DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.
"I am," I said to no one there,
And no one heard at all, not even the chair.
"I am," I cried. "I am," said I,
And I am lost, and I can't even say why,
Leavin' me lonely still…
Neil Diamond, I Am…I Said (1971)
Phoenix From the Ashes
by Fred Herriot
Proofreading of latter parts by Rashaan Butler and Rose1948.
Plot suggestions made by Gogmagog.
Military information thanks to D.A. Paterson, FJAG, Pusser and Mikeninercharlie.
Based on Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura, created by Takahashi Rumiko; and Ikkitōsen, created by Shiozaki Yūji.
Including characters and references from Mahō Sensei Negima, created by Akamatsu Ken; the True Love Story series, created by ASCII and Enterbrain; Koihime Musō, created by BaseSon; the Jack Ryan novels, created by Tom Clancy; Men In Black, created by Lowell Cunningham; Dōkyūsei, created by ELF; Dōsōkai, created by F&C Company; Due South, created by Paul Haggis; Kidō Keisatsu Patlabor, created by Headgear (Oshii Mamoru, Itō Kazunori, Izubuchi Yutaka, Takada Akemi and Yūki Masami); "Crocodile" Dundee, created by Paul Hogan; Cityhunter and Angel Heart, created by Hōjō Tsukasa; Kōtetsu Tenshi Kurumi, created by Kaishaku (Ōta Hitoshi and Shichinohe Terumasa); Zipang, created by Kawaguchi Kaiji; Maria-sama ga Miteru, created by Konno Oyuki; Indiana Jones, created by George Lucas; Zenkoku Seifuku Bishōjo Grand Prix, created by Lyceen; Sea Patrol, created by Hal and Di McElroy; Ojō-sama Express, created by MediaWorks; Ch'ŏn'gun, written and directed by Min Chun'gi; NOëL, created by Pioneer LDC; Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; Contact, created by Carl Sagan; Aozora Shōjotai, created by Shimizu Toshimitsu; Dominion Tank Police, created by Shirō Masamune; Battle Royale, created by Takami Kōshun; Dan Cooper, created by Albert Weinburg; WKRP in Cincinnati, created by Hugh Wilson; Sōten Kōro, created by Yi Hagin and King Gonta; and Top Gun, created by Ehud Yonay, Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr.
Ataru's quote in Part 33 comes from A Tale of Two Cities (1859), written by Charles J.H. Dickens. The Saint Crispin's Day Speech comes from Henry V (ca. 1599), written by William Shakespeare.
In A Class of Her Own (production date unknown), written and produced for a video by Parks Canada for the H.M.C.S. Haida National Historic Site of Canada, copyright by Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada; the lyrics used here under the applicable non-commercial reproduction provisions of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada.
Soldiers (1981), written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, first released on the ABBA studio album The Visitors, produced by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, released by Polar Music.
Derived from the fanfic The Bet: Crippled, written by Gregg Sharp. This story also contains characters and situations from the fanfic series Urusei Yatsura - The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot; Crippled: Body and Souls, written by Kevin D. Hammel; and Triwizard Tales, created by Clell Harmon.
WRITER'S INTRODUCTION
This is a rewrite of a story I did back in 2000 as a "sequel to a sequel" to one of Gregg's Bet fanfic series that was making the rounds in places like RAAC and the FFML at the time. For those who don't remember the original story, much less Kevin's carry-on of the story, this is all based on an alternate outcome of the events depicted in the Shampoo arc of Volume 4 of the Ranma manga (manga episodes #31-36).
Recently, I've been re-reading the original story and I found that a lot could be changed in that story. Also, given my recent discovery of the world of Ikkitōsen (not to mention the story that series is based on), I decided to toss in some extra elements.
Note that all detailed explanations will come at the end of each part.
Nerima General Hospital, Saturday 26 June 2010, after breakfast…
"Ohayō gozaimasu, Saotome-san."
Ranma's eyes fluttered open as she heard that polite voice, and then she turned to gaze on the teenager standing beside her bed, dressed now in hospital scrubs but without any sort of overcoat to mark her as a doctor. Realizing she — the name tag on her blouse read TARIKO — was too young to be a nurse, Ranma then smiled. "You one of those volunteers that work here?" she asked, her voice quiet and filled with pain.
"Hai. I'll be your nursing assistant today. My name's Tariko, but you just read that on my name tag," the brown-haired tomboy with the chocolate eyes stated with a kind smile before she moved over to scan through the notes on the chart at the end of the patient's bed. Staring at the notes and diagrams there, she then whistled. "Damn! Who the hell did you piss off so much that they'd do THAT to you?!"
"Some self-centred creep I ran into while I was on a training trip with Oyaji in China," Ranma replied as Tariko put the chart aside, and then moved to check all the nutrients and drugs being fed through an IV into her arm. "Comes from some place with some weird laws. 'Cause I defeated her as a girl, she believes she has to kill me." She then glanced down to the bandages wrapped around her lower chest and abdomen. "She came pretty close," she then admitted, a wry smile crossing her face.
