Aftermath: A Story of Blended Clichés’ Chapter 23: University Part 4, a ranma fanfic

I would like to thank Ghost in the Machine pre-reading this chapter with his trusty baseball bat and microscope.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

I don't own any of these characters or situations. They belong to someone else. Also this is done purely for fun, not profit. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, yet to be born, or visiting from other dimensions is purely coincidental. I'm doing this for fun.

Boldly going where others had gone before and meekly going where few have been.

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University Part 4

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Ranma smiled as she took the entrance fees from the middle aged couple. Giving them the option of waiting for a tour or moving amongst the exhibits on their own, they chose the later. Ranma leaned back into the uncomfortable chair and stretched her tried muscles. Though she was very glad to have this job, sometimes when it was slow, like today, she wished she could be anywhere but there.

"The worst of it is that Happosai took off for the summer too," she thought somewhat gloomily. "Without him or Tenchi to spar with, this summer is just going to... to suck."

Deciding that the front entranceway needed to be swept for the sixth time today, Ranma headed off to do the deed. She sighed. Retrieving the broom from its place, she began the mindless task.

Sweep.

"I could be home, helping out around the restaurant or learning some long lost martial arts in some temple somewhere or I could visit Tenchi and spar with his grandfather or..." Ranma continued with her mental list of 'things she could be doing instead of being bored to death here' as she continued to tidy up. She did this every time it got slow. She continued to sweep the few leaves and debris that escaped the five other cleanings.

"Tenchi," she thought. "I wonder that's up with his aura?"

Sweep.

"Maybe it's a hereditary trait," she pondered. "Mine and the other Senshi's auras go straight to the soul. In comparison, Tenchi's is more - superficial."

Sweep.

"His power isn't superficial, though," she considered while moving to the other end of entranceway. "It's kinda interesting how his power flows around him like that."

Sweep.

"I wonder if Ami found anything? I wonder what would happen if Tenchi turned out to be another Scout? Should we tell him?"

Sweep.

"Speaking of which, I never got Tenchi's phone number before he left for home," Ranma lamented.

Sweep.

"Oh well," she thought brightly. "He did say that he was going to be home all summer and to come by anytime. I hope he doesn't mind when I show up."

Sweep.

Collecting what little she had, she emptied the dust pan with a shake.

"I'm going to go nuts unless I find something to do," Ranma thought with desperation. "Maybe Mrs. Katsuragi has something for me to do that will keep me near the front."

Putting the broom and dust pan away, Ranma went on her trek to find something to do.

----------------

Elsewhere in Japan, a pigtailed young man was going through his bags of clothes, sorting them. He had been home for several weeks and hadn't gotten around to unpacking yet. He had made some lame excuses not to, like he would be going back to school soon and so on. But the truth was that he had an attack of the lazies and didn't want to bother with it.

Today he was determined to not be lazy about it and get the chore out of the way.

"I don't remember taking this much stuff," he mused as he laid some shirts down on the mats on the floor. "Then again, not really having to haul it on a train or anything does help."

He had used the inter-dimensional door to travel back to Okayama after telling his roommate and Ranma that he had to take a late train home. The sparring he and Ranma did together paid off as he was able to give his grandfather a run for his money. A smile broadened as he recalled the surprised look on his grandfather's face when he was nearly disarmed at his hands.

He paused and smiled a bit thinking of Ranma.

"It's not just the sparring," he thought. "I miss our talks."

Tenchi sighed as he continued to sort through his clothes.

"I wonder if she thinks of me?" he mused as he picked up his gi. He frowned. "What's this?"

Patting down his gi, he felt something hard inside the cloth. Running his his fingers and isolating where it was, he reached into a small pocket that was on the interior of the gi. He removed a small cylindrical object.

"What's th - oh yeah! I remember," Tenchi realized as he held up the device that Washu gave him when he was back in school. "I forgot all about this."

He studied the device in his hands and noticed that the grooved end was red.

"I better get this to Washu or I'll never hear the end of it," he thought. "Come to think of it, I'm surprised she hadn't said anything."

He shrugged his shoulders, "Well, she's had been busy with her experiments lately." Tenchi shuddered at that thought. "She probably forgot like I did."

