Someone, I believe it was GreggSharp-san, requested that someone do a few more stories about
Ranma ending up with someone other than Akane. Apparantly he feels there aren't enough put there.
Never let it be said that I can't be accomodating.
Here is the start of a series of five stories that will give you all three such stories. Plus one with Akane, for balance. Plus one more, because.
Mmmmm? No, it wasn't difficult to do, really.
You see, I believe in heroes.
I believe that heroes are characters who overcome difficulties correctly. And I believe that any character can be heroic if properly handled.
There are, of course, many kinds of heroism, and many variations even within kinds. Pick just about
any character in Ranma 1/2 and you'll find half a dozen or more plausible major problems, no? But
*can* so-and-so be heroic is not, to me, a particularly interesting question. The interesting question,
to me, is: *how*?
For some reason, it has become a convention of many fanfics that the story should be constructed
around the "significant event" and work forward. It has also become a convention that one rival will be
given heroism, and the other(s) denied it, or indeed reduced to villiany. But I'm feeling ornery today,
so I'm going to ignore both those conventions, and sneer at them as they go by.
Herewith, a few stories about Ranma being married. It's easy to _get_ married, you see, but
_staying_ married is a bit more tricky.
All of these assume the manga's full run as canon and begin several years after it. All of them assume that something happened to overturn the status quo and get Ranma married in true heroic fashion at last. All of them assume that the marriage is more or less a happy one. All of them assume that it will stay that way after the story, other factors being overcome.
Other than that, they aren't linked at all. I call them:
Ninjoubanashi
(Just a few old fashioned love stories.)
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 0.1, (Oct. 15, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ninjoubanashi
(just a few old-fashioned love stories)
------------------------------------------------------------
(2 Years after the manga)
(Ranma + Kodachi)
------------------------------------------------------------
Yet If You Have No Mountain
------------------------------------------------------------
You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
(And)history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.
-W. B. Yeats
------------------------------------------------------------
Death is lighter than a feather,
Duty is heavier than a mountain.
-Traditional
------------------------------------------------------------
Strong arms reached out through the muggy summer night and
powerful hands closed around throats. There is an art to
throttling people, involving closing the airway and carotid
artery enough to insure lasting unconsciousness without
risking death or permanent injury. Judging by the fact that
all the victims would later wake up alive, it may be assumed
that all of the attackers were sufficiently expert.
The alarm wires were expertly cut and the various other
technological sensors were expertly confounded. The paths
and traps of the garden maze were expertly traversed. The
small packets of C4 were placed on the doors of the main
compound with expert care. All in complete silence.
The explosions that destroyed the doors and entrance hall,
on the other hand, were not silent at all. Nor were they
meant to be.
The attackers charged through the resulting chaos with a
will, knocking over stunned and uncoordinated yakuza and
zaibutsu guards left and right. Kodachi swivelled her head
back and forth rapidly. Her shinobi had a difficult task
before them, and she must be able to assist them as
necessary, while also accomplishing her own mission.
Fortunately, the layout of her ancestral estate had not been
radically changed, and her sources of information on its new
contents was good. As well it should be, of course. Tatewaki
had a great deal of dishonor to redeem.
With her shinobi around her, Kodachi strode through the
wreckage of the Kuno mansion's central hall, silently
gesturing orders to her raiding force. Teams of black-clad
fighters broke off to left and right of the main group, each
performing some independent task.
Not the least of these tasks involved neither destruction
nor removal. Instead a carefully crafted and _almost_ real
illusion must be pieced together in the fire-shot night.
Layers within layers of falsehood must be sown, and the
degree to which the falsehood was obvious must be gauged
very carefully.
To the yakuza clan that now controlled the mansion, in fact
if not in name, and to their ziabutsu masters, one face must
be presented. To the authorities who would investigate the
attack, another. To the agencies of the press, and behind
them to the public at large a third. And to one very select
part of that public, yet a fourth. And all of these many
faces must be created, each face by the very viewers it was
crafted for, by the same array of information.
And over all of these many facets must go a shield of truth.
Which everyone who might view it _must_ believe to be a lie.
Fortunately, all seemed to be going according to plan. But
now the step of the plan which she least desired to face was
approaching. So far, no fatalities had been suffered, by
either side; but that was about to change.
