Please excuse any errors.  I really haven't had time to sit down and edit.  
Also, please send C&C to Kangei@aol.com

Thanks,
Eric-kun

Chapter One:	

	Kasumi sighed and watched the lonely sun as it drew towards the horizon.  
	It loomed distantly, dim rays filtering through the kitchen window, dancing
across her delicate face, colored in sadness, longing, and unanswered,
unwanted prayer.  
	To reach out and touch the sun....
	To feel its warmth and dance its light....
	Kasumi sighed again.
	It was a routine moment in her day, as true in occurance as sunrise and
sunset, but its mundane regularity did not detract from the feelings that
throbbed in her heart.  As regular and constant as the painful throb of life
in the empty bosom.  
	Forbidden thoughts....
	She turned away, cold and indifferent to the desperate voice that begged for
mercy, unknowing and uncaring of the concept of mercy.  So angry, and yet she
lacked the courage and the fire to crush and purge the canker of humanity
from her bosom.  
	Humanity was a disease unmeant for her.
	She had long been resigned to that fact, unable to even contemplate
questioning it.  One does not question duty anymore than one has the right to
question destiny.  
	Natural destiny.
	And yet it hurt so much.  
	More so now than usual, and she did not know why.  
	She shook her head in irritation and redirected her thoughts towards the
boiling udon.  

* * *	

	Dinner was tranquil for once, silent but for the few subdued asides that
progressed the meal.  
	Soun looked down the table and caught Kasumi's lost eyes, tinted with that
melancholy hue that only he could recognize.  She served the meal wordlessly,
and throughout it, she seemed desperate for something to say, something that
would alleviate the pallor and banish the family's memories until tomorrow.  
	At least for her sisters.  The unspoken loss still throbbed in Soun's heart,
reinflicted each time he saw Kasumi's eyes, beautiful eyes that spoke of
unspeakable pain, sorrow and longing -- secrets that they had sheltered from
Akane and Nabiki since the day.  
	Unspeakable, liberating secrets that Soun longed to throw into the wind.
	Kasumi's secrets; his anguish.  
	More this night than any other of the year, a nagging desire that swelled
more and more with each passing year.  Things enthralled by the chains of
duty, chains Kasumi would give her life to retain.
	He loved her, and he wanted to help her.  Of his three children, she was the
one whom he could most admire and the one whom he could understand best.  
	And the intimacy of his understanding would bind him to the continuation of
his silence.  
	He sighed.  
	It was the same every year.  
	When he looked up, Akane, Nabiki, and Ranma had already adjourned from the
table.  He turned and saw Kasumi regarding him with concern.  
	"Is the udon not alright, Father?"
	Soun looked down and blushed at his untouched udon.  Not touching Kasumi's
food was insult enough, but more so when he noted the special care she had
taken with tonight's meal.  
	"I'm sorry, Kasumi.  I was thinking."
	She smiled ruefully.  "We all think, Father.  Sometimes more than we should
have any right to."
	Soun unconsciously mirrored her smile to the background tune of the vigorous
slurping of a certain panda houseguest whose hunger it was impossible to
satisfy.   
	
