Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Saotome Men ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: stbays 
Genma's Origin, Ranma's birth, Ranma's sister?, and To the Tournament!
Anime/Manga: Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Comedy / Drama / Fantasy / Martial Arts / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.06.2003 | Updated On: 10.06.2003 | Pages: 6 | Words: 10.8K | Visits: 706 | Status: Completed
Genma's Origin, Ranma's birth, Ranma's sister?, and To the Tournament!
Anime/Manga: Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Comedy / Drama / Fantasy / Martial Arts / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.06.2003 | Updated On: 10.06.2003 | Pages: 6 | Words: 10.8K | Visits: 706 | Status: Completed
He woke to a world of pain. The pain he felt was everywhere. In his arms, his legs, his chest, and even his head. There was also a strange burning sensation coming from the tip of his spinal cord, but he couldn't figure out what that was from.
He looked around to see if he could find out why he was in such pain. Near him he saw a man of 20 years and a short,... troll? No, it was a man and a powerful one at that. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew the short man in front of him was the one that hurt him.
"So, do you have a name" the short man asked. It was a valid question. Did he have a name. Well, did he? He pondered this question for a couple of minutes before realizing one single truth.
"I can't remember it."
"Well, I guess I went a little to rough on you back there. Tell you what, to make up for what I did to you, how's about letting me train you." If this man was his attacker, then he knew it would be in his best interest to take the offer.
"Sure... "
"First I need to introduce you to my other disciple," As the short man said that, the other man came to his side. "This is Soun Tendo. As for me, I am know as Happousai. From now until you remember your own name, I shall name you Genma with the last name of Saotome."
"Genma Saotome?" The name rolled of his tongue smoothly. He liked the sound of it. "Thank you Master..."
Hours later, Happousai thought back to his fight with his new student. At the time, he felt a strong aura. He and his student Soun followed the aura to the source. It was a man about 25 years of age. His hair stood straight up defying gravity.
"So this is the planet I'm supposed to be checking on. What a dump." the strange man then spook to Happousai. "What are you looking at old man!" With that, the strangers fighting spirit shot up. Happousai knew a threat when he saw one.
"Soun, stay here, this opponent is too strong for you!" He then raised his own fighting spirit and let himself grow to the same height as his attacker. When he was ready, he turned to make certain that Soun was safely out of the way, but he saw his student had already passed out. The rise in chi caused Happousai's attention to return to his opponent. In the fighters hands, he saw chi energy was being collected there. 'I don't have the energy to match this big fellow, so I'm going to need to bring his power down.'
"Happo Fire Burst," He yelled as he tossed a ball of explosives. He knew that burst wouldn't stop his opponent. All he need was a second to use the Moxibustion to bring this giant's energy down to a child's. Instead of dodging the burst, the stranger stood and took it. He sensed there was no power to that attack and decided to show that he could take it with out any damage. It only
took the odd fighter a second to realize that he did take some damage though. He felt the top of his head only to feel no hair at all. His wonderful hair. He started to turn to face is opponent, but Happousai had already taken the few seconds to strike his back with his pipe.
As he applied the pressure to the spot on his back, he could feel the fighting spirit of his opponent drop as quickly as he had figured it would. He decided that he needed to teach this man a lesson now. "Happo Fire Burst Rapid Fire!!!"
He launched twenty of his fire burst onto the back of his prey. For just a second, Happousai thought the man had something growing off of the man's back side, but in a burst of fire, what ever was there was burned off. The once powerful warrior now laid face down in the mud.
He wondered where such a powerful fighter could have come from. Unfortunately when the man woke up, he had no memory of who he was or where he came from. Perhaps while training with Soun and him, Genma might begin to remember his past. Perhaps if Genma grew desperate enough, he'd give Happousai the permission he needed to try new technique he learned. He'd been told it might be dangerous, but he figured Genma could take what ever side effects there were.
Genma and Soun began to train together under the guidance of their master Happousai. Most of what they did seemed more like taking the fall for Happousai's crimes. There were times when they would spar with each other or practice a new move their master would teach them.
Genma tried to think about his past every so often and it brought a tear to his eye when he couldn't remember a thing. It didn't take long though for him to forget what caused him to forget his past.
It was no more then three weeks after Genma came to study with Happousai that he felt that he needed to know who he was.
"Master, I must speak to you."
"Yes Genma, what can I do for ya?"
"I need to know if you have any techniques that might help remember who I am? I need to know!"
"Are you sure you want to know?" Happousai knew sometime a man forgets his past so that he can run from it easier.
"Yes Master, I must"
"Then please, lay back and let your mind go." Happousai proceeded to reach out with his ki until it surrounded Genma's head. He focused on nothing but attempting to read the aura coming off and unlocking the path into his inner mind. Suddenly, his aura was one with Genma's and the images began to flow rapidly towards him. He was a large group of warriors ready to do battle. He saw
infants being sent to destroy some planets while full adults went to destroy others.
He saw that Genma was one of these killers and that if he'd waited just seconds more, Genma's power would have raised to enough to blow have the planet away. This is when it became clear to him that Genma should never regain his memories. His goal clear, he used Genma's willingness to alter his memories one by one until all the memories of the violent warrior were replaced had been changed or subdued Unfortunately some of the memories were unchangeable. These memories
would help shape who he was to be. With the last of his ki energy, he activated the new personality and withdrew.
"Master, thank you for helping me." Genma cried for a moment as a life worth of memories resurfaced never knowing that they weren't really his. Happousai knew for some of his memory alterations to work, he would need to alter Soun's as well. He knew that Soun would be a lot easier to work with since the man had become very subjugated a while ago. When he was done with two, he would believe that he'd know each other since the were kids. He even through in a memory of the two agreeing to marry their son and daughter if they every had kids.
Suddenly a pain ran through his head. He knew why too. He'd strained his ki to it's limit manipulating Genma and Soun's memories. The pain was almost unbearable. He turned his energies inward and tried to bring then under control. After hours of pain, he managed to get it to stop flaring. Because of the stress he put on himself, he could not safely use his ki in that was ever again. If he did, he could lose his ki all together or worse.
Years passed and together, Soun and Genma defeated and buried their perverted master. More years passed after that and what would have been impossible with the master around finally happened.
Soun meet his future wife, Kimiko. Genma started feeling in the way so the two parted ways and Genma headed into the mountains to find himself. During this the time he spent there, he fell ill. He tried to find help, but passed out before he could. When he woke up, he was in the house of a lady that found him.
"Oh, your awake finally. I'm so happy your alright." Genma sat up and looked into the eyes of the lady that was speaking to him. What he saw was his future and all the great things it held for him, all in her eyes.
After a while, he married Nodoka, the woman that save his life and possibly even his school. It wasn't long after that, Nodoka became pregnant. Nodoka decided to a specil head set that would allow her child to hear some music she would play from early morning to late at night. The doctor told her if she did this, her child would be a lot smarter then a normal child. She hoped this was true and did as she was told.
Eight months passed and it was time. Genma grabbed his wife and used his naturally fast feet to carry them faster then any car could drive. As they arrived at the hospital, the nurses came out and took Nokoka in a wheel chair the rest of the way.
Once in the delivery room, the doctors and nurses were scrabling around doing god only knows. Finally the doctors called for her to give a final push. She responded with an ear shattering yell and a did as they told her. As her yell ended, she heard it. A crying sound. Her son.
PART 2
Genma's day started off like a dream. One that he'd waited for over five years for. He held Nodoka's hand while she breathed in and out. It wasn't long before he heard the cries of a small child. He was very happy, but he noticed the doctors didn't seem to share this joy. He went over and saw what they were staring at. His boy, for lack of a better word, had a 'defect'. While the
doctor's simply looked stunned, he used the scissors one of the doctor's was holding to remove it. Beyond removing the 'defect', he managed to cause his son to cry even more.
Each of the doctor's would have been furious at him if they weren't still reeling from what they'd just saw. The nurse took the child from the hands of the doctors and proceeded to wash the infant off with warm water. Once she was done, she handed the child back to Genma.
Genma held his child and looked lovingly at his beloved wife as he thought to himself what a lucky guy he was. In his hands, he held not only the proof of his love for his wife, but his own future. He thought back to the years ago when he and his friend Soun had decided that if one had a girl and the other a boy, then they would be wed to unite the schools. Oh happy days!
"Well, my boy, I want you to listen carefully to what I am about to tell you," he said gently to the still child in his arms. "They say a man's destiny is determined by the name he is given. With this in mind, I thought up a very special name for you. Your name is Ranma and it means Wild Horse. I want you to be like your name sake Ranma and always be free to explore the world and make any green pasture your own."
He once again looked at his wife and smiled once again at how lucky he was.
Nodoka and Genma immediately began to do their parts to guarantee Ranma's future. Every morning, Genma would help his son to stretch. At first it was hard to get the infant to accept being folded into odd positions, but soon Ranma began to accept it as the pain went away. Genma had to give his son back to Nodoka after breakfast was up, but he got Ranma back after supper time. He would use this time to help burn into Ranma's brain the basics of martial arts.
During the times between breakfast and suppertime, Nodoka would teach Ranma about everything he could understand. At first it was slow since Ranma couldn't speak, but thanks to Nodoka's help, it only took him a couple months to learn how to speak basic Japanese. Of course Nodoka didn't stop there. She made certain the whole time to expose her son to every language she knew and a few she didn't. In fact, the only language she didn't try to teach her son was Chinese. Her son would never need that, right?
Besides language skills, she taught him math, geography, history, and even philosophy. By the age of 6, Ranma was speaking fluidly in ten different languages, though he always knew to speak Japanese when he was around his parents.
At the age of 2, Genma increased Ranma's martial arts training to include katas, meditation, and basic weapons use. Ranma didn't really like any of it, but his mother told him to do what Genma said, so he obeyed. When he turned 6, he knew how to handle every weapon masterfully and all the basic forms of martial arts, however he still did not like it anymore then when he started.
In time, Genma realized something was wrong. Instead of wanting to go and explore the world, Ranma was afraid to leave the house. Instead of being tough and sparring with his old man, Ranma would cried when he got the smallest of cuts or scrapes. And worst of all, instead of coming to him for advice and help, Ranma was going to his mother. It quickly became obvious to him that it was Nodoka's fault. She was keeping Ranma from becoming the man he wanted his son to be. He sat in his room trying to figure out how to put the fire in his boy, when the answer struck him. He needed to take the boy on a training journey.
"Nodoka dear, I'm afraid I can not train our son properly while he is near you. He will continue to refuse the challenges he is presented with since he knows he can run to you and have you solve them." Genma knew she would take the next part hard, but he knew he was right. "I'm taking our son away on training journey."
