The Stone of the Immortals by ashwindslaveChapter
Disclaimer- The author does not own the rights to Harry Potter, Ranma ½, or D&D (which only has a slight influence on this story). The Plot and some of the Characters are my ideas, for all the good it does me.
AN: Historically, some of the records of time periods referred to in this section are more than a bit fuzzy. Some people claimed kinship to lines that they could not actually prove and Happosai's character and resulting family are complete fiction. I picked a version of history that fit what I wanted and ran with it. If this offends anybodies family and/or heritage, I apologize.
Also, remember that this takes place during the last chapter and ends right about when Harry wakes up from his 'dream'.
Happi Memories
Happosai sat in his room at the dojo. A lit pipe was lightly clamped between his teeth and his eyes stared vacantly at the wall in front of him. A roll of silk with a mural inked on it was hanging there. In front of him on the floor lay a plain box made of sandalwood. The box was approximately one and a half meters long and narrow. The box and the picture represented Happosai's two greatest shames. The box itself was less than 100 years old, but what it contained was far older that that. His inheritance, well, not really. The sword should have gone to his older brother Nobunaga, something a young Happosai had greatly resented. The sword had been in the care of his family for more than five hundred years, and not once had it been used.
In his youth he had been a great swordsman, perhaps one of the greatest. For all his hard work, it was clear that he would always come in second to Nobunaga. After years of jealousy, Happosai had finally made a move to secure what he felt was his destiny. Of course, his name had not been Happosai then. The theft of his family's sacred treasure could not be ignored though. When Happosai's father learned of his theft, he had been cast out of the clan. The shame was so great that his father ordered that all records with his name in them be destroyed. In less than a year, the youngest son of the Oda clan was but a memory. Thus began his fall from grace.
Ame-no-murakumo-no-tsurugi was the true name of the sword, but it had other names. Happosai simply called it Kusanagi when he even spoke of it at all. Over the next twenty years with that sword in his hands he would come to known simply as Death. Countless lives were lost to the creature Happosai had become. Men, women and even children had died on the sacred blade. It had not been enough. He had begun to age and death made him afraid. In an effort to save himself he turned to the blackest of arts and his evolution continued.
The sword had always sat uneasily in his hand. At each death he could feel its reluctance, yet it remained submissive. It was through his studies that he discovered why. The sword belonged to those of his blood. All the years that his family held it in trust and nobody ever used it and all along it was theirs, those who were descended from Amaterasu. No, they were not direct descendants from the male, but the seed of divinity lay within for any who wished to cultivate it and she was a goddess after all. The Fujiwara had only strengthened that seed with their marriages earlier. Happosai built on that. The rituals he had performed, he had bathed in the blood of innocents. Other ways existed, but the young warrior he once was found them too time consuming. Patience was never one of his virtues.
By that time he had gone completely mad with the power. His home on the top of the mountain became known as that of a great oni and over 150 years passed. From time to time a brave or foolish man would come to him to die, but as he rarely came out later, people simply resigned themselves to losing people to this force of nature. He did not even begin to recover until he met her.
She was young for one of her kind, less than 100 years old. From the moment he saw her he was obsessed with her. He decided he would do anything to have her. This was his second shame, the face that stared at him from the silk painting. He had first saw her bathing in a stream on his mountain. She was obviously too young to sense his evil, but she was strong enough to resist him for some time. Even young dragons have power.
He tried to make her submit, to bow to him as her master, but she would not. He even tried to make her love him, but his magics failed him. Many evils were done to her over the next century and Happosai forgot about the outside world. Eventually it had been too much for her. After many aborted attempts, she laid an egg and it cost her life. Happosai had stared in wonder at the egg holding his daughter as his 'mistress' breathed her last. He looked into her eyes one last time and saw not anger there, but pity. With her last breath she begged him to care for their daughter, but she never heard his reply, for he never gave one. In his shriveled black heart he knew he would do as much as he could. It took many years for the egg to be ready to hatch, and when it did he named the child Mariko, a shortened version of her mother's name. That was 1937, nearly 500 years after his own birth. He left her in his homeland as he journeyed, attempting to purge the evil that had grown in his heart. He knew now that he would never be completely free, always would he walk the knife's edge of sanity. He had failed her and she died young, leaving him with a granddaughter named Nodoka. He had failed her as well.
Now his years were nearly at an end. Happosai felt the Black energies that sustained his life ebbing. He had always known the Taint would be on him forever, but the power was leaving as he had resisted renewing it over the years.
His affairs were all in order. He had always made sure that his granddaughter would be taken care of when Genma left her alone. It was likely she thought it was her husband providing for her while he was gone, but Genma never once even checked on the welfare of his wife.
It was difficult making sure Genma would never have access to her money, but for someone with the wealth he had accumulated over the years, anything could be done.
The bulk of his fortune would belong to Ranma. All of this was written in the scrolls he had included in the case with the sword. He had also included all the scrolls he had written over the years concerning the art. The now enchanted case held literally hundreds of records.
Most of the scrolls concerned the sword art he had perfected so long ago. It would be rather simple for Ranma to learn the art. After all, it was the basis for the Anything Goes unarmed school that he had been taught.
It would hurt when Ranma read the histories and realized the true Evil that Happosai was, but it would likely hurt Ranma more to know that such a creature was his ancestor. Death was in his veins, as was light and the magic of the sky. Knowing Ranma, he would likely push aside the magic of his heritage aside for a time in favor of the art, but the magic would call to him as it had for Happosai long ago. Hopefully the black blood of the Gaijin Evans as well as the bright blood of his line would combine with the winds well.
