"There is only ever one way to recover from death and that is to live. When Akane died, so did my soul..." ~ Ranma Saotome, from 'The Letter, part two'
Akane Tendo Saotome brought so much life to the little town of Nerima that when she died, it seemed as though the spirit of the town died as well. People lived their lives a normally as possible but the spark that had made the city unique, fun, was missing. Over the years, the residents that helped Akane add to the charm slowly left Nerima.
Shampoo and Mousse returned to China after their venerated Amazon elder Cologne died; they were married shortly after their arrival back in China. Ryouga Hibiki, overcome with grief from Akane's death, wandered around the world before settling in Arizona, U.S.A. for good. He, too, married and soon had his own little clan of habitually lost Habiki's running around; this would later inspire him to patent one of the best Global Positioning System's in the world. Ukyo Kuonji sold Uchan's and used the money for college where she earned a degree in culinary arts, bought back Uchan's and turned it into large and prestigious chain of restaurants then retired early. Kuno and Nabiki were together for many years but never married, Nabiki refusing to be tied down to anyone and after a while, left Kuno so she could focus on her career. Kasumi it seemed, was the only one who remained unchanged by the years. She married her good doctor Tofu and they lived a quiet life at the Tendo compound.
Ranma Saotome, however, did not fare as well as the others.
********
Ranma Saotome was dead.
He'd finally given into the weaknesses old age brought him and died peacefully in his sleep. For more than 30 years he had behaved as he always had as a boy, recklessly training in remote locations, pushing himself to his limit, always making sure he was in peak physcical conditions. And then he fell and broke his hip, which healed badly, and he was restricted to simple katas and to tai chi. His son, Eien Saotome, and daughter in law had tried to convince him to stay with them but the old man steadfastly refused. No one would take care of him, he'd insisted, as though he was a weak child. No, he'd die without needing anyone in the world.
Ranma's last connection to Nerima gently placed a rose on his father's coffin; Ukyo Kounji was the last, Eien Saotome noted as he wiped a tear from his eye. Sadness regarding his father was nothing he was used to feeling. Anger, yes, and pity maybe but not sadness. Never toward his father.
His hand went to the letter hidden in his coat pocket and he let it stay there. It was the last real thing ever given to him by his father and he'd yet to read it, although he unconsciously already knew what it would say. Later, after the guests had left the house and his children were put to bed, when his wife was downstairs cleaning up, that's when he would read it.
*******
His hands trembled as he went to his coat and grasped the letter. Midori was downstairs cleaning as he knew she would be, and Akane and Genma had been in bed for hours - just like he had known it would be. Eien reminded himself to take a deep breath as he sat on the foot of the bed and opened the letter...
"Eien,
I am dead. My peace is finally achieved.
I don't want you to be sad, my son, although I know more than anything you are relieved. Taking care of me hasn't been easy I know. I've always been independent and stubborn and you who are so like me and yet so different are exactly what I was when I was your age. You should not mourn my death. I've been ready for it since you were born.
I have a long story to tell you, one that I should have told you ages ago. In the end you will be more angry with me than you have ever been before and I know I deserve it. I owe you this explanation.
For the first time in my entire life, I have broken my promise. I promised your mother that you would be raised knowing her and that you would never want for anything. In material things the latter can be said to be true, but I know I left in you a hunger for things I just could not give you.
Your mother was perhaps the most captivating woman I have ever known. There was a strength inside her that often challenged my own. She was often hard as steel one moment and the most feminine and soft woman in the world the next. Akane was smart and determined. She couldn't cook, not very well, but what she lacked in skill she made up in effort. Anyone who met Akane fell in love with her, and rightly so. Your mother was magic.
I met your mother when I was very young. Grandpa Saotome and I had just returned to Japan from a long training trip in China and while I was eager to return to my childhood home, he drug me to the Tendo residence. There I, your mother, and two aunts learned of a promised engagement between Grandpa Saotome and Papa Tendo. As your mother and I were of the same age, it was agreed that we would one day be married.
We didn't want it.
We fought like cats and dogs; not because we didn't enjoy being with each other but because we're both extremely stubborn. It took a very long time before we could spend time with each other without fighting but by that time I'd fallen deeply in love with her. It took me forever to admit it to her and it wasn't until it was almost too late that I did.
