Passing Strangers on a Moonlit Night
(A Ranma One Half / Sailor Moon Alternate History)
By Ammadeau
[email protected]
http://members.tripod.com/~Ammadeau/fanfiction.htm
1980
The doctor slowly approached the pensive man in the
waiting room, who was wearing a martial arts gi, of all things. The
doctor wanted to say this in just the right way since the man had
already fainted once. You'd think a martial artist could stand
seeing his own child being born.
"Well, doctor?" the man asked nervously.
"Congratulations, Mr. Saotome, it's a boy . . ."
A boy, boy! Genma thought, suddenly hugging the
surprised doctor and dancing around the room at the same time.
Finally, he had an heir!
When the man had finally calmed down, the doctor told
him the rest of the news. ". . . and a girl!"
Genma Saotome, master of Anything Goes Martial Arts,
fainted once again.
1985
Genma grumbled again as he watched Ranma and Ami
playing when the boy should have been practicing. He had tried to
speak to his wife about it, but she simply couldn't understand the
importance of regular training. How was he supposed to raise the
boy to the best martial artist of his generation with all these women
around babying him? Something had to be done.
1988
Mrs. Saotome wiped tears from her eyes as she put down
the phone. She had always regretted making that fool agreement
with her husband, but never more so than that moment. Ever since
then she had felt their absence and had told her friends to bring her
any news of her son and husband. She had even sold the house and
moved to an apartment to get away from the memories.
Several weeks ago she had heard a had a report of a young
boy being rescued from a pit of cats, but too late. He had been so
torn up that they had doubted the boy would last long. Before
anyone could bring him to the hospital, however, a bald man in a gi
grabbed him and ran away. Without immediate medical attention,
there was no chance the boy would survive. Ever since then, she
had been frantic for any news on her son. Today the call had
finally come, they had found a boy's body so badly mutilated that it
was almost unidentifiable, except for the torn gi which it wore.
That was it. Her son Ranma, who she had not seen in three
years, was now dead because of her husband's foolishness. No:
husband no longer, for what he had done had gone well beyond her
breaking point. It was time for Mrs. Saotome to get a divorce and
become Dr. Nodoka Mizuno again.
"What's wrong Mom?" Ami asked her as she walked into
the room. She had become such a polite and studious child after
getting over the loss of the brother and father. Nodoka didn't want
to tell her, but she couldn't bring herself to keep the truth from her
daughter.
"Ami, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're brother is dead."
Nodoka was heartbroken as she watched her daughter run
to her room, tears streaming down her eyes, but she knew that she
had done the right thing.
With people still looking for him after the cat incident,
Genma had decided to head to China a little earlier than he had
originally planned. That meant skipping on those Chinese
language courses he had planned on taking, but he wasn't worried.
What could go wrong?
He was lucky that the boy had recovered so quickly from
those cat-inflicted injuries. Even Genma realized that Ranma
shouldn't have recovered so well or so fast, but just attributed to
the wonderful Saotome genes with which he was blessed.
1995
Ranma scoffed as he looked over the long bamboo poles
jutting out of shallow pools. "This is a training ground? Doesn't
look that tough to me."
"Enough of your whining, boy," Genma declared, leaping
up to land only a bit unsteadily on one of the poles. It was a
testament to his ability as a martial artist that the thin bamboo pole
could support his considerable bulk. "Let's get to training."
Ranma nodded and leapt to one of the other poles, where he
maintained his balance easily as he waited for his father's opening
move.
Both of them ignored their guide yelling warnings in bad
Japanese as they simultaneously leapt up and began their training.
The guide sighed and found a comfortable place to sit.
They never did listen, not until afterwards at least. He had already
put the teapot on the stove to get the hot water ready. He knew
that he was going to need it.
Ranma got in a lucky shot. There was a momentary slip in
his father's defenses and he went for it, knocking the old man into
one of the shallow pools. Or at least Ranma believed them to be
shallow before; that pool seemed to swallow his father up until he
couldn't be seen.
Ranma expected his father to leap right out again, probably
complaining about his ungrateful son getting him wet. He did not
expect the unearthly silence to remain unbroken for several
minutes, nor for their guide to suddenly rush over to the pool with
a long bamboo pole, muttering to himself in Chinese. Ranma got a
cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that something had just gone
very wrong.
By the time he was down by the pool where his father had
landed, the guide had pulled his pop from it and was yelling at
Ranma not to touch anything wet. He noticed that the guide was
wearing thick rubber gloves as he hauled Genma onto dry land and
flipped him over on his back. He also noted that his father's skin
looked pale and waxy; all except for a large, purplish bruise on his
forehead.
He watched the guide check over his father for several
moments, sigh finally, take out a notebook, and start to write.
Ranma had picked up a few things during their trip to China, one
of which was reading some Chinese. He peered over the guide's
shoulder and read, "Spring of Drowned Martial Artist."
The word 'drowned' hit him like a hammer. 'No, it can't be
true.'
"Come on, wake up, Pop," Ranma said frantically as he
shook his father, "I'm not falling for your tricks this time, old man.
I know you're just pretending to be unconscious. Wake up!"
"It no use, Mr. Customer," the guide told him in a resigned
tone, "he gone."
