* * * * * *
Gray patches of light dance across the curtains, the faint sound
of chimes drifting in the wind. The air is cool, moist as the wind
stirs the drapes in a gentle caress.
Ticking. The faint rhythm echoing in the silence of the room.
Its origin can be traced to the small alarm clock beside two futons.
Nine-fourty-five and twenty four seconds.
The soft smell of jasmine incense wafts on the gentle breeze,
giving life to the otherwise drab surroundings. Sparse, the contents
of
the room would take but a few moments to stuff into a satchel before
it's occupants vanished once more into the mists of the Japanese
forests.
Solemn. A man sits, transfixed upon some inner turmoil, his
breathing slow and purposeful. The jasmine relaxes him, giving him
calm
and peace required for such mental exercises as he now endures. A bead
of sweat rolls down his brow, having escaped the bandanna wrapped
tightly around his balding skull.
Struggle. His face growing slack as even the soft spray of
droplets upon the roof fades to nothing, and the world drifts to
darkness around him. No heat, no cold, simply emptiness.
It is a mirror of his inner state, purging thought and motion from
his body and mind, giving over to the shape of stillness. It had been
decades since he had stopped the practice, ever since an old man had
taken him under his wing as apprentice and student.
Inversion. His ki, glowing faintly to those who are able, winks
out, exploring the inner turmoils of his spirit. Searching for
illnesses of both flesh and spirit.
A soft wheezing sound pierces his meditation, his jaw clenching
suddenly. Foreboding.
Absently, he picks at the seam of his gi. His mind willing the
noise to cease, to fade off into the blackness of nothing as all other
distractions have.
It persists.
*Not again, please.* His will falters, his body trembling in fear
of the vision that might befall his eyes were he to dare open them, a
vision common as of late. A poltergeist; a shadow of the past.
The sound heightens in its volume, persistent as the wind. Still,
he balks. *This is a dead thing, something of the past, something that
cannot hurt you anymore.*
Still, the harsh wheezing drifts to his ears, burning them with
the image of his Father. Bedridden and ill, his Father had spent the
last few years of his life refusing help from doctors and family,
stubborn and unwilling to admit weakness.
With fear, his eyes finally open. Muscles tense, and ki flickers
uncertainly. It was as a hundred times before, of late. The luminance
of his Otousan's bedroom did not wash the gray away from the old, faded
memory.
Curtains block his vision of the skeletal form his father must
surely resemble, in his last year of life. His body had wasted away,
muscles twisted painfully. even his bones had begun malformed cancerous
growths, only adding to the pain he must surely have felt.
The wheezing continued burning into Genma's ears.
"No, No, I am not going to watch this again!" clenching his fists,
his mouth stuttering open and closed for a moment before he raised one
hand, shaking it at the heavens. "Do you hear me, damn you? I will not
go through this again!"
The only answer he received was the continuance of the feared
sound, rhythmic and repetitive. He could almost liken it to the
gasping
of his darkened soul, the prices he paid for his son.
Flying to the door, he strived for the handle, only wailing as his
hand passed through it. "Let me out! Let me out, you damn mad demon!
I- I don't want this!"
"Demon? No." A silvery voice whispered softly from behind him.
Whirling, he pressed his back against the door. Solid enough,
despite the handle. His eyes danced over the familiar haunt, the
specter who has begun haunting him, as of only a few months ago.
"Hello again, Gakusei," The slight glow of his violet eyes was all
that permeated the shadows of his silver hood, arms crossed across his
chest, hidden beneath the voluminous sleeves of his robes.
The voice, decidedly male, but also beautiful in a manner beyond
gender. Like silver wind.
Cold. Piercing through him with a certain kind of dread, Genma's
nails scrape across the grain of the door as his heart thunders within
his chest. "I am not your student!" His words angry, heat in them as
he
lunges at the robed man.
As many times before, he meets only with the cold floor.
"Must we truly go through this every time? We all learn, and are
in a process of learning. We are, each, students within the Divine's
temple," The man's voice echoes from behind Genma, just as many times
before.
There is a calm acquiescence to the stranger's voice, as if there
is no disagreement only mutual misunderstanding which has been long
resolved. He uses a familiarity in his tone that hints at a long
friendship with Genma, though Genma has never met the stranger except
in
troubled sleep and moments of solitude.
It makes him question his own sanity. How can he even be sure he
was "Seeing" this stranger? There was never a person in the room with
him when the visitations happened. Most had happened in the silence of
his own skull, during meditation or fitful sleep.
But not all.
A moment. Genma realizes that the stranger's hand is extended
towards him, ivory colored, with a soft moonlike glow. "It is not my
wish to torment you, Saotome Genma."
Scorning the offer, he rises on his own, dusting his gi off, eyes
half lidded and avoiding the strange gaze of the cloaked visitor. "Oh
yeah? Then why do you do this?" His hand flies up, gesturing towards
the
wheezing which still echoes from the bed. "Why do you always bring
this
to me? Why do you bring ME to HERE?"