* * *
	
	"Okaasan...?"
	She watched, mortified as she saw her mother fighting back tears.  She had
seen her mother cry before, but never had Kasumi seen such anguish and
despair.  There was something about these tears that was so cold that it
burned.  
	Numbness overwhelmed Kasumi.  She was now helpless prey to her feelings.
 Suddenly, she no longer knew who Kasumi was.  
	Emptiness.  
	Fire.  
	Ice.  
	Mericiless anguish and misery.
	Tempestuous, uncontrollable fear.
	An ominous aura of finality hung in the air, so fatalistically numbing that
Kasumi could feel the light waning in the room.  In her mind, she envisioned
a red sun passing over the horizon, impossible threshold which can only be
seen but never touched.  
	The cold. 
	The darkness.
	"Okaasan...."
	Her mother smiled, trying to placate her fears with maternal tenderness and
affection.  She reached unsteadily for the quivering hand of her daughter and
clasped it tightly between her soft palms.  	
	"Feel the warmth in my hands, Kasumi."
	Kasumi obeyed, desperately willing her mind to exaggerate the sensation.  
	'So warm...' she told herself over and over.  
	Her mother chuckled with tear-stained eyes, succumbing to the terribly cute
countenance on the little girl's face.  Kasumi was very, very bright, she
mused to herself, but nothing could ever conceal the child that lived in her
heart.  Not even time could conquer the child there.  
	She derived some comfort from that, knowing that all Time could do was
change that child into something more.  
	Time....
	"Kasumi, you are such a bright and pretty girl.  I love you and your sisters
so much.  I want so much to lie and say that we will always have tomorrow.  I
want so much to believe too, but I love you too much to lie.  I will not have
you remember placating lies, nor will I leave you having to read into painful
memories, always wondering if you read right or wrong.  Always love your
sisters and honor your father, Kasumi-chan.  Be true and kind, always good
and honest to what your father and I have taught you.  Love your family for
me as I have loved, and will always love, the four of you.  Give to your
sisters what I have given you with all my heart, Kasumi-chan.  Comfort them
when they are sad.  Laugh with them when they are happy.  Protect them when
they are afraid.  Guide them when they are uncertain.  And above all, love
them when they need your love.  Let them see and believe that they will never
be alone, that you will always be there as I have always tried to be for you,
at least in spirit Kasumi-chan.  You will become their mother as I have been.
 You will replace me, Kasumi-chan, and you will have my faith in you in all
your endeavors because I know that you will always be true; the three of you
will always have my faith in truth.  I am proud.  Proud of you.  Proud of
Nabiki.  Proud of Akane.  Proud of your father.  Providence blesses me with
the honor of having such a family.  Thank you for being my family.  Now go.
 Leave the past with the past and me with it where I will soon belong.  I
will forgive you if you and your sisters should forget me; in fact, I  pray
that you do.  I would tell you not to grieve, but I know that your hearts
will not hear me.  Go now, my Kasumi-chan.  Go and give my love to Nabiki,
Akane, and Otoosan."
	For the first time in her life, Kasumi refused to obey.  
	Okaasan smiled, proud and dismayed at the same time.  
	Kasumi could only watch in helpless horror as Okaasan sat up in agony,
enveloped her in rubbery arms, and kissed her on the forehead one last time.
 Then, the breath rattled in Okaasan's lungs, and she was gone.   
	"Okaasan...!"
* * *

	"OKAASAN!"  
	The word tore from her weary lungs, ravaged by the hard, uncontrollable sobs
that wracked her body.  The emptiness tore into her, spawning that same
desperate fear that had overwhelmed her that day so long ago.  Unspeakable
sorrow ached in her heart, so rich and pure that its absence cried to the
mind like one forgetting to breathe.  Tears scorched her delicate cheeks as
she struggled for control, reproached herself for wanting to escape the pain,
and inevitably embraced her misery in terrible, irrational repentence.  
	She remembered something about having believed that time had soothed the
wound by some measure.  Somehow, however, it dawned on her that time was not,
and could not, function as a factor in how she felt.  Nothing had changed,
and it never would.  	  
	She would never have peace.  
	What was peace worth in this life anyway?
	She wanted to die.  
	After all this time, she still wanted to die.  
	Again, as she had once done long ago, she prayed for a voice to give her the
strength to remember her father and her sisters.   
	An eternity came and went.
	Silence answered her.  
	Then....    
	"Kasumi...."
	Curious, she rubbed her teary eyes and sniffled.  
	What she saw, she could not believe.  Like a child, she shut her eyes again.
 