Akane and I had many many adventures, traveling all over Japan and even to China. We went on countless training excursions. I seemed to attract trouble and the trouble usually carried over to Akane, though Akane had her share of trouble without me. I can't tell you how many times I saved her life - and how many times she saved me. But it just wasn't enough. Our biggest adventure came when Akane became sick.
She said it was like falling backward very slowly with everything around you moving at top speed. How the visit to Dr. Tofu's office seemed surreal and imagined until she took that long walk home the night her blood test results were revealed. Your mother had cancer, which was the same cancer that killed your grandmother. Akane snuck out of the house that night, I found her watching the sunrise when she was discovered missing from her room. She scared me and it pissed me off that someone should mean so much to me that I'd actually be worried about them. I knew then that something wasn't right with her; there something in the way she looked into my eyes, a fear masked with renewed confidence.
Things started changing, good changes all of them. Akane was so full of life and it was easier to get along with her. We fought less, enjoyed each other more. We spent..hours upon hours doing absolutely nothing. I realize now, much later, that she was simply soaking it all in.
And then she went to sleep and didn't wake up for a week. Dr. Tofu had to tell us. He had to tell us that she was sick, had been for a year, and that when Akane was diagnosed, it had been too late for a medicinal cure. I was mad, upset that of all people she hadn't told me. I didn't understand why she had kept such a huge secret from me. We had to wait and pray that she would wake up and when she did, we had to wonder when it would be that we would loose her.
Of course, Akane had accepted her coming death. She had accepted it better than anyone else around her, swearing that she would live her life as normally as possible, refusing to be treated differently than before. But I didn't know how to do that. I saw her doing things that she always did and knew she was capable of doing them, but I also saw Akane as she didn't wish to be seen, as weak and dying, as someone I was going to loose but never knowing exactly when.
It was there in the hospital, full of anger and confusion and fear that we finally admitted to each other how we felt. It was very humbling. She married me that following spring, making me both the happiest and most sad man alive.
Today, we were married. Tomorrow I might loose my wife. Please take it easy today, I begged her on our wedding day. Don't overexert yourself. Akane laughed, eyes bright and happy, and pulled me onto the dance floor, holding me and trying to make me forget my worry. Having her in my arms, dancing with her, seeing her happy glowing face, she made me forget for only a little while the trouble that we would soon face.
I lived every day in constant fear of when she would die. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and watch her sleep. I counted the pauses in her breathing, wondering with each passing second if each breath she took would be her last one. All my life I had faced demons of every kind. Physical demons that you could fight and destroy and demons of the mind, demons that were much harder to fight. Every one I had faced I'd overcome. But death... death was a demon that always won. And it was this demon that was inside Akane and I had no idea how to deal with it.
On February 12, Akane Saotome gave birth to you, our son, Eien Saotome. Your hair was black like mine, but your eyes were brown like Akane's mother's had been. Akane had been left weak after giving birth and insisted on having you with her at all times.
And then, the cancer came back. It came back with a vengeance, hitting Akane when she was most vulnerable. I insisted she stay in the hospital where he knew that she would be taken care of instead of heeding her wishes to go home to die. For a month Akane steadily worsened and I stayed with her throughout the whole ordeal, going home only to shower then rushing back to her side.
One day, she called her family into the room. We gathered around her bed. I was on one side, Papa Tendo on the other. The two men she loved most in the world she wanted closest. In a soft voice and with tears in her eyes, Akane said her goodbyes. Her last request was for a pen and paper in which she could write a letter to her son. Only with my help, she wrote to you about her illness and expressed to you never ending love with the hope that some day, you would understand why she had to leave.
The letter writing exhausted her and she asked for peace. Her family silently left the room, leaving she and I alone in the room together. As I held her, Akane told me she loved me and slipped away...
******
Akane had gone through so much and I had done so little. I felt like I wanted to die, felt it the day of her funeral. I stood there, barely conscious of holding you, and contemplated how I would do it. But I looked at her family, my family for such a short time, and I knew I could never do that to Akane.
She said she was stronger with me, that I gave her courage. Where was she when I needed her the most, the strength and courage I gave her to die was the strenght and courage I needed to live without her.