Ranma wanted to deny it, to explain to the guide that his
father was always faking things like this, but his eyes were drawn
to the bruise which was starting to yellow at the edges and his gi
was open to reveal Genma's bare chest. It was clear that he wasn't
breathing.
"No!!!!" Ranma screamed and ran, in the grip of a panic
worse than any caused by cats. He practically flew through the
valley as the guide struggled to keep up, shouting more warnings
in broken Japanese.
Ranma didn't even see the pool before he hit it. His eyes
had been too filled with tears to notice anything at that point. The
sudden splash caught him by surprise, as well as the odd tingling
sensation that swept through his body. Somehow the coolness of
the water restored his rationality. He knelt in the water and took a
deep breath.
This gave the guide enough time to catch up, though he was
gasping for air as he stood by the side of the pool. "Very bad," he
said as if reading an often rehearsed speech, "You fall in
Nyanniichuan, Spring of Drowned Girl . . .?"
The guide was shocked to find that Mr. Customer was still
a mister. The way that the gi was plastered to him because of the
water left no doubt that this was still a boy. How could that be?
He checked his notebook and it was clearly marked as the drowned
girl spring. The drowned boy spring was on the other side of the
valley.
"In all the years I work as guide," he said in Japanese, "This
never happen before! You fall in spring of drowned girl, but you
not turn into girl!"
Ranma felt something, a memory, well up from deep inside
him, as if it had been locked behind some door and the cool water
of the spring had been the key. It was of a face which he was
certain that he had never seen before and one he could place no
name to. It was of a young woman at least a decade older than
himself, though there was something ageless about her. She had
bright red hair worn in a strange hairstyle and clothes the likes of
which he had never seen before. When Ranma left the pool, the
vision faded, though he could not forget her face.
Ranma had found his mother's address among his father's
things and decided that the training journey was over: it was time
to go home. With the ashes of his father, he started the long
journey back to Japan.
Chapter 1
Note: This takes place a little after Sailor Moon S begins. Ranma,
like the Sailor Senshi, is fifteen.
Ranma trudged through the streets of Juuban, slip of paper
with address on it in one hand, umbrella in the other. The rain was
pouring down in sheets, obscuring everything. He wasn't surprised
though; it seemed that after Jusenkyo, wherever he went water
would find him. It would have made sense if he had gotten cursed,
but for some reason when he had fallen into that pool, nothing had
happened, nothing except the sudden vision he had had.
He finally found the address. It was a surprisingly lavish
apartment in a well-to-do neighborhood. He wondered about some
of the things he and his father had to do to scrape by when his
mother lived in a place like this. Ranma stood before the door for
some moments, gathering up his courage. What would he say to
his mother after so many years, after his father was gone? He was
still too numb from his pop's death to feel anything but sadness and
anger.
When he finally rang the bell, he was surprised to be
greeted at the door by a girl his own age. She had short, blue-black
hair and was someone that he might have found cute under other
circumstances. There was also something deeply familiar about
her, but he just couldn't place it.
Ami put her book down as soon as she heard the doorbell.
She expected it to be her mother and wanted to help her put away
the groceries. Her mother was usually so busy being a doctor that
Ami had to do all the shopping, but she had some free time today
and wanted to treat her daughter to a warm, home-cooked meal for
once. Ami would have preferred that her mother simply take it
easy and relax, but found it difficult to argue with her mom.
So Ami was very surprised to find a handsome pig-tailed
boy at the door, looking somewhat somber and downcast. She
noted that his mood seemed to fit the weather perfectly, with the
dark clouds and pouring rain. There was also something familiar
about him, but then it could have been his blue eyes, which were
much like her mother's, and her own.
"Can I help you?" she asked him.
It took the boy a few moments to respond. "Yes. Does a
Mrs. Saotome live here?"
Ami thought for a moment. That had been her mother's
maiden name before she had gotten divorced. Could this be a
cousin of hers? She didn't know any of her aunts, if she had any,
from her father's side of the family, and knew that her grandparents
had died when she was still very young.
"I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name. Only my
mother and I live here."
"Oh."
Ami had never heard such a tone of hopelessness conveyed
in a single word before. The very thought of turning this boy away
in the rain made her heart hurt. She couldn't do it, even if he was a
complete stranger.
"My mother might know her though. She just stepped out
to do some shopping, but should be back soon. Why don't you
come in and wait?" Ami even smiled reassuringly at the boy. She
may have spent most of her time with books, but she knew a cute
boy when she saw one.
The boy seemed to want to study his feet. "I don't know."
Impulsively, Ami grabbed the boy's hand and dragged him
inside. "Come on, my mom should be home soon and you'll
probably get soaked wandering around in the rain."
"So who is this Mrs. Saotome you're looking for?" Ami
asked as she lead the boy into the living room.
"My mother," Ranma replied, still looking mostly at the
floor.
"Huh?" asked Ami, a little confused to why this boy was
searching for his own mother, especially using an address that had
to be over ten years old.
"I haven't seen my mother in nine years," he answered her,
somehow guessing her question.
"Why is that? Did your parents divorce?" Ami asked.
She hadn't seen her own father for about the same span of
time, ever since he had taken her brother on that ill-fated training
trip. It was so long ago that Ami couldn't even remember what he
looked like, only that he was a big man with an even bigger
appetite.
"Not really. My father took me on a nine year training trip
to study martial arts."
