Howdy everyone.
Thank you for all the reviews, I was happily shocked at how many I got.
I thought I would answer some small questions before the chapter ensues, or
at least try to explain some small things that might be interesting to know
(probably not, but anyway).
The story is set a year after the failed wedding (and thus, the end of the manga),
so it should be obvious that this is a continuation, which it isn't. There isn't
really enough changes to make it an A/U or some such, but there are differences
in characterisation and situations that are too large to really fit into canon.
So what to call it? Does it need a name? I don't think so. Just be aware that
everything that happens is carefully pondered, so I don't do stuff on a whim,
and mostly there is an explanation as to why it goes as it goes.
About the Kasumi/Ranma pairing that many asked after, I hate to slap a marker
on it saying that it's one pairing or another. Lets just say like this, the
first chapters are mostly about Kasumi and Ranma, and it will remain the main
focus of the story, And there are many different sorts of love. Maybe they will
become lovers, or maybe they will become the best of friends, I know, but I
will keep it a secret until it's apparent in the story.
More notes afterward
You can read my fanfics on my homepage too! I've put it with a black background
and white text, at least I think that's more comfortable to read than black
text on white background...
I have not put much there yet, but more will
One and only prereader for this chapter was Valor Phoenix, many thanks to him for helping me.
And now!
HONORLESS MANchapter 02 - Broken
By: Ufomanne
Email: Rahwin and add the domain listed above.
The next morning
Ranma slowly ascended to the surface of consciousness from the black oblivion of sleep, fighting to stay asleep the whole way, but to no avail. He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.'The people who said that life was a fight from beginning to the end were far too right.' He thought, and jumped up and steeled his mind against another oncoming day of constant battle.
After quickly throwing on his usual outfit he walked out of his room and trudged down the short hallway and down the stairs, stretching his limbs as he walked. Sleep didn't seem as restful as it used to be, he felt tired and stiff.
'Some food will undoubtedly help me get going.' Ranma thought, already mentally drooling at the thought of Kasumis cooking. Instantly feeling his spirits rise at the thought of food, especially when it was Kasumis. He changed his pace and shot down the rest of the stairs with his usual speed and bounded into the room where Kasumi was busy putting out the breakfast on the table. The sun was shining in from a gap in a heavy curtain of rain clouds on the sky, making the atmosphere warm and light even though the heavens promised thunder and rain anytime now.
"Mornin' Kasumi, that sure smells wonderful" he said to her with a cheerful voice. "I'll help with the rest" he added and bounded into the kitchen, before Kasumi cold answer with more than a smile at his happy gait, relieved that he didn't seem depressed anymore.
As Ranma helped Kasumi putting out the rest of the needed things for a breakfast they chatted a little, discussing what they would want to have as a dream-breakfast, several jokes passing between them. As they did so the rest of the family slowly joined them in the dinner-room and sat down at the table, Genma coming first (of course) trying to get to the food before everyone else, and Akane last, hiding a big yawn behind her hand, with still tousled hair.Kasumi sat down at the table, and Ranma, with a smile on his face, was just going to settle down too when he caught the harsh stare of Akane over the table and saw her mouth 'pervert' with an angry face. Ranma froze for a second, and finally sat down, but with shoulders slumped and his smile gone like it never existed.
Kasumis smile also faded a little when she saw Ranmas change of mood, and hoped that Akane would not bring it up again. When Akane didn't seem to do anything else than trying to flake the paint of the walls with her eyes, Kasumi started to hand out breakfast, and everyone ate in silence, which was a far in between occurring event in the Tendo household.
The world darkened as the sun went into hiding, and a low rumble of far away thunder could be heard over the sound of eating in the room. The feeling of coming rain was strong, the smell of it coming in through one of the open shoji doors.
"Boy..." Genma stated in a pause of face stuffing, pausing again to breathe a little more of his rice. "You better apologize to Akane, a real man doesn't insult women" Genma shot one of his usual disapproving scowls Ranmas way, and then continued his intake of food.
