Where am I?

He looked around for a clue as to his whereabouts. The first thing he noticed was what appeared to be headstones.

Ok, I'm in a cemetery. Damn, why can't I remember anything?

He looked around some more and found a head stone of particular interest.

The headstone read:

Ranma Saotome. 1985-2010, Beloved Son, fiancé, friend.

No, that can't be right. I'm not dead. Someone has to be messing with me.

He looked over the headstone next to his and to his horror, it read:

Akane Tendo. 1985-2010, Beloved Daughter, fiancé, friend.

Ranma reeled back in horror, he could feel his eyes mist over and then he saw a large crow sitting on his grave. It cawed and Ranma clutched his head as a wave of memories started to flood into him.

He grinned as he Akane, "You wanna come with me". It was the night they left for their new life

"Akane, we've been together for almost 3 years," he said over dinner one night.

"Is something wrong Ranma" asked Akane.

"No, but I think it's time we made something official."

"What are you talking about?"

He got down on one knee and took hold of Akane's left hand, "Akane, I love you more than anything. I don't ever want to spend another day without you. I know you and I don't always get along but will you marry me?"

Akane's eyes started to shine as she jumped Ranma and started to kiss him like there was no tomorrow.

"Of course I will marry you. I love you Ranma Saotome."

He slid the simple ring on her and continued kissing her.

They made love for the first time that night

Then the flashbacks took him to a much darker night. He saw the faces of people who he once called his friends. He saw Ryoga, Shampoo, Kadachi and Tatewaki Kuno, and Gosunkugi. Then he was inside a burning building, holding Akane's hand as the ceiling collapsed on them.

Ranma quickly snapped back into reality. It was true. He was dead. But then, why was he here.

I have to get home.

The walk home seemed to take forever. Ranma didn't remember it taking so long before. Why was he alive? Ranma felt his chest. No heartbeat, in fact he couldn't feel a thing.

That's weird.

Ranma had been so distracted that he didn't noticed that he had walked into oncoming traffic. However, that soon changed when he was hit by an SUV going at least 60 miles an hour.

Ranma stared up at the sky in a slight daze. He didn't feel any of that. His body was lying mangled on the side of the street and he felt nothing. He just got up and his body seemed to fix itself.

"Oh my god, are you all right," asked the driver. He came out running out of his car, freaking out.

Ranma looked over, almost not believing what happened.

"I'm fine," he said. Then, he noticed a crowd start to form around him. So, thinking quickly, he used the Saotome secret technique.

He ran away.

Nabiki sighed as she sat down in her simple desk chair. The years for her had been long and tiresome. It seemed that ever since Ranma and Akane moved away, the chaos that was always present in their lives went with them. And after they died it seemed like a little bit of Nerima died with them.

In the years after Ranma and Akane left, Nabiki no longer felt the spark she usually felt whenever she scammed someone out of their money. The spark however reignited as she found a new passion, law enforcement. She started out as a simple patrol officer then five years later, she was a detective.

Still, even with all the dangers that came with her job, she felt bored. To top it off, she had made no progress into finding any clues as to the identity of the arsonist that murdered her sister and her almost brother in law.

She was about to get up and go grab some coffee when one of the rookies came up to her with a very amused look on his face.

"Hey Tendo, You should come see this video that we just got in."

Nabiki looked over at him. His name was Raye Matsuda. He was one of those rookies that joined the police force every year simply so he could carry a gun and bask in the glory of any heroic deed that he happen to handle competently. He even had the gall to hit on her when they first met. She would have punched him in the face had she not been standing in front of her superior at the time.

"Why should I watch your video?" she asked with her usual bored expression.

"Because you won't believe what's on it," he said.

Nabiki sighed and held out her hand, "One thousand yen".

"Seriously" asked Raye.

"I do have better things to do"

"Fine"

Nabiki let out a slight grin as Raye handed her the money. Old habits died hard.

She got out of her chair and followed the gung-ho rookie over to a TV set where several other officers gathered around.

