I own nothing but my own words. The characters and settings that follow are taken from Ranma 1/2 (created by Rumiko Takahashi/VIZ Media) and Final Fantasy (Tetsuya Nomura et al/Square Enix). Respect the copyright holders, yo.

Chapter One

Martial Arts Dimensional Transmission

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, November 27

"Okay... what the heck happened?"

Ranma Saotome sat up slowly, shaking his head to try to clear his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was that jerk Kuno shouting something about a new technique. He hadn't believed for a moment that anything that idiot could manage would serve as more than a minor inconvenience, and that was even if he managed to connect. There was a flash of light, and what he could only describe as a sucking sensation, as if the entire city had been stuck in a plane and suddenly depressurized. He remembered feeling like he was falling, and then a sudden shift in gravity, and then darkness…

...and now, here.

Wherever 'here' was.

Ranma stood up slowly, dusting himself off, thankful at least that he had not landed in water. Then he looked up.

And continued looking up.

"Kami-all-above…" he whispered, completely stunned by the sight.

The sky was gone. In its place was a pillar of steel and rust that seemed to take up the whole of the horizon, topped by an enormous metallic plate that seemed to occupy the heavens, covered in lamplights and cables of all sizes.

The sight was so bizarre, so alien to him, that he nearly failed to notice the cutpurse reaching for his pockets. However, 'nearly' was not good enough, and Ranma's hand grabbed the thief's wrist, wrenching a dagger free of his grip. The thief yelped and winced in pain just before Ranma's leg snapped out, the foot burying painfully in the midsection of his adversary.

"Get lost, creep," Ranma spat out, "before you regret it."

The thief jumped, visibly cowed, gave a short bow, and scurried off into the shadows. Ranma shook his head, deciding to take stock of what was around him.

Small buildings, ramshackle cottages, a house that looked like it had been converted out of a hollowed out jet engine. People dressed in biker leathers, suit-and-waistcoat, long dresses and hair tied back. It looked like a cross between modern and turn-of-the-century Western fashions, with the neighborhood pieced together out of scrap.

There was a bar across the way. Ranma was pretty sure he hadn't gotten drunk, though considering how he felt he'd probably be hard-pressed to convince anyone else of that. A train whistle sounded in the distance, and aside from the dingy appearance of his surroundings and mostly dirt road, he might have been in one of the seedier districts of Tokyo proper. He considered the bar, a sign labeling it as 7th Heaven. A moment later, an enormous dark-skinned man came out, holding two men by their shirts in a single enormous hand, and tossed the two drunks out onto the street. Ranma was reasonably sure he could best the man in combat, but noticed that the man's right arm ended in what appeared to be a gatling gun. Taking all things into account, he wisely decided against making a scene here.

Ranma picked a direction and started walking.

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He had been going for about two hours at an easy stroll. It seemed so far that wherever he was, it was just one enormous slum with no sky and no end in sight. At this point, Ranma was just looking around aimlessly, hoping for even a single familiar sight or sound. He'd finally found one, but it was far from what he expected to find.

"...a church?"

It certainly looked like one to him. Tall steeple, stained glass windows, even an old tarnished cherub on the mast of the steeple. In deference to the surroundings, most of the windows had cracks or missing panels, the siding was stripped and shattered, and it looked as if it was surrounded by the kind of refuse one would normally find in an aircraft junkyard. Ranma stepped carefully up to the entrance.

"Hello, hello!" a soft voice said from behind him. "Can I help you?"

Ranma jumped at the sudden words, briefly shocked that anyone could sneak up on him that easily. "I, uh…" he stammered as he collected himself, turning to face the speaker.

He found himself facing a young woman, probably his own age, wearing a pink dress, heavy boots, and a bolero jacket, leaning casually on a long metal staff. "Are you here for the flowers?" she asked, leaning in a little bit.

"Flowers?" Ranma asked, genuinely puzzled. He glanced around, wondering if she was talking about the same thing he was thinking of. The soil, what there was of it, was hard-packed and dry, and anywhere that wasn't a foot-path was either stacked to overflowing with junk or simply looked filthy enough that the idea of growing flowers in it made Ranma's stomach turn a little.

The girl laughed at his befuddlement. "No, silly, not out here, inside!" she explained, as if that made all the sense in the world. She stepped smartly around him and pushed the heavy church door open, gesturing for him to follow. Lacking much else to do, he decided to at least peek inside.

