Chapter Thirty Three – Before It Drags You Under: Part Three
[TW] Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Suicidal Ideation, Nudity, Abandonment, Transphobia, Homophobia, Violence, Deadnaming, Period-Typical Social Norms, Internalized Transphobia, Internalized Misogyny, Disordered Eating, Homelessness, Sex Work, Referenced Underage Sex, Referenced Sexual Assault, Dissociation. This chapter is intense. Read with care.
Konatsu
Jealousy was unbecoming of a young woman, wasn't it? The low rumble of resentment in her gut, the insouciance she tried to affect as she went about her chores. She swept the tiles- Cleaned the stove- Thought about Ranko Saotome- Ran the restaurant thick with a nausea she never allowed herself to indulge – if she did, that would be her meal for the day gone – lost in her labor while her beloved mistress received her education. It was a duty that she never allowed herself to pause for long enough to consider why, precisely, she was so dedicated to the task. And if she did-
And if Konatsu had begun to on those nights where she and Ukyo tangled up together on their futon, when the tears came unbidden- When Ukyo swept her messy hair out of her face and kissed her on the head and told her she was good-
How could a girl not fall in love?
Ukyo didn't come back right today. Something happened at school. Konatsu can read it in her okonomiyaki: one order burnt, another undercooked, a ticket refired. She's got all of her shadow clones working full-time to catch the evening rush, and it's not enough, it's never enough- But she'll make it enough. For Ukyo.
There was never a moment where Konatsu woke up in the morning and thought, oh, of course, I'm a woman. By the time she was awareof herself (when she was nine, but only in fragments, then in earnest around her eleventh birthday), she had always been a girl. It had only been due to the pervasive, cruel bullying of her step-family that she knew of her abnormalities at all. Her stepmother called her a demon child when she was young, before Konatsu had proven herself too insignificant to be worth of such vitriol; groveling had become a survival skill, those years before they turned her out on the street. But that hadn't been enough either, cause out onto the street she'd gone. Konatsu supposed that she ought to have been grateful that her step-family had ever put up with her womanhood in the first place. They'd washed their hands of her. Deservedly so.
She'd deserved it.
Things went out of focus for a while, then Konatsu was mopping the floor while Ukyo sat at the darkened lunch counter – oh, it's night – with her head in her hands. Konatsu loathed seeing her mistress distraught. Ukyo had been so very kind to her, kind in ways that people were never supposed to be- Oh, Ukyo…
Leaving her mop against the wall, Konatsu slipped across the room to her side, reaching out with tentative fingers – they're not shaking, they're not – to touch Ukyo's knee.
"Hey, Sugar," Ukyo rasped, offering her a fleeting smile from beneath her fists.
Konatsu worried her lip. She wanted to make it go away- Wanted to take Ukyo away from all this, somewhere warm, somewhere safe- Don't be stupid, that's a fantasy.
"What happened?"
Ukyo sighed. "There was another attack," she said. "That pervert asshole came back. Ranko, she- she had to dump a whole kettle of boiling water over her head. She had the soap, but…"
Konatsu tried to hide her flinch at the mention of the magical soap. Yeah, sure, wash real good and they wouldn't know you're not a real woman. She couldn't let herself think too deeply. Boiling water- That was nothing. All those times she got dinner knocked all over her, all those times she'd been splashed and burned, often intentional- No, no, she's not there anymore. It was awful. What a horrible thing to do to someone, but then why did it happen to girls like them- No, Ranko wasn't like her. Ranko didn't know shit- Stop, stop, quiet- Konatsu wraps her mistress in a tight hug because if she doesn't, she's pretty sure she's going to explode. Ukyo buries her nose in her neck, and she tries to tell herself that she's happy-
And there was the jealousy again.
