honor that I wouldn’t attempt suicide, and even then someone was always with me. My initial bout of weeping had left me in a stupor as the reality of what happened tried to register in my brain. Mute and unfeeling, I roamed the back of the Nekohanten restlessly, like some unquiet ghost searching for something long vanished. I did not speak. I barely ate or drank. I’d sleep, but only in short fitful naps, for nightmares that, thankfully, I could never remember would haunt it. How long I was like this, I don’t quite know. It lasted at least as long as my rage. But I remember quite clearly the day I finally spoke; for that was the day I began to die.




I was in the shower. I think I’d been it there for a half-hour, with the water on so hot that it should of burned the skin off of me. I heard a voice calling me, and I turned to see Mousse looking at me.




“Ranma, please come out. You’re going to hurt yourself.” I nodded, and shut off the water. I stepped out and took a towel, muttering as I rubbed myself dry. I saw Mousse cock his head, trying to catch what I said.




“Unclean. No matter how much I wash, how much I scrub, I’ll always be unclean…”




Mousse winced, looking at me in sorrow and sympathy. “I’ll be in the hallway if you need anything, okay Ranma?” I don’t acknowledge him, and he left with a sigh. I finished drying and just stood in the middle of the washroom, dumb and unfeeling. I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs, and released, then looked about stupidly, stopping when I saw my image in a mirror. I approached it slowly, almost warily, as I stared at the stranger the reflection showed. It was me, yet not me. Even at my sickest I never had looked so pale. My hair was unbound, dangling wet and lifeless about my shoulders. Heavy bags puffed out from beneath my eyes. And my eyes… My eyes were the eyes of a corpse: glazed, lusterless, little more than two sunken, unmoving stones set deep into my skull. I shut them. I couldn’t look at them anymore; it made me almost physically ill to do so.




I bowed my head and leaned forward, resting it against the cold, slick mirror, my hands planted to both sides of it to support me. I feel my shoulders begin to shake. Just as my insanity and grief could not reign over me forever, the walls I had built to protect my dying heart and soul from this reality could no longer endure. Despite my efforts they crumbled and eroded like sandcastles lashed by the tide. They were destroyed utterly, not even foundations remaining, and I was left naked, exposed to the pain and the truth…




I had been betrayed… again. I have lost what I cared for… again…




“Why?” I whispered to everyone and no one. “Why, why, why, why?” I expected no answer. A lone tear burned its way free from my eye, tumbling to the floor. I stepped back and looked up and opened my eyes as for the first time in my life I surrendered, I acknowledged that I cannot beat something, despite all the power I possess. I… Can… Not… Win…




With that epiphany, that sudden flash of satori, my anger returned, kindling the ashes in my ruined heart. But not like before, when I was insane: a hot, mindless inferno, ultimately self-destructive. It took me a minute realize that this cold icy fire I felt was not anger at all, but something else that was similar yet different. Something that I never truly felt before. I looked back into my reflection’s eyes, and saw that they were alive again, burning with a black fire. That’s when I heard the Voice, a growling whisper in the back of my mind. I had heard it three times before in my life: the first time, after my fool of a father fractured my mind by ‘training’ me with the Nekoken technique; the second time, after I pulled myself from the Spring of Drowned Girl; the third time, after I thought I had lost Akane because of Saffron’s cruelty and selfishness. But I had never heard it so clearly or so plainly as I did then.




Follow me, it crooned harshly to me, follow my Path, for it is the way of strength, of power, of invincibility. Follow my Path, and no one will ever hurt you or take from you again. Follow… Follow… Follow…




And for the first time I saw the owner of this voice in my mind’s eye, a huge, looming shadow, shaggy and lupine, feral and powerful, a great, dire wolf, waiting to lead me down his Path.




I closed my eyes, and made my decision.








**********








I walked into the dining room of the Nekohanten, backpack in my hands. Shampoo had managed to get my clothes from the dojo before Kasumi or old man Tendo got around to throwing them out. I stood still for a moment, watching the Amazons as they worked. Cologne was checking her books, while Shampoo and Mousse set up for the evening rush. Cologne noticed me first. She looked up from her books, arching an eyebrow when she saw the pack.