The church innards were standard enough. Rows of pews, a pulpit on a raised stage, and most of it in the same dilapidated state as the outside. Except for just in front of the pulpit. Most of the floorboards had been pulled away, leaving a patch of soil teeming with healthy, bright yellow flowers. Ranma tried to keep his face blank, but even though he knew next to nothing about horticulture, he knew that this was no simple thing.

"They only grow here," the girl was saying, "Don't ask me why, but they do. I try my best to make sure they keep growing, and I pick a few to sell every couple days."

Ranma nodded absently, leaning casually against one of the pews. "It's… I don't think I've seen anything like it, least of all around here."

The girl knelt down and busied herself with tending to the roots on the fringe. "Give me just a moment, want to make sure these are okay."

Ranma smiled gently, and shoved his hands in his pockets, whistling idly as he waited. The girl occasionally stood up, but it seemed it was only to change position around the growth of flowers. Almost ten minutes later, she finally stood up, stretching with her staff over her head.

"Done!" she exclaimed happily. "Thanks for waiting. I'm Aerith, by the way." She extended a hand in greeting.

"Ranma," he shook her hand firmly.

Aerith looked over Ranma appraisingly. "Wouldn't have guessed you're from Wutai… people around here can be real jerks to anyone different."

More different than you know, Ranma thought to himself. Aloud, he said, "Not from Wutai, wherever that is."

Aerith blinked in confusion. "Oh, I'm sorry, I just thought from your name and your clothes… never mind. Where are you from, then?"

Ranma hesitated. "That… might be difficult to explain. Before we get into that, can I ask ya a question?"

"Sure," Aerith replied.

"Promise me you'll take it seriously, won't laugh or anythin'?"

Aerith nodded, giving a soft smile. "I'll do my best, anyway."

"Fair enough," Ranma considered. "Okay, here we go… where am I?"

Fully ten seconds of silence followed this as Aerith processed the question, her emerald eyes analyzing Ranma, looking first for any sign of humor, then for any sign of trauma. "You're serious," she said flatly.

"I'm serious," Ranma echoed, his face carefully blank.

Aerith gave out a sigh. "Okay then… didn't expect my afternoon was going to go like this. You're in Midgar."

Ranma's expression did not change even a little bit.

"...Midgar?" Aerith repeated, noticing the lack of recognition. "Biggest city on the continent? Home to Shinra?" Ranma didn't so much as twitch. Aerith decided to go all out. "Mako energy, materia, the big reactors around the edge of the city…" she trailed off. "You're… really not from around here… are you?"

Ranma shrugged, letting out a long sigh. "I'm going to kill that idiot Kuno…" Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders, and looked Aerith directly in the eyes. "My name is Ranma Saotome," he began, his voice raised slightly out of habit, "heir to the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling. I live in Nerima-ku, Tokyo, Japan. And I'm pretty sure that I'm nowhere near there." Aside from the sounds of the city in the distance, neither of them said anything for almost half a minute. "Please don't ask me if I'm bein' serious again," Ranma finished quietly.

"I don't…" Aerith trailed off for a moment, gathering herself, "I don't know what most of that means. But I definitely don't know where this… 'Japan' is. Maybe we should find a map."

"What do you mean, 'we'?" Ranma asked, a little warily. "You actually want to help me? None of this is freaking you out?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Aerith countered, a little more cheerfully than her words suggested. "I'm about two or three steps from bashing your head in, and if you try anything I will. But..." she paused, considering her words carefully. "But if you're on the level, then you need help. Most here in Midgar just keep their heads down, stay to themselves, and don't get involved. In that way, it's probably a good thing you found someone like me. I'll see if I can help you, because I know what it's like to… not have anywhere else to go."

Ranma was slightly taken aback at that, but nodded slowly. "Well, then, where do we go for a map?"

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"Mo~om, I'm home!" Aerith yelled out.

Home, as it turned out, was a cramped two-story cottage a few kilometers away, just outside an area where people had made homes out of the bits of scrap laying around. Ranma didn't get a good look around the outside when they arrived, but he was sure he smelled more flowers.

"I'll be down in a minute, dear," an older woman's voice called from above.

"Just so you know, I brought a friend over," Aerith called back.

There was a pause. "Well, I'll try not to break out the photo albums, then," the voice said with a hint of humor.