------------------------------------------------------------
The attackers, of course, had the benefits of surprise,
training and the stunned and disorganized state of the
defenders. The defenders were subject to the attackers
mercy, but the attackers did not _want_ to kill them.
Generally speaking. Unfortunately, wanted or not, there were
some deaths that were necessary. It disturbed Kodachi
greatly that despite all their planning, some of those
deaths must be chosen by no fairer a method than random
chance.
Ahead of the main body of her force went a thick spread of
scouts and commandos, feeling towards any resistance that
might be attempting to coalesce, seeking certain targets. An
change in the pattern of noise ahead of her told her that
the most important of those targets had been found.
Her peripheral vision tracked a small flash of red as a
familiar pattern of movement went by to her right, but she
did not look at it. She knew what it looked like in any
event, and knew likewise that where it was she need fear no
failure.
But that was on the periphery, her focus was elsewhere.
Locked tight on the tall figure of her brother, standing at
the forefront of what pathetic stand the mansion's defenders
had managed to muster, waving his ridiculous bokken about
and making an already impossible situation ten times worse
by his very presence. All according to plan.
As her troops smashed down the other defenders, she spun
forwards gracefully and caught his eye. He spent more of his
time ranting than fighting, of course, but that too was
according to plan, and she paid no attention.
She devoted a little of her attention to her own
performance, but only a little. She must dance a most
carefully choreographed dance impromptu, of course, but
deception had been her constant companion for two years or
more now, and it proved no more difficult than she expected,
nor did she expect it to be difficult.
A slightly greater portion of her attention was given to
timing. She must keep an eye on the performance of the rest
of the fight, for that too must be carefully choreographed,
and that too must be impromptu. She must strike Tatewaki
unconscious late enough to be convincing, but early enough
that some of the other defenders were still conscious to see
him fall. But her shinobi and Ranma-sama were fighting with
her, and here too she had no fear of failure nor need to
greatly spend her precious and limited store of conscious
thought.
Instead she spent her time wholly on studying Tatewaki
himself. Seeing him as fully as possible and memorizing all
she was able, bearing down on the details again and again to
hammer them into memory. He was her brother, whom she dearly
loved. Though she had planned the whole operation out with
him in advance, she had not seen nor spoken to him in almost
two years; and she greatly feared that she would never be
able to see or speak to him again.
------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the dance wound to its pre-arranged conclusion, and
she must go on. She sped about the estate with a large
contingent of shinobi as others scattered to their pre-
briefed tasks. There were many things to do and little time
to do them.
Finally, she returned to the central part of the mansion to
find that the confrontation she had dreaded was already
underway, and proceeding according to her worst fears.
"No, Ranma-sama, I cannot."
"Dammit, Kuno!" the diminuative red-head hissed, "We're
talkin' about ya' gettin' killed! This ain't no samurai
fantasy, you baka!"
"I assure you, Ranma-sama ..."
"I liked it better when ya was callin' me 'foul sorcerer'."
Tatewaki flinched. "Ranma-sama, it is too dangerous."
"Dangerous ....!" Ranma nearly exploded.
"Brother." She walked up to him and hugged him around the
waist.
"Sister, it is too risky." His arms encircled her shoulders
strongly.
"Risky!" Ranma hissed.
"Too risky to you and _far_ too risky to Akane-sama. Already
the police are coming, and the back-up plans have a lower
success factor, do they not?"
"Yeah," Ranma snarled, "by maybe ten percent!"
"But the chance is already low, is it not?" her brother
replied grimly.
Ranma snarled again, in frustration. But her brother was
right, the sirens were rising in the near distance. Worse,
he right about their chances, too.
Her arms locked briefly with desperate force. "I love you,
Tatewaki."
His returned the pressure, "I love you, too, Kodachi."
She held the hug one moment, and then broke it. Thanking the
Kami that her tears were hidden beneath her kurozukin she
turned away and began gesturing her shinobi about their grim
tasks.
They had already been busy. A great pile of timber, paper
and filing cabinets had been constructed in the center of
the hall. The family tablets were broken and insinuated into
it and it was soaked down with gasoline and wired with more
than 20 kilograms of octol explosive.
Now they were dragging several stunned or dead ranking
yakuza over to lie across it. Her gestures pointed out
several other, lower ranking yakuza. These would be dragged
nearer to certain other points around the compound, already
also rigged to explode. Not _to_ them of course, but near
enough. It would seem a careless error.