She didn't mean to lie to Ukyo, any more than she ever meant to lie to herself. It was habitual, woven so deeply into the fabric of her labor that she didn't fully know who she was without it anymore. Ukyo said she was more than her work; Konatsu didn't believe her, not really, which was why she let her believe that she hadn't slept on the street for more than a week, why she had spun her whole elaborate lie about her kunoichi training, a fairytale about how womanhood had been forced upon her, like she didn't choose to be this every day of the fucking week- Easy, girl. Kindness was something she can give to Ukyo, she could give her grace, she could give her family. Ukyo didn't need to know that it had been almost two years before she'd found her in that alleyway. She just- She didn't. She couldn't. Konatsu didn't know how she could survive if Ukyo realized-
There were fingers running through her wonderfully silky hair, her shampooed hair, drawing her closer. A gentle and persistent voice was whispering in her ear. Konatsu tried and failed not to make a pathetic noise, and Ukyo drew her closer, so much closer-
"Atta girl," Ukyo murmured, and Konatsu sniffled back tears she hadn't realized were falling.
"I-I'm so sorry. I can go back to cleaning-"
"Natsu." Konatsu shrinks away from the fond admonishment in her mistress' gaze.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize."
"S-Sorry. I-I-I, I mean-"
Ukyo offered her a smile. "You did nothing wrong."
She's been lying again, always lying- "But I did," Konatsu whispered, closing her fingers tight around her wrist.
As gentle as ever, with kindnessthat Konatsu cannot fathom what she did to earn, Ukyo pried her fingers away from her arm and took her hands in her own. Konatsu let out a shaky breath. She knew she was spiraling. She tried her best, but it was so much harderwhen her family wasn't being mean to her anymore. Wasn't that backwards? Shouldn't it be the other way around? It was so awful, she felt betterwhen she was expecting a cruel word or a blow. Ukyo told her that that was how abuse worked, that they made you think you deserved it, wanted it, when really all you wanted was to be free and safe-But Konatsu was both of those things now, she had a home and a job and a warm place to sleep and her mistress and she didn't have to sell her body to strangers anymore so why did she still feel this way?
She had to keep it down. Not the bad feelings, those were unavoidable- The jealousy. What kind of a person was jealous of somebody for getting a kettle of boiling water dumped on their head? And yet. Ranko could have her secrets actively exposed by some rich lady with a vendetta yet keep up the farce all the same? It was the fact that she still got to play girleven when the world decided to unmask her. Konatsu couldn't dunk herself in a hot tub to make her maleness go away, couldn't stop being herself whenever she wanted to; she was stuck like this for the rest of her life, with her stupid penis and her terrible boob job that one of her seedy old Nichome employers paid for in cash when she was seventeen. If someone ripped her clothes off, she didn't get the luxury of a disguise.She couldn't beangry at Ranko- Konatsu had seen what the curse had done to her life, she didn't want a Jusenkyo curse, god no. She- She just wanted to be a woman. A realwoman, not this- this half-thing she was.
They were in the bathroom now- The bathroom? Ukyo held her hand in a vice grip as they brushed their teeth together, and Konatsu blinked at her reflection in the mirror. There was a pretty girl there. She knew that sometimes when they had bad days, they went together to the dark place, but she trusted Ukyo to keep her from floating away- from vanishing into thin air- She was grounded, shehadher, it was safe. Ukyo handed her her sleeping clothes, her touch lingering on her for a moment before leaving her to dress herself. Konatsu didn't think about her body. She didn't like being alone. But she was out in a moment, stepping into the warm light of their bedroom, and Ukyo looked up from their futon and her smile broke wide, like she finally had a moment to breathe after her terrible day, and Konatsu clasped her hands before her chest and smiled back.
"Hey," Ukyo said, and Konatsu giggled.
When she lowered herself down to rest, her mistress was waiting for her. There was an awkward moment where Konatsu hovered over Ukyo, their eyes locked, and some traitorous corner of Konatsu's heart thought they might kiss, but then they started laughing- Lying together- Konatsu didn't need Ukyo to love her back.
While they laid there facing each other, hands clasped beneath the thin blanket, Ukyo searched her face for answers and reassurance that Konatsu didn't know how to provide.
"I'm worried about Ranko," Ukyo whispered, her eyes crinkling.
