Hi. It's been a while.
The third chapter is here anyway.
You can go to my homepage to read the chapter if you like. (Better for your eyes if nothing else )
More authors notes at the end of the tunnel, i.e. the chapter.

(previously forgotten)
DISCLAIMER: Stuff belongs to their respective owners, and most likely not to me, I just borrow the characters for a little time, and most likely make them support some poor shrink for the rest of their lives. :-P

HONORLESS MAN

chapter 03 -

By: Ufomanne

Email: Rahwin and add the domain listed above.

Does it matter?

Does it matter?
Does it mean anything to you?

Or is it just loneliness
that hollow pain of nothingness
that dying soul of yours
that dull ache no-one soothes

I can't say it will be allright
I can't say the sun will shine again
because I don't believe in anything
because I don't matter anymore

Does it matter?
Does it mean anything to you?

or is it just emptiness
that fear of everything
that dying soul of yours
that numbing grip of death

I can't say it will be allright
I can't give you the warmth you need
because I lost my faith long ago
because I don't matter anymore

Does it matter?
Does it mean anything to you?

or is everything just too late
that piercing regret and grief
that dying soul of yours
that overwhelming self-contempt

I can say it will be allright
even though I can't give you anything
because my soul died long ago
just as yours now before my eyes

I can say it, because you can't hear my screams

Don't give up the only thing you have!
Don't give up on your precious life.

Ranma sat in the dojo, in the middle of the training hall, now a male and dry once again, with the use of some of his ki to heat the water he had been soaked in before. He sat there on a large piece of rough cloth and stared blankly ahead, not really aware of his surroundings.

Inside his mind he went through everything he had lived through up to today. Everything that had either made his life brighter or darker, all the little happy moments when he had thought that just that moment was worth everything he had gone through, and every moment when the hopelessness and frustration buried him like a black blanket, choking him, and it was only his stubbornness and refusal to give up that kept him going.

Someone had once told him that it's the small things that you have to treasure, because it's the small things that make it worth anything to live at all. He thought it was some old monk that had lived in a shrine he had trained in when he and Genma still was on the road, years before he got the curse, and Ranma always held that for true, he still did.

Only, the small things wasn't enough anymore, it may be true that the small things was what makes it worth to live, but you can't survive by them alone, and when they're as few and far in between as in Ranmas case, well it suffices to say that it's amazing he came this far at all.

Ranma had taken such an amount of abuse over his whole life that it would be enough for a bus full of people to need therapy the rest of their lives. Ranma himself didn't really see it as anything especial at all. Because he didn't knew any other life than his own, and he didn't remember anything of what his life was like before he and his father hit the road, that was just like life was. So he smiled and did not complain and trudged on, trying his best to be a good person.

Over the years, when he slowly grew up, the load that his mind had to carry slowly increased, with no one to talk about any of his troubles, not even the smallest, because Genma would call him a girl as soon as he tried to get some comfort for his insecurities and fears, just as any child would do. After a while he just closed up inside, and became the image outwards that his father wanted him to be, and kept his wounds inside, because he couldn't show any weakness. When he slowly grew up the imprisonment of his feelings became more and more easy to him, to lastly become totally natural, a part of him. But no mind can stay healthy that way, and the feelings slowly stacked, and did so much more rapidly after he got the curse and came to Nerima.

The year that now had passed, he had been aware of his slowly building instability, and had made a frantic try to solve the problems he stood knee-deep in to stop the growing despair and hopelessness from getting out of hand. First the trouble with his curse, it struck such a vital piece of his self identity, his manhood, he had to be considered a man amongst men. Now an impossibility. His father considered girls like they were weak objects, not even really human it seemed. And now his 'son' turned into a girl.

Ranma was surprised that Genma didn't cast him out long ago, he himself and his girl side. A while ago he had sat down and thought everything about his curse through thoroughly. The reason why he did this was an offhand comment from Kasumi that she thought of him in masculine form in either side of the curse. Which Kasumi herself had found very embarrassing of some reason, but never did show it to Ranma.

He thought his curse through, his fear was always that because he turned into a girl when he came in contact with cold water, that he would become a girl in mind as well as body. First he realised (though it took him a good while) that the thing about girls being weak and less worth than a man was just one of his fathers stupid ideas and not true to any extent at all. The question that followed was if he really minded being a girl, a question which his mind revolted violently against, and he came to the conclusion that while he much rather stayed a boy as much as possible it didn't disturb him all that much to be in his other form. Because, and that was the grand thing he realised, that as long as he knew that he was Ranma, that he was he, himself, then the shape of his body mattered less. Still the inconvenience of the curse and the chaos it always spread around him generated a lot of negative feelings.

