[Ranma] [fanfic] [Dark] [ALT:ritsu] Ritual Suicide

(an alternate outcome to events in manga volume 36, with a nod to Joshua Trujillo's Loves By The Sword: you are warned)

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; no infringement is intended. This is fan-fiction: an open fan letter in prose.

"I didn't think you'd actually do this. I had hoped... never mind what I hoped, it doesn't matter now."

She had paused at the open doorway, wrinkling her nose as the warm air from the house brought the pungent smells of incense and abattoir to her. Now she spoke bitterly, her gaze hardened to an emotionless calm: a teenage girl with all the childhood finally beaten out of her by events.

Coldly staring down the taller woman in blood-spattered white, forcing her to retreat into the house, she walked fully shod into the main room, calling behind her, "keep your shoes on, Akane, it's filthy in here." Behind her, the other girl, still a careful step or two back from her, shifted her dangerous burden from hand to hand as she surveyed the room, her expression one of horror barely constrained by purpose.

The older woman, shaken from her fixety of focus by the first girl's manner, fingered the naked katana nervously. "I had to ...for honor..."

"Oh, and I suppose you'd know anything about honor? Chasing your husband and child down just so you can kill them? Ignoring anything that didn't relate to that hunt? Why didn't you kill them in the first place, then? You could've just told everyone they'd gone off on a training journey; it would've been the same thing, after all, it was ten years... you could cut them up and salt the meat or something, I know you're good enough in the kitchen to find ways to cook it all, nobody would've known. Why didn't you? Were you waiting while the younger one was range-fed?"

The older woman gasped and shrank back. "You must think I'm a monster."

"Yeah, I do. I'm a martial artist, I've had duty and honor pounded into me along with all my katas. I'm supposed to defend the innocent, protect the weak, use minimum force, preserve lives ...I know what honor's about. You ...you're a killer. How many innocent lives have you violated with this? Who else have you killed that we don't know about -- did you kill them because you had to, or because you woke up one day and wanted to?"

She bent down to tenderly brush her fingertips across the bald scalp of the head on the floor.

"Hello, father ...for all your faults, you were always there, you raised me, you taught me, you entrusted me with your dreams. I loved you..."

She straightened up and glanced across the room at the disemboweled and decapitated body on the mat, noting as confirmation how little blood was directly in front of the corpse. She nodded briefly in respect, then her implacable gaze returned to the woman who was standing stiffly, now stony-eyed, holding out a tanto to her.

"No thanks, I won't be needing that. You can use it when I'm done, if a murderer has any of the honor she's forcing onto others. I'd wish I'd had a mother instead of you, but ...dead people aren't supposed to make wishes ...and revenge is sweet, right? It's what you've dreamed about, I've seen you."

She walked over to Akane and took what was in her hands, then walked back to face the woman.

She sighed, then straightened.

"For the crime of falling into a pool of water, Ranma Saotome must die, right? That's your judgement."

The woman nodded, still proffering the tanto.

"Fine, then. Ranma Saotome will die for the love of his mother."

In one swift movement she whipped the ladle up from the bucket and back down again; perhaps there were tears amid the water splashed into her face and hair.

"Ranma is dead. My parents are dead. I am the adopted daughter of Soun Tendo; my name is Ranko. I do not know you; I don't want to know you. Do not darken our lives with your presence again ...killer. I have nothing more to say to you. Ever."

Still holding the bucket, she took the sobbing Akane by the hand and led her out of the house, pausing only to shake some of the blood from her shoes back into the darkened chamber.

C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org