "I... remember, you. I know I do, but I can't place ya
all, sorry," and then that lopsided, apologetic and endearing grin
of his.
"You've forgotten us? already?" Akane asked, bewildered.
"You don't think I was going to give him up, just like that, do
you?" Ten'imuhou said sweet and smiling and very cold and very
imperious. "You start to forget the outside world, the longer you
stay here, and time runs differently in these lands" Ten'imuhou
continued. "If there is some very powerful reason, however" she
amended, "you will not forget."
Ranma shrugged and held out his arms to Ten'imuhou, who quickly
filled them. The fiancees were beside themselves in jealousy/anger,
of course, but for once fumed silently. Ukyo muttered that, "Ranma
always did have a horrible memory for the past, anyway. It doesn't
matter."
Akane nodded, quietly agreeing that, "We'll still get him back,
anyway."
Ten'imuhou looked up from the hug and straight into Akane's
eyes. While the little conversation was pitched low enough that
only the trio of fiancees could hear it, still Ten'imuhou had
managed somehow to overhear. "Try, if you can," she mouthed
silently at them, her face an amused secret.
"Akane!" Ranma said, suddenly, disengaging himself from
Ten'imuhou and pointing at the short-haired girl in the kimono. "I
remember now! My dad and me were staying at your place for a
while." Ranma turned to Ukyo and grinned cheerfully, saying, "And
we used to be friends when we were young, right, Ukyo?" To Shampoo,
he said, "And I met you in China, right? Your great-gran'ma trained
me for a bit, when you opened up a restaurant, didn't she?" Ranma's
smile grew. "See? Knew it would come to me."
The three fiancees looked at Ranma. It was not much, but it was
a start. They had to prepare their attacks, as it were, very
carefully.
Ten'imuhou looked on, brittle-faced. It was not much, but it
was a start, and who knew where it might lead if she did not try to
stop it?
Night time in the Flower Palace. In the shared suite of rooms
given to Akane, Shampoo and Ukyo, the three of them plotted,
sitting on soft cushions around a low table.
"Shampoo go first!" the bubbliest and most exotic of the trio
announced. "Get all over and done with-- make Ranma cry, no
problem. You see."
"How are you going to manage that, Shampoo?" Akane asked
peevishly.
Shampoo gave a sultry look and huskily replied, "Have ways.
Shampoo told you, 'know how to make man weep.'" She smiled,
dangerous and enticing at the same time.
Ukyo rolled her eyes. "Well, we probably all have our own ideas
to get Ranma out of here, and we'd just get in each other's way, so
we might as well try it one at a time, I figure."
Shampoo nodded vigorously. "My plan very simple, anyway. Old
saying, 'If you cannot weep, you cannot laugh, and if you cannot
laugh, you cannot live.' Will make Ranma live, that's all.."
"I was thinking the same thing myself," Akane said, somewhat
pensively. She turned suddenly to look at Shampoo. "So, do you need
us to do anything?"
"Only stay out of way. Shampoo mean it, too. Won't work if you
there. Need to be alone with Ranma," Shampoo replied behind
half-closed eyes.
"How long?" Ukyo asked, pragmatically.
"Three day, no more. Need to find things out and get necessary
items for plan."
"They have to be genuine tears, Shampoo," Akane warned. "He has
to actually cry. No pressure points, or magic, or anything like
that."
Shampoo's smile held a secret and she only replied, "Shampoo
know."
Elsewhere, in the Flower Palace, Ten'imuhou slept fitfully in
an high-backed chair beside Ranma's bed, worried (irrationally?) of
what might happen as her fingers rhythmically clutched and
unclutched her diamond pendant.
***
Three days passed uneventfully. Three nights, however, did not.
Gone for a good portion of the first day, Shampoo only returned to
the shared suite of rooms at dawn, looking very tired, and very
confident. Her smile was self-assured, and filled with secret
knowledge. "Well?" Ukyo asked, impatient with this
cat-that-ate-the-canary look on Shampoo.
"Shampoo find out something very important, last night," was
the reply.
"Oh?" Akane said, entering the conversation.
Shampoo nodded. "Find out Ten'imuhou scared."
"Scared? Scared of what?" Akane asked.
"Scared of us. Now going to go to sleep, yes?" So saying,
Shampoo left for her bed, toppling onto the soft mattress.
