Apologies about the previous post, this one is set to 72....

--
Kaoru
http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/Shimitsu/chaos.htm


--------------------------------------------
Scene 11 - A Father's Sins
--------------------------------------------


                Gray patches of light dance across the curtains, the
faint
sound of chimes drifting in the wind.  The air is cool, moist as the
wind
stirs the drapes in a gentle caress.

                Ticking.  The faint rhythm echoing in the silence of the
room.  Its origin can be traced to the small alarm clock beside two
futons.
Nine-fourty-five and twenty four seconds.

                The soft smell of jasmine incense wafts on the gentle
breeze, giving life to the otherwise drab surroundings.  Sparse, the
contents of the room would take but a few moments to stuff into a
satchel
before it's occupants vanished once more into the mists of the Japanese
forests.

                Solemn.  A man sits, transfixed upon some inner turmoil,
his
breathing slow and purposeful.  The jasmine relaxes him, giving him calm
and
peace required for such mental exercises as he now endures.  A bead of
sweat
rolls down his brow, having escaped the bandanna wrapped tightly around
his
balding skull.

                Struggle.  His face growing slack as even the soft spray
of
droplets upon the roof fades to nothing, and the world drifts to
darkness
around him.  No heat, no cold, simply emptiness.

                It is a mirror of his inner state, purging thought and
motion from his body and mind, giving over to the shape of stillness.
It
had been decades since he had stopped the practice, ever since an old
man
had taken him under his wing as apprentice and student.

                Inversion.  His ki, glowing faintly to those who are
able,
winks out, exploring the inner turmoils of his spirit.  Searching for
illnesses of both flesh and spirit.

                A soft wheezing sound pierces his meditation, his jaw
clenching suddenly.  Foreboding.

                Absently, he picks at the seam of his gi.  His mind
willing
the noise to cease, to fade off into the blackness of nothing as all
other
distractions have.

                It persists.

                *Not again, please.* His will falters, his body
trembling in
fear of the vision that might befall his eyes were he to dare open them,
a
vision common as of late.  A poltergeist; a shadow of the past.

                The sound heightens in its volume, persistent as the
wind.
Still, he balks.  *This is a dead thing, something of the past,
something
that cannot hurt you anymore.*

                Still, the harsh wheezing drifts to his ears, burning
them
with the image of his Father.  Bedridden and ill, his Father had spent
the
last few years of his life refusing help from doctors and family,
stubborn
and unwilling to admit weakness.

                With fear, his eyes finally open.  Muscles tense, and ki
flickers uncertainly.  It was as a hundred times before, of late.  The
luminance of his Otousan's bedroom did not wash the gray away from the
old,
faded memory.

                Curtains block his vision of the skeletal form his
father
must surely resemble, in his last year of life.  His body had wasted
away,
muscles twisted painfully. even his bones had begun malformed cancerous
growths, only adding to the pain he must surely have felt.

                The wheezing continued burning into Genma's ears.

                "No, No, I am not going to watch this again!" clenching
his
fists, his mouth stuttering open and closed for a moment before he
raised
one hand, shaking it at the heavens.  "Do you hear me, damn you? I will
not
go through this again!"

                The only answer he received was the continuance of the
feared sound, rhythmic and repetitive.  He could almost liken it to the
gasping of his darkened soul, the prices he paid for his son.

                Flying to the door, he strived for the handle, only
wailing
as his hand passed through it.  "Let me out! Let me out, you damn mad
demon!
I- I don't want this!"

                "Demon?  No." A silvery voice whispered softly from
behind
him.

                Whirling, he pressed his back against the door.  Solid
enough, despite the handle.  His eyes danced over the familiar haunt,
the
specter who has begun haunting him, as of only a few months ago.

                "Hello again, Gakusei," The slight glow of his violet
eyes
was all that permeated the shadows of his silver hood, arms crossed
across
his chest, hidden beneath the voluminous sleeves of his robes.
The voice, decidedly male, but also beautiful in a manner beyond gender.
Like silver wind.

                Cold.  Piercing through him with a certain kind of
dread,
Genma's nails scrape across the grain of the door as his heart thunders
within his chest.  "I am not your student!" His words angry, heat in
them as
he lunges at the robed man.