Nodoka was shocked at hearing this statement. She couldn't believe her husband was saying. The pain of even thinking of being parted from her son caused her tears to form around her eyes.
"Please don't cry honey, I promise you with my life that you will see your son again and when you do he will not only be a man, but he will be a man amongst men. I stake my honor... and Ranma's on it"
"But if you fail, that would mean...," she gasped as she envisioned her husband and her son preparing to take their own lives.
"I'm not certain I'd go that far...," Genma started to worry.
"Be brave, should the worst happen, I will help you so that you can rest in peace." With that she pulled a sword from the top shelf of her closet. "I will use this very blade to help you end your life with honor." Despite the fact that she was saying she would help kill himself, Genma could hear that his wife loved him deeply still.
"Nodoka, with your support, I can not fail!" He said triumphantly, forcing himself not to think about what might happen otherwise.
Ranma was not sure what was happening. His father handed him a back pack and then he put on his own.
"Ranma, we're going camping," Genma knew his son would never go if he told him the whole truth.
"Is mom coming with us?" Genma groaned to himself as he heard his son say this. The boy was really helpless right now. Soon though, that would change.
"No son, mommy's not feeling to good right now, but she told me to tell you that she wants you to go with me." Hearing that his mom wanted him to go, he felt a little better about the idea, but something didn't seem right.
Weeks later, Genma and Ranma came across an abandoned temple. In the entrance stood two life sized cat statues. Inside, he could hear the mewing of cats. They sounded hungry to Ranma.
"Hello, is anyone here?" Genma called out as he surveyed the temple grounds. Spooky he thought. All he could see were hundreds of cats . 'Wonder how they survive here with no one to feed them?'
The two entered the main hall of the temple hoping that perhaps they might find someone there or at least something to eat and a place to sleep. He saw a chest, a table, and a door. They checked inside the room and saw it was for meditation. In the chest, Genma discovered a bag with some odd scrolls and a jar of three round pills. He decided to hold on to these things for later. Suddenly, the table had caught his eye. Genma spotted a strange document on the table in the
center of the room. On the front of it, it read "Cat-Fist". The sight of this caused Genma to drop to his knees and weep for joy. He heard his master speak of this and from what Happousai told him, this art was guaranteed to make the user . "Boy, do you know how lucky we are. We just found the fabled lost temple of the school of Neko-Kun."
Genma took this discovery to mean that the powers that be we're all for his training journey with his son. He opened the book and forced himself to remain calm.
"To teach Neko-Kun, wrap trainee from head to toe in fish sausages. Then throw into pit of starving cats." He stopped and wept again. "Its so easy."
Suddenly, he realized that all this crying made him feel like he was turning into his friend, Soun Tendo. He calmed himself and decided to follow the directions he'd just read. What's
the worst that can happen he thought.
Later during the next day, Ranma woke to a fishy smell. Make that the smell of fish. He screamed as he realized that he was hanging upside down and covered in fish sausages. "Don't worry boy, this won't take long at all."
That's when he heard the cats. They came at him ripping and tearing the sausages from him barely cutting him in the process. His mind only saw the cats that were attacking him from all sides. He wished they'd stop!
Outside, Genma decided that 7 starved cats might not be enough and proceeded to throw 4 more in. An hour later, most of the cat noises began to fade. He figured they probably got all the fish sausages off of the boy by now. He opened up the pit to check and saw that Ranma had passed out. As he pulled him out, he noticed there seemed to be 6 cats missing. Not knowing what to make of this, he decided he probably miss counted. Right now, he focused on patching up his son's wounds.
For the next three days, he repeated the process and each time some of the cats would disappear. Finally Genma decided that the training was not working and called it off.
This time when Genma pulled his son out, Ranma could barely stand on his own, so his father decided to take him to the nearest city. After checking into the a hospital, he lied and told them his son ran away and fell into a pit full of cats and that he saved him later. This put the nurses at easy about Genma and quickly went to work helping Ranma's wounds.
After two weeks, Ranma was feeling good enough that he decided to take a walk around the hospital wing he was at and see what he could see. As he was looking around, a stray cat got into the building. Ranma never saw it coming until it was too late. It jumped at him hoping he would catch it and pet it. Before the cat reached its target, a scream was heard through out the hospital. Genma, who was asleep next to Ranma's bed, woke up and went to his son. When he saw what
was happening, he was speechless. He couldn't figure out why Ranma was afraid of a harmless cat. That's when he realized this might have had something to do with the Neko-Kun. He quickly pulled out the manuscript and decided to read the whole thing. What he saw on the next page horrified him. It read simply, "banned for causing severe mental trauma" He mentally kicked himself for not reading the whole thing sooner.
Before he could remove the cat from Ranma's presence, he noticed his son's screaming was replaced with an odd cat's mewing. That's when he saw the look in the boy's eyes. He wasn't sure how, but he knew what he was seeing was Ranma performing the Neko-Kun style. Ranma moved his human body in a very cat like way and took up a fighting stance.
"Wow, that's great boy," Genma said while practically patting his own back. "I'm sure glad that training wasn't for nothing." Suddenly Ranma jumped at his father slashing his hands. Genma ducked at the last minute after realizing his boy wasn't trying to get a hug. Just as Ranma started to hit the wall that was behind Genma, his slashing hands tore the wall to pieces.
Genma knew he was in trouble know. If Ranma could shred things like that with his bare hands, how could he hope to stop him. As he tried to formulate a plan, Ranma leaped at him again. Genma dodged as fast as he could and barely made it out of the way. It wouldn't take long though before Genma would be backed in to a corner with no way of dodging. Just as it seemed his hope of surviving were gone, he heard an old ladies voice.
"Here kitty kitty kitty," the old lady called out. Ranma stopped in mid air and turned to the lady. "Here kitty kitty kitty." She continued. Ranma leaped at the old lady and Genma closed his eyes expecting the worst. After a few minutes of not hearing any screams, he opened his eyes and saw Ranma laying in the lap of the old lady.
"Well, I'll be," Genma stared in amazement as the old lady simply pet Ranma as if he were a real cat. He wasn't sure how the old lady was able to calm Ranma, but he decided until he could figure out how to reverse the Neko-Kun's effect, that they should stay close by this old lady.
The next day, Genma decided he needed to thank the old lady that helped Ranma out. He went to the room where he saw her, but the room was empty. He looked around to see if he had the right room. He still couldn't find her anywhere. He decided to ask one of the nurses for help.
"Hello Ms, have you seen a kindly old lady about this tall around here?" he asked holding his hand just about two feet off the ground.
"Yes I do remember her. She passed away early this morning." With that the nurse turned away and went about her business.
After a week, the hospital released Ranma to his father and the two went to the end of town to pitch a tent. Being out of money meant this was their only option. Not that Genma minded. He preferred the idea of roughing it. He knew it would help toughen up his son.
"Ranma, I think it's time for us to have a sparring match." He knew his son already knew the basics of Martial Arts even if he was too much of a cry baby to use them. He still needed to get Ranma to realized fighting was ok. It quickly struck him as odd when instead of complaining and saying he didn't want to, Ranma actually took up a fighting pose and prepared himself. 'Perhaps this is another one of the effects of the Neko-Kun'
Not only did Ranma fight without complaining, but he seemed to hold his own. In the end though Genma was still much better, but it bothered him because it took so much of his skill to beat his son. The last couple times he managed to get his son to fight, he had to hold everything back to keep his son from going and crying to mommy.
"Ranma, that's enough for today."
'Ranma's power was a lot different then it used to be. I wonder how much longer I can keep up with him? I must go on a trip without my son and see if I can figure out how to help him become even more powerful.'
With that thought, he decided he would have to find a place for Ranma to stay while he was gone. After three hours of searching, his stomach reminded him that he'd forgotten to eat anything all day. He wandered around town for a while, before realizing his stomach was calling him. Usually he could control his appetite unless there was food around. That's when his nose informed him as to what his stomach already knew. Someone was cooking Japanese pizza somewhere close.
It didn't take him long then to find a small cart. He ordered a large with everything. As he was eating, he noticed the cook had a child as well.
"Nice kid you have there."
"Thanks, she's only six years old, but she's becoming a great chef already."
"Wow, and at such a young age. I've been training my boy to become the worlds greatest martial artist, but..."
"What's wrong?"
"My boy is almost better then me. I won't be able to continue training him for much longer at this rate. I need to get away for a few months and prepare myself. Unfortunately, we're so far from everyone we know."
"Well, my name is Utamara Kuonji. Being a dad myself, I feel for you. My daughter here seems to soak up everything I teach her and I too fear I won't be able to do much for her."
"Man it's rough to have kids that are smarter then we are."
"You said it buddy. Hey, I just had me an idea!" Utamara's face light up. "The best thing I could do for my daughter is to make certain she has a strong husband when she grows up. If you'll agree to to let your son marry my daughter, I'll watch him while your out of town."
"I don't know. My Ranma is already promised to one of the daughters of my best friend."
"That's a darn shame and here's me ready to throw in my Okonomiyaki cart as her dowry."
"Sold!... I mean I accept." Ranma made certain to bring his son back the next day so he could meet Ukyo, the chef's daughter. The two hit it off in no time. Genma was surprised that Ukyo seemed to know some forms of combat as well as cooking. The stage was prepared for his journey into the mountains. His son would have a safe place to stay. 'with any luck, when I get back, I'll have the perfect plan to help Ranma continue his training!'
It had been about 2 months since his dad left him to go on a that trip to discover himself. Ranma remembered a time when the thought of not having a family member around would bring him to tears. He preferred being with his mother, but as long as one of them was around, he was happy. Now he was without either and in a strange town and yet he felt fine. The truth is, he felt a lot
better then he'd ever felt before.
He remembered the weeks before his dad left when the two were training together. He knew his dad was holding back since he'd never really trained much before then. It didn't bother him since he figured his dad would kill him if he went all out.
Before his dad left, he meet a man, Mr. Utamara Kuonji. The two dads' hit it off right away. When Genma decided to leave for his self discovery, the fathers' agreed to let Ranma stay at the Kuonji house with Utamara and his son, Ukyo. His father also took the time to enroll him in one of the local all boys schools so that he could keep his mind as strong as his body.
His father left him a list of things to do each day. First he was to start by working out for an hour. Once he cleaned up, he'd be off to school. After school was over, he would spar with Ukyo to win himself a snack. When he and Ukyo were done practicing, practice his katas until it was time to eat supper. With supper over, it would be meditation time until it was time to go to bed. This was what was supposed to happen everyday.