I couldn't look at you without seeing her, Eien, I couldn't think of you without my heart breaking. I knew I owed it to her to be a good father to you, and I tried to do the best for you that I could. I have never recovered from her death, my son, and I gladly join her now.
There is only ever one way to recover from death and that is to live. When Akane died, so did my soul. Enclosed it your mother's letter to you. I have finally kept my promise.
Ranma
************
Eien sighed, folding the letter, a tear falling down his cheek unnoticed. His life had not been hard, Eien thought, just full of countless questions. Of course he knew his mother, his two aunts always used to speak to him about her, telling him about the adventures she and his father had as kids. He knew well that his mother was beautiful and smart, that his stubbornness was a trait he had been given by both parents, that his interest in martial arts was hereditary. Eien had also known from an early age that his mother had died before her 21st birthday, but he had never understood why his father had provided only his basic needs, why talking to Ranma about Akane made him so mad and so sad at the same time, why it was so taboo to question his father. Eien had grown up angry and resentful and now he knew he had every right to feel that way.
But something, deep down, ached for his father. Some small part of him understood and accepted and forgave his father. After all, he thought, as he opened the letter written by his mother on her deathbed so long ago, Akane would want it that way.
"To my child,
I don't know how others feel when they realize they are sick. I don't know if others remember the exact moment they knew something was wrong. Most do, I suppose but I am Akane Saotome and for some reason my life works differently than the rest of the world..."
~TheEnd~
Author's Notes: I wrote "The Letter" ages ago and I always felt that there needed to be a second part to it. To explain Ranma's fears, Ranma's love for Akane. I hadn't intened on making it this long, on basically retelling the same story over again, but at the same time, I wouldn't have been the same without it. Eien is, by a loose translation from an online translator, means eternity, or eternal and I suppose I gave that name because of Akane's eternal love for him and Ranma. As for Ranma's handsoff approach to his child, I know most would imagine his relationship with his son to be a more close bond in the thought that Eien was his only part of Akane he had left. I saw it differently, that seeing so much of Akane in Eien would only further hurt Ranma, the constant reminder that the only thing Ranma ever truly loved in the world was gone. Yes, he was a neglectful father, providing Eien only the things he could physically provide, and too much in his own grief to fully give Eien the love he deserved. So, the letter, part two.. ^_~
Akane Tendo Saotome brought so much life to the little town of Nerima that when she died, it seemed as though the spirit of the town died as well. People lived their lives a normally as possible but the spark that had made the city unique, fun, was missing. Over the years, the residents that helped Akane add to the charm slowly left Nerima.
Shampoo and Mousse returned to China after their venerated Amazon elder Cologne died; they were married shortly after their arrival back in China. Ryouga Hibiki, overcome with grief from Akane's death, wandered around the world before settling in Arizona, U.S.A. for good. He, too, married and soon had his own little clan of habitually lost Habiki's running around; this would later inspire him to patent one of the best Global Positioning System's in the world. Ukyo Kuonji sold Uchan's and used the money for college where she earned a degree in culinary arts, bought back Uchan's and turned it into large and prestigious chain of restaurants then retired early. Kuno and Nabiki were together for many years but never married, Nabiki refusing to be tied down to anyone and after a while, left Kuno so she could focus on her career. Kasumi it seemed, was the only one who remained unchanged by the years. She married her good doctor Tofu and they lived a quiet life at the Tendo compound.
Ranma Saotome, however, did not fare as well as the others.
********
Ranma Saotome was dead.
He'd finally given into the weaknesses old age brought him and died peacefully in his sleep. For more than 30 years he had behaved as he always had as a boy, recklessly training in remote locations, pushing himself to his limit, always making sure he was in peak physcical conditions. And then he fell and broke his hip, which healed badly, and he was restricted to simple katas and to tai chi. His son, Eien Saotome, and daughter in law had tried to convince him to stay with them but the old man steadfastly refused. No one would take care of him, he'd insisted, as though he was a weak child. No, he'd die without needing anyone in the world.
Ranma's last connection to Nerima gently placed a rose on his father's coffin; Ukyo Kounji was the last, Eien Saotome noted as he wiped a tear from his eye. Sadness regarding his father was nothing he was used to feeling. Anger, yes, and pity maybe but not sadness. Never toward his father.
