Disclaimer: I own nothing and never will. I'm too poor to even by Christmas cards, let alone presents, so suing me won't do any good.
AN: This is only a prologue. So no complaining about shortness or you won't get any more.
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Chaos
In the beginning, there was only the Void. Then, the Void gained sentience and sought to end its lonely existence through creation. Thus, the universe was born of the void through what is known as the 'Big Bang'. The Void then filled this universe with life and created many deities and demons to… well, to keep it running, so to speak. Among these most powerful of Its creations, the entity known as Chaos was Its favourite… Chaos kept things from getting boring.
Aeons pass, pantheons rise and fall in mortal belief, wars are fought between the deities and demons, and godly and demonic power finds itself constrained by mortal free will. Both powers begin to find themselves bogged down with paperwork from all the contracts made with mortals and the life files of all beings both living and deceased, so they create offices. Through it all, Chaos remains neutral, controlling and containing the changes enforced by Time when necessary. Then, one day, aeons ago, Chaos gets a crafty and somewhat wicked idea… and disappears. Chaos' effects are still felt and the universe continues as it should, only less controlled in some places and overly so in others. Still, the disappearance of the entity was noted. It is a mystery that has been left unsolved, and shelved in the astral administration filing cabinets to this day…
O.O
A hospital room somewhere in Japan, Tera, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy, 7th July, 1987 AD
"Push, Saotome-san! Push! You're almost there!" cries the doctor as the woman before him on the bed screams in the agony of childbirth. Meanwhile, her husband paces the floor in the waiting room of the hospital, impatiently awaiting the birth of his first child.
'Please, kami-sama, give me a son,' thought the man. 'I must have a son to carry on the school.' Now, most men would be more worried about the health of their first child and that of their spouse with the gender being second. Not this man. If he had cared, he and his wife would not be here after the many miscarriages and stillbirths that the poor woman had suffered. It had been advised that they simply stop trying and adopt instead. Yet, here they were.
The general consensus in the maternity ward was that the woman married far too young to safely attempt to bear children; fourteen and married to an eighteen year old martial artist. But the match was arranged by her parents, and hers was a traditional family. Thus, here they were, ten years later, the husband pacing and glancing at the clock every so often and the wife in labour in a room down the hall. 'How long will it take this time,' thought the husband. They had only been there for three hours, yet the man was already impatient. Having been through this waiting game before, he knew that it could take many hours. He also knew that the longer the labour, the more likely a stillbirth or other such problems. He was to be pleasantly surprised this time.
Back in the hospital room, a scant four and a half hours after having gone into labour, the woman felt the odd sensation that she knew marked an infant's departure from her body hours before she was accustomed to. Expecting the usual, soul-crushing sadness that she had experienced in the past, she is instead overjoyed to hear the wail of a living, and outraged, newborn (hey, you'd be outraged too if somebody yanked you out of a nice comfy womb and smacked you on the butt).
"Congratulations, Saotome-san," said the doctor over the sound of a screaming baby. "It's a boy." At least, that's what he thought until the usual paediatric examinations were done. They later found out the kid had unusual, yet benign growths in him that turned out to be rudimentary female reproductive organs. They didn't bother mentioning it though as they thought nothing would come of it. After all, the male organs were functioning and the female ones weren't.
'Finally,' thought the woman, exhausted from both the birth itself and her relief. 'Perhaps now Genma will leave me be.' After ten years of enduring the unpleasant act of sharing a bed with her husband, disappointment, the shame of her inability to bear sons, poverty, and the many visits from debt collectors, Nodoka Saotome did not love Genma and barely respected him. Only honour kept her from filing for divorce.
After both mother and child were clean and made more comfortable, the nurse handed Nodoka her new son then left to inform the father. Two minutes later, Genma rushed into the room to see for himself. Lo and behold, he saw Nodoka tenderly nursing their son. Most men would get misty-eyed and a little sentimental at such a sight, but not Genma. He would actually have to love his wife for that. The only thing Genma truly loved about her was her cooking. He merely saw the threat of her possibly coddling the boy and making him soft. Thus, it was no surprise that he took the boy away on a training trip one year later, leaving behind a seppuku contract that had been agreed to by his wife.
Why would she agree to such a thing? Simple; she knew that her husband would take Ranma, her son, regardless. She also knew that the likelihood of him growing up to be like his father was quite high. The contract was insurance that, should Ranma grow to be like his father, she could honourably cleanse her family honour and prevent repeated mistakes in the next generation by removing both from existence. After all, seppuku was still an honourable way to clear your family of debt and dishonour.
Unbeknownst to either Saotome, on the day their son was born, a certain file popped up on the computer screens in both the infernal and divine admin offices as it amended itself. On the last page of said (quite thick) file was a simple set of statistics:
Mortal identity of Chaos entity
Name:Saotome, Ranma
DOB: 07th day of 7th month. Tera year 1987
LOB: Japan, Tera, Sol System