Mina-san, Ohayou!
This is the re-worked version of my first darkfic, ever. Tell me
if this works better.
-----
Broken Things
When Cologne came to, she was lying on a hard surface, on her
back.
She could feel all of her limbs, but careful probing told her, that
they did not move. She could move her facial muscles, her eyes
and mouth, but could not turn her head to look around. She knew a
similar state, that could be induced by a pressure point, but it
had been decades since she had last endured it.
While she was staring at the ceiling, she suddenly heard Ranma's
voice in the room, almost as if he had heard her thoughts.
"You know, Cologne, somehow it's funny," said Ranma in a
conversational tone, "how your superior knowledge of ancient
shiatsu techniques proved to be your weak spot in the end."
"What have you done?" Cologne asked, trying to look in the
direction of his voice. "One minute we were fighting, suddenly I'm
here."
Ranma made a 'shush!' noise and continued, ignoring her question.
"You failed to grasp the possibilities in modern science and
medicine. They have developed their own 'pressure spots' quite
far. It was a simple throwing star, laced with a chemical that I
couldn't even spell, that led to your current position. Don't try
to strain yourself - the paralyzation drug is *quite* potent, as I
know from my run-ins with Kodachi. It takes away all muscle
control below the neck, while leaving you conscious and feeling."
"What do you want?" asked Cologne, dreading the answer.
"Now, Cologne, really. Are you reading from a B-movie script?"
Ranma sounded almost amused, now. "What a clicheed question to
ask."
Cologne hoped that he still lacked imagination, like he had, back
in the old days. He might be content to have captured her and
didn't know what to do with her, now, so he came to taunt her.
Then Ranma spoke again, and Cologne hopes dwindled. He spoke with
ice-cold undertones in his voice, that told her not to get her
hopes too high. "You know quite well, *why* I have you here,
paralyzed and fully conscious. With some imagination, you might
even get a picture what I have planned, now." He paused. "You
really thought you had broken me, didn't you?"
Cologne maintained silence.
"DIDN'T YOU?!"
The old Amazon was not surprised that there was a fist of steel
beneath the glove of civilized conversation. She answered him.
"Yes. I never thought you would recover, let alone attack me."
"And you certainly didn't think I'd succeed, if I tried. You made
a mistake there. I don't know how you could believe that I was
still the same reckless, stupid boy, that I had been, when you
went back to China with Shampoo. What *happened* that made you
seek revenge in this way?"
If not for her iron self-control and her determination not to show
any weakness, Cologne would have flinched at this. "You have
certainly changed during my absence - I can see that now. You
were not this perceptive back in the old days. Shampoo and Mousse
married; But that was just the beginning. It was one aggravation
after the other: I was attacked for our failure, then declared
unfit for the post of an elder warrior. Then Shampoo and her
*husband* detailed our exploits in Japan. The little beast knew
exactly that some of our deeds were direct violations of the
amazon code - the very law we had set out to keep. I was
practically outcast."
When she heard him speak again, Ranma sounded thoughtful.
"Shampoo and Mousse married. That's pretty good news. I would
tell you to remind me to congratulate them..." She could
practically *hear* a cruel little smile form on his lips. "But
then, I wouldn't want to give you any undue hopes."
Ranma sat down on the table next to Cologne's prone form. Now she
could see him for the first time - and what she saw, she didn't
like. His bruises from their fight, were already going back.
That meant he must have kept her under for some time, before she
awoke. He didn't look at her, yet, when he began to speak again.
"That shows me, that Shampoo was the stronger one of you two, in a
way. You had *lost* - and she was strong enough to accept it.
*She* didn't come back for revenge. Cologne," he leaned very
near, almost speaking into her ear. "thinking you had broken me
was your *second* mistake. The first one was to touch Akane."
Whatever hopes Cologne might have had until then, they vanished,
when she saw his eyes. There was a fire in his eyes, that she had
never seen there - had seldom ever seen anywhere. She knew this
fire would not die until he had seen *her* burn.
"When you killed my wife - my *pregnant* wife - I knew that I
could break. All the pain would stop, if I lost my mind, or just
went numb or anything like that. But I knew, if I did that, I
would hear your cackle at the back of my mind for the rest of my
life. So I chose to *keep* the pain; Use it to stoke the flames
of anger that powered the steam engine of my revenge."
He laughed. "Heh, I'm talking in bad metaphors. You really bring
out the worst in me. Anyway, I *played* the numb zombie pretty
well, I think. I'm sure you must have monitored me, to wallow in
your perceived victory."
Cologne had. Even thinking back now, she could not identify
anything in Ranma's behavior that could have warned her. He *had*
played well.
"It was Akane who taught me patience. One would not think she
could have, the way she tended to explode in our younger years.
But she did. She taught me that patience can be a weapon, if used
right, and I rather think I did." There was a hint of tears in
his voice, as he spoke of his late wife. "It was the memory that
*she* gave me patience, that enabled me to keep the facade up,
while working on my revenge. It took me so *long* to think up a
plan to get you, and even longer to get my hands on the right
drugs and have this room set up for our 'meeting'. But the memory
of Akane helped me whenever my patience threatened to run out.
For her sake, I would not - *could* not - break."
Ranma changed tones, and sounded almost conversational again.
Cologne knew that the end of his soliloquy neared. "You know,
while I was surreptitiously collecting information about all the
various poisons I could use to paralyze you, I felt a little
reminded of biology class, back in school. I didn't learn much,
back then; I didn't have the patience for it - yet. But I
remember that I was quite astonished once, when we were talking
about the human anatomy. We were examining the bone structure,
and I distinctly remember that I was very surprised about the
nuber of *bones* in the human *foot*. A strange thing to
remember, isn't it? I don't even remember how many there were, I
just know that they were *lots* more than I would have thought."
Suddenly he brightened up, as if having a sudden idea. Cologne
would have shuddered, if she could, for she again saw the fire in
his eyes, burning maliciously.
"How about if we *find out* together how many they are?"
<SNAP>
"One..."
<SNAP>
"Two..."
<CRICK!>
Ranma knew that the room they were in was well soundproofed, and
nothing could be heard outside, but he was content, knowing that
*he* could hear the screams. The screams of someone being broken.
End.
-----
Well, if you're breaking with a habit, break it good and hard.
People who know me will tell you that writing a fic like this does
not come natural to me. But *when* I wrote it, I wanted it to be
as good as I could manage. The first draft that I sent was rather
bland, mainly just Ranma talking with a few (far *too* few)
reaction shots from Cologne.
I wanted it to be a sort of radio play, where the reader just
*hears* what happens, and has to deduce everything that went
before, and what the scene must look like. But somehow that was
impractical to write and lacked the impact I wanted it to have, so
I rewrote it from Cologne's perspective, to make her fear and
hopelessness more tangible.
Some people - including Zen (Hi!) - told me that the breaking of
bones wasn't mean enough to be real torture. I don't know - I
always disliked broken bones just as much as razor cuts, only that
the bones hurt more and the dull throbbing pain somehow
accumulates. Therefor I had Ranma execute this kind of "Death of
a Thousand Cuts" just with breaking bones instead of cutting.
Zen remarked, that Cologne knew what to expect after Ranma began,
and that lowered the nastyness of torture. Again, I dunno. *I*
think it's pretty horrific to *know* that some one is slowly,
methodically breaking all your bones and you are powerless to do
anything besides screaming your head off.
Brrr.
Anyway, I don't think I'll do something like this in a *looong*
while. :)
Sebastian