Er, sorry about this. I mistakenly attached this
story as a chapter of the Original Writing Series
earlier. This has been corrected, but the reviews
are now associated with OWS. Sorry about the
incovenience.

This story will be continued by Silverleaf12@AOL.com
Thanks, Nixa!

You probably know the disclaimers by heart. On
with the fic.

SeventhOne

***
F A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
U Alternaverse
S by
I SeventhOne
O
N A teaser

***
A boy shows up at some dojo in Tokyo, meets
the master's daughter, and it's hate at first sight.
You've seen it before? Sure, seen it lots of times.
How about this one? The boy, get this, has
actually been studying martial arts abroad, and is
currently one of the strongest people around.
Yep. Seen it before. And I'll tell you what. I
know what happens next. He beats up the girl,
right? Right.

Course, often as not, the boy's called Ranma,
and the girl's called Akane, but that's merely
chance. Lots of other times, you get different
names, like, for example, Kenshin and Kaoru, or
Ryu and Akiko. The name's not important, but
you get the general idea. There are variations
upon variations, and all the rest of the whatnot.

But, to quote some famous author, can't
remember the name, "This story doesn't begin
that way." Nope. This story begins with an
arrival.

"Hello?"

Yes, an arrival. I know what you're expecting.
Ah, it's an arrival at a dojo, you think. Guess
again.

"Anyone?"

It's a girl's voice, and she's calling out into the
mist.

"Father?"

She'd been travelling around a lot with her father
lately. Martial artists tend to do that a lot. Stupid
martial artists.

"Akane!"

It was another girl's voice, slightly older. Akane
looked across the mist, in the direction of the
voice. She recognized it.

"Kasumi! Are you there?"

To tell the truth, no. Her sister hadn't come along
on this trip. She was at home, safe in bed. Fear
tends to distort thought processes.

"Akane! I'm over here! I can't see you!"

Who, do you suppose, is calling, then?

"I'm coming!"

Akane ran forward, into the mist.
And then, suddenly, she was falling. And wet.
Water. Air . . . mist . . . cold . . . must breathe . . .

"Akane. Akane? Akane! Answer me!"

The other girl approached the place where
Akane had disappeared.
You really wanna see her face? Well . . . you've
seen it before. The girl is . . . Kasumi. A wet
one, wearing a brown gi. And extremely afraid.

Eyes trailed down to pool, still bubbling from
some object that had recently fallen in. Eyes
widened. Eyes filled with tears.

"No!"

***
What do you do with somebody who looks
exactly like you, refuses to talk, and continues
crying through your attempts to comfort her?
This isn't a question most people are faced with.

Kasumi Tendo currently faced it.

With her father gone travelling with one of her
sisters, and her other sister out at a friends house,
Kasumi had found herself basically alone.

And then this girl had shown up.

Kasumi sighed. She usually didn't, but this was a
little too frustrating, even for her.

"At least I've gotten her to stop crying," she
thought to herself. The thought cheered her up
immensely.

"Let's try this again. What's your name?"

The girl sniffled a bit, then wiped her face on her
gi. Kasumi tried again.

"Your name?"

" . . . Mayumi."

"Okay, Mayumi, I want to tell me exactly why
you're here."

" . . . I . . . I'm here to tell you that . . . your sister
and your father . . . they aren't coming back."

Kasumi stiffened for a moment.

"What?"

"Your sister and your father aren't coming back."

" . . . are they . . . "

". . . No."

"Then . . . "

"Please don't ask. I really don't want to tell you."

Kasumi felt herself on the verge of crying, but
she stopped herself.

"I see."

***
Akane opened her eyes.

There was a panda staring her straight in the
eyes.

"AHH!"

She jumped back. Or tried to. This is very hard
to do while lying down. She banged her head
against the wall.

"Oww!"

"Young Mister Customer finally wake?"

Akane rubbed the back of her head for a moment
before eyeing her surroundings.

"Where am I?"

The panda raised a sign.

[Welcome back to the world of the living, son.]
said the sign.

"Son? I'm not a son. And my father's not a
panda."

The panda whacked her on the head with the
sign.

"Young Mister Customer get personally change
from Spring of Drown Nihon Girl. Very tragic
story. No one fall in spring before."

"Person . . . personality change? What do you
mean?"

The panda twirled its eyes around.

***
You've heard it. It begins with a postcard.

And then a boy shows up at some dojo in Tokyo.
You've seen it before, right? Sure, seen it lots of
times.

Bet you hadn't seen this one yet.

To be continued . . . (maybe)

***
Anyone want to pick this up?