	A soft chuckle rang in the darkness.  
	"Open your eyes, Kasumi-chan...."  
	She was amazed by how her will crumbled with that simple command.  She was
powerless to question her faculties, nor did she want to.  
	What she saw blinded her with its fantastic beauty.  
	The phantom smiled, though the gesture could not mask the sorrow that tinged
its eyes.  Its very aura made the air thick with its sadness.
	"Take my hand, Kasumi-chan," the apparition said, offering an iridescent
hand.  
	Kasumi gave the spirit a dubious look.  
	The spirit smiled again in reassurance.  "Come, Kasumi-chan.  It's okay."
	Kasumi obeyed and blushed once she felt its warmth.  
	The spirit took its other hand and brushed the disheveled locks from her
tear-stained face.  
	"Even now, you still grieve," the spirit mused sadly.    "What makes you
happy, Kasumi-chan?  What will make you smile?  What will make you laugh?
 What will stop your tears?  Do you even remember what happiness feels like?
 What will make you free?"
	Kasumi smiled.  "I already have everything.  I have my sisters and my
father.  To watch them grow up -- that is my joy."
	"And what after?"
	She blinked, surprised by how lost she was for an answer.  
	"When your sisters leave your home.  How long before that day?  What then?
 What will assuage the sorrow that you have run so long and hard from?"
	"I will find a way.  I always have," she answered quietly.  
	"Have you, Kasumi?  Have you truly?  Have you ever really confronted your
demons?  Or do you only know how to run?"
	"I-- I don't understand.  I will still have my father and I will live for
myself."       	
	"Like your father," the spirit mused ruefully.   "So much like your father.
 Everything you feel is so strong.  Your emotions know only how to rage like
hurricanes.  You embrace your sorrow, and you repent, but you cannot let go.
 You do not know who you are.  You live in denial, believing that you can
outwit your feelings.  You may be very bright and very wise, but all walls
crumble, Kasumi.  Whether they hold for a year or a thousand years -- it
makes no difference.  Time uncovers all truth.  Biding time is futile,
Kasumi.  True wisdom charges that you remember who you are.  Remember
quickly."
	Kasumi gawked at the spirit in despair.  The urgency in its words terrified
her
	The spirit saw and felt her fear.  Silently, it reproached itself for its
harsh words.  "I am still proud of you, Kasumi.  I have always been, and I
always will be proud of you.  My love for you cannot die, and it is this love
that makes me beg you to remember.  I love you.  I fear for you.  You fear
only my disapproval.  Ah!  If only a mother's displeasure was all that we had
to fear in life.  Remember happiness, Kasumi.  Remember who you were and who
you are.  Remember your gifts and your achievements.  Learn to draw strength
from these and not your grief.  Do not let your feelings cloud your
faculties.  Remember, Kasumi....
	"Remember...."

* * *

	Kasumi awoke, gasping desperately for air.
	Crying.  
	Someone was crying.  
	With one swift movement, she donned her robe and made her way in the
darkness.  
	She stopped at Akane's door and listened.
	"No...!"  
	She knocked pensively on the door.  
	Akane's incoherent moaning continued.  
	Concerned, Kasumi invited herself in and found her sister sobbing in her
sleep.  
	"Akane, wake up," she whispered in her sister's ear.  
	Akane stared at her with wide, frightened eyes.  
	"Kasumi!" she gasped, seizing her sister's robe with incredible strength,
her eyes wide with fear.  "Oh, Kasumi!  Kasumi, Kasumi, Kasumi!"
	"Akane," she whispered softly, protectively wrapping an arm around the
younger, trembling girl.
	Akane touched her sister's face with fumbling hands, almost unable to
believe that her sister was real.  She rejoiced in the warmth of Kasumi,
strangely relieved -- even smiling now. 
	"Akane?  Your hands are so cold.  You look like you've seen a ghost." 
	Music.  
	Kasumi's voice was like music.
	Not like her own.  Loud.  Harsh.  Shrill.  
	She sighed, saddened to see some truth in Ranma's common assailments of her.
 