                As many times before, he meets only with the cold floor.

                "Must we truly go through this every time?  We all
learn,
and are in a process of learning.  We are, each, students within the
Divine'
s temple," The man's voice echoes from behind Genma, just as many times
before.

                There is a calm acquiescence to the stranger's voice, as
if
there is no disagreement only mutual misunderstanding which has been
long
resolved.  He uses a familiarity in his tone that hints at a long
friendship
with Genma, though Genma has never met the stranger except in troubled
sleep
and moments of solitude.

                It makes him question his own sanity.  How can he even
be
sure he was "Seeing" this stranger? There was never a person in the room
with him when the visitations happened.  Most had happened in the
silence of
his own skull, during meditation or fitful sleep.

                But not all.

                A moment.  Genma realizes that the stranger's hand is
extended towards him, ivory colored, with a soft moonlike glow.  "It is
not
my wish to torment you, Saotome Genma."

                Scorning the offer, he rises on his own, dusting his gi
off,
eyes half lidded and avoiding the strange gaze of the cloaked visitor.
"Oh
yeah? Then why do you do this?" His hand flies up, gesturing towards the
wheezing which still echoes from the bed.  "Why do you always bring this
to
me? Why do you bring ME to HERE?"

                There is a tremble in his voice, a shaking in his body.
The
calm, almost pristine look in the stranger's eyes only fills with
sorrow.

                "I do not summon these images, Gakusei.  It is you who
has
brought us here, here to the root of your son's suffering.  It is always
you," His arms once more vanish into the folds of his voluminous sleeves
as
he crosses them once more.

                "This has nothing to do with my son!" He longs to grasp
the
invader, to shake him from his mind, to lock such thoughts from
invasion.

                Yet he cannot touch him.

                "But it does, Genma.  It does.  You cannot accept that
yet,
after you have come so far?" Softly, the stranger extends a hand,
placing it
as if a feather upon Genma's broad shoulder.

                Genma feels the sting of sorrow in his soul as he gazes
through the thinly veiled curtains around the bed.  "You told me you
knew
how to cure my son."

                "I do. but not of the Jusenkyou curse.  You do not
understand the nature of such magic.  I am helping your son as I speak,"
There is no shock when Genma bats his hand away.

                "Liar! You lied to me! I- I did what you told me, I try
to
protect him from his mother, I try to support him.  Why do I have to do
this?" His teeth clench, his eyes screwed shut for a moment.   His fists
open and close in frustration.

                Click.  A thought cascades into the stream of his
consciousness.  A low growl crawls forth from his grinding teeth, "What
are
you doing to my son?!"

                *How do I know he isn't the same demon sucking the life
from
Ranma right now!?*  A vision, his son being carried unconscious into the
house by the Kuonji girl and Akane.

                "Do not make haste with accusations, Saotome Genma," His
voice does not lower, the level of it does not resound, but there is a
strange piercing quality to his statement.  There has been no change in
how
he speaks, so softly and with careful purchase to each word.

                Yet somehow there is command in his voice.

                "You have done enough of that in your life, do you not
think?" Again, his words speak of a familiarity which puzzles Genma.  It
conveyed forth from the dredges of his memories all the times he had
pushed
blame from himself, finding convenient reasons to avoid responsibility.

                "This is not about me, this is about Ranma," At a time,
he
might have considered his own life more important than anything else.
It is
only recently that he realized the importance of his son, his future.

                It is only recently that he realized how deadly and
deceiving the road to hell is.

                Speculation.  The figure considers him for a long,
resolute
moment.  "Yes, of course.  This is all about your child, but I would not
abide myself if I were to help just him."

                "You sound as if you want me to believe you are some
sort of
good Samaritan," Genma does not believe it.  Hours on end of tormented
past,
each visit culminating in his dismissal of the person behind that
curtain.

                Each visit beginning with the expressed need to confront
that person, from this strange cloaked visitor.  This invader of the
soul.

                A tightness, marking the violet eyes of the robed one.
For
a moment, those eyes looked dreadfully old. as if they had seen the dust
of
countless millennia, remnants of ancient worlds.

