First fic and all, please C&C, hope you like a somewhat ... different...
alterniverse.
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Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only playing
in it. Keep the grounds cleaner than you found them and please don't
feed the Troll.
*This is a sound effect.*
|This is a thought.|
!This is emphasis.!
{This is a sign.}
/This is Chinese./
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Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
Rain. Postcard. Kitchen. Bed. Dojo. Bricks. "FIANCE?!" Girl. Panda.
Fight. CLONG! GROWF! Knock. Ranma.
Seen it before, yes? In your sleep, behind your back, with a bad
hand, in the rain, right?
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
This story doesn't start like that.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
*This* story starts in darkness, late on a warm summer night
without an artificial light in miles. *This* story starts in a forest
clearing lit by several billion stars and the thin sliver of a gibbous
moon. *This* story starts with a male figure stripped to the waist,
using a bamboo handled shovel to *Shnnnck* loosen and turn earth that
will be *ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt* removed and tossed to the side.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
Figure about a half cubic foot of earth loosened and dug up per
sequence.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
Figure a hole 6 feet long, by 3 feet wide, by 5 feet deep.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
Times 8.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
For those who have not been following along on their abaci, that's
1440 *shnnnck*s and 4320 *ssshhpt*s.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
In just less than 8 hours. Including wrapping the bodies, and
filling in the graves.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
For what were, self-admittedly, bandits and highwaymen. Desperate
criminals who, had the authorities caught them, would assuredly have
been hung, and the bodies left to rot.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
For men who, knowing this, and knowing the digger for a ronin, and
hence both dangerous and broke, had nonetheless attempted to rob him.
For men without honor or martial skill, who had fallen like weeds
before the scythe. For outlaws who, had they somehow triumphed, would
have spent not an iota of such effort for the traveller.
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
Because honor and respect are paid by the digger, and not to the
diggee? Because even scum and bandits are human, and are owed some
kind of marker? Because the duty owed by a slayer to his own soul
demands a remembrance of the slain, lest they die twice? Or simply
because it was necessary that someone do it, and no one else is
around to do it?
Shnnnck, ssshhpt, ssshhpt, ssshhpt.
The digger jumps out of the last grave, places the final body in
its' final resting place and says a final abbreviated prayer. Filling
the grave takes little time, building the cairn of stones to mark
the burial takes a little longer, preparing to move again longer
still.
And then the figure pauses, and looks down the road by the forest
clearing; and looks behind at the road already travelled; and looks up
to a sky just beginning to lighten in the east; and seems to pause.
It had been less than three days between incidents; both faces were
becoming targets of local toughs and fast swords; he had been forced
to kill more than 45 times in the past month. Or had he. His skill was
great after all, he was fast and strong and capable of techniques that
your average thug, or even ronin, wouldn't dare dream of attempting.
Had it simply become easier to kill than not to? And what did that say
of *his* soul, in the end.
Perhaps it was time to try somewhere else. After all there was
less than a year to go. It really was time to get back where he
belonged. Time to go somewhere you could defeat someone without
killing them. Time to go to what was, theoretically, home.
And the traveller reached into his shirt; and pulled out an amulet
of silver, and clay and glass; and raised it high.
And the rising sun shone down on a clearing in a forest by a road,
on which was now to be seen no traveller, nor footprints, nor anything
else at all.
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Shadow Lurker Productions
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And this is a bar in China where a man is sitting by himself in a
corner, getting stinking drunk. |Oh Bhudda, I'm doomed. How did I let
this happen? Nodoka's going to !kill! me. Where !did! that ungrateful
boy get to? Why did I have to try that !stupid! training technique?
Nodoka's going to !kill! me. Who knows what sillyness he'll have
picked up without me? I'll never have enough time to train him out of
his bad habits now! Nodoka's going to !kill! me. Now now, Genma, get
ahold of yourself; you trained him for eleven years and he's surely a
man-among-men, and hardship toughens you up, and he's certainly alive
even if you can't find hide nor hair of him, and he promised on his
honor, and he never breaks a promise, and you'll get to Jhusenkyou
first and get a good look at the ground so you'll have an advantage in
the fight, and he won't be as good as you anyway cause he didn't have
you to keep an eye on him, and you'll have !weeks! to fix his bad
habits, and... Oh Bhudda, Nodoka's going to !kill! me.|
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Is very proud to present.
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And this is Fukuoka, a port on Kyushu where a person who is
apparantly a somewhat bishonen lad packing a !huge! spatula is
bargaining for a boat ride to China. She'd tracked Genma to China at
last and this time her family's honor !would! be cleared, one way or
another.