	"Are you okay now, Akane?" Kasumi asked.  
	"Yes," she answered sadly.  "I'm sorry to wake you."
	Kasumi smiled.  "I was already awake.  Want to talk?"
	Akane looked lost, uncertain how to refuse the offer.  To her relief, Kasumi
allowed her to save  face as she rose gracefully, bowed lightly and made for
the door.  She stopped, however, when Akane called to her again.  
	"I love you, Oneechan," she heard Akane say quietly.  
	Kasumi left, paused at her own door and sighed.  
	Her own heart still throbbed too fast for sleep.  
	'I have my family,' she thought indignantly as she snuck down the stairs and
wandered around in the darkness, somehow eventually finding herself kneeling
by the pond.  
	In the moonlight, she saw her own reflection across the water's surface.  
	A stranger returned her gaze.  
	Fear, then a wave of anger, arose in her.  Furiously, she struck the water,
the image chaotically distorted, destroyed.  Repugnantly, she turned away so
that she faced the house itself and allowed the gentle night breeze to calm
her.  She closed her eyes and listened for quite some time, hearing only the
rustle of trees' leaves in the breeze and the occasional train horn in the
distance.  
	"Kasumi?"
	She turned and saw her father emerging from the shadows of the trees.  
	'Remember....'
	The uneasiness returned.  
	"Are you okay, Father?"
	"Fine, Kasumi," he reassured her.  "I just couldn't sleep.  You?"
	She pondered momentarily the idea of sharing her revelation with him.  In
the end, she reproached herself for the mere act of contemplation,
remembering that she had never kept secrets from her father before -- not
secrets like this.  
	"Okaasan came to me in a dream."  
	His curiosity aroused, Soun knelt across from his daughter, silently urging
her on.  He noted how disheveled and pensive she was and shuddered inwardly.
 The last time Kasumi had behaved in such an uncertain manner was the day her
mother had died.  Quiet, but unfailing, resolve was one of her greatest
strengths.  	
	"She reproached me for being unhappy."
	"Are you unhappy, Kasumi?" he asked, though he knew the answer to the
question -- had known since the day Kasumi's mother had passed on -- and
Kasumi knew as well what he believed to be the answer.  
	"I miss my mother," she said quietly.  "In the beginning, I was sad, but I
have learned how to derive strength from my grief.  Since that day, I have
lived my life in honor of her, doing what little I could to fulfill the
responsibilities she left to me.  I have found the greatest joy of my life in
watching my sisters grow up, knowing that they have grown well, watching them
dream and achieve."
	"Still, you want honor yourself ," Soun admonished.  
	Kasumi carefully contemplated her answer for several moments.  "My greatest
achievement has been guiding my sisters to their successes as they grew up.
 I have achieved, Father."  
	"Yet, you smile little."
	"One need not boast of achievement."  
	"Suddenly, your words seem very important to you, Kasumi.  Why?"
	Kasumi was silent.  
	"I remember you playing the violin once, the love you put into it, the look
on your face when you told me that you were going to give it up."
	"I said that I wanted to stop playing, Father."
	"I remember how you used to be very fond of writing.  You said once when you
were younger that you wanted to write a book someday."
	"I was young then, Father.  Often, we don't truly mean the impetious things
that we say in our youth.  Besides, it was only a waste of paper and pencil.
 I was never that good."
	Soun sighed, fighting back tears.  "How much have you sacrificed for this
family, Kasumi?  I remember the first time I saw you; you smiled at me.  You
used to always laugh and smile.  Every day, you woke up smiling.  Every
night, you went to sleep with that same smile on your face.  Your eyes used
to be so bright, so full of hope, of promise -- of dreams.  You -- "
	"Enough!  Please, Father!" Kasumi cried.  
	There was a rustle in the cherry tree and the panicked cry of a pair of
birds taking to the air.
	For the first time in a long time, Soun heard her voice edged with anger.
 She didn't speak loud, and she didn't have to, which made her all the more
intimidating.  He shuddered inwardly, but outside, for once, he succeeded in
mirroring the very menacing composure that had been her trademark.  
	"Why do you reproach me like this?  Have I done wrong?   I only did what I