His first day back to school was different then he thought it would be. Back when he lived with his mom, he loved learning. His mother always made it fun to learn about all the things of the world. Since he started traveling with his father though, getting an education didn't seem all that interesting to him.
His first day he managed to work up enough interest to make the first part of the day go by fairly quick and before he knew it, the class was lining up to go to lunch. He figured the teacher would be walking them to the cafeteria, she just yelled out, "GO!!"
All the boys in his class took off and Ranma just went with the flow. As they made their way to the cafeteria, he noticed some of the other boys were unconscious and he could see other boys fighting. From behind him, he heard a yell and he knew he needed to duck quickly. As he did, a boy with a yellow bandanna went flying over his head and into the head of another student.
"Your good" The boy said smirking. Ranma wasn't sure what that was about. At this point Ranma figured out that it was likely he would also have to fight to get something from the lunch lady when he arrived and saw even more fighting. It was like a war zone here.
"Last order of Pork buns!" The lady behind the counter yelled as she tossed it into the crowd. That was his favorite kind. He lounged at it as he noticed that strange boy from before also doing the same thing. Ranma was ahead though and he decided to use the boy's head to boast his own speed.
"Who dares to step on the head of Ryoga Hibiki!" He looked and saw the boy he tried to attack in the hall way. "What's you name?"
"I'm Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes Martial Arts."
"Anything goes? How about coming over to my house and sparring with me?" Suddenly another new feeling emerged in Ranma. Before his dad took him on this trip, he never cared for sparring. In fact even after when his dad asked him to spar, he did it because he was told to and a part of him couldn't refuse his own father. Now, he felt excited at the prospect of sparring with someone he just meet. He quickly agreed.
"Meet me back here after school is out and I'll show you the way." with that, the two boys parted way. The rest of the school day blurred by as Ranma thought about the chance to fight someone his own age. In some ways, it could be said that he'd also made his first real friend.
After school, he made his way to the cafeteria where he found Ryoga already waiting for him.
"Ready to go?" Ryoga asked as he started out.
"Right behind you." It didn't take them long as Ryoga seemed to know the roads like the back of his hands and took them through a short cut. The two quickly warmed up and began to spar. It was amazing to Ranma how much fun this was to him now. Ryoga was very good and Ranma loved every minute of the fight. Hours later, the two finally let themselves fall to the ground.
"Your good." Ryoga said between heavy breathes. They laid in the hot sun for a few more minutes before the two decided to call it a day.
Ranma quickly ran towards Ukyo's house. He wasn't sure why people called Ukyo by the nick name of Uu-chan since that nick name sounded bit girlie name. Still, Ukyo seemed to like it, so Ranma had taken to calling him that too.
"Hey Uu-chan, you want to play?" He yelled as Ukyo's family cart came into view.
"I'll get you, you jackass!" Ukyo shouted.
"This game was your idea, so watch your mouth" Utamara recalled how Ukyo actually brought up the idea of having Ranma fight him once a day for food. He was a bit mad to hear him insulting Ranma now, but perhaps Ukyo was just trying to anger him. However, in the end, Ranma quickly defeated Ukyo with a strong kick to the head and won himself a freshly made Japanese Pizza.
Elsewhere, Genma traveled far to find an answer on how he could continue to train a son that was already getting stronger then he was. He came across a small shrine. It was to the goddess of the future. He decided that this was as good a place to start his soul searching. He set up camp near the shrine and went inside to pray. As he knelt to pray, suddenly he felt very tired. He closed
his eyes and left go of his mind. In his mind he could see his son and the friend he made. He saw Ukyo and how the two got along. Then he saw his son and a boy with a yellow bandanna sparring together and having a wonderful time. As he watched, something in his mind told him the boy in the yellow bandanna was name Ryoga.
The vision went black and when it came back in, he saw Ranma and Ryoga again. Only this time, Ranma had fallen into the Neko-Kun trance and Ryoga had a nasty head wound. Around the two were dozens of cat bodies ripped into pieces. The scene before Genma, made him sick as he saw the blood and gore. It horrified him that this might be in his son's future.
Before he could make sense of it all, the vision changed again. He saw a flyer for a tournament. He made certain to memorize what the flyer said and what it looked like. It felt like the flyer would reveal something to him later if he investigated it.
That image was soon replaced with the image of a boy about Ranma's age fighting a man that appeared to being wearing a wig. Being bald himself, Genma had an eye for spotting people that suffered his affliction. The man with the wig was a lot older then the boy he was fighting. An odd thing happened though. The man wearing the wig suddenly disappeared and Genma listened very carefully. He heard a low whispering voice.
'That is how it was supposed to be. Now because you have asked me for help, I will show you how it can be.'
Were the wig wearing man was, his own son appeared. He could tell his son appeared to be almost thirteen years old. The two boys fought and before Genma could see who would win, the vision went black.
That vision was again replaced with the image of a man dressed in a monk's fighting uniform in the forest not to far from where Genma was. He held a neatly rolled scroll in his hands. Two actually. He was heading somewhere, but was attacked. The attackers did not take the scrolls. They seemed more interested in the man's money bag. Once again, Genma felt that this was important, so he remembered how far away the man was from where he was currently.
Genma was becoming used to the images disappearing and being replaced. This time, he saw a lady. 'Perhaps this is Ranma's future wife' he thought to himself. The red head did seem familiar to him though. The image did not last as long as the others.
Suddenly, instead of the nice calm flow the visions had been coming to him with, the speed increased to a dangerous speed. He did his best to try to see what was being shown to him, but it was more then he could do. He woke with a yell. Was it a dream?
'Those visions were maddening. But what could they mean. I can't waste a second. If what I saw was true, then there is a man about 2 miles from here that is about to be attacked. I wonder if I can get there in time to save him?'
He quickly stood and collected his camping gear and headed in the direction that he saw the man that had been attacked. It didn't take long and he found the dead body. Genma could tell he was about a half an hour too late to save the poor traveler. He quickly searched the pockets of the man after praying that the man's soul would forgive his trespasses. He found the scrolls right where the vision showed him that they would be. He looked them over carefully and saw that
they were to a tournament of great fighters. It also listed the gathering date as June 1, 1995. At least it was a long ways off. He couldn't read the rest since it was in Chinese.
'A tournament. Sounds interesting. It's a long way off so I'll have plenty of time to train the boy and get him stronger then anyone else alive. If he wins, our dojo's reputation will be secured.'
With that, he headed to the nearest town. It was only a days travel to the north. Once he was there, he looked back to the vision. He could remember a shop that had the flyer in the mail box. Going with just his instincts, he soon found himself in front of the store he saw the flyer in his vision. It was an invitation to a another Martial Arts tournament. That's when it all made sense to him. He knew how to help train his son past his own strength level and perhaps even raise his own in the process.
He checked the date on the flyer and noticed that the tournament it spoke of would start in May of 1986. He would have plenty of time to get the boy so that they could make the journey. It took him a two weeks to make the trip back to the town he left Ranma in. He made his way to Ukyo's house to see if the boy was doing well. He figured he'd been gone for almost 2 months now and he kind of missed the boy. He knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" Utamara asked through the door.
"It's me, Genma"
"Genma, Thank goodness you've returned. There's been an accident of some kind." Utamara sounded scared. "Please come in and I'll explain what I can." Genma suddenly remembered the vision of Ryoga surrounded by blood.
'His son hadn't killed him, did he?' He didn't say this out loud, but waited for Utamara to continue.
"I'm still not certain of the details of the attack, but when Ranma went over to one of his friends houses, he became very violent and attacked and killed all the family house cats and wounded his friend Ryoga badly. I just got word that the boy came out of his coma about an hour ago."
"Hmmm. It's as I feared. Where is the boy now?"
"I managed to track him down and I brought him back here. He didn't remember anything that he did at his friends house. I've been hiding him, hoping that you could return soon. You need to take your son now and run as far away from here as you can."
"I agree. I am so sorry that you had to be apart of this."
"Think nothing of it. I'm certain the boy didn't mean for it to happen the way it seems. Please, for the night, I would like you to stay and tell me what has happened with you in the last year since you left."
"Year! I thought I'd only been away for a month or two!"
"What? I'm afraid its been almost one year exactly since you left."
"Then I need to see my son." A whole year. Genma couldn't figure out how, but it must have been a side effect of the goddess statues visions.
"He's in the next room." Utamara led the way. When they looked in, they saw Ranma was not there. The two men scrabbled and began to search the house.
Ranma was tired of being stuck in that tiny room. He decided to go over to Ryoga's house to play. When he got there, he saw Ryoga in the back yard practicing.
"Hey Ryoga! How's it going?" He was about to pat his friend on the back when Ryoga turned and attacked.
"Ranma, I want to kill you! But I'm going to let you go today. I want you to meet me here tomorrow. This is a man to man challenge so you'd better be here. I'm going to kill you for what you've done to me!"
"Ryoga, what did I do?"
"As if you don't know. Why just thinking about it makes my poor heart of glass shatter in to a million pieces!!" Truth was, he couldn't remember what happened either, but the pain was still there. "Now go and try to enjoy your last hours on this Earth. The fight will take place in the vacant lot behind my house."
Ranma was too weirded our by the way Ryoga was acting, so he simply went back home to tell Utamara about the challenge.
Back at the Kuonji house hold, Utamara and Genma were still trying to figure out if Ranma was hiding in the house, or if he'd fled. Genma was busy thinking of all the places that Ranma was likely to go, but his thoughts were interrupted by the front door opening.
"Dad, your back!" Ranma said as he leapt to his father.
"There are you Ranma. Don't you know you had me worried half sick about you? Where were you?" Ranma told them about what happened when he went to Ryoga's house. "Well, this is an odd turn of events. Boy, your in more trouble then you realize. I wish you hadn't been challenged. You must accept." When Utamara heard this, he was terrified.
"Genma, you do realized that the police are probably looking for Ranma as we speak. If you let him go out and fight this boy Ryoga, He'll just end up getting caught."
"I'm afraid honor will not allow Ranma to back down just because of what could happen. Ranma, you should take this time to prepare yourself."
Ranma decided instead of training, he would meditate and perhaps he could figure out what he did to make Ryoga so angry. He tried all night to think of even one thing, but nothing came to him. Maybe Ryoga really had been angry that Ranma beat him to all that bread.
It was morning before he knew it. He got up and began his morning warm ups followed by his usual set of punches and kicks. Once he was done, he headed over to Ryoga's house to get it over with.