There is a tremble in his voice, a shaking in his body. The calm,
almost pristine look in the stranger's eyes only fills with sorrow.
"I do not summon these images, Gakusei. It is you who has brought
us here, here to the root of your son's suffering. It is always you,"
His arms once more vanish into the folds of his voluminous sleeves as
he
crosses them once more.
"This has nothing to do with my son!" He longs to grasp the
invader, to shake him from his mind, to lock such thoughts from
invasion.
Yet he cannot touch him.
"But it does, Genma. It does. You cannot accept that yet, after
you have come so far?" Softly, the stranger extends a hand, placing it
as if a feather upon Genma's broad shoulder.
Genma feels the sting of sorrow in his soul as he gazes through
the thinly veiled curtains around the bed. "You told me you knew how
to
cure my son."
"I do. but not of the Jusenkyou curse. You do not understand the
nature of such magic. I am helping your son as I speak," There is no
shock when Genma bats his hand away.
"Liar! You lied to me! I- I did what you told me, I try to protect
him from his mother, I try to support him. Why do I have to do this?"
His teeth clench, his eyes screwed shut for a moment. His fists open
and close in frustration.
Click. A thought cascades into the stream of his consciousness.
A low growl crawls forth from his grinding teeth, "What are you doing
to
my son?!"
*How do I know he isn't the same demon sucking the life from Ranma
right now!?* A vision, his son being carried unconscious into the
house
by the Kuonji girl and Akane.
"Do not make haste with accusations, Saotome Genma," His voice
does not lower, the level of it does not resound, but there is a
strange
piercing quality to his statement. There has been no change in how he
speaks, so softly and with careful purchase to each word.
Yet somehow there is command in his voice.
"You have done enough of that in your life, do you not think?"
Again, his words speak of a familiarity which puzzles Genma. It
conveyed forth from the dredges of his memories all the times he had
pushed blame from himself, finding convenient reasons to avoid
responsibility.
"This is not about me, this is about Ranma," At a time, he might
have considered his own life more important than anything else. It is
only recently that he realized the importance of his son, his future.
It is only recently that he realized how deadly and deceiving the
road to hell is.
Speculation. The figure considers him for a long, resolute
moment. "Yes, of course. This is all about your child, but I would
not
abide myself if I were to help just him."
"You sound as if you want me to believe you are some sort of good
Samaritan," Genma does not believe it. Hours on end of tormented past,
each visit culminating in his dismissal of the person behind that
curtain.
Each visit beginning with the expressed need to confront that
person, from this strange cloaked visitor. This invader of the soul.
A tightness, marking the violet eyes of the robed one. For a
moment, those eyes looked dreadfully old. as if they had seen the dust
of countless millennia, remnants of ancient worlds.
"I do what I must, as decreed to me. I work for your salvation,
and Ranma's. If I were to cease my assistance, darkness would devour
your child's soul. and it would all be over before it has even begun."
Tired, says his voice. Lonely, says his eyes.
For a brief moment, those eyes turn from Genma, staring upon the
shrouded bed, but not seeing it. "Sacrifice is something I am not
amiss
of, like you, I once had much and could want for none. Like you, fate
can change on a dime the path we must tread."
Short. Genma almost considers this strange invader as having
emotions. Desires. A life. Discarded, he gives forth a sharp noise
of
dismissal, "What makes you think I care about your sorrow, Demon?"
Torment. All that has been brought to him by the man with the
violet eyes. His life had been shattered with Hiroshi, and the shards
driven deep by this beast who haunts his thoughts.
"Oh, Genma," Fatigue shudders through the lone figure. "My
sorrow
is so very intrinsically linked to what is happening to your son. My
own shame, and my own weakness."
New strength seems to renew itself in the man's form as his
shoulders rise. "Which is why you must confront this, your father. It
is with this that you shall save your son, when this first trial is
finished."
Stillness. Standing, his back to Genma, the stranger for a
moment
reminiscing it seems of some far off time. He spins, once more
bestowing his azure gaze upon the Saotome patriarch.
There is obstinacy in Genma's stance, hesitance in his posture.
Hidden past shrouded in darkness, that which he so fears and dreads to
face. Words from a dead man.
Likened to some grim ghost of long ago, the stranger raises a
hand, pointing at the thinly veiled bed and the occupant upon it. "Go
now, and be you aware of the truth, Gakusei."
Frozen in time, the draped figure stands motionless, awaiting a
movement of compliance from Genma.
It is different. The difference unnerving, never so blatantly
and
firmly has the figure insisted upon the confrontation. Genma is
suddenly aware that he either faces this moment of his past or he shall
be confined here until he chooses to do so.
