Subject: [ORIG/Ranma][DARKNESS ALERT!] Twelfth Night [DRAFT]
From: Shuma Gorath
Date: 1/10/1998, 11:58 AM
To: Fanfiction Mailing List

Okay.  I'ev got this titled Twelfth Night for now.  The title should
become relevant once I get the cast grouped into appropriate, abductable
groups.  Oops.  Damn.  Just gave things away.  Oh well.  No biggie.

Note that I am warning you about the content of this fic.  It's dark.

--------->>>>>>DARK!  THIS IS DARK!  REALLY DARK!<<<<<<----------------

Okay.  you've been warned.

Ranma and cast are property of Rumiko Takahashi.  Don't sue me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"O! my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;"
-Hamlet, Act 3: Scene 3: Line 36


	"And in local news today, police are investigating a fire that
broke out in an affluent Tokyo high-rise.  At least two bodies were found,
burned beyond recognition.  The inferno appears to have been intentional,
and amongst the dead bodies, traces of foul play.  As the investigators
search the ruins for more bodies, a homicidal arsonist runs loose in the
city"
	The television winked out, a soft audible click sounding as the
picture tubes shut down.  The remote control to the TV and VCR dropped
onto the nightstand roughly with a loud 'clunk.'  With a shaky hand,
Genjuro pulled the covers up to his chest.  His eyes roamed the insides of
the cheap hotel room he'd rented.  It was probably the seediest place he'd
seen before.  It looked like it was about to fall apart at any minute, but
it didn't really matter.  It served its purpose and that was all he cared
about.
	As Genjuro closed his eyes, he heard the tape in the VCR slowly
wind to a halt.  As the autorewind on the machine engaged, Genjuro allowed
his fatigue to overwhelm him.  Images of Ami and Yukiko dying replayed
endlessly in his mind.  As he slowly descended into the depths of
unconsciousness, his body slowly crawled into a ball, tears slowly
trickling down his face.

	Genjuro planted a boot down on the edge of the low rooftop.  A
small clump of wet snow fell unceremoniously to the ground near his feet.
He leaned on the leg and stared into the alleyway where a group of street
thugs were coming from a rather noisy and crowded rave.  His dark eyes
glared lifelessly at the only one in the group of five that had wild hair
- hair that looked as if it'd been lifted from some cheap anime.
	He idly ran a finger along his left cheek, feeling the slightly
raised skin, and tracing the scar line down his cheek.  The doctors had
done a good job of hiding the surgical line, but he could still feel it.
It'd been a while since he was discharged from the hospital.  His face was
different now, a result of the reconstructive surgery needed to restore
his face after the beating.  His body was whole again, but he still had a
hole where his heart should have been.  Instead a cold black lump of hate
and vengeance throbbed where a warm heart should have been.
	Genjuro pulled the shooting mask over his face and pulled the
visor over his eyes.  He tightened the drawstrings on the cuff of the
black fatigues and locked the clips on his shooting vest.  It was with
reverence that he drew the old HK SOCOM pistol from a holster on his
shoulder.  The black metal was clean again, any signs of his sister and
niece's death wiped away.  It was objective once more, no bias to who it
shot, whose life it stole, yet to Genjuro it was now hell-bent on revenge.
He could almost feel it jump to attention whenever he thought he saw
someone that was one of the four that killed his family and destroyed the
Genjuro he one was.
	Genjuro thought back to the months spent tracking down the four
punks.  He'd only found one so far, but that was all he needed.  One would
lead him to the rest.
	A muffled cry got his attention.  He turned around casually to
look at his recently acquired guest.
	"Shut up before I drop you to the ground here and now," Genjuro
growled.
	The trussed punk with blue hair struggled more, screaming muffled
obscenities into the four layers of packing tape that covered his mouth.
	Genjuro sighed and turned around to look into the alley again.
The group of punks were standing in the alley smoking and drinking,
talking about something Genjuro couldn't make out.
	"Stay put," Genjuro said with a sneer at the immobilized punk.
	With a small flourish Genjuro pulled out a silencer for the
pistol, and attached it to the gun.  A small LAM and illuminator came next
and was clipped below the barrel of the gun completing the killing
machine's dress code for death.