The second night had much the same. by the end of it, Shampoo
again was smiling, happy with herself and her plan.
"What this time?" Akane asked at Shampoo's return, yawning in
the early dawn.
"Plan going well. Shampoo ready tomorrow night. Go shopping
later."
"Shopping?"
"Need items to enact plan."
"I thought you knew that potions to make him cry won't work,
Shampoo."
"Shampoo know. Not that type of shopping," and with that, the
young Chinese woman went to her bed to sleep. Akane sat there, and
noticed a tray of tea had been set out by a servant. The water was
piping hot, so she let it cool a few moments, while waiting for
Ukyo to awake.
Night-time, again. The third night, in fact. Akane and Ukyo
had, as Shampoo had requested of them earlier in the day, somehow
managed to get Ten'imuhou to give them a tour of the Flower Palace
at night. Some of the flowers in the garden only bloomed at night,
and they asked the ruler if she could help them with the task of
deciding which ones were most beautiful.
As the trio of women wound their way back slowly through the
palace corridors they heard a high, piercing shriek, and from a
very familiar voice. "Ranma!" Akane, and Ukyo, and Ten'imuhou said,
reaching the same conclusion. "Shampoo," Akane and Ukyo added
darkly, already speeding through the halls with Ten'imuhou to
Ranma's suite.
Ten'imuhou was flanked by Akane and Ukyo on either side of her,
as they pounded on the locked or barred double doors of Ranma's
suite. Shouting, a male voice (presumably Ranma's) could be heard
coming from inside, although actual words were rendered impossible
due to the muffling effects of the walls as well as the extreme
agitation of the speaker. Akane and Ukyo hammered through the doors
in a fraction of a second, the solid oak giving way as easily as if
it were rotted through and through.
The sitting room was dishevelled, with overturned furniture and
objets d'art scattered about, some broken, some not; obvious signs
of a struggle. The trio walked in slowly, carefully, heads sweeping
back and forth, looking for any signs of a cause, wary. They made
their way into the bedroom, where sounds could still be heard.
Ranma had backed himself up in a corner, arms flung out
grabbing the walls, panting heavily and looking wild-eyed. On the
opposite corner Shampoo was, sultry eyed and seductive, wearing a
negligee nigh unbearably erotic, somewhere between holy and
profane. Her face was a small pout of minor frustration, a
counterpoint to Ranma's confusion and abject fear. Ranma took his
eyes off of her to note the three women coming in his bedroom door.
Fear was replaced with joy, just as desperate and all-consuming as
he saw them. "Ten!" he cried out, rushing towards them and narrowly
missing Shampoo who tried a rush of her own, not noticing the
additional company.
Ten'imuhou asked, her voice full of command, "What is going on
here?" with Ranma ensconced within her arms as she looked directly
at Shampoo, who had only just noticed her. Ranma turned his head
towards Shampoo and shouted, "Get out! Get out of here!"
ferociously. "Can't you see that I don't want you? Just leave me
alone!"
The words, the harshness and the absolute conviction in them,
and Him, in Her arms, that look of safety and contentedness he had
there; it was more than Shampoo could take. "I," she started, her
eyes welling up despite her best efforts to stop them, "Shampoo...
only... why can't you be happy with me, Ranma?" she wailed. The
tears spilled over then, down her face and off her chin, to hit the
floor below where they fizzled and sputtered like strong acid,
boring a hole into the floor.
Akane and Ukyo stared in amazement at the sight before them.
The tears bubbling and fizzing on and into the floor, while Shampoo
blurred and faded, leaving this place for the world they came to
return Ranma to. Intellectually, they knew that's what was supposed
to happen; it was the reason they tried to make Ranma cry, after
all, but to actually _see_ it, well, that was a different story. A
level of surreality they were not prepared for surfaced, and the
shock of it-- they could do nothing more than return to their
quarters, walking and wobbling slightly as if drunk, from the
shock.
Ten'imuhou stayed and calmed Ranma down. This night she did not
stay in the chair by his bed, nor did she leave the room for her
own. A threshold had been crossed this night and at the end of it,
Ranma could only stare up at the ceiling and murmur quietly,
"Perfect," before drifting off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Ten'imuhou, beside him, smiled a secret smile.
In the morning, it was Ukyo who woke up before Akane. She
opened her eyes and moved her head to look out the window. "I'm
going next," she said to herself.
