This is a side story based on my own personal version of the Ranmaverse.

This claim I make, the characters and situations in this fan fiction are the intellectual property of Porthos112 and may not be used without permission. On the other hand this story is foreshadowing for my Ranma half fan fiction and as such is subject to any conditions owing to characters owned by Rumiko Takahashi.

Prologue

Ranma-chan groaned aloud as she contemplated the small tome in her hands, she guessed she'd finally asked enough questions about how clan Itsunagi had gained so much power. Glaring at the black leather bound book she figured that someone had decided to give her the answers. The title of the book, written in large gold leaf letters was...

-Origins-

The Gods smiled upon the people of Japan as they had done for millennia, the Mongol hordes had been held to the beaches for five days when the tai-phun (divine wind) had descended on the bay. Now two days later the air was clear, the sky an intense azure color, the world smelled new made. That would change, Itsunagi Makodai turned his eyes from the Heavens only to cast them upon hell. Where two days before the vast Mongol armada had spread across the bay now there was only a sea of wreckage, sunken ships lay broken and gaping, their contents strewn on the surface, men and horses mangled almost beyond recognition. The vengeance of heaven was indeed slow and sure and the price enacted had been steep, from the 20,000 Mongol warriors set to invade Japan only a thousand or so sat huddled on the beach. Now they were no longer warriors they were slaves. Makodai shuddered as he turned his back to the sea, he was a man of war it was true, but he wished never again to see this level of destruction and death. The battle had been won but the cost on both sides had been too high, much too high.

As the last descendent of the Itsunagi clan he must soon find a wife so that the clan might continue. A few more battles like this last one and his clan would forever disappear into the mists of time. The young man slapped his cheeks hard to regain some kind of focus, it was fatalistic thinking like this that brought out evil spirits and that was the last thing he needed. Feeling slightly renewed he began to count his blessings starting with the fact he was alive and ending with the fact that he was now richer than he'd ever been. The Mongols might not have been able to land their main forces but they had landed more than enough to make sure that there were rich pickings for anybody fast enough to beat the Lords to the treasures, these treasures for the most part weren't of gold or gems it was horses, armor and weapons, though there had been some of the former as well. As he rode away on the first horse he'd ever owned he contemplated his brighter future. Riding off of the beach into the cool twilight under the branches of the forest he headed in land towards the nearest road.

He'd been riding half the morning when ahead of him he heard yells and the clash of weapons, coming so fresh after the recent battle Makodai decided to investigate with all haste. Dropping the reins of his new pack animals he spurred his steppe pony forward to investigate while untying his bow. A hundred yards ahead the animal trail he'd been following opened up into a clearing, at the far end of the clearing an intense mêlée was in progress. Riding closer he realized that two samurai were being hard-pressed by nearly twenty Mongol warriors. It was at this point that 400 years of samurai breeding kicked in and he did the only thing he could, he charged. drawing his bow and standing in his stirrups he fired eight arrows in rapid succession, he was half way across the clearing as the first arrow punched through the helmet of his first target. As he rode he assessed the situation and found that his fellow warriors have made the best of the terrain, with odds of ten to one they had their backs to a dense thicket, forcing the enemy to come at them five at a time instead of en masse. Three dead Mongols attested that they had shortened the odds against them by using that tactic. The Mongols short bows had proved ineffective as each warrior wielded in addition to their long swords a kodachi (short sword used for defense and lightning fast counterattacks), even as Makodai watched an arrow was caught behind the head and deflected past into the dense thicket. Three quarters of the way across the clearing and the Mongols began to react to his presence of course with five new Mongols dead and two wounded due to his bowmanship the odds had been shortened even further. Two Mongol bowmen began to return fire, the first arrow he chose to deflect using his own bow which proved to be unfortunate as the arrow head severed his bow string, which then whipped into his exposed neck causing him a great deal of pain. Dropping his now useless bow he leant over in the saddle to avoid the second arrow upon rising he drew his sword and drove straight into the enemy, using his momentum he smashed two of the nearly stationary ponies off their feet while slashing both left and right, without seeming to notice the blade flickered as it moved to intercept yet another arrow and deflected it away. The two tired young samurai seeing the odds shortened so drastically attacked with renewed vigor taking the now disarrayed Mongols by surprise. Ten minutes later the clearing became still and quiet, the battle had been bloody and intense but relatively short once the Mongols spirit had been broken. None of the three young warriors had escaped without injury, Makodai began to catalogue his own injuries, aside from the nasty cut he'd received from his bow string he also had a gash across the back of his right arm where a sword deflected off his metal bracer, looking down he surveyed his ruined chest plate 'Damn this bamboo armor, if only I could afford the kind of armor these two have' the rent in his armor exposed the padding underneath. The two youths had fared even worse than he had so he began to set about fixing their wounds. Even as he moved towards the palest of the young men he toppled over exposing the broken shaft of the arrow embedded in his back.