Ranma removed his shoes at the door and quietly took a seat at the table that took up most of the available space on this floor. A few moments later, an older woman in a plain green dress with brown hair in a bun descended from the upper floor. She was carrying a broom, and Ranma noticed she held it in a close double-hand grip, similar to a kendoist. It was obvious that she'd been prepared for the possibility of having to fight whoever had come with her daughter.

"Oh," the woman said, her grip relaxing somewhat. "Not Tseng or the others, then."

Aerith shook her head. "Nope, this is Ranma."

Aerith and the other woman glanced at each other, and it seemed to Ranma that some unspoken conversation passed between the two of them in a matter of moments. Letting out a sigh, the older woman finally stepped down off the last few steps and casually rounded the table. "Well, I'm Elmyra," she introduced herself. "Welcome to our house, dear. Will you be staying for dinner? We're having stew."

"Only if I'm not imposing," Ranma answered, suddenly aware of the passage of time. If it was dinner time, then either he'd been unconscious longer than he thought, or the lack of proper sunlight was messing with his internal clock. He adopted a somewhat rigid position, hands on his legs as he sat stiffly in the chair.

Elmyra smiled. "Not at all, dear," she confirmed, taking a well-worn but clean white apron from a coat rack and moving towards what Ranma assumed was the kitchen.

"Hey mom?" Aerith asked. "Before you get started, do we have any maps Ranma could use?"

Elmyra stopped, blinked briefly in confusion, and then stepped around to the crawlspace door underneath the stairs. "I think so… where of?"

Aerith cupped her chin in thought. "Let's start with Midgar, and work out from there if we can," she said finally.

"O~okay," Elmyra responded slowly, still puzzled. She shuffled around, half out of sight for a few moments, before pulling out three rolled up sheafs of paper. "The bigger one is a bit out of date, but I hope it helps. I'll be in the kitchen, if you need anything."

Aerith unrolled each one a little, checking their titles, before sprawling one out on the table. "This is Midgar's lower plate…" she began softly, clearly not wanting to alert her mother, "and the upper plate is on the other side."

Ranma nodded, and looked it over. It seemed the city was arranged into a circle around the main pillar. Additionally, there were neighborhoods that seemed to be divided somewhat forcibly into eight segments around that pillar. It looked like a city planner had started with an idea, and then decided to drop that idea square into the middle of a place where people already lived and made their homes.

He flipped the map over, and saw the 'upper plate' as Aerith had called it. The map looked the same on the surface, but it was clear that whatever plan had been botched below had been followed ruthlessly above. Straight lines and concentric circles around much of the populated areas, with only a few exceptions. Ranma noted a fairly intricate railway system that seemed to unite not just the different sections, but also the upper and lower halves of the city. Aside from the obvious differences, it briefly made him think of Tokyo's shinkasen network. It wasn't until he'd gone over it twice that he'd realized the map's notations were in katakana, which was bewildering to see something so clearly not of his home written in a language he understood from birth.

"No, nothing here," he said quietly. "What's on the next one?"

Aerith rolled out the second map over top the first one. "This is the entire continent. Midgar is here," she responded, pointing to a circle in the northwest.

Ranma nodded and began poring over it, but could tell by the shape of the landmass how unlikely it was that he would see anything recognizable. Aside from the fact that it vaguely resembled Hokkaido turned on its head, there was not a single similarity to any specific point of geography. Not just to Japan, but now he was realizing this didn't even look like Earth. A steep mountain range divided the continent more or less in half. Kalm, Junon, Fort Condor, huge farmlands to the east, a series of metal mines to the south, and sparsely populated grasslands between the major towns.

Ranma shook his head. "Doesn't even look like a landmass I've seen before. Last one is the whole world, I take it?" Aerith nodded as she rolled it out, not saying anything. "All right, let's see…" he muttered resignedly.

The continent he was on was obviously the eastern landmass, judging from the shape and size. An inland sea separated two enormous continents by east and west, with a third to the north. Costa Del Sol, Nibelheim, Rocket Town, Wutai, Corel… Ranma's eyes glanced between them, hoping beyond hope that his expectations would prove to be wrong. The island that Wutai was on vaguely resembled Honshu as a whole, if it was upside down and missing most of the things that would identify it as Japan. Nothing looked familiar. Either there had been massive seismic events in the last nine hours of his life, or…

"This… isn't my home," he said quietly. "None of it."

