[Ranma][FanFic] Grieving and Letting Go

[Witch Baby]

Ranma 1/2 characters and situations are the property of Rumiko
Takahashi and licensees. They are used in this story without
permission.

yeah yeah. this takes place just after the end of the manga

In a perfect world, this *bleh* would be in italics.
You can pretend, now can't you?

NO FLAMES

'nuff said. Constructive criticism/comments welcome.

Clarity Two
"Grieving and letting go"

Allison Lynn Barrett

barr...@ucsu.colorado.edu
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Dojo/2571/ranma.htm

7/ 2/ 1998

_________________________________

It was a quiet evening. Ukyo had been crying all night the previous three
nights as she had once again remembered Ranma and Akane's wedding. She had
cried because Ranma had been willing to marry Akane Tendo. She had cried
because she had been so desperate to stop them she had teamed up with Shampoo.
She had cried because she had been so angry that she had thrown bombs, thrown
bombs at the guests at Ranma's wedding and thought she was doing the right
thing. Mostly though, she was crying because she realized that Ranma didn't
want her. Even if he had, even if she had possessed even the slightest chance
before, it had been extinguished by her participation in the destruction of the
wedding. After she had thrown the bright flashes of fire and light at the
alter, she had seen the angry look on Ranma's face. She could have killed his
mother or father (well, not his father, nothing could kill that bastard), she
could have killed the family who had taken him in. So, every night for the past
three nights, Ukyo had cried herself to sleep in bitterness and shame, knowing
that her chance was gone, if it had ever existed in the first place, and that
its passing was all her fault.

Tonight, however, she hadn't closed the okonomiyaki restaurant early to go
upstairs and cry herself sick. She had forced herself to watch all the people,
mostly couples walking back from the nearby movie theater, order and eat and
talk and laugh. She tried to block out the painful events of the week, tried
not to think about her grievous mistake. Instead, she thought about
okonomiyaki. She cooked better than she had ever cooked in her life. Ukyo
Kuonji was barely even conscious, the part of her for whom cooking was a way
of life, the earliest, the most secure way she knew, had taken over. The
customers complimented her often. Her restaurant was pretty full until it was
almost closing time, at which point Ukyo saw a familiar form outside of her
shop window.

"Ranma!" She called out excitedly, "Ranma!"

"Huh?" He said, obviously confused. "Ucchan? Hey!" He smiled one of his
glorious smiles at her, and walked in the restaurant.

"Ranma-honey!." Ukyo said. "You look tired and hungry. Would you one of
my special okonomiyakis? It's on the house," Ukyo added with a wink. She was
feeling generous, considering the number of okonomiyaki she had sold just that
night.

"Yes... Please," He said, "I 'd love one."

Ukyo flipped her sign from open, to closed as Ranma walked in the door. She
let Ranma have a seat at the bar, while she hummed to herself and threw herself
into the okonomiyaki. She knew, when it was finished, that this would be a
masterpiece, the most incredible okonomiyaki made in years, perhaps since the
invention of the okonomiyaki. She also knew that Ranma would probably eat it
too fast to even care, but she wasn't making it for him. Tonight when she
cooked, Ukyo cooked for herself. As soon as she had been able to sit up, she
had watched her father cook the okonomiyaki at his cart, and as soon as she had
been able to hold a spatula in her chubby, little hands, she had helped.

"Here you go, hon. Fresh off the griddle. "Be careful its ho.." But she
realized that those last few words were pointless, since the okonomiyaki was
already gone.

"Mmmm.. good." Ranma said. Or, at least, that's what she thought Ranma
said. His mouth was so full that his diction wasn't terribly clear.

"Ummm.... thanks."

Ukyo looked at Ranma's in surprise. He wasn't mad at her, he really wasn't
mad. Maybe he didn't mind her ruining the wedding. He had been marrying that
violent tomboy, after all. Why would he want to marry someone who was so mean
to him, someone who bashed him with excessively large mallets with great
abandon and great frequency? He wouldn't want to marry her, someone who he
didn't find attractive, someone so mean spirited and angry. The girl probably
couldn't make tea without totally ruining it. And even though she couldn't
even palate her own cooking, she constantly forced it on others. And Ranma
didn't even seem to like her. They were such a bad couple that they had made
it out of those haunted caves without any impediment...

Get real, Ukyo, she scolded herself. He was walking down the isle for her.
You *know* he loves her. You knew it then and you still proceeded in almost
killing his family. Its time to apologize.