Then the issue with his fiancées. He had done his best, he had tried to talk to his 'fiancées' seriously to tell them he couldn't make them happy and that this couldn't continue, it would only hurt everyone in the end. He talked to Ryoga, Mousse and Kuno, but no one ever listened to what he was trying to say. Either they jumped to wrong conclusions as soon as he said his first word, or read into what he had said something that even a deranged maniac would find impressive (Kuno often seemed to impress himself at least, heh). He wondered if the curse that was his life affected other people to become blind to what he said. True or not, the result was the same; he didn't get out of anything, and now he was maybe even more stuck in the mud than what he was before. The irony of it all was almost worth a laugh. Not that he had either laugh or tears to shed anymore.

At last you had to count in all the random martial artists that popped up from nowhere and everywhere, almost always wanting him dead, or some other bizarre thing. The nekoken was another horror which kept him awake at night sometimes, the list could go on forever.

Over time he slowly felt the sour taste of his helplessness slowly spread through his mind, but he still had hope, it might have been small and flickering, but still very alive.

Alive, until this morning.

It was like a shadow, all the small things that made him think the life was worth living didn't just disappear, they were still there, the small happy things. But as his frustration grew, and he felt one hope after another either slowly fade away or get brutally annihilated a shadow grew over those things. When the last little piece of it was covered in shadows, when he and his father screamed at each other

That feeling, of something in his chest which stopped living, blackened and died. It still was in there, not a physical thing or organ in itself, but something else, maybe it was his soul, or his hope, he didn't know.

It was still dead, cold, chilling his being, the threads of cold spreading from where it touched, him and spreading outward, numbing his mind and body. A part of him was dead.

That moment, when it, whatever it was, died he realised with perfect clarity. He realised that the hopelessness he felt before just was the feeling of his hope shrinking. But now it was dead, gone.

His hope was gone.

The shadow covered everything, and even though the things that made him happy still was there, because no one could take them away, they didn't matter anymore, the shadow covered them and they could no longer swallow the pain. The agony that now was his being was everything, that and a numb feeling of nothing.

He looked at everything, good and bad. He found himself with an answer.

That he didn't care, his honor was gone, his family name stripped away from him and everything that was left with it. And he didn't care.

The pain was singing through his being, making him want to shrink into foetal position and cry his soul out. But he stopped crying long time ago, because it didn't give the relief it used to give. And it didn't matter anymore.

Ranma blinked a couple of times to focus his sight on the world of the living once more, idly noting that the rain still fell with great intensity, even though the thunder had stopped long ago. He didn't really know what time it was, his inner clock told him sometime around dinnertime, but he wasn't hungry.

Still with a total blank look on his face, showing no emotion whatsoever, he turned his gaze downward, and let it rest on the black lacquered ceremonial tanto that rested within its similarly coloured sheath lying in front of his knees. It was old, it had maybe been in the ownership of the dojo since it was built, Ranma wondered how many lives it had taken in a similar way that it soon would claim his. Must be a lot, in the old way of the samurai seppuku was a common thing, to restore ones honor if the person had harmed his honor so that he wouldn't be able to redeem it in this life. Ranma didn't have any honor left at all to restore, but the knife would do its work none the less.

He reached forward and took the tanto over its hilt, lifting it up in front of him, then grabbing with his other hand over the sheath, and slowly drew the blade. He looked with no emotion at the glinting blade, still in perfect shape even after so many years. He put the sheath at his side, carefully laying it down and taking his time. Then he reached up again and positioned his other hand at the hilt too, grabbing it with both hands, the blade towards himself. Without moving a muscle in his face he brought up the blade and held it pointing against his heart, and then moved it back a little, to get enough room to make a swift strike.

Just one quick move, and everything would end.

The rain could be heard patting on the roof of the dojo, building a silent music and punctuating the mood in the still air of the dojo, nothing seemed to move, even the wood of the floor and walls paused their walk in time to hold its proverbial breath in dread of the atmosphere that surrounded the training hall.

Why would he kill himself? Why commit the atrocity called suicide?

Because the young man who sat in the middle of the dojos floor had weighted everything, not hasted or rushed anything of his thorough examination of his life. And he had found out that he didn't desire to live anymore. He realised that everything might get better in the future, which was almost a guarantee. Sometime he had to succeed in something and everything would get better.

But He didn't live in the future, and he didn't live in the past. The present is all we know, it's the only thing we can experience. Even if you could remember something that happened a long time ago, it's still a recalling of a long lost moment in the presence. Even if you know that the future might be brighter you still live in the present. The presence is all you have. Maybe not even that.

If the presence is too painful to survive, then you might as well just end it now. The future will be better, but it isn't anything that helps you right now, and then it doesn't matter.

The hope is the last thing to die.

Ranmas hope was dead, black and cold within him, and if the hope is the last thing to die, then his body already was dead, it just didn't realise it yet, so Ranma would make it realise, and never have to suffer again.

Kasumi exited the kitchen, carefully carrying a tray with two teacups, a kettle with tea and snacks to the side on a tissue, one of the teacups was filled with warm water. She smoothed out her simple yet pretty blue housedress with one hand, and then took the tray with both hands. She started to carry the tray towards the hall that tied the part of the residence in which they lived to the dojo in the other side of their property.