Tenchi sighed and pocketed the recording device.

---------------

"Whatcha wanna do?" Ranma asked.

"Don't know," Michiko replied. "I was expecting to spend a lot of my evenings working at the restaurant. I didn't count on Granny hiring enough help to cover all shifts."

"Me either," Ranma sighed. "You know, there is such a thing as having too much time on your hands."

"Let's head over to the Crown Arcade and see if any of the old crew is hanging out," suggested Michiko. "At the very least we could get some ice cream or something."

"You know," Ranma said as she walked beside her sister, "in all the time I've lived here, I don't know if there is a karaoke bar around here or not."

"You and karaoke. You're as bad as Uncle Shoji," Michiko said while rolling her eyes. "Let's try the arcade first. Eat ice cream and play a few games."

Ranma nodded, "Sounds like a plan."

"There'll be some excitement next week," Michiko hinted.

"Oh?"

"Jiro is bringing up my project front the Motor Club. I think you'll be impressed."

"Oh? Any hints?" Ranma prodded as they neared the Crown Arcade.

"Nope," Michiko answered with a smile. "You'll have to wait."

Entering the arcade, both girls made a beeline for the frozen treats.

----------------

Leading the tour, Ranma showed the small crowd into the courtyard of the museum and began telling its history. The crowd that was visiting this day were mostly a mixed bunch of foreigners from a tour group. Ranma found it amusing that each person had their ever-present camera hanging from their necks. Working at the museum, Ranma was exposed to a wide assortment of people outside the usual Japanese that paid visits. She was fascinated by the wide variety of colors and shapes people came in.

It also meant that she had to give her speech in English.

"The Folk Crafts Museum was founded by Muneyoshi Yanagi in 1936," Ranma began. "It was founded on the hopes of preserving common crafts that use to be handmade and were being pushed aside by the growth of industrialism. Yanagi believed that the human touch and spirit that was found in everyday wares was being lost as they were replaced by mass produced products. He feared that the often overlooked art of everyday handmade items was would be lost forever."

Many of the people nodded as they looked around the grounds.

"The collection has over one hundred seventy thousand objects made by craftsmen" Ranma continued as she waved her hand in a sweeping gesture to the buildings surrounding them." We have everything from pottery, textiles and paintings."

A general mummer went though the crowd, some clicking pictures of the building and grounds.

"Before we enter the first exhibit, are there any questions?" Ranma asked politely.

A woman that was about half a head taller than Ranma with wavy brown hair wearing a very loud shirt raised her hand.

"Yes," Ranma called on her, feeling more like a school teacher than a guide.

"Yes," she began in English with a heavy accent that Ranma couldn't fathom. "Y'all got any exhibits on how the stuff was made? Ya, know. Like how the cloth was made?"

Ranma remained silent as her brain worked on the translation.

"Um... yes," Ranma began, taking a stab at what was asked. "We have many examples of hand weaved cloth in our collection."

"Yah, I know that," the woman said patiently. "But what I'm askin' is if you have a loom or a watchamicallit showin' how the stuff was made."

Ranma's mind wrapped around the words she knew and tried to figure out the meaning of the words she didn't from the connotations.

"I'm very sorry," Ranma admitted with a slight bow. "We do not have a 'watchamicallit'. We do have a loom in the textiles display, however."

The woman smiled as some of the others chuckled. "That's alright, you see one watchamicallit, you've seen them all."

Ranma raised an eyebrow and mentally scratched her head trying to understand the humor. As good as her English was, Ranma many times had difficultly dealing with native English speakers. It's like they have a different word for everything.

Keeping her professional smile on her face, she asked, "Are there anymore questions?"

Receiving the universal signal for no, the shaking of heads, Ranma beckoned the group to follow her into the first exhibit hall. She made it a point to remember to beckon them using the western method, not the Japanese, so they wouldn't think she was waving 'bye' to them.

"In this room," she lectured, "we have a collection of lacquer ware..."

---------------

"You built this?" Ranma asked incredulously.

"Yep, Isn't cool?" Michiko gushed.

"By yourself?"