"Ok, play it," said Raye.

The officer nearest to the VCR pressed play. The image on the TV showed a particularly busy street. It seemed like a normal day until some guy wondered out into the street.

The officers around the TV all jumped back a bit when the guy in the street was hit by an SUV.

Even Nabiki couldn't hide the look of surprise on her face when the guy got up and Ran off as if he hadn't been hurt at all. She didn't get a good look but she could have sworn that the guy who had been hit had a pigtail. He almost looked like someone she used to know.

"This has to be fake," she said.

Raye spoke up, "No it's real. We had it checked out."

Nabiki soon walked away. Since no one seemed to be hurt, she'd just let the insurance companies handle it.

Ranma had eventually made his way back to what remained of his home.

This place has seen better days, he thought as he walked through the burnt remains.

He noticed that the crow from the cemetery had followed him all the way home. It cawed as flew overhead and perched itself on what remained of the doorway.

As Ranma passed through the doorway, another memory flashed before Ranma's eyes.

He watched Keiko looked up at Akane and ask, "So what did Ranma get you?"

Akane looked over at him and then smiled. Then she put her hand over her stomach and said, "He gave me something wonderful."

Ranma silently whispered the name, "Noriko". She hadn't even been born yet but Ranma loved her as much as he loved Akane. Then they were both taken from him.

As the crow made another noise, he remembered his last words to Ryoga.

"I'll kill you"

He quickly snapped out of his memories. No, he couldn't do that. He wasn't a killer. He was better than that. But then he remembered the incident with Saffron. He'd been willing to kill him for Akane's sake.

Well fine then. Maybe that was the reason he was standing in his ruined house. And he was never one to go back on his word. It was time for something he would call justice.

Just then, the floorboards gave way underneath him. He looked up to find himself in the basement. And much to his surprise, it was almost entirely intact. The fire hadn't even touched it. The only thing wrong was that there were large piles of dust from over a year of neglect.

As Ranma stood up, he noticed something wrong with his left leg. A chunk of floorboard had somehow lodged its way through it.

Ranma sighed as he pulled it out. Then to his surprise, black ash seemed to swirl around inside his leg. The ash seemed to be rebuilding until Ranma found that his leg had been healed completely. There wasn't even a scar.

"Now that's interesting," he remarked.

Ranma heard a fluttering noise and looked around to find that the crow had joined him in the basement. The crow was perched just above a piece of rubble that had fallen with Ranma. It cawed to get Ranma's attention.

Ranma looked over and got a good look at the the piece of rubble that the crow was perched over. It was the mask that Keiko had given Akane on her birthday.

I can take a hint

Ranma picked up the mask. It was too small to fit on him but then another idea occurred to him. He walked over to a pile of boxes and found one marked, Halloween Costumes.

He remembered the first Halloween he and Akane had spent in their house. He had dressed up as Dracula while Akane decided to dress up as Joan Jett.

Ranma opened the box and started going through it. Then he found what he was looking for. A tube of white face paint and some black lipstick.

Ranma searched through the basement for some suitable clothes to wear. The cloths he was wearing were burnt and torn and he wondered how much longer they would hold together. Then he found a box of his cloths that he rarely wore anyway. Inside, he pulled out a standard pair of his black pants and shoes. Then he found a shirt that he didn't even remember having owned. It was a black version of his sleeveless Chinese shirt and wrist guards.

After getting dressed, he found a mirror and carefully applied the make-up. He looked at the harlequin mask and tried to mirror the design on it perfectly. He almost grinned. If he were still alive, he'd probably only be wearing make-up to mess with somebody.

The crow cawed and flew over to him, landing on his right shoulder.

Ranma looked over at his companion and said, "Don't suppose you know where I can find the people responsible for my new look."

The crow took off through the hole Ranma fell through and Ranma followed it.

The crow took Ranma through the city to the middle of the park.

It was dark when Ranma spied a faint light through the trees. He started to walk towards it. Within minutes, he was staring at Hikaru Gosunkugi. He had his usual candles tied to his head and was partaking in his usual hobby of nailing voodoo dolls to trees.