Konatsu pressed her lips to a tight line, and clasped tight for reassurance. She didn't have the words to make it better. She was warm, so very warm, but the ravenous little thing still lived inside her heart. Ranko will be fine, it whispered – not because it was true, but because it quelled the gnawing, the hollows bereft at the edges of her childish desire.
Akane
"Ah! Tch-t-t-t-t-t, that hurts!"
"I know it hurts, idiot, you dumped boiling water on your head."
"You ain't gotta manhandle me over it!"
"Oh yeah?"
"OW!"
"Don't tempt me!"
"You're supposed to be helping me put this stupid salve on, not burning my skin off, manhands."
"I'm sorry, who now?"
"Ah, hehe, I mean, my fiancee who I love very much?"
Shoving down the familiar anger she felt any time Ranko put her foot in her mouth, Akane slammed the jar of aloe that Tofuu had given them down on the side of the furo and stormed across the room, glaring at Ranko's reflection in the mirror. Topless and sheepish, Ranko offered her a half-cocked smile. Idiot, Akane scowled, but found herself softening all the same. Stupid therapy. She couldn't even be properly mad at her stupid partner anymore. And it was hard for her to justify her vitriol; she knew it was only a coping mechanism, it was so crushingly self-evident that Ranko was holding on by a thread.
Deep breaths, Tendo. Three seconds in. Three seconds out.
"Sorry," Ranma mumbled. She picked up the aloe and fiddled with it in her lap.
Akane sighed. "It's fine. I know you didn't mean anything by it."
"Course not."
"Yeah."
While the worst of the burns had been staved off between the soap and her hair, Ranko's face. shoulders, and breasts were covered in splotchy red irritations. Ranko had nearly lost her composure when attempting to salve them herself. Akane had volunteered to administer the ointment so Tofuu didn't have to. In another world, where maybe they had started dating on their own volition, a kinder world where Akane wouldn't have had to deny her lesbianism for as long as she had, she might have touched her girlfriend's breasts for the first time under more pleasant circumstances. But there was nothing arousing about seeing her fiancee's breasts covered in burns.
Ranko bit her lip and looked down, which made Akane realize she'd been staring.
"Gotta see 'em to believe 'em, right?"
Akane huffed. "I'll compliment your- your all that when you're not in pain, Ranko."
"It ain't that bad."
"By whose standards?"
She didn't get a response, but she didn't expect one either. Ranko closed her eyes and Akane waited for the aloe before continuing. Her skin was soft. Warm to the touch. Akane had always thought of herself as the kind of girl who broke things. She had calloused hands, a rough touch. Nobody expected gentle from a tomboy. But with the furo steam whispering around them, and Ranko soaking her bare feet in the bath, Akane could almost believe that she was starting to get there.
"This is so weird," Ranko said, watching the rippling reflection of her submerged feet.
Akane couldn't disagree.
"I can't hide something like this." Twisting around to face her, Ranko looked at Akane with frightened blue eyes. "If Pops finds out I'm using the soap, he'll take it away from me. Or worse, he'll-"
"He won't do anything."
"He will-"
"I won't let him," Akane said stubbornly as she dabbed at her fiancee's cheek with aloe.
"You ain't gotta promise me things like that. What if I get hit by stray water? What if he decides he wants his son around for a day?"
"It'll be okay-"
"Akane," Ranko twisted her hands together, "He's gonna beat the shit out of me."
Silence steamed through the furo.
For a long time, Akanehad been the most violent member of her household. All those long hours she'd spent in the dojo, kicking her fury through boards and targets, it all seemed to pale in comparison to the Saotome. A memory bobbed to the surface of her mind. It was a year before Ranko had come into her life; Akane had been practicing her roundhouse kicks too close to the sliding screen and hadn't been paying attention, and she had been angry, so damn angry, that she'd nearly gotten her sister straight in the gut. Training pads clattered to the ground. Kasumi had stood in the entryway with wide eyes, one hand over her heart, staring at the foot that had stopped inches away from her body.
