Author's Notes: Just a reminder that I don't know the entire storyline of Ranma 1/2. If you see any major mistakes, just let me know. Sorry about the long explanations, but I need to set the foundation before the action can begin.
Disclaimer: All characters, with the exception of the shadow assassins, are property of Rumiko Takahashi.
Chapter 1 - The Shadow Assassin
Akane woke up the following morning feeling less than well rested. Luckily, it was Saturday, which meant there wouldn't be school today. As she changed clothes and went down the stairs for breakfast, a large black and white blur flew down the hall and knocked her into the wall.
"Sorry Akane!" a voice called. The apology came from within the passing blur, which was really Ranma sparring with his father in panda form.
"Well," Akane thought as she watched them drag their fight towards the pond, "at least he apologized." She entered the kitchen and was greeted by her oldest sister.
"Good morning," Kasumi chirped happily.
"Morning," she replied with much less enthusiasm.
Kasumi stopped in the middle of pulling chopsticks and rice bowls from the cabinet. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"No," Akane said, thinking of her non-existent relationship with Ranma. "Nothing has happened."
A loud splash was heard from outside, followed by angry yelling.
"Why do we always have to end our fights in the pond?!" Ranma shouted as she entered the house with her red hair flying and her freshly wrung out shirt in one hand. "Every morning it's always a dip in the pond before breakfast!"
Akane helped Kasumi gather the bowls and chopsticks and headed into the dining room where Ranma was standing. "Did you win?"
"Feh, who do you think you're asking?" Ranma replied without a trace of modesty.
"Where's Mr. Saotome?" Kasumi asked, pouring hot water on Ranma from a kettle she had just brought in.
Genma entered the room with bumps covering his furry head. "Right here," read the sign he was holding as he collapsed on the ground with a damp sounding, "Wumph!"
Nabiki and Soun also arrived at the table and everyone sat down to eat. As always, breakfast at the Tendo's was a lively affair. The family engaged in loud conversation as they enjoyed Kasumi's exemplary cooking. However, Akane remained silent throughout the meal, lost in deep thought.
"What's the matter tomboy," Ranma asked, poking her in the head. As always, he was only trying to get a response from his fiancé. Yet unlike all of the other times he teased her, this latest jest did not produce the expected burst of anger.
"Ranma you jerk," she whispered in a trembling voice and quickly left the table. The conversation halted as she ran out the door. All eyes turned to Ranma, who looked just as shocked as everyone else.
"What did you do to her, boy?!" Genma shouted as he smacked his son in the head.
"I didn't do anything!" Ranma protested.
"She's crying now Ranma! Go after her!" Soun ordered, his anger making him resemble a demon at the moment.
"Why should I have to go? It wasn't my fault!"
"Oh, just let her go. It's probably that time of the month," Nabiki nonchalantly reasoned as she reached for another helping of eel. Looking slightly embarrassed, and muttering a few "ums" and "ahems", Genma and Soun returned to their seats and resumed eating.
Ranma followed suit and the men pretended like nothing had happened.
"Do you have to be so crude, Nabiki?" Kasumi asked.
"What? Well that's probably why she's so moody," Nabiki countered with a shrug.
Kasumi sighed. "Will you please go find her after breakfast?" she asked Ranma.
Ranma nodded.
"What a way to spend my Saturday morning," Ranma thought as he casually strolled along the top of a chain-link fence. "Why does Akane have to be so overly sensitive sometimes? Jeez, now where did she run off to?"
"Son-in-law!"
"Huh?" Ranma turned and saw wrinkled old Cologne darting toward him with lightning speed. She landed nimbly before him, but seemed quite nervous.
"Hurry son-in-law. You must come with me. Time is of the essence!" she cried.
"Feh, up to your old tricks again you old ghoul? Did you think of this plan yourself, or did Shampoo put you up to this?" he asked, dragging one of his many fiancés into the conversation.
"No! You don't understand. A dark enemy has finally resurfaced in Nerima, and I need you to help me destroy it! Please!" Cologne's eyes were wide with fear and although Ranma was still somewhat skeptical, he had to admit that Cologne did seem very serious about this.
