Choices
Prologue
Ranma was sitting under a familiar bridge in Nerima. He was older, over 200 years old, sitting on the ground in tears. He knew it wasn't manly, but he couldn't help it.
Everything should have been perfect.
Ukyou married Konatsu.
Shampoo married Mousse.
Ryouga married Akari.
Soun married Hinako.
Nabiki married Kuno.
Kasumi married Dr. Tofu.
He married Akane.
Even Kodatchi was going after someone else.
Well three of eight wasn't bad.
Ranma was happy for the four who had made it.
Ukyou seemed to be content with Konatsu. As time went on, he lost touch with them.
He had letters from Shampoo and it seemed that she was content with Mousse. They were ecstatic that their curses were gone.
Ryouga was happy with Akari when he was at her farm, but still got mad at him when it concerned Akane. The big lug still had feelings for her. The loss of the curse would have made a difference in their relationship in the beginning, but now they were very much in love with each other so that it did not matter anymore.
Kodatchi seemed to be still chasing yet another person. He had to wonder sometimes if she really wanted the person or was it the thrill of the chase?
Ranma then thought of everyone else who did not.
Hinako had divorced Soun after five years. It was a mutual divorce. The reason given was that they couldn't have any children. The real reason that Ranma found out later from a more bitter Hinako was that Soun wouldn't let go of his wife and compared everything she did to her. It drove her crazy. The bad part for the both of them was that he did not even half-heartedly tried to make the marriage work as she tried to appease him.
Later, Ranma had seen her again when she was in the hospital. It seemed that her changing from her young form to her older form had far reaching complications, not the least where her body was being worn out by the changing of sizes. He had to shake his head when she told him that it was too late for her. She had been too addicted to her powers to let go, even if it would kill her. She died that night from cardiac arrest. He knew better though and just chalked it up to a broken heart.
Nabiki was another one. At first, when he heard that Nabiki married to Kuno, she would be happy. That seemingly was not the case. Nabiki was richer now with Kuno, but divorced later. He found out that she could not take the Kuno family anymore. The Kunos literally drove her nuts. Kodatchi tried to put concoction in her food as she did with Kuno. Kuno was worse as he became fixated on other women, despite him being married. He insisted that he needed mistresses to keep up his status. Nabiki knew otherwise.
Surprisingly, it was the Elder Kuno who seemed the most sane. Since Nabiki sported a page boy haircut, there was no problem about her hair. Also when you got passed his fetish for Hawaiian things and hair, he was actually quite pleasant and intelligent. He told her that he loved Japan, but could not stay there because he would have had to stay at the Kuno mansion and be exposed to Kodatchi's drugs. She was a botanist like her mother. He had tried to get his son out, but his son was stubborn and refused, saying that it was like abandoning his heritage.
After the divorce, Nabiki still visits Nerima once in a while to see her family, but now lives mostly for her own company in Los Angeles. She lived to an old age with her nephew and niece, and had died at her desk in her office tower in the middle of her empire that she built.
The bitterest thing was his marriage with Akane. There were problems that he thought they could overcome. Unfortunately, it took two to tango and Akane's pride still wouldn't let her acknowledge that he was an equal in anything. The main sticking point was that it wasn't their dojo, it was HERS, the TRUE Tendo heir.
From that, fights had erupted as he was eventually forced to learn to fight back against her. After their most violent verbal confrontation, he beat Akane. She then fell back to her trusty mallet to settle the situation, which to her shock was stopped by Ranma's own hand. She finally got it through her thick skull that he wouldn't tolerate her belittling him anymore. It became apparent in her mutterings that she still thought that she was he hogged the spotlight that was rightfully hers. It was funny that with all that they had gone through, she still resented him for also taking her rightful place as top martial artist, even when she herself did not improve that much when he first came to Nerima. She still considered herself at least on par with him in skill. After that, they slept in separate rooms, courtesy of Akane who said she didn't want to sleep in the same room with a sick pervert who was always on the verge of adultery. She even had a steel door installed to make sure of that.