Akane hadn't practiced a kata within reach of the screen ever since.
Before the Saotomes had come to Nerima, she would never have imagined striking a family member for any reason other than training. Beating down her jerkhead suitors at school was different. Self-defense. She hadn't asked for their attention. It had taken rude exposure to Genma's atrocious parenting to realize how far her own standards for acceptable violence had fallen. Akane neverwanted to hit Ranma out of malice again. She had nightmares about it sometimes – losing her temper, hurting the one person she had started to love more than anyone else. But she didn't have any trouble believing that Genma held no such sentiments or compunctions when it came to his errant 'son.'
"How will telling him help though?"
"Pops hates surprises," Ranko said in a quiet tone. "He likes feeling like he has a plan and hatesit when I undermine him. If he knows I've 'gone girl' fully, he'll come up with some insane plan to 'cure' me, but at least he won't- he won't hurtme."
"But there's nothing to cure!" Akane cried.
"Of course there is. I'm cursed, don'tcha remember?"
"That's so stupid."
"Of course it is. He's the stupidest panda in Tokyo. But that doesn't change the fact that it's how he thinks." Ranko twisted her lips. "He ain't gonna believe that I want this unless it comes from me. That's how it is. We can't keep this a secret."
They stared off at an impasse in their stubborn contest of wills.
"He's my father," Ranko said.
"He's a terrible father," Akane said.
She smiled and brushed a gentle thumb against her cheek. Akane shivered in rebellion, but there was nothing she could do, not when she got that look in her eyes. Whatever discussion there was to be had, she'd missed the window for it.
"Yeah," Ranko whispered as she leaned in for a kiss. "He is."
Nabiki
A knife's edge – and she couldn't stop sharpening the blade. Nabiki paced anxiously in the hallway, her mind spinning faster than her feet or Kasumi could keep up. Had she ever truly surmounted anything? Or had she been clawing at quicksand, desperate for purchase in an unrelenting world?
"Little sister," Kasumi said from the door to her room.
Nabiki stopped pacing for long enough to glare at Kasumi.
"You don't have to have all of the answers, Nabiki."
"But I do."
Kasumi laughed under her breath, approached her, and reached out to take her trembling hand in her own. When was the last time she'd held her sister's hand? It brought back ancient memories: crossing the busy streets by the bus stop, standing next to a hospital bed. Sunlight through the clouds of a gray morning.
Her vision glittering with resentment, she forced herself still.
"Father will understand," Kasumi said. Nabiki nodded and withdrew to her own space, not trusting herself to speak. Such things were too terrible to say aloud. Her angel of a sister let her go to the door.
They knocked in silence.
"Come in!"
Their father knelt as he so very often did on the cushion before the butsudan, his eyes closed in silent contemplation, a lone stick of incense burning in the holder before the photo of their mother, thin smoke trailing away into the winter air. Nabiki swallowed at the sight, sinking to her knees a few paces away, and Kasumi followed her down to the floor.
Soun glanced at them with a heavy expression.
"Father," Kasumi said. "What can you tell us about Ranma's mother?"
"Nodoka-san?"
"Yes."
It took a few moments for him to put his thoughts together. "Ah, I haven't thought about her for a long time," Soun admitted, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I didn't know her very well, truth be told. We went on a few double dates together before either Saotome-san or I were married, but… Once they were married, Nodoka stopped coming around."
Nabiki frowned, her mind spinning for answers. "Do you know why?"
Soun let out a jovial laugh. "I'm sure that she had her reasons! How am I to know what goes on in a married woman's life?"
Kasumi and Nabiki exchanged a skeptical frown.
"Why do you ask?"
"We wanted to know what happened to her," Kasumi said. "Daddy, do you know why she isn't around anymore?"
"Well, they're separated," Soun said with a shrug. "Saotome doesn't seem to want to talk about it. I assume he has his reasons – my understanding is that it happened over a decade ago."
"But-"
"But what?"