Ami shook her head. It was just an odd coincidence, it had
to be. She knew that her brother was dead. "And not once during
that whole time did he bring you back to visit with your Mom?"
Ami asked with a little surprise and anger.
Ranma shook his head.
Surprise dropped out of Ami's voice and her anger
increased to near-Rei levels. "How could someone do that to their
own child? That's horrible. I'd be tempted to bring your father up
on wrongful parenting charges, and perhaps even kidnapping."
"You can't 'cause he's dead."
Any reply Ami had planned died in her throat as she looked
at the pig-tailed boy in horror. Here she had been badmouthing
someone, which she almost never did, someone she didn't even
know, only to hear that he was dead. When Ranma looked at her,
he was stone-faced, but Ami got the sense that he was trying hard
not to break down and cry.
Ami was finally able to break the veil of silence by saying,
"You wait here and I'll get us some snacks."
Ranma sighed in relief as the girl went into the kitchen. He
thought for a moment there that he was going to embarrass himself
by weeping in front of Ami. Here he was a total stranger, she had
done nothing but be nice to him, he went and chased her off by
saying something like that. Ranma still felt depressed, but he
didn't want to make his host depressed as well.
Ami reentered the living room with a tray of rice balls and
tea, along with a determination to steer clear of any gloomy
subjects. She could have just brought some crackers and soda, like
she and her friends usually had for snacks, but she decided she
wanted to make something a little more impressive for the cute, if
somewhat melancholy, boy. She nearly jumped back in surprise
when the boy started to gobble up the rice balls like they were
going to run away from him. Ami never thought that she'd meet
someone with the same table manners as Usagi.
Ranma paused in mid-bite when he realized that Ami was
staring at him. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, he said, "Sorry
about that, I guess I was hungrier than I thought."
"It's okay, really, I was just surprised," Ami told him. "You
happen to eat a lot like a friend of mine."
"Your boyfriend?"
Ami blushed and stammered a little. "No, not that. My
friend Usagi is a girl, though she does eat like a boy. Well, that's
not true. Her boyfriend doesn't eat like that. She eats like no one
else that I've ever seen before, except for you."
For Ranma, thinking of his eating habits only made him
think of his father, which only lead to depression. Determined not
to fall into that again, Ranma changed the subject. "Ah, so what
does your mom do for a living?"
Ami had noticed the expressions Ranma's face went
through and the abrupt change of subject, but decided to let it pass
without comment. "She's a doctor at Juuban General Hospital.
Normally, she's very busy, but today she took the day off and
decided to make dinner. She's still out buying the ingredients."
"A doctor? That's pretty cool." With all the scrapes and
bruises Ranma had gotten over the years, he had earned a lot of
respect for people who practiced medicine.
"You think so? I want to go to college and study medicine
just like my mother."
Ranma could also understand following in the footsteps of
a parent. "I'm sure you'll be a great doctor, you're such a nice
person."
Ami blushed a little at the compliment.
Nodoka Mizuno, who preferred not to be known as a doctor
when she wasn't working, was putting away the groceries without
really paying attention to what she was doing. As a result, Ami
would have to straighten things out later, since the eggs ended up
in the cabinet and the tofu in the freezer. Ami was exactly who
was causing her to be distracted. She had expected to be greeted at
the door when she rang the bell, only to stand in the rain like a fool
for several minutes.
Nodoka had come in the house with every intention of
seeking her daughter out, only to be stopped by a sound that she
hadn't heard in a long time: laughter. Her always-serious daughter
was actually laughing? The next sound she heard might have even
been more of a surprise. A boy's voice? Her, never went on a date
no matter how much she was encouraged to do so, daughter
actually had a boy over? Whatever the reason for these surprising
events, Ms. Mizuno was determined to stay out of sight and not
spoil them. That didn't mean she wouldn't take a little peek around
the corner and get a look at this boy. She had to make sure if he
was right for her daughter after all.
Ranma found himself smiling, something he hadn't done in
weeks. He didn't know why exactly, but somehow this girl just
brought it out of him, like a part of himself that had been buried
long ago. She made it easy for him to forget about his father's
death, at least for a little while.
Ami was currently relating some of the non-senshi antics of
Usagi and her friends. Her dumpling-haired friend was one of the
few things that could get Ami to laugh, and stories about her
seemed enough to bring Ranma out of his depression.
Seeing the once melancholy boy now laughing, Ami
smiled. "I just realized that here we've been talking for a while
now and we haven't even introduced ourselves."
"Oh, I'm Ranma, Ranma Saotome."
Ami could only stare at him in surprise.
Ranma noticed her reaction. "What? What is it?"
Ami shook her head almost violently to clear it. If one
coincidence could happen, so could another. Ranma may have
been a popular name in the Saotome family. "Nothing, it's just--"
Both Ami and Ranma were surprised by a large gasp they
heard from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen.
Ranma was shocked when a middle-aged woman ran up to
him and gathered him up into a giant hug. "Ranma!" she shouted
with tears in her eyes.
Nodoka looked him over through eyes blurred by tears. It
had been so long, but she could still see signs of the little boy that
had grown into this fine man before her. She could hardly believe
that he son was alive after all these years, but could not deny the
proof before her.
"Mom?" Ranma said weakly, as he looked into face that he
had only seen in dreams for many years.
