Ranma Beats ½

(because I suck at titles)

Chapter 1

"Nooo!"

Ranma opened his eyes in shock, glancing around him in panic and fear.

His nightmare slowly faded, and with it he slowly became aware of his surroundings.

He was lying on a bed. Not his bed. Not any of the beds in the Tendo residence either. Actually, looking around, it looked a lot like the bed in the nurses office at Furinken High. He had no idea why he was here. Ramna frowned. Actually, he couldn't remember anything that happened recently. Everything he could remember felt like it had happened weeks ago. He felt around his head for any lumps that might explain his lack of memories, but couldn't find any. There was also no sign of any battle damage to his body. No bruises, no scratches, nothing. And no tears in his clothing either. Which for some reason, wasn't his standard Chinese shirt and pants, but instead was a black school uniform. Why he was dressed in the uniform of some school he'd never seen before was beyond Ranma, and he had more important things to worry about anyway. He got to his feet, and made his way out of the infirmary.

Two hours later, and Ranma was even more confused. He wasn't in Furinken High School any more, that was certain. He was in a high-school, but not like any high-school he'd ever been in before. Superficially, it seemed normal. Maybe ten times larger than Furinken High, but other than that, it was normal. He hadn't yet seen any fights. Hadn't seen any insane teachers or eccentric headmasters. Even the students appeared normal – they all wore the same black uniform he had woken up in, and when he talked to them, they appeared to be model students. No martial arts, no obsessed fiancés, just a normal school.

But the whole place felt wrong to Ranma. It took him a while to work out why. At first, it was just something at the back of his mind. Something that said 'Fake' every time he turned a corner or looked over the campus. Then he started noticing small things that didn't quite add up.

The first he noticed was the large expanse of wilderness surrounding the school.

At first, he had thought the school was on the edge of whatever city he was now in, but after walking around the campus for two hours, he had found the wilderness was visible from every angle. Wherever he was, it wasn't Tokyo. It looked to him like the school had been built in the middle of no-where, for some bizarre reason. He tried leaving the school, but couldn't find the entrance. He could jump over the walls to the school of course, but the wilderness started on the other side. There were no roads leading to the school, no power lines. The whole thing was a little creepy. He had asked the other students where they were, but their answers hadn't been informative. They had all looked at him rather oddly, and answered 'The cafeteria', or 'The library'. He had tried asking them where the school was, but they just looked at him oddly, and walked quickly away. Ranma had never really sympathized with Ryoga much before, but now he knew exactly how the other felt.

The whole 'school in the middle of the wilderness' thing bugged Ranma a little, but it still wasn't enough to explain why the entire place set his teeth on edge. It took him a good hour to work out why, and he almost kicked himself once he worked it out… Or at least he would have if it didn't raise even more questions within him.

As he talked to the different students, he noticed they all had very similar responses to his questions. Oh, they may be phrased slightly differently, and may have a different accent, but they were still the same responses. It was as though they had all been given a prepared script. Ranma didn't believe in conspiracies, especially ones including the entire student body. In his experience, the larger the group of people trying to keep a secret, the faster something incredibly stupid happened, the secret got spilled, and everyone started trying to kill each other again. All the same, he felt he WAS missing something. He finally worked it out when he spoke to a teacher. When the teacher started giving the same answers the students had, he suppressed his irritation. Was the teacher really that oblivious? Ranma checked the teachers aura on impulse, wanting to know if the teacher was lying, or maybe brainwashed somehow…

The teacher didn't have an aura.

Ranma frowned and checked again, but still no aura. Which was of course, impossible. Everyone had an aura. Hell, even dogs and cats had an aura. Anything that was capable of feeling any sort of emotion gave out an aura, but the teacher in front of him didn't.

Ranma frowned, and concentrated again. Beads of sweat collected on his face. He could see swirls of his own aura now, glowing blue lines of determination, tinged with the faint red of his irritation. But around the teacher, nothing. It was possible to suppress your aura, but there were very few people who could suppress it to the point where Ranma couldn't pick it up. To his knowledge, only Happosai and Cologne were capable of that sort of mastery. Ranma was quite sure the teacher in front of him wasn't even at Akanes level, let alone the founders of his art.

If everything remotely sentient had an aura, and the teacher in front of him had none, did that mean it wasn't sentient? Even ghosts had aura's, but that's because they were still capable of feeling. Was the teacher some sort of hallucination? Was everything around him not real?

The teacher was looking at him expectantly, waiting for Ranma's next question. Ranma thanked him for his time and left, deep in thought.

Ranma spent some time after that, walking around the school and checking other students for aura's. It would have been a lot easier if he could check from a distance, but as powerful as he was, he could still only detect someone's aura if they were within a few meters of him. This made the process a rather time consuming business.

It was now approaching dusk, and Ranma was both hungry and fed up. He hadn't detected a single aura among the students, and he still had no answers to where he was why he was here, or why he couldn't remember anything. A pleasant smell wafted in front of his nose, and he sniffed appreciatory. Someone, somewhere, was cooking.

Tired of the mysteries of the place, Ranma followed his nose to the schools sports track, where a group of students were being served dinner from large cooking pots. Ranma had walked through the schools cafeteria a number of times, and wondered a little why the meal was being served outside, rather than indoors, and why it was being served by students rather than the kitchen staff. At this point though, he was too tired to care. A student with bright pink hair handed him a bowl full of fish stew. Ranma absently thanked her, and found a quiet place to eat on the other side of the school.

For some reason, the students serving fish on the sports track wouldn't leave his mind. As he inhaled his dinner, he kept thinking about them. Except for the school being in the middle of the wilderness, everything gave the illusion of being a model school. The students, the teachers, the classrooms… everything.

But the students hadn't fit into that mold at all. They had worn tan-colored uniforms rather than the standard black ones, had dyed their hair… were doing everything but scream 'I don't fit in here', and Ranma had completely missed it. Why?

Ranma got to his feet and raced to the sports track, hoping the students were still there.

As he turned the last corner, he looked anxiously around. The crowd of students in black uniforms were long gone, and most of the students in light brown uniforms had left too - but about half were still washing the cooking utensils. One of the students had bone-white hair all the way down to her waist, and two students had blue hair, one of which was holding a… yes, it was a halberd of some kind. As he approached, he wondered how he could have ever mistaken them for anyone normal.

Ranma grinned. Finally, he could find out what was going on.

END CHAPTER 1

AUTHORS NOTES:

Well I'm not to sure about this fic. I don't think I do 'stream of consciousness' too well, but… meh, I had a go anyway. If you've got any comments, particularly tips on how to improve in this style, your more than welcome to either leave a review or send me a message.