Simulacrum

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

I'm not subscribed to the list, so please send any commentary to
my e-mail at harnums@hotmail.com

     By the time four rolls around, the house is cleaned and
ready for our guests with Ranma and Ryoichi's help.  Katzuko
arrived home a half-hour ago, wearing a lot of makeup she wasn't
wearing when she left the house.  Apparently her friends were
helping her prepare for tonight's visit.

     Ranma has grown tenser as the day went by.  Nothing shows
beyond a tightening of his shoulders and a quickening of his
movements, but I can see it in him.  I hope so badly that this
cure works; after so many disappointments, let this one work.

     The doorbell rings; I shoo the rest of the family to their
seats and go to answer it.

     "Hello, Tendo-san," Hai Long says from where he stands.  "It
is a pleasure to see you again.  My mother and father are
coming."

     Mousse and Shampoo are proceeding up the walk, the tap of
Shampoo's cane accompanying their footsteps.  Her leg was wounded
in the fighting during the Fragmentation War, when the Communist
government in China collapsed eight years ago.  But by the end of
the Fragmentation War, the government of the Autonomous State of
Free China had been born from the ashes, beginning in Central
Qinghai and now controlling the country.  It had stood alone
against the armies of five different warlords who'd tried to
gain control, and won.

     Mousse and Shampoo don't like to talk about what happened
during the Fragmentation War, but I've heard scraps and
fragments, and stories from Hai Long, even those he was only
eleven at the time.  Stories of rebel armies storming through the
mountain passes and being met with hails of arrows from nowhere,
fleeing when they found no targets for their guns.  Stories of
tanks shattered by blasts of light.  Stories of impossible
bravery, of a stubborn refusal to surrender despite all the odds
being against them.

     I still have a picture in a scrapbook, clipped from the
newspapers, of Mousse serving as Free China's representative as
he signs the papers that hand control of Tibet back to the Dalai
Lama.  Another of him shaking hands with the man, a combination
of aged frailty and deep strength residing in his robed form.
The smile on his face is one of pure joy, of a dream finally
realized.

     Hai Long is an impossibly handsome young man, even I have to
admit that.  His face is a combination of his mother's and
father's, the strong lines and slender features that made Mousse
handsome mixed with the exotic beauty of his mother's face.  He
is taller than his father is, too.

     "Hello, Akane," Mousse says as he and Shampoo come to the
door.  He has a large bag over his shoulder; as he stops walking
for a moment, it rattles slightly.

     "What's in there?" I ask, pointing to it with a questioning
expression.

     "The end of a certain red-haired vixen," he says with a
small grin.

     Shampoo whacks him on the knee with her cane, although not
hard.  "Stop making stupid jokes, Mousse.  Hello Akane.  I hope
we're not late."

     They aren't.  I usher them into the house and to the living
room.  Katzuko almost springs off the couch to throw her arms
around Hai Long as if he is long-lost brother; I see his face as
he accepts the embrace with the same good nature he did her
constant attentions when he stayed here before.  Behind her back,
Ryoichi and Ranma both roll their eyes almost simultaneously.

     Ranma rises out of his seat, barely concealed eagerness in
his face.  "So, what's this about a cure?"

     "Can't you let them put their feet up for a minute first?" I
say with a sigh.

     Shampoo laughs softly.  "He's waited longer than any of us,
Akane.  I don't blame him for being impatient."

     "It really works?" Ranma asks, sitting back down as the rest
of us do.

     Shampoo nods.  "It really works."

     "How?"

     In response, Mousse opens the silk bag and draws forth a
thin, high bucket with a dipper and a small, battered kettle.

     "The Chisuiton?  The Kaisufu?" Ranma says.  "What the-"

     "It is a cure that works without actually affecting the
curse," Shampoo says.  "It works through a loophole.  The Free
China government recently worked out a treaty with the Musk
Dynasty, negotiated through the Joketsuzoku.  Prince Herb told us
about the cure."

     "How?" Ranma says.  "Ryoga and Mousse, they tried..."

     "It's so simple," Mousse says quietly.  "I'm surprised we
didn't see it before.  The Chisuiton locks whatever is hit in its
current form, but it had to be used with hot water if it's to
cure a Jusenkyou curse.  The hot water must be boiled in the
Kaisufu."

     "All this time," Ranma whispers.  "All this time..."

     "Funny, isn't it?" Mousse says, but his laughter is bitter.

     "How'd you ever get something worked out with Herb?" Ranma
asks.  "He was a majorly arrogant guy, if I remember."

     "He's mellowed a little since he got married," Shampoo says.
"He's not a bad fellow, really."

     "Married?" I ask, feeling strange to hear them talk about
these people as if they are familiar, wanting to sound as if I
have something to do with this conversation.

     "Yes," Shampoo says with a slight smile.  "To Kima."

     "Kima?" Ranma says.  "Phoenix Mountain Kima?"

     Mousse nods.  "Although she is Queen Kima now."

     "What happened to Saffron?" Ranma asks.

     An expression of sadness passes across Mousse and Shampoo's
features for a moment.  "Saffron was killed in the Fragmentation
War.  He left no heir, and the position always goes to the leader
of the King's Guards.  That happened to be her at the time.  He
was no longer needed anyway, really, not after what happened to
the water supply."

     "I thought he was immortal?" Ranma says.

     "Not against a tank-gun shell, as it turned out," Shampoo
says softly.  "It was during the Bayan Har Shan Battle."