"But she doesn't even know that Ranma is in Tokyo!" Nabiki protested, then kicked herself when Soun's expression grew sharp.
"And how exactly," Soun said, "did you come across that information?"
The whole story sat on the tip of her tongue: about what she could not know. Time collapsed to a point around her; she had no purchase, where could she hold on? What was left to obfuscated? She wasn't a ruthless businesswoman; she wasn't a loan shark, she wasn't a criminal, or at least she didn't want to be; she was just a teenager inover her head. Nabiki didn't know how to climb out of the hole she'd dug for herself. She looked to Kasumi for help, but her older sister just pursed her lips.
Nabiki swallowed. "I-"
But they were interrupted. The door opened abruptly, and Ranko and Akane tumbled inside, each wearing their own flavor of troubled expression. The four girls all stared at each other in confusion as Soun looked between them, first bewildered, then with slow comprehension.
"Is something going on that I don't know about?" Soun asked, rising to his feet and crossing his stern arms across his chest.
"I-" "We-"
Ranko and Nabiki stared at each other.
"Sorry."
"No, you go first."
It took too long for Ranko to put her thoughts together: more than enough time to develop a sharp sense of looming dread. Nabiki pressed back deeper into seiza, digging her fists into the soft of her knees, her back rigid and straight. She would not move. She hadn't lost the game, she couldn'thave, she still had control, she had to-
"I need to come out to Pops." Ranko looked to their father, winding her hands into anxious knots. "I need to tell him that I prefer being a girl."
And that was the moment Nabiki realized it was already too late.
Ranko
There was no bed in the guest room.
She had woken up on the forest floor that fateful night in China; fallen asleep in the cursed springs; woken up on the floor again, halfway across the world. Sometimes in her detached heart of hearts, she wondered what it would have been like if she'd never woken up again. Her life had a before and an after – before the coma, before the curse, before Akane. Was she even the same girl? (of course she wasn't; there had been no girl before). Hunched over in the corner of the room, her father rummaged through his misshapen knapsack, which was haphazardly tossed against the wall, as ready for flight as the night she had awoken; his slovenly hands, he tore through the rubbish, picking through his rags and his stolen treasures; there was no bed in the guest room. Nothing got unpacked in her former life. They were fugitives, they were light on their feet, always airborne, gone with a moment's notice. To sleep on tatami was a luxury, she could only be so lucky. As though a girl like Akane Tendo would have let her share her bed.
Genma was plotting something. Ranko didn't know what, and it filled her guts with sewer rats.
"Excuse me," Ranko said, allowing her knuckles to rap against the elegant screen.
Broken from his hurried preparations, Genma squinted up at her, which quickly turned into a scowl when he saw her evident nervousness. He hid it behind a facade of cheeriness, which unnerved her even more. "So polite for your old man, eh?" he said.
Ranko swallowed and grew even stiffer. "Father…"
How the sparkle lingered. Ever so opportunistic. But light died, and Genma grew stern at the gravity of her presence.
"What is it?" Genma said.
"We need to talk," Ranko murmured, loud enough to deafen the room.
When they entered the washitsu, the atmosphere was stifling. In a rigid row, Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane sat seiza at the kitchen table while Soun sat cross-legged at the head, a terrible conflict frozen in his gaze. Ranko entered the room with Genma trailing behind her, going to Akane's side, where she settled down, her leg trembling uncontrollably. Akane met her eyes and took a deep breath.
Genma paused in the doorway.
"Tendo," he said gruffly. "What is this?"
Swallowing, Soun raised his head and looked past the four girls at his side. "Saotome," he responded. "Please sit down."
With great displeasure, Genma Saotome sat.
All eyes turned to Ranko.
Ranko opened her mouth. She closed it again. She thought about dying, the nothingness that laid between where she had slept as a man and awoken a woman; she thought about the dark place, she found annihilation. But she didn't want that for herself. She didn't want that for her, even if maybe some spiteful piece of her wanted that for him. She didn't want to get beaten in front of her fiancee and her entire family. She didn't want to run away again. She didn't want to leave.
