hmm, it seems, judging from the replies I got to "Newbie Alert", that
it should be ok to post this. (this is a repost of something posted to
raac.) If I've misunderstood, I'm sorry. At least it's only 300 lines
or so.
Overlord and Peacemaker
by Jonathan Rosebaugh <skip@plover.net>
Ranma and Akane are created by Rumiko Takahashi.
These characters were further altered by Jack Staik.
Many thanks for providing a world to work in.
Many thanks also to ParserGirl for proofreading this.
This is a sequel to the story "What Cost Love?", which can be found
here: http://fanfic.tass-anime.com/ranma.what-cost-love
Also, there is a mild reference to the film "Princess Mononoke". I
figured that enough people have seen the film to justify using it, and
it is hardly essential to the story.
<Text enclosed like this indicates mental thought or mental voice.>
It is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is
invisible to the eye.
-- The Fox, 'The Little Prince"
The woman looked ahead. The obelisk was still there. <Of course it
is. It's only me that knows that everything can change.> She quickly
reached it, and climbed to the top. She wouldn't have long to wait.
The Peacemaker landed softly. As always, she was undetectable by
normal senses, and only the massive ki aura betrayed her presence to
those with eyes to see it. The woman turned slightly. "Good. You have
come to accept my challenge?"
The woman wrapped in a shadow of her own making seemed startled. "You
were serious?"
"Never have I been more serious."
"You must know you cannot beat me. What possible purpose could you
have for issuing a challenge?"
The woman sighed. "Long ago I learned to forget my father's
lectures. I'd hoped you could have forgotten too. Not all facets of
the Art involve combat.
"I challenge you because you are wrong. You who live as mankind's
protector have forgotten that you are one of us. You said once, 'It
lies in my power to protect all that live.' You have failed."
The woman felt the aura behind her begin to twitch, and knew that her
words were getting through. She took a deep breath, and said the words
that would seal her fate.
"I challenge you, not to a battle of strength, but to a battle of
will. I challenge you to listen to my argument and not be moved. I
challenge you, as is my right as a practitioner of the Art."
The Peacemaker regained herself. "And the prize you demand?"
"We will discuss that when we are through. Rest assured, it will not
be beyond your power to deliver, Protector."
Ranma turned to face her former spouse. The Peacemaker nodded. "I
accept your terms. Begin."
"You remember your proclamation. 'It is the duty of the strong to
protect the weak, and the powerful to wield power in the defense of
right. Therefore, it is my duty to protect as many as are in my
power.' Do you still stand by those words?"
"I do."
"Even though you know that you have failed?"
"Yes."
"Then, why have you not sought a better way?"
"There is no better way. Look around yourself. The world has been at
peace for ten years. It will be so for a millennium or more. Who before
me has done such a thing? If a better way was possible, don't you
think I would have found it?"
"You have. You merely refuse to believe it."
"Then what is this better way?"
Ranma flexed her arms, and jumped down from the Monument. "Come." She
walked off into the woods. The Peacemaker followed, floating inches
off the ground.
They soon came to a small stream. Nearby sat a boulder and a pile of
stones. Ranma picked up the boulder, and set it down halfway into the
stream. The water quickly flowed around it, seeking to maintain its
original path. Ranma spoke. "You are the boulder. You have made fast
changes to our world, just as this rock forces the stream to diverge
from its path."
She stepped back, and gestured for the Peacemaker to go near the
rock. "Now, lift it out."
A tendril of light grew from the Peacemaker's forehead. It quickly
surrounded the rock, pulling it from the stream. She set the rock back
in its place, near the pile of stones.
Ranma bent down near the stream. "And now, come look. Do you see? The
stream was fighting against the rock to take its ancient course, and
now that the rock is gone, it resumes its way to wherever it was
going."
Quickly, she turned to the stones, and scooped up a handful. She waded
into the water, and set down a tiny stone, just at the edge. "Tell me
now, Peacemaker, what change has _this_ rock made?"
The Peacemaker looked slightly worried as she answered. "None at all."
"Wrong."
Ranma set more stones into place. In the course of two minutes, she
had built a wall. The stones were small, but the water was slow, and
the wall was able to direct the stream slightly off-course.
"Now, my dear, remove a stone."
The Peacemaker waded into the stream. She picked up the very first
pebble. The stream didn't change at all. "What do you mean by this?"
Ranma waded back to shore, then headed through the trees. "Now, come
with me again."
The Peacemaker sighed, and followed Ranma back to the Monument. She
sat down atop the Monument again, and looked at her former
spouse. "What are you trying to tell me? That this peace will fall
apart as soon as I am gone? I already knew that."
"Yes, but also that there is more than one way to change the flow of
humanity. We are dark, Akane-chan, and all our lives we spend
struggling against this darkness. Sometimes, someone loses, and then
the darkness threatens to take us all.
"You felt the pain caused by the darkness. You decided that nobody
should ever have to feel that pain again. So you outlawed war, and
enforced your declaration, as no one had ever done before. You forgot
one thing. We are not dark because we are violent. We are violent
because we are dark."