He arrived shortly before seven in the morning and he waited in the lot behind Ryoga's house. He struck a pose and waited. After an hour he realized that they never set a time, so Ranma decided to use a meditation trick his dad taught him. With it, a man could lose days if his intended target did not arrive quickly. As his mind slipped away, he hoped Ryoga would make certain he was out of the meditation before attacking.
Three days later, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head. 'Why that dirty cheater' Ranma thought as he spun around to defend himself. Instead of Ryoga, his dad was there.
"Ranma! What are doing starring into space like that boy, we've got places to be!"
"What, where's Ryoga?"
"Boy, it's been three days since you came here. If he didn't show up by now, perhaps he decided to forget about the dual." That made sense to Ranma. Frankly, he couldn't figure out why Ryoga would have wanted to fight him in the first place.
As they ran off, they noticed Ukyo following them.
"You promised to take me with you, you jackass!" Genma recalled talking to Utamara about having Ukyo marry Ranma, but the discussion never really went anywhere. Utamara had even offered the pizza cart as a dowry. At the time Genma said he would accept, but later the two talked and he apologized for making a promise he couldn't keep. When Genma was about to leave to get Ranma, Utamara informed him that he didn't care about the marriage deal, but wanted Genma to take the cart to help the two of them while they were on the run.
Genma knew that Ukyo probably translated this to mean that the deal had been made. He also knew that life on the run would be no good for a young girl like Ukyo, so he increased his speed to out run her. On top of the cart, Ranma simply waved as he shouted his good-byes. It wasn't long before Ukyo was out of sight and Ranma turned his attention to their destination, which he still didn't know anything about.
"Where we headed to now pop?"
"We're going for a swim and a tournament that will make you into a legend boy!"
Later the next day, in the lot behind Ryoga's house, a boy arrives. It is Ryoga.
"Ranma, where are you? You coward, why did you run out on a man to man fight!" He yelled out with all his might. He fell to his knees and paused. 'Why did it take me so long to find this place?'
************************
According to pop, they were headed towards a really big tournament. Fighters from around the world would be competing there and Ranma's dad was counting on him to win. With less then four months to prepare, he wasn't sure how they could beat the worlds best. Since his dad made him train using the Neko-Kun technique, he'd been feeling more confident though and he knew they'd be alright.
He and his father had been sparring for the better half of the day and his father was now exhausted and went to sleep. Ranma on the other hand felt great and full of energy. With his dad out of commission, he would have to find something to occupy his time with. He headed off to climb the near by mountains. He figured with the Ki jumping ability his dad taught him, he'd have no trouble scaling these and returning before bed time.
He quickly eyed the step mountain ahead of him and figured it was about 600 feet tall. The Ki energy inside of him gathered and he guessed it would take 10 jumps to reach the summit. He started off and reached 40 feet with his first jump and roughly landed on a small out cropping. 'Darn, I didn't concentrate my Ki enough.'
For the second jump, Ranma made certain to push as much Ki energy down as he could and his body shot off like a rocket. He found himself over 100 feet above his last destination as he landed on the side of the mountain. 'Wow, I might have over done it that time.'
He knew he would need to pace himself or he'd use up all his Ki energy and pass out. Just as he was about to try again, he noticed an odd cave. For a cave, it seemed to be well lit with a light blue haze. He decided to take a break from scaling the mountain and do some cave exploring. As he got closer, he was certain the cave was lighting itself. When he got inside, he could see that
there were some odd crystals on the sides of the cave that were responsible for the light.
He went deeper into the cave hoping to see how long it was and went he got about twenty feet, he heard foot steps coming towards him. At first he thought they were echoes of his own steps, but as he stood there, the sounds continued. 'Wonder how they got into this cave?' he thought as he started towards the foot steps. Suddenly he came face to face with a red headed girl. A cute one too. She seemed to be the same age as Ranma.
"Hello" It was all he could figure to say. He figured it would be a bit rude if he was to ask how she got here and he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Hi, how did you get up here?" The girl asked him. And here Ranma was wanting to ask the same thing of her.
"I jumped." He said then stopped to think of how to explain how he jumped up here to a girl.
"You jumped up here too?" Ranma was stunned again. This girl was interesting.
"My pop taught me to control my Ki and to launch myself upwards."
"Isn't this funny," the girl said with a giggle. "My dad taught me that same technique. Are you a martial artist?
"Yup. You?"
"One of thebest. Hey, you want to spar?"
'That's a good question. Do I want to spar? I was still ready to go when my dad called it quits for the day. Here's my chance to get some more sparing in, but she's a girl and my father always said it was wrong to hit girls.' His thoughts went on like this for a minute before his desire to fight won and he took up a fighting stance.
The two fought until the early morning before they decided enough was enough. Ranma noted that this girls fighting style was similar to his own. The only real difference was strength versus speed. This girl was a bit faster then he was while he was a tad stronger then she was.
"Hey, you want to meet my dad?" Ranma wanted his father to meet this girl.
"Sure, I'm certain my dad won't wake up for at least another 4 hours after the work out we had."
The two quickly jumped down the mountain and returned to Ranma's camp. On the way, it hit Ranma that he'd never actually asked this girl what her name was.
"Hey, I never got your name?"
"It's Ranko."
"Ranko, that's a nice name," He stopped talking to think about the name. Wild Girl? That's what he thought that name meant. "My name is Ranma. There's the camp right ahead."
"I think my camp is somewhere around here too." Ranko was looking around and noticing this area seemed like where she and pop set up at.
"Wow, I'm surprised we didn't see each other. Me and pop were going at it all over the place."
"Sounds like me and my dad." When she say the camp she realized they must have gone the wrong way and ended up at her camp instead. No biggie there. She could introduce Ranma to her dad instead. She'd never done anything like this before and hoped her dad wouldn't be too mad.
When the two arrived at the camp, they both rushed to the tent and yelled out, "Get up Pop!"
A very confused man found himself torn from his dreams of the Tendo and Saotome schools being united and him having lots of food by the sound of Ranma yelling at him. It was unfortunate, but it seemed that a love for fighting wasn't the only thing Ranma gained from the Neko-Kun. He'd have to hammer in some respect for his elders later. When he sat up, he notice it wasn't just Ranma that yelled at him. Next to him was red headed girl. To further his confusion, he was
certain he heard the girl call him pop as well. Before he could figure out why, the two children in front of him took up fighting postures.
"This is my dad!" The two yelled at each other. They began to fight with passion. It took several hours before the two couldn't continue and called a truce. Genma took this time to examine the girl closely. She looked a lot like his son, but she had long red hair and a higher pitched voice then his son. He decided to check her elbow and saw she had the same scare that Ranma got during
one of their sparing sessions. There was one other thing he could check, but he felt it was not appropriate for him to ask to see. He knew his son had a scar from birth that he never told Ranma or his mother about. He then remembered a legend of a cave that was linked to another world. His master told him about this legend, but he figured it was just a story.
While to two were fighting, he overheard his son call the girl Ranko.
'Funny,' he thought. 'That's the name I had ready incase Ranma turned out to be a girl. Guess this proves my theory."
"Ranko, I want you to go and clean up while I talk to Ranma. Please do not take too long since Ranma will be next." He had to find out what he could from Ranma before he told the girl that he was not her father. The girl, lacking modesty, began to undress right there before running to the lake nearby. As she ran, Genma allowed himself to look to see if she had the same scare at the base of her spin. He was stunned to see she did have it right were he expected to see it. He turned to talk to his son and heard a loud noise. He turned and saw a tree had fallen onto his tent. 'thank goodness these two woke me up when they did. I'd been killed otherwise.'
Suddenly Genma wondered if this was a bad omen.
"Son, this girl doesn't belong here. I want you to take her back to where you meet her and make certain she finds her way back to where she came from." As he finished telling this to Ranma, Ranko came running back soaking wet and still naked. She reached went to reach into the tent but noticed it was smashed. She then picked up the clothes she laid on the ground and put them back on.
'They smell a little, but its better then no clothes at all.' she thought lazily.
"Ranko, I want you to go with Ranma. Do not leave his side until you have returned to the camp." He figured that her real father was probably worried sick about her. "Now go Ranma!"
At his father's order, Ranma took off towards the mountain with Ranko in tow. Ranma took Ranko's hand and and began to power up his Ki for a super jump. Ranko could feel this happening and began to do the same thing. When they got within 20 feet of the base of the mountain, the both pushed down on the Ki energy and launched themselves over 140 feet up the side. As they landed, Ranma spotted the entrance of the cave that he found her in. The two entered and began to run to
the other side. As Ranma was running, he noticed the cave seemed to make a u turn. He could tell the were right back to where they came in. Since there was no other paths to take, he figured he'd have to go back and tell his dad. The two came out and once again, they jumped the entire distance down the mountain and they ran full speed back to the camp. As they got there, they saw the tree was still on top of the tent. 'The old man's getting lazy.'
Ranma stood staring at the mighty red wood that had fallen onto the tent and was about to continue looking for his pop, when he noticed some clothing sticking out of the smashed tent. It was underwear, only it was different then what he and pop would were.
"What are you doing with my underwear!"
"Why are you leaving your underwear in our camp?"
"I told you this not your camp, it's mine!" Ranma continued to search and noticed there was not just one pair, but several. When he picked up one of the shirts he noticed it was wet and had an odd odor to it. It smelled like a dead animal. He looked more carefully and saw it was blood and there was a trail of it leading to under the tree.
"Ranko, help me move this tree." Ranma was starting to realize what his dad told him. 'Son, this girl doesn't belong here. I want you to take her back to where you meet her and make certain she finds her way back.' His fathers words went through his mind and then he remembered how the tree struck their tent. He knew though the only reason his father was not still sleeping was because Ranko and him woke him up. Otherwise he would have been...
Ranko couldn't figure out why Ranma wanted to move the tree, but figured what the heck. She started to help when she noticed her backpack and her fathers lying on the ground next to the battered tent. She quickly slung them around her shoulders and then went back to helping Ranma move the tree.
As the two pushed against the mighty red wood, Ranma started to see a human shape under the broken tent. He realized that if he let this Ranko see this, she would be devastated. He stopped pushing and grabbed her and began running back towards the cave. Against the girls protest, he Ki jumped once again back to the cave and continued to run until they were back in Ranma's world. He set her down, centered his Ki into his fist, and punched the sides of the entrance
causing it to collapse and effectively sealed the entrance of the cave.
"Why'd you do that?" Ranko finally able to stand up. He wasn't sure how to tell her the truth so he lied to her.
"That wasn't your world. It was mine and my father is dead." He would have to tell dad what happened so that he would not blow Ranma's story. He looked into Ranko's eyes and he saw she understood.
