A Ranma ½ - Tenchi Muyo crossover fanfict by Tangent

Pre-reading and editing assistance by:

Lord Talon;

Nevrmore;

And some guy named Steve

DISCLAIMER: ‘Ranma ½’ and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty and Viz Video. ‘No Need for Tenchi’ and all characters therein belong to Hitoshi Okuda, Pioneer Video (and probably others as well…in both cases). This fanfict has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfict may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanficts, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even *GASP* American comic books!).

A WORD FROM TANGENT: Well, here I am again, writing yet another Ranma fanfict. This particular story is a Ranma/Tenchi crossover (as if you couldn’t tell). In particular, it joins both series at their beginnings, which will probably lead to some unusual diversions. If you pay attention, you may spot some facts that are definitely at variance with either show. This is more because I wanted to follow a story using these factors, as opposed to simply wanting to yank your chains (For example: Soun Tendo’s wife is still alive in this timeline).

FYI: This story if vectored off of the Tenchi OAV series, not the first or second TV series. It hardly matters whether it is vectored off of either the Manga or TV version of Ranma (both are close enough to eachother not to matter in this case).

Ranma was understandably upset. Thanks to her father, she was now a girl, after having been raised for so many years to be a ‘man among men’ (as her father put it so often). Well, enough was enough. If she stayed with Genma any longer, who knew what horrible idea the Grand Master of idiocy would come up with next? Most of her life had been a kind of surreal hell, she finally realized. She just wished that she had thought to put her tormentor out of her life earlier.

Before Jusenkyo would have been early enough for Ranma.

As it was, she was glad she had remembered to retrieve her pack after she had run her father off. It had given the guide a chance to explain to her how her curse worked. Ranma was very glad to find out that she wouldn’t be stuck as a girl. Glad enough, that she decided that she would at least continue the tour until the end…with one minor exception.

Telling the guide that the stupid Panda could very well take care of himself, Ranma followed him out of the valley…

Ranma walked quietly down the back road as he continued his travels. It had been months now, but he was back in Japan again and seeking out a new path to follow in life. While he liked martial arts, his father had been the only sensei that he knew of for the Anything Goes School. Given what he had seen of the senseis of other fighting styles, he doubted that he would find another that belonged to his own School. His experience while staying with the amazons of Joketsuzoku had shown him what it was like to join another school of fighting, and it hadn’t been pleasant.

Granted, he had enjoyed the training itself, even though they had insisted that he do so as a girl, and Elder Cologne seemed to be pleased as all get out that her new pupil had been such a quick study. Unfortunately, Ranma was too quick, and learned techniques at a rate that was promoting jealousy and resentment among the other amazons. Ranma, ever the eager student, had no idea how to slow down ‘her’ rate of learning. It had gotten to the point that ‘she’ had to leave the village or face daily condemnation from everyone but Cologne, her great-granddaughter (and Ranma’s adoptive clan sister) Shampoo, and Mousse.

Ranma had no idea why Mousse liked ‘her’, but suspected that it had to do with the fact that ‘she’ was the only one in the village to respect him as a fighter. Ranma still had no idea how the Chinese boy hid all those weapons about his person, and would have liked to stay longer in order to find out, but such was not to be.

Seeing a sign indicating that there was a shrine ahead, Ranma turned down this new path and contemplated a quieter lifestyle. Perhaps he could learn to pace himself, so as not to promote so much jealousy and resentment. At the very least, he could ask about a cure for the curse…

"Hmm…Masaki Shrine…" Ranma mused. "Sounds nice…"

SCENE CHANGE: Near an unspecified, but recently destroyed school…

Tenchi made his way home, hoping that no one connected him with the disaster that blew up his school. He felt lucky to have escaped Ryoko’s wrath with his life. For a moment he wondered what he was going to do with the sword hilt that he had taken from his grandfather’s shrine. Sure, it had saved his life, but it may also have been how the demon had been able to track him.

Or not. She had gotten a pretty good look at him when he broke the seal of her cave and found her. Who knew what powers any particular demon had? Well, it didn’t matter now, what with her source of power destroyed. He didn’t have to worry about Ryoko anymore.

This, folks, is what is known as a mistaken assumption.