"But I..." Ranma started, glaring at his father, also pausing in his imitation of a vacuum cleaner.
"Then why ask Ranma of something like that, he's a girl half the time anyway." Only to be interrupted by Nabiki, speaking in an amused tone, eating with slow grace.
"But still, that's not a thing to do to your fiancée, you better apologise to my little girl before I become unhappy with you, son." Soun added in a half admonishing, half pleading voice and waved his chopsticks in the direction of Ranma.
"But I didn't do anything!" Ranma finally got in between the others comments, he looked quite bewildered. The all too known feeling of helplessness rising. Couldn't they ever see it his way? He did try his best yesterday! His mood darkened even more.
"Hah! Like you can say that when you just came barging into my room and rip open my underwear drawer and spill the contents all over the room, pervert!" Akane said with vehemence, accidentally spitting out some rice in the meantime, still angry at herself for hoping for everything to get better again.
"But it was an accident, I didn't..." Ranma desperately tried to at least get one full sentence out, a half-pleading tone to his voice, to no avail. 'Please don't do this, not now' he thought desperately.
"Accident my ass! You just wanted to look at all my panties, bastard!" Akane shouted with tense body, looking like she would jump up and clobber Ranma in any moment, tears almost forming in her eyes.
Nabiki looked at Ranma with a cold disapproving look, and everyone else, save for Kasumi, looked at him, clearly less than amused at Ranmas 'accident'.
"Can't you ever listen to me!? I didn't do it on purpose you tomboy!" Ranma shouted back, now fired up as much as Akane. He felt a bitter taste rising in his throat, trying desperately to keep his feelings in a tight rein.
"That's enough! Now you apologise boy! Or do you want to sully your honor?!" Genma bellowed, clipping Akanes own response as she opened her mouth.
"Honor? What has this to do with honor?" Ranma asked, turning to his father, his voice angry and frustrated.
"You can't go and insult your Wife to be like that, remember the honor of the Saotome name!" Genma said with a loud voice, hopping up from his seated position and pointing a finger at his son.
"Like I would want to marry an inconsiderate idiot like him anyway." Akane stated with her usual angry tone.
Ranma just stared at his father with a scowl and didn't seem to notice Akanes comment at all.
"What would you know of honor, old man? Breaking promises, stealing, lying, freeloading, the only thing you know of is cowardice!" Ranma spat back to Genma, slowly rising up himself, placing his plate and chopsticks on the table. He struggled to keep the anger bottled up, but it felt like it burned him like fire, making him unable to restrain his sharp retort.
"Watch your mouth boy, you should learn to respect your elders, and stop behaving like a... a girl!" Genma threw back, griping a half second for the perfect insult (if slightly worn from overuse).
Crack Ranma felt the hairline cracks all over his being widen a tiny bit.
"At least I'm not running away at the slightest sign of danger, you have no right to accuse me of being a girl, you would wear a skirt if it meant Happosai was happy, honorless coward!" Ranma yelled back, now shaking from the effort to keep closed up.
Everyone else around the table backed away, at a loss of words at the display of serious animosity between the two Saotomes.
"Watch out Ranma, or I'll have to teach you some real manners, the hard way" Genma spat with a dangerous glimpse in his eyes, setting down his food and sliding into stance.
"Watch yourself Pops so you don't take on a fight you can't handle, you won't be able to sneak out of this one, coward" Ranma said with such venom in his voice he surprised himself, no less everyone else.
"I thought I learned you better than that Ranma, watch out so I don't deny your claim of the honor of the Saotome name, after all I never wanted a girl as an heir!" Genma bellowed, the rest of the people in the room just staring at him disbelievingly. Ranma and his father always insulted each other and fought over everything, but it had never come to this kind of harsh words.
Several simultaneous strikes of lightning over Nerima illuminated the room, soon followed by the thunder which shook the house with its power.
