;[fanfic][ranma][alt]ranma.ranmei.1
Disclaimer: All Ranma-1/2 characters and plot elements used
here are in fact the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her
assigns, and are used without their knowledge or permission. This
is fan-fiction: an open fan letter in prose.
Precedence: This story is preceded by events in "Two Sides of
the Coin" by Benares and "Misuteru" by Jason Drozd, and proceeds
along lines other than those of David Johnson's "Dare Mo" and
JPBuckner's "The Ghost of Curses Past", though much inspiration
was lifted from Johnson's work.
Credits: Tom Ladegard vetted the fight in chapter 2 and made
suggestions. Ginrai preread these first two chapters. Thanks,
guys, this story is better for your help.
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Ranmei
--siaru 22may01/14jun02
_Who you are depends on who you want to have been._
Chapter 1
Ranma Saotome... Ranko Tendo... Nobody...
By night's end, while sitting with a light jacket over her legs,
huddled against her backpack to fight off the cold on the damp
ledge, she'd puzzled out a suitable replacement.
Not that she'd had much else to do while sitting under that
bridge to while away the hours without giving in to the bitter
despair. So much of her life didn't even belong to her anymore
that it didn't bear contemplation at this point... so she'd
settled on devising a new name for herself, one that was hers,
not someone's castoff, and yet as close as she could reasonably
get to the one she'd been born with, back when she was usually
male... one that said something she could relate to. She had a
sense of finality, of commitment to purpose, almost like pushing
up her sleeves before the first punch, as she settled on it...
of facing down a shadowed and unknowable but ominously immediate
purpose and path, a wild destiny, and engaging it as an
adversary in a battle to the death or to life.
"Ranmei." She whispered it, tasting it on her lips, listening to
the clipped echo from the other abutment, hearing the word
shimmer and fragment between the curved arch of the underside of
the bridge and the smooth dark canal waters it spanned. She
nodded. One word, the sole product of most of a night's work,
and it would have to do; it was her as much as she could make it
so. "Ranmei. I am Ranmei."
After that, it was an effort to stay awake and alert, but soon
the fractured sky reflected in the water ruffled by the dawn
wind began to show an angry edge of unruly red. There was fresh
bite in the chill of that wind, and she cast about in her mind
for something else to think about so that she could ignore the
cold. Kasumi would have now roused, dressed, and found the
note. Would she have roused anyone early as a consequence?
She went down the list in her mind. Ranma, Genma... Nodoka...
Nope, she was an embarrassment and a walking hazard, a living
piece of history that stubbornly refused to stop breathing,
threatening their desperate fiction... and a rude disappointment
who had dodged or blocked all efforts to mold her to propriety,
a nail that would not flatten. No sympathy there.
Akane, Nabiki, Soun... Get real. They'd be glad to have her
martial artist's appetite away from their table. To them she was
a trouble-magnet drawing property damage into her wake, a
hapless victim of her own foolishness. She was the dross finally
skimmed from their manly prize so that he could be cast and
forged to their design, the Musabetsu Heir, now that he was
freed of the taint of sometimes thinking his manly thoughts
through a woman's brain, fighting his manly fights with a
woman's fists, bleeding a woman's blood.
Then why the hell hadn't she hiked out of Nerima as she'd
planned when she left the Tendo compound at 3:30? Why hide under
the damn bridge where anybody who really knew her, anyone who
knew that the thought-patterns she carried were unbroken since
she first drew breath as an infant boy named Ranma, and knew
what habits those patterns carried, would be sure to discover
her?
Inside her mind, she levelly faced down the imaginary accusing
voice. Because I have to know that I was right, that what I
thought about them is true, before I turn my back on them for
good. I have to know that I was discarded before I can discard
them in turn. In a coupla hours I'll know for sure, and then I'm
free.
With that thought came some feeling of urgency. She sat up
straight, stretched, and put the jacket on, then fished around
behind her in her pack for some of the dried fruit she had
bought in preparation. She brought out a few pieces and glumly
started to nibble at them. It was a sparse breakfast. I'd better
get used to it now, she thought, it's what I'll be eating for a
long time to come.
She heard pebbles being dislodged from the slope by the bridge's
eastern side. Dried fruit forgotten, she tensed, stood, seized
her pack, swung it up onto one shoulder, and prepared to leap
for her life through the broken rock barricade at the dark edge
of the bridge. Ryoga knew about this place. If it was Ryoga, she
would only have that much chance at getting away.
