Well, I started this with the intention of it being my entry into the
one hour challenge that's been going around, but I ended up getting
distracted partway through, and returning only to lose track of time, and
ended up writing for a bit more than an hour.  It's still roughly within
the spirit of things, though, I hope.  C&C is quite appreciated - not only
is this pretty much a rough draft, but it's the first full fanfic I've put
out.  I haven't decided if I'm going to do anything more with this, though
it's within the same continuity as another story I've been working on for
quite some time.  Any suggestions are welcome.

-----

     Wind whipped across the vacant lot, tugging at the hair and clothes
of the two black-clad female figures facing each other.  They regarded
each other coolly - one, twirling a ribbon, the other, toying with a
shuriken - sizing each other up from a casual position.
     "I bear you no malice," the one with the ribbon mentioned
offhandedly, as thunder rumbled in the distance.  "However, I do intend to
see my Ranma-sama, and for some reason you seem intent on presenting me
with an obstacle.  Persist in this regard and I will have no choice but to
resort to violence."
     The other woman shrugged.  "I don't really want to hurt you, either.
But Ukyou-sama said she didn't want you coming between her and her
'Ranchan,' especially right now.  She seems so happy right now, and I
think you'd really ruin the mood, so I took it upon myself to intervene on
her behalf."  She sighed.  "I sort of wish making Ukyou-sama happy didn't
mean aiding my greatest rival... but in any case, if you want to get to
Ranma, you're going to have to go through me, first."
     "So it would seem we have little choice but to do battle.  Very
well."  The ribbon began swirling faster, ready to strike at a moment's
notice.  "I, Kunou Kodachi, the Black Rose of St. Hebereke's School for
Girls, shall fight to the fullest, then, and may the victory go to the
most worthy."
     The other girl nodded, dropping into a fighting stance.  "Right.
Then..."  She hesitated.  Something was nagging at her memory.  There was
something familiar about this 'Black Rose's' battle stance... and that
name... Kunou...
     Wait.  Wait.  "Kunou Kodachi?  Of the Kagemori school of Ninjutsu?"
     Kodachi blinked, caught off-guard by this.  The spin and twirl of the
ribbon faltered.  "Why, yes.  How..."
     "Daughter of Kagemori Hasaki, who was forced from a position of
respect within her clan when she married into a line of samurai who had
long been rivals of the Kagemori?"  She drew in a shaky breath.  "And
who... who I believe died ten years past, after a fight with a terrible
illness?"
     Kodachi's mouth went dry.  How did this girl know all this about her?
About her style... her mother... everything... 
     The pale look on Kodachi's face was answer enough for the other girl.
She abruptly dropped to her knees, averting her eyes ashamedly.
"Kunou-sama, I fear my clan has done a great disservice to yours, and my
family specifically to your family."  She pulled a scroll from the folds
of her shirt.  "I, Kenzan Konatsu of the O-Iroke Kissaten school of
Ninjitsu, bear you a message I should have borne ten years ago.  Had it
not been for my weak will and the cruelty of my step-mother... your mother
might be alive today."
 
