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Epilogue
"What are you thinking about?"
"Nabiki's suicide. I still can't believe she'd do something like that,"
"Yeah, me neither. I had no idea Akane's death would hit her so hard."
"She did always keep her emotions bottled up. I told her to be more open, or
they would consume her. I only wish I hadn't been so right." Kasumi sniffled
into her handkerchief. It was the third one she had gone through in the last
half-hour as she and Ranma sat alone at the dinner table. The words of the
recent pronouncement, right on the heels of Nabiki's funeral, were still
being dealt with by both of them.
"I'm sorry Father is determined for us to marry so quickly. It's not fair to
you. But if we don't-"
"He's going to go completely off his rocker, not that he isn't three
quarters of the way there already." Ranma winced at his words. He had to
start thinking before he spoke. That was one of the primary mistakes he had
made in his relationship with Akane. He was damned if he would do it again
in this one with Kasumi.
"No, Ranma. You're right. I'm afraid for his sanity as well. He's nearly mad
with grief. We have to pull together for his sake. He's the last of my
family. I won't abandon him for anything in the world. Marrying you isn't
really the sacrifice I thought it would be when you first came to us. And
you've matured a lot in the past few weeks."
"Who wouldn't?" Ranma admitted. He had to change. Events had forced him to
mature and start thinking about the consequences of his actions. To have
misjudged everyone so badly, he had no idea things had built up to a head
like that. True, he had been too wishy-washy in openly proclaiming his
feelings for Akane, but that the others had been so unbalanced as to kill
one another over him? He wished he had never met anyone outside of the
Tendou family itself. That way everything would have been fine. But his
thoughts would change nothing. Wishes were 'what ifs', and the world was
made of 'what is.'
"I'm sorry all of this has happened to you," Kasumi said.
"You've been hit harder than me," Ranma pointed out. "I mean, I did lose the
woman I love... I mean loved, but you've lost two people you've cared for
almost your entire life. I can't believe how you're holding up. I only wish
I had that kind of strength."
"I'm not really that strong," Kasumi insisted. "I've always thought if one
stays mired in the past, they'll never go forward. In an odd way, marrying
you is just that, taking a tremendous step forward. I'll never forget my
sisters any more than I would forget mother, but I am alive, and will remain
that way for as long as I can. I will not allow the grief that consumed
Nabiki to take me as well. I won't."
Ranma heard the edge in Kasumi's voice and quickly nodded in approval. He
would be there to personally make sure she did not give in to her grief
anymore than he would give in to his own. Grief was a foe like any other,
and no matter how overwhelming an opponent it was, he would triumph over it
no matter how long it took. He was Ranma Saotome. He gave up to no one and
nothing, not even pain. Akane had helped him see that.
This time it would be different. He had failed Akane by not seeing things
for what they were. He would not do the same thing to Kasumi. He owed it to
her, to Soun, to his parents, and most of all, to Akane. No matter the void
currently within him, he would go forward and make sure no one else suffered
needlessly ever again, especially his fiancee, who had endured almost much
pain as he had, if not more.
Oddly enough, Ranma felt a growing affection for the older woman, and he
thought he detected the same from her. Their mutual loss and heartbreak had
served to draw them very close, very quickly. It was almost as though they
had discovered they needed one another in order to survive, or to just plain
keep their sanity. And as time progressed, the more they shared, the more
they wanted to share. They were being drawn together as only people who had
survived a mutually horrible experience could. They had come to rely on each
other more than they did their parents, or anyone else in their lives. It
wasn't love. Ranma knew what love was now and could tell the difference, but
it was the possibility of love, given time. If it was allowed to bloom. This
time, Ranma would learn from his mistakes. He would find them the time to
discover the truth of it or not, and not deny his feelings under a mask of
fear and uncertainty. No one would be allowed to interfere with his
relationship. Not this time. Never again.
It was odd, Ranma knew, but for some reason, when he thought of Akane, he
wasn't as broken up as he felt he should have been. He had loved her with
all of his heart, he knew that was the truth, so why wasn't he more
heartbroken about it? It made no sense. Was he in some sort of twisted form
of denial? Was the fact they hadn't recovered her body making him think she
was somehow still alive out there? No. It wasn't possible. Ukyou's
confession had made that clear, along with her suicide. Akane was dead. The
trio of girls had killed her before Ukyou had turned on them, killing her
partners and then herself in an orgy of slaughter. They were all dead. It
was all over.
No, it was best to forget such futile hopes and impossible dreams. He had to
live in the present with the people that he cared about, those that were
still alive. He would always honor Akane's memory and cherish every too
brief moment they had for the rest of his life, but he would also live for
himself and those he loved as well. Again, he felt that was what Akane would
have wanted.
"Akane, I hope wherever you are right now, you're happy."
Kasumi grasped his hand. "So do I, Ranma. So do I. She deserved some measure
of happiness more than of any of us."
"Yeah. She deserves it."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"I can't believe you were such a jerk!"