“Going somewhere, Ranma?” she asked quietly. I nodded, head slightly bowed, hiding my eyes with my bangs. I didn’t want her to see them just yet.




“I want to talk to you all, before I leave.” I murmured back. Shampoo and Mousse stop their chores and gather behind Cologne. They look at me, sympathy plain and open in their eyes. I noticed Shampoo taking Mousse’s hand. A smile flickered briefly across my lips. Good for them, I thought, I hope their life will be happier than mine.




I took a deep breath and began. “Thank you, all of you, for taking me in. I’m sorry that I’ve been such a lousy guest… You all have been good friends to me, better than I thought I could ever have… especially you, Shampoo, considering the way I treated you in the days before my…” I trailed off.




“Shampoo happy to be your friend. Shampoo understands that Ranma was just following his heart. Can’t blame you for that. Shampoo just wishes that… that Akane did same…” I winced at hearing that name, turning my face away from the Amazons.




“You didn’t deserve what happened to you Saotome,” added Mousse.




“Maybe, maybe not.” I laughed, bitterly. Cologne started at the sound of it, and looked at me closely. “Maybe I did deserve it. Maybe I’m paying for crimes and sins I committed in a past life. Karma… It’d go a long way towards explaining why my life has been so miserable.”




“You shouldn’t say such things Ranma.” Cologne said sternly. I just shrugged, then shouldered my pack and headed toward the door.




“I better go. I’m sick of Nerima, and I don’t want my presence to hurt your business.”




“That doesn’t matter to us Ranma. We’re leaving Japan in a week, to head back to the village.” Mousse told me.




“Ranma more than welcome to come with us.” Shampoo added. I stopped at the door, and turned to face them.




“I don’t think that’d be a good idea. I doubt your village would want someone like me living there.”




“We’re Chinese Amazons, Ranma. We have our prejudices, but they are not Japanese prejudices. My people wouldn’t care about your ancestry,” said Cologne.




“I know that, Old… Cologne. But there’s another reason why they wouldn’t want me.” I looked up, brushing my bangs from my eyes. Cologne gasped and Shampoo paled, falling a step back. Mousse blinked, confused by their reactions. Even with his glasses on he couldn’t see the black, icy fire that burned in my eyes.




“I’m tired Cologne. I’m tired of being constantly rejected by this world, and having everything I care for taken from me. I’ve tried to be honorable, to be good, and I’ve gotten nothing but misery and pain in return for it. What happened two weeks ago was the final straw. I’m through playing the fool. I refuse to be hurt anymore. From now on, I’M going to be the one who takes, who inflicts pain”




“Ranma…” Cologne began, but I cut her off.




“People loath and despise me for what I am, for being burakumin,” I shook my head. “Uh-uh, that isn’t a good enough reason. I’m going to give them a REAL reason to loathe me. I’m going to give them a REAL reason to despise me. But most of all, I’m going to give them a reason to FEAR me.”




By then Shampoo was in tears, frightened by my words and my eyes. She clung to Mousse, looking at me fearfully as she tried not to sob. Mousse looked little better, his expression pale and almost sick. Cologne was trembling, leaning heavily on her staff for support.




“Ranma, you don’t mean this,” she protested, but from what I saw in her eyes I knew she believed my sincerity. I answered her with a cold, sinister smile that was more akin to a snarl than anything else.




“Good-bye all. I hope life is good to you, better than it was to me. And I hope that you never see me again.” With that I left the Nekohanten, the sound of Shampoo’s weeping following me, along with another sound; a long coughing wail of anguish and despair. It took me a moment to realize it was Cologne. I hadn’t known that someone as old and withered as her could even cry anymore…




It didn’t stop me though. Without even a backwards glance, I stepped onto the Path laid out before me.








**********








The rest of my life plays quickly for my mind’s eye as I slowly stir into wakefulness. For the first four years I stayed in Japan, perfecting my Arts and desecrating everything I once believed in. I reveled in wanton cruelty, stole from rich and poor alike without compunction, and left a trail