Chapter 1: Let's Put Weird and Weird Together
Notes:
The story may include some minor homophobia, not enough to tag in my opinion.
This story is going to take place across two universes/realities. The OG Ranma 1/2 universe, which will include both the Sailor Moon and Urusei Yatsura universes merged into it (they’ll be toned down at first, i.e. Lum isn’t common knowledge, and most people aren’t familiar with the Sailor Senshi). The other will be an AU where all three universes have been fully merged and mixed together, with some characters replacing others and mixing their lore. The story mostly focuses on Ranma, but will also switch to other perspectives sometimes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Despite the light from the city, the stars shone impossibly bright in the night sky. Cars drove by in a steady rhythm, and though their exhaust polluted the air and created a rather unpleasant smell, the bridge still had a nice enough vantage point to make up for it. A sudden gust of wind blew through the night sky, gently sweeping the red head’s hair about her face. She struggled with it, not currently in its usual braid, as she had to pry loose strands that got into her mouth and obstructed her vision.
Ranma stood dumbstruck, not quite understanding all that had just transpired around him. The chaotic hell, otherwise known as his life in Nerima, had suddenly come to an end. It was something that, as much as he begrudged it, he loved just as well. It’s not like there were many men that would object to a multitude of beautiful women throwing themselves at them.
Looking out over the city, he wondered where he was going to go now. What was he going to do with the rest of his life? But as he pondered on this, a sudden noise caused him to jolt, entering a defensive stance and searching around, looking for the assailant. But he realized with melancholy that it was just a rock kicked up by a passing truck, and he let out a sigh as he returned to looking out over the bridge.
This time his attention was turned skywards and the multitude of stars that shone caused him to chuckle. For all the strange and impossible things he’d faced, he hadn’t ever actually encountered something from outer space. And that, perhaps, was the scariest realization of all. The idea that humanity was alone in this universe was equal parts relieving and terrifying.
“Dammit, man up!” Ranma shouted, his currently feminine voice drowned out by the passing vehicles. It’s not like it was a common occurrence, but anytime he was depressed, he often found himself spiraling into such internal monologues about life. Of course, the irony of what he’d just shouted wasn’t lost on him, but a real man should have no concern for existential crises.
Finally, able to at least push those thoughts to the back of his mind for the moment, his gaze fixated on the moon. It was a large, full moon, and his gaze was held almost hypnotically by its vision. Still unable to shake the funk he was in, he thought back to his childhood and how he wished he could visit the moon one day. He could only imagine how fun it would be to have a proper martial arts challenge in reduced gravity, but of course that childish line of thought died out as he got older. Or after he was tossed in the pit of c-c-c- unmentionables. That had done a number on his maturity, at least as much as he could say he’d matured.
As Ranma watched the moon, he looked back upon everything that led up to this point in his life. He knew something had been about to go wrong when soon after the failed wedding, a young girl in an impractically short skirt blasted Happosai with some sort of pink energy, before a large orange ship (probably a top secret military experiment) zipped through the air, used some sort of beam to suck Happosai inside, and then flew off into the sky. The city actually sponsored a party in celebration of his disappearance, and rumors of a brave young woman that vanquished the demon lord began to spread around Nerima.
It had only been a couple of weeks after their failed wedding when Akane told him point-blank that she was fed up with everything and that she didn’t want to keep living that way. But what wounded him most was her revelation, that she did love him, but not as a man, as a brother. Could there be a worse rejection?
He couldn’t believe when their father’s accepted this and the talk of joining the schools died. Ranma and Genma moved in with Nodoka, but Genma didn’t last long as Nodoka gave him the boot. They would remain married, but he had to find somewhere else to sleep. Living with his mom was actually really great at first, but unlike the Tendos, lingering around in his female form for even a minute more than he had to would be greeted with a question about his manliness, and the occasional glance towards the family’s honor sword.
It was only two weeks after that when he was called over to the Neko Hanten. A teary-eyed Shampoo clung to him, got on her knees, and begged for him to follow her back to China. He wasn’t interested in getting married at the moment, as he had always felt since finding out he had engagements in the first place. He had been too stupid to realize that Shampoo was acting strange, and the next day he awoke to a letter from the Amazon. Apparently, some part of Amazon law had demanded Shampoo return with a husband within the month. Thanks to Cologne’s intervention, only because Shampoo had begged her (Cologne made sure to attach a note to Shampoo’s letter), an obscure law allowed her to instead marry a man that had beaten her fiancé. And Mousse had technically won a fight against Ranma. Only technically. Regardless, Shampoo had headed back to China with Mousse in tow, and soon to be married.
Reeling from Shampoo’s letter, he had made his way to Okonomiyaki Ucchan’s, only to find it closed. Testing the door, however, showed that it was open, and as he walked in, Ukyo greeted him and smiled. Saying she had something she needed to talk about, he sat down and ate what she prepared for him, never guessing what was coming. She soon revealed that she had realized he didn’t love her (he wanted to argue against that, because he cared about her more than one would for a friend, but it was the same muddy feeling he’d felt towards his other fiancées). And so she’d decided to let him out of the engagement, and was going to go on a training trip for making okonomiyaki, with no set date to return.
In the coming weeks, he’d find out that the Kunos had disappeared. Some theorized they’d finally been institutionalized, but others argued they’d simply moved to Hawaii. Travel warnings from the Japanese government for going to Hawaii seemed to indicate the latter, however.
Ryoga, on the other hand, was appearing more often as of late, as was Konatsu, who seemed to be lost without Ukyo’s company. They often appeared at the Tendo dojo, where Ranma frequented nearly every day to spar with Akane. Now that the engagement had disappeared, they were getting along really well, and he couldn’t help but understand what Akane had told him a few weeks prior. She really did feel like a sister to him now, and he found he was okay with that. If their fathers had never interfered, then perhaps they would have become fast friends. That, and if Akane hadn’t seen more of him than she should on that fateful day.
His attention was drawn back to the world around him as he heard a sudden shout, electricity sparking in the distance. And then he saw what seemed a ridiculous sight in the opposite direction, the same girl from when Happosai vanished was flying through the air as if tossed by something. He leaped up and caught her in his arms before landing gracefully and depositing her on the ground.
“Thanks miss,” the blond said with a large smile, pushing down on her short sailor skirt to make sure nothing was ruffled or showing. She held a strange looking wand in her hands, much like something one might see in a magical girl manga. Not that Ranma, man amongst men, would know anything about shoujo mangas. He certainly never snuck a peek at them anytime he could as a child without his father knowing.
“Ehehe,” a lecherous laugh sounded from the distance, the lightning coming close with each second, as if trying to strike something running across the water. Except that, as Ranma looked down, he could actually see a teenage boy running on the water, some strange boots that looked like they came from a movie about the future attached to his feet, and blasts of lightning that seemed to always just miss.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the youma!” The blond girl said, moving to lean over the rail and sensing the same danger that Ranma had. They had less than thirty seconds before the teen would reach a point where he would be able to jump onto the bridge, assuming he had the same physical prowess in jumping that he did for running on water.
“Nah, I got this,” Ranma said, flexing his knuckles, and perplexing the blond.
