Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction / Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ A Fistful Of Omake ❯ Different Endings ( Chapter 40 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

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omake: an attempt to handle a SM+R 1/2 crossover in a different manner.

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Ranma was upset. First Ukyo and Shampoo went breaking up the marriage, then Akane started getting mad at him again.

"Ranma," Kasumi was as polite as ever on greeting him. "There's someone here to see you."

Ranma entered the room and knew he was in trouble. If the tension in the air had been any thicker, he'd have expected Kasumi to hang laundry on it.

Akane angry and sitting at the table - check.

Soun smoking and looking calm - check. He always did that just before he either did that demon head or got the samurai armor out of the closet.

Stupid oyaji pandafied and looking like he was on a high colonic. Yup.

Nabiki smirking and working an abacus. Oh, this was very very not good.

The tall girl with the red eyes and long dark green hair looked kind of familiar but he couldn't immediately place her.

"It took me some time to find you, Ranma Saotome," said the woman.

"This isn't another engagement arranged by his father, is it?" Soun's voice was showing his anger. "Because he's already engaged to marry Akane."

"No. This particular arrangement predates the two of you going on that training trip with your old Master," said the woman calmly.

"Hotcha! A new babe! Let an old man... YOU?!"

Seeing the old man speed up and prepare to glomp. Normal. Seeing him come to a complete halt, turn four shades paler, and start backing away while sweating bullets? None of them had ever seen this before and they weren't too sure how to take the situation.

The woman smirked ever so slightly. "It's been awhile, hasn't it, Toki?"

"AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"I've never seen the old freak run *that* fast," admitted Ranma. Ok, maybe he was a little concerned now.

"In any case, my business was strictly with Ranma," began the woman.

"NO! If you're just another two bit cheap tramp, go back home!" Soun exclaimed, taking in the eye and hair color and coming to an obvious conclusion. "Ranma will marry Akane and that's that!"

"Hmmmph. No way! I'm through with that pervert," Akane declared. "He forgave Ukyo and even Shampoo inside a week!"

"How long did it take you to forgive P-chan?" Ranma grumbled, knowing the answer - not even five minutes. Maybe if she knew that Ryouga was P-chan but she still hadn't figured that out.

"What was that?" Akane got angrier. "Would you care to repeat that?"

The woman stood. Suddenly she was wearing a long and elegant gown and she thumped a staff shaped like a big key down on the floor. She looked less than amused by Soun's casual insult. "No. I will be heard. Now. Ranma Saotome. Remember."

Ranma blinked and straightened. "So *that's* it."

The woman nodded. "Yes. That it is. Are you ready?"

"ranma?" Akane was the first to note that Ranma was standing differently. Usually he ended up cringing a lot in these sorts of confrontations. Now he was just oozing confidence.

"Is it an emergency? Is the princess in danger?" Ranma asked the strange woman.

"Not yet. Beryl, among others, has been dealt with. Your identity was well hidden, however, and this was the first opportunity to actually intervene." The woman's eyes passed over the others. "If you need time to settle things here, take a day or two."

"No, there is nothing here that is of any importance," said Ranma in a slightly more cold tone.

Nabiki stood, her own bearing changed, as she spoke in a language that none of the other Tendos had heard before. ("Give me a couple of days at least. Tell Princess Mars that her aide, Coral, will be along shortly.")

("This is a pleasant surprise,") admitted the woman in the gown. ("The tenth district of Tokyo - Hino shrine.")

Nabiki nodded and left, to the shock and surprise of those present.

"RANMA!" Soun immediately went into raging demon-head mode. "HOW DARE YOU-"

Ranma smirked and interrupted by pointing the palm of his right hand at the raging father. Also unlike the usual, as he normally caved in or fled whenever Soun performed this manuever. "Don't tempt me, Mister Tendo. I've remembered a previous engagement and far more important concerns."

"Fine! See if I care!" Akane turned her back towards Ranma. "Just don't come running back to me!"