With a sigh, Ranma relented. "Fine. I'll help, but you better not be tricking me. I should be finding someone...important...right now. Let's go."
Without another word, Cologne began jumping from rooftop to rooftop toward the Cat Café with Ranma following closely behind.
The Cat Café was usually bursting with hungry customers on the weekend, but today it stood deserted and quiet.
"You guys going out of business?" Ranma asked as he sat down at a table.
"Of course not. I just closed it for today. But enough of this! I need to inform you about...the shadow assassin.
"Shadow assassin?" Ranma repeated, snickering at the name. "For someone so dangerous, he seems to have a pretty cliché name.
Cologne brought her stick down on the table with a deafening, "THWACK!"
"This is no time to joke, son-in-law!"
Ranma nodded and stayed silent.
"The shadow assassins were a group of highly skilled assassins who existed long before my time. These assassins trained in martial arts as well as ritual magics in order to become powerful enough to eliminate their targets. They dedicated themselves to eradicating the world of evil. When opponents proved to be too strong to defeat in direct combat, they traveled through time to attack their targets at weaker times in their lives."
Ranma gaped in shock. "The power of time travel...?" he asked in awe. "With that kind of power, they would have been pretty invincible."
"Indeed they were, son-in-law. So powerful, in fact, that they began to lose sight of their promise to fight evil. Their physical and magical strength gave would have allowed them to take over the world if they wanted to," Cologne told him ominously.
"So why didn't they?"
"Because of themselves. Not all of the shadow assassins became corrupt over the course of time. While there were some who wanted power, there were others who stayed true to destroying evil. War broke out among the assassins, but in the end the good assassins were victorious. Realizing the potential danger their powers of time travel had, they sealed away their secrets, letting the assassin magic die out with their generation."
"Well if the shadow assassins are dead, why do you need help?" Ranma asked.
"A few years ago in China, a young wounded boy entered our Amazon village. He fell unconscious and we tended to his wounds while he slept. As we helped him, a tattoo was discovered on his back. The mark of a shadow assassin is that of a long sword crossed with a short dagger centered by a single four pointed throwing star. The tattooed weapons represented strength, stealth, and speed, and the healers were afraid."
"By this time," Cologne continued, "the time jumping magics of the shadow assassins had been sealed for at least eight or nine centuries. However, if he were an enemy, we would have a formidable foe to fight. We tied him in rope and found we were right to do so when he woke up. Such anger! It was only through the use of hypno-incense that we were able to discover his secrets."
Ranma remembered the time he had used the same incense on Happosai to manipulate him into thinking he had been transported back in time. The incense had been quiet strong. "What did he tell you?"
"He was on a mission to restore his nearly extinct clan of shadow assassins. The young man had retrieved the sealed magic, but it was written on scrolls in an ancient language and he could only read parts of them. Using a weakened form of the time jumping magic, he had a plan to give him and what was left of the assassins more power."
Cologne leaned in closer to Ranma. "'If I can destroy the same person twice within their timeline,'" he had whispered to me under the power of the incense, "'then the world will become off balanced. Only then will the combined feeble magic of the remaining shadow assassins lift us above the heads of all others!'"
"Will that work?" Ranma asked.
"Yes. People are only meant to die once in a lifetime. Physically taking someone's life twice within their timeline will put the good forces of this world at a great disadvantage!"
"Stupid Ranma," Akane thought as she watched children playing on the the playground equipment in front of her. A small girl suddenly tripped as she chased a little boy around the slide and began to cry. The boy who she had been playing with quickly ran over to her. He picked her up and wiped away her tears. She immediately stopped crying and they ran off to continue playing.
"Such innocence," thought Akane with a smile. "If only Ranma could be as sweet."
"How come your village didn't kill him then and there?" asked Ranma.
"It is not our custom to kill the weak. He was wounded and he had not beaten any of our warriors."
"So you guys just let him go?!" he shouted.
"Of course not. I planned to bind his magical powers with an elaborate ritual, but he slipped away in the night. We found a note the next day that said he spared the village now because we had helped him, but he would not show us mercy once the shadow assassins rose to strength again. He also said that he would be sure to find me again before he ruined the world."