“Woah, you look so cool like that, with the moon silhouetting your form,” the strange girl commented, suddenly all smiles like the impending danger was nothing to worry about. “I wish I could look that strong and beauti-”
Ranma didn’t have much time to process what happened, as in the middle of the girl’s compliment, she tried to tap Ranma’s shoulder. Instead, she tripped and knocked into Ranma, who had not expected such a girly girl to hit like a truck and send her flying over the bridge.
“Ehehe,” a sickening voice sounded below, it’s high pitch suddenly entering a low baritone. “Don’t worry, miss, I’ll catch you. And to show your appreciation, we can go on a date!”
“No way in hell!” Ranma shouted, managing to maneuver his body so as to extend his feet and aim directly at his head. He didn’t need another Kuno type trying to make his life a living hell.
“There, caught you, sorry about that,” the blond girl said, arms wrapping around Ranma’s torso from behind unexpectedly. Unfortunately, the boy below managed to catch him by the legs at the same time.
“Darling!!!” An angry voice echoed before electricity surged through Ranma’s body. He hit the water soon after, but he was in such a daze that he couldn’t think or move or do much of anything at all. And soon the darkness began to claim him, and he thought about the irony of his life. Just as the chaos ends, the chaos begins.
Ranma found himself standing somewhere and nowhere, surrounded on all sides by broken shards of mirrors, each refracting some different image or another. In some shards, his female form stared back at him, in others his male form. Some showed images of his past, and others showed images of futures that would never be. The future of him and Akane was the strangest of them all: They were running happily on their way to school after the failed wedding, now willfully ignorant towards their feelings for each other rather than in denial. Somehow, at least this version of Ranma, never did imagine a future with Akane. She really had come to feel like his sister.
Brrring a phone rang, and Ranma looked around himself. That was a mistake as he then took notice that there was nothing, literally nothing, below him. But as he looked up, an old phone (and by old, the ancient type of phone from the turn of the century) sat on top of a side table nearby, so he walked over and picked up the receiver.
“Ahem,” A voice sounded, trying it’s best to be polite, but clearly holding back irritation. Or excitement? It wasn’t like Ranma was great at reading others’ emotions. “You going to make your wish or what?”
“What?” Ranma replied, tempted to hang up the phone. The strangeness of this realm had already been lost on him, and now as he looked around, it felt like any other day. He was using the phone at the Tendo residence, but of course he’d always been using it, hadn’t he? Was this a crank call?
“Skuld, you did make sure to let him know he gets a wish, and what that entails, right?” A familiar sound of fighting and throwing things echoed through the receiver as the speaker didn’t seem to get the answer she desired.
“Oh, great,” the woman muttered to herself, before coughing and returning her voice to a professional tone. “Well, it doesn’t require that much of an explanation, does it? You’ve been chosen by the gods to be granted one wish. Well, eh, in your case two wishes, but that’s because some little brat decided to grant your wish without telling you.”
“Wait, what wish?” Ranma asked. Normally, he’d have hung up on this woman, assuming it was a scam or some weird new religion. But as what he could only guess was a little red alien driving a flying taxi cab rode by overhead, the Tendo household’s roof having become nothing more than open sky, he no longer found himself so sure. The white crocodile that ejected from the cab seconds later, its parachute carrying it across the wind to greener pastures, clinched it for him. Certainly with the things he’d seen in his life, it couldn’t be that ridiculous.
“Hmm, Skuld, what exactly did you grant this woman?” The voice on the other end asked, before replying to whoever she was talking to with different grunts. “The brat says you wanted your fiancée problem solved.”
“Woah, no way, that actually happened!” Ranma replied, somehow totally floored, like when a psychic would choose a random letter and people would somehow be amazed that someone they knew had a name that began with it. What psychic prowess?! The woman on the other end must have been a goddess. Some part of him was aware that this wasn’t normal behavior for himself, he should have been laughing at someone stating the obvious, but he couldn’t help but believe the irrefutable proof in front of his eyes.
“Exactly,” the voice droned, as if she couldn’t care less about Ranma’s excitement. “So, what do you want your wish to be? It can be almost anything you think of.”
“I don’t want to have to worry about the curse anymore,” Ranma said, finally acting like himself again.
“Your wish has been approved,” the woman said over the receiver before hanging up, only dead air on the other end of the line. Ranma looked around himself to find the mirror fragments now occupied all the space above and below him, while everything in-between was filled with a swirling mixture of neon colors.
“Pervert!” Akane shouted from somewhere in the house, causing Ranma to wake up from his slumber. He shook his head, recalling the strange dream he’d been having.
“I’m a woman, dammit!” Some unfamiliar voice shouted in response.
“No, you’re a pervert!” Akane shouted back, and Ranma’s instincts flared to life. Had someone broken in? He rushed out of bed and made his way down the stairs, only a lingering thought making him wonder how he’d ended up at the Tendo’s after the fiasco at the river. In fact, how had he escaped that problem?
“Ah, what a spirited wife you’ll have, son!” An old man cackled, slapping a guy about Ranma’s age on the back.
“She ain’t goin’ ta be my wife, because I’m a woman, dammit!” The boy responded, slugging his father through the walls and out into the pond, a frequent destination for Ranma to toss his own father into whenever he was at the Tendos.
“Akane, everything okay? Is this guy harassing you?” Ranma asked, standing by her side. Akane seemed to be calm, if irritated, and everyone was sitting at the dining table.
“Son, sit down and don’t interfere with your sister’s engagement,” Soun ordered, and Ranma looked at him, his eyes going wide. Pointing his finger at himself, then at Akane, and then back at himself, he mouthed the word sister. “You hit your head, boy?”
“Argh, why did I have to have a twin brother,” Akane grumbled as Ranma moved away to take an open seat at the table by Nabiki. At this point, Ranma knew something was wrong. Like, catastrophically wrong. “You could have at least have been a girl, you know? I already have to be engaged to that pervert over there.”
“I’m telling you, I’m not a pervert, dammit!” The boy said, though now that Ranma was looking closer, he had to wonder about him. Maybe the boy was telling the truth, the voice sure sounded feminine. And if he looked at the guy just right, there were some feminine features…
“Ryuunosuke!” The old man who’d been previously flung into the pond shouted, riding upon an impossibly large wave as he exited the body of water and washed up onto the dining area. Ranma knew his life was filled with strangeness, but this was starting to take the cake.
“Ah, now I’m all wet, you stupid old man!” Ryuunosuke shouted in a deeper baritone than he’d previously possessed, and the two of them proceeded to get into a brawl as Ranma looked down at himself. The water itself had been cold, but his body remained male.
“Ah, if only you’d had Ryuunosuke’s curse,” Akane sighed, perfectly dry and comfortable as the water conveniently managed to miss her and her sisters.
“Ranma would make an adorable girl,” Nabiki chimed in, shooting a teasing glance towards Ranma.
“Don’t encourage the boy’s delusions,” a motherly voice sounded, and Ranma nearly jumped right out of his seat as his mother sat down next to Soun. And then, bile rose in his throat as she actually cozied up to Soun, as if… As if… Ranma never had a great relationship with his father, but his mom with Soun was far more disturbing than any nightmare he’d ever had. He wondered if maybe that’s why they kept calling him a sibling, until he remembered the mention of twins. Was the dream real? All he’d asked for was to be free of the curse’s burden, not a whole new family!