"I won't," said Ranma more agreeably. "Thank you all for the occasional act of kindness and the lessons learned. Shall we go, Pluto-san?"

"OH NO YOU DON'T," Genma began, blocking the way to the front door.

Pluto moved her staff slightly and just like that she and Ranma were gone.

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"Nabiki!" Soun went stern and forbidding as he blocked the door.

Nabiki set down her suitcase and regarded her father. "What?"

"Where are you going?! I demand answers! You are forbidden to go!" Soun wept and grew angry and went back to weeping.

"I have a job, a duty, a matter of honor to attend to," said Nabiki matter-of-factly.

Akane held out a small pile of yen notes. "I want answers Nabiki."

"You're not ready for the answers, Akane. Give it a few weeks. Answers will come." Nabiki didn't take the money and turned a dazzling smile towards her sister.

Akane's eyes widened at this atypical behavior. "What happened to you?!"

Nabiki's gaze became pitying as she looked over Akane then the other two members of her family. The hastily summoned Nodoka and Genma drew a less friendly gaze. Pursing her lips, she turned back to Akane. "In simplest terms, I remember."

"What do you remember, Nabiki?" Kasumi's voice was polite but shaken.

Nabiki let out a deep breath. Short of going through the window, she was unlikely to get away. Staying to pack had clearly been a mistake. "Short form. Roughly 10,000 years ago."

Akane bellowed. "10,000 *years*?!"

"Perhaps 100,000," admitted Nabiki. "Clearly its been awhile. There was a previous life. I'd never actually met Ranma then, we didn't exactly travel in the same circles. I was Coral, an advisor and handmaid to a princess."

"'Handmaid'," Akane repeated, thinking Nabiki was talking about something hentai.

Nabiki's gaze turned wistful and distant. "Yes. And my princess has returned. Now that I remember, I have more important things to deal with than panty shots and running gambling pools."

"What about Ranma?" Genma grumbled, not believing this talk of previous lives anyway.

"He was Hematite," said Nabiki, then did something that startled and shocked those who knew her. She laughed, not a mocking or a sniggering laugh, but that of a young girl who had just found something amusing.

Both the Tendos and Saotomes stared at Nabiki, who was acting very different from the girl they knew. Kasumi and Akane who knew her best noted that even her stance and the way she moved was different. More confident and with an odd roll to her walk.

Nabiki continued with a smile. "Hematite. The Knight Of Valor - courage under fire. The brash young man among the Knights, Basalt's protege. Oh moon and stars, Uranus is going to get an ulcer!"

"Wait one moment, young lady!" Genma had had enough of this.

So had Nabiki actually, picking up her bags - she vanished.

"WHAT?!" Everyone stared around for a moment.

Akane was the first to realize what had happened. "She's still here. It's some kind of ninja trick."

"We'll just keep blocking the exits then," Genma concluded. "She's not going anywhere until we've gotten to the bottom of this."

The stairs creaked and a blurred shadow briefly showed on it.

"You can't get away that easily," Genma said, leaping towards the last known location.

Nabiki shook her head as she took the now available exit. Some people were just too easy to mislead.

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Usagi Tsukino smiled as the old Moon Kingdom's Court slowly was replenished. New/old friends and companions of hers. Old/new romances were being rekindled.

Hematite had renewed his relationship, both with his Queen and his love.

It had perhaps been perhaps a few short years just after the breakup she'd had with Jadeite, but a certain princess had renewed that spark of passion and mutual respect she'd had with Hematite now that they'd met again in this life.

Coral and Rei were chatting excitedly like the old/new friends that they were.

Others. Neither Naru nor Umino were members of the Court, but they could replace those who had not been found. If they accepted the offer, of course.

Things were coming along quite well.

"RANMA! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!"

Well, with a few minor exceptions.

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Ranma was Ranma was Hematite. He was complete now. Ranma had been his wild life, undisciplined, perhaps a bit brain damaged. As Hematite he had been almost the opposite. In both he'd been the brash young kid on the block - the "can do" confident youth who eschewed common sense and was too stubborn to give up.