Tariko blinked as the patient's words echoed in her mind for a moment, and then she walked back to stare once more at the chart, quickly seeing three particular kanji written on a special note concerning how this patient was to be bathed. "Jusenkyō?" Though she knew of how those characters were said in Mandarin — "Zhòuquán-xiāng" — she said it in the Japanese way just in case the patient couldn't remember the original name. "You actually went THERE?!" she asked as she stared in shock at Ranma.
"You know about it?"
A smirk crossed her face. "Heard about it from two of my sisters," she admitted. "Place in Qīnghǎi with these springs, all magically cursed. Fall into one of them, you get the body of whoever or whatever drowned there how-many-years ago. You fell into the Spring of Drowned Girl, right? The Niángnìquán?" As Ranma nodded, Tariko chuckled as she put back the chart, and then moved to begin monitoring vital signs. "Did you know?"
A snort escaped Ranma. "No. Oyaji couldn't read a damned word of Chinese and we were too intent on training to listen to the guide's warning. I belted him into a spring and he came out a panda. Shocked the hell out of me enough that he got a good one in and sent me into a spring. Poof! Instant girl!" She waved to her breasts in emphasis.
"Did you go to the Nǚjiézú village afterwards?"
Ranma blinked. "Huh?"
Tariko smirked. "The Joketsuzoku?"
The transformed martial artist sighed. "Yeah. That's where I met Shampoo; she's the one who did this to me." She waved, this time at the bandages.
Tariko sighed. "Yeah, I've heard of them and their laws, too. Then again, you have to understand that for the longest of times, that area of China's been a pretty rough place." She then moved to take blood pressure. "The laws are meant to protect them from potential Trojan horses. You know about their law concerning what happens if an outsider male defeats a Nǚjiézú woman?" On seeing Ranma nod, Tariko then perked. "Don't tell me you did THAT, too!"
"Yeah…"
A laugh escaped the nursing volunteer. "Damn! If this was six months ago, I'd probably be in the same damned boat if I ever went there!" Tariko said as she fought back a snicker while she finished with the blood pressure, then moved to take Ranma's temperature via the ear. "Still, all's not lost," she then said. "Your father came by to look in on you?"
The patient shook her head. "Nah! No one's been in to see me. Not Oyaji, not any of the Tendō family, not even Doc Tōfū." Quickly noting Tariko's curious look, she smirked. "Oyaji got me engaged to the youngest daughter of his old training partner. Girl named Tendō Akane. We…well…" Her voice then trailed off.
Tariko blinked as she stared at the patient, a sudden chill gripping her heart. She had heard of Akane. One of her classmates at Tomobiki High School had once been a flunky of Akane's older sister Nabiki. Also, the rumours about how most of the male population attending Fūrinkan High School in the Ōizumi-machi part of Nerima had attacked Akane every morning since the start of the school year in some warped attempt at getting dates from her had made their way back to Tomobiki. Having also heard of Akane's growing frustration and mistrust of the whole male gender, Tariko then shook her head. "She actually helped Shampoo do this to you?" she demanded.
Ranma's sapphire eyes went wide on hearing that, and then she gasped before a cough of bloody mucus escaped her. Instantly, Tariko moved to help…
Sometime later…
Tariko was relaxing in the staff cafeteria enjoying her lunch; since today was a Saturday, she would be spending the whole day here at the hospital. A flat-screen notepad computer was in her hand as she absently tapped words into the memory so she could keep in mind what she had just learned. And what she had learned had been quite unpleasant.
And in a way, very DAMNED familiar…
Saotome Ranma was the only child of a practitioner of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū, one of the more esoteric martial arts disciplines known in Japan and the sister-school of the Moroboshi Clan's own in-house school of martial arts. Ever since he — Have to remember THAT part, Tariko reminded herself — could remember, he had been training to become a master of that art under his father's tutelage, wandering all over Japan and most of the Pacific Rim to pick up everything he could learn. The cursed springs in the valley of Zhòuquán-xiāng had been the last major stop, where Ranma's life was forever changed. And thanks to Ranma's run-in with the Nǚjiézú village…!
Tariko shook her head. That was beside the point now. Even if modern Terran medical science couldn't repair the awful damage done to Ranma's spine, she did know of other ways he could be allowed to walk again, not to mention regain his form and function. All it required right now was to make the necessary arrangements.
But what would happen afterwards?
The poor man — hell, he was just a year younger than she! — was now honour-bound to marry one of the Tendō sisters and honour was something that people such as Ranma prized about all else. To go back on that promise would — in his eyes — disgrace him to the point where actually taking his own life in seppuku became the only option.