The only times they were together was when they tried to have a child, but could not. After five years of trying, they finally went a fertility specialist. What the specialist told them had shocked them both. Ranma was sterile.
Before the marriage, Dr. Tofu had done a very extensive work up on both of them to make sure they were healthy and everything checked up fine. After they saw the specialist, Dr. Tofu did another full work up on them and he found many... toxic chemicals in Ranma's system that affected him, even if he didn't show any signs of it. The chemicals were from the food that Nabiki sent (for a fee) to Tokyo University for their research program and apparently built up too quickly for Ranma's system to flush out. Akane apparently had no such chemicals in her system. It seemed that Akane's... lack of culinary skills had made him... sterile.
When his parent found out, they disowned him. Nodoka called him unmanly and demanded that he commit seppuku for tarnishing the Saotome line, even when she knew it was because of Akane's cooking. It became apparent that she favoured Akane over him. Genma did out of sheer cowardliness when faced with the seppuku contract. Soun automatically took Akane's side.
Ironically, Ukyou and Shampoo took Akane's side as well as she had grown to like the girl now that they were no longer rivals. They had strained relations after that. On the other hand, Ryouga and Taro was friendlier to him, but neutral since they both did still like Akane.
The most shocking part for him was a year after the divorce. He saw Akane one last time. It was a few days after the divorce when he accidentally bumped into her and Shinnosuke. Akane put her nose up and tried to walk them past him, but Shinnosuke insisted that he accompany them for the outing that they had planned.
Unknown to Akane, Ranma had seen Shinnosuke and on an impulse checked his ki system out like he did when he battled the Orochi. Surprisingly, Shinnosuke was healed enough so that Ranma could actually cure him, but stipulated on his honour that no one know who cured him. He felt bad that Shinnosuke had such a crappy life and felt that he owed something to him since he was the only guy, other than Dr. Tofu, who had no ulterior motive against him. In the end, Shinnosuke was cured.
They had an awkward silence in the cafe and it seemed that only Shinnosuke's presence seemed to stop Akane from lashing out at him. When Akane had excused herself to go the restroom, it was only then that Shinnosuke told him what happened.
Shinnosuke told him that they had a regular correspondence and had regular friendly meetings when Ranma healed him. It was only a few weeks ago that they got together for their regular meeting that Akane had proposed and were married a few days ago. He had loved her so much that he agreed before realizing that she was still married. He thought he should know as he felt kind of guilty for what happened.
Ranma was shocked that she married Shinnosuke so quickly after the divorce, the same day to be exact. He felt a bit bitter about the way that Akane treated him. Even with such a short period of time, it was apparent to him that she treated Shinnosuke WAY better than him, even when he slips up. As he thought about it some more, after his shock, he felt... nothing. There was no anger, jealousy, happiness or even sadness. It surprised him and as he thought about it that it made sense. He might have had feelings for Akane, but after what she put him through... he just shook his head. He told Shinnosuke that he was happy for him. What was left out was that he was happy for Akane and Shinnosuke only smiled sadly in acknowledgment that he knew what Ranma had not said. When Akane had come back, they parted.
Only Kasumi and Nabiki had taken his side after the divorce. When he asked them why they took his side than their father's, they explained their own reasons on their visit.
He had found out from Kasumi that she thought that Akane was still immature, even after five years of being married to him. Akane was still stubborn and refused to see anything differently from her own reality. Kasumi had lived with them at the dojo and saw him mature, but Akane still brings up things that she believed that was his fault, like her constantly walking in on Ranma in the furo despite that they were married. Belittling his skills and his manhood when she called him a sick pervert, yet knew that she married Shinnosuke right afterwards.
Nabiki was of the same mind. She knew that Akane was thickheaded sometimes, but not to this extent. She knew that too many times, Akane jumped to the wrong conclusions even after it was clear that none of it was Ranma's fault or that it was her fault. When she heard Akane marrying Shinnosuke so soon after the divorce, many things fell into place. It was almost like she planned it from the start. When she presented that information to him, even he had to agree that it was the best explanation for her behaviour.