"Mom, what's going on?" Ami asked with a slight tremor in
her voice. She had never seen her always-in-control mother act
anything like this before, at least as far as she could remember.
"Ami, this is your twin brother Ranma!"
Ami did what any other sensible girl would have done in
the same situation. She fainted.
After Nodoka had brought her daughter Ami up to her bed
to rest from what she now realized must have been a terrible shock,
she came back down to sit by her newly rediscovered son, Ranma.
For a while, all she did was look at him, which made
Ranma considerably nervous. She couldn't stop thinking of what a
fine boy he had grown into.
"Tell me son, where's your father? I want to give Genma a
piece of my mind from keeping you from me for nine years
without a word. I thought you had been killed a long time ago.
You don't know how much that hurt Ami and I."
"Pops is … dead."
Ranma was concentrating so hard on not breaking down
and crying that he didn't notice when Nodoka has swept him up in
a gentle hug. In fact, he nearly jumped in surprise when she spoke
right next to his ear.
"Oh my poor baby, that must have been very hard on you,"
Nodoka told him. She herself only felt a small pang of loss on
hearing of Genma's passing. Any feelings she once had for him
had died abruptly when she had heard him responsible for her son's
death.
"It is, kinda. The old man wasn't nice or anything, but I
knew that he always cared about me. He never praised what I did,
only turned around and pushed me harder, but I know he was
proud."
"I'm proud of you too, my son, having come so far on your
own. I can see that you're a fine young man and I'm sure an
excellent martial artist. But that doesn't mean that you have to
hold everything in. It's okay to cry when you feel like it."
Ranma tried to hold it back, but it was as if his mother's
permission had been the key to unlock the floodgates. With a cry
of "Mom!", Ranma held on to Nodoka, his whole body shaking
with his sobs. It was some time before they finally stopped.
"There, there Ranma," Nodoka told her son with a small
smile. "Do you feel better now?"
Ranma nodded as he dried his eyes with the tissue she had
given him.
"Good. You wait right here while I check on your sister.
She should be coming around at any moment."
When Ami came to again, she found herself in her bed with
her mother looking over her in concern.
"Mom, I had a really strange dream that some guy turned
out to be my twin brother."
"Honey, that was no dream. Ranma is your brother. He's
waiting in the living room."
"But you told me my brother died! And how can we be
twins? We don't look that much alike."
Ms. Muzino looked a little sad as she spoke. "You two
were born as fraternal twins, not identical, even though when you
were growing up you did both look very much alike. You were
also inseparable. Where one was, the other was always not far
behind. As babies, you'd cry endlessly if you were separated.
"But your father wanted to raise Ranma to be a great
martial artist and felt that your and my influence were making him
weak. And so, despite all I tried to do to stop him, he took Ranma
away from us."
Ranma sat in the living room, no less surprised than Ami
was. The nice girl he'd been talking to had been his twin sister all
along. Ranma had known that he had a sister, but with all that had
happened recently he had forgotten about her for a while. Besides,
he thought that his sister and him would look identical.
At first he'd been doubtful. He immediately accepted that
Nodoka was his mom, he couldn't see the point of faking that
degree of enthusiasm and she did seem sort of familiar, like
someone he'd seen a long time ago.
There had been some sort of initial recognition with Ami
too, but Ranma couldn't place it. Ami could be adopted and
Nodoka was trying to keep that a secret, but the two woman looked
a little too much alike for that to be true. Even though they weren't
identical, deep down he knew that this girl was his sister Ami.
"Ranma?" Nodoka called down from upstairs and
distracting him from his thoughts. "Come up here and get
reacquainted with your sister!"
The pig-tailed boy shrugged. Better face this now and get
it over with. "Coming … Mom!"
Ami was still in bed when Ranma came into their room.
For a while they simply looked at each other, wondering what to
say. They were both more than a little embarrassed over the
attraction that they had felt towards each other. Ami rationalized
that this had probably been sisterly affection without her realizing
it.
"Oh, I'll leave you two alone while I get started on dinner,"
their mother announced, closing the door behind her.
"Um, hi," Ranma settled on after a while, "I'm Ranma."
Ami smiled and then giggled a bit at that. Somehow seeing
Ranma acting so nervous had evaporated all the nervousness she
felt.
"You're my brother, Ranma, you don't have to introduce
yourself. We haven't seen each other in a long time, but we're
hardly strangers. Actually, we have years of catching up to do.
Why don't you sit down and tell me what you've been doing for the
last nine years?"
Ranma laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head.
He took the offered seat though, and began in on his life story, not
feeling as nervous as he just had been.
"So our father is dead?" Ami said near the end of the tale.
Ranma nodded, feeling his earlier depression return.
"I never got to know our father very well. Could you tell
me about him?"
Ranma went into a long description of their father. "Well,
he was a big man cause he always ate a lot. Food and martial arts
seemed the only important things to him. When he wasn't eating,
he was training me in martial arts. Some of the training methods
he used were kind of strange; some worked, while others didn't.
He always wore a big white gi, with a while handkerchief to cover
his bald head and wire-rim glasses. He had a loud voice, it always
seemed like he was shouting. Hmm..."
"I think I get the idea," Ami said and laughed a bit.
Soon Ranma was laughing as well, while in the back of his
mind he was thinking that suddenly how great it was to have his
sister back again.