Of course, that had been one of the reasons that Hematite had died.

Now the two halves had come together. He remembered Ranma and he remembered Hematite. He was himself.

So he *did* remember the pudgy man with the little piggy eyes who had pulled a cat out of a bag and thrown it in his face. If anything, this only made him *less* inclined to follow the demands of Genma Saotome.

Placing the poor cat down on the ground, Ranma enjoyed the way the discipline taught Hematite over long years with the professional soldier/agent Basalt sealed away the fear that threatened to eat away his sanity otherwise. "Fear is something you use when it useful, otherwise you crush it in the vice of your will to be held for later."

"Old man," said Ranma, "you have one minute to leave. Otherwise I shall expel you by force."

"I don't know what kind of trick you're trying to pull Ranma! You *are* going back with me," promised Genma.

Ranma/Hematite held out his hand. Endymion had his roses and his cane - but his position was a Royal. A prince was one thing. A Knight was a warrior - a counterpart to the Senshi. He had neither a rose nor a cane. *Crackle.* What he had was a weapon similar to a European bastard sword. Made entirely of blood red alloys. "Thirty seconds."

Genma sneered. "A weapon? Weapons make you weak, you rely on them, and then you can be disabled easily. Have you learned nothing?"

"Zero," acknowledged Ranma, swinging the sword up. "Goodbye Genma. STORMFLARE!"

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Soun slowly approached the crater that was littered with pieces of dojo. Down at the bottom was the smouldering form of Genma Saotome. "I take it this means that Ranma was not retrieved?"

Genma, being unconscious, did not answer.

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Hematite stood with the rest of the Guard, both those who had been reborn - and those who had been recruited to replace those who had not been reincarnated.

"RANMA!"

It was hard. Yet his Queen had commanded and he could see the need. Those who refused purification. Those who refused to take part in the new utopia under the Queen's rule. Rather than let them pollute and infect the new kingdom, they had to be moved elsewhere.

"RANMA!"

Nemesis could support life. It was not the ideal solution, but that planet out in the darkness of space had sufficient magic that it could be inhabited.

"RANMA! YOU IDIOT! IT'S ME!"

There were those who had balked but eventually decided to allow the purification to take place. People he well knew.

"SON! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO YOUR POOR FATHER?!"

Ranma remembered some of them. Some like Ukyo or Kasumi, it had not been a surprise to find them volunteering. Some like Ryouga had been more surprising. Some of those volunteers, like Shampoo or Cologne - it was absolutely mind-boggling to the old Ranma. Though perhaps it shouldn't have been. Cologne would do whatever was necessary for her tribe to survive. Swearing allegiance to a Queen so long as they were allowed to keep their lore and cultural identity was perhaps not as strange as it first appeared. Kodachi might have been deemed stranger, but it turned out that her family's madness was genetic. Purification had cleaned that too.

"RANMA NO BAKA!"

The Nemesians would have food and shelter and the chance to continue to develop into their own society. Queen Neo-Serenity had declared this to be so. Other than that, no contact and no interference. They would be allowed to find themselves.

"FOUL SORCERER! I SEE THEE! FROM HELL'S HEART I SPIT AT THEE!"

Those that were going were those who would not submit to the Queen. Who would not give up on one thing or another.

"WHERE ARE YOU, OLD FREAK?! I KNOW YOU'RE HERE SOMEWHERE!"

Well, at least he could see them off and wish them well. In a thousand years who knew what wonders they might have crafted, wanting to do things the hard way instead of through the ginzuishou. To stand on their own two feet and proclaim to the universe that they did not require magic to forge their own utopia!

"SWEET-OH!"

In a way, he envied them. Ranma suppressed a tear as the cordoned off area seperated and lifted. Tens of thousands of citizens who would colonize a new world of their own.

Ranma saluted the lifting colony ship, feeling Venus grip his other hand in hers as she waved at the massive vehicle. "Good luck!"