Ranma whispered to the crow, "I was hoping for Ryoga".

The crow cocked it's head and Ranma saw a vision of what transpired between Gosunkugi and Ryoga.

Gosunkugi walked over to the table in which Ryoga was sitting.

"I here you're looking to get revenge on Ranma" said Gosunkugi.

"Maybe I am" said Ryoga

"I may not be a martial artist but, I have something that can help you. After all, Ranma was never one to go down easy."

"What is it that you have?"

Gosunkugi then reached into his pocket and pulled out a fully repaired moxibustion chart.

Ryoga sat back in his chair and gave Gosunkugi an evil smile.

The crow then flew to the high branch of a tree.

Ranma just shrugged and used his umisenken to conceal his presence.

"Damn you Saotome" shouted Gosunkugi as hammered a nail into another doll.

"What did Saotome ever do to you," said a voice from behind him.

Gosunkugi stopped what he was doing and looked around. He found nothing, just darkness.

Then he heard the voice again, "What did Ranma Saotome ever do to you".

Gosunkugi decided to answer this time, "He always made me look like a fool in front of the girl I loved. Then, just to spite me, he married that girl."

"Did you ever think that she didn't love you?"

"If it weren't for Saotome, I'd have shown her how great I was. I would have made her notice me."

"Where is Saotome now? Don't you dare lie to me."

Gosunkugi had never had much of a backbone to begin with. He usually had someone do his dirty work for him. Now there was no one. Then, he felt something like a hard fist hit his back.

"Answer me," demanded the voice.

"Ranma Saotome is dead."

Another invisible punch hit Gosunkugi in the stomach and the voice demanded, "How did he die?"

"I and several other people killed him and his wife, my love."

Gosunkugi looked up to find someone very familiar standing five feet away from him.

Gosunkugi screamed, "You should be dead."

"And yet here I stand."

Gosunkugi started backing away, "Please don't hurt me. They made me do it. I'm just a victim of circumstance."

Ranma scoffed, "Victims, aren't we all."

At that point, Gosunkugi realized that there would be no talking his way out of a fight. So he reached into his pockets and pulled out several large voodoo nails.

"I can see there's no talking you into leaving Saotome," he said.

Gosunkugi then threw the nails, three of them hitting Ranma. Ranma just walked forward, pulling out the nails. Gosunkugi just kept throwing nails, until he backed himself into a tree. He had hit Ranma with ten out of twelve nails.

"You're good. I'll give you that. But me, I'm magic," said Ranma with a grin on his face.

Gosunkugi looked at Ranma's wounds and then to his horror, they each healed themselves in a cloud of black ash.

Ranma held in his hand the last nail, pulled from heart. He then grabbed Gosunkugi by the throat and held him against a tree.

Ranma smiled, "And now for my next trick".

Then he plunged the nail deep into Gosunkugis' chest, nailing him to the tree.

The crow flew down, perching on his shoulder, watching Gosunkugi shout in pain and slowly die.

"One down, four to go" said Ranma to know one in particular.

Then he heard a gun cock and a female voice shout, "FREEZE!"

Nabiki's superior had asked her to take Raye and check out the park that night. Apparently, the department had gotten complaints about some weird kid disturbing the peace. As they reached a fork in the path, Nabiki sent Raye off down one path while she took the other. Secretly, she kinda hoped he'd get himself lost.

Now however, she kind of wished he were here. It never hurt to have a little back up when dealing with a murderer. Even if the backup was an idiotic rookie.

"Turn around, slowly" she said.

As the murderer turned around, he thought aloud, "I know that voice."

Nabiki tried to focus her eyes. It couldn't be him. He was dead.

"Ranma. What's with the make-up?"

Ranma smirked, "What's with the cop outfit?"

"You're supposed to be dead"

"That's what I thought too."

Nabiki quickly remembered the dead body behind Ranma and asked, "Why. You're not a killer Ranma."