"Ummm.... Ranchan... I... I..." She gulped. Just say it jackass! "I need
to ta.. talk to you about... about... about your wedding."

"That disaster? Really, me and Akane are just trying to forget it."

Ukyo tried to be rational, but it was so hard. How could she finish this if
just hearing Ranma say, "me and Akane" felt like a thousand tiny daggers doing
a dance in her stomach?

"Ranma, I... Ranma, I... I know." She finished lamely. She looked up
to see Ranma staring at her with, to her chagrin, a look of utter, stupid,
incomprehension.

"What? Huh?"

"You Jackass!" She screamed. "I know it! I've known it for a long time.
I know you love Akane and I know you want to marry her." She wondered to
herself that she'd been able to get that out. Perhaps Akane was on to
something, Ranma was a lot easier to scream at than talk to.

"I... I..." Ranma was a bright scarlet. He was gasping for air like a
freshly caught fish, drowning in the air.

Ukyo felt herself crumble. She started to cry. =

"Ranma, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your wedding.
I just got the invitation, then Shampoo showed up, and when I got there she
was so angry and I was so hurt and so angry because I love you so much and..."
at that point, Ukyo had to stop. She was crying so hard she she could barely
breathe. The words just wouldn't come. Her whole body shook with as she made
an effort to control the heavy sobs. She fell to the floor. She held her
knees and just rocked for a time.

Ranma, for his part, seemed to be in shock for the first few moments.
Then, he just didn't know what to say. He sat there, and watched her rock
back and forth, then hesitantly walked over to her. He put a hand on her
shoulder.

"Ucchan. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

Ukyo looked up at Ranma, he seemed on the brink of crying. She had never
seen him so upset.

"Why did you have to be so goddamned superior?" She asked, her voice flat
and bitter. "You beat my technique, you won my heart... All I wanted was to
get my revenge. You stole our cart, you took away my father, and you made me
the laughingstock among all the girls in the district. Why did you keep
calling me cute? You knew I liked you, you had to. Why did you keep doing
this to me, Ranma?"

Ranma looked at her. Each time she spoke, it pierced him like a knife but
she continued on, in that dead voice.

"Ucchan?"

"Damnit Ranma, why do you keep calling me that? That was the nickname by
which only my family called me, and you. You were supposed to be a part of our
family, but... So... Please, please don't... Just..." she sniffled, "just go.
Please, go now." She watched as he looked at her with great concern, then,
slowly walked out the door.

She cried in earnest then. She lay on the floor and cried and kept crying.
She had done it before, done it for three nights past. Her whole body shook
with each sob, like it was ripping through her, like it was tearing open her
throat and stomach and gouging through her whole body. It hurt. Crying was
like throwing up it was meant to get something out of your system. This time,
Ukyo felt empty. Each sob seemed to bring up more and more of the emptiness
that she had felt consume her over the past few days.

It stopped. It was something her body could no longer sustain. She stood
up and locked the doors to her restaurant. She walked upstairs, undressed, and
slipped into the bath. She wondered how emptiness could feel so heavy and
oppressive.

Perhaps, she thought to herself, perhaps I'll simply never love again.

She walked into her spare room and opened the closet door. There it was,
as it had been for all these years, her father's gi. She buried her face in it.

*Daddy,* she thought to herself, *Daddy, why did you have to die on me? In
the days before they stole our cart you were so happy, so alive...*

She looked at her picture of her father and her mother. Sniffling, she
held it close to her.

*I lost you both. You left me alone. You left me alone in this world where
nobody cares about me. Daddy, why did you have that heart attack? You were
only thirty, still young. Who would have thought you'd simply wither away and
die in that hospital room?*

She remembered the way her father had tried to keep her spirits up while
they were in the hospital. He kept telling her not to worry, every day for
a year he tried to keep her from worrying.

She felt the tears on her cheeks. *Why? Why did you have to chase after
the Saotomes and our cart. If you hadn't over-stressed yourself. If you had
just let the cart go... But then, hadn't Ukyo gone out and done the same thing
as soon as she could?*

She didn't know what to do. The Saotomes had taken away everything from
her...

No. That wasn't it. She had let the Saotomes take away everything from
her...

She knew what she had to do. She sighed and carefully placed the picture
of her smiling parents, so much in love, back on the night stand that had been
her father's. She looked at her bank book and added up some sums. *I think I
have enough to do it,* She thought to herself. She then packed a bag with a
few important items, lay down in her bed, and tried to go to sleep.