(A Ranma One Half / Sailor Moon Alternate History)
By Ammadeau
[email protected]
http://members.tripod.com/~Ammadeau/fanfiction.htm
1980
The doctor slowly approached the pensive man in the
waiting room, who was wearing a martial arts gi, of all things. The
doctor wanted to say this in just the right way since the man had
already fainted once. You'd think a martial artist could stand
seeing his own child being born.
"Well, doctor?" the man asked nervously.
"Congratulations, Mr. Saotome, it's a boy . . ."
A boy, boy! Genma thought, suddenly hugging the
surprised doctor and dancing around the room at the same time.
Finally, he had an heir!
When the man had finally calmed down, the doctor told
him the rest of the news. ". . . and a girl!"
Genma Saotome, master of Anything Goes Martial Arts,
fainted once again.
1985
Genma grumbled again as he watched Ranma and Ami
playing when the boy should have been practicing. He had tried to
speak to his wife about it, but she simply couldn't understand the
importance of regular training. How was he supposed to raise the
boy to the best martial artist of his generation with all these women
around babying him? Something had to be done.
1988
Mrs. Saotome wiped tears from her eyes as she put down
the phone. She had always regretted making that fool agreement
with her husband, but never more so than that moment. Ever since
then she had felt their absence and had told her friends to bring her
any news of her son and husband. She had even sold the house and
moved to an apartment to get away from the memories.
Several weeks ago she had heard a had a report of a young
boy being rescued from a pit of cats, but too late. He had been so
torn up that they had doubted the boy would last long. Before
anyone could bring him to the hospital, however, a bald man in a gi
grabbed him and ran away. Without immediate medical attention,
there was no chance the boy would survive. Ever since then, she
had been frantic for any news on her son. Today the call had
finally come, they had found a boy's body so badly mutilated that it
was almost unidentifiable, except for the torn gi which it wore.
That was it. Her son Ranma, who she had not seen in three
years, was now dead because of her husband's foolishness. No:
husband no longer, for what he had done had gone well beyond her
breaking point. It was time for Mrs. Saotome to get a divorce and
become Dr. Nodoka Mizuno again.
"What's wrong Mom?" Ami asked her as she walked into
the room. She had become such a polite and studious child after
getting over the loss of the brother and father. Nodoka didn't want
to tell her, but she couldn't bring herself to keep the truth from her
daughter.
"Ami, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're brother is dead."
Nodoka was heartbroken as she watched her daughter run
to her room, tears streaming down her eyes, but she knew that she
had done the right thing.
With people still looking for him after the cat incident,
Genma had decided to head to China a little earlier than he had
originally planned. That meant skipping on those Chinese
language courses he had planned on taking, but he wasn't worried.
What could go wrong?
He was lucky that the boy had recovered so quickly from
those cat-inflicted injuries. Even Genma realized that Ranma
shouldn't have recovered so well or so fast, but just attributed to
the wonderful Saotome genes with which he was blessed.
1995
Ranma scoffed as he looked over the long bamboo poles
jutting out of shallow pools. "This is a training ground? Doesn't
look that tough to me."
"Enough of your whining, boy," Genma declared, leaping
up to land only a bit unsteadily on one of the poles. It was a
testament to his ability as a martial artist that the thin bamboo pole
could support his considerable bulk. "Let's get to training."
Ranma nodded and leapt to one of the other poles, where he
maintained his balance easily as he waited for his father's opening
move.
Both of them ignored their guide yelling warnings in bad
Japanese as they simultaneously leapt up and began their training.
The guide sighed and found a comfortable place to sit.
They never did listen, not until afterwards at least. He had already
put the teapot on the stove to get the hot water ready. He knew
that he was going to need it.
Ranma got in a lucky shot. There was a momentary slip in
his father's defenses and he went for it, knocking the old man into
one of the shallow pools. Or at least Ranma believed them to be
shallow before; that pool seemed to swallow his father up until he
couldn't be seen.
Ranma expected his father to leap right out again, probably
complaining about his ungrateful son getting him wet. He did not
expect the unearthly silence to remain unbroken for several
minutes, nor for their guide to suddenly rush over to the pool with
a long bamboo pole, muttering to himself in Chinese. Ranma got a
cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that something had just gone
very wrong.
By the time he was down by the pool where his father had
landed, the guide had pulled his pop from it and was yelling at
Ranma not to touch anything wet. He noticed that the guide was
wearing thick rubber gloves as he hauled Genma onto dry land and
flipped him over on his back. He also noted that his father's skin
looked pale and waxy; all except for a large, purplish bruise on his
forehead.
He watched the guide check over his father for several
moments, sigh finally, take out a notebook, and start to write.
Ranma had picked up a few things during their trip to China, one
of which was reading some Chinese. He peered over the guide's
shoulder and read, "Spring of Drowned Martial Artist."
The word 'drowned' hit him like a hammer. 'No, it can't be
true.'
"Come on, wake up, Pop," Ranma said frantically as he
shook his father, "I'm not falling for your tricks this time, old man.
I know you're just pretending to be unconscious. Wake up!"
"It no use, Mr. Customer," the guide told him in a resigned
tone, "he gone."