                "I do what I must, as decreed to me.  I work for your
salvation, and Ranma's.  If I were to cease my assistance, darkness
would
devour your child's soul. and it would all be over before it has even
 begun." Tired, says his voice.  Lonely, says his eyes.

                For a brief moment, those eyes turn from Genma, staring
upon
the shrouded bed, but not seeing it.  "Sacrifice is something I am not
amiss
of, like you, I once had much and could want for none.  Like you, fate
can
change on a dime the path we must tread."

                Short.  Genma almost considers this strange invader as
having emotions.  Desires.  A life.  Discarded, he gives forth a sharp
noise
of dismissal, "What makes you think I care about your sorrow, Demon?"

                Torment.  All that has been brought to him by the man
with
the violet eyes.  His life had been shattered with Hiroshi, and the
shards
driven deep by this beast who haunts his thoughts.

                "Oh, Genma," Fatigue shudders through the lone figure.
"My
sorrow is so very intrinsically linked to what is happening to your son.
My
own shame, and my own weakness."

                New strength seems to renew itself in the man's form as
his
shoulders rise.  "Which is why you must confront this, your father.  It
is
with this that you shall save your son, when this first trial is
finished."

                Stillness.  Standing, his back to Genma, the stranger
for a
moment reminiscing it seems of some far off time.  He spins, once more
bestowing his azure gaze upon the Saotome patriarch.

                There is obstinacy in Genma's stance, hesitance in his
posture.  Hidden past shrouded in darkness, that which he so fears and
dreads to face.  Words from a dead man.

                Likened to some grim ghost of long ago, the stranger
raises
a hand, pointing at the thinly veiled bed and the occupant upon it.  "Go
now, and be you aware of the truth, Gakusei."

                Frozen in time, the draped figure stands motionless,
awaiting a movement of compliance from Genma.

                It is different.  The difference unnerving, never so
blatantly and firmly has the figure insisted upon the confrontation.
Genma
is suddenly aware that he either faces this moment of his past or he
shall
be confined here until he chooses to do so.

                Inside, the coward pipes, "You owe this creature
nothing,
and he is foolish if he believes you will be pushed into doing this!" As
many times before of late.  Whenever confronted with the vision of this
scene, always his soul ran away.

                He's been running away for so long, he isn't sure if he
knows how to walk forwards.

                A slow, slithering shudder ripples through Genma Saotome
as
he takes first one step, then the next towards the veil.  The quiet
sliding
of his slippers on the lacquered wooden floor almost akin to the sound
of
metal on metal, for all the silence about.

                His heart softly thrums in his chest, the individual
beats
becoming more audible with each passing step.  The cloth before him,
it's
texture and design similar to cheesecloth, something obscuring but
transparent.

                He turns, praying to the heavens that the strange figure
might have forgotten him, that it might have vanished. but he finds him
there, standing, arm outstretched in a firm gesture of charge.  As
silent as
a statue, as immovable as a mountain, and as intangible as the wind.

                Untouchable.

                "Must I-" he begins, knowing the answer already, fearing
it.

                "Yes." The answer, short, low, almost inaudible.  For
all
that it is not, it is resounding to the soul of Genma Saotome.

                And so he turns, and with thundering heart, pulls away
the
veil.

                <<<<<<<                >>>>>>>

                A boy, no more than seventeen and no less than fifteen.
Stocky, with a firm build and a body that speaks of many arduous hours
of
physical labor and training.

                There is a deadly calm pallor to his surroundings, bled
dry
of any emotional colors over the decades of forgetting.  However
toneless
the colors, there is painful familiarity to even the most minute of
details.
                The smell of impending death hangs upon the air.  His
father, Saotome Sensou, lying prone upon the bed.

                His body a mass of half-hanging clothing, he resembles
not
much more than a bundle of twigs. a misshapen bundle of twigs, knobby
growths causing lumps to form on his bones in sporadic places.  It has
been
long since the look in his eyes began to take on a fire that was almost
defiant of pain.