"I did the design and most of the motor work," Michiko explained as she mounted the motorbike. "Jiro constructed the frame with the help of Keiichi and Tamiya. Jiro, Keiichi and Megumi did the suspension."

The names that Michiko listed meant nothing to Ranma, with the exception of one, the others she assumed were part of the motor club.

"Megumi?" Ranma asked. "That's the same name as my roommate."

"Megumi is Keiichi's younger sister," Michiko explained. "Well, what do you think?"

The bike was a work of art.

It looked like a sculpture than anything Ranma had seen on the streets of Juuban. The frame was a sweeping, flowing metal tube-like thing with no sharp edges. It was shaped like a A-frame or two prong fork that curved from junction of the front forks to where it spread for the rear wheel. The engine rested between the spread the the frame, slightly further back than she was used to seeing in other motorcycles. Having the motor pushed back made room for the radiator in the front. Though Ranma didn't recognize what she was looking at, this was a water cooled engine. She did notice a lack of a drive chain, instead there was a shaft about three quarters of an inch thick joining the motor and wheel together. It was painted an flat orange with glossy red strip down the middle.

"Wow," Ranma commented. "You and your club basically built this?"

Michiko nodded. "I laid it out and everyone pitched in. To save money, we used a lot of off the shelf stuff, but we modified them and custom built the frame to be as light in weight and strong as possible."

"Ah...," Ranma said as she studied Michiko's handy work. "Isn't there suppose to be a gas tank somewhere?"

"Oh, there is," Michiko answered proudly. She motioned to a cap that was situated on the widest part of the frame, just ahead of where Michiko was sitting. Ranma missed it because it was on the other side from where she was standing.

"It's built into the frame," Michiko explained. "I used the open spaces created by this part of the frame for the tank."

"Wow," was the only word Ranma could think of to describe what she saw.

"Wanna go for a ride?" Michiko asked.

"Well... I don't - ," Ranma started to answer before something struck her. "Hey, when did you get a license to drive?"

"At school silly. C'mon, I'll go easy on you," Michiko added with a sparkling smile while handing Ranma a helmet.

"Well, okay. No funny stuff - understand?" Ranma said hesitantly while slipping the orange and red striped helmet over her head.

"Right," Michiko said while slipping on her own, matching helmet. "No funny stuff. Don't forget to adjust the strap," she said while motioning to her chin, "the helmet won't do any good if it comes off."

Ranma fumbled with the unfamiliar buckle and strap. After a few seconds Michiko waved Ranma over and did it for her.

Glad that she was wearing pants that day, Ranma clambered on board and scooted up behind her sister.

"Ready?" Michiko asked. Ranma nodded.

Michiko hit the electric start and the engine sprung to life. Ranma was disappointed. She was expecting a huge, deafening racket, teeth jarring vibration and clouds of exhaust. Instead she got a almost smooth purr, a gentle throbbing and no smoke from the tailpipe. It wasn't what she was expecting.

"This might not be too bad...," Ranma thought.

"Hang on," Michiko warned gleefully...

"...or not."

... and they were off.

Akiko was busy sweeping the front of her restaurant. It was nice to have the girls home, even for a little while.

"It won't be long before they're gone," she thought as she swept up. "Michiko spends more time with her boyfriend than at home. But that is to be expected. Too bad they can't stay children a little longer."

Pausing from her chore, she took in the neighborhood.

"It won't be long before both girls will have families of their own," she thought wistfully. "And that's the way it's supposed to be."

She sighed and was about to resume her work when a sound caught her attention. She cocked her head one side to the other, trying to determine the direction of the noise. It was a long continuous, low pitched sound that almost sounded like...

... a motorcycle zoomed up with two people on it, obviously females. Though the bike was not really speeding, it was moving at a good clip just under what would draw attention from the law. It slowed as it approached the front of the restaurant and the driver stopped the bike with a touch of a fishtail, leaving a slight mark upon the road. The driver turned off the motor and sat up, the rider was still clinging to her.

The driver removed her helmet.

"Hi Granny!" Michiko said cheerily.

"Michiko!" Akiko said in surprise. "So this is what you brought home the other day. Is this your project?"