“Ah, but he was so cute when I used to dress him up,” Kasumi said with a light lilt, entirely foreign to the Kasumi he used to know.
“Ranma is a man, and he needs to act like it. No dress up,” Nodoka warned, glaring at Kasumi.
“I’m not so sure about that mom, daddy chose Akane to inherit the dojo after all,” Nabiki added, clearly wanting to stoke the fire.
“Well, it’s not like the boy ever cared about martial arts,” Soun spoke up. “I thought when I had a son, I’d have to stop him from skirt-chasing. Not from wearing the skirts himself.”
Ranma sat flabbergasted at this exchange, and yet his attention was equally held by his still male body. He quickly got up, realizing that either this was a really elaborate prank, or like most things in his life, something had gone terribly wrong. There was a commotion at the table, a couple “oh my’s” were had (they sounded as if they came from his mother and not Kasumi, only adding to the strangeness), someone was sobbing, and another getting clobbered as Ranma made his way to the bathroom.
He nearly fainted as he saw his body, skinnier than he was used to. He’d known something was off since waking up, but he’d had to react to Akane possibly being in danger. Only to have to deal with all the other strangeness, so he hadn’t noticed how different his body had become. It was still his, but now his hair was no longer tied up. In fact, there wasn’t enough hair to tie up in the first place, he had a prim and proper type of short hair cut, which felt incredibly out of place on him. And looking at his arms, his torso, his legs, all of them were much skinnier, his normal muscle development having disappeared as if he hadn’t dedicated his entire life to martial arts.
“Enjoying your wish so far?” A dark skinned woman asked as half her body leaned through the mirror he’d been looking into. That Ranma didn’t scream out of sheer shock was, in his opinion, a testament to how much of a man he’d become. Real men don’t have fear, unless it’s a debt collector - Genma Saotome, on the run from debt collector #81
“What the hell?” Ranma asked. She sounded just like the woman from his dreams.
“Your problem with the curse is gone, yeah?”
Ranma turned on the hot water and ran a hand under it, then switched it to cold water. Neither affected his form.
“Well, yeah, but this isn’t my life. What the hell did you do?”
“It’s not your life?” The goddess pondered, holding a finger to her chin. Then she slipped back into the mirror and disappeared, before emerging about a minute later. Ranma stood there dumbfounded the entire time.
“Hahaha, it’s a funny story,” she began, but Ranma cut her off.
“You messed up, didn’t you?” He asked in a deadpan voice.
“The heavens never make a mistake,” she said as if she was narrating an educational video. “Anyway, if you feel you’ve made a wrong wish, then you’ll have to take it up with upper management.”
“So like, the god of gods, or something?” Ranma asked.
“Uh, well, his daughter,” the woman smiled. “I’ve tried to explain to her the error and she’s insistent that everything happened as it should.”
“Okay, so how do I-”
“You’re going to have to fight her,” the woman confessed. Ranma for his part was nonplussed by this, taking the woman by surprise, until she looked down at some files in her hands. He had beaten Saffron, who was goddish, right? So how hard could the daughter of the supreme god be? “Ah, well she won’t be anything like Saffron, I’m afraid. She’s the top ranked valkyrie.”
“Even so, she’s a girl, right? I can’t fight a girl.”
“Oh, mister sexism over here is really going to go on about that?” The woman laughed, looking him up and down. “Well then, welcome to your new world.”
“That’s…” Ranma bit his lip, not sure if he could actually bring himself to fight a woman. But if he didn’t, then…
“Believe me, a mortal couldn’t so much as land a scratch on her. She’ll be going easy on you if-”
“Aw hell no! She better give me everything she’s got!” Ranma shouted, clasping his hands over his mouth and hoping no one outside the bathroom heard him. And then he mentally slapped himself as he realized his martial artist’s pride had won over the code of honor that had been instilled in him to never fight a woman. He still wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with it in the end, however.
“Then a piece of advice: You must master both the External Heart school of martial arts and the Inner Heart school of martial arts.”
“And where do I go to master those?” Ranma asked, suddenly excited about another training session. His usual confidence was starting to swell, and the only thing he feared was fighting the female goddess; if only she were male, he’d know without a doubt he’d win.
“Go where only the foolish will follow, and embrace that which embraces you with kindness. That is all the advice I can give you.”
“You better not be talking about embracing a perv like Kuno,” Ranma growled, and the goddess laughed.
“No, embrace those with a good heart, not those with such vile corruption.”
And with that, the goddess disappeared, and Ranma was left with less understanding than he’d had before.
Ranma’s day proceeded much like it used to leading up to the wedding. He headed out for school with Akane, though they no longer argued constantly. It helped that he didn’t understand some of the jabs she kept taking at him, as if he was an entirely different person. Of course, he was beginning to understand that maybe he was in this world, one so unlike the place he called home.
But in addition to the two of them, Ryuunosuke now walked alongside them. Before leaving the house, his father had managed to dangle some hot water in front of her, then whispered in her ear with some promise or another. She’d agreed and taken the bottle. The Ryuunosuke that walked with them now was definitely a girl. It wasn’t that anything had visibly changed, but as someone whose voice used to often change pitch, he could definitely pick up on the slightly higher and more feminine tone that Ryuunosuke sported.
“So ya got cursed instead of me,” Ranma commented out loud, looking over at Ryuunosuke.
“Instead of? You didn’t plan this with my old man, right?” Ryuunosuke asked, stopping and staring directly at Ranma. For the first time, he felt bloodlust from the newcomer, who was supposedly Akane’s fiancé in this timeline.
“Never met him before today,” Ranma responded, and instantly knew he’d pissed off Ryuunosuke. The girl charged at him, but before anything could come of it, Akane punted her off into the distance, then cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted.
“Ryuunosuke, why on Earth would he have been afraid of your curse!” She yelled, then looked at Ranma apologetically. “Sorry, you know how much of an idiot he can be. I still can’t believe father forced me to be engaged to him because I’m the youngest.”
“And not cause a tomboy like you would have a hard time finding a man on her own,” Ranma replied, sticking out his tongue. He still couldn’t understand why they thought Ryuunosuke’s real body was her cursed form, but with no other Jusenkyo curses to demonstrate, he knew there was little he could do to convince them.
“You know you’re two minutes younger than me, maybe I go ahead and make you my little sister,” Akane growled, rubbing her knuckles into the palm of her other hand. Ranma was actually fairly sure she wasn’t kidding, but the joke was on her: he’d been female so many times he’d become comfortable enough with it, so her threat fell on deaf ears. “Then you can marry Ryuunosuke.”
“No way in hell I’d marry her,” Ranma replied, and Akane swung her bag at him. He tried to jump out of the way, but instead clumsily knocked into the wall.
“Oh no, Ranma, are you alright?” Akane asked in a weirdly caring tone. Ranma slapped away her hand and stood on his own, cussing under his breath at this new feeble body. All those years of training wasted. He just hoped he could manage to get enough strength back in his body that he’d be able to win against this goddess who seemed determined to keep him here.
