Smoke and incense hung heavily in the small, dark room. A low table stood in the center, festooned with candles. Indistinct, shadowy figures lurked around the edges. The floor was littered with satin cushions, and Ukyou lay among them, her leggings missing, her shirt half-unfastened to display the curves of her breasts. An old woman knelt beside her, gnarled fingers brushing the long, dark hair.
The crone looked up at Ranma, cackling to herself. "Don't be shy, now, we all know why you're here! Now is the time, this is the hour..."
Candlelight reflected in the sweat beading on Ranma's skin. Ukyou's skin was flushed, her eyes nearly closed, and she writhed against the pillows as if in the grasp of a fever-dream. Her bare legs slid against each other with a silken whiper.
"You have a destiny to fulfill," the old woman whispered. "You have a son and a daughter to create. Twins, first of a line of twins, who will open the portal..." With these words, a purple haze glimmered around the candles on the table.
Ranma knelt, pressed down by unfathomable weight. His hands fumbled with the edges of Ukyou's shirt, tearing it apart to reveal the pale globes of her unbound breasts, large and pillow-soft. She gasped, her eyelids flickering.
And now the old woman was behind him, pulling the Chinese shirt over his shoulders. "Get on with it, then!" She pressed him forward onto willing flesh.
Ukyou's world was spinning. Her Ranchan was in her arms, loving her, like she'd always wanted.. Her hands slipped over the skin of his back. So warm, so smooth! The pillows beneath her were her bridal bed, and she was naked, and wet, and more than ready, and he was murmuring the words she'd waited her whole life to hear...
"I love you, Ucchan, I've always loved you... Always wanted you..."
His lips burned across her chest, her neck. His hands massaged her breasts. She could feel his hardness pressing eagerly against her thigh. Only a moment, only another moment and he would be inside her, completing her... and then his mouth moved to her ear, and with a nibble, he whispered to her.
"I'M LYING."
Black Magic Woman
a Ranma 1/2 fanfic
by Papillon
... no, Ranma...
"Ukyou-sama?"
... no, you can't leave me like this, you have to love me, I'll die if you don't love me...
"Ukyou-sama?!?"
... I can't live without you ...
"Please forgive me, Ukyou-sama!"
Hands, slender and feminine, were gripping her shoulders, shaking her, and Ukyou Kuonji sucked in a deep breath, then another. Slowly her eyes opened. "Ko... Konatsu? What?" Sitting up, she looked around. "What are you doing in my bedroom?"
The delicate ninja blushed, eyes on his feet. "My apologies, Ukyou-sama, but you didn't answer when I called you several times, so I opened your door to be sure you were all right, and..." He looked up, biting his lip cutely. "You didn't seem to be breathing."
Ukyou blinked. "Oh."
"But obviously you're all right now, so I'll just go back to my cleaning," Konatsu bowed and backed out of the room, closing the door.
The okonomiyaki chef placed a hand on her chest, searching for a phantom pain. Then moved it, pressed it against her flesh. Where was that blasted heartbeat, anyway? Giving up, she put two fingers against her wrist and reassured herself that her pulse was still there. A little fast, maybe, for someone still in bed, but definitely alive.
She took a breath, and wondered if Konatsu had really seen what he thought he saw. Had she stopped breathing? Had the terrible shock nearly killed her? In that moment when she'd believed the dream to be true, she'd *wanted* to die...
"But it wasn't real," she said aloud. "Ranchan would never do that to me. He's clueless, but he's not cruel."
And then the very sensation of lying against pillows was too familiar, and Ukyou had to stand, wrapping her arms around herself and tucking her hands in. Her fingers were cold, and her head spun a bit. "I could have died," she murmured. "I really can't live without him."
And what did that mean for her future?
She swayed, leaning against the wall. No, Ranma wasn't cruel. He would never break her heart as terribly as the man in her dreams had. But...
"He's never once said he loves me."
He did love her. She knew that. They had a history together, they had a friendship no one else could match, he cared about her, and he thought she was cute. But did he recognise what that meant?
"He's such an idiot, he didn't even know I was a *girl*. How much else can he miss, even when it's totally obvious?"
Even more than that, she was obviously the best choice for a wife. Kodachi was insane and not even in the running. Ranma and Shampoo couldn't even speak each other's languages clearly - to say nothing of the life an Amazon husband would be stuck with, if Ranma even wanted her, which he didn't. And Akane - Akane could be a nice girl, when she wasn't jumping to conclusions, being even more clueless than Ranma, and taking out her temper on him. Her cooking was a biohazard, and she was obviously outclassed in the looks department. The only thing she really had that Ukyou didn't was a dojo to inherit... but that dojo came with the Tendo name on it. Had Ranma even realised that? Had he ever thought about his future?
"I can save up money and build him his *own* dojo," Ukyou muttered. "I can support him. They can't."
She was the perfect wife. Why couldn't he realise that? Why couldn't he just clear up the whole engagement mess and admit that she was his true fiancee? Sure, they were all young yet, but the longer this went on, the worse it would be for the girls who... lost.
"If he chooses someone else, it will kill me. He is my heart, and without him my heart will stop." It sounded melodramatic, but now she had reason to believe that it was also true.
In the past, she'd always tried to be subtle. Fixing Akane up with Ryouga to get her out of the way was a good solution, a solution that hurt no one. But Akane was too dense to even recognise that Ryouga liked her, and Ryouga was too shy and unreliable to be coached into sweeping her off her feet. No, subtlety wasn't working out. She had to take drastic action. She had to be certain that Ranma's heart belonged to her alone.
Rummaging around, Ukyou found an old robe to throw over herself, and mussed her hair to make herself look more pitiful. Then she headed for the stairs.
"Konatsu?" she quavered. "Can you please go down to the high school and tell everyone I'm sick and I can't come in today? I'll probably go see the Doctor in a little while when I feel more awake."
Once the kunoichi was out of the restaurant, she could start to plan.
[** - Don't consider Ukyou's reasoning about her being the best to be necessarily the author's opinion - remember, that is *her* reasoning!]