'He's covering something. As he dropped the tree, I saw what was under there. Since all of my stuff was there, I know where we were.' She did her best to not show on her face what she felt. Her father may be gone, but she knew she had to go on.
___________________________________________________________________
Be sure to read "The Mysterious Tower" and then "The 20th World Martial Arts
Tournament" before you read chapter 2. If you don't like crossovers, you can
skip them since I don't really introduce anything terribly important.
He looked around to see if he could find out why he was in such pain. Near him he saw a man of 20 years and a short,... troll? No, it was a man and a powerful one at that. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew the short man in front of him was the one that hurt him.
"So, do you have a name" the short man asked. It was a valid question. Did he have a name. Well, did he? He pondered this question for a couple of minutes before realizing one single truth.
"I can't remember it."
"Well, I guess I went a little to rough on you back there. Tell you what, to make up for what I did to you, how's about letting me train you." If this man was his attacker, then he knew it would be in his best interest to take the offer.
"Sure... "
"First I need to introduce you to my other disciple," As the short man said that, the other man came to his side. "This is Soun Tendo. As for me, I am know as Happousai. From now until you remember your own name, I shall name you Genma with the last name of Saotome."
"Genma Saotome?" The name rolled of his tongue smoothly. He liked the sound of it. "Thank you Master..."
Hours later, Happousai thought back to his fight with his new student. At the time, he felt a strong aura. He and his student Soun followed the aura to the source. It was a man about 25 years of age. His hair stood straight up defying gravity.
"So this is the planet I'm supposed to be checking on. What a dump." the strange man then spook to Happousai. "What are you looking at old man!" With that, the strangers fighting spirit shot up. Happousai knew a threat when he saw one.
"Soun, stay here, this opponent is too strong for you!" He then raised his own fighting spirit and let himself grow to the same height as his attacker. When he was ready, he turned to make certain that Soun was safely out of the way, but he saw his student had already passed out. The rise in chi caused Happousai's attention to return to his opponent. In the fighters hands, he saw chi energy was being collected there. 'I don't have the energy to match this big fellow, so I'm going to need to bring his power down.'
"Happo Fire Burst," He yelled as he tossed a ball of explosives. He knew that burst wouldn't stop his opponent. All he need was a second to use the Moxibustion to bring this giant's energy down to a child's. Instead of dodging the burst, the stranger stood and took it. He sensed there was no power to that attack and decided to show that he could take it with out any damage. It only
took the odd fighter a second to realize that he did take some damage though. He felt the top of his head only to feel no hair at all. His wonderful hair. He started to turn to face is opponent, but Happousai had already taken the few seconds to strike his back with his pipe.
As he applied the pressure to the spot on his back, he could feel the fighting spirit of his opponent drop as quickly as he had figured it would. He decided that he needed to teach this man a lesson now. "Happo Fire Burst Rapid Fire!!!"
He launched twenty of his fire burst onto the back of his prey. For just a second, Happousai thought the man had something growing off of the man's back side, but in a burst of fire, what ever was there was burned off. The once powerful warrior now laid face down in the mud.
He wondered where such a powerful fighter could have come from. Unfortunately when the man woke up, he had no memory of who he was or where he came from. Perhaps while training with Soun and him, Genma might begin to remember his past. Perhaps if Genma grew desperate enough, he'd give Happousai the permission he needed to try new technique he learned. He'd been told it might be dangerous, but he figured Genma could take what ever side effects there were.
Genma and Soun began to train together under the guidance of their master Happousai. Most of what they did seemed more like taking the fall for Happousai's crimes. There were times when they would spar with each other or practice a new move their master would teach them.
Genma tried to think about his past every so often and it brought a tear to his eye when he couldn't remember a thing. It didn't take long though for him to forget what caused him to forget his past.
It was no more then three weeks after Genma came to study with Happousai that he felt that he needed to know who he was.
"Master, I must speak to you."
"Yes Genma, what can I do for ya?"
"I need to know if you have any techniques that might help remember who I am? I need to know!"
"Are you sure you want to know?" Happousai knew sometime a man forgets his past so that he can run from it easier.
"Yes Master, I must"
"Then please, lay back and let your mind go." Happousai proceeded to reach out with his ki until it surrounded Genma's head. He focused on nothing but attempting to read the aura coming off and unlocking the path into his inner mind. Suddenly, his aura was one with Genma's and the images began to flow rapidly towards him. He was a large group of warriors ready to do battle. He saw
infants being sent to destroy some planets while full adults went to destroy others.
He saw that Genma was one of these killers and that if he'd waited just seconds more, Genma's power would have raised to enough to blow have the planet away. This is when it became clear to him that Genma should never regain his memories. His goal clear, he used Genma's willingness to alter his memories one by one until all the memories of the violent warrior were replaced had been changed or subdued Unfortunately some of the memories were unchangeable. These memories
would help shape who he was to be. With the last of his ki energy, he activated the new personality and withdrew.
"Master, thank you for helping me." Genma cried for a moment as a life worth of memories resurfaced never knowing that they weren't really his. Happousai knew for some of his memory alterations to work, he would need to alter Soun's as well. He knew that Soun would be a lot easier to work with since the man had become very subjugated a while ago. When he was done with two, he would believe that he'd know each other since the were kids. He even through in a memory of the two agreeing to marry their son and daughter if they every had kids.
Suddenly a pain ran through his head. He knew why too. He'd strained his ki to it's limit manipulating Genma and Soun's memories. The pain was almost unbearable. He turned his energies inward and tried to bring then under control. After hours of pain, he managed to get it to stop flaring. Because of the stress he put on himself, he could not safely use his ki in that was ever again. If he did, he could lose his ki all together or worse.
Years passed and together, Soun and Genma defeated and buried their perverted master. More years passed after that and what would have been impossible with the master around finally happened.
Soun meet his future wife, Kimiko. Genma started feeling in the way so the two parted ways and Genma headed into the mountains to find himself. During this the time he spent there, he fell ill. He tried to find help, but passed out before he could. When he woke up, he was in the house of a lady that found him.
"Oh, your awake finally. I'm so happy your alright." Genma sat up and looked into the eyes of the lady that was speaking to him. What he saw was his future and all the great things it held for him, all in her eyes.
After a while, he married Nodoka, the woman that save his life and possibly even his school. It wasn't long after that, Nodoka became pregnant. Nodoka decided to a specil head set that would allow her child to hear some music she would play from early morning to late at night. The doctor told her if she did this, her child would be a lot smarter then a normal child. She hoped this was true and did as she was told.
Eight months passed and it was time. Genma grabbed his wife and used his naturally fast feet to carry them faster then any car could drive. As they arrived at the hospital, the nurses came out and took Nokoka in a wheel chair the rest of the way.
Once in the delivery room, the doctors and nurses were scrabling around doing god only knows. Finally the doctors called for her to give a final push. She responded with an ear shattering yell and a did as they told her. As her yell ended, she heard it. A crying sound. Her son.
PART 2
Genma's day started off like a dream. One that he'd waited for over five years for. He held Nodoka's hand while she breathed in and out. It wasn't long before he heard the cries of a small child. He was very happy, but he noticed the doctors didn't seem to share this joy. He went over and saw what they were staring at. His boy, for lack of a better word, had a 'defect'. While the
doctor's simply looked stunned, he used the scissors one of the doctor's was holding to remove it. Beyond removing the 'defect', he managed to cause his son to cry even more.
Each of the doctor's would have been furious at him if they weren't still reeling from what they'd just saw. The nurse took the child from the hands of the doctors and proceeded to wash the infant off with warm water. Once she was done, she handed the child back to Genma.
Genma held his child and looked lovingly at his beloved wife as he thought to himself what a lucky guy he was. In his hands, he held not only the proof of his love for his wife, but his own future. He thought back to the years ago when he and his friend Soun had decided that if one had a girl and the other a boy, then they would be wed to unite the schools. Oh happy days!
"Well, my boy, I want you to listen carefully to what I am about to tell you," he said gently to the still child in his arms. "They say a man's destiny is determined by the name he is given. With this in mind, I thought up a very special name for you. Your name is Ranma and it means Wild Horse. I want you to be like your name sake Ranma and always be free to explore the world and make any green pasture your own."
He once again looked at his wife and smiled once again at how lucky he was.
Nodoka and Genma immediately began to do their parts to guarantee Ranma's future. Every morning, Genma would help his son to stretch. At first it was hard to get the infant to accept being folded into odd positions, but soon Ranma began to accept it as the pain went away. Genma had to give his son back to Nodoka after breakfast was up, but he got Ranma back after supper time. He would use this time to help burn into Ranma's brain the basics of martial arts.
During the times between breakfast and suppertime, Nodoka would teach Ranma about everything he could understand. At first it was slow since Ranma couldn't speak, but thanks to Nodoka's help, it only took him a couple months to learn how to speak basic Japanese. Of course Nodoka didn't stop there. She made certain the whole time to expose her son to every language she knew and a few she didn't. In fact, the only language she didn't try to teach her son was Chinese. Her son would never need that, right?
Besides language skills, she taught him math, geography, history, and even philosophy. By the age of 6, Ranma was speaking fluidly in ten different languages, though he always knew to speak Japanese when he was around his parents.
At the age of 2, Genma increased Ranma's martial arts training to include katas, meditation, and basic weapons use. Ranma didn't really like any of it, but his mother told him to do what Genma said, so he obeyed. When he turned 6, he knew how to handle every weapon masterfully and all the basic forms of martial arts, however he still did not like it anymore then when he started.
In time, Genma realized something was wrong. Instead of wanting to go and explore the world, Ranma was afraid to leave the house. Instead of being tough and sparring with his old man, Ranma would cried when he got the smallest of cuts or scrapes. And worst of all, instead of coming to him for advice and help, Ranma was going to his mother. It quickly became obvious to him that it was Nodoka's fault. She was keeping Ranma from becoming the man he wanted his son to be. He sat in his room trying to figure out how to put the fire in his boy, when the answer struck him. He needed to take the boy on a training journey.
"Nodoka dear, I'm afraid I can not train our son properly while he is near you. He will continue to refuse the challenges he is presented with since he knows he can run to you and have you solve them." Genma knew she would take the next part hard, but he knew he was right. "I'm taking our son away on training journey."
Nodoka was shocked at hearing this statement. She couldn't believe her husband was saying. The pain of even thinking of being parted from her son caused her tears to form around her eyes.
"Please don't cry honey, I promise you with my life that you will see your son again and when you do he will not only be a man, but he will be a man amongst men. I stake my honor... and Ranma's on it"
"But if you fail, that would mean...," she gasped as she envisioned her husband and her son preparing to take their own lives.