Inside, the coward pipes, "You owe this creature nothing, and he
is foolish if he believes you will be pushed into doing this!" As many
times before of late. Whenever confronted with the vision of this
scene, always his soul ran away.
He's been running away for so long, he isn't sure if he knows how
to walk forwards.
A slow, slithering shudder ripples through Genma Saotome as he
takes first one step, then the next towards the veil. The quiet
sliding
of his slippers on the lacquered wooden floor almost akin to the sound
of metal on metal, for all the silence about.
His heart softly thrums in his chest, the individual beats
becoming more audible with each passing step. The cloth before him,
it's texture and design similar to cheesecloth, something obscuring but
transparent.
He turns, praying to the heavens that the strange figure might
have forgotten him, that it might have vanished. but he finds him
there,
standing, arm outstretched in a firm gesture of charge. As silent as a
statue, as immovable as a mountain, and as intangible as the wind.
Untouchable.
"Must I-" he begins, knowing the answer already, fearing it.
"Yes." The answer, short, low, almost inaudible. For all that it
is not, it is resounding to the soul of Genma Saotome.
And so he turns, and with thundering heart, pulls away the veil.
<<<<<<< >>>>>>>
A boy, no more than seventeen and no less than fifteen. Stocky,
with a firm build and a body that speaks of many arduous hours of
physical labor and training.
There is a deadly calm pallor to his surroundings, bled dry of
any
emotional colors over the decades of forgetting. However toneless the
colors, there is painful familiarity to even the most minute of
details.
The smell of impending death hangs upon the air. His father,
Saotome Sensou, lying prone upon the bed.
His body a mass of half-hanging clothing, he resembles not much
more than a bundle of twigs. a misshapen bundle of twigs, knobby
growths
causing lumps to form on his bones in sporadic places. It has been
long
since the look in his eyes began to take on a fire that was almost
defiant of pain.
It is not long now, until the old man's death. Yasuka was out,
as
she always was. She couldn't bear to see father as he was now. She
had
always had difficulty around him, unable to deal with the painful
visage
he appeared to be.
Shizuka was also gone, no doubt with Yasuka. Father had ordered
her to stop taking care of him, his words far less polite than Genma
would have liked to remember, demeaning the innocent woman simply out
of
anger and pain.
So it was left to him to take care of Mother's last wish, that
someone be there for Sensou when he did pass. It was not abnormal for
a
family member to be present, though it was for so many to be absent.
It
was also abnormal the importance Genma's mother had placed on this
request. Genma hadn't known his mother. she had left only letters to
him, all of varying lengths.
Genma knows that she must have died painfully as well. Father
refused to speak of it. But then, he never spoke of his own pain
either, only of his son's failings.
The true irony of it was that Genma, the only one present with
his
father, was the last the old man wanted to see.
The coughing brings him back to the moment. The small, frail
figure on the bed opens bloodshot eyes and takes him in. "Get away
from
me, boy," the words are breathed out, accompanied by a fit of weak,
anemic coughing.
The words are familiar, and have been spoken so many times to
Genma that he had thought he had forgotten the pain they caused in him.
Yet it is as if they were freshly new, with his Father so close to
death, all that he could say was for his son to get away?
"Father, I cannot. I will not leave you," The words are
difficult, made more so with the angry flare that flitted across the
clouded irises of his father's eyes.
"You are the last piece of trash I want to see before I die,
boy,"
The coughing, no less weak, goes on for longer than it normally would.
Genma dabs carefully at the blood which is being coughed up, and
offense is intensified as the weak, bony arms push away his touch.
"Get
away from me, you filth. what must I say to make you understand? You
are
not wanted."
The hurt is too much, the boys body shaking, "I suppose I have
never been wanted, that I was simply a horrible mistake." Always, his
father had spoken of how disappointing Genma was. It had been true as
far as he could remember, his father held some kind of secret, horrible
hatred for him.
For a moment, Genma thinks that perhaps the old man was going to
say something, as those eyes looked away from him, the small body
beneath the sheets quaking as if from sorrow. "Yes, that is right,"
The
words stab him, tearing at his soul. He wished that it was only his
imagination that made them weak, almost inaudible.
But it was not strange for his father to feel this way. after
all,
he could not say much for himself either. If only that weakness of
voice were a reluctant lie.
"I am sorry that you had to have such a shameful son, Otousan,"
It
was all he could say, how he felt can't be conveyed. Not to this
frail,
almost ghostly figure, who not moments from now would be departing this
living world. It would not be fair for him to attack the man who gave
him life, not in this state.
The wheezing, painful sounding laugh wracks the small form of
Saotome Sensou. "You are so weak and pathetic, Genma, you do not even
have any anger for me when I say that. Shameful," There's almost an
indefinable touch of sorrow in the words, as if somehow Sensou were
responsible for the state of things.
"I cannot hate you, Otousan. It would be unfair, you being as
sick as you are-"
"Shutup, boy. Just shut up," The answer has strength,
conviction.