His hand went to the letter hidden in his coat pocket and he let it stay there. It was the last real thing ever given to him by his father and he'd yet to read it, although he unconsciously already knew what it would say. Later, after the guests had left the house and his children were put to bed, when his wife was downstairs cleaning up, that's when he would read it.
*******
His hands trembled as he went to his coat and grasped the letter. Midori was downstairs cleaning as he knew she would be, and Akane and Genma had been in bed for hours - just like he had known it would be. Eien reminded himself to take a deep breath as he sat on the foot of the bed and opened the letter...
"Eien,
I am dead. My peace is finally achieved.
I don't want you to be sad, my son, although I know more than anything you are relieved. Taking care of me hasn't been easy I know. I've always been independent and stubborn and you who are so like me and yet so different are exactly what I was when I was your age. You should not mourn my death. I've been ready for it since you were born.
I have a long story to tell you, one that I should have told you ages ago. In the end you will be more angry with me than you have ever been before and I know I deserve it. I owe you this explanation.
For the first time in my entire life, I have broken my promise. I promised your mother that you would be raised knowing her and that you would never want for anything. In material things the latter can be said to be true, but I know I left in you a hunger for things I just could not give you.
Your mother was perhaps the most captivating woman I have ever known. There was a strength inside her that often challenged my own. She was often hard as steel one moment and the most feminine and soft woman in the world the next. Akane was smart and determined. She couldn't cook, not very well, but what she lacked in skill she made up in effort. Anyone who met Akane fell in love with her, and rightly so. Your mother was magic.
I met your mother when I was very young. Grandpa Saotome and I had just returned to Japan from a long training trip in China and while I was eager to return to my childhood home, he drug me to the Tendo residence. There I, your mother, and two aunts learned of a promised engagement between Grandpa Saotome and Papa Tendo. As your mother and I were of the same age, it was agreed that we would one day be married.
We didn't want it.
We fought like cats and dogs; not because we didn't enjoy being with each other but because we're both extremely stubborn. It took a very long time before we could spend time with each other without fighting but by that time I'd fallen deeply in love with her. It took me forever to admit it to her and it wasn't until it was almost too late that I did.
Akane and I had many many adventures, traveling all over Japan and even to China. We went on countless training excursions. I seemed to attract trouble and the trouble usually carried over to Akane, though Akane had her share of trouble without me. I can't tell you how many times I saved her life - and how many times she saved me. But it just wasn't enough. Our biggest adventure came when Akane became sick.
She said it was like falling backward very slowly with everything around you moving at top speed. How the visit to Dr. Tofu's office seemed surreal and imagined until she took that long walk home the night her blood test results were revealed. Your mother had cancer, which was the same cancer that killed your grandmother. Akane snuck out of the house that night, I found her watching the sunrise when she was discovered missing from her room. She scared me and it pissed me off that someone should mean so much to me that I'd actually be worried about them. I knew then that something wasn't right with her; there something in the way she looked into my eyes, a fear masked with renewed confidence.
Things started changing, good changes all of them. Akane was so full of life and it was easier to get along with her. We fought less, enjoyed each other more. We spent..hours upon hours doing absolutely nothing. I realize now, much later, that she was simply soaking it all in.
And then she went to sleep and didn't wake up for a week. Dr. Tofu had to tell us. He had to tell us that she was sick, had been for a year, and that when Akane was diagnosed, it had been too late for a medicinal cure. I was mad, upset that of all people she hadn't told me. I didn't understand why she had kept such a huge secret from me. We had to wait and pray that she would wake up and when she did, we had to wonder when it would be that we would loose her.
Of course, Akane had accepted her coming death. She had accepted it better than anyone else around her, swearing that she would live her life as normally as possible, refusing to be treated differently than before. But I didn't know how to do that. I saw her doing things that she always did and knew she was capable of doing them, but I also saw Akane as she didn't wish to be seen, as weak and dying, as someone I was going to loose but never knowing exactly when.
It was there in the hospital, full of anger and confusion and fear that we finally admitted to each other how we felt. It was very humbling. She married me that following spring, making me both the happiest and most sad man alive.
Today, we were married. Tomorrow I might loose my wife. Please take it easy today, I begged her on our wedding day. Don't overexert yourself. Akane laughed, eyes bright and happy, and pulled me onto the dance floor, holding me and trying to make me forget my worry. Having her in my arms, dancing with her, seeing her happy glowing face, she made me forget for only a little while the trouble that we would soon face.