Ranma wanted to deny it, to explain to the guide that his
father was always faking things like this, but his eyes were drawn
to the bruise which was starting to yellow at the edges and his gi
was open to reveal Genma's bare chest. It was clear that he wasn't
breathing.
"No!!!!" Ranma screamed and ran, in the grip of a panic
worse than any caused by cats. He practically flew through the
valley as the guide struggled to keep up, shouting more warnings
in broken Japanese.
Ranma didn't even see the pool before he hit it. His eyes
had been too filled with tears to notice anything at that point. The
sudden splash caught him by surprise, as well as the odd tingling
sensation that swept through his body. Somehow the coolness of
the water restored his rationality. He knelt in the water and took a
deep breath.
This gave the guide enough time to catch up, though he was
gasping for air as he stood by the side of the pool. "Very bad," he
said as if reading an often rehearsed speech, "You fall in
Nyanniichuan, Spring of Drowned Girl . . .?"
The guide was shocked to find that Mr. Customer was still
a mister. The way that the gi was plastered to him because of the
water left no doubt that this was still a boy. How could that be?
He checked his notebook and it was clearly marked as the drowned
girl spring. The drowned boy spring was on the other side of the
valley.
"In all the years I work as guide," he said in Japanese, "This
never happen before! You fall in spring of drowned girl, but you
not turn into girl!"
Ranma felt something, a memory, well up from deep inside
him, as if it had been locked behind some door and the cool water
of the spring had been the key. It was of a face which he was
certain that he had never seen before and one he could place no
name to. It was of a young woman at least a decade older than
himself, though there was something ageless about her. She had
bright red hair worn in a strange hairstyle and clothes the likes of
which he had never seen before. When Ranma left the pool, the
vision faded, though he could not forget her face.
Ranma had found his mother's address among his father's
things and decided that the training journey was over: it was time
to go home. With the ashes of his father, he started the long
journey back to Japan.
Chapter 1
Note: This takes place a little after Sailor Moon S begins. Ranma,
like the Sailor Senshi, is fifteen.
Ranma trudged through the streets of Juuban, slip of paper
with address on it in one hand, umbrella in the other. The rain was
pouring down in sheets, obscuring everything. He wasn't surprised
though; it seemed that after Jusenkyo, wherever he went water
would find him. It would have made sense if he had gotten cursed,
but for some reason when he had fallen into that pool, nothing had
happened, nothing except the sudden vision he had had.
He finally found the address. It was a surprisingly lavish
apartment in a well-to-do neighborhood. He wondered about some
of the things he and his father had to do to scrape by when his
mother lived in a place like this. Ranma stood before the door for
some moments, gathering up his courage. What would he say to
his mother after so many years, after his father was gone? He was
still too numb from his pop's death to feel anything but sadness and
anger.
When he finally rang the bell, he was surprised to be
greeted at the door by a girl his own age. She had short, blue-black
hair and was someone that he might have found cute under other
circumstances. There was also something deeply familiar about
her, but he just couldn't place it.
Ami put her book down as soon as she heard the doorbell.
She expected it to be her mother and wanted to help her put away
the groceries. Her mother was usually so busy being a doctor that
Ami had to do all the shopping, but she had some free time today
and wanted to treat her daughter to a warm, home-cooked meal for
once. Ami would have preferred that her mother simply take it
easy and relax, but found it difficult to argue with her mom.
So Ami was very surprised to find a handsome pig-tailed
boy at the door, looking somewhat somber and downcast. She
noted that his mood seemed to fit the weather perfectly, with the
dark clouds and pouring rain. There was also something familiar
about him, but then it could have been his blue eyes, which were
much like her mother's, and her own.
"Can I help you?" she asked him.
It took the boy a few moments to respond. "Yes. Does a
Mrs. Saotome live here?"
Ami thought for a moment. That had been her mother's
maiden name before she had gotten divorced. Could this be a
cousin of hers? She didn't know any of her aunts, if she had any,
from her father's side of the family, and knew that her grandparents
had died when she was still very young.
"I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name. Only my
mother and I live here."
"Oh."
Ami had never heard such a tone of hopelessness conveyed
in a single word before. The very thought of turning this boy away
in the rain made her heart hurt. She couldn't do it, even if he was a
complete stranger.
"My mother might know her though. She just stepped out
to do some shopping, but should be back soon. Why don't you
come in and wait?" Ami even smiled reassuringly at the boy. She
may have spent most of her time with books, but she knew a cute
boy when she saw one.
The boy seemed to want to study his feet. "I don't know."
Impulsively, Ami grabbed the boy's hand and dragged him
inside. "Come on, my mom should be home soon and you'll
probably get soaked wandering around in the rain."
"So who is this Mrs. Saotome you're looking for?" Ami
asked as she lead the boy into the living room.
"My mother," Ranma replied, still looking mostly at the
floor.
"Huh?" asked Ami, a little confused to why this boy was
searching for his own mother, especially using an address that had
to be over ten years old.
"I haven't seen my mother in nine years," he answered her,
somehow guessing her question.
"Why is that? Did your parents divorce?" Ami asked.
She hadn't seen her own father for about the same span of
time, ever since he had taken her brother on that ill-fated training
trip. It was so long ago that Ami couldn't even remember what he
looked like, only that he was a big man with an even bigger
appetite.
"Not really. My father took me on a nine year training trip
to study martial arts."