As he looked at it, dispassionately, what made sense was that it seemed to be that Akane did fall back in love with Shinnosuke and she only married him for honour. Oh, she tried to make it work, but eventually the effort made her resentful at him to the point that he became the bane of her existence. The saddest thing was that she never told anyone, leaving no course to make things right. It was easier to fall back on blaming everything on him than face up to it and making this mess.
Ranma sighed. All those years ago, he had to unshakable faith that things would always turn all right. He thought that he had Akane's love and the respect of his friends and rivals, but he was wrong. All his efforts were wasted.
The saddest thing was for Kasumi when she died. She was injured when Dr. Tofu went into one of his maniac episodes when he tried to help her with a neck ache.
They all thought he was cured of that when he had come back from Tibet when he didn't stutter and asked her to marry him. She enthusiastically said yes. They had two wonderful children.
No one knew that the techniques that Dr. Tofu used were getting weaker as it was being less and less used. Both of their busy lives in trying to make the clinic successful were eating up their time and energy. It wouldn't be until later that it would come to a head.
At the time a few years later after his divorce, Ranma was visiting them when Dr. Tofu's glasses fogged up, he reacted immediately even after all those years, but he was too late. Dr. Tofu had messed up Kasumi's ki lines to a high degree. Kasumi had a horribly pained expression that haunted him to his very last day and looked at him with an expression that begged for release, Ranma had pressed some shiatsu points to put her in a coma.
Later that night as he and Dr. Tofu, who was knocked back to sanity by Ranma, worked to get Kasumi better. She died that night. Dr. Tofu went into his maniac state after he found out she had died and never came out again. If you look closely enough on the horizon, you can see him running with his skeleton, Betty, on his back. He was laughing, but had tears in his eyes. Later, he was being treated at an asylum for is condition. His mother visits him regularly before he died.
After Kasumi's death, he found that there was little left for him to do and the only thing he could do was one thing. Martial arts. Even after being disowned, he took it upon himself to show his family up. It took more than a hundred years of training when he had finally perfected his own style. He had went to the farthest reaches of the planet and sometimes beyond to be in harmony in mind, body and spirit, able to do things that he only saw in myths, mangas and movies. He had found an invaluable resource in video games as well. After he had challenged Happosai and beat him to become grandmaster of the Anything Goes and his official Heir, taking on his name. He was now the greatest martial artist of his generation and also a few generations after that too.
As Ranma looked back upon his life, he realized how ill prepared he was for it. It took him years, but he had achieved his... former parent's dream of being the best martial artist of his generation.
It was only after he had achieved it that he felt lost. His former parents only wanted him to do what they wanted, it took him many decades years to get started doing other things like going to university to get his Physical Education, Degree. When he achieved that, he progressed to Masters and then to Ph.D. He even achieved the status of being a doctor when he graduated from Tokyo University where he specialized in chi and ki and was even a lecturer for some time. He found that he had a knack for languages as well as business and higher level mathematics when he actually tried, finding a kind of soothing in the hard numbers that didn't change like his life. Even to this day, he was still surprised how good he was in things that were not related to martial arts.
He sighed as he had achieved his dream of being the best martial artist in the world and now had the skills to open a dojo, yet, he didn't have the desire to teach it. There was an irony in that,...but the biggest irony was this.
After years of pain in his life, he was finally finding peace. The problem was that when he finally returned to Japan, he had a medical check up for the pain he was in. It had bothered him for years, even since the divorce, and it was only then that he found that he was literally dying, a lingering effect of Akane's cooking. It seemed that the many of the toxins had side effects were still in his body and it had deteriorated it so that most of his organs were failing. It was only that he had a huge ki reserve that kept him alive. He had techniques that could change the toxins to ki, but the damage was too much. A ki reserve that was now dwindling to nothing and now all his organs were failing. Later, he found it was much more than that when he tried to find a magical cure.
What a screwed up life. He wished that he could start over again.
Somewhere in the deepest region of Heaven, someone did hear it.
It was Kami-sama.
He sighed as He looked over Ranma's file. It seemed that the sticky fingers of his children here and below had really messed up his timeline.