"Well?" he harrumphed, and Ranko was jolted out of her thoughts.
A traitorous tear rolled down her cheek.
Genma sneered.
"Ranko-chan…" Kasumi whispered.
"Ooh," Genma parroted in an obnoxiously high voice. "No, Ranko-chan, don't cry again~"
"I-" Ranko began, only for her voice to crack. "I- I-"
Every time she said watashi, the fury in Genma's expression grew a little darker.
And suddenly there was crystal clarity.
"Why?"
He honed in on her.
"Why did you have me?" she whispered, her voice gradually finding traction as she spoke. "Don't- Don't tell me that line about how you needed an heir, I know you needed an heir. But why did you have me? Why did you have a child if you were just gonna- Kick me around?"
"I trained you in the Art," Genma snapped. "I taught you everything I know."
Ranko shook with anger, or hilarity: "You don't know shit."
"Boy-"
"Don't call me that."
"I'll call you what I like."
"I ain't a boy right now, Pops."
"How dare you disrespect your father like this in front of his oldest friend?"
"I ain't trying to disrespectyou-"
"I gave you everything," Genma said, jamming his meaty fists against the hard of the tableside.
Ranko shook her head, unwilling to give up the point. "Why did you have me?" she asked, her voice breaking on a plea, a prayer. "Was it just ta- ta have a kid around to mould? Was that all you were thinking about with Mother? That you were gonna have me and take me away?"
Genma scoffed. "Your mother."
"Did you even want a child?" Ranko asked, raising her voice. "Or did you just want an heir?"
Akane edged closer to Ranko and Nabiki's expression grow icier, even as Kasumi put a terse hand on her shoulder to keep her silent. Soun closed his eyes in silent pain.
"Shut up before I make you, boy."
"You didn't want me, did you?"
"Is that what you want to hear?" Genma asked cruelly.
Ranko slammed her fist on the table. "Of course it isn't. I'm sitting rightin front of you, Pops! It's not a hard question, it's a dumb question, it's an easy question! Do you wantme?"
"You'd be dead if it weren't for me-"
"Do you want your only child?" Ranko shouted.
The bough broke.
"I don't want a child!" Genma Saotome roared, exploding to his feet with the force of an angered bear. "I want my SON!"
"I'M NOT YOUR SON!"
Tatami underfoot. The kettle rattled underhand. And then she was boiling – boiling again.
Genma stared at her in muted disbelief.
Ranko raised her soaked head, her eyes burning beneath loose strands of damp red hair, her silk shirt clinging to her curves. She looked her father right in the eyes. "I'm your daughter."
Water dripped ineffectually onto the floor, inert. Kasumi's gaze shone with pride. With twitching hand, he slowly backed away from her, his wide eyes taking in her every feature as though seeing her for the first time. Ranko shook but raised her chin. When his back hit the wall of the room, he jumped half out of his sorry skin, and Nabiki let out a humorless laugh.
"The curse…" Genma stammered.
"Yeah, daddy," Ranko mocked, her voice twisting on the word. "The curse."
For a brief moment, there was nothing but fear in Genma's eyes. Then he turned tail and fled down the hall back to his room without further response.
Nabiki sniffed. "Coward."
There wasn't a bed in the guest room. She didn't know how to do algebra, though she was getting better at it. She couldn't look at a cat without flinching. She couldn't get her own father to tell her he wanted her, he didn't want her, he didn't want her. She couldn't hear the ringing; no, she was drowning, sinking, rigid-
He reemerged with his pack on his shoulder, and Ranko's world shattered.
"Genma?" Soun asked in alarm.
Genma glowered at the lot of them, tightening his grip on the strap. "I knew letting you stay here was a mistake," he said. "They made you soft, boy. I should have had you out in the wilderness, teaching you to resist the curse; but I had faith in you." He looked at her, pained. "Ranma. I didn't think-"
"Please don't call me that," Ranko said, pulling her arms tight across her chest.