Ranma's smirk quickly turned into a frown, "He did something unforgivable to Akane and me."

Nabiki was in his face instantly, "What did he do?"

She heard the crow on Ranma's shoulder caw and Ranma said, "Let me show you."

Ranma reached out his hand and placed it on Nabiki's forehead.

She saw everything. She saw their faces and the look of their smug satisfaction. She heard her sister scream in anguish. She felt Ranma's pain and helplessness. She felt the heat from the flames on her face and the smoke filling her lungs. And she felt the love between Ranma and Akane as the met their end.

After it was over, Nabiki fell to her knees with tears in her eyes.

Ranma put his hand on her shoulder, "Can you help me find them?"

Nabiki wiped her tears, "Kuno still lives in his house. His sister lives in an apartment uptown. I don't know where Shampoo lives but I do know that she works for a five star restaurant in midtown. And you know Ryoga can never stay in the same place for longer than eight hours."

"Thank you" said Ranma. He was about to take off when he heard Nabiki call his name once more.

"Ranma, you didn't happen to get hit by car earlier did you?"

Ranma smiled and replied, "Maybe".

Then he took off through the trees.

Nabiki watched him go and said to herself, "At least he wasn't walking against the wind. I hate that."

Just then, Raye came stumbling behind her.

"What the hell happened here?" he asked motioning towards the body.

Nabiki quickly made up a simple white lie, "I don't know. I just got here. I was about to call it in when you came along."

Keiko was sitting outside her house watching the stars. Ryoga had left and her mom was safely hauled to her room.

"Ranma, Akane, I could use a friend right now. I wish you guys were still here."

She quickly walked around the house to the back yard. She quickly grabbed a few pieces of wood and some matches. Before long, she had a fire going.

She went inside and grabbed a bag of chestnuts from the cupboard.

As she threw them into the fire, she recalled a memory from her days with Ranma and Akane.

"Keiko, you're Ukyo's daughter right" asked Akane.

"Yeah" said Keiko

"Did your mom teach you martial arts? She was a very good fighter back when Ranma and I lived in the city."

Keiko frowned, "No, my daddy taught me a little before he died. But mom hasn't been the same since."

Akane put her arm around her for comfort.

Keiko looked at Akane's smiling face as Akane asked, "Would you like Ranma and I to teach you?"

Keiko smilled brightly as she accepted Akane's offer.

Keiko smilled at the memory and quickly, with blinding speed, pulled each of the chestnuts out of the fire.

She then threw the nuts back into the fire. Only two burns this time. I need more practice.

Then she continued her training.

Ranma stood on Ukyo's roof and took notice of Keiko's training. He used his umisenken to sneak inside the house and grab a piece of paper and pencil. He wrote down a message for his former student and folded it in the form of a paper airplane. Then he sent the airplane flying towards Keiko and quickly left to for Kuno's house.

Keiko pulled her hands back out of the fire as she noticed a paper airplane fly bye. She quickly grabbed it. Why is there a paper airplane flying outside at night. She looked around and couldn't find anyone who could have sent it. She quickly put out the fire and went back inside.

She examined the airplane, "Is that hand writing?"

As she unfolded it, it became apparent that whoever wrote the note had bad handwriting. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was Ranma's handwriting.

She let out a small giggle as she read the note.

All it said was, "You're hesitating. Don't hesitate and you won't get burned."

Keiko quickly went back outside with her mom's giant spatula. After a quick patrol around the house, Keiko determined that there was nobody there and went back inside.

Something weird is going on.

Hey everyone. Thanks for the reviews. They made me want to get done with the chapter quicker. I know this chapter isn't as long as the last one but in my defense, I'ts been awhile since i've written something this long. I also can't garuntee that future chapters will be longer than 2-5000 words.

I hope every like the chapter. And yes I am aware that I ripped of Daredevil. I just thought the line fit the scene, even if it was kinda corny.

Anyway, I'll try to have chapter 3 up by next week but I make no promises.