The Peacemaker looked back at Ranma, and her aura grew brighter. "I
have cured the violence. There is no need of it anymore. There is no
need to be afraid, because there is no one to oppress the weak."
"Again, you are wrong. We never fight because of fear. We fight for
three reasons only: greed, hate, and love. When man was still at the
mercy of nature, we fought because we were greedy for life. When man
achieved mastery of nature, we fought amongst ourselves, greedy for
wealth. These are the petty wars, the ones that you have a hope of
stopping.
"After we learned greed, we soon learned hate. It is very hard to
hate; only the best can do it well. Nevertheless, it is responsible
for the most violent wars in recorded history.
"And finally, we fight because of love. Because we love someone or
something, and cannot stand by while the darkness claims our
hearts. That is why we are here now."
The Peacemaker's face remained calm, though the aura betrayed her
emotions. "Then why don't you just tell me how to do it better, you
who know so much?"
"I will." Ranma paused for a moment, then looked directly into her
opponent's eyes. "Love that which is true. Love that which is right."
"What kind of an answer is that?"
"The only one that can possibly make a difference." Ranma stepped up
to the woman she was once married to, back before the Curse took that
away as well. "Listen to me. Remember, long ago. What did we do on our
first real date?"
Akane was visibly startled for the first time. She stretched her
memories back over the years, crumbling the blocks she'd deliberatly
placed in the way. "We went to a movie. It was called 'Mononoke
Hime'. We both loved it; it was the first time we managed to publicly
agree on something."
"You were called just as Ashitaka was. You were to make peace on
earth, not through your strength, but by 'seeing with eyes unclouded
by hate.' Instead, you've made half the world hate you, and you didn't
stop there.
"You even hate yourself."
"For the deaths of twenty-three million people, don't I deserve to be
hated?"
"Twenty-three million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, six hundred
thirty-two, I believe you said last we met. And you remember every
face."
Akane looked down. Though she did not cry, her aura shrank
considerably. "I'm a monster."
"You are a human being. Though you have stood on the brink of madness,
you have not fallen over the edge. You haven't become a monster,
because you remember every face. You remember humanity. You remember
what you once were, and what you can become again. You are human, my
dear Akane-chan."
"Then what am I to do? I can't just leave, not unless you want
humanity to wipe itself out."
Ranma stood, and moved to sit beside Akane. "Simply do what you should
have been doing all along. Thus far, you have been no peacemaker. You
have been an overlord, keeping mankind safe from the darkness in us
all. You must instead live with us, standing in between us and the
darkness. You must be a peacemaker, not just between man and man, but
between man and our own nature. It will be infinitely harder. It will
require all the strength you have -- and more."
"Then how am I supposed to be able to do that?"
"Akane, you have never been alone. Ever since Phoenix Mountain, when
first our spirits touched, I've been with you. I know, to some extent,
all the training you went through when you went away. I know what
happens inside of you. Who do you think it was that forced you away
from the edge of that cliff inside yourself so many times?
"We were once greater than the sum of our parts. And we can be
again. I remember what you felt when you learned that the Curse was
never permanent. It only asked of me what I should have given long
ago -- my life."
"What? If anything, it's demanded _my_ life. I'm the one that's had to
learn ways to prolong my life, since everything will fall apart once
I'm gone."
"You haven't even noticed, have you? You're not the only one who's
immortal. Since the day I wasn't able to change anymore, I haven't
aged a bit. And it's not entirely from strength of ki, either, for I
don't have that. You always were better at it than me; you just didn't
have the training. I've had to learn economy. I could never hold my
own in a battle with you, but there are other things that can be done
with it."
With other vision, Akane looked inside Ranma. She saw not a surge of
light like her own, but a steadily glowing candle.
Ranma smiled at her. "Your way will work, for as long as you live, but
it will consume you. It doesn't have to be that way. As Ghandi said,
'Love is the subtlest force in the world.'"
"Like your pebbles."
"Exactly. You can never take away the pain in life, for pain is
necessary to make us grow. What you can do, what you must do, is to
take away the hate in us all." As Ranma finished her argument, she
knew by the changes in Akane's aura that she had won.
Akane hugged Ranma for the first time in years, then stood. "All
right, you win. What prize do you ask of me?"
"Only this: learn to love yourself. Love is what will separate you
from the darkness inside. Then, we'll see about the world.
Ranma stood, and slowly walked to the edge of the clearing. "Take
care of yourself, Akane-chan. I hope to see you again soon."
As Akane watched her disappear into the trees, both with normal and
other vision, Ranma's ki flashed. For a second, a male Ranma was
superimposed on the woman she saw with her normal senses. Then, it was
gone. At the same time, inside herself, she heard the voice she hadn't
heard in years. <One day...>
---------------
Author's Note:
I read "What Cost Love?" and found myself liking it against my will. I
never did like "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,
or the one." It didn't work on Star Trek, and it doesn't work in
Ranma. This is my attempt to set things right. I apologize if my
philosophy is simplistic; there's a whole lot more that I wanted to
put in, but didn't have room for. I wrote this mostly in one sitting,
making only a few changes the next day. In fact, it pretty much wrote
itself. Anyhow, I hope you like my first Ranma fanfic. Any sort of
C&C is welcome.