Anand Rao wrote:
Heart of the Immortal
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By: Anand Rao
Chapter 6: The Thoughts of a Damaged Woman
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The first thing Akane noticed when she entered the house was all the crates
and cardboard boxes. They seemed to cover every available bit of space in
"available" and "bit of" seems a bit redundant to me, you might want
to make it either "every available" or "every bit of"
"He's looking at some old photographs. Akane found something interesting
and ran up to her room with it, and Nabiki. . . is trying to figure out
what she should have appraised."
Heh. Such a precocious little girl ;)
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Great. I wonder what he was thinking when he had
all that stuff shipped here."
Soun: I must distract Nabiki before she sells the dojo, must distract
Nabiki...
Kasumi stepped out of the dojo and Ranma followed after her. "I'm sure that
everything you own has its own story, and I'd love to hear about them."
Ranma barked out a laugh. "I'd hate to disappoint you, but your memory
starts to wane after a few hundred years."
Now that's original, an immortal who doesn't have perfect recall :)
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Nabiki waited until Ranma was well into his third serving of food before
asking her question. "So. . . All this stuff Daddy's been storing for you;
who has been paying the storage costs?"
"Me." Ranma smiled. "Nice try, though."
Going for some obscure property laws? :)
"What?" Her head jerked up and she slowly shook her head. "N- No. . .
nothing." Akane bit her lower lip and stood up. "If you'll excuse me, I. .
. I have some homework to do." She quickly stood up and ran up to her room.
"Huh. I wonder what's bugging her. . ."
By the way, did you put the extra spaces in these ellipses, or did your
word processor?
Ranma looked up and smiled briefly. "Good morning, Akane. You seem to be
getting used to waking up this early." He nodded his head in approval.
"I guess anything can become a habit after a while. . ."
How long has Ranma been there by now?
Ranma rolled his eyes. "I see you read the story about Asahi."
"And Eiki, and Banshou, and Kageri, and-"
"Those girls were all martial artists! They were my father's students. I
wasn't 'chasing' after any of them," Ranma replied indignantly.
That seems like a lot of girls to have been training in the martial arts
during that time period. Japan wasn't exactly noted for it's gender
equality, then or now :) Making a few of them servants or something
might work.
"Aya-san wrote that you flirted with all of them, -and- that you spent more
time with them than with her," Akane accused.
Ranma laughed in exasperation. "Akane! I was -training- with them! Of
course I spent a lot of time with them!" His laughter died down and he
leaned closer to Akane. "Why is all this bugging you, anyway?"
Akane blushed and cleared her throat. "D-do you think I want a womanizing
scoundrel for a sensei?"
"Scoundrel?" Ranma threw back his head and laughed. "You read too many
romance novels, Akane."
I liked these lines.
Akane's blush deepened but she became much more determined. "It's true!
You spurned her and then her mother got sick, and-"
Ranma's laughter stopped, and he whirled towards Akane, his eyes blazing.
Akane reflexively cringed back and Ranma took a deep breath, acutely aware
of the fear in her eyes. He turned away, and spoke in slow, measured words.
"Yes, I ran away. Yes, I should have told her how I felt." At this
Extra spaces here before "Yes,
point, her turned back towards her. "But Akane, her mother's illness was
not my fault. I. . . " Ranma paused as a sudden realization struck him. He
gently put his hand on Akane's shoulder. "Akane, I loved your mother very
much, but -her- death wasn't my fault either."
Akane shrugged off his hand and turned away, tears forming in her eyes.
"You're immortal. You have those magic worms in you. You could have saved
her. If you loved her so much, why did you let her die?"
Ranma raked his fingers through his hair. "If I could have saved her, I
would have. I. . . I don't know where to find the bloodworms, Akane.
Believe me, I've tried! I followed every lead I could find. I even tried
finding the old woman who gave them to Aya in the first place, but I've
never been successful."
Akane sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Couldn't you have given her a blood
transfusion or something?"
This entire passage worked rather well for me.
"I wish. The worms don't work that way. It's more magical than scientific.
A person has to ingest them, and then there's a curse or some type of
extra spaces again
Ranma shook his head. "You misunderstand. There's a difference between
womanizing and falling in love." He looked back at Akane. "I have to
devote my heart to a thousand different women, Akane."
I have a feeling Ranma is pretty much going to live for eternity,
especially considering the fact that after you've lost one love it's
that much harder to love again. If you've lost hundreds...?
I always wondered about "Blade of the Immortal", cursing him to kill a
thousand men (evil men?) always seemed kind of odd, and fairly easy
actually. Of course it could be another one of those important
distinctions, like unredeemable, I've never had a chance to actually
read the manga.
"Don't look so surprised! It's true." Ranma paused. "Sure, you get angry.
A lot. Heh. Usually at me, but still. . . I've seen you with other
extra spaces again
people. You actually listen to what people have to say, you help them, and
you are never arrogant, even when you'd have a right to be."
I don't know about this, I think Akane was pretty proud of her martial
arts abilities, to the extent that she didn't really think anyone was
better than her. Mind you, this was pretty much blown away later, but
she's still capable of arrogance. Despite that, this conversation is
pretty good.
"You're just so good at the Art! Better than anyone I've every seen! Even
when you fought Shampoo's great grandmother, you were holding back. I could
tell." Akane sighed. "I don't think I'll ever be that good."
I need to go back and reread the other parts of this, I've forgotten
half the things which happened, this fight, Ukyou showing up, a few
other things...
"That's what you don't understand!" Akane exclaimed. "I love the Art! I
want to be the best I can be. I. . . I don't have two hundred years to
spare."
Ranma closed his eyes and let his head rest against the wall. "Don't start
wishing for immortality, Akane, it's not all that great." He felt a pair of
fingers gently brush his cheek. He opened his eyes and quickly turned
towards Akane.
I could never really understand this particular viewpoint, maybe when
I've lived
more than 20 years. The only real despair and pain I've ever felt so
far though has been a fear of death, it depressed me for months on end
until I just tried to put it behind me and decided to enjoy life to the
best of my ability, despite the limited amount of time I have. That's
probably why Akane's comment really struck home for me.
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End Chapter Six
Notes:
First off, thanks to D.F. Roeder, Firehawke, and Michelle Thatcher for
prereading.
Folks, this was more of an interlude than anything else, but it was needed.
Even if it wasn't I would have enjoyed it :) Sometimes these little
interludes of (relative) peace and quiet are nice to read.
I'll be introducing Ryoga in the next chapter and, uh, have to decide what
story to work on next. ^^;
*votes for The Chosen Path*
All forms C&C welcome.
Thanks for reading.
You're welcome :) Seriously, we should be more grateful to you for
writing, this is a great series, and you've done alot with it. I'll
look forward to the next chapter. Of this or most of your other series
:)
Namaste,
Anand
Anand Rao
jouve25@hotmail.com
http://www.gsm.uci.edu/~arao02/
ICQ# 10869014