She tried not to make a face on thinking of that. Tariko had utterly NO use for the bushidō garbage a lot of Japanese still tried to govern their lives with. In her eyes, those beliefs had been horribly warped from the original purpose of the warrior's code, especially thanks to the militarists that eventually led the Land of the Rising Sun into World War Two decades before. And it was THOSE beliefs that had ultimately murdered her paternal grandfather Kokeru. He had been a kamikaze pilot for the Navy in the last years of the war, though he never did end his life in a suicide attack on an American warship. However, the shame of NOT sacrificing himself for a seemingly ungrateful Emperor in the defence of a nation that had been thoroughly brainwashed into believing that victory or death were the ONLY options after they took on the Americans…!
"And what is your prognosis for Saotome-san, Moroboshi-sensei?"
Tariko gasped on hearing that kind voice, and then she turned before she gave the smiling doctor standing close to her an annoyed look. "You scared me!"
A chuckle escaped Dō Kazua as he sat next to her, placing his lunch down. He was in his mid-twenties, in the second year of his internship here at Nerima General. A handsome man, he had blue-tinted black hair and dark brown eyes. He also sported a gold magatama earring off his left lobe. He had been the junior surgeon assigned to the trauma ward when Ranma had been brought in. "So what have you found out?" he asked as he nodded to her notepad. "Concerning Ranma? Do we need your sister?"
"Most likely," she admitted as she picked up her chopsticks and began to eat her rāmen. "The blade ran right through his body. Four of his vertebrae were destroyed and the spinal column was totally shredded. Given that he was cursed at Zhòuquán-xiāng of all places, I doubt using any type of regeneration technology we got from the Avalonians would help." She then sighed. "What's the news about his relatives?"
"So far, we haven't heard a thing from the Tendō home, much less Ranma's father," he noted. "We have learned his mother is still alive."
She perked. "His mom?"
"Saotome Nodoka. Turns out that when they married, Ranma's father — he was actually born as Hayashi Genma — changed his name at her family's insistence."
"Old fashioned blue-blood, huh?"
He nodded. "I think so. I was about to get the police to contact her…"
"Don't."
Kazua blinked. "Why?"
"A gut feeling," Tariko admitted with a sigh. "Far as Ranma ever knew, his mother was dead. If he was on the road for so long, I doubt he has any clear memory of her." She then smirked. "And don't forget the curse. She would remember a boy, not a girl."
He took that in, and then he nodded. "Yeah, that's true. And given that he was raised with a very strict sense of honour, the chances are there she might not accept him back with open arms," he noted. His training — unlike that of many of his peers from Keiō University — had included a lot of unique lessons that weren't normally covered in the university lecture rooms or the laboratories. And Kazua — as did all those who wore magatama-shaped earrings as a symbol of what they had once been many incarnations ago and many years in the past — intrinsically understood what questions of honour could eventually lead warriors such as Saotome Ranma to. "Okay, we keep her mother away from this until we get him back on his feet. What about his father?"
She shook her head. "According to Ranma, he hasn't shown up at all. Neither have any of the other people he's been living with." A sigh. "We better keep a close eye on him. I'm going to get Onē-san here to take a look at him as soon as…"
"There is no need, Tariko."
Tariko's breath caught in her throat on hearing that tonally-flat voice, and then she sighed before turning to glare at the woman standing behind her. Dressed in a black two-piece martial arts gi, she had a black belt wrapped around her, it emblazoned with the kanji 地 — pronounced "chi" and representing the concept of "earth" — in gold thread at the open ends. Closely resembling Tariko, the newcomer had a fuller head of hair and her eyes were almost pitch black. She also appeared to be a woman in her early twenties in lieu of the seventeen year-old girl Tariko was. "DAMN IT, Onē-san! Willya QUIT doing that to me? You're as damned bad as Cherry!" she spat as Kazua laughed. "How the HELL did you…?"
The ghost of a smile crossed Moroboshi Negako's face. "Tariko, you know not to ask that question," she stated as she turned away. "I will go examine Ranma."
And with that, she walked off. Tariko watched her go, and then she shook her head. "You know, Kazua-kun, of all of us — Onē-san, Ataru, Hiromi and me — I think I'm the only NORMAL one in the whole damned family!" she admitted.
Kazua laughed even harder…
An hour later…
"So you were not aware of the various Nǚjiézú laws concerning outsiders when you confronted Shānpú on the challenge log in their village?"
"Yeah," Ranma — now back to being a man, which was one great relief for him — said as he lay on his stomach. The bandages had been taken away to allow him to be reverted to his birth-form and give Negako a chance to examine the wound on his back. "Of course, it didn't help either of us that Oyaji and I ended up eating the first prize for their tournament beforehand," he admitted, closing his eyes.
"That is good," Negako stated. "At least you are starting to realize how much you have NOT learned during your trip with Genma." She then focused a little ki into her fingers before projecting that into the sewed-in slit in the patient's back. "You have missed much during your trip, Ranma. You will clearly need some time away from Genma's influence to allow you to better function in society as a whole."
He made a face. "You mean school and all that? That's boring!"