"Wasn't this years ago? Why did he wait until now to attack?"
"The wounds that he suffered were very serious. He most likely accumulated them from his quest for the sealed assassin magic. He probably spent these past years recovering and training for this attack."
"Ok, old ghoul. How do we stop him?"
"Thank you, groom," she said, bowing slightly to him. "I recently felt his aura within Nerima. He may have great powers, but he can be defeated as any mortal can be." Cologne bounced into the back room of the restaurant and returned with an ancient looking box. "Here."
Ranma opened it to find a small white gem that was slightly larger than a marble. It seemed to glow with an odd green glow, and sparkle with all of the colors of the rainbow. He reached in to pick it up, but stopped to look at Cologne. She nodded to him. As gently picked up the smaller gem and could feel in emanating warmth.
"This, son-in-law, is the Gem of Times," with this, you will be able to follow the rogue shadow assassin if necessary. Now come! We must find him while I can still sense his aura!"
She flew out the door. Ranma quickly searched his clothes for a pocket to store the precious stone.
"Argh! These pants have no pockets!" he realized as he looked down at this Chinese styled pants. His shirt had no pockets either. He shrugged and jammed the gem into his right shoe and ran out the door.
Akane was still sitting in the park watching the children play. From afar, a pair of dark eyes stared at her.
"That fool Saotome!" cried Gosunkugi. He pulled out a camera and began taking pictures of her. "If Akane were mine, I'd never let her out of my sight!"
Gosunkugi was crouched in a bush across the street from the park. His black clothes made him stand out among the leafy green bushes that he used for cover. His antics were being watched by a dark man of about 20 who sat in a tree a few feet away. The man's face was covered with a black cloth mask that his all but his eyes.
"The old witch is nearby," he thought, as he tried sensing her aura. "Time to put my plan into action. Now all I need is a target."
"That fool Saotome!" he heard the boy below yell. The masked man watched Gosunkugi carefully.
"I believe he is stalking someone in stealth," the man reasoned.
"I will have my revenge on you!" he yelled again.
The man in the tree stood up. "I may as well take on the burden of this man and help him with his vengeance." He jumped out of the tree and suddenly dissolved into a black, shadowy mass. The shapeless shadow surrounded Gosunkugi and seeped into him.
Gosunkugi straightened up and dropped his camera. His eyes narrowed into a malicious smile that was quite unlike him. He crossed the street and headed to where Akane was sitting on a bench.
"Target sighted."
"Groom, you must hurry and defeat this enemy before he can target someone!" Ranma was still racing after her, only a few meters behind. "If he chooses someone to kill and time jumps, you may loose track of his target over the course of the years."
Ranma had no idea what she meant by the loosing track of the target over the course of the years, but he knew that he had to defeat this assassin here and now. He jumped the roofs of buildings with greater speed and began to gain on Cologne.
"Just lead the way!"
"Hello Gosunkugi," Akane greeted as her classmate approached.
Gosunkugi remained silent.
"Gusunkugi?" she asked. "Are you ok?"
From behind him, Gosunkugi pulled out a short dagger.
"Yes. I'm about to make history." He plunged the dagger toward Akane, who instinctively brought up her arms to block his blow.
"What are you doing?!" she cried, trying to push the dagger away.
Gosunkugi stepped back from Akane. "I'm getting half of my task out of the way," he sneered, referring to his two death objective. Not understanding what he meant, but not wanting to stay and figure it out, Akane turned and ran.
Gosunkugi jumped over Akane and ran back toward her, knife in hand. She caught both of his wrists and fell backward. Bringing her foot up, she kicked him in the stomach and let the momentum of the fall carry him over her head as she let go of him. Then she leapt up and took off into the dense forest area of the park.
"Go ahead and run!" Gosunkugi laughed as he got up. "I like a good chase." He took off after her.
Ranma jumped from rooftop to rooftop, following Cologne to where she sensed the shadow assassin.
"RANMA!!!" he suddenly heard a voice scream from a park just a block ahead of them. Ranma put on a burst of speed and passed Cologne.
"AKANE!!!"