Something, then and there, snapped within Ranma, the cracks widened and the shell that contained his feelings flaked off and fell. The last hope of ever solving anything was overshadowed and consumed by the intense negative feelings within him. The frustration, anger, hopelessness and pain just burst free and he felt something in his chest shrink in on itself, blacken and die. Nothing was ever going to change, then why keep on fighting? There is no meaning anymore, it was like a epiphany of nothingness.
"Good, not that I wanted that filthy name anyway, I renounce my claim of honor, from now on, I don't have a name." Ranma said with cold anger, tears welling up in his eyes and starting to slide down his cheeks.
First giving a flash of surprise, Genmas face then tightened in fury.
"I can't let you do that boy, you owe me far too much to worm your way out of it like that." he said with a barley-controlled voice, and slid down in a stance. "You have a school to keep alive, and a pledge of honor to marry Akane. I won't let you run away from that if I so have to force you with violence"
"So, the coward had some spine after all, when his goal is compromised." Ranma said with a taunting voice, not even noticing his tears, or his slightly blurred eyesight. He felt like he was floating in a calm sea, that nothing mattered anymore, nothing to stop him.
With a battle cry Genma lunged over the table with the forgotten breakfast and whipped forth a forceful kick, which Ranma blocked with his hand, catching Genmas foot, absorbing the brutal force of the kick. He then raised his own leg and interlinked it over Genmas, with his heel in Genmas stomach, and brought the bald man down with a fierce cry. Genma hit his head on the table and Ranma brought down both his fists in lightning fast strikes (after having let go of Genmas foot) and smashed the table on both sides of Genmas head.
"That could have been your head, old man, and will, if you don't give up" Ranma hissed. Father and son stared at each other, their noses almost touching, Genma with an angered and determined expression, Ranma with a feral grin and empty eyes, still crying.
Again the two combatants breaking into a flurry of movements, Genma kicking Ranma in the gut, hurling him over the table (now reduced to splinters). Ranma making a graceful flip and landed, gliding into ready stance. Genma jumped up and rushed over with another battle cry, unleashing a barrage of moves, met by Ranma at equal speed.
"They're really serious about this, they're using crippling moves" Akane said disbelievingly, standing with the rest of the Tendo family against the far wall, having fled there when the fierceness of the verbal assaults started to get off hand. Staring at the two fighting men, lightning illuminating everything in sharp detail in quick succession."We have to stop them!" Said Kasumi, with a fearful voice, almost drowned out by the thunder and battle cries.
"We can't, if one of them is distracted for just a moment the other one can get in a killing move, we can't risk that." Said a surprisingly serious Soun, who stood a little ahead of his daughters, he too in a ready stance. "They have to settle this by themselves"
"But we have to! They'll destroy the house!" Shouted Akane.
Ranma flew out through the paper wall from a hard kick to the chest that got through his defence. Making a back flip in the air and sliding several meters, stopping close to the pond. Genma stepped out of the destroyed wall, panting heavily.
"You fight a lot better when you're serious" Ranma assessed wiping some blood from his mouth. "But now it's time to end this." He said with an emotionless voice, himself not appearing winded at all.
"Your end will be the only end, if you insist on this." Genma answered, serious expression in his face, a trickle of blood dropping down the side of his face from a split brow. Then drawing a great breath and going forward so fast the onlookers almost thought he just disappeared.
Ranma launched himself forward just as fast, and met Genma halfway, blocking his kick with his own leg and hitting Genma on his left upper arm, numbing the nerves, and making Genmas left arm useless. Thus forced to drop his guard Genma tried to get away, but Ranma kicked out with the leg he had blocked with, making Genma start to spin around. Catching Genmas right arm with both hands and twisting it forcefully, feeling the shoulder joint dislocate with a wet feeling of snapping ligaments. Letting go of the arm and quickly turning around, lifting a leg into a roundhouse kick, catching Genma in the ribs. Ranma felt several ribs break and give away; he twisted around again, using the momentum of the roundhouse kick to jump up and lash out with his other leg, and hitting Genma in the side of the head with his heel. Genma, thus launched into the air, flew a few meters and then crashed lifelessly into the ground, not moving again. Ranma landed gracefully from his skewed pirouette, only a light give on his left leg jarring the fluid movement. He grabbed the leg with one hand. "Tough he always was, the sneaky bastard" Ranma muttered, staring at the person who was once his father, holding his left leg as it barley could support him.