It was louder than his father had spoken in a long time. "I was not
always this. this thing. I was once a man, was once."
It was several minutes before the coughing was quiet enough to
speak again, his father having snatched the cloth from his hand as
spatters of blood and bits of lung were being ejected from him.
"I- It is my fault, Father. I know there is a cure, there has to
be. I should have looked harder, I should have found it, I am weak, and
stupid," his own failing was reprehensible. How could he call himself
a
warrior, a martial artist, when he could not even help his ailing
father?
"You are right about stupid, boy, there is no cure for what has
happened to me. You were an idiot to go and look for one," The soft,
rhythmic wheezing sounded almost painfully dry and grating, even to
Genma's ears. His father was lying very still all of a sudden, the
breathing becoming shallower, longer between breaths.
"Father, please, don't go. I will try again, please, let me do
what I can," How could he live, a weak, pathetic shell of a man? How
could he raise his own family?
A gnarled, warped hand rises. reaching with searching fingers,
eyes glassy as if on some horrible distant inferno.
So very gently he took the hand, leaning in to listen to his
father's words, "Otousan."
"It was my fault, Genma. Not yours. This is my curse. for my
selfishness, my greed. Bargain kept." the sound is almost as if his
whole body were deflating, a very soft, slow leaking out of his life
force. His words delirious, his mind already slipping from this realm.
Tears formed in the eyes of the young man, "Otousan, do not say
that. I know that I failed you, do not die without the chance for me
to
redeem myself."
"I- F-f-Failed. G-en-ma. Do not. Be- me," The words patchy,
sporadic. He was not sure if he had heard it all, if his father had
said anything.
Then silence, not even the patterned breathing is audible. All
he
was aware of is how numb and unreal the minutes up till then had been,
and he could not believe anything had actually happened.
Still, there was the body of his father. dead, and gone. The
painful words of his passing were locked inside his heart, dusted
beneath the carpets of his brain. His father had never said a word of
kindness to him his entire life, why should he when he died?
He had obviously imagined it. Didn't he?
<<<<<<< >>>>>>>
All is dark. The cool feel of lacquered wood beneath his hands,
kneeling upon the floor as his body shakes with unexpressed emotion.
"All is as it was, Saotome Genma. What you heard was what was
said, and what had been said. There is far more for you to understand,
but now. now is not the time," The figure stands as a solemn specter
above him.
Some part of him hated the ghost, wishing nothing but anger and
torment at it. To put him through the dying moments of his father, to
remind him of his own weaknesses and faults. It could be nothing less
than a demon.
"Get away from me," His voice is raw, angry. Stripped of his self
control, he rises suddenly, aiming a fist at the chest of the robed
figure.
His hand collides painfully with the palm of the stranger.
"Do not strike that which you cannot understand, for you may be
striking a blow to yourself in the process," It is as before, his voice
does not rise nor lower. The inflection doesn't ascend nor fall in
anger or displeasure.
Yet there is silent command in those gentle, silvery tones.
Shock registers upon Genma's face, it was not possible for the
robed man to have blocked him. The speed of the punch was magnified by
his skills in the Yamisenken and Umisenken, and focused by his anger
and
rage, "Who are you?"
"I am as I have always been, and shall always be. I am what is,
and what was, and what will be again. I am nought but a shadow of a
fractured spirit, bent upon a lone road of solitude and duty," His
answer is recited, as a litany repeated a thousand times before. Honor
and faith are fed into the words, conviction and certainty come out of
them.
His anger rising again, Genma pulls his fist from the grip of the
tall stranger. "What sort of answer is that? I demand answers! You
have
no right to do this to me and not give me something." Despite himself,
Genma retreats a few steps. erring on the side of caution.
Carefully, he is considered for a moment with those soulful purple
eyes. "Yes, yes, you do deserve something. I have put you through a
great deal with our visits."
Genma notices, suddenly, the ashen glow dancing upon the palm of
the strange figure. An ivory and blue flame dancing gently upon the
unburning flesh of the visitor. It's motion makes him feel even more
uneasy with the strangers presence.
"This I shall tell you. your father lived in pain for many years,
and that pain was served by your birth. Many years of lies, you have
heard Genma Saotome. Many years, but his last words are most important
for you to recall. Do not become him. Remember that. and your soul
will be clean when your day comes. For this, it is not too late. You
have erred so badly until now, chance not the burdens your father wore.
Discard such sins before they engulf you," His words begin to echo
amidst the vast expanse of darkness.
As intangible as his words are, so does he become. Fading off as he
speaks, into the drift of darkness.
"Remember this, Genma Saotome, and Learn," Those last few words so
hauntingly scarce as to remind Genma of those briefly gasped syllables
before an old, hate filled man deflated into whatever afterlife awaited
him.
And then he was alone.