She gazed at him. "Yes, to someone who has been effectively brainwashed into believing that the martial arts are the be-all and end-all of life, they would seem quite boring," she stated as she moved to focus another burst of ki into his back.
He jolted. "Wait a sec'…'BRAINWASHED?!'" he demanded as he tried to use his arms to push him up. "What the hell are you talking about…HEY!"
A jab to a point on his neck dropped him back to the bed, though Negako was there to ensure his already-abused body wasn't battered around even more. "Remain still. I am not finished," she stated as she shifted his arms under his chin to allow him to breathe clear. Once he was in position, she turned back to look in on his wound.
Damn! She's even worse that Doc Tōfū! he thought as he sensed more ki being pushed into him. "So what do you mean by being brainwashed?" he then asked.
Negako lightly smiled. "Ranma, as a martial arts teacher, Genma is well skilled and quite innovative. He actually — from what I can sense of him from here — has created his own martial art forms. However, he does not intrinsically understand how to be a father. In essence, he only understands how to be a teacher. And because he only understood how to treat you as his student, anything that would require him to behave as a normal father eluded him." She then moved to push another ball of ki into his body. "When you were a child, you often wept at your separation from your mother. Instead of trying to soothe your feelings and make you understand why he felt it was necessary for you to be separated from her, he forced you to suppress those feelings and admonished you for being weak and behaving like a woman. Do you remember that?"
He blinked, and then he nodded; at least that paralysis point she used allowed him to do that much. "Yeah, I do. But showin' your feelings and all that…"
"Makes you vulnerable in combat?"
Another nod twitched his head. "Yeah."
"Alright. Let me inquire this, then: Are you always in a combat situation?"
Silence.
"No, not really."
"So why behave as you were always in a combat situation?" Negako asked. "To do that — even to someone as highly and as thoroughly trained as yourself, Ranma — could see you eventually enter a situation where you might find yourself reacting to a non-threatening situation with lethal force." Instantly sensing a protest about to escape him, she placed a calming hand on his shoulder. "Ranma, do you not use insults to force your opponents to make mistakes and make themselves vulnerable to your attacks?"
He blinked, and then nodded. "All the time."
"And that is an effective method of combat," she stated as she turned back to his wound. "But it can also be used against you. Look at how uncomfortable you are speaking of this to me. Look how uncomfortable you were dealing with various situations forced on you while you were residing at the Tendō residence, especially given how Akane, Kasumi and Nabiki tried to adapt to the novelty of your curse." She gazed on him. "You are quite strong and skilled as a martial artist, Ranma. You are also quite vulnerable due to Genma's inability to understand how to prepare you for life in society as a whole. You need to remove that vulnerability and understand what society is truly all about. Then you will be able to better function as a part of it."
He took that in. "How…?"
"That, we will work on in the future," she stated as she walked over to ring the buzzer so a nurse could be summoned. "In the meantime, I will allow your body to rest and you will be allowed to remain this way for the remainder of the day. I will return to do a second treatment tomorrow. I have some things to discuss with Kazua."
He remained still as Tariko came into the room, a dressing tray in hand, though his mind was rolling over what he had just been told…
An hour later…
"The Neko-ken?!"
"Indeed," Negako stated before she slightly nodded as Tariko handed her a cup of tea. They were currently in Dō Kazua's private office space, which was a mere cubicle he shared with other interns whenever they needed to get away from the wards. "He experienced that training when he was seven. He survived it even after multiple exposures to the pit of starved felines, but currently suffers from a very acute case of ailurophobia. Since his return to Japan, he has not been exposed to any cats, but it is only a matter of time." Her dark eyes then narrowed. "He has endured other interesting training exercises, but that is the most profound one I could detect."
Blinking as he felt his mind about to crash on hearing what his guest had just told him, the doctor then shook his head. "Who did that to him?" he hoarsely demanded. "Gods! That training was banned for a reason! Whoever did that to him…!"
"Genma."
Silence.
"What a jerk," Tariko breathed out.
"Agreed," Kazua stated. "All right. The police have been around asking what happened. From what one of the detectives told me, the Tendō family are staying totally mum about what happened that sent him into intensive care. No doubt, they're trying to mask things that happen at that place which they don't want made public." He then nodded. "I'll get the police over here to take Ranma's statement and hint about the Neko-ken and everything else. That should convince a judge to step in and put some injunctions on Ranma's father and his friend from making things worse." After taking a moment to write that down, he asked, "What do we do about getting his spine cured?"
"We must obtain clone bodies for him," Negako stated.
More silence.
"I noticed you said 'bodies,' Negako-sama," the doctor noted.
"Unfortunately so. Ranma's long-term suppression of what would be viewed as 'normal' emotions forced a split in his psyche. The Neko-ken and his exposure to Zhòuquán-xiāng exacerbated it to the point where a break can possibly occur."