He stood there with a strange feeling of calmness, staring at the limp form of Genma. He actually harmed a person, injuring him out of free will, not even necessity, and he couldn't feel anything. No regret, no happiness, nothing.
A mighty lightning flashed over the sky, the thunderclap following a second after reverberated in Ranmas chest and made his ears hurt. Then the wind picked up and the rain came like a curtain.
Ranma turned to the house, where the Tendo stood under the roof of the veranda. First staring at Akane through the heavy rainfall, and then shifting to Soun. The three sisters peering back with apprehensiveness and a little fear, Soun with a serious but blank expression.
"It's over Soun, I renounce my claim of the name Saotome, I will not recognise any claim of duty to marry any of your daughters, and I hereby render all my engagements and other obligements invalid. I... I'm nameless, and honorless." Ranma said with a catch in the last bit, sounding almost like a sob, the rain matting her now red hair to her head.
Lightning crashing overhead, the rain whipping around violently, Ranma slowly limped back inside, past the onlookers, still frozen in shock. Almost totally drowned out by the thunder rolling over the skies they heard Ranmas "I'm sorry" before she disappeared inside.
The Tendo family ran up to the Saotome patriarch, now in panda form, to check that he at least was breathing. Nabiki said, or rather shouted over the rainfall and thunder. "I'll call Doctor Tofu!" and ran into the house, to the phone.
"He doesn't seem too badly hurt, he'll be fine, I hope." Soun said, more to himself than to Akane, while he was accessing the damage done to his old friend.
"I can't believe Ranma did that! He has no right to do any such thing!" Akane hotly declared, feeding all of the shock and fear that she had been exposed to into the more familiar and secure feeling of intense anger. She suddenly started walking towards the house with an angry stride.
"Akane wait! Let him be!" Soun shouted, but in vain, as Akane already disappeared into the house.
Ranma walked toward the dojo, immersed in her own hell. The realisation that everything, everything was in vain, nothing mattered at all. She thought so before, and the feeling brought her down. But now, at the breakfast table, she finally realised it for real, now she knew and something within her chest had become cold and black.'Is that my hope? Is nothing left?' Ranma thought, remarkably still and calm, the shock of her insight and what she just did numbing her until she almost felt like she was dreaming.
'The hope is the last thing that dies, but now my hope is dead, and my honor gone, I'm nothing.' An intense feeling of loss filled her. 'Why am I alive then?' She didn't have any answer.
"Ranma, how could you!" Ranma heard the loud scream and recognised it as Akanes, then sliding out of the way when said person passed the space she had occupied a split second before with a flying kick. Akane landed a couple of meters down the hall, whipping around and facing Ranma with her face scrunched up in fury.
"I don't know what kind of games you're playing now, but you've gone too far! You can't just do what you just did!"
"Why not? Who is there to stop me? I thought you would be happy to be rid of me, and you can't say that the thing that I have called my father didn't deserve what he got. Be happy you don't have to be forced into being my fiancée anymore." Ranma replied, with a toneless voice and blank face.
"T-that's beside the point! I..." Akane trailed off, not really sure what she wanted to say, the issue with the engagement touching an unsure topic, but the anger still pushing her.