* * * * * *
Gray patches of light dance across the curtains, the faint sound
of chimes drifting in the wind. The air is cool, moist as the wind
stirs the drapes in a gentle caress.
Ticking. The faint rhythm echoing in the silence of the room.
Its origin can be traced to the small alarm clock beside two futons.
Nine-fourty-five and twenty four seconds.
The soft smell of jasmine incense wafts on the gentle breeze,
giving life to the otherwise drab surroundings. Sparse, the contents
of
the room would take but a few moments to stuff into a satchel before
it's occupants vanished once more into the mists of the Japanese
forests.
Solemn. A man sits, transfixed upon some inner turmoil, his
breathing slow and purposeful. The jasmine relaxes him, giving him
calm
and peace required for such mental exercises as he now endures. A bead
of sweat rolls down his brow, having escaped the bandanna wrapped
tightly around his balding skull.
Struggle. His face growing slack as even the soft spray of
droplets upon the roof fades to nothing, and the world drifts to
darkness around him. No heat, no cold, simply emptiness.
It is a mirror of his inner state, purging thought and motion from
his body and mind, giving over to the shape of stillness. It had been
decades since he had stopped the practice, ever since an old man had
taken him under his wing as apprentice and student.
Inversion. His ki, glowing faintly to those who are able, winks
out, exploring the inner turmoils of his spirit. Searching for
illnesses of both flesh and spirit.
A soft wheezing sound pierces his meditation, his jaw clenching
suddenly. Foreboding.
Absently, he picks at the seam of his gi. His mind willing the
noise to cease, to fade off into the blackness of nothing as all other
distractions have.
It persists.
*Not again, please.* His will falters, his body trembling in fear
of the vision that might befall his eyes were he to dare open them, a
vision common as of late. A poltergeist; a shadow of the past.
The sound heightens in its volume, persistent as the wind. Still,
he balks. *This is a dead thing, something of the past, something that
cannot hurt you anymore.*
Still, the harsh wheezing drifts to his ears, burning them with
the image of his Father. Bedridden and ill, his Father had spent the
last few years of his life refusing help from doctors and family,
stubborn and unwilling to admit weakness.
With fear, his eyes finally open. Muscles tense, and ki flickers
uncertainly. It was as a hundred times before, of late. The luminance
of his Otousan's bedroom did not wash the gray away from the old, faded
memory.
Curtains block his vision of the skeletal form his father must
surely resemble, in his last year of life. His body had wasted away,
muscles twisted painfully. even his bones had begun malformed cancerous
growths, only adding to the pain he must surely have felt.
The wheezing continued burning into Genma's ears.
"No, No, I am not going to watch this again!" clenching his fists,
his mouth stuttering open and closed for a moment before he raised one
hand, shaking it at the heavens. "Do you hear me, damn you? I will not
go through this again!"
The only answer he received was the continuance of the feared
sound, rhythmic and repetitive. He could almost liken it to the
gasping
of his darkened soul, the prices he paid for his son.
Flying to the door, he strived for the handle, only wailing as his
hand passed through it. "Let me out! Let me out, you damn mad demon!
I- I don't want this!"
"Demon? No." A silvery voice whispered softly from behind him.
Whirling, he pressed his back against the door. Solid enough,
despite the handle. His eyes danced over the familiar haunt, the
specter who has begun haunting him, as of only a few months ago.
"Hello again, Gakusei," The slight glow of his violet eyes was all
that permeated the shadows of his silver hood, arms crossed across his
chest, hidden beneath the voluminous sleeves of his robes.
The voice, decidedly male, but also beautiful in a manner beyond
gender. Like silver wind.
Cold. Piercing through him with a certain kind of dread, Genma's
nails scrape across the grain of the door as his heart thunders within
his chest. "I am not your student!" His words angry, heat in them as
he
lunges at the robed man.
As many times before, he meets only with the cold floor.
"Must we truly go through this every time? We all learn, and are
in a process of learning. We are, each, students within the Divine's
temple," The man's voice echoes from behind Genma, just as many times
before.
There is a calm acquiescence to the stranger's voice, as if there
is no disagreement only mutual misunderstanding which has been long
resolved. He uses a familiarity in his tone that hints at a long
friendship with Genma, though Genma has never met the stranger except
in
troubled sleep and moments of solitude.
It makes him question his own sanity. How can he even be sure he
was "Seeing" this stranger? There was never a person in the room with
him when the visitations happened. Most had happened in the silence of
his own skull, during meditation or fitful sleep.
But not all.
A moment. Genma realizes that the stranger's hand is extended
towards him, ivory colored, with a soft moonlike glow. "It is not my
wish to torment you, Saotome Genma."
Scorning the offer, he rises on his own, dusting his gi off, eyes
half lidded and avoiding the strange gaze of the cloaked visitor. "Oh
yeah? Then why do you do this?" His hand flies up, gesturing towards
the
wheezing which still echoes from the bed. "Why do you always bring
this
to me? Why do you bring ME to HERE?"
