"I don't know sis. Our lives were a lot calmer before Ranma came around. We never had to deal with crazy amazons or flying tentacled yeti before he arrived. He doesn't directly cause most of it, but he's always involved somehow. Chaos seems drawn to him, like a magnet or something. It sort of makes you wonder doesn't it? why that happens?"

Ranma shook his head as he heard Nabiki comment on the chaos that he had seemed to bring into their lives. He knew exactly why weird and strange events were drawn to him like flies to honey.

It all started when he was 10 years old, after he had met Ukyou, after the cat-fist, but before he had encountered magic for the first time. Ranma and his father were outside Kyoto, in a place called Inari when it happened. They were camping on a small hill next to Inari shrine, a shrine known for its thousand orange Torii gates. Ranma had heard of it, how could he not have, camping a stones throw away. He had wanted to see the shrine but his father had no interest in Shinto shrines unless they contained secret martial arts scrolls.

So Ranma waited until his father was asleep to make his move. Once it got dark he snuck out of his bedroll and headed for the base of the Inari Shrine. The gates were different in the dark, no longer the bright orange that you saw on postcards, they were darker, older. They wound about the mountain circling it in a path, one after the other, and he followed the path for a while. Stone Statues of Foxes guarded the opening of the path, and in the dark Ranma could almost swear that he saw their eyes move. But that was foolishness, stone didn't have eyes, not real ones anyway. Ranma continued down the path, the orange gates towering over him, their presence making the path even darker as they acted as a sort of slitted blind, blocking the light of the stars. There was a new moon, a tiny sliver of light in the darkness. Without the aid of electric lights, or even torches the path was almost pitch black. But Ranma was no stranger to the darkness, he continued on.

Eventually Ranma came to a fork in the path, the trees on either side of him blocked the few stars that were visible, but he could see another pair of statues. Foxes once more, and somehow more lifelike than the last pair. With the shadows cast by the starlight through the trees it almost looked like the statues were moving, turning their heads to look at him as he passed. The path continued to the left and the right... Ranma took the left fork. There were occasional lanterns hung from the gates as he passed by, but none of them was lit with more than a flicker of embers but in the dim light he could see another path to his right side, just as empty as the path he had taken.

The gates ended temporarily, opening up into a small shrine, with a small almost hidden stairway to the left leading further up the mountain. Ranma felt the stairway calling to him, the by now familiar fox guardians looked like they were smiling at him as he entered another set of gates. Ranma was beginning to lose his sense of thought, everything seemed brighter, louder, the gates themselves seemed older, not just worn down, but palpably ancient. He came to a four way fork and followed the leftmost train a meter or two into a small shrine, the offering box still set up, and some candles in a box providing dim illumination. He could see the small figures of foxes and gates under the small roof of the shrine and he stood there for a few minutes looking, absorbing the presence of the place. He had lost track of time, it was late, he knew that, but how late? It didn't seem to matter quite as much to Ranma as it should, the idea of Genma finding him and being angry that he had run off was a distant possibility, one briefly touched on, and then discarded as he continued onwards.

He turned around completely, a small set of steps made of wood and gravel wound its way up the mountain, but there were no more gates lining this particular path. There were signs, but it was too dark for him to read them. He climbed the stairs drawn up them by what lay beyond. Fire, floating in the air small lights almost like stars were straight ahead of him, keeping pace as he walked and lighting the path. The plants were lush here, and the path was narrow with steep embankments on either side. It had started to drizzle a light spring rain upon him, but Ranma took no heed of it, not even noticing the lack of sound as the rain struck the lights in front of him. He merely followed as they led.

The path was not difficult, but it was long, moss and trees and rock walls were his sole companions. The splattering of the rain as it hit the ground was the only sound he could hear. His feet were no longer making a single noise as he walked. Ranma looked down, It was impossible to say in the darkness, but it almost looked as if his feet had faded away into nothingness. Ranma discarded the thought, he was still walking wasn't he? He couldn't do that without feet.

