The Phoenix Saga

The door rattled shut as Mei and Izumi exited, leaving Yui and Ranma alone in the empty bar. It had been a long night, but a decent one. A few guys in nice suits had come in from some business event and spent entirely too much money. Yui popped open a bottle of draft beer with a bottle opener dangling from her belt, straddling a stool and sitting down. She was wearing a bright yellow long-sleeved men's dress shirt, unbuttoned enough to show a white camisole underneath, and black slacks. "Ugh. This is what I get for wearing heels to tend bar." She kicked her yellow shoes off, sighing with relief. "C'mere, Ran-chan. Take a load off."

Ranma put down her broom, smiling wistfully. It was nice to hear Ukyo's old pet name for her, even if it was from someone else. She wondered, just for a moment, whether Ukyo might be the only one back in Nerima who would have understood the direction her life had taken. She strode over to the table, slumping gently onto the stool to the left of Yui, careful to account for the black skirt she was wearing.

Yui stood on the footrest, leaning over the bar to grab the soda gun, pouring Ranma a drink and sliding it over to her like a beer in a wild west saloon. "Cheers." She held up her beer, and
Ranma clinked her glass against it. "Cheers!" She was grateful for some company. She was beyond appreciative for a place to stay, but when Hana and the girls went home for the night, it got a little lonely sometimes.
"You've really been impressing Hana, you know."
Ranma blushed a bit demurely, her voice deflecting the praise. "Yep, I'm so talented I can fill ice bins and work a broom."
Yui shook her head. "Not that, blockhead. Everything else. The way you've fit in here. The way you helped Mei." She looked down at her bottle, swirling its contents a little. "You haven't talked a lot about what things were like for you before you came here, but we can tell it wasn't easy. You're a tough cookie, kiddo. But it's important to me that you know you don't have to hide it if you don't want to. Me, Hana, all of us are here to listen if you want."
Ranma nodded slowly, using another draught of her soda to buy herself time to decide how to answer. "I appreciate that, Yui. I do. I just… some of it I doubt anyone could understand." You might have heard it all, Ranma thought, but I bet the idea of Jusenkyo would still curl your hair.
Yui sighed quietly, motioning to Ranma's arm with her beer bottle. "If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that scar on your wrist figures into the story somewhere."
Ranma set her glass down on the lacquered bartop and covered her left wrist with her right hand, looking down a little shamefully. "Yeah, I guess it does."
Yui nodded. "I might understand more than you think, Ranko."
The redhead shook her head, her wavy hair prickling against the last remnants of her black eye. "I strongly doubt it."
Yui tilted her bottle back, draining the rest of it into her mouth before flicking the empty bottle over the bar into a waiting trash can, hoping it would provide a little extra bravery for what would come next. "Let me show you something." Her voice had lost a little bit of her trademark swagger. She reached to her left wrist with her right hand, unbuttoning the cuff of her sleeve. She then did the same with her left hand, and rolled up both her sleeves to the elbow. Along the underside of both her arms, from the wrist about halfway up her forearm, were long, angry, jagged scars.
Ranma tried not to, but a small gasp escaped her anyway. "What… what happened?"