I lived every day in constant fear of when she would die. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and watch her sleep. I counted the pauses in her breathing, wondering with each passing second if each breath she took would be her last one. All my life I had faced demons of every kind. Physical demons that you could fight and destroy and demons of the mind, demons that were much harder to fight. Every one I had faced I'd overcome. But death... death was a demon that always won. And it was this demon that was inside Akane and I had no idea how to deal with it.
On February 12, Akane Saotome gave birth to you, our son, Eien Saotome. Your hair was black like mine, but your eyes were brown like Akane's mother's had been. Akane had been left weak after giving birth and insisted on having you with her at all times.
And then, the cancer came back. It came back with a vengeance, hitting Akane when she was most vulnerable. I insisted she stay in the hospital where he knew that she would be taken care of instead of heeding her wishes to go home to die. For a month Akane steadily worsened and I stayed with her throughout the whole ordeal, going home only to shower then rushing back to her side.
One day, she called her family into the room. We gathered around her bed. I was on one side, Papa Tendo on the other. The two men she loved most in the world she wanted closest. In a soft voice and with tears in her eyes, Akane said her goodbyes. Her last request was for a pen and paper in which she could write a letter to her son. Only with my help, she wrote to you about her illness and expressed to you never ending love with the hope that some day, you would understand why she had to leave.
The letter writing exhausted her and she asked for peace. Her family silently left the room, leaving she and I alone in the room together. As I held her, Akane told me she loved me and slipped away...
******
Akane had gone through so much and I had done so little. I felt like I wanted to die, felt it the day of her funeral. I stood there, barely conscious of holding you, and contemplated how I would do it. But I looked at her family, my family for such a short time, and I knew I could never do that to Akane.
She said she was stronger with me, that I gave her courage. Where was she when I needed her the most, the strength and courage I gave her to die was the strenght and courage I needed to live without her.
I couldn't look at you without seeing her, Eien, I couldn't think of you without my heart breaking. I knew I owed it to her to be a good father to you, and I tried to do the best for you that I could. I have never recovered from her death, my son, and I gladly join her now.
There is only ever one way to recover from death and that is to live. When Akane died, so did my soul. Enclosed it your mother's letter to you. I have finally kept my promise.
Ranma
************
Eien sighed, folding the letter, a tear falling down his cheek unnoticed. His life had not been hard, Eien thought, just full of countless questions. Of course he knew his mother, his two aunts always used to speak to him about her, telling him about the adventures she and his father had as kids. He knew well that his mother was beautiful and smart, that his stubbornness was a trait he had been given by both parents, that his interest in martial arts was hereditary. Eien had also known from an early age that his mother had died before her 21st birthday, but he had never understood why his father had provided only his basic needs, why talking to Ranma about Akane made him so mad and so sad at the same time, why it was so taboo to question his father. Eien had grown up angry and resentful and now he knew he had every right to feel that way.
But something, deep down, ached for his father. Some small part of him understood and accepted and forgave his father. After all, he thought, as he opened the letter written by his mother on her deathbed so long ago, Akane would want it that way.
"To my child,
I don't know how others feel when they realize they are sick. I don't know if others remember the exact moment they knew something was wrong. Most do, I suppose but I am Akane Saotome and for some reason my life works differently than the rest of the world..."
~TheEnd~
Author's Notes: I wrote "The Letter" ages ago and I always felt that there needed to be a second part to it. To explain Ranma's fears, Ranma's love for Akane. I hadn't intened on making it this long, on basically retelling the same story over again, but at the same time, I wouldn't have been the same without it. Eien is, by a loose translation from an online translator, means eternity, or eternal and I suppose I gave that name because of Akane's eternal love for him and Ranma. As for Ranma's handsoff approach to his child, I know most would imagine his relationship with his son to be a more close bond in the thought that Eien was his only part of Akane he had left. I saw it differently, that seeing so much of Akane in Eien would only further hurt Ranma, the constant reminder that the only thing Ranma ever truly loved in the world was gone. Yes, he was a neglectful father, providing Eien only the things he could physically provide, and too much in his own grief to fully give Eien the love he deserved. So, the letter, part two.. ^_~