*****

Ukyo had taken the train from downtown Tokyo to Kyoto at six in the morning.
She had stared out the window, watching the world go by in a blur, until she
had arrived in Kyoto. She had then taken a train out to lake Otsu, and had
wondered around in the area near lake Biwa, where her father had liked to park
his okonomiyaki cart.

Ukyo sighed. It was nice to see lake Biwa again, it was so beautiful. Her
parents had met on the lake shore. Her mother had been taking koto lessons,
and had decided that nothing could be more classical and romantic than to dress
up in a beautiful, old kimono and play an old koto ballad on the shores of lake
Biwa. Her father had been wandering around the lake when her heard the
beautiful music and had happened on her mother. When he had first seen her,
he thought she must be from the spirit world, she was so ethereal and
beautiful. He had sighed and startled her.

*"What the hell are you doing watching me, you pervert?"* she had yelled.
She had then kicked him into the lake, muttering, *"What a jackass."*

Whenever Ukyo's father had told the story to her, he had always broken off
then and sighed.

*"That, my little Ucchan, was one of the happiest moment of my life."*

At that point Ukyo had always asked him why. "Because I knew that no spirit
or ghost from the classical period would have yelled at me the way she did, so
that beautiful creature had to be real."* He would always respond with a
mischievous grin.

Ukyo found herself echoing her father's grin. She had so many wonderful
memories of sitting with him at the okonomiyaki cart, waiting to sell
okonomiyaki to the tourists. She walked around the shores of the lake lost
in thought. She found her thoughts wandering to the time spent with Ranma and
Genma, but forced herself away from those memories. Those memories only
brought pain.

*****

It was just afternoon when Ukyo got to the temple. She had briefly stopped
by the apartment building where they had stayed before her father's heart
attack, then had gone to her father's favorite restaurant for lunch. In the
bathroom, she had changed from her everyday clothes to a dress she had bought
specifically for this occasion at a shop in Kyoto. She looked around the
temple. The wood floors were so well polished they almost glowed. It was very
peaceful. She sat in front of the statue of Buddha and meditated for a time.
After that, she prayed to Amida, then went in search of one of the monks. She
found one outside watering the flowers.

"Excuse me, sir..."

"May I help you?" The man asked. Ukyo couldn't help but smile. His face
was so full of wisdom and compassion that it was like looking into the face of
a bodhisattva.

"Please... Would you please tell me where Teinosuke Kuonji is buried?"

"Of course." The man said, with a smile warmer than the sun.

They walked in silence through the grounds until the monk showed her to a
small marker. All it had on it were the characters of her father's name and
the dates of his birth and death. Ukyo looked at and blinked away her tears.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you been here long?"

"Yes, child, I have been here for almost sixty years now."

"Were you here for this man's funeral?"

"Yes, I was. There were a few friends and family. He was not an old man
when he died, it was a very sad occasion. His little girl had run away right
after he died."

"I... I see." Ukyo said dropping to her knees in front of the marker.
"Could you please leave me alone for a little while?"

The monk nodded and left silently. Ukyo touched the marker with her
hands. It felt so cold. It did not stand out. It was just like the others
around it. She was glad she had asked for help. She would've never found it
on her own.

"Daddy," Ukyo said, with tears in her eyes, "Daddy, I'm so sorry I ran
away before I could go to your funeral. I was afraid I would have to stay with
Aunt Sei, or with grandmother, and then I'd never get a chance to avenge you."

There was a pause, then Ukyo spoke again.

"Daddy, I'm so sorry. I should have stayed. I didn't need revenge as
much as I thought I did. Its just... I couldn't stand loosing you. We lost
our business and it was so hard. But I didn't know the meaning of hard until
I lost you...

"I trained as a martial artist... I fought Genma, who blamed it all on
Ranma then... fought Ranma and fell in love with him. I thought maybe if I
married him things would be all right. I thought... I thought I would restore
the honor that the Saotomes had taken from us, but in the end, all I ever did
for him was dishonor myself.

"He loves another girl Daddy. He loves the girl his father engaged him
to at his birth. At first I thought he didn't, but now I realize that he
always did. I kept deceiving myself, hoping that if maybe... just maybe I
did the right thing, he would realize how much happier he would be with me.