Yui sighed. "I'm guessing something not too different from what happened to you." She looked off into the distance. "My dad was a senior manager at some fancy trading corporation downtown. He made good money, and our family did well. Our family spent a lot of time with the family of one of his fellow managers, the Shirikawas. I got to be really close with their daughter, Kimiko." She bit her bottom lip as the name escaped it.
"One night, when I was seventeen, our four parents went out to a play, and Kimiko and I stayed home." She sniffled a little bit, her voice becoming more distant with each word. "My mother forgot the theater tickets, and they came home early, and found Kimiko and I… together… on the couch. My father was furious - all this talk about dishonoring the family, how it would ruin his career. So much screaming. Kimi ran home. My father said he couldn't tolerate a… a freak like me in his house. He threw me out of the house that night, with only what I could carry."
Ranma's face was ashen as she heard the story. She started to respond, but saw Yui inhale to continue speaking, and yielded.
"I walked for maybe three, four hours, and I didn't have any idea where to go. I thought maybe Kimi's parents would be more understanding, and maybe they'd let me crash there for a few days until I figured out what to do." She fidgeted with a coaster in her fingers, so as not to make eye contact with her companion.
"I called her house from a payphone, and her father answered. He said he'd just gotten off the phone with my father, and he knew everything. I begged forgiveness, but he told me he would put Kimi on the phone to say goodbye, because she'd never be allowed to see me again." She shivered a little, a tear starting to slice through her foundation. "He… he went to her room to get her, and…" She relented, letting herself start to cry. It wasn't a desperate sob, but the sort of quiet sadness that comes from a wound that had started, but not yet finished, healing. "He found her on the floor next to an empty bottle of her mother's sleeping pills."
Ranma gasped. "Oh, Yui…"
"I killed her, Ranko. I loved her, and I killed her as surely as if I'd shot her. And I… I couldn't live with it. I found a broken bottle in the alley right back there, and…" She held up her wrists to finish the sentence her words could not. "I should have died with her that night."
Ranma patted her arm reassuringly. "But Hana found you?"
Yui shook her head, trying to stop crying. "Ayako. She wrapped my arms with her scarf until the paramedics came. She saved my life. They called my parents from the hospital, and they said they didn't know me. They didn't care what happened to me, or to Kimi. But Ayako stayed with me, and she and Hana brought me here when I got discharged."
Ranma was aghast. What could she possibly say to something like that? Worse, did Yui think that she had inflicted the scar on her wrist on herself? That she'd tried to kill herself? She supposed, in a sense, something of her did die that day.
She reached across from her, putting her arms around Yui's shoulders as best she could without falling off the stool. "Yui, I'm so sorry."
Yui shuddered a little bit in Ranma's arms, beginning to re-button her sleeves. "Anyway." She spoke matter-of-factly, trying to force a clinical distance from her pain to regain her composure. "We all bear the scars of the worst days of our lives," she said as she smoothed out her cuffs, "but we don't have to let them define us." She nodded resolutely, trying to talk herself back out of the dark place she had allowed herself to visit. She reached over the bar, getting herself another beer and popping it open with the tool on her belt. "Alright, your turn."
Ranma rocked back on the stool. How could she possibly follow that, especially when most of what she'd been through, she couldn't say? She might not hold it against Ranma, but she doubted Yui would believe anything about Jusenkyo. She could prove it, but the catharsis she'd get from sharing that experience wasn't worth the agony of taking her male form again.
"Yui, I wish I could tell you everything. Some of it… I just can't right now. Maybe someday, but right now it's too soon. But I'll tell you what I can."
Yui nodded. "There's no pressure, Ranko. Say whatever you want. Saying nothing is okay too. I just wanted you to know I understand."
Ranma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Time for some really interesting tap dancing. She didn't want to lie to them any more, but she also wasn't ready to let the cat, or its tongue, fully out of the bag just yet. She wasn't sure she ever wanted them to know her real name, or the circumstances that brought this redheaded girl into existence.
"So, jeez, where do I start? Well, I told you that my pop had me in an arranged marriage to his friend's kid. It turns out, he'd actually promised me to more than one person. So they all were fighting over who got to have me, and nobody stopped to listen to what I wanted. Every time one of them would do something shady, the others would blame me, and so I was constantly getting in trouble for stuff, and getting jumped on my way to school, and getting groped and kissed by random guys. I was just trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with myself, ya know? I couldn't really have friends, 'cause everybody I could hang out with either wanted to kick my ass for not picking their favorite person to marry, or to kick my ass because they wanted to date somebody I was promised to."
Yui placed her hand on Ranma's comfortingly, letting her continue.
"Well, one of the other families I was promised to was big into this weird Chinese law thing where it was bad for their honor if I turned them down. And…" She swallowed her saliva, trying to find a way to say this that could keep both its vagueness and her composure intact. "It's not that I didn't pick them; I didn't pick anybody. But that wasn't enough for them and… they hurt me. Bad. To punish me." Discussing all of this was getting really hard without names or genders, but she continued. "And it… it broke something in me, something that can't ever be fixed. After that, none of them wanted me anymore. Even my father was done with me because he couldn't sell me off for anything else, and because I couldn't carry on his precious legacy. I was damaged goods. My father and I were still staying with his friend's family, and so I was under the same roof with the person I was supposed to marry when we weren't gonna get married anymore. Plus, they let their martial arts teacher stay there sometimes, and he…" She shuddered. "Let's just say fighting isn't the only way he likes to put his hands on girls." Yui cringed.
"I couldn't stay there and feel like the only one who wanted me there was an ancient lecher, and being a freeloader when I couldn't keep up my end of the deal, so I left. Almost no money, no plan, two changes of clothes, like an idiot, in the middle of the night. I got as far as the city, and I ran out of money. Was sleeping rough for six or seven weeks – I honestly lost count – applying for jobs and not having much luck, and then I found this place."
Yui sighed. Poor thing. Ranko hadn't said it, but she could read between the lines. One of these jerks got jealous, and injured her in such a way that she couldn't have children anymore. Then her father wouldn't have his line continued, and all of her suitors gave up on her. And then she must have tried to take her own life, like she had. Hence the scar. She hadn't said that part either, but Yui was pretty confident with her analysis. She wished Ranko's father would walk into the bar right now. She might not be half the fighter Ranko was, but she'd pummel that bastard's face in with a baseball bat if she could.
Yui squeezed Ranma's hand tightly in her own. "We're glad you did find us, Ranko. So glad. I can't fathom why anybody wouldn't want you, but I know we do. Look at me. Listen to me. You are wanted. You have worth. You have people that care about you."
Ranma scoffed and turned her eyes to the back wall of the bar, blushing dismissively. "I don't know about all th.."
Yui released her hand, instead taking Ranma's chin firmly in her hand and physically turning her head until she made eye contact. "Say it."
The redhead blinked in surprise. "Say what?"
Yui repeated, more firmly, still holding her chin locked forward. She was determined that her young protege would internalize this. She would see to it that Ranko would learn from her misfortunes. "You are wanted. You have worth. You have people who care about you."
Ranma blushed, finding this exercise a little silly. "Okay. Yeah. I know."
Yui shook her head. "Say it, Ranko. Out loud. You need to hear yourself say it. Saying it to me now makes it so much easier to say it to yourself, on the days when everything else in the world is lying to you. Say it."
Ranma's eyes widened. Man, she was serious about this. She lowered her eyes, a little embarrassed to be participating in this ritual. "I… I am wanted?"
Yui nodded. "Yes you are. What else?"
Ranma's tentative, mouselike voice struggled with the next bit. "I have… worth?"
Yui nodded again, reassuringly. "Damn right you do. And what else?"
Now, and only now, could Ranma raise her eyes to meet Yui's. "I have people that care about me."
Yui pulled her into a tight hug. "And don't you dare forget it, Ranko. Not ever."