Ami shook her head. It was just an odd coincidence, it had
to be. She knew that her brother was dead. "And not once during
that whole time did he bring you back to visit with your Mom?"
Ami asked with a little surprise and anger.
Ranma shook his head.
Surprise dropped out of Ami's voice and her anger
increased to near-Rei levels. "How could someone do that to their
own child? That's horrible. I'd be tempted to bring your father up
on wrongful parenting charges, and perhaps even kidnapping."
"You can't 'cause he's dead."
Any reply Ami had planned died in her throat as she looked
at the pig-tailed boy in horror. Here she had been badmouthing
someone, which she almost never did, someone she didn't even
know, only to hear that he was dead. When Ranma looked at her,
he was stone-faced, but Ami got the sense that he was trying hard
not to break down and cry.
Ami was finally able to break the veil of silence by saying,
"You wait here and I'll get us some snacks."
Ranma sighed in relief as the girl went into the kitchen. He
thought for a moment there that he was going to embarrass himself
by weeping in front of Ami. Here he was a total stranger, she had
done nothing but be nice to him, he went and chased her off by
saying something like that. Ranma still felt depressed, but he
didn't want to make his host depressed as well.
Ami reentered the living room with a tray of rice balls and
tea, along with a determination to steer clear of any gloomy
subjects. She could have just brought some crackers and soda, like
she and her friends usually had for snacks, but she decided she
wanted to make something a little more impressive for the cute, if
somewhat melancholy, boy. She nearly jumped back in surprise
when the boy started to gobble up the rice balls like they were
going to run away from him. Ami never thought that she'd meet
someone with the same table manners as Usagi.
Ranma paused in mid-bite when he realized that Ami was
staring at him. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, he said, "Sorry
about that, I guess I was hungrier than I thought."
"It's okay, really, I was just surprised," Ami told him. "You
happen to eat a lot like a friend of mine."
"Your boyfriend?"
Ami blushed and stammered a little. "No, not that. My
friend Usagi is a girl, though she does eat like a boy. Well, that's
not true. Her boyfriend doesn't eat like that. She eats like no one
else that I've ever seen before, except for you."
For Ranma, thinking of his eating habits only made him
think of his father, which only lead to depression. Determined not
to fall into that again, Ranma changed the subject. "Ah, so what
does your mom do for a living?"
Ami had noticed the expressions Ranma's face went
through and the abrupt change of subject, but decided to let it pass
without comment. "She's a doctor at Juuban General Hospital.
Normally, she's very busy, but today she took the day off and
decided to make dinner. She's still out buying the ingredients."
"A doctor? That's pretty cool." With all the scrapes and
bruises Ranma had gotten over the years, he had earned a lot of
respect for people who practiced medicine.
"You think so? I want to go to college and study medicine
just like my mother."
Ranma could also understand following in the footsteps of
a parent. "I'm sure you'll be a great doctor, you're such a nice
person."
Ami blushed a little at the compliment.
Nodoka Mizuno, who preferred not to be known as a doctor
when she wasn't working, was putting away the groceries without
really paying attention to what she was doing. As a result, Ami
would have to straighten things out later, since the eggs ended up
in the cabinet and the tofu in the freezer. Ami was exactly who
was causing her to be distracted. She had expected to be greeted at
the door when she rang the bell, only to stand in the rain like a fool
for several minutes.
Nodoka had come in the house with every intention of
seeking her daughter out, only to be stopped by a sound that she
hadn't heard in a long time: laughter. Her always-serious daughter
was actually laughing? The next sound she heard might have even
been more of a surprise. A boy's voice? Her, never went on a date
no matter how much she was encouraged to do so, daughter
actually had a boy over? Whatever the reason for these surprising
events, Ms. Mizuno was determined to stay out of sight and not
spoil them. That didn't mean she wouldn't take a little peek around
the corner and get a look at this boy. She had to make sure if he
was right for her daughter after all.
Ranma found himself smiling, something he hadn't done in
weeks. He didn't know why exactly, but somehow this girl just
brought it out of him, like a part of himself that had been buried
long ago. She made it easy for him to forget about his father's
death, at least for a little while.
Ami was currently relating some of the non-senshi antics of
Usagi and her friends. Her dumpling-haired friend was one of the
few things that could get Ami to laugh, and stories about her
seemed enough to bring Ranma out of his depression.
Seeing the once melancholy boy now laughing, Ami
smiled. "I just realized that here we've been talking for a while
now and we haven't even introduced ourselves."
"Oh, I'm Ranma, Ranma Saotome."
Ami could only stare at him in surprise.
Ranma noticed her reaction. "What? What is it?"
Ami shook her head almost violently to clear it. If one
coincidence could happen, so could another. Ranma may have
been a popular name in the Saotome family. "Nothing, it's just--"
Both Ami and Ranma were surprised by a large gasp they
heard from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen.
Ranma was shocked when a middle-aged woman ran up to
him and gathered him up into a giant hug. "Ranma!" she shouted
with tears in her eyes.
Nodoka looked him over through eyes blurred by tears. It
had been so long, but she could still see signs of the little boy that
had grown into this fine man before her. She could hardly believe
that he son was alive after all these years, but could not deny the
proof before her.
"Mom?" Ranma said weakly, as he looked into face that he
had only seen in dreams for many years.