"You what? You know Akane, I've tried so hard to sort things up, but now it's too late! I can't do anything anymore. I tried so hard to become better at not insulting you can't say you haven't noticed, but I'm a hothead, I can't help it. I'm tired that everyone blames everything bad that happens on me! I tried to at least be your friend, because honestly I once liked you, but I didn't like the thought of forcing you into a marriage, or being forced myself without having a say!" Ranma shouted at her, red in the face, then drawing a deep breath and continuing.
"And you just threw it in my face! Everyone did! Everything is just wasted, my efforts to get rid of my fiancées in a gentle way, to maybe become friends with Ryoga again, it's all in vain!"
Akane stared at her, momentarily stunned at Ranmas eruption.
"I won't have it any more! I won't stand for it! Your convenient saviour that doesn't need more thanks than a beating is gone! Now leave me alone!" Ranma shouted, now awash in anger herself, pointing a seemingly threatening finger at Akane. "I'm not yours to use anymore, I'm no-ones to use" She added with venom.
Suddenly Ranma smiled a feral grin, realising that one opportunity had opened up. Akane had stared at the finger pointed at her, and was unsure if she should be afraid, or become even angrier and beat some sense into Ranma.
"You know... have you seen P-chan around lately?" Ranma asked almost nonchalantly, smile widening.
"Eh? What does he have to do with anything, he was here yesterday, but he disappeared..." Akane asked first confused, then with a darkening expression "I told you to stay away from P-chan!"
Ranma ignored her comment and raised an eyebrow at Akane "Sheesh, that pig seems to have just as bad sense of direction as Ryoga"
"Leave Ryoga out of this! He's a nice guy, in difference to a pervert like you!"
Ranma frowned at her, but still disregarding Akanes verbal barbs. "I know a secret about Ryoga, one he wants to keep at any price. I was bound by honor not to say anything, but now it's not an issue anymore. Do you wonder why I always pick on P-chan?"
"Because you like to torment my poor little pet, or want an excuse to peep on me!" Akane retorted, starting to get a little unsure of where exactly Ranma wanted to come with this argument.
"Ryoga followed me and Genma after Genma decided it was best to move again, and we went to china, we went to Jusenkyo... Ryoga got a curse just like me Akane, and everyone else but you know it. Don't you wonder why P-chan always popped up when Ryoga had been in a fight with me, or at least always when he was around too? Why was I a 'pervert' and tried to protect your virtue almost every night you had P-chan in your bed, why do Ryoga always know about how you feel and which problems you have, even though it's only P-chan you confess to?" Ranma asked, with more and more contempt in her voice at each sentence.
The truth dawned on Akane, and a tear dripped from her eye as she realised the terrible betrayal of what she thought was the only decent boy she ever met.
"No... No, you're lying Ranma, he wouldn't do such a thing, you're lying!" Akane shouted at the top of her lungs, and reacted by a now almost automatic pattern. She whipped out her mallet and charged Ranma, intending to make her fly out of the roof, shutting her hurting words away with her.
Ranma growled and gave a war cry as she went into motion herself.
Akane saw, in slow-motion how Ranma suddenly seemed to shimmer, and then how her fist came to meet Akanes side swing with the mallet, and how it connected in the centre of it, and how the head of the mallet slowly exploded into a cloud of splinters, leaving her with a broken stick in her hands. Suddenly everything seemed to speed up to unnatural speed, as she felt how a palm strike hit her in the chest just above her breasts and another simultaneously below, in her diaphragm, sending her violently into the wall. The air was pushed out of her in the strike (or violent push, if you will) and the back of her head smacked against the wall. Sliding down the wall, her legs now like jelly, fighting to regain her breath and trying to focus her blurred sight.
"I said I won't be your punch bag anymore, don't underestimate me." Ranma coldly said, standing over Akane.
"Ranma!" Ranma quickly turned to the owner of the distressed voice, and saw Kasumi standing in the door opening in the hallway.
'She's afraid... of me' Ranma realised when she saw the unconsciously defensive position of her hands balled over her chest, and the unsure expression in her face, eyes weary of what would happen next.
