Ranma Beats ½,

Disclaimer:

I don't own any of the characters, settings or so on.

Volume Two

Prologue:

Shiina trudged back to the surface, depressed by her defeat at the hands of Tenshis' doppelganger. It was true that she had been the only member to delay the doppelgangers through actual combat rather than suicide, and it was true that she had only fallen when a second doppelganger had appeared behind her, but for Shiina those points were no consolation. For someone who had spent her life developing her skills and her death perfecting them, such a defeat should not have occurred.

If Tenshi had been an angel in fact as well as name, her defeat could have been excused to some degree. The girl was inhumanly strong, but was also clearly untrained. Even with Tenshi's magical techniques and strength, Shiina should still have had little problem defeating the so-called Angel. Still, her magic was a formidable advantage. If this had been Shiina's first defeat, it would have bothered her less.

But it wasn't.

Her first defeat had been at the hands of Yuri Nakamura. Shiina had been lured to the surface, and into a battle with the original Tenshi. Shiina had become so involved in the fight that she had neglected her surroundings – and had been flattened by Hideki, who Nakamura had somehow convinced to jump from the top of the school in a suicidal tackle.

While Shiina found Nakamura's fighting skills laughable, her ability to orchestrate plans and inspire those around her into sacrifice highly impressed the ninja. In Nakamura, Shiina had at long last found a leader worth following.

Lately though, Shiina had been wondering if she had made the right decision. It was true that under Nakamura's leadership, the members of the SSS had developed into a highly successful fighting force, but the objectives of their attacks often seemed nonsensical – such as the meal tickets collected in 'Operation Tornado'. Shiina could only assume the operations were a smoke screen, and their leader was training them for some as-yet unannounced master plan.

Their training was something else Shiina worried about. They had no training schedule, and the only training they did was at their own initiative. Nakamura didn't even provide them with an instructor. Many of the SSS members' skills had gaping holes in their combat ability, yet their leader made no effort to plug those gaps.

Given the strategic and tactical brilliance her leader had impressed her with in the past, Shiina assumed Nakamura's master plan must need the group to be not as combat effective as Shiina would have preferred.

At least, this is what Shiina wanted to believe. The alternative – that Nakamura had no master-plan, was as childish and immature as she often acted, and blundered through crisis after crisis through bluff and the luck of the devil, Shiina tried not to think about. On some nights though, the possibility was harder not to think about than others

Given that it was dark, and Shiina was tired, hurting, and full of doubts about both hers and her leader's abilities, it shouldn't surprise the reader to learn that that Shiina failed to notice the student in the torn uniform staring into the river below her. This isn't what happened however. Despite all these drawbacks, there was still something that twinged at her awareness. Something that caused her to abandon her introspection, disappear into the shadows, and creep forward to observe the red-haired pigtailed girl.

AUTHORS NOTES

I know this isn't much, considering how long it's been since the last update. This can be considered notice that I'm about to start continuing the series though. It took me a long time to find enough workable ideas to start the sequel, but I think I'm finally at that point now. I won't give any indicators about the length, or direction, or speed of updates, because the plans I make for my stories never survive contact with the narrative.

I did originally try writing this a few different ways, using Yurippe instead. I've found that I can't write as her at all though. While I've studied the source material, I just can't get into her head space at all.

Lastly, I need to thank Kariston Draconis for acting as my beta reader for this fic, starting with this prologue.