SCENE CHANGE: Nerima district

Genma was stone plastered drunk or he would have thought better of the idea.

Okay…maybe not, but he would have liked to think that he could have pulled it off if he was sober. He would have been wrong, but he liked to think that way just the same. Unfortunately (for him), he was very drunk, and this would prove to be detrimental to his excuse making abilities. In other words… he couldn’t make up a believable lie if his life depended on it. Actually, he wasn’t creative enough at the moment to lie, period. He just thought he was.

Nodoka, who had been visiting the Tendos when her husband had finally shown up after ten long years, stared in shock as she listened to Genma’s rambling explanation. She really didn’t think that her husband was even aware that she was present at the moment, but she could tell that he was too drunk to think straight. As bizarre and nightmarish as his story was, she knew that her husband wasn’t creative enough to lie when he was this drunk. Which meant that he had a lot to answer for when he sobered up.

"An’ then…an’ then Ranma jush’ livesh…leavesh (hic)." Oh yes, Genma was very drunk! "Shtupid brat. Runnin’ offff…ff…‘caush I turn him ina a girl. Cute girl too…red hair…big chesht… Wash a shtupid acshident anywho…jush’ like the niko…nuko-kun…neko-ken trainin’…

Oh yes, Genma had a whole lot to answer for when he finally became sober again. Nodoka was planning on starting early…with a megaphone if the Tendos had one. Soun was flabbergasted to say the least, but his wife, Kimiko, just shook her head in dismay, wondering why Nodoka had married this man. Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane just listened in horrified fascination as Genma drunkenly described torture after torture that he had expected his son to put up with while the two were on their training journey.

No one batted an eye when Nodoka unwrapped the Saotome Honor Blade and began to polish it in preparation for use. And Genma still rambled on…

SCENE CHANGE: Masaki Shine

Ranma finally approached the shrine proper, after having walked down the road and up the rather lengthy set of stairs leading up to it. Not that that had actually bothered him at all. He was in good shape and was in no real hurry, so such things weren’t worth worrying about. Either he would be welcome or it would be too late for visitors and he would have to camp out. Having plenty of experience camping out, and none at all with making proper introductions, he halfway hoped that it would be too late. It would give him more time to think of how to introduce himself.

Genma, he realized, had to have been as poor an etiquette teacher as he was a father, and the amazon habit of just walking in wherever they wanted to hadn’t seemed right either. It had certainly given him near heart attacks whenever one of them walked in on him while he was trying to soak in their covered hot spring. Locked doors did not seem to be a concept that they understood very well.

Ranma was contemplating camping out anyway, to give himself the time to prepare better, when a voice called out from within the shrine office.

"Welcome. Come in, come in." the voice called out gently. Ranma could tell that it was from an older man, still full of the vitality of life, but at peace with the world around him.

Ranma longed for some of that peace. He walked into the shrine office as requested, only mildly surprised that the occupant was sitting at a low table with his back to the door. Ranma could see that the man was indeed quite old, but had aged well and was still in remarkably good condition. He sensed a sort of quiet power from him, and assumed that besides being a priest, the man probably also studied some form of martial art. This didn’t bother Ranma one way or the other, as some temples simply had a more traditionally martial bent, just as others were devoted pacifists. Either one may provide the answers he sought.

"You seem troubled, child," Katsuhito prompted gently. He had seen the boy approach the stairs earlier so had known to keep his senses extended for his arrival to the shrine. He had even had time to prepare some tea for his guest, and indicated for the boy to sit in the place he had set for him.

"Troubled," Ranma said as he sat down across from the priest. "I guess that’s one way to describe my situation." He figured, at the very least, that he had someone to listen to him for a while. Not that Cologne refused listened to him…or rather ‘her’, but that was the crux of the problem with the amazons. They hadn’t really let Ranma be himself while he was there, as they had little respect for men as fighters and warriors. Even Cologne and Shampoo preferred to deal with Ranma as a female…and they had ‘adopted’ him!

"Perhaps you would care to elaborate?" Katsuhito prompted yet again as he gently probed the boy’s aura. Something seemed familiar about it, like a memory long since faded with the passage of time. Listening to the boy’s story would give him time to puzzle out what it was, and might even provide clues as well.