"I'm not certain I'd go that far...," Genma started to worry.
"Be brave, should the worst happen, I will help you so that you can rest in peace." With that she pulled a sword from the top shelf of her closet. "I will use this very blade to help you end your life with honor." Despite the fact that she was saying she would help kill himself, Genma could hear that his wife loved him deeply still.
"Nodoka, with your support, I can not fail!" He said triumphantly, forcing himself not to think about what might happen otherwise.
Ranma was not sure what was happening. His father handed him a back pack and then he put on his own.
"Ranma, we're going camping," Genma knew his son would never go if he told him the whole truth.
"Is mom coming with us?" Genma groaned to himself as he heard his son say this. The boy was really helpless right now. Soon though, that would change.
"No son, mommy's not feeling to good right now, but she told me to tell you that she wants you to go with me." Hearing that his mom wanted him to go, he felt a little better about the idea, but something didn't seem right.
Weeks later, Genma and Ranma came across an abandoned temple. In the entrance stood two life sized cat statues. Inside, he could hear the mewing of cats. They sounded hungry to Ranma.
"Hello, is anyone here?" Genma called out as he surveyed the temple grounds. Spooky he thought. All he could see were hundreds of cats . 'Wonder how they survive here with no one to feed them?'
The two entered the main hall of the temple hoping that perhaps they might find someone there or at least something to eat and a place to sleep. He saw a chest, a table, and a door. They checked inside the room and saw it was for meditation. In the chest, Genma discovered a bag with some odd scrolls and a jar of three round pills. He decided to hold on to these things for later. Suddenly, the table had caught his eye. Genma spotted a strange document on the table in the
center of the room. On the front of it, it read "Cat-Fist". The sight of this caused Genma to drop to his knees and weep for joy. He heard his master speak of this and from what Happousai told him, this art was guaranteed to make the user . "Boy, do you know how lucky we are. We just found the fabled lost temple of the school of Neko-Kun."
Genma took this discovery to mean that the powers that be we're all for his training journey with his son. He opened the book and forced himself to remain calm.
"To teach Neko-Kun, wrap trainee from head to toe in fish sausages. Then throw into pit of starving cats." He stopped and wept again. "Its so easy."
Suddenly, he realized that all this crying made him feel like he was turning into his friend, Soun Tendo. He calmed himself and decided to follow the directions he'd just read. What's
the worst that can happen he thought.
Later during the next day, Ranma woke to a fishy smell. Make that the smell of fish. He screamed as he realized that he was hanging upside down and covered in fish sausages. "Don't worry boy, this won't take long at all."
That's when he heard the cats. They came at him ripping and tearing the sausages from him barely cutting him in the process. His mind only saw the cats that were attacking him from all sides. He wished they'd stop!
Outside, Genma decided that 7 starved cats might not be enough and proceeded to throw 4 more in. An hour later, most of the cat noises began to fade. He figured they probably got all the fish sausages off of the boy by now. He opened up the pit to check and saw that Ranma had passed out. As he pulled him out, he noticed there seemed to be 6 cats missing. Not knowing what to make of this, he decided he probably miss counted. Right now, he focused on patching up his son's wounds.
For the next three days, he repeated the process and each time some of the cats would disappear. Finally Genma decided that the training was not working and called it off.
This time when Genma pulled his son out, Ranma could barely stand on his own, so his father decided to take him to the nearest city. After checking into the a hospital, he lied and told them his son ran away and fell into a pit full of cats and that he saved him later. This put the nurses at easy about Genma and quickly went to work helping Ranma's wounds.
After two weeks, Ranma was feeling good enough that he decided to take a walk around the hospital wing he was at and see what he could see. As he was looking around, a stray cat got into the building. Ranma never saw it coming until it was too late. It jumped at him hoping he would catch it and pet it. Before the cat reached its target, a scream was heard through out the hospital. Genma, who was asleep next to Ranma's bed, woke up and went to his son. When he saw what
was happening, he was speechless. He couldn't figure out why Ranma was afraid of a harmless cat. That's when he realized this might have had something to do with the Neko-Kun. He quickly pulled out the manuscript and decided to read the whole thing. What he saw on the next page horrified him. It read simply, "banned for causing severe mental trauma" He mentally kicked himself for not reading the whole thing sooner.
Before he could remove the cat from Ranma's presence, he noticed his son's screaming was replaced with an odd cat's mewing. That's when he saw the look in the boy's eyes. He wasn't sure how, but he knew what he was seeing was Ranma performing the Neko-Kun style. Ranma moved his human body in a very cat like way and took up a fighting stance.
"Wow, that's great boy," Genma said while practically patting his own back. "I'm sure glad that training wasn't for nothing." Suddenly Ranma jumped at his father slashing his hands. Genma ducked at the last minute after realizing his boy wasn't trying to get a hug. Just as Ranma started to hit the wall that was behind Genma, his slashing hands tore the wall to pieces.
Genma knew he was in trouble know. If Ranma could shred things like that with his bare hands, how could he hope to stop him. As he tried to formulate a plan, Ranma leaped at him again. Genma dodged as fast as he could and barely made it out of the way. It wouldn't take long though before Genma would be backed in to a corner with no way of dodging. Just as it seemed his hope of surviving were gone, he heard an old ladies voice.
"Here kitty kitty kitty," the old lady called out. Ranma stopped in mid air and turned to the lady. "Here kitty kitty kitty." She continued. Ranma leaped at the old lady and Genma closed his eyes expecting the worst. After a few minutes of not hearing any screams, he opened his eyes and saw Ranma laying in the lap of the old lady.
"Well, I'll be," Genma stared in amazement as the old lady simply pet Ranma as if he were a real cat. He wasn't sure how the old lady was able to calm Ranma, but he decided until he could figure out how to reverse the Neko-Kun's effect, that they should stay close by this old lady.
The next day, Genma decided he needed to thank the old lady that helped Ranma out. He went to the room where he saw her, but the room was empty. He looked around to see if he had the right room. He still couldn't find her anywhere. He decided to ask one of the nurses for help.
"Hello Ms, have you seen a kindly old lady about this tall around here?" he asked holding his hand just about two feet off the ground.
"Yes I do remember her. She passed away early this morning." With that the nurse turned away and went about her business.
After a week, the hospital released Ranma to his father and the two went to the end of town to pitch a tent. Being out of money meant this was their only option. Not that Genma minded. He preferred the idea of roughing it. He knew it would help toughen up his son.
"Ranma, I think it's time for us to have a sparring match." He knew his son already knew the basics of Martial Arts even if he was too much of a cry baby to use them. He still needed to get Ranma to realized fighting was ok. It quickly struck him as odd when instead of complaining and saying he didn't want to, Ranma actually took up a fighting pose and prepared himself. 'Perhaps this is another one of the effects of the Neko-Kun'
Not only did Ranma fight without complaining, but he seemed to hold his own. In the end though Genma was still much better, but it bothered him because it took so much of his skill to beat his son. The last couple times he managed to get his son to fight, he had to hold everything back to keep his son from going and crying to mommy.
"Ranma, that's enough for today."
'Ranma's power was a lot different then it used to be. I wonder how much longer I can keep up with him? I must go on a trip without my son and see if I can figure out how to help him become even more powerful.'
With that thought, he decided he would have to find a place for Ranma to stay while he was gone. After three hours of searching, his stomach reminded him that he'd forgotten to eat anything all day. He wandered around town for a while, before realizing his stomach was calling him. Usually he could control his appetite unless there was food around. That's when his nose informed him as to what his stomach already knew. Someone was cooking Japanese pizza somewhere close.
It didn't take him long then to find a small cart. He ordered a large with everything. As he was eating, he noticed the cook had a child as well.
"Nice kid you have there."
"Thanks, she's only six years old, but she's becoming a great chef already."
"Wow, and at such a young age. I've been training my boy to become the worlds greatest martial artist, but..."
"What's wrong?"
"My boy is almost better then me. I won't be able to continue training him for much longer at this rate. I need to get away for a few months and prepare myself. Unfortunately, we're so far from everyone we know."
"Well, my name is Utamara Kuonji. Being a dad myself, I feel for you. My daughter here seems to soak up everything I teach her and I too fear I won't be able to do much for her."
"Man it's rough to have kids that are smarter then we are."
"You said it buddy. Hey, I just had me an idea!" Utamara's face light up. "The best thing I could do for my daughter is to make certain she has a strong husband when she grows up. If you'll agree to to let your son marry my daughter, I'll watch him while your out of town."
"I don't know. My Ranma is already promised to one of the daughters of my best friend."
"That's a darn shame and here's me ready to throw in my Okonomiyaki cart as her dowry."
"Sold!... I mean I accept." Ranma made certain to bring his son back the next day so he could meet Ukyo, the chef's daughter. The two hit it off in no time. Genma was surprised that Ukyo seemed to know some forms of combat as well as cooking. The stage was prepared for his journey into the mountains. His son would have a safe place to stay. 'with any luck, when I get back, I'll have the perfect plan to help Ranma continue his training!'
It had been about 2 months since his dad left him to go on a that trip to discover himself. Ranma remembered a time when the thought of not having a family member around would bring him to tears. He preferred being with his mother, but as long as one of them was around, he was happy. Now he was without either and in a strange town and yet he felt fine. The truth is, he felt a lot
better then he'd ever felt before.
He remembered the weeks before his dad left when the two were training together. He knew his dad was holding back since he'd never really trained much before then. It didn't bother him since he figured his dad would kill him if he went all out.
Before his dad left, he meet a man, Mr. Utamara Kuonji. The two dads' hit it off right away. When Genma decided to leave for his self discovery, the fathers' agreed to let Ranma stay at the Kuonji house with Utamara and his son, Ukyo. His father also took the time to enroll him in one of the local all boys schools so that he could keep his mind as strong as his body.
His father left him a list of things to do each day. First he was to start by working out for an hour. Once he cleaned up, he'd be off to school. After school was over, he would spar with Ukyo to win himself a snack. When he and Ukyo were done practicing, practice his katas until it was time to eat supper. With supper over, it would be meditation time until it was time to go to bed. This was what was supposed to happen everyday.
His first day back to school was different then he thought it would be. Back when he lived with his mom, he loved learning. His mother always made it fun to learn about all the things of the world. Since he started traveling with his father though, getting an education didn't seem all that interesting to him.
His first day he managed to work up enough interest to make the first part of the day go by fairly quick and before he knew it, the class was lining up to go to lunch. He figured the teacher would be walking them to the cafeteria, she just yelled out, "GO!!"