"You've succumbed to a terrible curse," Genma said. He strode towards her with a monomaniacal fervor, then huffed and made for the door when Ranko flinched back instead. "I won't let you suffer, boy. I won't rest until I've found a cure for you – I swear it."
Ranko stood dumbly as Genma flung the screen door open to the freezing winter air.
"Pops?"
There was snow on the ground.
"Now you be a good girl and wait here for me, okay?" Genma said, giving her a fake smile. "Daddy's gonna make everything better, you just let your Uncle Soun take care of you while I'm away."
"Saotome?" Soun said.
Ice crunched. The cold encroached.
Genma hitched his knapsack and began to trudge off into the December night.
"Saotome!" Soun exclaimed in alarm, rising abruptly to his feet. "Where are you going?"
He looked back over his shoulder.
"China."
That was enough to knock her out of her stupor. Fighting her way out of Akane's ironclad embrace (which she didn't remember entering), Ranko raced to the edge of the room and stopped just short of the snow, clutching to the edge of the screen. "Pops?" she called desperately.
Genma looked her in the eyes with the coldest expression he'd ever given her. "Alone."
He turned.
His feet left heavy tracks in the snow.
"Pops!" Ranko yelled.
It wasn't enough, not that enough had ever been on the table in the first place. It surely wasn't enough to stop him.
"You can't-!" She glanced back at the Tendo family, seeing them all frozen in place by the horror show unfolding before them, and realized nobody was going to help her; she ran out into the snow with her bare feet. How strange it felt to have burns to the opposite degrees. "Pops! Dad! Where are you going?!"
Genma kept walking.
"You can't just leave me here!" Ranko said hysterically. "I'm still me!"
Her feet grazed the ice. She flew to him; her father.
Violent fingers caught her wrist.
Ranko gasped in quiet pain as Genma loomed over her, his darkened visage a silent ultimatum. He released her and she stumbled away.
"I have no daughter," Genma said.
Then he was gone.
Akane
She stood alone in the snow, staring at the vacant gate. Her fists were clenched red, her braid in disarray, an unruly tumble over her shoulder. Ranko began to cry in the middle of the garden as the Tendos watched in stupefied silence, suspended in the surreality of the moment; shadows lurked beneath the frozen surface of the koi pond, and for a fleeting moment, one agonizing, horrible moment, all Akane could think was how Ranko looked even more beautiful when distraught.
Then she turned toward them, and the fantasia broke.
Kasumi took a tentative step into the snow. "Little sister…"
Ranko flinched away.
Then she swiped at her eyes, turned on her heels, and leaped away into the frozen night, leaving the Tendo Dojo behind her. "Ranko!" Akane cried, but a hand caught hers before she could follow in pursuit.
Nabiki shook her head, eyes tight.
"But-"
"Let her go," Nabiki said as she tugged Akane back toward the house. Her expression was so soft, and nothing could have left a bigger pit of terror in her stomach; Akane struggled but Nabiki's grip was firm. Then Kasumi was there too, and both of them were hugging her, and her brain shut down completely. Ranko hadn't come to her for comfort. All she'd done was stand there like a total idiot. God, why hadn't she done something?
Why did she stand there and watch?
Soun still stared at the place where Genma had been, silent tears streaming down his face.
"I don't understand," he said, loud enough for his daughters to hear.
"Daddy…" Kasumi said.
Soun shook his head. "I just don't understand at all."
Nodoka
Icicles weighed the yew. Long shadows, holiday lights; the new shrine was illuminated, the old one slept in shadows, awaiting the shimmering new year. She walked with her hands folded in the sleeves of her jackets. Alone with her thoughts, again; alone with her mistakes, again; alone on a quiet night, and there was something meditative about it, being one with the world when everyone else was at home with their families, but she didn't have a family to go home to, only distant friends, only acquaintances, contented housewifes, nursing mothers, or Shinjuku ingenues to satisfy her mournful curiosity. But most of the time she was alone, and in the quiet moments, when there was aught but her thoughts to accompany her drift through life, she could almost tell herself that she preferred it that way.