The two of them discussed the events of the previous night over
breakfast. "It isn't so bad," Ukyo mused.
"What do you mean?" Akane asked, absently picking at her rice.
"What the heck was Shampoo's idea, anyway? What was she
thinking?"
"Did you see the way he was holding her?" Akane said, brooding.
"What? Shampoo? He was trying to get away from-- oh, I see.
Yeah. Well, sooner we get him away from her the better. My turn,
this time."
"What are you going to do?"
"No secret, I'm just going to get him to remember, Akane.'
Ukyo's face brightened as she changed the subject. "Hey, you ever
notice in movies and stuff, it always comes down to the last
person? Everyone else tries and fails until there's only one left,
and that person succeeds?" Akane nodded at the pause, at which
point Ukyo continued, "Yeah, well, that ain't happening this time,
hon. I don't plan to fail this one."
"Why don't we both try to help him remember then?"
"Hmmm. Well, I suppose it could be better if we both tried."
Ukyo held out her pinkie finger. "For Ranma?"
Akane nodded, held out her pinkie finger as well, to pinkie
promise and said, "To rescue that fool."
They locked fingers and pulled them apart. Ukyo was grinning by
the end of it, and a most infectious grin it was indeed. The grin
was a welcome disease that Akane was soon contaminated with and
soon they were laughing. The day was beginning to look better
already.
A field, a glade, thickly carpeted grass a pure green so
bright it started to approach neon. Three women and a man there,
with a blanket (on the ground), a large umbrella near the blanket
(in the ground) and a few baskets filled with food and other
assorted items. Ranma (the man) was lying on the blanket with his
back propped up by the pole of the umbrella, which provided ample
shade. Akane knelt on an edge of the blanket, with the omnipresent
book on the blanket to her right, and started to open up one of the
baskets, laying out some cutlery. Ukyo was busy opening up another
basket containing food, and was rapidly developing a twitch in her
eye, mirrored by the one Akane had. The reason for the facial tics
could be attributed to Ten'imuhou, who was resplendent as ever and
busy fussing over Ranma. What made it worse was Ranma's calm, no,
contented acceptance of it. When he gave her a peck on the nose,
something snapped.
Akane noted everyone looking at her. She looked down at her
hands and noted the broken chopsticks and laughed uneasily. "Oops,"
she said and tittered uneasily. Ranma and Ten'imuhou shrugged it
off. Ukyo looked at Akane and nodded; Akane returned the nod.
"Do you remember," Ukyo suddenly began as she turned to Ranma,
"the fun we used to have when we were little?" She was smiling,
just a little, anxious to see Ranma's reaction, to see if he still
remembered. After a moment of intense concentration, he nodded,
grinning. She sighed with relief, a breath she did not know she was
holding escaped.
"Yeah, like the time we got rid of the Gambling King? Those
were fun days, Ucchan," he reminisced, shifting to a more upright
position.
Ukyo's eyes were hooded, and her face a careful and serious
blank when she said, "I was thinking of other times, Ranma. A boy,
a girl, though the boy didn't know she was one, then. You, me, your
father. A promise that was made. A promise that was broken. And the
boy, his father, left without the girl, without me, even though she
was supposed to go, too. And so the girl, me, I was left there,
alone. Everyone around me, the whispers, the rumours, the snide
comments behind my back when they thought I couldn't hear. That
little girl heard." Akane's eyes were bulging out, waving franticly
and trying to catch Ukyo's attention, to no avail. Ukyo continued
on her tale, as inexorable as death.
"And she was alone, so terribly alone, without the boy, without
you, like it was promised, like it was supposed to be." Ukyo
watched Ranma intently now, examining his face for any sign of
weakening; but instead she only found confusion. "So the girl, to
stop all the names, all the rumors, all the pain, decided to
become a boy, forevermore.
"Ranchan!" Ukyo suddenly cried out. "What about that little
girl? How are you going to make it up to me? Don't you feel bad
about what happened to her? Don't you feel sad? Doesn't it make you
want to, oh I don't know, say, cry?"
Ranma shook his head slowly, perplexed. "Wasn't that my dad's
fault? That was a long time ago, Ucchan. I don't really remember
it." He shrugged, "Sorry."