	"Man, that chick just doesn't get it!" a voice shouted.
	"What?  I think you just don't got it anymore, Yoshi," another
voice replied.
	Laughter.  Voices unaware of the fate behind the door next to them
broke the bustling sound of traffic with their obnoxious high-pitched
cackling.  Genjuro snorted derisively and waited for a moment of silence.
	"So what about you, Toshi?" a different voice asked.
	"What about me?" a familiar voice asked.
	Genjuro's brow furrow and he grit his teeth.  His hand
instinctively tightened on the gun, and he flipped the safety.  He could
see the street rat in his mind's eye, smoking and drinking, reveling in
the misery he caused other people.
	A moment of silence pervaded the scene as the five miscreants all
took deep drags from their smokes.  Genjuro simply kicked the door out
unceremoniously.  He dropped the four he didn't need quickly with bullets
to the head.  The last one, Toshi stood dumbfounded as Genjuro stepped
forward from the threshold of the door. He had no time to react as Genjuro
unceremoniously kicked him in the groin with steel-toed boots.
	Toshi gurgled in pain and fell to the ground.  Genjuro kicked him
in the face and heard a satisfied crunch.  Toshi half-screamed-half
gurgled as he clutched his nose and groin.
	"Who the fuck are you?!" Toshi wheezed.
	Genjuro made no reply.  He simply shot Toshi in the knees, arms
and shoulders.  Six bullets, six joints.  Toshi crumpled to the ground,
nearly screaming in agony, but Genjuro stepped up to plant his boot on
Toshi's face.
	"You killed my family.  You took away everything I cared about and
now you will suffer for it.  I am your judge, jury, and executioner,"
Genjuro hissed.
	Toshi thrashed as best he could, try to dislodge Genjuro's boot.
He could only groan loudly as Genjuro applied more pressure to his face.
	"Tonight I hand down the punishment you were due long ago. You're
nothing but social trash.  I don't know how you stayed alive so long, but
now it ends.  You made a mistake in raping Ami and Yukiko.  You pay
tonight," Genjuro growled as he felt his fury surge.  Images of Yukiko and
Ami lying dead and violated filled his mind.  With a satisfied grunt he
pumped three bullets into Toshi's stomach and then one into the
midsection.  Four bullets took Ami and Yukiko away from him, after four
punks raped them.  Four bullets would end the job again.
	Toshi gaped, opening and closing his mouth desperately in a vain
attempt to breathe.  
	"Don't bother," Genjuro whispered, suddenly acting amicably.  "I
punctured your diaphragm.  You won't be able to breathe at all.  Those
bullets in your stomach should keep you occupied while you bleed and
suffocate to death.  Sweet dreams," he said with a chuckle as he gave
Toshi a quick pat on the head.
	Toshi cried silently in agony as Genjuro turned and left, entering
the blackness that he emerged from.

	"And in local news today, the bodies of six young men were found
in eastern Tokyo this evening after a report of a pitched gunfight.  No
witnesses were found, and no weapons were recovered.  Police suspect the
same murderer-arsonist that killed two young women in an affluent Tokyo
high-rise complex almost a year ago"

	Genjuro looked at his handiwork.  It wasn't pretty but it did the
job it was supposed to.  The punk wasn't going anywhere.  Granted, having
a knife in the groin prevented most movement.  As it was, the punk was
trying to scream through the duct tape that Genjuro had wrapped around the
bottom half of his head.
	Genjuro gave the riffraff a savage kick in the ribs.
	"Scream all you want.  Nobody's going to listen," he hissed.
	The street rat stared imploringly at Genjuro.  His eyes begged for
sympathy, for respite from the torture.
	"I remember that look," Genjuro said quietly.  "It was the same
look Ami and Yukiko had when you and your friends raped them.  You never
cared.  You just kept violating them and then threw them away like
garbage."
	The punk's eyes grew large as Genjuro pointed the pistol at his
head.
	"You never cared, and now they're gone.  Why should I care
anymore?"
	The punk shook his head violently, tears falling from his face,
shaking violently in anxious pain and stress.  Genjuro ignored him and
simply pumped a bullet into the punk's throat.  He fired another into the
criminal's stomach and then one in each lung as if crossing him.  As
Genjuro poured gasoline onto the twitching body, he closed his eyes and
exhaled slowly.  Behind his eyelids, he could see the Ami and Yukiko,
their ghosts haunting him.  His mind tried to shut out the images, but his
heart could do nothing but cling to them.
	"Damn your soul to hell," he muttered as he lit a match and tossed
it onto the dying body.
	As he walked into the night, the body burned and thrashed, and the
hell that Genjuro Furimashita lived in grew that much larger.

	"In local news tonight, another murder was reported in eastern
Tokyo"

	As the last one lay silently screaming, writhing on the ground,
his body wracked with convulsions, Genjuro sighed.  He looked at the body
impassively and breathed a sigh of relief.  Four faces that haunted him
were now gone.  Four sneers and taunting visages eliminated and wiped from
his memory leaving the space ready to be reclaimed.
	So why did it keep hurting?  As soon as one ghost was exorcised,
Ami and Yukiko took up that much more of his mind.  It hurt now even more
than ever.  It was as if the pain didn't want to leave, didn't want him to
forget.  Was that what he was afraid of?  Forgetting Yukiko and Ami?
	Genjuro stared as the body wrenched one last time, vomit spewing
out of the man's mouth, the stench of his bowels filling the dark
alleyway.  The body contorted in one massive outpouring of pain.  Genjuro
blinked once in surprise, as the body lay frozen in its twisted form.  He
was amazed at the effect the nicotine had in such a concentrated form.
All it took were a few nicotine patches and some rubbing alcohol - instant
death wish.
	He turned and left the scene as quietly as he entered.  His
thoughts moved on, now that he had exacted the payment for raping and
murdering his sister and niece.  The memories of the fateful day that
changed him forever flooded his mind.  Genjuro's heart twisted as he felt
his blood freeze.  He could see those faces in his mind next to Ami and
Yukiko's ghosts.  The boy and the old man's faces froze in front of
Genjuro's eyes.  They were the cause of the entire ride into hell.
	As the images of Ami and Yukiko begged for vengeance in his mind,
he swore to hunt the two miscreants and make them pay.
	"I swear it to you both," Genjuro whispered.  "I'll never let you
both down ever again."
	A lone tear trickled down his face, leaving a chilled trail down
his cheek in the cold air.
	"They will pay for what they've done to us," he whispered fiercely
into the night.
	The darkness swallowed Genjuro once more as he walked into the
night.
 
* 	* 	* 	* 	* 	* 	* 	* 	* 	* 
Ethan Tsai 
1 N. College Street 
Northfield, MN 55057

TSAIE@Gridley.ACNS.Carleton.edu
http://public.carleton.edu/~tsaie/ethan.html

Quote of the day:
"Ichiban!"