Nodoka walked with herself; she walked with her son who had never gotten to be a daughter; she walked through the winding park paths, uncaring of whether some ne'erdowell should come out and rob her, they could have her money; she walked with the cold. She walked until she didn't know where to walk anymore, and then she kept walking.
Until, suddenly, she was alone in the dark no longer.
They weren't sobs, really. More terrible wails, a grief without respite. She hurried toward the sound; if there was anything left of her, it was her part that was a mother.
Nodoka found Ranko on the bench in the park.
Oh, the poor girl.
Ranko took one look at her then started crying harder. Nodoka rushed to her side and pulled her into a tight hug, some little selfish piece of her heart gratified when the girl clung to her, melting into her side like a kitten searching for warmth. Almost instinctively, Nodoka settled her fingers into Ranko's hair and began to gently soothe her.
"What happened?" Nodoka asked.
"H-h-h-he left. He leftme!" Ranko sobbed, shivering from the cold. "He left me to go to China!"
"Oh…"
"He d-d-d-doesn't want me anymore!"
Her teeth were chattering, and she wasn't wearing a coat. Or shoes. Dear heavens, what had happenedto the girl tonight? Nodoka slung off her own coat without a second thought, wrapping it around Ranko's shoulders, and tangled their ankles together.
"Your uncle?"
"My father-!"
"Oh…" Nodoka whispered, even as her brow furrowed in confusion. Wasn't Ranko's father already inChina? Wasn't Ranko fromChina?
She could have sworn…
"I can't go back," Ranko said. "I can't, I can't-"
In that moment, Nodoka Saotome made a decision. "I have a guest room," she found herself saying, even as the questions compounded in her head. She had stewed over Ranko's reactions during their last conversation for weeks. Something didn't make sense. "You can stay the night. I refuse to let a young woman sleep on a park bench when it's below freezing."
The offer only seemed to make her cry harder.
"Please, Ranko-chan," Nodoka insisted, rising to her feet and pulling the crying girl after her. Ranko stared at her with scared eyes, and she reached out to brush a tear away. "Let me take care of you. You don't have to be alone right now."
It seemed for a terrifying instant that the girl in her arms might reject her offer, just as she had rejected her weeks earlier. In truth, Nodoka didn't know what she would have done with the pieces of her heart if Ranko had shattered them again.
But she didn't.
Hesitantly, Ranko Saotome whispered to her mother, "Okay."
END OF PART TWO
[A/N] Y'know, the biggest irony of this chapter is that I correctly predicted in 2020 that I would finish Part Two in 2024. I just didn't realize that there would also be a part three afterward lmao. This one took a lot of chiseling and wading through writer's block, and I'm very happy that it's finally done. Kinda in disbelief about it, really. I've been picturing some of these scenes since 2018. It's been a long time coming.
Thank you so much to classicalgal, Beedok, JaquiK, MarisaReset, BestialMoon, SamuelJamuel, InaNewmoon, deadCartes, Katt1848, WitchofPumpkins, Tempace, FullOfNuns, ssfr, ScrapTonic, Lukkai, Cromalin20, DisgruntledSquiggle, QueenHails1773, TitaniumGavel, Shiagur, Xo, Mythic_Robin, Caimano, Lady_Rheia, Stella_Z, Sagacious_Noble, Danielle Featherby, Feena, Randalmize, pho3nilia, GuyIncognito, wtrClover, shadow, Mizuno Tenshi2, and merendinoemiliano for reviewing the last chapter. You guys seriously turned out in the comments! (and the general excitement for Nodoka's trans friend has not gone unobserved lol). Extra special thanks goes to NobleHeroine, Korra, and Sevillana (en_passant) for their fantastic feedback and beta help, this chapter wouldn't have been what it was without you.
After climbing the mountain of this plot arc for literal years, I'm so excited to finally be at the summit and staring down at what's on the other side. I hope you guys are excited for the third and final act of this story as I am.
Let me know what you thought!
Cheers, Allie