"Akane really need to develop a sense of humor."
"Do you honestly believe that claiming the Nyanniichuan was Akaneiichuan and
pretending you loaded the gun was a joke?"
"Shampoo have a good laugh about it."
"Up until I kicked you in the gut. I'm almost sorry it was in those ribs of
yours Nabiki busted, by the way."
"Thanks. Shampoo is sorry she play with Akane's head like that, but she just
wanted to make sure you love her and not just using her to satisfy your
urges."
"I thought you could speak better Japanese than this."
"Sorry, old habits die hard. But with where we are now, maybe you should
learn Chinese."
"Yeah, I guess with us living in the Chinese section of Osaka, I should. You
have to admit though, between moving, the change in hair style, dye jobs,
and tinted contacts, no one should ever be able to find us."
"You didn't need to get the boob job."
"I told you we can't risk anyone recognizing us and having word get back to
the others."
"I liked your breasts just fine."
"You're just jealous because my chest is finally bigger than yours."
"It is not!"
"Heh. Nice to see I can still get a rise out of you. And you're right, yours
are still bigger than mine, though not by much."
"I knew it."
"Of course you did."
"Akane, do you think we made the right choice?"
"I think allowing everyone to continue believing we're dead was for the
best. They were just starting to get over us. A quick clean cut is better
than the continuing pain and disgrace of having us alive and in a
relationship with one another. Now, there's something I've been meaning to
ask you."
"Sham... I mean, I was wondering when you were going to ask this. I could
tell something was bothering you."
"Don't try to change the subject. I just need to know, and you make damn
sure you tell me the truth. I was right about you still loving Ranma, wasn't
I? You really did consider that plan you outlined to me in Nabiki's bedroom,
didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. But it was a fool's dream, even if I could have pulled it off.
That whole screwed up scheme, and everyone dying, has made me tired of lies.
I have to learn to accept the way things are and try to be happy as best as
I can. I swear to you I do love you. Someday Shampoo love you more than
Ranma. It happening slowly. Just give it time. We have the rest of our
lives."
"Now that sounds like a good plan."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Writer's notes:
At last you may bear witness to the result of watching too many Alfred
Hitchcock mysteries and feeling compelled to try something in that genre.
But then, one of the purposes of the list is to experiment with writing
different things and seeing how they work, both for one personally and the
reactions of others from reading the material. I confess that it was fun for
me to try to come up with all the 'twists' that I could. A great deal of
fun, actually. True, it was probably obvious that the 'mysterious figure'
was Nabiki from early on, and with the distinct lack of actual corpse laying
around for Shampoo and Akane might have lead some of some to conclude that
they had indeed survived, but I hope enough didn't pick up on it to spoil
everything, or even if they did figure out who was doing what to whom, they
were still able to enjoy the story overall.
I only revised this twice, and not all in one sitting either time, which
means there might have been more errors than usual in this piece, but I
confess to being anxious to get this out and gauge reactions.
Remarkable how long this grew on me. Even at the 50K point I was sure there
was no more than 25K left, but the final Shampoo 'betrays' Akane bit, and
several other things occurred to me to expand what was in my head. I tried
shortening the Nabiki-Shampoo-Akane go around, which was longer than any
other scene, but it was the final one were everything was explained and the
final secrets revealed, so hopefully that's justified. Still, I'm not sure
if it dragged or not, but I couldn't see trimming it either. The first few
scenes probably could have been expanded on as well, but I thought the
increased size would detract from the story since one of the driving forces
in the first half is trying to figure out who the 'mysterious figure' was
and drawing it out would be a bad idea.
I'm satisfied with the basic layout, but there are probably things I could
touch up to make it read better. For my first fic of this type of genre, I'm
satisfied with the overall feel of it, if not all of the details, such as
Ukyou's 'suicide' scene. And there are probably several holes in the story
that would lead someone to say 'Of course the police would know Ukyou was
murdered because 'Item A' was missed by Nabiki,' but hopefully you can
bypass those little details and enjoy the story anyway. True, this work
distorts the characters we know and love, Akane especially, from their
original flavor, but hopefully enough of them remained true to form without
being too distorted. Or at the very least, you enjoyed the story despite the
flaws.
As to Akane's interest in Dr. Tofu, for the purposes of the story she felt
the way she did partially because he was so nice to her, but also because
stealing him away from Kasumi would have been a way of 'getting back' at her
oldest sister for trying to force her into a mold that didn't really fit
her. Though ironically if Akane had been successful, she would have been
following Kasumi's wishes. I couldn't find a way of mentioning it in the
story without it feeling forced, especially since the scene had gone on
longer than I was comfortable with.
Kasumi and Ranma's sudden closeness. Not sure if that felt rushed or not,
but drawing that out or explaining it longer seemed excessive for the
purposes of the epilogue. It was just a general idea of the possibility of
future things, and was not meant to imply a lack of care about the
'deceased'.
Hmm. I'd say that's more than enough out of me. Ciao.
D.B. Sommer