"Well, my name is Ranma Saotome, and I suppose my story begins about ten years ago," Ranma began. "That’s when my pop decided to take me on this long training journey to make me a ‘man among men’…"

SCENE CHANGE: Low earth orbit (and getting higher)

Tenchi was running for his life from what seemed to be two animated attack logs. He had retrieved the sword hilt that Sasami’s older sister had taken from him, but was really beginning to have second thoughts about the whole affair. Being chased by homicidal logs chanting ‘Here we come! Here we come!’ while randomly blasting the landscape tended to have that effect on him. He quickly spotted Sasami in the distance, and knew that he had to get her to safety as well.

Not that Azaka or Kamidaki would have hurt Sasami, but he didn’t know that…

SCENE CHANGE: Back in Nerima

Genma was running for his life. Being attacked by Nodoka with the family Honor Blade had sobered him quite efficiently. Enough so, at least, that he knew that it would probably be a good idea to continue his travels. People were still looking for him in China about that silly passport thing, so another country would most likely be better. He wondered if Australia was far enough away. He wondered if anybody there spoke Japanese. He wondered if it really mattered.

Unbeknownst to Genma, Nodoka had trailed off about five miles back and returned to the Tendo estate, satisfied that she had seen the last of her worthless husband. At least for another ten years, anyway. It was rather pointless to continue chasing him, as running away was one of the things that he was very skilled at performing. She should never have agreed to his pledge to raise their son to be a ‘man among men’, knowing Genma as she did, but she had hoped that the experience would change him.

Well, it hadn’t, and her son paid the price for her folly. Paid for ten long and miserable years. Nodoka had to set that right somehow. But first she had to find her son…

SCENE CHANGE: Back at the Masaki Shine

Ranma had just finished his story, giving Katsuhito a lot to think about. The boy had had a hard life thanks to being raised by a man who was, by the boy’s account, seriously deranged. The old priest had heard tales from many people who had visited his shrine in the past, but few quite so troubling as this one from a boy who had come to the heartbreaking conclusion that his father was a monster. Not a literal beast or demon perhaps, but an authentic monster of a man none the less. The pain of this realization could be easily read in the boy’s eyes.

"I do not know what can be done about your curse," Katsuhito said gently. "The Cursed Springs of Jusenkyo sound more like the handiwork of a Kami than the work of a demon or wicked magician. Such magic often eludes treatment by conventional means. And apparently some rather unconventional means as well, if what you told me of the amazons’ methods is accurate."

"Yeah, well, Elder Cologne advised me against some of those," Ranma explained, "but said that she had been constrained by the other Elders not to explain why. She seemed upset when I agreed to try their cures though," he continued. "I think it may have been because she knew that they wouldn’t work and she didn’t want to have to admit it."

"Perhaps," Katsuhito assented. "But, from what you told me, it sounds more like she wanted to warn you that they were trying to lock you in your female form so that you wouldn’t be a man anymore."

"WHAT?" Ranma exclaimed. "They said that they were trying to cure me!"

"From their perspective, perhaps they were," Katsuhito pointed out. "Soaking you in water from the Nyanniichuan sounds more like a valid attempt to cure you of any remaining maleness than a cure for the curse, however."

"Ack!" was Ranma’s intelligent response to this conclusion.

"I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you," the old man continued calmly. "Their ‘treatments’ don’t seem to have had any lasting effect, if indeed they had any effect at all."

"I hope not!" Ranma affirmed. The realization of what the amazons may have tried to do to him shook him severely. At least Elder Cologne, whom he had trusted, had tried to warn him not to go along with their ideas. He was fortunate that their ‘cure’ hadn’t worked out.

"You are welcome to stay here, of course," Katsuhito offered. "Or, if you prefer, I have family in the city who may be willing to take you in while you search for your mother or other relatives. I think you would like my grandson," he pointed out. "He is about your age."

"Thanks for the offer," Ranma replied. "I’ll have to think about it."

"Of course."

There was a moment of utter calm…

…And then an earth shaking series of crashes followed by a phenomenal splashdown in the small lake at the base of the mountain.

Ranma somehow knew that his life had just become more complicated again.

END CHAPTER ONE.