“I’m fine, Akane,” Ranma moped, not liking his situation one bit, nor the pity in Akane’s eyes.
“Oh, just shove that male pride up your ass,” Akane said, walking ahead. “It’s not like I swung it all that hard.”
“Akane!” Ranma shouted, rushing forward, thankful his body seemed capable of at least that much, and forcing her to duck low to the ground. A spinning disc of water had just flown overhead and would have landed directly against Akane’s neck.
“What the? Ranma, you okay?” Akane asked, as if she hadn’t almost just been severely injured. Or killed, as Ranma watched the disc tear straight through a concrete wall. “Stay and hide, I’ll go get help.”
And before he could stop her - he couldn’t use force, as he was too weak - Akane had taken off around a corner, slipping something into her hands from her sleeve as she went. Ranma in the meantime wasn’t going to hide like a coward, so he stood up and looked around for the assailant. He never expected to be met by some strange and grotesque humanoid creature made out of what appeared to be a stackable washing/drying machine.
“This must be the pure heart I was looking for,” the creature said, its voice reverberating like when one talked into a fan. Ranma entered an offensive stance, and before the creature could do anything else, he leaped ahead and attacked. He still couldn’t move as fast as he wanted, and his punches seemed to do next to nothing, but all of his finely honed technique was still there. If raw strength wouldn’t deter this thing, which had now begun to swing back at him, hands becoming like saws made of what appeared to be water and detergent, then maybe a ki attack could.
Ranma moved in a spiral, noticing that the harder it was for the creature to hit him, the angrier it got. Steam started to emanate from the creature, and amidst the various soap bubbles that filled the air, Ranma allowed himself to perform the soul of ice. His body was already stretched to its limits, and he knew he was only going to get one shot at the shoten-ha. There was even a chance that his body wouldn’t be able to handle this technique, but he didn’t see another choice. This was no ordinary opponent.
“Sabão Spray Freezing” A woman’s voice rang out, and while Ranma continued to move in a spiral, the creature no longer did. Instead, it was frozen in a block of ice, a comforting mist appearing around the area. In theory, he shouldn’t have been able to see his hand in front of him, but everything was as clear as day from his perspective, despite being able to also see where the fog laid. He watched, mesmerized, as yet another magical girl appeared (at least she was the first one he’d seen in this new world of his). She wore a sailor outfit, much like the girl on the bridge, though hers had a blue theme to match her short blue hair.
“A-Akane?” Ranma stuttered. It wasn’t that he was jealous his former fiancée, well in this world his sister, was a magical girl. Because it’s not like that was something he wanted when he was a young kid, and Ukyo definitely did not dress up as a well-dressed and mysterious man that helped the magical girl on her adventures when they were younger. But that competitive spirit in him flared to life, and there was no way in hell Akane could have cool magic powers while he was stuck with this pathetic, out of shape body.
“Sailor Mercury,” The sailor senshi responded, flashing him a small smile before returning her attention to the frozen creature. She whipped out a small computer and touched her ear, a futuristic visor appearing across her eyes. She analyzed the creature, before nodding and whispering to herself.
“Umm, Akane, do you have this under control?” Ranma asked after a minute of uncomfortable silence, not sure whether he should continue to school or not.
“Sailor Mercury,” she corrected. The girl didn’t look exactly like Akane, but magical girls had disguises, so he was still fairly confident when the disguise wore off, it’d be Akane underneath. But as he was thinking about her identity, the girl looked him over with the visor, then smiled at him again. “Wow, 78% certainty. Hmm, then I think you’ll do. Will you help me get rid of that creature?”
“Yeah, just tell me where to hit it,” Ranma replied.
“You don’t need to fight it, I need you to purify it. I’d do it myself, but I’m afraid I’m useless in that regard. You appear to have a more or less pure heart, so you should be able to do it.”
“More or less, wow lady, real nice compliment,” Ranma quipped, stepping towards the creature. “What do I need to do?”
“You are capable of manipulating ki, right? I’m going to use that and transfer it into the youma.” Saying that, she grabbed one of his hands in hers, and a strong blue glow emanated from where their hands joined together. Ranma let his ki flow into hers, and hers back to him. He wondered if this was one of the things the goddess had been talking about, but before he could ponder on that further, the youma defrosted, lit up so brightly that he had to close his eyes, and when he opened them a familiar looking Kendoist was sitting where the youma once was.
“Thanks, you saved him,” Sailor Mercury said, letting go of his hand. “You might feel a little dizzy today, and that’s because you’re low on ki. But I suspect you already understand that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ranma replied. And as he looked over at her, she had already disappeared. Deciding the best option was to get away from Kuno before he woke up, Ranma headed to school, wondering just what had happened in this timeline for Akane to have become a magical girl. He never thought his life could be stranger than it once was.
In Universe 1/Original Universe
Usagi woke up in a strange room with lots of blinking lights. Beside her were two other beds, one containing a plain looking boy, and the other a girl in a tiger striped bikini, her long green hair splayed out in an unkempt mess. On the other side of the circular room was a toddler, with a matching tiger striped onesie, who appeared to also be sleeping.
Like a moth to the flame, the bright lights attracted Usagi, and she let out an audible gasp when she finally looked through the windows. They were high up in the sky, far above the city below.
“Dar… ling,” a weak voice came from behind her, and she saw the girl starting to stir. Soon after, the boy did as well, and she remembered the youma that had been advancing towards her on the bridge. She knew she’d need to purify his heart, but she couldn’t transform now that the girl had woken up.
“Oh, what’s this,” the boy said, rubbing his eyes wearily, then moving slowly towards Usagi. “Oh, a pretty lady! Would you mind giving me your address and-”
“Darling!” the girl shouted, and electricity sprouted from her and consumed the boy, his body shaking and twitching as she didn’t let up.
“Ah, Lum-chan!” the toddler said, slowly flying through the air towards her.
“Ten-chan, did you rescue us?” Lum asked, and he nodded as she hugged him.
“Is this a spaceship by any chance?” Usagi asked, laughing at how ridiculous that sounded.
“It’s mine,” Lum said cheerily.
“Hey babe, let me take you on a tour of outer space,” the boy said, voice low and serious as he recovered and made his way in front of Usagi.
“Darling, you idiot!” Lum shouted, electricity once again consuming the boy. And this time, Ten came around to the other side of him.
“Stupid Ataru!” He yelled, before opening his mouth and releasing a burst of fire. Usagi inched away from the trio, unsure of whether it was just Ataru’s heart who would have to be purged. She looked over the various buttons that would light up, then darken, and wondered what all of them did.
Usagi had become so intent on looking at the ship’s finer details that she wasn’t watching where she walked. And suddenly she found herself tripping, her whole upper torso and head ramming into a control board unceremoniously, flipping a bunch of switches and pressing various buttons as she slid down it. A small pop could be heard from the ship, and as she stood up, she apologized profusely.
“Lum-chan, what was that noise?” Ten asked, Ataru now more or less down for the count. At least Usagi hoped.
“Hmm, let me see,” Lum said, pulling up a computer screen and going through all the information in an alien language. Usagi wondered to herself if Ami would be able to translate it. “Ah, she just hit the reality destabilizer. We just have to-”
Instead of finishing her sentence, Lum looked worried, then whipped a large wireless phone out of nowhere and placed a call.