"If you had been here, you would have told me to give up a long time ago.
You were always good at reading peoples hearts, except, I suppose, Genma
Saotome's..."

Again Ukyo paused. When she spoke again, it was in a small voice.

"Why Daddy? Why did you chase him so hard? You had never been that
healthy. You had to know what a strain it was putting on you, with that
heart condition. Why did you waste your life chasing the Saotomes? Was it
the okonomiyaki cart? It was a huge financial loss, but we could have made
the money back. Was it because of how much it hurt me? Is that why you killed
yourself, chasing all over Japan looking for the Saotomes? So I could have an
apology? I didn't need it as much as I needed you..."

Ukyo cried, then. She rested her face against the marker and let the
tears fall down it. The sky stayed a magnificent blue, marred only by an
occasional white, fluffy cloud floating by. She slowly stopped sobbing and
looked up at the small, granite marker.

"Daddy, I have a restaurant. Remember how we used to cook okonomiyaki
together? When I left, I worked for years to become a martial artist
okonomiyaki cook. My restaurant is called Ucchan's. Everyone thinks its
because that's what Ranma called me, but its because that's what you used
to call me, Daddy. Its just like you always said you wanted your restaurant
to be. The only difference is when I cook okonomiyaki, I cook it alone...

"I love you, Daddy. I had to come. I just needed," Ukyo stopped and choked
down a sob, "I just never got to say good bye. Good bye Daddy. I love you.
I still think of you."

Ukyo started crying. She just sat there on the ground in front of her
father's grave and cried. She wished there had been space for him to be
buried next to her mother...

When the crying stopped, Ukyo just sat for a while and looked at the sky.
She would go back to Nerima, but things would change. She wanted her dowry
back from the Saotomes. Maybe she and Ranma could be friends, if he had the
sense to give it a little time. She could forgive Akane. She would tell
Konatsu, once and for all, that she did not love him. Maybe she would help
Ranma and Akane defeat Shampoo. Maybe not. She could do whatever she wanted.
She would wear dresses whenever she felt like it, pants whenever she didn't.
Maybe she would let one of those boys who always asked her out when she wore
a dress take her out. Maybe not. All that mattered was that she got her dowry
back. That was the last hold the Saotomes had over her.

She heard someone crashing around in the nearby bushes. Embarrassed, she
brushed herself off and stood up. To her surprise, Ryoga stepped out. He
didn't seem to notice her. He just looked at the scenery and cried out,
"Where the blazes am I now?"

"Ummm... Ryoga?" Ukyo called out timidly.

"Ukyo? This doesn't look like Nerima."

Ukyo gave him a cold look.

"That's because it *isn't* you jackass."

"Then..." He said, looking confused, "where are we?"

"You're on the grounds of a temple in Otsu."

"Why are you in Ostu?" Ryoga asked.

"Why are you in Otsu?" Ukyo responded, a little annoyed.

"Ummmmm..... Well... You see... I was looking for Nerima, and...
I got a little lost."

"Why are you looking for Nerima? I thought you had decided to spend
the rest of you life with the pig-girl."

"Her name is Akari." Ryoga said quietly.

"Whatever. Anyway, why are you looking for Nerima?"

Ryoga looked down. She could tell she had made him uncomfortable. She
sighed. It wasn't Ryoga's fault he had startled her out of her thoughts, nor
was it his fault he had found her in Ostu. He certainly wasn't looking for her.

"I'm sorry, Ryoga. Come on, I'll take you out to dinner to apologize."

"Thank you, Ukyo. But I'd really better start looking for Nerima. There's
no knowing when I'll get there anyway."

Ukyo was embarrassed at her rudness, and having her apology rebuffed made
her feel even worse. He looked bad, even for Ryoga. Something had obviously
happened between him and his little, piggy sweetheart, and she, in her lack
of compassion, had obviously made him hurt more.

"Look, I'm taking the trains back to Tokyo tonight. Would you like me to
buy you a ticket and take you with me?" She asked.

Ryoga looked at her in wonder.

"Do you really mean that?" He asked, hopefully.

"Sure." Said Ukyo, sighing internally as she saw yen notes fly away.

"Thank you!" Ryoga said, enthusiastically.

*Well,* thought Ukyo, *at least that cheered him up.*

"Come on, Ryoga. Lets go to the station. After that, I want to see the
sunset over lake Biwa once more before I leave." Ukyo said, and took Ryoga
by the wrist.