Kazua's jaw dropped as his eyes flicked over to Negako's sister, who was now white-faced at what the older-looking woman had just revealed. "You mean like what happened to Ataru-kun and Tariko-chan," he then stated.
"Exactly. And that does not factor in the fact that Ranma's soul was exposed to the soul of Liú Yān during his and Genma's rather hasty departure from China."
Even more silence.
"Ryūen Kunrō…?" Kazua stated. "I never saw a magatama…!"
"The magatama containing that one's soul is currently with Ranma's personal belongings at the Tendō home," Negako stated. "I can fetch it quite easily."
He nodded. "Alright. Can you do it without problems?"
Her eyebrow arched in response. "Kazua, remember who you are speaking to."
Tariko laughed as the doctor flustered in embarrassment…
Tomobiki, the Moroboshi home, just before nightfall…
"You seem very disturbed by something, Onē-san. Are you alright?"
Tariko perked on hearing that question, and then she sighed. "No, Hiromi-chan, I'm not," she admitted before taking a bite of her rice. "Ran into something at the hospital which really got me upset," she then admitted. "Onē-san had to go look into it. There's this patient there; he got stabbed with a sword through the back and wound up crippled. As we're finding out more about him, it…" She shook her head.
Moroboshi Muchi gazed at her from the head of the table. "How bad?"
"Bad," Tariko emphasized. "Onē-san could get him back on his feet, but there are going to be complications." She then gazed at the virtual twin seated across the table from her, though this one had a silver magatama hanging off her ear. "Your type of complications, Hiromi-chan. He found a magatama while he was in China."
Hiromi blinked. "Who?"
"Liú Yān. Or as he would be addressed here, Ryūen Kunrō."
Eyes locked on Negako, who sat at the other end of the table from Muchi and his wife Kinshō, with Ataru to Negako's right. "Who was that?" Kinshō asked.
"Kunrō-dono — Lord Jūnláng — was governor of Yízhōu when I was on the Dragon Throne, Okā-san," Hiromi explained. "He actually was one of the more able officials at the court until a friend of his persuaded him to take the governor's post to avoid the infighting that was starting to rock the court at the time." Everyone was quick to see the flash of shame and guilt in her eyes as she spoke of that time. "After everything began to fall apart, he used Yízhōu as his personal power base until such time as he could eventually pass it to his youngest son, Liú Zhāng, Lord Jìyù. The territory would eventually be passed on to Lord Xuándé after his death a couple decades later."
Everyone gazed at her. "You mean Sonami-san?" Ataru quietly asked.
Hiromi nodded. "Hai."
"So if this Ryūen Kunrō was given her own body, she would be inclined to attend Seito, you mean?" Muchi then asked before sipping his tea.
"Most likely," Hiromi said with a nod before she gazed on Tariko. "Onē-san, would you like me to contact our friends to make the necessary arrangements?"
"Sure thing."
"Bring three of them."
Eyes locked on Negako. "Why three?" Ataru wondered.
The barest hint of a smile then crossed Negako's face, which made Muchi wince and Kinshō instantly make a warding sign with her hands. "In some ways, Ataru, Ranma and you have shared quite similar emotional trauma," she stated as she finished her tea. Of all the Moroboshi siblings, she actually ate the least of them all. "In the meantime, there is something I have to attend to. Konban wa, everyone."
She walked out of the living room and headed outside. The others watched her go, and then Kinshō signed. "Ataru, WHY on Earth did you agreed to have her soul put into your mind?" she demanded as she gazed in exasperation at him.
He ignored that complaint as he sipped his tea…
Nerima, the Tendō home and dōjō, thirty minutes later…
"Konban wa."
"Konban wa, Kasumi," Negako stated with a curt nod as she gazed on the matriarch of the Tendō family of Nerima. "I apologize for intruding on your home this late in the evening, but I have come here to fetch Ranma's personal belongings."
Kasumi blinked as she took in those words, and then she shuddered as her eyes filled with shamed tears. "He's dead…?" she asked in a choked sob.
The visitor shook her head. "No. Ranma is currently paralyzed, but not deceased."
Silence.
The elder Tendō daughter blinked as she took that in, and then the strength began to drain from her body. "Why weren't we told…?" she whispered.
"Despite what Sōun and Genma might have intended all along, you are not a part of Ranma's family, thus you do not have the right to know anything about his condition," Negako stated. "And since Genma now appears to have completely abandoned all his responsibilities towards his son, others will have to step in and assist Ranma."
"Are you a friend of his?"
Another shake of the head answered her. "No. My younger sister Tariko currently volunteers her weekends at Nerima General Hospital as a nursing assistant. She is part of the team helping Ranma recover from his wounds. She called me in to help examine him."
More silence.
"'Tariko'…?" Kasumi began, and then she gasped as she remembered where she had heard that name. "Oh, my! You must be Moroboshi Negako-sensei!"
A tendon over Negako's right eye began to twitch. "Kasumi…"
Kasumi jolted on hearing that ice-cold voice. "Ah…h-hai?"