Finally Ranma came to see something new, a single line of stone, a path only about as wide as he was made out of stone blocks, leading into another shrine area. The lights turned into the shrine and started to dance out of his sight but Ranma surged forwards with alarming quickness and grabbed one. Holding the small white ball of fire in his hand. It felt warm to the touch but it didn't burn, a pleasant feeling in the spring rain. Ranma placed the shining ball in a pocket and continued into the shrine after the other light.

There were roofs in the shrine area, to shelter from the rain, which was now substantially more than a drizzle, and a large rope for a bell which Ranma couldn't see in the darkness. But the thing that drew Ranma's eyes immediately were not the offerings, or the bell, but the two pillars, where two young girls his age were perched, one was holding a glowing white ball that Ranma recognized as one of the lights he had followed, identical to the one he held himself. The girls looked identical but for that one difference, each had long flowing white hair and dressed in a pure white yukata. But the one lacking a glowing ball had in her hand something that looked delicious, two helpings of inarizushi.

"Hello?" Ranma asked the two girls. They looked him over, heads moving up and down as one. "You're fading away." They responded in unison. "Wasting away to skin and bones and air. You must eat something." and with that, the girl holding the inarizushi offered it to him. Ranma took it and, never one to turn down free food, gobbled up the pouches of fried tofu with rice inside. Immediately he felt better, he could see his feet once more and he wondered to himself, was it a trick of the light? Or was he really fading away until he ate the food?

The girls giggled at him. "That's better." they paused. "You have something we want. Ranma." Ranma looked at them confused. "The ball of fire and light. You have it, but it's mine, and I want it back." This time only one of the two girls spoke, the one who had offered him the food.

"What will you give me for it?" Ranma asked, his father's upbringing showing in the manner that he negotiated.

"What do you want? My hand? I could be a devoted wife to you." The girl offered.

"A wife? What use would I have for one of those? Maybe later, but I'm always on the road now. No, what else do you have."

The girl frowned. "I have money, gems and yen. I could give it to you."

"No, my father would take it. That's no more useful than sticks and leaves."

"What do you want then?" the girl asked increasingly desperately as the other girl looked on amused.

"I want adventure. I want to be the greatest martial artist ever, to be able to use my skills for good. To save damsels and such."

The girl's eyes widened. "That's what you want? Adventure and skill? This I can give to you."

Ranma looked at her disbelievingly. But the girl continued on. "I promise. If you give me my Hoshi no Tama back in return you will have adventure, and the knowledge to understand any martial arts move you come across. Does that sound good to you?"

Ranma handed over the small ball. "Yeah, that sounds perfectly fine." The girl vanished as she took the ball, a bright light flashed, and the next thing Ranma knew it was morning, he was dirty and disheveled and laying on his back in the same shrine from last night, but something had changed, atop the pillars, where the girls had sat last night, were now two statues of foxes, each holding a small white ball. He got up, and a small piece of paper fell to the ground, he picked it up and looked at the writing upon it. "We'll meet again Ranma Saotome. I promise it."

Ranma shook his head freeing it from the dust of memory. Since that day his tenth birthday, everything had happened as the girl had promised, adventure and skill were his. He had to work hard to master the moves he learned, but upon seeing them he could understand how they worked, not all at once, but if not immediately, then after two or three encounters. Everything that the girl had promised had happened except for that note.

Ranma couldn't complain though. Trouble followed him around now, but he had asked for it, and to a degree, he kind of enjoyed it. Never knowing what was next, the constant fights to prove that he was the best. This was a life worth living. As for that final promise, well, who knows what the future will bring, Ranma certainly didn't, and that suited him just fine.

This started out as a Spirited Away crossover. I'm placing it nominally in the same universe as Spirited Away, but as you can probably tell, aside from some Japanese mythology, there's not a lot in common with the Ghibli work.

Other than that I hope the story stands on it's own.