Disclaimer: The concept of Ranma 1/2 and Naruto belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, and Masashi Kishimoto. This is a product of pure amusement values, with no profits made.
"Ran... Come with me. I can make you forget everything, take you away from your wretched existence in that equally pathetic village. You'll live, without the memories of pain. I will give you a purpose to your existence."
The breath was caught in his throat. Forget... everything?
Gray-blue and serpentine gold; eyes that held equal shares of smothered anger, sadness, a dark despair of life, and sheer stubbornness or arrogance to give in.
It would be an easy escape, to go with him, to lose yourself, and leave this fakery of a life behind. It's not your home, and she's not Akane.
Thoughts passed his mind in a torrent of confusing images...
Engaged in drinking contests with Jiraiya, always losing while Tsunade screamed at both of them for being idiots, and Orochimaru sitting silently to the side, always, always present...
The young woman who shared such a painful familiarity with Akane, her eyes lighting up in pleasure as they rested upon him, and hurt him deep within with each brilliant smile...
Those same eyes, closing before the tears could fall as she turned away from him, silently asking for something from him...
His own face, looking back at him from the mirror, such despair in those stormy-blue orbs, barely past thirty, his hair already graced with streaks of gray, he couldn't recognize himself...
"I am Saotome Ranma! Heir to the Anything Goes Style of Martial Arts, and I accept your challenge!"
"Call me Ran."
"Welcome to the Hidden Leaf Village, Special Jounin Instructor...Umino Ran."
Blue eyes glazing in confusion, and he looked away from gold, silently asking, silently pondering, yet receiving no answer to his existence from within.
Who am I anymore?
The face of a boy flashed before his eyes. Shoulder-length brown hair curling around his oval-shaped face, with doe-brown eyes, and a large scar running horizontally across the bridge of his nose.
"Tousan?"
He froze, before deliberately relaxing, and continued to wrap the bandages around his thigh. "Go to sleep."
Soft footsteps. "What are you doing?"
Ranma sighed, quickly strapping the small holster to his other leg. "Tousan needs to do something. Now, go to sleep."
Innocent brown eyes stared back, the dolphin stuff-toy hanging limply in the boy's arms. "Tousan... you're ANBU?"
"Was." Ranma murmured, running a hand down the metallic smoothness of his chest cover. He flashed the boy a small, tight smile before giving the end of his braid a tug, pulling the string loose. "Tousan just... needs to wrap up some unfinished business."
"Oh..." His son took another step into the room. "Why did you take off your pigtail, Tousan?"
His hands stilled at the back of his head, hesitating, before pulling up the ponytail. "Because."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Why?"
"Be..."
"Tousan!" The nine-year-old pouted at him cutely.
Ranma signed in resignation, and gestured to himself. "Alright. Come here."
The boy giggled, and skipped into his lap, the stuff toy clutched against his chest. "Why?"
"I was in ANBU before I became a teacher..." Ranma began slowly. "And my duty as ANBU... it was... difficult for me to accept at the time. But due to... circumstances, there were no other choices for me."
"Uh-huh..." The small bundle of warmth murmured from his lap, and he smiled despite himself.
"I was not... fond of myself in those days. When I took on this mask, and this uniform, I gave myself another na..." He bit his lips, and shook his head, "I gave myself another appearance, because some part of me believed that it wasn't I who performed those deeds, but someone else..."
The boy tilted his head cutely, brown eyes already glazing over from the confusion of attempting to understand the explanation. Brushing back wisps of brown hair, he looked up to stormy gray blue. "But Tousan... you'll always be Tousan, no matter what you look like, right?"
Silence.
"Tousan?"
"...Of course." Ranma laughed, "Of course I am!"
Wrapping his arms around the boy in a tight hug before ruffling his son's hair, initiating a burst of giggles from the boy. "Want to help this idiotic old man braid his hair again?"
"Yay!"
Small, clumsy hands pulled and tugged at his hair, and it was all he could do to keep from throwing back his head and laugh. Laugh at his idiocies, laugh at his childish confusion, laugh at the answer that he had been seeking for so long, yet all the while, it had been right in front of him.
"I see someone is awake, when he should be sleeping." A soft, lyrical voice said from the door.