"Do not call me 'sensei.'"
Kasumi blinked…
"Otō-san and Oji-san are currently out drinking; they both have not taken well as to what happened to Ranma-kun," Kasumi explained as she and Negako walked into the guest room on the second floor of the Tendō home. As Negako quickly scanned the room, and then proceeded to one corner where a backpack was waiting, the elder Tendō daughter added, "Nabiki-chan and Akane-chan are still badly shaken up by what happened, even though they're doing their best to mask their feelings from others."
"Understandable," Negako stated as she slid the backpack onto the floor, and then began to glance around, using her ki senses to detect everything that had been touched by Ranma. "I can sense what has happened to this family. Your mother died of a malignant breast neoplasm that metastasized to other areas of her body, correct?"
Kasumi nodded, a touch of deep pain flashing inside her heart. She had been told a lot about the woman before her by Nabiki thanks to her connections with friends in Tomobiki, especially when it came to Negako's rather abrupt and cold nature…to say anything of Negako's flat-out refusal to use any form of honorific when it came to addressing anyone outside the Heavenly Sovereign of Japan himself. While speaking of her late mother Kimiko still hurt, she could sense that there was no real malice behind Negako's words; it was just a question requiring an answer. "Hai. We were all badly affected when Okā-san left us," she then stated.
"Understandable," Negako stated as she reached into one pocket of Ranma's pack to draw out a dark magatama earring. "Ah, there you are…"
Kasumi looked, and then she gasped. "Oh, my! You mean…"
"No, Ranma is not a tōshi," Negako assured her as she slipped the earring into her pants pocket before she moved to pack everything up. "His situation vis-à-vis the soul contained within this magatama is the same as Ataru's was concerning Hiromi."
Kasumi nodded. "Nabiki-chan told me about that." She then canted her head. "Why doesn't Hiromi-chan go to Rakuyō or one of the other tōshi schools?"
"Because in her first life, she was Liú Hóng, the Xiàolíng Emperor of Hàn," Negako replied as she slipped the backpack on so she could carry it with her back to Tomobiki. "'Reitei' as he is known here, though Hiromi prefers to use the battle name 'Ryūkō Kyōrei.' While her presence is not known among the majority of tōshi, she is known in certain circles. She fears that revealing her existence to tōshi in general could cause an upheaval that could end up hurting those she wishes not to hurt."
The elder Tendō daughter nodded in understanding as she guided Negako out of the room and back to the living room. "How soon do you think Ranma-kun will be back on his feet and able to come home?" she then asked as they proceeded to the genkan.
"I cannot and will not predict," Negako stated as she slipped on her outdoor shoes. She then sighed. "Kasumi, there is something you should consider."
"That is?"
Negako gazed at her. "Ranma is, by his nature, a forgiving person. However, there are parts of him that have not reacted well to your indifference to him, to say anything of Nabiki's violation of his personal space or Akane's physical abuse of him. You should keep this in mind in the future should he elect to return to this house. His deference to Akane partially led to his paralysis. That is something he will not forget. For your sake and especially for Akane's, LEARN from this incident." She turned away. "For the next time, Ranma may not be so forgiving. Oyasumi nasai."
And with that, she walked off, leaving behind a wet-eyed Kasumi. As soon as the front gate closed behind Negako, the eldest Tendō daughter began to sob as she sank to her knees, her hands flying to her face…
To be continued…
WRITER'S NOTES
This story, as stated in the writer's introduction before the beginning of the text, is a rewrite of a "sequel-to-a-sequel" to one of Gregg Sharp's Bet fanfics making the rounds around the turn of the millennium, specifically Crippled, where Ranma is, while fighting Shampoo, stabbed through the spine with a sword and paralyzed from waist down. I first became attracted to the story when I read Kevin Hammel's sequel story, the unfinished (as of 2011) Crippled: Body and Souls, which took the story in a natural progression that saw Ranma abandoned by his family in the wake of being hospitalized. My original branch-off to that story, Like A Phoenix From the Grave, which was released around 2000, took off from the second part of Kevin's story and incorporated characters I had been using in my own fan fiction writing up to that time. However, as I stated before, in re-reading LaPFtG, I found that there was a lot that could be improved on in that story, so after some deep thinking (and finding ways to incorporate new anime and manga series into the plot line, specifically Ikkitōsen), I came up with the story you are reading now.
Timeline-wise, this story is set during Chapters 31-36 of the Ranma manga series, published in Volume 4 of the original tankōbon release. For Urusei Yatsura, this would be around the time of Chapter 356 of the manga series, which is the start of the "Boy Meets Girl" saga (later brought out in anime as the fifth movie, The Final Chapter). Of course, the basic storyline took a massive left turn at the time of the end of the first movie, Only You, so everything from Chapter 147 of the manga series (Fujinami Ryūnosuke's first appearance) onward will not have happened or happened in a much different format. Of course, some anime elements have been brought into this storyline (the Stormtroopers, for example) and I've included some of the characters and the general galactic situation Mike Smith and I created for our fanfic series The Senior Year. In the world of Ikkitōsen, this is pretty much set after Chapter 6 of the manga, when Sonsaku Hakufu's dragon first put in an appearance after her fight with Ryomō Shimei. This story also incorporates elements from the anime (Enjutsu Kōro's death, for example).