believed best for our home, for my sisters, for you, Father.  I had dreams
once -- dreams like the ones you haunt me with now --
but I learned long ago that it was not my destiny to realize them.  Dreams
are for children.  There is no child in my heart, nor is there room for one.
 I have my purpose, and if it requires some meager sacrifices on my part, so
be it!"  
	"Meager...?!" Soun repeated incredulously.  He realized, however, that it
was a mistake as Kasumi came to her feet and began a fearful series of wild
gesticulations .  
	"Yes!  Meager!  The juku, the valedictorian of my class, the foreign
exchange invitations, the scholarships, the honors, aspirations to become a
physician -- what are these things compared to my home?  I had them once, and
I wanted more, but I could not want anything more than my home first.  I had
to choose, and I made the only choice I could make.  I dare not question the
choice I made; I don't have any right to.  How dare you question the choices
I have made, Father!  The happiness of our home is the greatest thing that we
have; without it, we cannot have anything else.  Everything begins in the
home, in a loving, happy family.  Society becomes more and more materialistic
and more extrovert with each passing day.  We turn desperately to other
people for approval and the measure of our worth.  We cannot forget to look
to ourselves and our family for our worth because in this is the root of all
worth.  That recognition, those 'honors,' they represent this extrovert
determination of self-worth, and they are the parasites that slowly devour us
from the inside out.  Nabiki's jealousy of my accomplishments when I was
still in school.  Akane's inferiority complex and how she used to pine,
wishing that she could look like me.  Illusionary standards of self-worth
determined by society for the individual rather than by the individual for
the individual.  My hair, I bound in this ugly tail for Akane.  Friends, I
forsook for my sisters.  My achievements at Furinkan, I kept secret for
Nabiki with the hope of assuaging her envy.  I thought long and hard about
compromising my performance as well, pressed each day for time to fulfill my
responsibilities.  I kept on for you, conforming to your belief that I could
still use my achievements someday -- a belief I now see as foolish and
unworthy in motive because it was for you.  For me, it doesn't matter.  It
does not!  Let my sisters achieve.  Let them earn society's approval and
respect for you.  Let them live and be happy for themselves and for me.  I
did for them what I had to do -- what I wanted to do -- and what Okaasan and
what I thought you wanted me to do.  Happiness cannot be anything for me.  If
you disapprove of me, so be it; I am ashamed to have you for my father and my
heart goes out to my sisters.  And if this is so, what I say is moot to you
anyway.   At least be kind enough not to mock me with my achievements.  It is
hard enough that everyone thinks me oblivious to the most obvious things; how
easily people forget what they praised yesterday!  It is a necessity, and I
have learned to look beyond it, but every now and then, it still hurts.  I
was stupid enough to believe that at least you would understand me.  I have
tried so hard to be the dutiful, attentive daughter and the proper Japanese
woman. Your power over me is so great that you have even compromised what
little dignity I have!  I do only what I have to do, nothing more because I
am too weak to do more, and nothing less because I could not live with myself
if I did less.  I have made myself happy with my duty and my destiny."
	"Kasumi, I'm not ques -- "
	"Aren't you, Father?  Please, mock me, question my destiny, fine, I'll bear
it.  Lie to me about the obvious -- lie at all -- free me, Okaasan!"  
	In tears, Kasumi fled into the house.   Her father stared after her, musing
what a poor father he was after all.  To have Akane yelling in his ear and
Nabiki's sarcastic quips, that was expected, perhaps even normal.  But to see
Kasumi broken, lost, completely incoherent in mind, and violently furious all
in one night was too much.  
	Like his daughter, lost, broken, and angry, he looked to the stars and
prayed to his wife's spirit for guidance and strength.  
	He could not know that tonight, the spell had been broken and the wall had
crumbled.  
	His home would never be the same again.