Behind her Ranma finally let out a pained curse. "Dammit,
Tatewaki, _I forgive you_."
"Yes," her brother said with a catch, "you were ever far
kinder to me than I deserved. But I have offended too deeply
Ranma-sama. You may forgive me, my sister may forgive me.
Even Akane-sama might forgive me, somehow. But I cannot
forgive myself. I _must_ atone."
Ranma hissed in frustration. "Dammit."
Kodachi turned around again at last as Ranma hissed again,
and quickly drew a tanto from an inside pocket of her
shinobi-gi. Stepping up to Tatewaki, she roughly tore away
part of his kimono to expose his chest. Then she snatched
the knife across it as skin tore and blood welled before she
flung the knife away to sink deeply into the wooden wall.
Then she stepped up to Tatewaki and suddenly shot her hands
up to his head, dragging it down for a deep, almost brutal
kiss. When she stepped away from him again, his back was
facing the pile of pyrotechnics, and he seemed already
stunned.
She set herself and said one word, which Kodachi whispered
with her: "Goodbye."
Then she punched. Punched once, or punched a thousand times,
to a master of the Tenshin Amaguriken they are much the same
thing. But anyone whose eyes could have tracked the blow
would have seen something odd about Ranma's performance.
Where normally the cloud of blows would each have fallen on
a slightly different spot, spreading the impact's force
slightly, this time blow after blow in succession fell on
only a few targets. Beneath their weight, bones cracked and
flesh tore.
Tatewaki flew back like a broken doll to crash into the pile
and snag on an sharp upthrust point of steel, left for that
purpose as the pile was assembled.
Striding forward, Ranma caught a small device tossed her by
one of the shinobi and pressed a button. As she leaned over
Tatewaki his eyes briefly tracked her and she showed him the
digital readout on its surface. Then she placed the box down
on the pile, conveniently near his hand and leaned in to
kiss him again, very briefly, before turning and sprinting
away after Kodachi and the others, drawing on her kurozukin
as she went.
They fled into the night, evading the lumbering, noisy
police cars with almost contemptuous ease. Behind them
Tatewaki forced his eyes open and stared upwards at the
glittering stars. His days of dishonor were long done with.
The time when he completed his redemption was near. He knew
that the box was near, but his hand never moved.
As the racing force of shadow warriors split up into squads
and pairs, dividing into untrackably small pieces and
fading invisibly into the darkness the night behind them was
split by flame and thunder. To the end, Tatewaki felt no
pain or fear at all.
------------------------------------------------------------
They finally stopped in a deserted warehouse, at Ranma's
insistence. Kodachi knew she should take charge of her clan-
members, but at the moment she simply could not bear to
raise the energy. She would give orders again, but not just
yet. Give her a little time, just a little time to mourn.
Ranma began snapping orders to the remaining half-dozen
clansmembers as soon as they entered, directing three of
them to unearth a cache of bottles and casks and boxes from
within a dusty shipping crate. Another was sent to wrestle a
large iron bathtub-like affair from another crate to the
center of the floor. The last two were sent scurrying to
hook up a hose and fill the tub with hot water.
While they were doing this Ranma began disrobing with great
haste. Turning to Kodachi she spoke forcefully, "'Dachi.
'Dachi! Ya can't afford to cry just yet. Ya gotta get
undressed, we don't have much time."
It made no sense to her, but she couldn't muster the energy
to think about it and she dully dragged off her shinobi-gi
and underwear, watching semi-mindlessly as Ranma poured the
contents of the bottles and kegs indiscriminately into the
tub. Ranma followed them with several packets she had
apparently had hidden in her clothing, at least one of which
looked like a lock of bloody hair. Then Ranma took a cloth-
wrapped package from a box, and a scroll, and climbed into
the tub, changing gender in the usual blur, motioning her to
do likewise.
It _still_ made no sense, and while being naked in the tub
with Ranma would normally be a considerable treat, she
really wasn't in the mood to appreciate it just now. But her
husband seemed to know what he was doing, so she went along.