     The Bayan Har Shan Battle is spoken of as the turning point
in the Fragmentation War, where the armies of the Free China
leaders broke the back of the combined forces of the five
warlords who'd united against them.

     "We thought it was the end," Mousse says, quiet rememberance
in his voice.  "They were upon us from all sides.  The gunfire
was everywhere, they had so many troops, and tanks, and
planes..."

     "Then they came," Shampoo says, picking up the story.
"There must have been twenty thousand of them.  Saffron was at
the head; he'd brought them out of the mountain to aid the Free
China armies.  He was only thirteen."

     Ranma laughs softly.  "I guess they really did raise him
right that time."

     "He'd made his transformation again," Shampoo says.  "It was
the water they needed, and the spring in Phoenix Mountain served
just as well.  He singlehandedly destroyed their air support, and
was starting on the tanks when..."

     She breaks off, and I can see the pain on her face, the
horrors of the war she'll always remember in her mind and in her
leg.  "But enough old stories.  Talking about it always makes me
want something strong to drink, and as soon as we cure Ranma, we
can catch up on the past year."

     Mousse stands up, the Kaisufu's handle in one hand.  "I'll
get the water.  Get ready to be a man again, Saotome."

     Ranma laughs and stands up, rubbing his hand together, such
naked joy on his face that my heart swells with love to see him.

     "Never gonna be a girl again, never gonna be a girl
again..."

     I can hear water running in the kitchen from the tap, and
then Mousse comes back, steam rising from the kettle he carefully
holds in front of him.

     I don't know what it is, some irregularity in the rug,
perhaps a manifestation of blindness long ago cured by laser
surgery.  But he trips, and the kettle flies up and dumps all
over me before I even have a chance to shout.

     The water is very hot, not boiling, but my scream is not
because of that.  It all seems to happen at once.  The impossible
looks of uncomprehending horror upon the faces of family and
friends, the change as the wings sprout from my shoulders and
tear through my blouse, as my body changes and grows taller.

     As my hands become talons, and the nightmare becomes
reality, and more than twenty years of memories belonging to
another person explode through my head.  The caverns of the
mountain, the stone hallways of the palace, the screech and cry
of birds.  The incredible, impossible joy of flight, of the wind
flying through my hair and caressing my body like a lover, the
beginning of the service to a child-king whose dictates must be
obeyed.

     A plan gone horribly, horribly wrong, and a guilt that seems
to tear at the soul.  A name, in Chinese.

     Akanenichuan.

     Spring of Drowned Akane.

     It is like the Chisuiton and the Kaisufu, a thing so obvious
it was not seen.  Jusenkyou is the Pools of Sorrow, and all
stories there are tragic.  Why should mine not be the same?

     A terrible guilt, and an attempt to make things right.  The
Spring of the Drowned Twins, a ceremony handed down from parent
to child since the beginning of Jusenkyou...

     To call back the spirit of one drowned in the pools and give
it a body.  To call back memories and emotions and thoughts.

     Only once, only once can it be done for each pool.  And it
is so seldom done, so long forgotten.  But it was done.

     What is my name?  What is my name...

     Akimakane-

     NO!

     I am Akane.  Akane.  Akane...

     The memories are fading, going away now... vanishing like
dust upon the wind... ashes to ashes, dust to dust... my
nightmare is made flesh...

     I am Akane, and yet I now have knowledge of what I truly am.

     Ranma crouches down in front of me.  "Akane?"

     I look at him, and see the fear on his face is gone, and it
is only confusion, concern.  "Akane?"

     I nod my head, slowly.  The wings upon my back are limp; I
am not sure how to work them.

     "Ranma..."

     I am weeping, because I know it has to end now.  I know what
I am.  I am nothing.

     Nothing...

     He reaches out, uncaring of the talons, unfearing of what I
have become, a love so deep shining in his eyes that it hurts me
to see it, hurts me because I know I do not deserve it.

     He embraces me, and the five standing around us are silent
as stone.

     "Don't worry," he whispers.  "Don't worry.  I don't know
what's going on.  But it'll be alright.  I promise."

     Sobs are heaving from me.  "But I am..."

     "Akane," he says.  "I love you.  No matter what body you're
in.  It'll be alright."

     And I know he does not understand, and that when he does it
may drive him away.

     But I allow myself to think, for just a moment, that perhaps
it really will be alright.  Perhaps we will go soon with Shampoo
and Mousse and Hai Long and our son and daughter, and we will go
to the park that stands where Cologne died, and lay the wreath
woven from lilies and willow branches beneath the tree that grows
to mark where she fell, as we always do.

     Perhaps it will really be alright after all.

                                   THE END

Author's Notes:

     This fic is the result of way too much thinking about
Jusenkyou.  Throughout the series we are told of the tragic
stories of every pool, of the poor creature that drowned in it so
many years ago.  It does not, on examination, make sense that you
are simply able to dunk someone in a spring and have it take
their form.

     Granted, it does make sense because it is Takahashi's work,
it is canon, and Akane apparently did come through okay.  I like
to think she did.  I really hope she did.  

     But what if she didn't?

     This idea came to me when I first started Waters Under
Earth, but it didn't fit within the scope of that series.  Yet it
gnawed at me so much that I had to get it out of my head, and
there was no way beyond writing.

     Well, it's done now, and I can get back to what I really
should be doing, which is revising Chapter 7 of Waters Under
Earth...

     Any comments would be appreciated.  This is a stylistic
change from my usual writing, and I would like feedback.  Since
I'm not subscribed to the list, send it privately please to
harnums@hotmail.com

-Alan Harnum


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