Michiko nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. I just got through taking Ranma for a spin. Right Ranma?"

There was no response form the still clinging passenger.

Michiko Blink-blinked. "Ranma?"

A highly spaced out redhead was still clinging to Michiko's body as Michiko tried to turn and face her.

"Ranma?" Michiko asked with concern.

"W... w... wheelies. So many w... w... wheelies," the near cationic redhead whimpered, still clinging to her sister.

"Ah... sorry about that," Michiko said embarrassingly, turning red in the face. "I got carried away."

"Carried away?" Ranma asked shaking her head like a dog, coming to senses a little. "You call doing wheelies while I'm clinging on for dear life, 'carried away'?"

"Well, hee... hee...," Michiko began looking between her ragged looking sister and the now stern faced grandmother.

"Oops?"

---------------

Ranma finished dusting the table down and looked about the entryway. The floor was swept and mopped, the room was dusted and the pamphlets on the museum were tidied up into neat stacks.

"I bet this room's never been cleaner," she thought as she put the cleaning supplies away. She turned and gave the room one last look over for anything she missed. This would be the last time she would see this place for a month. The Folk Crafts Museum was shutting down for a time to change exhibits before reopening.

Ranma was not needed for the exhibit changes. The arrangement of the displays and the items contained in them were the sole job of the curators and the full-time staff. The moving, lifting and arranging the heavy display cases was considered 'men's work' and that meant that Ranma was excluded from that as well.

Ranma had to bite back a snort on that last one, but she also welcomed the time off.

Picking up the trash can to empty on her way out, she sought out her supervisor.

Ranma found Mrs. Katsuragi speaking with Mr. Mikage in the courtyard. She waited a respectful distance until the conversation was finished before approaching her boss. Ranma approached as Mr. Mikage headed off in the direction of his office.

Ranma stopped and bowed.

"I have finished the clean up, Mrs. Katsuragi " Ranma informed. "Is there anything else you need me to do?"

Mrs. Katsuragi eyed Ranma over the clipboard she had been carrying and finished writing something before giving attention to the redhead.

"Very good" Mrs. Katsuragi stated simply. "Did you remember to empty the trash?"

"Yes ma'am" Ranma replied politely. "I did that just before reporting."

Mrs. Katsuragi nodded and made further notations on the clipboard.

"Very good" she said with a smile. "Well Miss Yonai, I guess this is the last we'll see of you for a month. You do have the date we need you back, do you?"

"Yes ma'am, I wrote it down when you told me," Ranma said as she bowed slightly. "I will be here."

"Have a good vacation," Mrs. Katsuragi said as her smiled broadened. "You have been a good worker, Miss Yonai. I look forward to seeing you back."

"Thank you Mrs. Katsuragi," Ranma acknowledged while deepening her bow. "I look foreword to returning."

Mrs. Katsuragi returned Ranma's deep bow with one half as deep before dismissing Ranma for the remainder of the summer.

---------------------

Ami and Ranma were hunched over the Mercury computer, browsing through the Lunar Archives.

"Where should we start?" Ranma asked her short haired friend.

"Let's start with the project files for the Senshi and see if that leads us anywhere," Ami replied.

Quickly paging through a familiar route, the two girls were soon had the said files upon the screen. Skimming the information, Ami shook her head slightly. She had been through these files too often to overlook anything.

"There's nothing here that really helpful. Try and think of a new way to search," Ami suggested to Ranma.

Ranma thought a few moments before piping up, "Who created us?"

Ami raised and eyebrow.

"I mean, er - look someone had to be like - I don't know chief scientist in charge or something," Ranma said, grasping for words.

Ami's eyes widened. "Of course," she agreed. "I never thought about that before because those files contained lots of information and terminology that I couldn't understand and that was never defined."

"What was the term used again? It wasn't scientist - it was something else," Ranma asked, trying to remember.

"Techno-mages," Ami stated.

"Right," Ranma said with a snap of her fingers. "Let's see if the listing for the Techno-mages has anything."

Ami re-paged through the files and concentrated on the listings for the important Techno-mages. She scribbled a few things on a pad that Ranma couldn't decipher.