Then Ranma asked her if she trusted him, which was a
particularly silly thing to ask she thought, and again she
went along. Then Ranma unwrapped the cloth and took out a
shard of mirrored glass, and had her hold it carefully
between her hands so that one of its points was held in each
of her palms. Quickly then, Ranma folded the scroll into a
complex long shape and wrapped it around her hands, leaving
enough to wrap around his own larger hands which covered
hers as he directed one of the others to pick up the only
cask he had left un-broached.
Ranma slurred out a chant in a language she didn't quite
recognize and nodded to the man holding the cask. That
person then twisted the end off and poured the liquid within
over their heads and joined hands in a long, silver wave,
even as Ranma tensed and then slammed his hands together,
hard.
The shard of glass went through both palms and through
Ranma's hands too. Oddly enough, it didn't even much hurt at
first. But then the liquid reached her, and her flesh turned
to ice, and her blood turned to fire. And then it hurt a
_lot_.
------------------------------------------------------------
After a timeless eternity of agony, Kodachi came back to
herself with a bitten-off shriek. She was sitting in a tub
of ice-cold water and onna-Ranma pulled her out of it with
almost desperate force, hauling her onto the dry floor of
the warehouse as the attending minion jumped back wide-eyed
and all but threw aside the empty cask. Ranma released her
hand and she stumbled away from the tub briefly as Ranma
leaned back into the tub with the same speed and pulled out
someone else!
Kodachi spun around, dropped her jaw and stared. The person
looked like her! Almost exactly like her except .... The
hair was a little off, perhaps a tad redder. And there was
something to the nose and the line of the jaw ....
The new arrival looked up into her eyes with an expression
of sheer disbelief. "S-sister?"
Sister? Check once, check twice. Eyes: check. Nose: check.
Jaw: check. This is Ranma we're talking about here: check.
Flinging herself into the other girl's arms she caught him
(umm... her, actually) in a tremendous hug.
"Tachiiiiii!!!!!" (Hmmm. Girl. Tatewaki is _not_ a girl's
name. Possibly trouble there.) Clutching each other to their
breasts, they babbled each other's names again and again.
Weeping she clung to her brother-turned-sister while Ranma
dispatched the minions left and right to clear away the mess
and erase all signs of their presence.
When Ranma brought them each some clothes they broke their
embrace and began to dress. Kodachi dressed with breathless
haste. She had something to do.
"Koibito!" No amazon could have done the glomp better.
Weeping in joy, she clung to the smaller girl, mumbling
disjointed thanks.
"Aw, _geez_, 'Dachi. Don't cry. Ya' know I can't stand it
when ya cry."
Tatewaki had dressed and now sat or her heels, looking up at
Ranma and Kodachi's embrace with large and luminous eyes.
After a moment they were lit by a flash of what any student
at Furinkan two years earlier would have called highly
atypical intelligence.
"Ahhh ... well ...," Ranma stammered, "I figured maybe
Tachi'd get stubborn, so ... ah ... probably he didn't get
the curse, so he's probably stuck like that ... ah ...
there's still hope of Nannichuan water, but ya both gotta
know that we ain't had a lotta luck with that so far ...."
A glass of hot water was upended over the smaller girl's red
head, causing her ... to remain a small red-headed girl.
Ranma whipped around in Kodachi's arms to snarl at Tatewaki,
"What'd ya do _that_ fo...," only to stop and flinch at the
look in Tatewaki's new, more feminine eyes.
"Ranma-sama," she asked in a pained voice (Ranma flinched
harder), "why?"
"You've got your honor," Ranma said quietly and looked off
embarrassedly to the side, "I've got mine. Don't ... ah ...
don't go all sappy on me, or nuthin'."
Tatewaki looked down at her feet as Ranma turned back into
Kodachi's hug. Ranma attempted to enjoy the hug, but
something about the way that the new girl had returned to a
kneeling posture almost at his (her, now, dammit) feet was
making her extremely nervous. Also, Kodachi was still
sniffling slightly, and tears were a thing that gave the
red-head the willies.
Sometimes, they meant that the person using them was sad,
but then, _sometimes_, they meant the opposite. Girls were
supposed to know about things like that, but even after four
years, Ranma wasn't a _real_ girl. All growing up with Oyaji
had taught him was that they were bad news. Ranma didn't
understand tears, but she did understand that they could be
very important, and things that were very important that he
didn't understand made him _really, really_ nervous.