There is a tremble in his voice, a shaking in his body. The calm,
almost pristine look in the stranger's eyes only fills with sorrow.
"I do not summon these images, Gakusei. It is you who has brought
us here, here to the root of your son's suffering. It is always you,"
His arms once more vanish into the folds of his voluminous sleeves as
he
crosses them once more.
"This has nothing to do with my son!" He longs to grasp the
invader, to shake him from his mind, to lock such thoughts from
invasion.
Yet he cannot touch him.
"But it does, Genma. It does. You cannot accept that yet, after
you have come so far?" Softly, the stranger extends a hand, placing it
as if a feather upon Genma's broad shoulder.
Genma feels the sting of sorrow in his soul as he gazes through
the thinly veiled curtains around the bed. "You told me you knew how
to
cure my son."
"I do. but not of the Jusenkyou curse. You do not understand the
nature of such magic. I am helping your son as I speak," There is no
shock when Genma bats his hand away.
"Liar! You lied to me! I- I did what you told me, I try to protect
him from his mother, I try to support him. Why do I have to do this?"
His teeth clench, his eyes screwed shut for a moment. His fists open
and close in frustration.
Click. A thought cascades into the stream of his consciousness.
A low growl crawls forth from his grinding teeth, "What are you doing
to
my son?!"
*How do I know he isn't the same demon sucking the life from Ranma
right now!?* A vision, his son being carried unconscious into the
house
by the Kuonji girl and Akane.
"Do not make haste with accusations, Saotome Genma," His voice
does not lower, the level of it does not resound, but there is a
strange
piercing quality to his statement. There has been no change in how he
speaks, so softly and with careful purchase to each word.
Yet somehow there is command in his voice.
"You have done enough of that in your life, do you not think?"
Again, his words speak of a familiarity which puzzles Genma. It
conveyed forth from the dredges of his memories all the times he had
pushed blame from himself, finding convenient reasons to avoid
responsibility.
"This is not about me, this is about Ranma," At a time, he might
have considered his own life more important than anything else. It is
only recently that he realized the importance of his son, his future.
It is only recently that he realized how deadly and deceiving the
road to hell is.
Speculation. The figure considers him for a long, resolute
moment. "Yes, of course. This is all about your child, but I would
not
abide myself if I were to help just him."
"You sound as if you want me to believe you are some sort of good
Samaritan," Genma does not believe it. Hours on end of tormented past,
each visit culminating in his dismissal of the person behind that
curtain.
Each visit beginning with the expressed need to confront that
person, from this strange cloaked visitor. This invader of the soul.
A tightness, marking the violet eyes of the robed one. For a
moment, those eyes looked dreadfully old. as if they had seen the dust
of countless millennia, remnants of ancient worlds.
"I do what I must, as decreed to me. I work for your salvation,
and Ranma's. If I were to cease my assistance, darkness would devour
your child's soul. and it would all be over before it has even begun."
Tired, says his voice. Lonely, says his eyes.
For a brief moment, those eyes turn from Genma, staring upon the
shrouded bed, but not seeing it. "Sacrifice is something I am not
amiss
of, like you, I once had much and could want for none. Like you, fate
can change on a dime the path we must tread."
Short. Genma almost considers this strange invader as having
emotions. Desires. A life. Discarded, he gives forth a sharp noise
of
dismissal, "What makes you think I care about your sorrow, Demon?"
Torment. All that has been brought to him by the man with the
violet eyes. His life had been shattered with Hiroshi, and the shards
driven deep by this beast who haunts his thoughts.
"Oh, Genma," Fatigue shudders through the lone figure. "My
sorrow
is so very intrinsically linked to what is happening to your son. My
own shame, and my own weakness."
New strength seems to renew itself in the man's form as his
shoulders rise. "Which is why you must confront this, your father. It
is with this that you shall save your son, when this first trial is
finished."
Stillness. Standing, his back to Genma, the stranger for a
moment
reminiscing it seems of some far off time. He spins, once more
bestowing his azure gaze upon the Saotome patriarch.
There is obstinacy in Genma's stance, hesitance in his posture.
Hidden past shrouded in darkness, that which he so fears and dreads to
face. Words from a dead man.
Likened to some grim ghost of long ago, the stranger raises a
hand, pointing at the thinly veiled bed and the occupant upon it. "Go
now, and be you aware of the truth, Gakusei."
Frozen in time, the draped figure stands motionless, awaiting a
movement of compliance from Genma.
It is different. The difference unnerving, never so blatantly
and
firmly has the figure insisted upon the confrontation. Genma is
suddenly aware that he either faces this moment of his past or he shall
be confined here until he chooses to do so.