                It is not long now, until the old man's death.  Yasuka
was
out, as she always was.  She couldn't bear to see father as he was now.
She
had always had difficulty around him, unable to deal with the painful
visage
he appeared to be.

                Shizuka was also gone, no doubt with Yasuka.  Father had
ordered her to stop taking care of him, his words far less polite than
Genma
would have liked to remember, demeaning the innocent woman simply out of
anger and pain.

                So it was left to him to take care of Mother's last
wish,
that someone be there for Sensou when he did pass.  It was not abnormal
for
a family member to be present, though it was for so many to be absent.
It
was also abnormal the importance Genma's mother had placed on this
request.
Genma hadn't known his mother. she had left only letters to him, all of
varying lengths.

                Genma knows that she must have died painfully as well.
Father refused to speak of it.  But then, he never spoke of his own pain
either, only of his son's failings.

                The true irony of it was that Genma, the only one
present
with his father, was the last the old man wanted to see.

                The coughing brings him back to the moment.  The small,
frail figure on the bed opens bloodshot eyes and takes him in.  "Get
away
from me, boy," the words are breathed out, accompanied by a fit of weak,
anemic coughing.

                The words are familiar, and have been spoken so many
times
to Genma that he had thought he had forgotten the pain they caused in
him.
Yet it is as if they were freshly new, with his Father so close to
death,
all that he could say was for his son to get away?

                "Father, I cannot.  I will not leave you," The words are
difficult, made more so with the angry flare that flitted across the
clouded
irises of his father's eyes.

                "You are the last piece of trash I want to see before I
die,
boy," The coughing, no less weak, goes on for longer than it normally
would.

                Genma dabs carefully at the blood which is being coughed
up,
and offense is intensified as the weak, bony arms push away his touch.
"Get
away from me, you filth. what must I say to make you understand? You are
not
wanted."

                The hurt is too much, the boys body shaking, "I suppose
I
have never been wanted, that I was simply a horrible mistake." Always,
his
father had spoken of how disappointing Genma was.  It had been true as
far
as he could remember, his father held some kind of secret, horrible
hatred
for him.

                For a moment, Genma thinks that perhaps the old man was
going to say something, as those eyes looked away from him, the small
body
beneath the sheets quaking as if from sorrow.  "Yes, that is right," The
words stab him, tearing at his soul.  He wished that it was only his
imagination that made them weak, almost inaudible.

                But it was not strange for his father to feel this way.
after all, he could not say much for himself either.  If only that
weakness
of voice were a reluctant lie.

                "I am sorry that you had to have such a shameful son,
Otousan," It was all he could say, how he felt can't be conveyed.  Not
to
this frail, almost ghostly figure, who not moments from now would be
departing this living world.  It would not be fair for him to attack the
man
who gave him life, not in this state.

                The wheezing, painful sounding laugh wracks the small
form
of Saotome Sensou.  "You are so weak and pathetic, Genma, you do not
even
have any anger for me when I say that.  Shameful," There's almost an
indefinable touch of sorrow in the words, as if somehow Sensou were
responsible for the state of things.

                "I cannot hate you, Otousan.  It would be unfair, you
being
as sick as you are-"

                "Shutup, boy.  Just shut up," The answer has strength,
conviction.  It was louder than his father had spoken in a long time.
"I
was not always this. this thing.  I was once a man, was once."

                It was several minutes before the coughing was quiet
enough
to speak again, his father having snatched the cloth from his hand as
spatters of blood and bits of lung were being ejected from him.

                "I- It is my fault, Father.  I know there is a cure,
there
has to be. I should have looked harder, I should have found it, I am
weak,
and stupid," his own failing was reprehensible.  How could he call
himself a
warrior, a martial artist, when he could not even help his ailing
father?

                "You are right about stupid, boy, there is no cure for
what
has happened to me.  You were an idiot to go and look for one," The
soft,
rhythmic wheezing sounded almost painfully dry and grating, even to
Genma's
ears.  His father was lying very still all of a sudden, the breathing
becoming shallower, longer between breaths.

                "Father, please, don't go.  I will try again, please,
let me
do what I can," How could he live, a weak, pathetic shell of a man? How
could he raise his own family?