Of course, in exploring the world of Ikkitōsen, I also decided to do some serious character expansion, plus take a detailed look at how the history of the tōshi leading up to the start of the manga storyline could have played out. With that, I took the opportunity to bring out characters that Shiozaki-sensei never has made use of in his manga (much less has allowed to appear in the various anime series). Of course, rated amongst these are the Kōshi Kasshi group (the reborn Yellow Turban rebels) and the Ten Attendants. But the big ones, of course, is none other than the Xiàolíng Emperor of Hàn (normally called "Reitei" in Japanese), not to mention his wife, the Língsī Empress of Hàn (known in Japan as "Kataikō") as well as other affiliated people from that particular time. These people, I believe, would have had a huge impact on the lives of the tōshi to one extent or another; after all, in the real history of the latter Hàn Dynasty and the start of the Three Kingdoms period, a lot of things happened that propelled people such as Dǒng Zhuó, Cáo Cāo, Liú Bèi and the members of the Sūn Clan to eventually do what they did. Shiozaki-sensei has hinted at some small things in flashback scenes in the manga; I just elected to go forth and flesh them out as much as I could, also keeping in mind how modern events reflected the events of that time period.
The character of Reitei/Ryūkō Kyōrei/Moroboshi Hiromi was first trialled at the Anime Add-venture website under one of the branch-off storylines of the Faking It scenario (my specific take-off on that was called Faking It: Great Guardians). I revised her again in the Restart Deluge: The Emperor's Army storyline, but eventually lost steam in doing both of those series. If you wish to see earlier versions of people such as Hiromi, her reborn wives and mistresses, the Attendants and the rest, Google "Anime Add-venture" to get the website address, then scroll down to the Episodes listed by Author link; my pen-name there is "Gorgo," so you'll find the stories listed under that name.
As for the other two female Moroboshi siblings to Ataru, Moroboshi Negako has appeared in many of my works right from the days I was helping write The Senior Year; she is better known as the Saikō Jinseijutsu sentient ninjutsu data bank of knowledge that was the main antagonist in the TSY story "Spirit-War Tomobiki" and eventually became her own person in the side-story "Children of Eternity." As for Moroboshi Tariko, I based her off the time that Ataru was split in half thanks to a combination of Lum's space-candy and Cherry's homemade cake that was meant to take away the evils of the world (see the Yatsura manga episode #18, "Just The Two of Us," to see what I mean). Of course, I do incorporate a lot of the history of The Senior Year, not to mention incorporate some of the back story for the third movie, Remember My Love, to explain what happened to Lum and her replica Hensō (not to mention Benten, Oyuki and Ran and their replicas Kamen, Mienai and Damasu); a trial explanation of this scenario appears in my The Emperor's Army storyline at the Anime Add-venture. The Avalonians, of course, come from The Senior Year.
And now, the specific notes for this chapter…
1) For this story, I decided to ignore the usual naming conventions when it comes to locations and artifacts that appeared in Ranma and Ikkitōsen. Everything from China would be properly referred to by Chinese names, written using the Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Romanization system. Hence, you will note my use of words such as Zhòuquán-xiāng in lieu of "Jusenkyō" and Nǚjiézú in lieu of "Joketsuzoku" (and later on, Zhǐshuǐtǒng in lieu of "Chiisuiton"). Words and names in Japanese, of course, are Romanized using the Hepburn system; words and names in Korean are written with the McCune-Reischauer system.
2) Branching along with that would be the way I refer to the tōshi in this storyline. While I do realize people are used to the names that appeared in Ikkitōsen, anyone with even a basic understanding of how the naming conventions work in Japan would immediately realize names like "Sonsaku Hakufu" are not proper Japanese names. Hence, borrowing a concept from another series deprived from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (I'm referring to Koihime Musō), I elected to give all the tōshi "real" names (both given names and family names) and use the manga/anime names as their "battle names."
3) While the story runs pretty much on a set series of days, I didn't initially elect to put them down to exact dates. However, when I came to write the commissioning scene for the Haida in Part 32, I decided to incorporate Queen Elizabeth II's Canadian tour in 2010 (and the International Fleet Review done in Halifax, which corresponds to the centennial of the founding of the Royal Canadian Navy) into the storyline, thus this story happens in the early summer of that year. All political leaders and senior military commanders that were in office at that time as noted in various parts of the story are the actual people.