There was a clang from the kitchen. Ranma looked up, and Aerith followed his gaze. So absorbed in the maps had Ranma been that, without either of them realizing it, Elmyra had peeked around the corner and had been listening in. Equally absorbed, Elmyra had dropped the ladle she was holding.

Ranma let out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, let's get all our cards out, shall we?" he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Elmyra, just so I know how much I need to catch you up on, what all did ya hear?"

"...all of it," she replied kindly, her voice a little strained. "I'm… very sorry to hear that. I can't imagine what it's like to not remember where you're from."

Aerith spoke before Ranma could correct her. "It's not that, mom… he does know where he's from… or at least he says he does. But where he says he's from isn't on any of these maps."

Beyond the sounds of cooking, there was abject silence for several long moments. "Well, as long as we're getting all the big stuff out of the way… Elmyra, would you happen to have a tea kettle?"

Elmyra visibly froze as her mind tried to process the shift in topics. "I… Yes, I do, why?"

"Could I ask you to heat up enough to fill a mug for me?" he asked calmly. "And also, an ordinary glass of cold water."

"Oh my goodness, I'm terribly sorry," Elmyra said suddenly. "I didn't realize you were that thirsty." She disappeared back into the kitchen.

Aerith peered over at Ranma. "Why hot water?"

Ranma waved her off. "Trust me on this one, it'll be easier if I just show you."

After several minutes, Elmyra returned with a mug of hot water, sitting on a saucer next to a tea bag, and a glass of ice water. "I'm sorry we don't have very good tea," Elmyra explained by way of apology.

Ranma nodded, deliberately placing the tea bag to one side. He stood up, taking the glass of cold water in one hand. "So… I'd like to take this moment to properly introduce myself." He raised the glass in one hand, perhaps a little higher than was necessary for a toast. "I am Ranma Saotome…" and tipped the glass over slowly. The refreshing coolness was accompanied by the familiar loss in height, and a sudden overbalancing in the torso. "...and I am cursed."

She set the glass down on the table, noticing the all-too familiar disbelieving stares.

Aerith's jaw was slack.

Elmyra fainted.

Ranma gently facepalmed. "Kami, why do I even bother…"

Author's Notes: This first chapter is slow on purpose. I promise it will pick up as we go. :D

To forestall questions that may come up...

The story is labeled as M for two reasons: One is that swearing is *not* going to be censored. And since these are mostly adult characters living in a pretty grim-dark world, swearing is a thing that will happen, frequently, and occasionally for comic effect. The other is the setting itself. The Honey Bee Inn from the original game is pretty obviously a brothel, there's no sugarcoating that. I don't plan to take the story inside there, but we will be dealing with some pretty heavy stuff as the story progresses.

The story is *not* rated MA, because at least at the moment, I don't anticipate actual sex scenes getting written. That may change, but I doubt it.

The Greek lettering at the beginning of the date is apparently the official notation for the calendar inside the world of FF7. Don't ask me what it actually means, though. I can't even read regular Greek, let alone fakey video game fantasy steampunk Greek. The date within the story is to provide reference and context to the plot related events of FF7. To give an idea of that context, the official date of the Bombing Run mission, the event that kicks off FF7 proper, takes place the evening of December 9. We will be getting there.

The idea for Aerith's declaration of Ranma being from Wutai mid-chapter is that since Ranma's family name sounds Japanese, by extension it also sounds Wutaian (see Kisaragi as another example). Combined with his appearance (the Chinese-style tunic and pants), this would be a first guess for most non-Wutaians on hearing Ranma's name. This... may or may not become important later on, you'll just have to wait and see.

Ranma in this story is based more on the manga interpretation than the anime (some anime events may be referenced as time passes). I've cleaned up a little more of his attitude though, because even late-saga Ranma was... kind of a jerk when he wanted to be. In short, Ranma at this point has come to terms with both his engagement to Akane, and his curse. He still has problems with both, but he's at least grown to understand and work with what he's got. Ranma's pronouns will change to reflect physical appearance, just to make things easier to keep track of; that being said, as in canon, Ranma is very solidly hetero, and is definitely *not* looking for more fiance candidates. This is not a harem fic. I have nothing against them, but this ain't it.

Comment and follow! Constructive criticism always welcomed.