"She is going to be a doctor, all right," Ranma thought. "I can't read her handwriting to save my life."

"Is there anything I can do?" Ranma asked.

"Ummm," Ami began distractedly before focusing on her guest. "Not really. It's just going to take time to sort through this."

"Sort? What are you going to sort?" Ranma questioned, her curiosity roused.

"There are at least two thousand two hundred techno-mages listed," Ami explained as her fingers danced over the keyboard. "I'm going to do a sort of who was working on what project. By doing that I can narrow the list down. Then search for other projects that the common Techno-mages were on."

"I see," Ranma realized. "If they were involved in all of the Senshi projects, then it would make sense if they were in on, er - well, another Senshi project."

"Exactly," Ami confirmed. "I just hope the sorted list isn't too long."

The two girls waited for what seemed to Ranma a long while. Ranma was about to give up when the screen flashed a few time and a list of about thirty names came up.

"A-ha!" Ami cried triumphantly. "We successfully narrowed two thousand two hundred and seventeen names down to twenty-six."

"So - now what?" Ranma asked.

"Well, we'll take the files for you" Ami explained the process. "I had Usagi copy and paste a lot of the information from your files into text files so I could have access to them. I'll just find the delineated text file for the Techno-mages that worked on your creation. Then I can then turn that into a database file and use that to cross reference within the sorted file and see if it narrows it down even more."

"How long will that take?" Ranma asked, totally lost. "This is probably going to take weeks," she thought.

"About fifteen minutes, maybe thirty," Ami answered as she quickly maneuvered through the files, menus and databases that she had created.

Ranma watched the display of skill and familiarity that Ami displayed as she worked away on the files. After what seemed like five minutes of furious keyboard pounding, Ami paused and dramatically hit a single key with her index finger.

The computers screen went blank, flashed a few times and then went blank again. Ranma thought maybe the computer broke and was about to suggest that when the screen sprang into life.

From a list of about thirty names, only seven were displayed.

"Okay," Ranma ventured, "Let me guess, you're going to take this list and do a search of the archives and find out what other projects these seven worked on outside of the creation of the Senshi."

"Right," Ami confirmed as she was loading the names into the parameters of the search window. "This part is going to take a while since the archives are so huge and some of it is poorly organized, especially the later ones."

"How long?" Ranma asked.

"Let's see," Ami replied as she hit a button with her index finger again. "The time to complete the search and sort is about... two hours, eight minutes."

"And then what?" Ranma asked.

"We read," Ami replied.

-----------------

The girls chatted insistently, talking about their schools, boys, and plans that they had for vacation. Ranma sat among her friends at the Crown Arcade, chatting about the latest kendo moves she learned to a interested Makoto.

Hotaru was there sitting next to Minako, who was next to Ami. Hitomo and Tamami were siting across from Ranma with Michiko sandwiched between them. They were grilling her on her relationship with Jiro.

"So, what are you going to do this summer?" Makoto asked in between Ranma descriptions of disarming your opponent.

"I don't know," Ranma answered after a little thought. "I was planning on helping out at the restaurant, but that didn't pan out. Michiko and I were doing stuff, but Jiro got back and she's spending more time with him now."

At that point, the other girls hammered Michiko with all sorts of questions on her relationship with Jiro.

"Maybe you need to find a boyfriend," Michiko said, once the girls gave her a break. "How about that boy you met at school? Why haven't you seen him?"

"He lives way over in Okayama," Ranma replied. "I was planning on visiting him - I don't know."

"Do you miss him?" Hitomo piped up from the sundae she was eating as the other girls quieted down to hear Ranma's reply.

"Yeah, I guess I do. He was great to spar with."

"That's all you did? Ami said that you talked a lot," Hotaru said with bright, curious eyes.

"Well...," the girls sitting round the table leaned forward in interest. "We... talked... a bit."

"Just talked?" Tamami inquired. "What about?"

"Stuff," Ranma replied.

"What kind of stuff?" Tamami pressed.

"You know stuff. Martial arts, school, life... you know - stuff."

"You miss him, don't cha?" Hitomo asked.