“Yeah, a new reality stabilizer. What do you mean a year?! How much for a rush charge? Do you know who my father is, you, you…”
“Lum-chan?” Ten asked, and Lum looked at them worriedly.
“He hung up on me. Oh, I’m not going to stand for that! My ship’s broken, and the reality destabilizer can’t be switched off until it’s fixed, and they’re telling me it’s going to take a year?! I’ll get dad to handle it then.”
Usagi hadn’t fully realized it yet, but her clumsy streak was about to change the world as she knew it. But at the moment, she was more shocked that the people in front of her were aliens. And her Serenity side couldn’t help but wonder if these were enemies of the moon kingdom. Why else would they not only travel with a youma, but give it a human name like Ataru, too?
Notes:
Unlike most of my fics, this one isn’t finished yet. I have the plot thought out (for the most part), but there’s still a lot to write. I’ll be writing a lot of this as I go, so updates will not be consistent.
Tags may change overtime, as may the rating. It’s still hard to say if some characters will get more of a spotlight than others. Additionally, I’m trying to make sure each chapter remains relatively similar in length, but that’s not something I can guarantee.
In terms of crossovers and what will be most prominent: Ranma 1/2 > Sailor Moon > Urusei Yatsura > Other. By other, basically there’ll be a few more characters showing up from other shows. Most notably Oh My Goddess (but they mostly serve as plot devices).
Aside from Ranma 1/2 and Oh My Goddess, I have never written for these other fandoms before. Please forgive me if I sometimes get minor details wrong. And I’m very receptive to concrit in this regard. Hopefully the characters never act too ooc.
In terms of romance, one is planned. Problem is, I’m finding myself split on which path to go down. Right now there are three possible romances, though I think I’m beginning to narrow it down to two. That’s the problem with not having written the full story yet!
Concrit is appreciated on this fic. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 2: Though You Search All Over - Forlorn, Aren't You?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The rest of the school day was, at least for Ranma, uneventful. Which, unlike most people’s lives, was far out of the ordinary. In fact, the chaos centered around someone entirely new, the girl that had managed to supplant his spot at the center of chaos in the universe, Ryuunosuke.
All day, he watched tirelessly as Ryuunosuke and Akane argued and bickered, only stopping to jointly punt a reinvigorated Kuno into the horizon as he tried to claim Akane and his page cut girl. Pangs of jealously assaulted him, Ryuunosuke being the one who was glomped by the Amazon that rode straight through the classroom’s walls, not him. And even worse, the only one of his fiancées he could call his friend was missing, replaced by some girl called Shinobu. She dressed the same as Ukyo, and was an okonomiyaki chef, but the similarities ended there. Especially when, instead of her trademark battle spatula, she decided to hurl desks in rapid fire succession at Shampoo.
Ranma sighed, now the last person in the classroom, as he looked out the window and watched the students outside going home. Some part of him was scared to do so himself, to go home to a family that was in all honesty his, and yet not at all. It wasn’t the same Tendos he’d known before, that was for sure.
“Ran-chan, you coming?” Akane asked, peeking her head inside the classroom. Ranma’s hair stood on end, something about her sweet-song way of addressing him making him nearly nauseous. This was definitely not the Akane he knew. “Or are you going to make Onee-chan walk home all alone. An innocent maiden all on her own-”
“Hahahahaha!” Ranma broke out in laughter, much to Akane’s consternation. She threw her bag at him, which landed more roughly than he anticipated as he caught it. He wanted to ruminate on his lack of strength, but this new and strange Akane was hilarious. “Oh, poor, defenseless Akane, who’s beaten up just about every guy at school.”
“Shut up, idiot!” Akane huffed, grabbing her bag and walking back towards the door. “I’ll let mother know you’re staying at your friend’s place. Right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ranma said, out of breath, only processing what she’d said after Ryuunosuke had shown up. Ryuunosuke grabbed Akane’s hand, leading her on the way back home. But he figured it was a natural assumption that he must have been waiting for Ryoga or something. Regardless, Ranma was more concerned about Ryuunosuke, finding that she was really starting to hate her. While he had no romantic interest in Akane (and a good thing too, considering his current predicament), Ryuunosuke just had a way with women, and more than just apparently her three fiancées as well. They seemed to almost cling to her, in a way the boys always clung to Ranma’s female half.
“Huh,” Ranma sighed, letting his head rest in his hand as he returned to looking out the window. A strange sort of melancholy settled in, and he wondered if it was because he knew he’d need to leave the classroom soon, or if it was remembering just how popular he’d been in his previous world. Then he slammed his fist into the desk, noting how the surface didn’t even show signs of strain. His old body would have possibly snapped it in half. Determination filled his mind as he remembered the martial arts he needed to master. He just had to beat the daughter of one of the (or only, he didn’t know) supreme gods. With this weak and pathetic body. Piece of cake.
“Hey,” a girl’s voice echoed through the empty room, turning Ranma’s attention to her. He had to do a double take, as the girl reminded him a lot of Akane, until he realized she was a bit more pale, and definitely not as muscular as his - sister still felt wrong to say - former fiancée. “You look down. Is it, you know? Want to come back to my home for the night?”
Ranma sort of stared at the blue haired girl, dumbfounded. Was he supposed to know her? Akane and him didn’t have a triplet in this world, right?
“Do I know you?” Ranma blabbered, only realizing how stupid it was to ask that. She probably knew the Ranma he’d seemed to replace.
“Oh no, not your head again?” The girl worried, rushing to his side and examining his face. “Let’s get you back to my place. Mom’s home tonight, she can examine you. Just hang in there, Ranko.”
Ranma watched as the girl clasped her hands to her mouth and searched around the classroom as if she’d just said something top secret.
“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“Not a problem,” he replied, standing up and grabbing his things. A strange feeling assaulted his insides, like his heart was tugging at him, telling him to trust this girl. In a rare moment of non-combat based wisdom, he remembered the goddess’s advice, and decided that maybe befriending the girl would lead to one of the schools of martial arts he was seeking. “Let’s go to your place, then, and I’ll explain everything. Your mom won’t need to examine me, uh… Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Ami,” the girl said cheerily, escorting him towards her home.
As they walked the streets, she pulled Ranma in for a side hug. It was definitely platonic - after being glomped and attacked so many times, Ranma had a sixth sense for when physical contact was a sign of anything but that - and Ami seemed to blush quite a bit from having done so. She’d been outgoing so far, but he got this feeling, more like a memory, that she was rather shy deep down.
“You know this isn’t the first time you’ve hit your head and had temporary amnesia,” she told him, stopping to look into the ravine they were walking by. “I don’t think I know anyone clumsier than you.”
“Yeah, right, I’m not clum-” Ranma cut himself off as he grabbed Ami’s hand and started running. She was looking at him questionably, but even with his weakling body, his intuition as a martial artist hadn’t been dulled. Something was… Well, he wasn’t sure if it was a threat, the greatest evil the world had ever known, or something even more disturbing than any of those possibilities, but something bad was coming.