     Kodachi gently stirred the tea powder with a whisk.  She and Konatsu
had retired to the Kunou manor - a storm had broken out outside, and in
any case a vacant lot was no place to talk on matters like this - and as
such, Kodachi felt compelled to be be a good hostess.  She had loaned
Konatsu one of her dress kimonos to replace her rain-soaked garb, and now
the two were prepared to resume discussion over tea.
     Konatsu slid a scroll across the low table as Kodachi placed the bowl
of tea in front of her.  Konatsu bowed to her and delicately took a sip.
"This is quite good.  A pleasant blend of green tea and the traditional
herbs, with something slightly unusual added... a touch of belladonna, I
think?"
     Kodachi smiled.  "You have unusually discerning taste, Kenzan-san.
Not many would notice the belladonna - at least, not without it being
present in sufficient quantities to provoke a rather unpleasant response."
She took a sip of the tea.  "I find it quite a refreshing taste, myself,
but then I have built up a tolerance for it."
     Konatsu nodded.  "The Kagemori are known well for their creative use
of poisons and potions.  I haven't had quite as much of a need to build up
a resistance to toxins, but even so, it never hurts to protect oneself
against the more common strains..."
     "Indeed."  Kodachi nodded politely.  "Sadly, some of the greatest
formulae of our school were lost when my mother... succumbed to her
illness.  She was the true master, a genius of her time... I hardly had
time to learn from her.  There is so much more I wish she could have
taught me."
     Konatsu nodded sadly.  "Which brings me, I fear, to what I mentioned
earlier.  I didn't even know her, and in some regards I suppose I was too
young to be held responsible - but I can't help blaming myself."
     "Oh, come now.  If you had never even met Mother, I would hardly say
you could be considered blameful in the matter of her death.  What exactly
makes you consider yourself pivotal to the matter?"
     "There are two parts to the answer to that.  The first is in that
scroll."  She gestured to the simple scroll bound in ribbon sitting on the
table.  Kodachi, curiously, picked it up, and, at a nod from Konatsu,
opened it.
     The look on Kodachi's face as she scanned it was unreadable.
"Very... interesting.  However, I fail to see what relevance it has to my
mother's illness."
     Konatsu blinked.  "What?  But isn't...?"
     "If I may quote from the beginning: 'I love you, I love you
Ukyou-sama, I know it's forbidden but my heart won't stop...'
Inspirational, in its own way, but hardly topical."
     "Erk!"  Konatsu snatched the scroll back, blushing furiously.  "Not
*that* scroll!"  She tucked it back into her shirt embarassedly, and
pulled out another scroll, quite similar but older.
     Kodachi smiled amusedly as she took the second scroll.  "You don't
have to be so embarassed, Kenzan-san.  While I can't for the life of me
see the appeal - it *is* the okonomiyaki chef you mean, is it not? - I
hardly think love is something you should have to be ashamed of."
     "Well... it's a lot more complex and embarassing than it would seem
at first.  I wish it were otherwise, but...  Anyway."  Konatsu looked
away, slightly embarassed.  "That scroll ought to explain things a bit
more clearly."
     Kodachi unrolled the scroll and began reading.  This scroll was a
patchwork of pieces - torn to shreds, then lovingly taped back together
again.  And the script was written in a rather familiar hand.  "'To the
allies of the Kagemori Clan and of Mistress Hasaki:  I, Sarugakure Sasuke,
send this entreaty on behalf of my sensei and friend, Kunou Hasaki, to all
those she has met and befriended, and who might aid her in this time of
crisis.  Of late, Mistress Hasaki has fallen gravely ill.  The doctors
have declared her illness a strain of tuberculosis, one that they have
discovered too late to cure.  She is dying, and will not last out the
month, perhaps not even the next few days.  I send this in the desperate
hope that some exotic cure might not be beyond your knowledge.  Her
family... needs her...'"  Kodachi's voice trailed off, her face ashen.
     "It goes on for a bit, talking about your family and the like,."
Konatsu still didn't dare meet Kodachi's gaze.  "My father had met your
mother on some exotic adventure - I never learned the details.  But my
mother had recently died, and Father had remarried a rather unpleasant
woman.  A monster, in some regards.  When my step-mother recieved the
letter, she read it, laughed, and tore it up.  She never let my father see
it.  I pieced it back together, but never showed it to Father, for fear of
my step-mother's wrath."
     Kodachi bowed her head.  "I feel for you, Kenzan-san.  To lose a
parent is a horrible thing - but to have a parent replaced by such a beast
is far worse.  My father..."  She hesitated.  It wouldn't exactly be
polite to lay out the details of the Kunou family rivalries to a stranger.
But then, Konatsu was doing much the same.  Perhaps it would be
acceptable.  "My father was never quite the same after Mother died.
Everything reminded him of what he had lost - our house, our habits, even
our haircuts.  He alternated between despairing over his fate, trying
vainly to alter all he touched, or simply running away from everything.
Life became... difficult, for a time.  In truth, it was a relief when he
left.  We have not precisely been a harmonious household since Mother
died."
     This only served to make Konatsu look more flushed and upset.  She
removed a small ceramic pot from her shirt - the kind used for storing tea
powder.  "This... this is the second part of my guilt.  It is a special
formula passed down from generation to generation of the O-Iroke Kissaten
school - one of our most treasured secrets.  Mixed into a tea, it has
powerful curative properties, able to heal most illnesses and poisons -
including, I am almost certain, tuberculosis."  She drew in a long breath.
"If I had only showed the letter to my father, or snuck out with the
formula under cover of darkness and sought your mother out..."
     Kodachi simply stared at the vial for a long moment.  As simple as
that.  One little obstruction, one woman who felt nothing for her mother's
plight, and a life had been lost.  More than that, four lives had been
lost.  Her mother was dead.  And Tatewaki, Father, and even Kodachi
herself had been sent into an abyss of despair which, even now, they had
not fully escaped from.  They could barely be called the same people they
would have been if Mother had lived.  Life had been agony after she died.
It had been a wonder Kodachi stayed sane.
     And now Konatsu appeared with a way Mother might have lived, and such
guilt over not having been able to use it.  She *cared* about Mother.  Not
even Mother's clan had done as much - Sasuke was the only one who had
maintained any sort of contact with the family, though Mother's saving his
life had much to do with that.  Outside of the family and Sasuke, it was
as if nobody had cared that she was dead.  Except for this one girl, who
had borne such guilt for so long...
     Konatsu trailed into silence as she saw Kodachi lost in thought.  She
would hardly blame the girl for hating her after this.  It was the story
of Konatsu's life - if only she'd been a little better, a little stronger
of will, a bit less disappointing to the people around her, she could have
made so much of a difference.  She hadn't saved Mother, or Father when it
came down to it.  She hadn't been born a real girl, though she'd been
raised as one, leaving her only a half-qualified heir to the school.  She
was losing the war for Ukyou-sama's heart, and she could see how hard it
was going to be on her when Ranma finally left her for good.  Now she had
barely met Kodachi, and already Konatsu knew she'd ruined Kodachi's life.
There was such sadness hidden inside Kodachi - sadness and untapped
potential.  Something inside her had died when her mother did.  Something
she'd never yet been able to replace, no matter how energetically she
chased it.
     And, in Konatsu's eyes, it was all her fault.
     The rain poured outside, as two girls sat silent, lost in thought,
for a very long time.

--
Scott Johnson |
zagyg@io.com  |           This space intentionally left blank.