Inside, the coward pipes, "You owe this creature nothing, and he
is foolish if he believes you will be pushed into doing this!" As many
times before of late. Whenever confronted with the vision of this
scene, always his soul ran away.
He's been running away for so long, he isn't sure if he knows how
to walk forwards.
A slow, slithering shudder ripples through Genma Saotome as he
takes first one step, then the next towards the veil. The quiet
sliding
of his slippers on the lacquered wooden floor almost akin to the sound
of metal on metal, for all the silence about.
His heart softly thrums in his chest, the individual beats
becoming more audible with each passing step. The cloth before him,
it's texture and design similar to cheesecloth, something obscuring but
transparent.
He turns, praying to the heavens that the strange figure might
have forgotten him, that it might have vanished. but he finds him
there,
standing, arm outstretched in a firm gesture of charge. As silent as a
statue, as immovable as a mountain, and as intangible as the wind.
Untouchable.
"Must I-" he begins, knowing the answer already, fearing it.
"Yes." The answer, short, low, almost inaudible. For all that it
is not, it is resounding to the soul of Genma Saotome.
And so he turns, and with thundering heart, pulls away the veil.
<<<<<<< >>>>>>>
A boy, no more than seventeen and no less than fifteen. Stocky,
with a firm build and a body that speaks of many arduous hours of
physical labor and training.
There is a deadly calm pallor to his surroundings, bled dry of
any
emotional colors over the decades of forgetting. However toneless the
colors, there is painful familiarity to even the most minute of
details.
The smell of impending death hangs upon the air. His father,
Saotome Sensou, lying prone upon the bed.
His body a mass of half-hanging clothing, he resembles not much
more than a bundle of twigs. a misshapen bundle of twigs, knobby
growths
causing lumps to form on his bones in sporadic places. It has been
long
since the look in his eyes began to take on a fire that was almost
defiant of pain.
It is not long now, until the old man's death. Yasuka was out,
as
she always was. She couldn't bear to see father as he was now. She
had
always had difficulty around him, unable to deal with the painful
visage
he appeared to be.
Shizuka was also gone, no doubt with Yasuka. Father had ordered
her to stop taking care of him, his words far less polite than Genma
would have liked to remember, demeaning the innocent woman simply out
of
anger and pain.
So it was left to him to take care of Mother's last wish, that
someone be there for Sensou when he did pass. It was not abnormal for
a
family member to be present, though it was for so many to be absent.
It
was also abnormal the importance Genma's mother had placed on this
request. Genma hadn't known his mother. she had left only letters to
him, all of varying lengths.
Genma knows that she must have died painfully as well. Father
refused to speak of it. But then, he never spoke of his own pain
either, only of his son's failings.
The true irony of it was that Genma, the only one present with
his
father, was the last the old man wanted to see.
The coughing brings him back to the moment. The small, frail
figure on the bed opens bloodshot eyes and takes him in. "Get away
from
me, boy," the words are breathed out, accompanied by a fit of weak,
anemic coughing.
The words are familiar, and have been spoken so many times to
Genma that he had thought he had forgotten the pain they caused in him.
Yet it is as if they were freshly new, with his Father so close to
death, all that he could say was for his son to get away?
"Father, I cannot. I will not leave you," The words are
difficult, made more so with the angry flare that flitted across the
clouded irises of his father's eyes.
"You are the last piece of trash I want to see before I die,
boy,"
The coughing, no less weak, goes on for longer than it normally would.
Genma dabs carefully at the blood which is being coughed up, and
offense is intensified as the weak, bony arms push away his touch.
"Get
away from me, you filth. what must I say to make you understand? You
are
not wanted."
The hurt is too much, the boys body shaking, "I suppose I have
never been wanted, that I was simply a horrible mistake." Always, his
father had spoken of how disappointing Genma was. It had been true as
far as he could remember, his father held some kind of secret, horrible
hatred for him.
For a moment, Genma thinks that perhaps the old man was going to
say something, as those eyes looked away from him, the small body
beneath the sheets quaking as if from sorrow. "Yes, that is right,"
The
words stab him, tearing at his soul. He wished that it was only his
imagination that made them weak, almost inaudible.
But it was not strange for his father to feel this way. after
all,
he could not say much for himself either. If only that weakness of
voice were a reluctant lie.
"I am sorry that you had to have such a shameful son, Otousan,"
It
was all he could say, how he felt can't be conveyed. Not to this
frail,
almost ghostly figure, who not moments from now would be departing this
living world. It would not be fair for him to attack the man who gave
him life, not in this state.
The wheezing, painful sounding laugh wracks the small form of
Saotome Sensou. "You are so weak and pathetic, Genma, you do not even
have any anger for me when I say that. Shameful," There's almost an
indefinable touch of sorrow in the words, as if somehow Sensou were
responsible for the state of things.
"I cannot hate you, Otousan. It would be unfair, you being as
sick as you are-"
"Shutup, boy. Just shut up," The answer has strength,
conviction.