“'Tis fate,” a small, old monk said, holding his rosary beads and impeding Ranma and Ami’s path. Both of them shouted at the top of their lungs. Ranma felt his heartbeat accelerate as he prepared for a fight. The monk looked as though someone had taken a disturbing image that would make one want to bleach their eyes out, and then merged it with Happosai.
“Oh ho ho ho,” a familiar voice sounded, the stem of a black rose landing right in the side of the monk’s bald head. Seconds later, an impossibly random and large explosion came from the impact, and Ranma pushed Ami behind him to protect her. But when the smoke cleared, it was he who was looking directly into a mysterious stranger's eyes, the cape he wore with his tuxedo covering Ranma and Ami from any of the strange powder that had been released. Ranma felt like he should be able to place this man, as if he knew him personally, but something about his eyes drew him in, made his heart race, and made him want to capture the masked man’s lips with his own…
“What the hell?!” Ranma shouted, breaking his gaze away from the man and making sure Ami was alright. He’d never felt attraction like that to a guy before, but this… This was overwhelming, like every ounce of his spirit craved the man’s flesh. To say he was a little unsettled would have been a lie, and he couldn’t help but feel as if some part of this life he’d entered was affecting him. Would he really, one day, come to consider Soun as his biological father?
“Be more careful in the future, pigtailed maiden,” the man said, before leaping away and disappearing across Nerima’s rooftops.
Something about everything that had just happened made Ranma’s head hurt, and he knew that he was missing something, but as it had been all day, his worries were suddenly displaced as he noticed other things happening around him. Namely, the monk, unharmed, and eating some ramen in a nearby shop window.
“Come on, Rank- Ranma,” Ami said, grabbing him by the arm and helping him walk back to her place. Something had gone wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, but Ranma didn’t know what it could be.
He was impressed as he entered Ami’s apartment and they greeted her mother. The place was clean and well organized. Not that the Tendo’s place was a dump, in no small part thanks to Kasumi, but this place almost felt like a hospital. In a good way, if that was possible, he thought.
“Is Ranko alright?” Ami’s mom asked, obviously taking stock of Ranma’s current condition.
“Yeah, just a little exhausted,” Ranma said, waving off his friend’s mom.
“We saw you know who on the way back,” Ami chimed in, and a look of horror overcame her mom.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, dears,” the woman said with more sympathy than Ranma had ever received in his life.
“Ah, but it wasn’t all bad. A certain masked hero showed up,” Ami teased, bumping Ranma with her hip. Ranma blushed as he realized what was being implied. What was wrong with the version of him in this world?
“He does have a tendency to appear anytime our Ranko is around, hmm?” Ami’s mom implied, and mother and daughter shared a laugh before Ranma was finally put out of his misery, heading back to Ami’s room.
“So, what is it?” Ami asked questioningly as she sat down in her desk chair, while Ranma moved to sit on her bed.
“It’ll sound crazy,” Ranma said, suddenly nervous, pointer fingers bouncing into each other.
“After that time Ryuunosuke fought that yeti-ox-eel-crane monster that a UFO - a UFO! - dropped off, I’ve stopped believing anything to be all that out there. And we’ve both experienced more than our fair share of strangeness, haven’t we?”
Some part of Ranma was starting to get angry. It was as if Ryuunosuke had entirely replaced him, and only because he wanted to be free of his curse. What was so wrong with that?
“I’m not the Ranma you know,” he started, and Ami listened as she took out her homework from her bag and prepared it on her desk so she could get started when they were done talking.
“There was a bridge, and a magical girl-” Ranma continued, and Ami’s attention was suddenly fully on him, having dropped the papers she was holding at the moment. “And then I was surrounded by mirrors, and I made a wish, and this sure as hell ain’t what I wished for, but now here I am, living someone else’s life.”
“So you’re not Ranko Tendo?” Ami asked, concern showing clearly in her eyes. Then she started fiddling with her watch, like she really wanted to do something with it, but held back and continued to listen.
“Ranma Saotome,” Ranma replied. Something had possessed him to spill his guts, to trust this girl in front of him, and to pine after that ridiculous rose throwing man, and he could only imagine that it might be this world’s version of Ranma somehow in the back of his mind.
“That’s your birth name with your mom’s maiden name, isn’t it? Oh, I guess not if you’re from another world. Ah, I bet it’s a parallel world, huh? Wow, how different is it from where you come from? And what was I like? Oh, and…”
“Ami-chan,” Ranma said, trying to stop the girl from running out of breath, not realizing just how familiar he was addressing her. “So it’s called a parallel world, huh? Good to know. And let’s just say that in that world, I was the greatest martial artist to ever live. A man amongst men, some would say.”
“Bwahahaha,” Ami burst out laughing. Ranma couldn’t figure out what was so funny. “You, a man amongst men? Really? Like, that’s not a joke, or… Oh…”
“What the hell’s so funny about that? It’s the truth, dammit, even if my current body is so, so, so inadequate.”
“And what was I like?” Ami wondered.
“Never met you before today,” he replied.
“But you called me Ami-chan, right? And you came back with me to my place?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, I just felt like… I don’t know, alright.”
“Sorry, sorry, Rank- Ranma. No wonder you were so odd when Tuxedo Mask showed up. Normally you’re swooning over him.”
“I-I-I,” Ranma stammered, face flushing redder than a cherry tomato.
“So there must be a little of Ranko in there still,” Ami said, looking Ranma up and down. Ranma shook his head in agreement.
“Why do you keep calling me Ranko?” Ranma asked.
“Oh, this world’s version of you is a girl,” Ami replied nonchalantly.
“Umm, have you seen me? I know I’m all scrawny now, but like-”
“For this world’s you, this world’s Ranko, that was a great source of pain. But on the inside, she was a girl. Even on the outside, really. You’re just in boy mode right now, although I guess that make’s sense for the man amongst men.”
“Hey, I wasn’t kiddin’ about that. And everyone else has been treating me as a guy, so maybe you’ve got the wrong person.”
“Nope,” Ami replied, chewing on a pencil absentmindedly. “You just haven’t come out to them yet. At least not that I know of. You confided in me a few months ago, and my mom knew your parents weren’t so understanding of these things, so she allowed me to invite you over whenever I wanted. You even have a stash of your things in a corner of my closet.”
“Yeah right,” Ranma said, heading over to the closet only to find a dresser with a label on one of the drawers with the name Ranko. He opened it and stared at all the girly items within, including a small set of make up, a couple dresses, and some rather feminine looking tank tops. He picked up one of the bras to inspect it, then laughed at its size. “Hah, this can’t be mine, it’s way too small…”
“Oh, did the man amongst men have larger assets in the world he came from?” Ami teased, and Ranma threw the bra back into the drawer.
“Heh, you’d be surprised,” Ranma quipped back, leaving Ami staring in confusion. Ranma smirked, satisfied that his life was still at least weird enough to shock strangers. Then his attention was captured by a small Panda stuffed animal, and he picked it up and examined it. “Looks just like pops.”
“Your father was a panda bear?” Ami asked incredulously. She fell right out of her seat when Ranma nodded in all seriousness. “That’s! That’s not possible.”
“Cursed springs make a lot of things possible,” Ranma reminded her. He assumed she had to have some knowledge of the springs, considering that Taro’s cursed form had appeared at least once.