For almost all his life the only _important_ things had been
honor and the Art, and those she understood just fine, thank
you, but then he'd become a girl, and she'd gotten involved
with other girls, and tears were important to girls, so now
they were important to him. Even if she _didn't_ understand
them.
One of the things that he liked about Kodachi was that she
didn't break down in tears at the drop of a hat. Not _real_
tears, anyway, and her occasional crocodile tears were
sufficiently obvious that even Ranma could detect them.
These, however, were _real_ tears. They were making Ranma
extremely nervous all by themselves, and she tried to offer
comfort to her wife so that they would stop and he could
return to less precarious emotional ground.
Eventually, Kodachi finished quivering in Ranma's arms and
grasped her honor close to her soul. Long before she had
actually gave the orders for the course of action that had
ended in fire and thunder less than an hour ago, she had
understood that the results of those orders would deal her
two terrible, self-inflicted wounds. The first of those
wounds had been duly dealt, and terrible the pain had been,
but beyond all hope the loss had been restored. Now it was
time to deal herself the second.
"Ranma-sama," Ranma winced visibly, "I thank you. I had
dreaded the lonely life I must lead henceforth, but that,
too, you have alleviated. So I can let you go back to your
family with a lighter heart."
Ranma dropped her jaw in shock, "Huh?"
Kodachi repressed a sniffle bravely, "Now, Ranma-sama, let
us be honest. Though you have *snff* always treated me with
all the friendship and passion that any woman could wish,
and though you may have even *snff* loved me in a fashion, I
have long known that your friendship with and love for
*snff* ... for others was far greater. You have restored the
honor of the clan of Kuno, you have ended the threat posed
by that clan to the Tendo family and name, you have even
restored to me my brother's life."
Kodachi swallowed, "You have given us so much, it is only
fair that I return to you your freedom. I know that you only
married me because of what ... what Tatewaki did. Now that
is over, and you can go back to, to Akane-sama and Ukyou-
sama." Kodachi held her head up and tried to smile. She had
allready broken down disgracefully tonight, and she _would
not_ let Ranma see how much this was costing her.
Ranma's shock was still open-mouthed, and he stumbled away
from Kodachi for a few steps, before regaining her footing
with a series of hard blinks. Then: "Are, you, out, of,
_your_, _tiny_, MIND?" he all but shrieked. "Settin' aside
the issue of if they'd even _take_ me back, what with Ucchan
and Akane gettin' married an' all an' Shampoo takin' Ryouga
back ta China with her; can't ya just _see_ the kinda ways
the zaibutsu could screw th' Dojo or TendoCorp over if they
got that kinda opportunity?" Ranma waved her arms around
wildly, "And I do _so_ love you too, so there!"
Kodachi winced. This was harder than she'd thought it would
be; she kept wanting to beg. "Yes, Ranma-sama," Ranma winced
again, "I know that you do love me, but you love *snff*
Akane-sama more."
Ranma moved up nearly into Kodachi's face, and jutted out
her chin pugnaciously. "Maybe that was true, one time. But
not now. Dammit girl, we just spent the last two years
together, we went through all that hell ta' reform th' clan,
_now_ ya think I don't love ya?"
Kodachi shook her head frantically, and Ranma's voice rose
almost to a wail, "An' even if I didn't, _that ain't th'
point._ Dammit, 'Dachi," and now it _was_ a wail, "when I
married ya, _I made a promise_!" and she was crying, tears
streaming down her cheeks, "I _always_ keep my promises!
'Nless," his eyes went wide in sudden horror, "ya don't
_want_ me anymore, cause of," her voice dropped almost to a
whisper and she turned her head way from Kodachi, "bein' a
girl now an' all. I, I ...."
Kodachi's eyes widened in a horror of her own. She knew that
cliff all too well, she had talked her beloved away from it
once before. Her arms went around the smaller girl in a
crushing hug and she pulled the flame-haired head into the
hollow of her shoulder. "Koibito! NO! No, no never never
never. Never in this world."
Ranma pushed his head into Kodachi's body and shook. "D-
'Dachi. Mom and them _had_ to disown me. You're all the
family I got. Do - don't ... please ...."
Kodachi held her and stroked her back, "Ranma. Koibito. Shh.
I love you. Shh. I'll never leave you. Never. Never by my
will. Shh."