And this is a small village in Qing-Hai where the local champion is
preparing to defend her title. And wondering where a warrior husband
strong enough for her to marry was going to come from anyway.
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An Eric Hallstrom Production
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And this is a bedroom in a dojo in a suburb of Tokyo, where a
certain girl is preparing for bed; after all, there's school in the
morning. School. And boys. Yay.
She'd tried, she really had. She'd tried to find one she could
stand to date. She'd tried to get the usual pack of fools to !stop!
their foolishness, peacefully and otherwise. It just hadn't worked.
|Every school day, !every! school day. For more than a year. She
was a Junior now, she was supposed to be past hazing wasn't she? They
were supposed to be at least a little mature weren't they? Or at least
get tired of getting beaten up all the time?|
Every day, for more than a year, and she hadn't lost, and she
hadn't given up; but neither had they, and she was tired, so tired.
And Tendo Akane went to bed, hoping for something to break her out
of a losing rut. And went to sleep, although she didn't want to.
After all, there was school in the morning.
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Of a Takahashi Rumiko Film.
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And this is a small apartment, likewise in Nerima. And in it a man
last seen in a forest clearing is performing a slow kata. And he too
is hoping, and waiting for the morning. He hadn't had to kill anyone
yet, but in every other way the last several months had been a
disaster. Oh well, perhaps he simply wasn't !meant! for romance? After
all, father had probably provided for a marriage long ago, and while
he didn't like it, he had accepted it for the sake of family honor.
Actually falling in love with someone was probably tempting fate.
Which brought up an issue, actually; what face was he going to
wear? Flip a coin? Tails. Female. So be it. |Now get to bed Ranma,
you've got school in the morning.|
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Ranma and Akane, A Love Story
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Chapter 1, the first day.
Part A. Arrival.
This is the story of a boy who was a girl, and a girl, and a boy,
and a girl, and a boy, and a girl, and a girl who acts like a boy, and
a boy who acts like a girl, and a woman, and a man, and another couple
girls, and a cast of thousands. Oh, and a Panda, can't forget the
Panda.
It's the story of a school, and another school, and another school,
of a city, and a village, and all the road inbetween. It's a story
of desperate battle, and deadly opponents when it gets to the story of
monsters and villians who attempt to attack these schools and so on
it will instead become the story of monsters and villians who turn
around and run away again.
It will have true love, and desperate peril, and romantic intervals
and high adventure and more martial arts action sequences than you can
shake a bokken at. And just a touch of citrus, for flavor. But before
we get to all that, it is the story of a Fight.
Some schools are known for academics and some are known for sports,
Furinkan High, in Nerima ward, is known for the Fight. Every school
day for more than a year, all the boys had either lain in wait to
"win the right to date the fair and beauteous tiger Tendo Akane"
(i.e. beat her up) or, if they had done that recently, had attempted
to heal up for the Fight tomorrow.
The girls all thought the whole thing was a ploy by Akane to keep
the attention of the entire male student populace and had no sympathy
for either side. The populace of the neighborhood thought it was High
Theatre (not much else happened in Nerima). Tendo Nabiki, Akane's
sister thoguht it had gone much too far, but could think of no viable
way to stop something that no longer had a real reason except
tradition. And Tendo Akane vanquished her opponents, and ignored the
whispers, and grew ever grimmer.
And today will be no different, after all it never is. All the
normal players are in place: here is the assembled might of
Furinakan's male student body, prepared to do battle in heroic
sillyness for a prize they no longer remember; here are they observers
waiting for a sight they've seen before, and grown bored of; and here
is Akane herself grimly preparing to fight for a point of honor she
can no longer care about; all just as yesterda and the day before.
And now Akane has broken into a run at her tormentors, and now the
battle is about to be joined. And now something different has
happened.
Now a voice has called out, not even very loudly. A smokey
contralto with a slight edge of roughness, and power enough to crack
the world. A voice that merely by its presence has controlled the
situation. A voice that belongs to a small redhead standing in the
gateway to the school. She wears loose black pants, battle slippers,
a loose red silk shirt and a bomber jacket. Her hair flows down her
back in a pigtail tied with an ivory ring in which gems gleam brightly
in the sun, her neck is wrapped by a flowing white silk scarf, her
hands are in her jacket pockets, her head is slightly tilted to one
side and she has just said "!What! is going on here?".
And nothing will ever be the same again.
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Authors note: hopefully part b tomorrow.
Eric Hallstrom hallcon@mindspring.com