Ukyo fell to her knees, unaware that she was standing at one
point. "Don't... remember? But... you can't. How?" And her
shoulders, they were moving, wracked convulsively as if laughing,
or possibly crying-- it was impossible to tell with her hands
covering her downcast face. Ukyo looked up then, stared directly
into Ranma's eyes with her own tear-stricken face which beamed out
a full, accepting smile and it turned out that Ukyo had been crying
and laughing at the same time. "Shampoo was right, Ranma." Tears
were falling on the ground. Ukyo already beginning to fade and
return to the normal world. "'If you can't cry, you can't laugh,'"
she said, "'and if you can't laugh, you can't live.' This place
isn't real, Ranchan! It's a dead world, you hear me?" He could, but
only just, now, Ukyo being little more than an apparition. "Never
die? Never age? Get out of here as fast as you can, Ranchan. You
too, Aka--," and then she was gone.
Akane looked at the spot where Ukyo so recently was. Her mind
was in a turmoil. What did Ukyo mean? Her resolve had left her,
what to do now? She looked at the other woman, saw Ten'imuhou and
Ranma beside each other. Her hand in his. Akane was overcome with a
sense of wrongness. She would bring Ranma back, get him to shed
those tears, or else-- there would be no "or else."
Ten'imuhou turned to Akane then. They were all standing, Ranma
and Ten'imuhou close together and Akane by herself on the opposite
side of the blanket, the food forgotten. "Well?" Ten'imuhou asked,
looking directly at the last rival. "What are you going to do now?
I told you, Ranma is mine."
"You can't have him!" Akane cried out defiantly.
"And why not?" Ten'imuhou asked, wrapping her arm sinuously
around Ranma's waist. "After all, you don't want him, do you?" She
smiled, sly and feral and bemused at the same time.
"I," Akane sputtered out. "I... Ineversaidthat," she said,
quickly and quietly, unused and unwilling to admit these feelings,
and compromising by saying this much.
"You're going to have to, if you hope to have a chance to take
him, you know," Ten'imuhou said, no slyness, no bemusement in her
voice this time. "The other girls told him, showed him. They wanted
him, that is why they came to this land; what about you then,
Akane? Why are you here, if you do not love Ranma? What are you
doing in this place, come to find this man," she pressed herself
even tighter against Ranma, "if you do not want him? What is he to
you? If you are not honest with yourself, how can you expect Ranma
to follow you back to that world of curses and tears? How can you
compete with what my land has to offer?" Ten'imuhou left unsaid the
next part of that question _how can you compete with me?_ but Akane
could hear it just the same.
Akane's face contorted in a familiar look of concentration,
girding herself for what came next. She took on an intensity far
out of proportion to her frame and her words. "But," she said, and
Ten'imuhou's heart grew cold with foreboding. "But," she said, and
a stillness fell upon the glade; not even the wind moved. Ranma
stared at her, right at her, through skin, through muscle and bone
and straight through to the real her, the one she protected so
fiercely from everyone and everything. "But I love Ranma!" she
finally cried, the great weight finally lifted from her chest. The
curious freedom of admittance did not last long for Akane, replaced
as it was by a quickly growing roiling stomach, waiting for Ranma's
reply.
He blinked, and shook his head-- slowly --clearing it of the
confusion evident in his eyes. "I," Ranma began, small voice,
sounding almost lost, sounding very, very unlike his normal
cocksure self. Ten'imuhou turned her head to look at Ranma and she
wrapped herself around him more closely, not liking what she saw in
his face. "I... didn't know that, Akane," he said, quietly. "I
didn't know it at all." Louder now, a bit more emotion now, he
said, "Why now?" almost peevishly. "Why couldn't you tell me
before? Why not back there, then?" No need to say where and when,
they all knew. His brief agitation ceased as quickly as it started.
Ranma looked very contrite as he spoke his next words very
carefully: "It might've been different, if I knew, but Akane, I
love my Ten." Ranma wrapped one of his arms around Ten'imuhou; she
showered him with kisses.