4) I realize that the depiction of Tendō Nabiki as being a "Yakuza in training" could be considered fanon by many, but given how things in the Tendō home must have fallen apart in the wake of the death of the sisters' mother, it would make sense that the person who had the smarts to deal with financial matters would be the one tasked to deal with issues such as managing property taxes and guaranteeing some sort of income into the home given the total dearth of students attending martial arts classes at the Tendō dōjō (as will be shown in a latter chapter). With that comes the need for information so that more money can be generated. Hence, the relationship Nabiki has with one of Tariko's classmates as will be shown in Part 2.
5) Ikkitōsen-based character notes for this part (both listed below are my creations):
Tōtō (Dō Kazua) is based on Dèng Dāng (dates of birth and death unknown), brother-in-law to Lǚ Méng (178-220 C.E.). Dèng was a general who served under Sūn Cè (175-200) in campaigns against the Shānyuè, a tribe of southern "barbarians" who waged war against the Hàn Dynasty in the area around the Sūn Clan's main stronghold at Jiāngdōng. Lǚ would often secretly accompany Dèng's forces as they campaigned against the Shānyuè and would eventually replace Dèng as one of Sūn's generals in the wake of the latter's passing away. In his current incarnation, Kazua graduated from the Nan'yō Academy in 2003, going immediately to pursue his medical degree for the requisite six-year course, graduating and being given his MD from Keiō University in 2009. He is currently in his second year of residency at Nerima General Hospital.
Ryūkō Kyōrei (Moroboshi [née Koro] Hiromi) is, as indicated in the introduction to these notes, the reincarnation of the second-to-last monarch of the Hàn Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), Liú Hóng, the Xiàolíng Emperor of Hàn (156-189 C.E., ruled 168-189). Born originally as an hereditary marquess, Liú Hóng was elevated to the Dragon Throne of China after the wife of his childless predecessor, Liú Zhì, the Xiàohuán Emperor of Hàn (132-168, ruled 148-168), selected him out of all the possible legitimate heirs. Of course, being only twelve at the time of his ascension to the throne, the new emperor had a regent — his predecessor's wife, Dòu Miào, the Huánsī Empress of Hàn (unknown birth date, died 172) — for the first years of his reign. By this stage, corruption at the court thanks to the excesses of greedy officials had become totally endemic and Liú Hóng was never encouraged to take any active role in affairs of state. For his whole life, he lived in total decadence, indulging himself in his many concubines. By the time he died, a massive rebellion had already rocked China — the Yellow Turban Rebellion, starting in 184 — and with his failure to elect a proper successor before he passed away showed that the Hàn Dynasty was on its last legs; said dynasty would outlive him by only thirty-one years. It is quite befitting in the eyes of many that Liú Hóng's posthumous name, "Xiàolíng" — literally meaning "filial and inattentive" — was bestowed on him. The results of that in Liú's first ever reincarnation in 1,821 years — in the person of Hiromi — will be revealled here.
6) The magatama shades used here are as follows: Silver (A-rank), Gold (B-rank), Bronze (C-rank), Red (D-rank) and Green (E-rank). It should be noted that the colours as shown in the Ikkitōsen anime sometimes got confusing; for example, in the first series, Kan'u Unchō (Seki Haneko) is depicted with a silver magatama and is claimed to be a "Super A-Rank"…while Ryofu Hōsen (Sebone Shikuko), who is said by many to be one of the most powerful tōshi of all (thus could also be seen as A-rank), wears a gold magatama. To that end, I view the colour rankings this way: As a tōshi gains experience, emotional and psychological "impurities" in the fighter's soul are burned away, thus lightening the colour of the magatama to the point that when one reaches A-rank, one's fighting soul is as pure as possible (and without any tint). Hence, the magatama shade for an A-rank tōshi has to be silver, not gold as in the Olympics.
7) Keiō University (known in Japanese as Keiō Gijuku Daigaku and nicknamed "Keidai") is the oldest institution of higher learning in modern Japan; the university was first formed in 1858 as a school for Western studies by Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901), a samurai who helped Japan modernize during the Meiji Era and whose image appears on modern ¥10,000 bank notes. It is based in the Minato Ward of Tōkyō. The Keiō School of Medicine, where Kazua attended for his studies, shares long-standing research links with the Harvard Medical School.
8) The given names I give to Ataru's, Tariko's and Hiromi's parents, Moroboshi Muchi and Moroboshi Kinshō, were first introduced in The Senior Year. The name for Ataru's father is derived from the verb muchū, meaning "to be ignorant." The name for Ataru's mother is a combination of the kanji meaning "golden prize;" her name is written 金賞.
9) The term "malignant breast neoplasm" is the official medical classification for breast cancer. The actual cause of the death of the Tendō sisters' mother was never given in the Ranma manga, but since no one ever spoke of it, it clearly had to be a disease which is seen as quite verboten in Japanese culture to openly speak of. In that line, the name of the sisters' mother was never given in the manga; the given name Kimiko is one of the more accepted fan fiction names for her.