All the boys in his class took off and Ranma just went with the flow. As they made their way to the cafeteria, he noticed some of the other boys were unconscious and he could see other boys fighting. From behind him, he heard a yell and he knew he needed to duck quickly. As he did, a boy with a yellow bandanna went flying over his head and into the head of another student.
"Your good" The boy said smirking. Ranma wasn't sure what that was about. At this point Ranma figured out that it was likely he would also have to fight to get something from the lunch lady when he arrived and saw even more fighting. It was like a war zone here.
"Last order of Pork buns!" The lady behind the counter yelled as she tossed it into the crowd. That was his favorite kind. He lounged at it as he noticed that strange boy from before also doing the same thing. Ranma was ahead though and he decided to use the boy's head to boast his own speed.
"Who dares to step on the head of Ryoga Hibiki!" He looked and saw the boy he tried to attack in the hall way. "What's you name?"
"I'm Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes Martial Arts."
"Anything goes? How about coming over to my house and sparring with me?" Suddenly another new feeling emerged in Ranma. Before his dad took him on this trip, he never cared for sparring. In fact even after when his dad asked him to spar, he did it because he was told to and a part of him couldn't refuse his own father. Now, he felt excited at the prospect of sparring with someone he just meet. He quickly agreed.
"Meet me back here after school is out and I'll show you the way." with that, the two boys parted way. The rest of the school day blurred by as Ranma thought about the chance to fight someone his own age. In some ways, it could be said that he'd also made his first real friend.
After school, he made his way to the cafeteria where he found Ryoga already waiting for him.
"Ready to go?" Ryoga asked as he started out.
"Right behind you." It didn't take them long as Ryoga seemed to know the roads like the back of his hands and took them through a short cut. The two quickly warmed up and began to spar. It was amazing to Ranma how much fun this was to him now. Ryoga was very good and Ranma loved every minute of the fight. Hours later, the two finally let themselves fall to the ground.
"Your good." Ryoga said between heavy breathes. They laid in the hot sun for a few more minutes before the two decided to call it a day.
Ranma quickly ran towards Ukyo's house. He wasn't sure why people called Ukyo by the nick name of Uu-chan since that nick name sounded bit girlie name. Still, Ukyo seemed to like it, so Ranma had taken to calling him that too.
"Hey Uu-chan, you want to play?" He yelled as Ukyo's family cart came into view.
"I'll get you, you jackass!" Ukyo shouted.
"This game was your idea, so watch your mouth" Utamara recalled how Ukyo actually brought up the idea of having Ranma fight him once a day for food. He was a bit mad to hear him insulting Ranma now, but perhaps Ukyo was just trying to anger him. However, in the end, Ranma quickly defeated Ukyo with a strong kick to the head and won himself a freshly made Japanese Pizza.
Elsewhere, Genma traveled far to find an answer on how he could continue to train a son that was already getting stronger then he was. He came across a small shrine. It was to the goddess of the future. He decided that this was as good a place to start his soul searching. He set up camp near the shrine and went inside to pray. As he knelt to pray, suddenly he felt very tired. He closed
his eyes and left go of his mind. In his mind he could see his son and the friend he made. He saw Ukyo and how the two got along. Then he saw his son and a boy with a yellow bandanna sparring together and having a wonderful time. As he watched, something in his mind told him the boy in the yellow bandanna was name Ryoga.
The vision went black and when it came back in, he saw Ranma and Ryoga again. Only this time, Ranma had fallen into the Neko-Kun trance and Ryoga had a nasty head wound. Around the two were dozens of cat bodies ripped into pieces. The scene before Genma, made him sick as he saw the blood and gore. It horrified him that this might be in his son's future.
Before he could make sense of it all, the vision changed again. He saw a flyer for a tournament. He made certain to memorize what the flyer said and what it looked like. It felt like the flyer would reveal something to him later if he investigated it.
That image was soon replaced with the image of a boy about Ranma's age fighting a man that appeared to being wearing a wig. Being bald himself, Genma had an eye for spotting people that suffered his affliction. The man with the wig was a lot older then the boy he was fighting. An odd thing happened though. The man wearing the wig suddenly disappeared and Genma listened very carefully. He heard a low whispering voice.
'That is how it was supposed to be. Now because you have asked me for help, I will show you how it can be.'
Were the wig wearing man was, his own son appeared. He could tell his son appeared to be almost thirteen years old. The two boys fought and before Genma could see who would win, the vision went black.
That vision was again replaced with the image of a man dressed in a monk's fighting uniform in the forest not to far from where Genma was. He held a neatly rolled scroll in his hands. Two actually. He was heading somewhere, but was attacked. The attackers did not take the scrolls. They seemed more interested in the man's money bag. Once again, Genma felt that this was important, so he remembered how far away the man was from where he was currently.
Genma was becoming used to the images disappearing and being replaced. This time, he saw a lady. 'Perhaps this is Ranma's future wife' he thought to himself. The red head did seem familiar to him though. The image did not last as long as the others.
Suddenly, instead of the nice calm flow the visions had been coming to him with, the speed increased to a dangerous speed. He did his best to try to see what was being shown to him, but it was more then he could do. He woke with a yell. Was it a dream?
'Those visions were maddening. But what could they mean. I can't waste a second. If what I saw was true, then there is a man about 2 miles from here that is about to be attacked. I wonder if I can get there in time to save him?'
He quickly stood and collected his camping gear and headed in the direction that he saw the man that had been attacked. It didn't take long and he found the dead body. Genma could tell he was about a half an hour too late to save the poor traveler. He quickly searched the pockets of the man after praying that the man's soul would forgive his trespasses. He found the scrolls right where the vision showed him that they would be. He looked them over carefully and saw that
they were to a tournament of great fighters. It also listed the gathering date as June 1, 1995. At least it was a long ways off. He couldn't read the rest since it was in Chinese.
'A tournament. Sounds interesting. It's a long way off so I'll have plenty of time to train the boy and get him stronger then anyone else alive. If he wins, our dojo's reputation will be secured.'
With that, he headed to the nearest town. It was only a days travel to the north. Once he was there, he looked back to the vision. He could remember a shop that had the flyer in the mail box. Going with just his instincts, he soon found himself in front of the store he saw the flyer in his vision. It was an invitation to a another Martial Arts tournament. That's when it all made sense to him. He knew how to help train his son past his own strength level and perhaps even raise his own in the process.
He checked the date on the flyer and noticed that the tournament it spoke of would start in May of 1986. He would have plenty of time to get the boy so that they could make the journey. It took him a two weeks to make the trip back to the town he left Ranma in. He made his way to Ukyo's house to see if the boy was doing well. He figured he'd been gone for almost 2 months now and he kind of missed the boy. He knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" Utamara asked through the door.
"It's me, Genma"
"Genma, Thank goodness you've returned. There's been an accident of some kind." Utamara sounded scared. "Please come in and I'll explain what I can." Genma suddenly remembered the vision of Ryoga surrounded by blood.
'His son hadn't killed him, did he?' He didn't say this out loud, but waited for Utamara to continue.
"I'm still not certain of the details of the attack, but when Ranma went over to one of his friends houses, he became very violent and attacked and killed all the family house cats and wounded his friend Ryoga badly. I just got word that the boy came out of his coma about an hour ago."
"Hmmm. It's as I feared. Where is the boy now?"
"I managed to track him down and I brought him back here. He didn't remember anything that he did at his friends house. I've been hiding him, hoping that you could return soon. You need to take your son now and run as far away from here as you can."
"I agree. I am so sorry that you had to be apart of this."
"Think nothing of it. I'm certain the boy didn't mean for it to happen the way it seems. Please, for the night, I would like you to stay and tell me what has happened with you in the last year since you left."
"Year! I thought I'd only been away for a month or two!"
"What? I'm afraid its been almost one year exactly since you left."
"Then I need to see my son." A whole year. Genma couldn't figure out how, but it must have been a side effect of the goddess statues visions.
"He's in the next room." Utamara led the way. When they looked in, they saw Ranma was not there. The two men scrabbled and began to search the house.
Ranma was tired of being stuck in that tiny room. He decided to go over to Ryoga's house to play. When he got there, he saw Ryoga in the back yard practicing.
"Hey Ryoga! How's it going?" He was about to pat his friend on the back when Ryoga turned and attacked.
"Ranma, I want to kill you! But I'm going to let you go today. I want you to meet me here tomorrow. This is a man to man challenge so you'd better be here. I'm going to kill you for what you've done to me!"
"Ryoga, what did I do?"
"As if you don't know. Why just thinking about it makes my poor heart of glass shatter in to a million pieces!!" Truth was, he couldn't remember what happened either, but the pain was still there. "Now go and try to enjoy your last hours on this Earth. The fight will take place in the vacant lot behind my house."
Ranma was too weirded our by the way Ryoga was acting, so he simply went back home to tell Utamara about the challenge.
Back at the Kuonji house hold, Utamara and Genma were still trying to figure out if Ranma was hiding in the house, or if he'd fled. Genma was busy thinking of all the places that Ranma was likely to go, but his thoughts were interrupted by the front door opening.
"Dad, your back!" Ranma said as he leapt to his father.
"There are you Ranma. Don't you know you had me worried half sick about you? Where were you?" Ranma told them about what happened when he went to Ryoga's house. "Well, this is an odd turn of events. Boy, your in more trouble then you realize. I wish you hadn't been challenged. You must accept." When Utamara heard this, he was terrified.
"Genma, you do realized that the police are probably looking for Ranma as we speak. If you let him go out and fight this boy Ryoga, He'll just end up getting caught."
"I'm afraid honor will not allow Ranma to back down just because of what could happen. Ranma, you should take this time to prepare yourself."
Ranma decided instead of training, he would meditate and perhaps he could figure out what he did to make Ryoga so angry. He tried all night to think of even one thing, but nothing came to him. Maybe Ryoga really had been angry that Ranma beat him to all that bread.
It was morning before he knew it. He got up and began his morning warm ups followed by his usual set of punches and kicks. Once he was done, he headed over to Ryoga's house to get it over with.
He arrived shortly before seven in the morning and he waited in the lot behind Ryoga's house. He struck a pose and waited. After an hour he realized that they never set a time, so Ranma decided to use a meditation trick his dad taught him. With it, a man could lose days if his intended target did not arrive quickly. As his mind slipped away, he hoped Ryoga would make certain he was out of the meditation before attacking.
Three days later, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head. 'Why that dirty cheater' Ranma thought as he spun around to defend himself. Instead of Ryoga, his dad was there.