“That, that… Oh my god, that was real?” Ami was suddenly freaking out, holding her hands to her flushed cheeks. Ranma wasn’t sure what to do, so he closed the drawer and the closet, still holding the panda plush firmly.
“What are you talking about, Ami-chan?”
“Your sister’s pet pig, I saw him one time in the bath. It was a naked guy I think I’ve seen around before fighting Ryuunosuke. I just thought I’d hallucinated it, as when I turned back around, it was just P-chan.”
“Damn that little piggy, he’s still up to no good,” Ranma growled. He looked down at the panda plushy, wondering what in the world this earth’s Ranma, or Ranko, or Ranma? Whatever the hell this version of himself was thinking when they chose this panda plush. Still, holding it made him feel like he wasn’t going mad, that his world was waiting out there somewhere. “It’s okay to take this with me, right?”
“Of course, everything in that drawer is yours,” Ami said, still recovering from her presumably vivid memory. Once a pervert, always a pervert when it came to Ryoga, Ranma figured. His mind was called back to the contents of the drawer, and he spaced out, wondering what his doppelgänger saw in some of their choices. They felt really girly, and this coming from a guy that regularly dressed up in ridiculous feminine outfits for one thing or another. “Well, Ranko’s. But you’re her, aren’t you, so I guess it’s yours?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess he’s just me if my life turned out differently somehow. Kinda.”
“She,” Ami corrected. “You might be a man, Ranma, but Ranko most certainly wasn’t.”
“Ah, yeah, sorry about that. Just thinking of hi- her as myself, so it gets all confusing.”
Soon after, both teens had their homework out, although one of them was taking the work more seriously than the other. In one of his many intermittent breaks, where he wondered when he’d ever actually use any of this crap they were learning, he looked about Ami’s room and noticed that she had a few posters of yet another magical girl (the third in only two days he’d seen). Clad in the same outfit as the girl earlier in the morning, hers was orange in design, and she also wore a mask across her eyes. Sailor V.
“Ah, still a fan regardless of the universe, huh?” Ami asked, having taken a break and noticing Ranma’s fascination with the poster.
“Um, no, I’ve never seen her in my world, just a magical girl that looked like her,” Ranma replied, recalling the girl who had helped vanquish Happosai, as well as who knocked him off the bridge before saving him from her own clumsiness. “She had a blue and red ensemble, with a moon symbol on her forehead.”
“What?!” Ami suddenly freaked out, leaping over to Ranma’s side on the bed and grabbing him by the shoulders. She looked straight in his eyes. “You saw Sailor Moon? You found our Hime?!”
“Um, well, I didn’t get her name, but back in my world, yeah. She was famous locally for having helped to remove a certain demonic pest.”
“That must be why you’re here,” Ami said, then suddenly seemed to think twice about everything. She didn’t strike Ranma as a girl that easily let things slip, but if he were honest, he had no idea what it was he wasn’t supposed to have heard.
“Nah, like I said, it’s the wish. I just have to beat a goddess in combat, and she’ll send me back. And it’s not like she’s the only magical girl I’ve seen, there was one this morning.”
Ranma left off the part about being saved. His pride couldn’t admit that he’d been unable to beat the youma.
“They’re called sailor senshi,” Ami corrected him while blushing. “Sailor Mercury is probably who you met this morning, and besides the very famous Sailor V, there’s another six active senshi.”
“Well, the senshi had a blue design, so…”
“Yeah, that’s Sailor Mercury. I know you think you’re here because of a wish, Ranma. But… Those senshi have been searching for Sailor Moon. And it sounds like you know her from your world. Surely that means something, there has to be a connection somewhere.”
Ranma watched Ami drift off into her own thoughts, presumably trying to make heads or tails of Ranma’s situation. He couldn’t help but think that she was kind of cute, in a platonic way, when she got lost like that. And he sort of understood why this version of him, Ranko, may have been her friend. Certainly, it was a nice changeup from Ryoga always trying to pound him into the Earth, or Ukyo insisting that they elope. With Ami, he could kick back and relax.
“Wait, is Sailor V real?” Ranma asked, suddenly understanding the conversation they’d just had.
“Of course,” Ami answered. “And she’s really popular. She even has her own video games. I have one if you want to try it.”
“Never been much good at video games, but sounds better than doing homework,” Ranma replied excitedly, though he was met with a disappointing stare from Ami.
“Alright, let’s get it out. But make sure you take school seriously. Ranko is really smart, she does not deserve for her grades to suffer.”
“Wow, this game is so fun,” Ranma marveled a few minutes later, blown away by one of his only experiences playing video games. At home, not in an arcade, no less! “Man, Pop would have never let me play this in the other world.”
“Was he against games?”
“Anything that wasn’t practicing the art, and by extension serving his interests, was frowned on. And Ma would have probably made me commit seppuku if she discovered I was playing as a girl in a game.”
“Haha, seppuku,” Ami laughed. Ranma just looked at her seriously before returning to the game.
“Ain’t that funny,” he replied, his whole body starting to move with his inputs, as if he sat up straighter, Sailor V might just get that extra bit of height in her jump that she needed. “I just got lucky she didn’t enforce the seppuku contract when she found out I turned into a girl.”
“You are in a seppuku contract with your mother?” Ami asked incredulously, suddenly taking the controller out of Ranma’s hand and turning off the TV. He was about to protest, but she pointed to the clock on the wall, then to his homework, and he hung his head. “And wait, did you just say you were a girl? Didn’t you say you’re a guy?”
“Yeah, well, cursed springs and all that. Which was especially a problem considering my idiot father entered me and him into a seppuku contract with Ma that I’d become a man amongst men.”
“That’s fuck-” Ami gasped at her own faux pas, clasping her hands to her mouth.
The two teens spent the rest of the night together. First, Ami forced Ranma to finish his homework, and just when he’d sighed a breath of relief, she checked over it, made notes as to where he was wrong, and then forced helped him to go back over them until he got them all correct. It left very little time in the night to do anything else but eat dinner, where Ranma had to pretend to be Ranko for Ami’s mother’s sake. Fortunately, she’d had so much practice at acting like a girl, she pulled it off quite naturally, even earning Ami’s seal of approval: Ami had told her if she didn’t know any better, she’d have assumed Ranma was a girl all along. After that, Ranma ended up digging through Ranko’s drawers to find her pajamas, considering he had nothing else to sleep in, and then the two stayed up playing Sailor V maybe just a little too long. Both eventually tired out at about the same time and went to bed, Ranma left puzzled by the day’s events, as well as the fact he was sleeping in a girl’s room, with his male body, and nobody was freaking out. It was treated as if they were just two girls having a sleep-over, which for some strange reason filled him with a sense of contentment.
But as the two teens fell asleep, a certain panda plushy stirred before coming to life. It headed towards the window and looked up towards the moon, then held up a small sign with writing on it.
Oh Hime, when will we find you?
Universe 1
A bright white column of light had shot straight up into the sky from the river, capturing Akane’s attention. She moved closer to get a look before letting out a scream so loud that she nearly shredded her vocal cords as she came across a body floating in the river. She moved quickly to pull it out, fighting her urge to collapse in panic when she realized it was Ranma. Fortunately, Ranma had drifted just close enough for her to wade in without needing to swim, and she carried him back to land as fast as she could move through the waves.