Ranma sniffed once more and pulled himself together. "Don't
_say_ things like that 'Dachi. I may not like ta admit it,
but I _need_ you."
Kodachi almost fainted from sheer happiness. "You'll always
have me, koibito." She continued the embrace.
>From behind them, Tatewaki coughed slightly. "Me, too."
Ranma turned her head, "Huh?"
Tatewaki coughed again, "Well, I'm stuck as a girl, now, and
I really don't think that I'd make a good wife, in a
conventional sense, ..."
Ranma narrowed her eyes and turned around.
"... for a normal person, that is, and you _did_ save my
life, created it really, and that causes all sorts of
obligations on _both_ sides ..."
Ranma got a hint of where this was going, "Aaaaaaaa..."
"... and I haven't really got a legal identity anymore, and
there's only one thing that I really do still own, and I'm
sort of Kodachi ..."
"...aaaaa_aaaaaaa_...."
"... myself in one sense, and you're already married to her
..."
"..._aaaa_AAAAA..."
"... and where else am I supposed to go, and ..."
"...AAAA_AAAAA_..."
"... whatever else may be said about my honor and whatever
else I may have done, and however foolish I may have been,
..."
"..._AAAAAAAAAA_!!!!..."
"... not even you can deny my devotion to you and my love
for you, ..."
"... 'Da_chi_! ..."
"... in one sense or another, ..."
"... Da_chiiii_!!! ..."
"... and, after tonight, ..."
"... DA_CHIIII_!!! ..."
"... that sense is the only sense I'm concerned with, ..."
"... HeeeeelP! ..."
"... so I'm afraid you'll have to marry me, too."
Ranma turned to Kodachi with mute terror. Kodachi gawped.
Why that, that _hussy_. Her own sister, too ... well ... not
_really_ her sister. Her brother, and she knew how _he_ had
been about _Osage no Onna_, but also, ...well ... herself,
_really_.
In a sense.
Hmm.
It wasn't as though she could _condemn_ a girl for wanting
Koibito, even _as_ a girl.
Hmm.
And Tatewaki _was_ very like her. Hmmm. She'd always sort of
wondered, in an abstract sense, what it would be like, ...
... with a, a twin, ... sort of.
Hmm.
And Tatewaki really _didn't_ have anywhere else to go.
The poor dear was legally _dead_, at the moment. And would
have to stay that way. Without a family to protect her.
It was a terrible thing, not to have a family.
Hmm.
"_'Dachi_!!!"
Kodachi put her hand to her mouth to hide the smile, and
said, "I'm sorry, Koibito, but she _does_ have a point."
"_AAAAAA_!!"
"Saving a life _does_ confer an obligation, Koibito, ..."
"_'DA_CHIIII_!!!"
"... and besides, what else will we do with her? Throw her
out into the cold?"
"'Dachi! Tachi is _not_ a _she_!!! The body may be a girl's,
but the mind is still ..."
"No, Ranma-sama," Tatewaki interjected softly, "it is not."
Ranma spun around to face her. "Huh?!"
"Even if I had access to Nannichuan water, Ranma-sama, I
would not make use of it."
Ranma knelt next to the taller girl and held her shoulders.
"Tachi, don't talk like that! That's stupid!"
Tatewaki shook her head, slowly. "No, Ranma-sama, it is not.
When I was male I defiled myself by foolishness. I died so
that the pollution might be cleansed. Even though you have
restored my life, if I allowed the return of my maleness, I
would too easily fall into that pollution again."
She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. Her eyes
began to drip tears. "And ... and ... I never really gave
up, you know. It was so easy to ... I always ... and Akane
...." Her voice trailed off into silence for awhile. Then
she looked up, brown eyes dripping tears meeting blue. She
drew a deep breath. "I really did, you see. I did love you
both, in some twisted way. And then to do what I did ... I
cannot go to Akane, now. I cannot even dream it, but who
else could I go to save you and Kodachi-imouto? If you will
not have me, I have no place to ...." she trailed off into
sniffles.
Kodachi knelt down and embraced Ranma, whose mouth was
opening and closing in silent, helpless frustration, from
behind. "Koibito, she is right. Who could she marry? If she
married a man, she must assume a role that she ill-equipped
to play. She has had far less training as a girl than even
you have. If she marries another girl we will have to
maintain two masquerades where otherwise we would have to
maintain but one."