"Kasumi... I..." Ranma tried to say, tears forming in her eyes once more, then turned and fled, taking the door beside the door to the dojo, out into the rain.
"Ranma wait!" Kasumi screamed and ran after Ranma with a hand outstretched, but when she reached to the open door, she could just see a fast retreating silhouette over the roofs, quickly gone in the heavy rainfall. She stared after Ranma with confusion and longing, and then slowly turned and walked to attend to her shocked sister who still sat, with tears in her eyes, where Ranma left her.
The same day, afternoon.
Everything had turned from pleasant dream to nightmare in such a short time Kasumi still had a hard time understanding it all. Tofu had been over and had taken care of Genma which now laid in the guestroom, Tofu said that Genma didn't receive any lasting damage, but that his wounds would take a long time to heal properly, in which time he would be more or less helpless as a martial artist, a hard blow for such a man as Genma. But the Saotome patriarch didn't matter in Kasumis view, she had lost the little respect she had for him a long time ago. Kasumi often wished the freeloading and cowardly man would leave their household, but the man seemed to make her father happy, so she hadn't voiced her opinion, and after all, he was a guest.
Kasumi shook her head and started to wash the dishes that had survived the 'breakfast' this morning, some food on the stove next to her slowly being cooked, not that she thought that it would be anyone who really felt like having dinner today.
Ranma was a different issue altogether, she hadn't seen him since the chaotic breakfast, and she was very upset and worried. And she was angry at herself for not understanding the signs that heralded this terrible morning. After all, at least as far as she knew, she was the only one he talked to, really talked to. And not that it was such a great deal he talked to her either, but their communication had been better than with anyone else, and that could be said for both of them. Ranma dropped small hints all the time, at least the last weeks, hints that he was beginning to get weary of the situation he was in. Especially yesterday, when he told her that he felt helpless, unable to solve anything despite all the effort he put into it. Why didn't she see it? Why didn't she see that this was slowly coming? A person can be pushed only so far. Then they break.
Sometimes she felt like breaking herself, the Tendo family seemed like such a perfect family, but it was so horribly flawed behind the façade, just as almost everything as Kasumi had learned earlier this morning. The family had had its problems before, and its dirty secrets. But everything fell apart when Kasumis mother died. Her father had receded from the strong man she had seen a glimpse of this morning, to a weak, emotional shell that he was most of the time, all his strength lost when his love passed away. Kasumi doubted that he would still be alive if he didn't feel responsible to take care of his daughters, which he wasn't very good at even then but anyway.
Nabiki had changed from an open-minded, lively girl who could give Akane a run for her money any day. Changed to what she was today, fled into the shape of the money grubbing ice queen, playing with others feelings to hide her own. Akane, which had stood mother closer than anyone, turned from the always happy and sunny girl to being moody and quick to anger, fleeing to the emotion that could blank out the pain. Ranma hadn't helped in Akanes case either, her mixed up feelings toward him, the fights all the time, and that they never let each other know what they really felt or thought. Akane had become more and more frustrated with her situation, just as Ranma, and she lashed out more and more at Ranma and the rest of the world in anger.
Kasumi felt like breaking, and maybe she really had that horrible day their family was crushed.But she couldn't let her family down, she had taken up the reins of her mother and became the substitute. She had started to look after the family, cooking the meals and cleaning the house, giving up on her studies, not that she thought she had the energy to continue the studies anyway, the shock of the shattering of the family was too great. At first it had been relieving, to bury herself in learning all the things you had to know to keep a whole household up and running kept her from doing anything rash, to learn to be a mother. Or rather just a shadow of a mother, because she could never even come close to mend the wound her mothers passing left in them all.
Now she was trapped, she had tried to build the image of the perfect mother, and had came pretty close to what she sought after, but now she was stuck behind a mask that wasn't her. At first she resigned to her fate and thought that if that had to be the way then she couldn't do anything about it. But you can't force a bird with clipped wings to stop dreaming of flying once more, and she wanted to be herself again. Not that she knew who she was anymore, but the image she was in now was horribly wrong.