Poor Ranma. His chaotic life was literally in his blood. Of the martial artist Happosai had met in his life, only the Hibiki boy had it worse. The boy had never conquered the legacy of the Ash Demon that ran in his veins. Happosai had met him once and tried to get him to give up the Shi Shi Hokodan, but his reputation had worked against him. He had tried to explain that the negative energies would consume him, but even the offer to teach him three techniques in place of that had been refused. Ryoga had refused to believe that he had no perverted plan involved. Not that he could blame Ryoga for that. Yet another evil he had failed to prevent in this life.
So here he sat with death only a handful of years, if not months away. Death was coming for him as it did for all others, and he could not say he feared it anymore. His life had been a tragic play, but he could blame no one but himself. On his journey to purge himself he had come across an artifact that could have given him what had once been his most coveted dream, the Stone of the Immortals. With its power he could have ascended to the status of a true Immortal, but he knew in his heart that if he chose that path he would truly lose himself forever in the darkness. And so Happosai, forgotten son of the Oda, chose to fade and pass from the world. In truth, he felt this was the only time in his life that he made the right choice.
Happosai rose and held the now packed box in front of him. The power it would take to transport himself halfway around the world and back again would likely shave years off his life if not outright kill him. It needed to be done. With the last bit of divine sight left to him, he knew this in his bones.
Happosai drew his power around his body, forming a dark cloud. He vanished from his native shores.
Happosai reappeared in a room in England. The boy Ranma shot out of his bed when he felt his master's arrival. Not that the boy would ever acknowledge him as such. Happosai had always been grateful for that no matter how much he complained.
"Oh, its you old letch. Whad'dya want?" Ranma took a moment to rub the sleep from his eyes.
"I'm here on official business of the school Ranma." Happosai sat on the floor and placed the box in front of him on the floor. After gesturing for Ranma to sit across from him he continued. "I have already given you the title of Grandmaster of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts, but that is not the only school I hold that title for. Though you have no training in this school, I wish to give you the training scrolls I have made for the first school I made."
"Ranma, I entrust you with the continuation, and the redemption of the Black Sun School of the Blade. The scrolls I have left in this case will explain all things. Please do not read the scrolls sealed with red twine until after you receive word of my death. My time will soon come, and I will embrace it. I am so very tired after all these years. Will you accept this responsibility Ranma?"
Ranma sat silent for a moment. It was rare that Happosai was ever serious in any way, though he new the old goat was capable of it.
"Yes Master Happosai, I will accept the responsibility."
"You lifted a great weight from this old man's shoulders then boy. So, on to the associated gift. I know you know little of your family history, so I will tell you this little fact that you will likely not care for. I told myself I would never let you know this, but I have come to the decision that you deserve to know. I am your great grandfather on your mother's side. I will pause now for your screams." The wrinkled old man waited a moment before realizing the boy was too shocked to reply.
"So, in this box is a sword that has been in the family for many generations. The scroll sealed with green twine will tell you the history of the blade. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you never lose this."
Happosai opened the box and looked upon the blade. The sword had worn many shapes throughout the years. Originally it had been made of bronze and vaguely resembled a Roman gladius in shape. As weaponry changed throughout the years, so did its shape reflect what people thought it should be. Now the strait, single edged blade lay in a emerald green scabbard that was painted with black lines that resembles scales. The hilt was wrapped in emerald green hide that Happosai recognized as belonging to a dragon. He was a bit irritated by that even if it wasn't real hide from a dragon. He lifted the blade out and handed it to Ranma, gesturing that he should draw it. The blade had rippling marks down its length that again resembled scales or the surfaces of a gently flowing stream. The edge was sharper than a normal sword's, as there was no need to worry about burrs dulling the edge if one parried a blow. The enchanted steel could stand up to the fires of a volcano.
Happosai stood and took a step back before again addressing his great grandson. "Goodbye Ranma. It is possible we won't meet again. I hope that you treat the blade far better than I." With that he left his student still standing in the darkened room, too shocked to even move.
Happosai arrived back in Japan and immediately fell to the ground. He could feel his heart trying to continue to beat despite its lack of energy. After a time laying on the floor, not knowing whether he would live or die, he finally decided that his time was not yet up. He would sleep, recover his energies and live to plague the ward for a bit longer. Idly he thought of what else he could do. Finally he decided that it was about time he took his lazy students on another trip. After all, he still hadn't forgiven his grandson-in-law for abandoning Nodoka all those years ago. Soun had abandoned his daughters as well, even if he had never left them. True, Happosai himself was guilty of far worse, but nobody ever said life was fair and he had a bit of trouble feeling bad about anything where Genma was concerned. Hmmmmm. He had always wanted to do a panty rain in the Imperial Palace. No. He would not break the understanding he had come to with the Crown all those years ago. To do so would jeopardize the protection he had arranged for his descendants. Maybe an American Military base. They let women in now and they were bound to have some good silky darlings. Dodging bullets would be good for them. If one of them happened to get nailed, coughGenmacough, he could count it as a good deed and maybe he could get Nodoka to marry a man that was actually worth something. I know a few pressure points that will slow him down a bit and he'll never know the difference until its too late. Soun… I'll have to think about that.
AN: Yes, Happosai is at least a fair amount serious about getting rid of Genma. We'll just have to see.