It was louder than his father had spoken in a long time. "I was not
always this. this thing. I was once a man, was once."
It was several minutes before the coughing was quiet enough to
speak again, his father having snatched the cloth from his hand as
spatters of blood and bits of lung were being ejected from him.
"I- It is my fault, Father. I know there is a cure, there has to
be. I should have looked harder, I should have found it, I am weak, and
stupid," his own failing was reprehensible. How could he call himself
a
warrior, a martial artist, when he could not even help his ailing
father?
"You are right about stupid, boy, there is no cure for what has
happened to me. You were an idiot to go and look for one," The soft,
rhythmic wheezing sounded almost painfully dry and grating, even to
Genma's ears. His father was lying very still all of a sudden, the
breathing becoming shallower, longer between breaths.
"Father, please, don't go. I will try again, please, let me do
what I can," How could he live, a weak, pathetic shell of a man? How
could he raise his own family?
A gnarled, warped hand rises. reaching with searching fingers,
eyes glassy as if on some horrible distant inferno.
So very gently he took the hand, leaning in to listen to his
father's words, "Otousan."
"It was my fault, Genma. Not yours. This is my curse. for my
selfishness, my greed. Bargain kept." the sound is almost as if his
whole body were deflating, a very soft, slow leaking out of his life
force. His words delirious, his mind already slipping from this realm.
Tears formed in the eyes of the young man, "Otousan, do not say
that. I know that I failed you, do not die without the chance for me
to
redeem myself."
"I- F-f-Failed. G-en-ma. Do not. Be- me," The words patchy,
sporadic. He was not sure if he had heard it all, if his father had
said anything.
Then silence, not even the patterned breathing is audible. All
he
was aware of is how numb and unreal the minutes up till then had been,
and he could not believe anything had actually happened.
Still, there was the body of his father. dead, and gone. The
painful words of his passing were locked inside his heart, dusted
beneath the carpets of his brain. His father had never said a word of
kindness to him his entire life, why should he when he died?
He had obviously imagined it. Didn't he?
<<<<<<< >>>>>>>
All is dark. The cool feel of lacquered wood beneath his hands,
kneeling upon the floor as his body shakes with unexpressed emotion.
"All is as it was, Saotome Genma. What you heard was what was
said, and what had been said. There is far more for you to understand,
but now. now is not the time," The figure stands as a solemn specter
above him.
Some part of him hated the ghost, wishing nothing but anger and
torment at it. To put him through the dying moments of his father, to
remind him of his own weaknesses and faults. It could be nothing less
than a demon.
"Get away from me," His voice is raw, angry. Stripped of his self
control, he rises suddenly, aiming a fist at the chest of the robed
figure.
His hand collides painfully with the palm of the stranger.
"Do not strike that which you cannot understand, for you may be
striking a blow to yourself in the process," It is as before, his voice
does not rise nor lower. The inflection doesn't ascend nor fall in
anger or displeasure.
Yet there is silent command in those gentle, silvery tones.
Shock registers upon Genma's face, it was not possible for the
robed man to have blocked him. The speed of the punch was magnified by
his skills in the Yamisenken and Umisenken, and focused by his anger
and
rage, "Who are you?"
"I am as I have always been, and shall always be. I am what is,
and what was, and what will be again. I am nought but a shadow of a
fractured spirit, bent upon a lone road of solitude and duty," His
answer is recited, as a litany repeated a thousand times before. Honor
and faith are fed into the words, conviction and certainty come out of
them.
His anger rising again, Genma pulls his fist from the grip of the
tall stranger. "What sort of answer is that? I demand answers! You
have
no right to do this to me and not give me something." Despite himself,
Genma retreats a few steps. erring on the side of caution.
Carefully, he is considered for a moment with those soulful purple
eyes. "Yes, yes, you do deserve something. I have put you through a
great deal with our visits."
Genma notices, suddenly, the ashen glow dancing upon the palm of
the strange figure. An ivory and blue flame dancing gently upon the
unburning flesh of the visitor. It's motion makes him feel even more
uneasy with the strangers presence.
"This I shall tell you. your father lived in pain for many years,
and that pain was served by your birth. Many years of lies, you have
heard Genma Saotome. Many years, but his last words are most important
for you to recall. Do not become him. Remember that. and your soul
will be clean when your day comes. For this, it is not too late. You
have erred so badly until now, chance not the burdens your father wore.
Discard such sins before they engulf you," His words begin to echo
amidst the vast expanse of darkness.
As intangible as his words are, so does he become. Fading off as
he speaks, into the drift of darkness.
"Remember this, Genma Saotome, and Learn," Those last few words so
hauntingly scarce as to remind Genma of those briefly gasped syllables
before an old, hate filled man deflated into whatever afterlife awaited
him.
And then he was alone.
* * * * * *