The Bet was fine as there was only one change really. This was different. His children had more than one, more than a thousand. It started innocently enough with one change, but when it did not go where they wanted, they made the fateful decision of putting in another change then anther and another. In this reality the gods were all rooting for Akane for some odd reason, they thought that she was the best thing since sliced bread. The demons wanted Ranma killed to thwart the gods, then changed their minds and decided that if the gods wanted him to be with Akane, they will have to earn it. They both got their wish and woe was it for Ranma.
He shook his head again. It seemed that after Ranma and Akane got married, the gods and goddesses were satisfied, but then Shinnosuke was cured, ironically due to Ranma's ki abilities, and then it seemed that Ranma was not good enough for her anymore. After that, more chaos for Ranma after Hinako and Kasumi's deaths. That was their final push on Ranma because he had improved so much that he could almost feel the presence of other beings that were involved in his life. That meant that it was that their meddling was of a more direct nature. That meant that they ran before they were caught and then left behind the mess they created in Ranma life for Ranma to try to fix and took him only 30 years of hard work to do it.
Technically, they did not do it directly, but at the end it was to almost the extent of directing Ranma's life. The other issue was the sheer amount of meddling. It was mind boggling to Him that they thought they could brazenly get away with it.
He would have to do something about that.
He took a breath and decided that gods and demons needed to be taught a lesson that they cannot meddle without consequences. That mortals can have enough power to rival them and they will get burned if they are not careful.
He smiled a peculiar smile, an undivine like smile, as he thought about what would happen. This time, it would be Ranma who will have the advantage. In the old timeline, everybody was better than he was in everything, including martial arts when he first came to the Tendo Dojo. His children had a huge hand in that. The people in his life took him to be an uncouth barbarian, yet they knew how he was raised and never gave him any slack. They used it mercilessly on him, especially Akane when she called him a pervert. They expected him to fail and felt better when he did, so that they could feel superior to him then they could make him do what they wanted. Well that, and that almost everyone used him and then discarded him when he fought back and won.
He was not surprised when Kasumi and Nabiki had taken his side. They were mostly on the sidelines and the gods and demons did not want to waste their time with them.
On one part of his screen a red flashing light was alerting him to some hackers. "Hmm..." Kami-sama thought as He raised an eyebrow, "So they want to delay Kasumi's wish, do they?" He smiled again that undivine smile as he saw a threat that the gods and demons should have seen eons ago, but did nothing to prevent, "Serves them right for thinking that they were the only Powers to contend with."
Before he turned to other business, he wondered if Ranma would be the one to right a very old wrong. One that the gods would like to be buried forever if they could.
Years later
It was Ranma who was two hundred years old. He literally dying. His life with all of its craziness had finally caught up with him. The years of Akane's cooking had compromised even his resistant body and rendered him sterile.
When he was nearly forty, the news caused shock waves where everybody left him, including his parents, especially his mother who thought he was unmanly.
"Bullshit." he thought. His mother was one of the ones who always pushed Akane's food at him and yet she then calmly did the cruelest thing of all. It was worse than the seppuku contract, she stripped him of his name and his honour. A year later, he met Shinnosuke again and found out that he was to be heir to the Tendo Dojo.
What happened later was that he had scoured the world for nearly one seventy-year training trip. He had a correspondence with Tokyo University so that he had a Ph.D. in Physical Education and even became a Doctor in Traditional Medicine and Ki. He had accumulated a vast amount of knowledge and wealth. He even had become the best of his generation by producing his own style. Yet when he was bout to teach it, a sickness had invaded his body. His ki should have let him fight it off, but he found that it was magical in nature from Mascara of the Musk. That was when he started to learn as much about magic as he could. It was again another seventy-year training trip. He became knowledgeable in magic and a surprisingly proficient magic user, but found no cure. In addition, he did find that a way to convert ki to magic, but he was able to slow down the disease only.
What a screwed up life. He wished that he could start over again.
Fate looked at Ranma, and thought about it. Whatever thoughts had passed in his head, no one will ever know as a button.
Author's Note:
Trying to get the hang of writing. Constructive Criticism welcomed. Non Contructive Flames will go into shredder.