The world started to blur for Akane. _Not now! Not now! I
promised myself I wouldn't do this!_ The book was still in her
hands, she noted-- the one Genma told her to give Ranma as a last
resort, to make him come back. Wetness on her cheeks and nowhere
else. Akane looked up; was it raining? She held the book out and
took a step towards Ranma and Ten'imuhou. _Have to be strong, I
won't let it bother me. It's this place, he doesn't really
remember, it's not him, I knew it I knew it Iknewit._ They turned
to look at her, Ten'imuhou pausing her rapid kisses. Ranma gently
disengaged himself from Ten'imuhou without any resistance-- she had
no fear of losing him, after all. _I promised myself I wouldn't
cry. I have to give this to Ranma._ "Ranma?" Akane's voice
quavered, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her feelings. "I--" but
it was too late. Off her cheek a tear had fallen and it hit the
ground, devouring the earth with a fury.
Ranma watched Akane disappear as well. She was crying. There
were tears in her eyes. One of the tears was still burning a hole
into the ground. Tears. Ranma looked at a fizzling and crackling
tear, face expressionless. He looked up. There was Ten'imuhou,
smiling beneficently at him, arms held out towards him and wrists
facing upwards. Ranma walked towards her, slowly, inexorably.
There was a book, on the ground. Akane dropped it, before she
faded away. It was thin, and bound in leather. He stooped down and
picked it up, opening it.
"What is it, beloved?" Ten'imuhou asked, all gentle and kind.
Ranma looked inside. Pictures. They were pictures. A family
album, in fact. The Saotome family album, to be precise. Pictures
of him as a child on his father's shoulders, waving at the camera.
Pictures of him laughing, of him in a gi being taught a kata.
Pictures of him as a younger child, sitting with Ukyo on a log,
eating okonomiyaki. Pictures of... pictures of....
The last page, the one Ranma did not want to turn, but did,
held but one picture. A woman, not very old. Such a kind face.
Wearing a kimono. This look of such calm and gentle and absolutely
intense joy on her face-- it was obvious there was nothing else she
would rather be doing. But she wasn't the only one in the picture.
Oh no. Her face was bent downwards, to the one on her knee. A
child, one year old, tops. Sleeping peacefully. Ranma. The child
was him. That made her, made her, made her--
--Ranma looked up from
the book and at Ten'imuhou. "Mother?" he whispered. "Mother!" he
cried out, vision blurring from the sudden wetness on his face on
the bright, cloudless day.
Ten'imuhou shrieked, "No! Not again! Not you, not again! Don't,
Ranma, please, don't! Not this, not now, please!" But it was too
late. The first tear was already on its way down, was already
sinking deep into the earth, was already eating away at the world,
was already causing Ranma to fade away.
Epilogue:
Ranma looked out the window, looked out into the grey sky and
the drab, colourless city, cloaked in white snow and grey slush,
perched on the ledge with his head resting on both the palm of his
hand and against the glass pane. "Perfect," he whispered to
himself.
"Ranma?" Akane asked tentatively, having just entered the room
and accidentally overhearing Ranma's musing.
Ranma swung his gaze towards Akane, the faraway, wistful look
never leaving his face.
"Ranma?" Akane repeated. "Are you... are you all right?" she
asked, equal parts hope and dread.
A toothy grin cracked Ranma's sombre exterior. "I'll be fine,
Akane. It's just--" Ranma waved an arm about uselessly, remaining
on his perch on the sill. "I dunno. It was... it was...," Ranma
shook his head and grabbed at the empty air with the waving arm. "I
just need some time, I think. I'll be fine."
Akane nodded. "Well... if you... --need... you-know-that-I...."
Akane's head bobbed up and down almost furiously, nodding to
herself and speaking without actually saying anything.
"I know," Ranma whispered, closing his eyes. "Don't worry,
Akane," he said, far too quietly and far too calmly for Ranma as he
once was, but it was, as he said, still very soon.
Akane nodded again, this time with less effort-- a curt little
gesture and nothing more, then left the room Ranma shared with his
father, but not before seeing a small smile in Ranma's face when he
looked at her, illuminated by a faint ray of sunshine from the
window. It was not everything, but it was a start: it was enough.
Ranma returned his gaze to the outside, feeling the cool glass
against his eyebrow. "Perfect," he said again, though whom or what
he was referring to is not for you nor I to know.
C&C is welcomed, appreciated, and generally a nice idea, and
although I'm only on the FFML in vacation mode, due to constraints
beyond my control, I do check the archives on a regular basis,
but would ask that at the very least you CC it to me. Thank you
very much for your time.
Clearly now I tell you man
That all I say is all I can
For I am nothing but my sin
Until I learn to caste them in
--Crystal Wrists, Peter Murphy