She had checked the room which Ranma and his father slept, but he wasn't there. But when she went back to the kitchen again she had seen a shadow sneak into the dojo, and she had a strong feeling that was Ranma. So she went into the kitchen and boiled some tea and put together what now was on the tray, mostly to give herself some time to think, she was in fact a bit frightened about talking to him. That vicious fight with his dad, it was a side of Ranma she had never seen before, a side that was uncontrolled, yet he was cold with almost mechanical precision.

"It's over Soun, I renounce my claim of the name Saotome" "I'm sorry" Those words that Ranma uttered, the first with calm confidence and authority, and the other with a sad and lost whisper. They played over and over in Kasumis head, something with it disturbed her, making her itch with worry, it made her feel empty, like something important was missing.

Kasumi opened the doors to the dojo with some difficulty, having to handle the tray as well as the heavy soundproof door. The heavy clouds obscured the sun and made the outside seem like it was evening already, even more so in the dojo, which was cast in shadows. When the door was opened she stepped through and turned around and closing the door again, before she turned totally to face the door she saw a shadowed form in the middle of the dojo, she immediately felt relieved that Ranma indeed was there.

"Ranma, I brought some warm water for you, and some tea to" Kasumis cheery voice faded away, and her smile vanished as the time seemed to slow down for Kasumi when she completed her turn towards Ranma. Her eyes had already started to adjust to the increased shadows, and she saw a clear glint of a naked blade in Ranmas hands, pointed to his chest, and Ranmas lifeless eyes peering down at it, with an expression devoid of emotion. For a second Kasumi was numb of shock, her mind in such turmoil she couldn't fully grasp the image before her.

Then she broke for the second time in her life.

The tray slipped through her numb fingers and crashed to the floor, the teacups and tea can shattering with a bone jarring sound.

"Ranma! No!" Kasumi wailed from the foundation of her being, bringing with it the force of all the pain and hope she carried inside of her, the desperate need and regret. The plea left her lips as she jumped into motion, lunging towards Ranma. Almost falling over, tripping on the tray, but still managing to keep going Kasumi threw herself, crashing into Ranma, knocking him unto his back. The tanto flew, clattering away from the both of them, they lay there, Ranma on his back and just staring lifelessly into the shadows of the roof, Kasumi over him with her face against his shirt, her breathing ragged.

Kasumis uneven breaths were interrupted by a sob, shaking her frame, and more followed closely.

"Why? Why" She started, but didn't manage to continue.

Ranma, still staring straight ahead with a dead look in his face, blinked and seemed to become somewhat aware of his surroundings again, but still not enough to care about that Kasumi lay pressed against him.

"I there's nothing left, I just want to get rid of everything, I have nothing to stay for anymore I tried to tell them, tell them that I couldn't be what they wanted for me to be. I tried I was never enough. Now it's gone, my name, my honor, me. I don't want to feel the pain anymore." He slowly answered in a subdued voice, idly wondering why a girl was laying on him, almost crying.

"There have to be something left, you you can't just give up, doesn't anything help?" She said with a shuddering breath. After a while of silence from Ranma she started to sob even louder, hands balling in the fabric of his shirt.

"I don't want you to feel any pain! It isn't fair, everything that has happened, how everyone treats you, I I don't want you to leave! You're the only one who I can talk to, and I don't want to be left alone again, as with with mother. I don't want to be alone, don't leave me, please don't..." Kasumis sob grew to a wail as she cried out her fear and pain.

Ranma laid there, slowly bringing up his arms to comfort the shaking girl which was crying violently on top of him. Tears slowly welled up in his eyes, and slowly started to slip from the corners of his eyes.

"I... I will not leave." He said after heaving a silent sigh, he slowly continued to stroke her back in hopes of comforting Kasumi who tightly held onto him while the tears soaked into his shirt.

And the knife lay temporarily forgotten on the floor of the dojo, a couple of meters away. Someday the blade maybe would take another life.

But not today.

To be continued?

Author notes:
Ah well, what to say here?
This chapter, although more like a single scene than a full chapter, ends the first phase of this little story. This is as far as I had planned, and I'm not really sure where to go from here, of if I should continue at all. I wanted to tell a story about a feeling, and now I've done that, where to go next? I have the second chapter planned out (these three parts are the "first chapter") and I have written some of it, but I hesitate, I'm not sure if I have a story to tell anymore.
Ah well, I'll just have to see about that, chances are that I'll post another chapter in a little while, to see where the story takes me.

A note about Ranma, some would (and have) argued that Ranma would not react in such a way that this story describe, that he would never give up just like that. Well, maybe that's right, I don't really know. I just tell my story, and that's my truth, Everyone has their own truths.

I hope you enjoyed it so far, at least I've had fun writing it. I just worry I've added to the already staggering amount of crappy fics that exist. I hope I haven't, or at least, that I will become good enough one day to be able to write something worth to read.

Now please send me some criticism,
Either to the email listed at the top

Or just push the button down there and leave a review

But only if you want to, I won't force anyone ;-)