                A gnarled, warped hand rises. reaching with searching
fingers, eyes glassy as if on some horrible distant inferno.

                So very gently he took the hand, leaning in to listen to
his
father's words, "Otousan."

                "It was my fault, Genma.  Not yours.  This is my curse.
for
my selfishness, my greed.  Bargain kept." the sound is almost as if his
whole body were deflating, a very soft, slow leaking out of his life
force.
His words delirious, his mind already slipping from this realm.

                Tears formed in the eyes of the young man, "Otousan, do
not
say that.  I know that I failed you, do not die without the chance for
me to
redeem myself."

                "I- F-f-Failed. G-en-ma.  Do not. Be- me," The words
patchy,
sporadic.  He was not sure if he had heard it all, if his father had
said
anything.

                Then silence, not even the patterned breathing is
audible.
All he was aware of is how numb and unreal the minutes up till then had
been, and he could not believe anything had actually happened.

                Still, there was the body of his father. dead, and gone.
The painful words of his passing were locked inside his heart, dusted
beneath the carpets of his brain.  His father had never said a word of
kindness to him his entire life, why should he when he died?

                He had obviously imagined it.  Didn't he?

<<<<<<<                >>>>>>>

                All is dark.  The cool feel of lacquered wood beneath
his
hands, kneeling upon the floor as his body shakes with unexpressed
emotion.

                "All is as it was, Saotome Genma.  What you heard was
what
was said, and what had been said.  There is far more for you to
understand,
but now. now is not the time," The figure stands as a solemn specter
above
him.

                Some part of him hated the ghost, wishing nothing but
anger
and torment at it.  To put him through the dying moments of his father,
to
remind him of his own weaknesses and faults.  It could be nothing less
than
a demon.

                "Get away from me," His voice is raw, angry.  Stripped
of
his self control, he rises suddenly, aiming a fist at the chest of the
robed
figure.

                His hand collides painfully with the palm of the
stranger.

                "Do not strike that which you cannot understand, for you
may
be striking a blow to yourself in the process," It is as before, his
voice
does not rise nor lower.  The inflection doesn't ascend nor fall in
anger or
displeasure.

                Yet there is silent command in those gentle, silvery
tones.

                Shock registers upon Genma's face, it was not possible
for
the robed man to have blocked him.  The speed of the punch was magnified
by
his skills in the Yamisenken and Umisenken, and focused by his anger and
rage, "Who are you?"

                "I am as I have always been, and shall always be.  I am
what
is, and what was, and what will be again.  I am nought but a shadow of a
fractured spirit, bent upon a lone road of solitude and duty," His
answer is
recited, as a litany repeated a thousand times before.  Honor and faith
are
fed into the words, conviction and certainty come out of them.

                His anger rising again, Genma pulls his fist from the
grip
of the tall stranger.  "What sort of answer is that? I demand answers!
You
have no right to do this to me and not give me something." Despite
himself,
Genma retreats a few steps. erring on the side of caution.

                Carefully, he is considered for a moment with those
soulful
purple eyes.  "Yes, yes, you do deserve something.  I have put you
through a
great deal with our visits."

                Genma notices, suddenly, the ashen glow dancing upon the
palm of the strange figure.  An ivory and blue flame dancing gently upon
the
unburning flesh of the visitor.  It's motion makes him feel even more
uneasy
with the strangers presence.

                "This I shall tell you. your father lived in pain for
many
years, and that pain was served by your birth.  Many years of lies, you
have
heard Genma Saotome.  Many years, but his last words are most important
for
you to recall.  Do not become him.  Remember that. and your soul will be
clean when your day comes.  For this, it is not too late.  You have
erred so
badly until now, chance not the burdens your father wore.  Discard such
sins
before they engulf you," His words begin to echo amidst the vast expanse
of
darkness.

                As intangible as his words are, so does he become.
Fading
off as he speaks, into the drift of darkness.

                "Remember this, Genma Saotome, and Learn," Those last
few
words so hauntingly scarce as to remind Genma of those briefly gasped
syllables before an old, hate filled man deflated into whatever
afterlife
awaited him.

                And then he was alone.

*                              *                              *
*                              *                              *


	     .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'