“Ranma, you idiot!” Akane cried, desperately trying to perform first aid on her fiancée. “Just… Just because we aren’t going to get married, you shouldn’t have tried to kill yourself!”
She had been on a walk with Sayuri, who had already gone to call for an ambulance. Akane breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that Ranma was still breathing, tears liberally streaking down her face.
If Ranma died, she didn’t know what she’d do. She tried to remember anything useful that could help in this situation. Ranma’s clothes were wet, and the night cool, so she knew she needed to do something about that. But fortunately, the ambulance showed up in the nick of time. She took some time looking around the area, but couldn’t find any hints as to a possible fight breaking out. Her fears that she was the cause of this were rekindled, but she knew Ranma. She knew he was made of tougher stuff than that, tough enough to survive what had happened. And besides, there was that bright column of light. So maybe he had been fighting something, and not just tossing his life away.
“Ami, have you seen Usagi recently?” Came the worried voice of Usagi’s mother over the phone.
“No, I haven’t seen her since yesterday,” Ami replied, the gears in her mind already turning.
“If you or someone else sees her, please let us know, she hasn’t come home for two nights now,” Usagi’s mom pleaded. Ami agreed, then hung up the phone before immediately moving for her watch.
“Has anyone seen Usagi?” She asked as the other senshi came online. A collective stream of ‘no’ echoed from the receiver embedded in the watch.
“Is something wrong with Usagi?” Rei asked.
“Her mom said she hasn’t come home for two nights,” Ami said, fear starting to seize her. “Let’s meet at the arcade, we need to be prepared for a rescue mission.”
“It’s probably just dumb Usagi forgetting to leave Mamorou’s,” Minako and Rei chimed in together.
“Regardless, let’s go see where her last location was when she transformed.”
At their secret base under the arcade, Ami looked through the senshi location records and noticed that Sailor Moon’s last known location was two nights ago near a certain bridge. When she relayed this to the rest of the senshi, panic began to ensue. Haruka was about to speed off with Michiru to the bridge when Ami convinced her that they need to be more careful and go as a team.
Extending an already long night, all the senshi sans Moon and Saturn had arrived at the scene as Ami scanned it with her computer. Picking up trace residuals of the silver crystal’s power, the computer managed to confirm Moon’s presence, which seemed to have leaped over the bridge directly into the water, before heading straight up into the air and to an untraceable elevation.
“She was definitely here,” Ami said. The computer beeped again and she noticed it’d picked up a weaker trail of silver crystal power heading towards land. It had to belong to someone or something that was in close contact with Sailor Moon and had washed up on shore. “And it looks as if someone was in close contact and washed up on the shore over there.”
“I was actually here the other night,” Makoto piped up. "I remember that I came running to check out the scene when an ambulance drove by, and there was a red-headed girl on the shore, with someone having pulled her out of the river."
“Hold on, I’ll check the recent 911 and hospital records,” Ami said. At times like these, she was glad her silver millennium device could hack the 20th century’s primitive technology. Normally she had a qualm over whether doing so was ethical, but even she felt the call to protect her princess, and she wasn’t going to worry about those kinds of ethics at the moment. “Looks like a Ranma Saotome. But it says she is male? Hmm, I’ll have to verify this data tonight before we do anything else, there’s a lot in their record that doesn’t make sense. Might be someone faking their identity?”
“We should go now,” Haruka and Rei protested, both eager to rescue their princess.
“No, these records are seriously doctored. For one, the gender marker keeps switching around at certain points. This might not be some random victim. They might have done something to kidnap Usagi. It’s not normal for someone to carry a trace silver crystal power with them. Mamorou never does.”
“I used to know the Saotomes,” Setsuna mentioned. “I don’t think they’d do something like this, but as you said Mercury, this could be a trap. And from what I know of Genma Saotome, it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility. He’s partially responsible for the fall of the moon kingdom.”
“Seriously?” Came many gasps that managed to echo through the area.
“That’s one of the names listed under Ranma’s father’s name,” Ami commented. “And it looks the most legitimate. Mr. Pan Da certainly sounds fake to me.”
“Mendou, what’s wrong?” Shinobu asked as the girls in the class talked with each other, some of them moving the desks around to make room to play a game.
“Lum! Lum, you’ve returned to grace us with your presence?!” Megane shouted in his sleep, his head leaning against his desk, drool dripping from his mouth onto its surface.
“Woo-hoo! No more Ataru!” Mr. Onsen, the teacher, was cheering, holding folding fans with the Japanese flag on them and dancing about. “Everyone gets the day off in celebration! No more interruptions!”
“That’s it, I must find Lum,” Mendou declared, banging a fist against his desk. He grabbed Shinobu’s hands in his own. “There comes a time in every man’s life that he must go on a journey. I can’t put it off any longer. It is my duty, as a man, to find Lum.”
“Shutaro,” Shinobu whispered. “Must you leave? You have a life here. You have responsibilities here. You… You have me here.”
“I’m sorry,” Shutaro whispered, removing his hands from hers, then walking out of the classroom. He stood in the door for a moment, his back to Shinobu, then waved an arm out in goodbye. “I must go… Shinobu…”
“Oh, Mendou,” Shinobu whispered before a paper airplane hit her in the back of the head. She turned around, noticing a random boy trying to back out of the classroom. Shinobu picked up a desk and tossed it at him. “Men!”
At the Moroboshi Household
“Dear, Ataru hasn’t come home for two nights,” Ataru’s mother said as she sat down with an extra helping of rice for her and her husband.
“Should we call the police then?” Ataru’s father asked, putting down his newspaper.
“Of course not. This is great, maybe Lum eloped with him back to her planet!” Ataru’s mother said cheerfully. Then she went back to the kitchen and retrieved the fish she’d fried, giving her and her husband double portions. “Three fewer mouths to feed, more fish for the both of us.”
“It can’t be helped if he eloped to another planet,” Ataru’s father shrugged, digging into his meal.
“'Tis Fate,” Cherry piped in, eating the bowl of rice and fish that Ataru’s mother had planned to split with her husband. The room itself exploded as Ataru’s parents were sent flying, along with their table and all the food not in the decrepit old monk’s hands. “Your son has much worse luck than I feared. He might drag the entire universe down with him. Now aren’t such words of wisdom worth at least another bowl?”
“I knew he was a mistake,” Ataru’s mother sighed, ignoring the monk who was holding his hands out expectantly. “Why did I have to have him? Actually, honey, this is your fault, so take responsibility.”
“What?” Ataru’s dad coughed as his wife stood up, huffed, and walked away.
Notes:
Still haven't decided on the final pairing yet, but I'm starting to lean towards one. I'll tag it when I decide.
I'm not the best writer around, but I do my best to try to keep everyone in character. If you think I'm really failing in that regard, let me know. Note that Universe 2 (the one that Ranma is in) is likely to have characters acting differently: For instance, Ranma's counterpart in that world is Ranko (a trans female version of Ranma). Concrit is appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
Minalia on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Sep 2022 06:23AM UTC
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