Not that she minded what she was doing, she liked cooking, and taking care of the home and her family brought her real joy, but she wasn't meant to stay here for the rest of her life. But every day she saw how the time rushed past Ranma and the others who surrounded him, and how they rushed with it, grew and developed. She felt her own time, slowly dripping forth like stagnant oil. It all felt so meaningless. Taking care of her family was a purpose in itself, but not a purpose that could sustain her the Kasumi behind the image.
That was why Ranmas sudden change was so nice, it was about a year ago, if she remembered right, that he had first came and asked her if she wanted help. First she was too shocked to answer, just staring at him like he grew horns and a tail. But as time went and she got to know him she learned of the person behind the image that was Ranma, just like she knew the person behind the image Nabiki. He was nothing like she thought he really was, and that saddened her, so much hurt, so much pain in such a young soul. The things that he told her that he had experienced on his life on the road sometimes made her cry herself to sleep, it resounded with her own pain, reached out and touched her in a way that both intensified and soothed her own buried wounds.
Kasumi sighed and stopped her hands which had been scrubbing a plate, and just held her hands in the warm, soapy water. Ranma was stronger than any of them, he had carried an enormous burden almost all his life, so little love And still he was the person he was, his outward posture could be bratty and annoying, radiating arrogance and smug self-confidence like a rampant nuclear reactor would radiate heat, but he had changed much of that the last year. He was nothing like a lot of other martial artists, far from his cowardly and sneaky father Kasumi gripped the plate when she thought about Ranmas father and his outrageous behaviour, his whole life, and especially this morning. Not realising she gripped with all her might, not realising until a invisible crack it had suffered in the morning widened and with a resounding ping she held two pieces of a plate instead of a whole plate. Kasumi looked surprised at the plate, momentarily brought out of her brooding thoughts.
Slowly placing the shattered plate on the side of the stove she drained the water in the sink and dried her hands on the apron she was wearing. Then taking the now finished food off the stove, if anyone wanted anything to eat they could get it themselves from the kitchen, and then removing the apron.
Ranma was her friend, and she knew he needed help, someone who could support him. Someone who could listen to him, not push him to what they themselves wanted him to be or to do. She didn't know if he would let her help, but she couldn't give up without trying. After all, she didn't really have anything to lose. What she refused to admit to herself was that she also needed help, someone who would listen to and support her. And on some unconscious level, she knew he could do that for her.
So setting herself to help him she thought about where he could have disappeared to, if she knew him right, he might have returned to his room to get out of the rain. She hoped that it was the case at least, and she walked out of the kitchen, setting herself to ignore her own pain and needs once again, to help the boy she felt a strange connection to. Setting herself to be her image once again, to shake herself from doubt and the shock of the morning, to be the image of mother Kasumi once again.
Then why did she constantly have to force the tears back from her eyes?Okay, so, was it good for you too?I guess this is where I lose all the readers that became curious with the first chapter but really doesn't like my writing. Oh well as the category states, this is no happy-puppy story, but it can end well, maybe.
I want to mention that English is not my first language, that is not an excuse, but it's the reason that my writing is far from perfect Sorry about that.
I will now address some issues in the story that might be a turnoff for some
people. Firstly, the general ooc-ness with characters in this story is a necessary
thing, and people who complain about it has a point, but it is how it is, and
I hope most of it will be reasonably explained while the story proceeds. All
the really good Ranma½ stories I have had the pleasure to read have been
very OOC, but in a good way. I hope I can keep it like that too.
I hope Akane doesn't come off as too much of a bitch. It's too bad many fanfics
either glorify her or make her an überbitch. She may come across as one
in this chapter, but I do not intend to bash her. Just remember that most of
this is told either through Ranma or Kasumi, and they are not (especially Ranma)
without their share of misunderstandings of people around them.