Ranma had hugged the crying girl in her arms into her
shoulder. "I can see that 'Dachi, but ...."
Kodachi hugged Ranma from behind, and stroked her hair. "Or
should we cast her out after you went to such trouble to
restore her life? Or should she be left alone for the rest
of her life?"
Ranma winced and tightened her hug around Tatewaki's
shoulders. "No! But, Tatewaki ..."
Kodachi hugged her again. "Tatewaki is dead, Koibito. This
is my sister Tachiko, now." The newly renamed girl gave off
a small sniffle, into Ranma's shoulder.
Ranma opened and shut her mouth helplessly a few more times,
then turned slightly to look Kodachi in the eyes. Kodachi
met her gaze calmly. After a moment her lips twitched
slightly. "There is this also, Koibito. We will be
continuing to support Akane-sama from the shadows. It would
be very difficult for Tachi to continue to make amends to
Akane-sama outside our clan, and I feel that she still
wishes to do so." Tachiko nodded firmly into Ranma's
shoulder and sniffled again.
Ranma drew in her brows in concern. "'Dachi, I thought we
were gonna try an' continue rebuilding the clan! Not that I
mind helpin' the Tendo's and Akane-chan and Ucchan out, but
I thought you wanted to concentrate on ..." she waved her
off hand aimlessly, "... the family, like."
Kodachi drew another deep breath and sighed. "I _am_
concentrating on the family, Koibito," she said quietly,
"but I've been thinking."
"We Kuno's began as Ninja, you know, in service to our
Daimyo's clan. Then during the Tokugawa years we were
ennobled ourselves so that we could support the clan
politically as well in espionage. But during the Meiji
restoration our ties with our overlords were broken, and we
had no duty to anyone but ourselves anymore. From the
records I have seen, it seems clear to me that that is when
our decline began."
She shrugged, slightly. "It seems strange to say, but I
think that Kuno's _need_ to have a duty to someone else.
Otherwise we go bad."
She grinned twistedly, "When I think of what a brat I was
when we first met .... What Tachi was even after that ...."
She shrugged, again. "No, Koibito, we must have someone to
be responsible to. And who better, to whom do we owe more of
a duty than the Tendos and the Saotomes?"
"Besides," she grinned at Ranma suddenly, "I promised Akane-
sama that I would do my best for her and you. I keep my
promises, too."
Ranma looked at her steadily for a few seconds more and then
slumped slightly, hugging the still sniffling Tachiko a
little harder. "Okay. Okay, ah, Tachiko. I'll marry you,
too. Just, ah, just no kinky stuff, okay?"
Kodachi snickered slightly, and Tachiko surprised herself
with a tearful giggle, "I promise, Ranma-koibito, no 'kinky
stuff'."
------------------------------------------------------------
As they slipped out of the warehouse into the darkness,
Kodachi smirked, and whispered, "Now, does 'kinky stuff'
include ..."
"'Dachi!!!" Ranma hissed, reddening.
Kodachi and Tachiko looked at each other and shared a
slightly wicked giggle. Ranma turned even redder, if that
were possible, and led the way into the night-time streets
of Nerima with what have seemed to be unseemly haste.
A little further on, as Kodachi came up parallel with her
momentarily, Ranma murmured "Duty, huh?"
Kodachi's eyes acquired a distant look for a few moments.
"They say that duty is heavier than a mountain, and it is
true. But if you have no mountain, on what will your
foundations stand?"
Ranma nodded, "I guess."
Three silent figures flitted over a roof-line and leapt down
into a twisting back ally. Silent as ghosts, they
disappeared, into the night. And into all the nights that
the future might hold.
------------------------------------------------------------
Author's notes,
It is my firm conviction that Kodachi's and Tatewaki's main
problem is not that they're crazy. It's that they're spoiled
rotten brats. And more than a little stupid, too. But that's
true of a lot of Ranma characters.
No, I don't know what Tatewaki did, it's not really
important. If anyone wants to flesh it out, feel free. In
fact, I won't be returning to this particular future at all,
so I am making it free to any one who actually wants to use
it. Just send me an email, saying that you're doing it, is
all I ask.
Next: Probably the Shampoo story. Thicker Than Water (And Much Tastier)
Yours very respectfully,
Eric Hallstrom, CC, PhD, UBIP,etc.
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com