"Ranma! What are doing starring into space like that boy, we've got places to be!"
"What, where's Ryoga?"
"Boy, it's been three days since you came here. If he didn't show up by now, perhaps he decided to forget about the dual." That made sense to Ranma. Frankly, he couldn't figure out why Ryoga would have wanted to fight him in the first place.
As they ran off, they noticed Ukyo following them.
"You promised to take me with you, you jackass!" Genma recalled talking to Utamara about having Ukyo marry Ranma, but the discussion never really went anywhere. Utamara had even offered the pizza cart as a dowry. At the time Genma said he would accept, but later the two talked and he apologized for making a promise he couldn't keep. When Genma was about to leave to get Ranma, Utamara informed him that he didn't care about the marriage deal, but wanted Genma to take the cart to help the two of them while they were on the run.
Genma knew that Ukyo probably translated this to mean that the deal had been made. He also knew that life on the run would be no good for a young girl like Ukyo, so he increased his speed to out run her. On top of the cart, Ranma simply waved as he shouted his good-byes. It wasn't long before Ukyo was out of sight and Ranma turned his attention to their destination, which he still didn't know anything about.
"Where we headed to now pop?"
"We're going for a swim and a tournament that will make you into a legend boy!"
Later the next day, in the lot behind Ryoga's house, a boy arrives. It is Ryoga.
"Ranma, where are you? You coward, why did you run out on a man to man fight!" He yelled out with all his might. He fell to his knees and paused. 'Why did it take me so long to find this place?'
************************
According to pop, they were headed towards a really big tournament. Fighters from around the world would be competing there and Ranma's dad was counting on him to win. With less then four months to prepare, he wasn't sure how they could beat the worlds best. Since his dad made him train using the Neko-Kun technique, he'd been feeling more confident though and he knew they'd be alright.
He and his father had been sparring for the better half of the day and his father was now exhausted and went to sleep. Ranma on the other hand felt great and full of energy. With his dad out of commission, he would have to find something to occupy his time with. He headed off to climb the near by mountains. He figured with the Ki jumping ability his dad taught him, he'd have no trouble scaling these and returning before bed time.
He quickly eyed the step mountain ahead of him and figured it was about 600 feet tall. The Ki energy inside of him gathered and he guessed it would take 10 jumps to reach the summit. He started off and reached 40 feet with his first jump and roughly landed on a small out cropping. 'Darn, I didn't concentrate my Ki enough.'
For the second jump, Ranma made certain to push as much Ki energy down as he could and his body shot off like a rocket. He found himself over 100 feet above his last destination as he landed on the side of the mountain. 'Wow, I might have over done it that time.'
He knew he would need to pace himself or he'd use up all his Ki energy and pass out. Just as he was about to try again, he noticed an odd cave. For a cave, it seemed to be well lit with a light blue haze. He decided to take a break from scaling the mountain and do some cave exploring. As he got closer, he was certain the cave was lighting itself. When he got inside, he could see that
there were some odd crystals on the sides of the cave that were responsible for the light.
He went deeper into the cave hoping to see how long it was and went he got about twenty feet, he heard foot steps coming towards him. At first he thought they were echoes of his own steps, but as he stood there, the sounds continued. 'Wonder how they got into this cave?' he thought as he started towards the foot steps. Suddenly he came face to face with a red headed girl. A cute one too. She seemed to be the same age as Ranma.
"Hello" It was all he could figure to say. He figured it would be a bit rude if he was to ask how she got here and he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Hi, how did you get up here?" The girl asked him. And here Ranma was wanting to ask the same thing of her.
"I jumped." He said then stopped to think of how to explain how he jumped up here to a girl.
"You jumped up here too?" Ranma was stunned again. This girl was interesting.
"My pop taught me to control my Ki and to launch myself upwards."
"Isn't this funny," the girl said with a giggle. "My dad taught me that same technique. Are you a martial artist?
"Yup. You?"
"One of thebest. Hey, you want to spar?"
'That's a good question. Do I want to spar? I was still ready to go when my dad called it quits for the day. Here's my chance to get some more sparing in, but she's a girl and my father always said it was wrong to hit girls.' His thoughts went on like this for a minute before his desire to fight won and he took up a fighting stance.
The two fought until the early morning before they decided enough was enough. Ranma noted that this girls fighting style was similar to his own. The only real difference was strength versus speed. This girl was a bit faster then he was while he was a tad stronger then she was.
"Hey, you want to meet my dad?" Ranma wanted his father to meet this girl.
"Sure, I'm certain my dad won't wake up for at least another 4 hours after the work out we had."
The two quickly jumped down the mountain and returned to Ranma's camp. On the way, it hit Ranma that he'd never actually asked this girl what her name was.
"Hey, I never got your name?"
"It's Ranko."
"Ranko, that's a nice name," He stopped talking to think about the name. Wild Girl? That's what he thought that name meant. "My name is Ranma. There's the camp right ahead."
"I think my camp is somewhere around here too." Ranko was looking around and noticing this area seemed like where she and pop set up at.
"Wow, I'm surprised we didn't see each other. Me and pop were going at it all over the place."
"Sounds like me and my dad." When she say the camp she realized they must have gone the wrong way and ended up at her camp instead. No biggie there. She could introduce Ranma to her dad instead. She'd never done anything like this before and hoped her dad wouldn't be too mad.
When the two arrived at the camp, they both rushed to the tent and yelled out, "Get up Pop!"
A very confused man found himself torn from his dreams of the Tendo and Saotome schools being united and him having lots of food by the sound of Ranma yelling at him. It was unfortunate, but it seemed that a love for fighting wasn't the only thing Ranma gained from the Neko-Kun. He'd have to hammer in some respect for his elders later. When he sat up, he notice it wasn't just Ranma that yelled at him. Next to him was red headed girl. To further his confusion, he was
certain he heard the girl call him pop as well. Before he could figure out why, the two children in front of him took up fighting postures.
"This is my dad!" The two yelled at each other. They began to fight with passion. It took several hours before the two couldn't continue and called a truce. Genma took this time to examine the girl closely. She looked a lot like his son, but she had long red hair and a higher pitched voice then his son. He decided to check her elbow and saw she had the same scare that Ranma got during
one of their sparing sessions. There was one other thing he could check, but he felt it was not appropriate for him to ask to see. He knew his son had a scar from birth that he never told Ranma or his mother about. He then remembered a legend of a cave that was linked to another world. His master told him about this legend, but he figured it was just a story.
While to two were fighting, he overheard his son call the girl Ranko.
'Funny,' he thought. 'That's the name I had ready incase Ranma turned out to be a girl. Guess this proves my theory."
"Ranko, I want you to go and clean up while I talk to Ranma. Please do not take too long since Ranma will be next." He had to find out what he could from Ranma before he told the girl that he was not her father. The girl, lacking modesty, began to undress right there before running to the lake nearby. As she ran, Genma allowed himself to look to see if she had the same scare at the base of her spin. He was stunned to see she did have it right were he expected to see it. He turned to talk to his son and heard a loud noise. He turned and saw a tree had fallen onto his tent. 'thank goodness these two woke me up when they did. I'd been killed otherwise.'
Suddenly Genma wondered if this was a bad omen.
"Son, this girl doesn't belong here. I want you to take her back to where you meet her and make certain she finds her way back to where she came from." As he finished telling this to Ranma, Ranko came running back soaking wet and still naked. She reached went to reach into the tent but noticed it was smashed. She then picked up the clothes she laid on the ground and put them back on.
'They smell a little, but its better then no clothes at all.' she thought lazily.
"Ranko, I want you to go with Ranma. Do not leave his side until you have returned to the camp." He figured that her real father was probably worried sick about her. "Now go Ranma!"
At his father's order, Ranma took off towards the mountain with Ranko in tow. Ranma took Ranko's hand and and began to power up his Ki for a super jump. Ranko could feel this happening and began to do the same thing. When they got within 20 feet of the base of the mountain, the both pushed down on the Ki energy and launched themselves over 140 feet up the side. As they landed, Ranma spotted the entrance of the cave that he found her in. The two entered and began to run to
the other side. As Ranma was running, he noticed the cave seemed to make a u turn. He could tell the were right back to where they came in. Since there was no other paths to take, he figured he'd have to go back and tell his dad. The two came out and once again, they jumped the entire distance down the mountain and they ran full speed back to the camp. As they got there, they saw the tree was still on top of the tent. 'The old man's getting lazy.'
Ranma stood staring at the mighty red wood that had fallen onto the tent and was about to continue looking for his pop, when he noticed some clothing sticking out of the smashed tent. It was underwear, only it was different then what he and pop would were.
"What are you doing with my underwear!"
"Why are you leaving your underwear in our camp?"
"I told you this not your camp, it's mine!" Ranma continued to search and noticed there was not just one pair, but several. When he picked up one of the shirts he noticed it was wet and had an odd odor to it. It smelled like a dead animal. He looked more carefully and saw it was blood and there was a trail of it leading to under the tree.
"Ranko, help me move this tree." Ranma was starting to realize what his dad told him. 'Son, this girl doesn't belong here. I want you to take her back to where you meet her and make certain she finds her way back.' His fathers words went through his mind and then he remembered how the tree struck their tent. He knew though the only reason his father was not still sleeping was because Ranko and him woke him up. Otherwise he would have been...
Ranko couldn't figure out why Ranma wanted to move the tree, but figured what the heck. She started to help when she noticed her backpack and her fathers lying on the ground next to the battered tent. She quickly slung them around her shoulders and then went back to helping Ranma move the tree.
As the two pushed against the mighty red wood, Ranma started to see a human shape under the broken tent. He realized that if he let this Ranko see this, she would be devastated. He stopped pushing and grabbed her and began running back towards the cave. Against the girls protest, he Ki jumped once again back to the cave and continued to run until they were back in Ranma's world. He set her down, centered his Ki into his fist, and punched the sides of the entrance
causing it to collapse and effectively sealed the entrance of the cave.
"Why'd you do that?" Ranko finally able to stand up. He wasn't sure how to tell her the truth so he lied to her.
"That wasn't your world. It was mine and my father is dead." He would have to tell dad what happened so that he would not blow Ranma's story. He looked into Ranko's eyes and he saw she understood.
'He's covering something. As he dropped the tree, I saw what was under there. Since all of my stuff was there, I know where we were.' She did her best to not show on her face what she felt. Her father may be gone, but she knew she had to go on.
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Be sure to read "The Mysterious Tower" and then "The 20th World Martial Arts
Tournament" before you read chapter 2. If you don't like crossovers, you can
skip them since I don't really introduce anything terribly important.