The encroaching dawn reduced the arrival to a silhouette, that
of a woman in a long skirt, clinging with difficulty to the
cement face of the bridge with one hand while holding something
safe with the other. The long fall of hair, swinging free as she
ducked under the overhang, identified her: it was Kasumi.
She took in Ranmei's stance, still poised for flight, and raised
her open hand. "I came alone."
Her gaze and her manner had none of her usual deference, and
Ranmei stepped back automatically: this was a Kasumi she had
never before seen except when being admonished for some failing.
"I'm sorry about the money--"
Kasumi waved the issue away. "Keep it. I am sure that Nabiki
made more than that with her little collections of your
likeness. Money is tight but we will manage... and you were
right, you were shamefully treated."
She held out what she carried, a plate-sized bundle wrapped in
a cloth, and something indistinct. "Food for the journey." She
turned her hand, exposing the other article. "I had a spare
thermos; right now it has hot tea."
Ranmei looked at the thermos, then at her face, unsure how to
interpret the gifts' presentation, what accepting them would
mean, and Kasumi saw her confusion.
"Ranko..."
She shook her head. "Ranmei. It's what I'm going to call myself
from now on."
"Ranmei Tendo?"
"No... just Ranmei. Until they're willing to acknowledge me as a
Saotome, if ever. I'm not a lie."
Kasumi nodded. "I... see." She thought a moment, eyes downcast,
then looked up, renewed firmness in her expression.
"Nevertheless there is a name, and a place, within the Tendo
clan for you, and will be so long as I live in that house. You
are not alone except as you choose to be.
"And I do know who you are in there. I overlooked it in the
rush of things, and I do apologize, I am so sorry for that
lapse... but I have not forgotten. I have faith in you."
Ranmei's face softened into a hesitant smile. "Thank you... That
means a lot to me. That, and... you came looking for me here..."
"I knew that this is where you went to get away, back before you
were... divided. I guessed that, if you were still in the area,
you would be here; and I knew that someone had to come, and no
one else could be trusted."
Carefully on the rubble-strewn cement ledge, she stepped close,
and pressed her burdens firmly into Ranmei's free hand. "Take
them. Please." She fastened Ranmei with that uncharacteristic
steady gaze, and waited, communicating her care by eyes alone,
until Ranmei relented and accepted the gifts.
Then she turned. "Now I must get back and attend to breakfast;
and I think you'd best be on your way, before Akane's pet finds
you here and brings you more trouble."
"He was there last night? I didn't even notice."
She nodded. "I found him nosing around in the hallway upstairs
and told Akane to either keep him in her room or put him
outside. That should keep him in until she wakes up, but nothing
is certain. You'd best use back streets until you're out of the
immediate area. I will keep your letter to myself until this
evening."
At the bright rough entrance she turned once more and favored
Ranmei with a look that summed concern and confidence into her
quiet smile and piercing gaze.
"Ran-- Ranmei... Don't give up."
After the last sounds of Kasumi's leaving had ceased, Ranmei
swung her pack down off her shoulder to find storage within for
the gifts. Then she stood for a while, thinking things through,
blinking tears.
She slowly shook her head in almost-amazement. Someone in that
house actually cared. Kasumi, of course, but still... someone
cared.
In the end it amounted to the same thing. There was still no
room for her at Tendo-ke as she thought of herself. She still
had to set out on what was probably a lifetime's journey into
the unknown, after a life-to-date of close parental control, and
she still had to set her mind towards doing so. It was like
stepping off a cliff, not quite trusting the evidence of her
eyes that the ledge a few feet down actually existed and would
stop her fall. She knew that, with her decade of training, not
only in martial arts but in living by her wiles as well, she
could do it, but the open-endedness of it was still daunting.
And now it was harder, she discovered. She had not been totally
abandoned. Someone in that house cared that she lived, and it
meant that the lines that connected her to that house, however
tenuous, were too strong for her to break. It was an additional
burden she would rather have not had to carry, though she was
abjectly grateful for it.
She hurriedly wiped her eyes, swung the pack back up onto her
back, checked the fit of the shoulder straps and the hip strap,
and set about clambering up out of her dark shelter into the
uncaring light of Tokyo's day.
Somewhere further off in that light was Jusenkyo. Getting from
this sunrise to that one would be a challenge, even without her
father's impatience at her side to push her into ill-considered
decisions. She was going to have to find ways to support herself
for the journey, ways that someone her age and sex would be
allowed to use. First, though, she had to traverse those areas
of Tokyo where she was likely to be accosted by enemies she was
still too weak to fend off quickly.
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