"Mom, what's going on?" Ami asked with a slight tremor in
her voice. She had never seen her always-in-control mother act
anything like this before, at least as far as she could remember.
"Ami, this is your twin brother Ranma!"
Ami did what any other sensible girl would have done in
the same situation. She fainted.
After Nodoka had brought her daughter Ami up to her bed
to rest from what she now realized must have been a terrible shock,
she came back down to sit by her newly rediscovered son, Ranma.
For a while, all she did was look at him, which made
Ranma considerably nervous. She couldn't stop thinking of what a
fine boy he had grown into.
"Tell me son, where's your father? I want to give Genma a
piece of my mind from keeping you from me for nine years
without a word. I thought you had been killed a long time ago.
You don't know how much that hurt Ami and I."
"Pops is … dead."
Ranma was concentrating so hard on not breaking down
and crying that he didn't notice when Nodoka has swept him up in
a gentle hug. In fact, he nearly jumped in surprise when she spoke
right next to his ear.
"Oh my poor baby, that must have been very hard on you,"
Nodoka told him. She herself only felt a small pang of loss on
hearing of Genma's passing. Any feelings she once had for him
had died abruptly when she had heard him responsible for her son's
death.
"It is, kinda. The old man wasn't nice or anything, but I
knew that he always cared about me. He never praised what I did,
only turned around and pushed me harder, but I know he was
proud."
"I'm proud of you too, my son, having come so far on your
own. I can see that you're a fine young man and I'm sure an
excellent martial artist. But that doesn't mean that you have to
hold everything in. It's okay to cry when you feel like it."
Ranma tried to hold it back, but it was as if his mother's
permission had been the key to unlock the floodgates. With a cry
of "Mom!", Ranma held on to Nodoka, his whole body shaking
with his sobs. It was some time before they finally stopped.
"There, there Ranma," Nodoka told her son with a small
smile. "Do you feel better now?"
Ranma nodded as he dried his eyes with the tissue she had
given him.
"Good. You wait right here while I check on your sister.
She should be coming around at any moment."
When Ami came to again, she found herself in her bed with
her mother looking over her in concern.
"Mom, I had a really strange dream that some guy turned
out to be my twin brother."
"Honey, that was no dream. Ranma is your brother. He's
waiting in the living room."
"But you told me my brother died! And how can we be
twins? We don't look that much alike."
Ms. Muzino looked a little sad as she spoke. "You two
were born as fraternal twins, not identical, even though when you
were growing up you did both look very much alike. You were
also inseparable. Where one was, the other was always not far
behind. As babies, you'd cry endlessly if you were separated.
"But your father wanted to raise Ranma to be a great
martial artist and felt that your and my influence were making him
weak. And so, despite all I tried to do to stop him, he took Ranma
away from us."
Ranma sat in the living room, no less surprised than Ami
was. The nice girl he'd been talking to had been his twin sister all
along. Ranma had known that he had a sister, but with all that had
happened recently he had forgotten about her for a while. Besides,
he thought that his sister and him would look identical.
At first he'd been doubtful. He immediately accepted that
Nodoka was his mom, he couldn't see the point of faking that
degree of enthusiasm and she did seem sort of familiar, like
someone he'd seen a long time ago.
There had been some sort of initial recognition with Ami
too, but Ranma couldn't place it. Ami could be adopted and
Nodoka was trying to keep that a secret, but the two woman looked
a little too much alike for that to be true. Even though they weren't
identical, deep down he knew that this girl was his sister Ami.
"Ranma?" Nodoka called down from upstairs and
distracting him from his thoughts. "Come up here and get
reacquainted with your sister!"
The pig-tailed boy shrugged. Better face this now and get
it over with. "Coming … Mom!"
Ami was still in bed when Ranma came into their room.
For a while they simply looked at each other, wondering what to
say. They were both more than a little embarrassed over the
attraction that they had felt towards each other. Ami rationalized
that this had probably been sisterly affection without her realizing
it.
"Oh, I'll leave you two alone while I get started on dinner,"
their mother announced, closing the door behind her.
"Um, hi," Ranma settled on after a while, "I'm Ranma."
Ami smiled and then giggled a bit at that. Somehow seeing
Ranma acting so nervous had evaporated all the nervousness she
felt.
"You're my brother, Ranma, you don't have to introduce
yourself. We haven't seen each other in a long time, but we're
hardly strangers. Actually, we have years of catching up to do.
Why don't you sit down and tell me what you've been doing for the
last nine years?"
Ranma laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head.
He took the offered seat though, and began in on his life story, not
feeling as nervous as he just had been.
"So our father is dead?" Ami said near the end of the tale.
Ranma nodded, feeling his earlier depression return.
"I never got to know our father very well. Could you tell
me about him?"
Ranma went into a long description of their father. "Well,
he was a big man cause he always ate a lot. Food and martial arts
seemed the only important things to him. When he wasn't eating,
he was training me in martial arts. Some of the training methods
he used were kind of strange; some worked, while others didn't.
He always wore a big white gi, with a while handkerchief to cover
his bald head and wire-rim glasses. He had a loud voice, it always
seemed like he was shouting. Hmm..."
"I think I get the idea," Ami said and laughed a bit.
Soon Ranma was laughing as well, while in the back of his
mind he was thinking that suddenly how great it was to have his
sister back again.