"Oops." His son giggled, and fumbled down from his lap. "Sorry Kaasan."
"Forgiven, young man..." The woman who bore Akane's face smiled. "Only if you go to bed now."
Arms wrapped themselves around his waist, soft brown hair tickling his bare arm as a small head nuzzled against him. "I'll wait for you here, Tousan, come back soon."
He watched his son disappear in the door, the stuff toy in hand, before turning to his wife. The pink kimono suited her well, with her waist-length hair framing her lithe form; she had let it grow after their marriage, opting more for the role of a housewife...
"Leaving soon?" She murmured, stepping closer.
"Before the sunrise, yes." He brushed a hand against his 'pigtail' tentatively, and grimaced at the number of tangles he encountered.
"Let me help." Slim hands tugged his hair, fingers nimble due to years of training in Genjutsu and Chakra control.
"Thank you, Wife."
"You're welcome..." The fingers stilled, then released his braid. "Ran... I will also wait for you."
"What if I don't come back?" He said suddenly.
"Then... I will continue to wait for you, until you come home."
"I... cannot." Ranma's lips quirked into a soft smile, a small pool of blood gathering by his feet, fueled by the steady drip from his wrists. "This is my grave, Orochimaru."
Wretched life it may have been, to live in the shadow of a lost dream, and torn destiny. I lost everything, but I have accepted this loss, and moved on. I will not die, nor will I forget.
"I can't let you live." Orochimaru said, pulling out a kunai. "But I'll make this as painless as I can." Was there a hint of regret in those carefully blanked eyes? Ranma couldn't tell, he was too busy thinking up all the ways of how his life sucked.
"Enjoy your afterlife, Umino." And the small blade was speeding towards his face.
He was going to die, killed by Orochimaru, because he was too weak, too weak to defend himself, too weak to save himself.
Too weak...The blade embedded into the tree with a dull 'thunk'.
The comforting, ever present weight at the back of his head was suddenly gone. Ranma's pigtail slid down from the kunai, the beginning of the braid unraveling across his lap. A thin line of red was appearing from one side of his neck, he had twisted his face away at the last second, the kunai only grazing the skin, cutting off his pigtail instead of slicing his throat open.
Stormy blue stared into serpentine gold once more, and smirked.
"Perfect." Ranma whispered softly, "Shi Shi Hokoudan."
The world tilted in his eyes, lighting up in the most breath-taking shade of green, bathing him within its center. He could feel the tree behind his back being pulverized by the sheer force of the blast, the ground under him steadily giving way, forming into an expanding crater.
Hold it. Hold it. Hold it just a little more...
It hurt, like liquid fire through his veins, his body being sucked dry, as if his soul was slowly leaking away, sipped away by the expanding green.
I can't die, not yet. And the green... vanished, leaving only the silence in its wake, followed by the sound of his harsh panting. Kami-sama, it hurts to breathe.
"Seems like I've underestimated you, again." Orochimaru murmured, appearing next to him. Clothes ripped and covered in dust and soot, his right arm hanging limply by his side, with hints of bruises and scrapes peeking from under his torn garment.
"Oh... you're still alive." Ranma managed to croak out. His eyelids felt so heavy, and black spots were appearing in his eyes. It was getting harder and harder to see, as the pale shinobi was becoming more blurry by the second.
A sound in the distance alerted the two from their standoff. "What do you know..." Ranma panted, air was burning its way down to his lungs, "Reinforcements are arriving, Ochi'."
"Hn, so they are." Orochimaru stepped away, his good hand pressing against his arm.
One step. Two. Three. Four...
Serpentine gold looked back. "Next time we meet, I'll kill you."
Orochimaru disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Ranma smirked, and then winced as the slight movement brought a wave of agony throughout his entire body. Everything hurt... perhaps it was ok to take a nap... Just a small nap...
"Ran!"
Jiraiya...?
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TIMELINE – Year Sixteen, early August.
I'm ah... getting very bored with writing. The sight of MSWord makes me feel nauseous, and I'm finding myself enjoying the lethargy of reading more and more...
Guess I should be glad that I've written everything in advance.
Oh, and QuickEdit 2.0 annoys me... greatly.