"Koji!" The other young man darted forward to try and catch his brother. Makodai joined him in a futile lunge only to watch as he crashed face forward into the turf without even trying to break his fall. Crouching down by the prone figure Makodai felt for a pulse and upon finding none looked the other youth in the eyes and shook his head.

"I'm sorry he's gone."

Koda Himura shook his head, "No, no he can't be!" so saying he pushed Makodai roughly out of his way and turned his brother onto his side to search for signs of life. Holding his brother's chin he turned his head to stare into sightless blue orbs. Koda began to cry as he stared into his own dead face, it was true, his twin brother was gone. Pulling the body into his chest he mourned his brother, throwing back his head he screamed at the sky a long drawn-out sound filled with his pain, anguish and loss. Side by side since birth they had been inseparable and now he had to go on alone.

Makodai crouched down and began to survey his surroundings to make sure they were not ambushed. Deciding he could do nothing for the youth he moved to retrieve his belongings which surprisingly had followed him into the clearing. 'Must be well trained if they'll follow into battle, very well trained,' he amended as he noticed one of the pack animals had been slain by a stray arrow, the others had not moved away and had even drawn around to protect the downed animal. 'Kuso that kind of trainings got to be worth a fortune.' Gathering his pack he moved back to the young man and started a small fire. As he well knew sometimes it takes a long time to say goodbye to the dead.

As night fell the youth seemed to come back to himself, lowering his cold brother gently to the ground he looked around for the first time since the battle had ended. He felt empty, so empty ' There' s nothing left, nothing to live for...' Upon thinking that he drew his tanto and gazed at the exposed blade only to watch a rough calloused hand close around his wrist.

"No young one, it is not your time, you must live." Intense blue eyes raised to meet Makodai's own hazel colored eyes. " Now you must remember, how he lived, how he fought and how he died. You must live so that your brother's courage does not go unremembered, so that his strength of will, will have witness. You must live that your family will know that this day their son's have earned such honor."

"You know nothing." the young man muttered.

"You're wrong you know, when I was not much older than you my father sent me to deliver a message, when I returned I found my Clan had been murdered and that I was now the sole survivor, there was no honor for they were not killed in battle they were killed by ninja in the dead of night. One day I will find out who ordered the killings and then there shall be retribution. Until that day I hold them in my heart. If you die now who will remember you? I do not even know your family name."

"It's Himura. My name is Himura Koda." The young man raised his eyes to those of his rescuer, looking past the flimsy barriers he found a pain that matched his own. "I'm sorry I did not know of your loss."

Makodai looked away from his contemplation of the flames, "And why should you, it was years ago and far away, very few people know or care about it. What of your brothers name, I would remember the name of a man who showed such courage?"

The rest of the night was spent in rememberance of Himura Kojiro. Koda alternated between laughter and tears as he remembered his brother's life long into the night, the fire died down to barely glowing coals, the moon sank below the horizon and the sky to the east turned pale.

To be continued...

Please review this story if you like it or hate it. If you find any mistakes or inconsistencies in the story please contact me and let me know. As this is now officially the fifth story that I'm working on at present I probably won't continue it if I don't receive some kind of response from readers

Authors notes:-this story is basically about the resurrection of clan Itsunagi, it'll be a fairly straightforward story with touches of the supernatural, of the Japanese kind of course. Now just an explanation, I did not use the clan name Himura by accident, I believe that both Ranma and Kenshin Himura have an ancestor in common (at least in this story they do), if you want to know more about that you'll have to read further chapters. The story will terminate sometime shortly after Nodoka's birth. But don't worry I won't be covering the whole 8 hundred years only the high points.

The second Mongol invasion of Japan was sometime in the 12th century, and it was indeed foiled by a hurricane funnily enough in the same way as the previous invasion by the Mongols. It's stated with some pride by Japanese historians and scholars that no one has ever successfully invaded Japan. Even the Americans in the second world war were wary of Initiating a land war on Japanese soil, though I'm sure they would have done it they increased the required estimated troop strength by at least a factor of two and then dropped two nuclear weapons on them, they only actually landed troops after the Japanese surrendered.