Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or any of its characters, and I also do not own Dead or Alive or any of its characters.
Doaran PrologueA low mist hung damp and cold over the forest; an eerie blue glow illuminating the forest through the trees with moonbeams streaking through the branches lighting the ground in a cool white radiance. In the distance an owl calls out echoing throughout the forest and trees and leaves sway with the wind. The sound of a grunt of exertion could be heard as a young woman of about twenty and dressed in a blue kunoichi outfit climbed over a downed tree trunk. Hungry, the girl chewed on a small strip of jerky that she had procured from a vendor in the previous town. It was actually, quite gross in that she did not like dehydrated meat at all, but beggars can't be choosers, so to speak. There was nothing that she could do for water for the time being though, unless she ran across a stream. Her funds were quite meager and she would sometimes shoplift little tidbits of food when her hunger became too great. She hated doing that though. It was very dishonest and did not sit at all well with the girl. When she could, she would do little odd jobs for some yen or a meal and if she were in a forest she would just catch a little rabbit and roast it over a fire (of course that was far more difficult than one could imagine, even for a shinobi. That and it was hard to kill something so cute). If she were lucky enough, wild onions and leeks went quite well with the rabbit to make an entire meal.
She walked swiftly, but cautiously towards the east. According to a well-worn map which she got in exchange for helping out around a small convenience store, a town called Nerima was in that direction. Occasionally she would spin around, looking behind herself into the deep woods, her hand on the hilt of a kodachi tied to her waist. To most people, paranoia seemed to be a disease of the mind, but to her it saved her life several times. That, and training since she could walk in the art of Ninjitsu.
She stopped suddenly, listening to the forest around her. Her acute senses picked up a light whistling sound and she ducked just before a kunai violently imbedded itself into a tree at about the same level that her face would have been. Alarmed at the sudden attack, the girl, quite ungracefully fell on her butt, but quickly got up just as another couple landed in the ground where she had just been. Taking off at a surprising rate of speed she ducked and sidestepped shuriken as they flew passed. One grazed her leg, tearing the legging, and cutting a shallow, but painful groove into her skin. She winced and stumbled a little bit, but regained her footing once again. Another one hit a little closer to home and sliced through the same leg causing her to trip over an upturned root and fall. The girl quickly stood, albeit painfully, and unsheathed the blade at her waist. Assuming a fighting stance, she prepared for a kill or be killed confrontation against what were probably highly skilled ninja assassins.
She knew who they were; they were ninjas charged with the duty of killing her. She was a kunoichi who had run away from her clan to search for her brother, Hayate, who had been kidnapped and brainwashed. But now her brother had returned to the clan that she abandoned and took up leadership. As his duty, he had to kill her to insure that secrets of the clan would not leak out to their enemies.
Idly, after surveying her surroundings, she wondered why he sent only two ninja after her, when in the past; she could deal with three or four and live.
One of the ninja leaped into the clearing and brandished two vicious looking sai. Rushing at her, he slashed forward thirsty for bloodshed. The girl caught his outstretched arm and threw him roughly onto the ground where she immediately slugged him as hard as she could across the temple, effectively knocking him out. The second ninja jumped down from the branch of a tree high overhead with two claw studded gauntlets outstretched. He would have slashed her back wide open; however, the girl heard him falling and rolled out of the way. Her attacker was on top of her the moment he landed, pressing forth with a flurry of armed punches, forcing her to parry the strikes with her kodachi. If she tried to block the blows with her hands, she would have been cut to ribbons. The ninja then attempted a leg sweep, which she jumped, and immediately followed with a high kick, catching her across the face. As she was falling back he grabbed her by the arm, and pulling her towards him, kneed her in the solar plexus. The girl's breath exploded from her lungs leaving her gasping and teary-eyed on the ground. Kicking her a few times for good measure, he kneeled down and tilted her head up intending to slit her throat. Bringing one of the razor claws on his right hand to bear, he looked her in her beautiful brown eyes. "Master Hayate sends his regards." (What a shame to waste the life of someone so lovely…)
And with that he raised his right arm up about to cut her neck out. Sensing an opening, the girl reached up, grabbed both of his wrists, and with a tremendous show of strength belying her small frame flipped him over her head, and then rolled on top of him, slamming the hilt of her kodachi onto his forehead. The ninja's eyes rolled up into his skull and he fell limp, knocked out. The girl panted, a little shaken up about the extreme closeness of death that she had just been in and struggled to her feet. Ambling off, she favored her right leg, which had taken most of the abuse during the fight. Looking down, she saw that it was covered in blood. "Damn it all." She muttered to herself.
Finding it hard to breathe, she felt her side and discovered that one of the ribs on the left was either broken or severally bruised; it hurt too much to prod it for a more thorough analysis. She had been in worse before she knew, but all the same, if she were to get attacked again before she was healed and able to defend herself, she would most likely be killed. So setting off at a quicker, but more painful pace she headed for the nearest town to seek medical attention. God help her if she was attacked again.
A.N.: I started this fanfic about two years ago and have been tinkering with it a little off and on. I have a pretty good idea about what I want to do with it, but as I am sure all authors can agree on, it is very difficult to get those crystal clear ideas on parchment. What you just read was a re-release of the prologue, but doctored up a bit.
11-11-04: Fixed a small spelling error; made "waste" into "waist". Give props to Joe Fenton for pointing that out. It irritated me enough that I actually had to re-post the prologue to fix it. I really appreciate feedback like that, simply because I know myself how irritating it is to be reading something and suddenly see an error like that. And even though it is actually a small error, it just kinda glares at me almost like it's mocking me. And if I don't fix it it's going to probably keep me awake at night until I do.
Since I am adding extra into the prologue anyways, I might as well talk a little bit more: I fully intend on rewriting the chapters that I have out already and adding more chapters later as well to advance the story. That being said I want everyone, who is reading this for the second time and for the first time, to know that I will be re-rewriting this again after this rewrite and adding even more chapters. That being said I would like to have some feedback from the readers, not only concerning spelling and grammatical errors, but also, I want you guys to tell me what you think is missing in a particular chapter. Like, in the prologue above, what do you think would look better? How could I have been more descriptive? Was there any dialogue that would have gone better? Things like that and I will include some of the ideas (while giving credit where due, of course) in the chapters when I rewrite them for the second time. I am writing this for my own enjoyment and so that I can see what is going to happen for myself, but I also want to know what you guys want to happen too. Let me know something.
End author's note