"Yeah, I guess I do," Ranma admitted. "He was great in a match and to talk with and dance and...," Ranma blinked out of her verbal thoughts to see the girls around the table looking at her.

She knew that look.

"It's not like that!" Ranma quickly interjected. "We're just friends. That's all."

"Suuure Ranma, we understand," Makoto said teasingly.

Minako started humming the 'Ranma's gotta boyfriend' tune. Hotaru looked back and forth between Minako and Ranma. The other girls began to giggled in, what Ranma felt at the moment, an annoying way.

Ranma sat and pouted. Without access to the 'Hello Kitty Pillow of Retribution', she didn't have any other recourse.

-------------

Ranma sat on her favorite rock and pondered the Earth as it hung in the sky.

When she wasn't training, it was a good place to think.

She had just returned from the 'firing range', working on reducing the size of her high end attacks, with great success. Happosai's training was paying off, instead of blowing an asteroid into it's component atoms, she garnered enough control to burn a neat, half inch hole through the center. Considering how much power she had to control and focus, the difficultly could not be understated.

It had been a good training exercise.

Ranma sighed as she sat and literally stared off into space.

Summer was really starting to bum her out.

She sighed, "First it was great being home, then Granny didn't need Michiko or me to help out, then all our friends started going off somewhere for their family vacations."

Shifting to a slightly more comfortable position, she continued her introspection. "Michiko and I hung out together. That was fun until Jiro got back from wherever and now she's gone with him all the time."

Ranma pushed off the feeling of loneliness that threatened to mug her.

"Happoai's gone for the summer, Tenchi's gone. I have no one to spar with and I've about learned what I can from the Anything Goes library."

She stood upon her rock and stretched.

"Well, I leave in a few days for my training trip," Ranma said to herself. "It'll be fun to hit the road for a little while."

-------------

Washu removed the 'Pocket Jurai Power and Aura Recorder with Handy Built-in Pen Light and Toothpick' that Tenchi returned to her from her pocket and placed it carefully onto a three prong receptacle atop of a sculpture-like device of light and glass. The glow emitting from the reader flared slightly brighter before returning to its original brightness as it began to pulse in rhythmic manner.

After making sure the recorder was firmly secure in the reader, Washu crossed the vast room filled that was her lab and seated herself onto a levitating chair with one leg tucked underneath the other. She brought the square keyboard to life and began typing away. Several translucent screens that were floating unsupported in midair just behind where the keyboard was stationed, came to life and displayed information of pictures and columns of text that flashed by too fast for any ordinary person to read.

Washu's brow furrowed.

"This is odd," she thought. "There's definitely two spikes here, but they're both connected. The first and longer signature is defiantly ki. The second one is more powerful and it was quickly shielded or suppressed."

Fingers once again danced over the glass-like keyboard which responded in a array of lights and sounds.

"The non-ki spike was only readable for one ten-thousandths of a second," she thought with an increasing furrowed brow. "If I can slow the recorder and isolate the channel, I should be able to see what this energy looks like."

Making a few minor adjustments, Washu smiled while thinking, "If it wasn't for the modified Venkman, Stantz and Spengler detector I refined and built into the recorder, I wouldn't have the readings I have."

She was glad for her subscription of 'Paranormal Quarterly' that had an article detailing the modifications written by a Dr. Yachi.

Watching the changing patterns of the screens, Washu eyes narrowed in concentration. Slowing the recorder, isolating the channel and amplifying what little was detected in the brief instant the energy spike existed, took Washu forty more minutes of work. The end result was a waveform, looking like a doughnut made up of bands of various diameters, displayed on one of the larger of the floating screens. Several of the bands that made up the waveform crossed over the center 'hole' part of the doughnut shape and created an infinity loop. The arrangement was unique.

But not too unique.

"I've seen this before, somewhere," Washu thought as she studied the intricate structure of the waveform. "But where have I seen it?"

Washu stared at the waveform, titling her twelve year old looking head to one side. She continued to puzzle over what the waveform could mean and what it reminded her of.

"Time to do some good, old fashioned research," she thought firmly to herself. She turned her attention to her floating keyboard and brought up yet another screen.

-----------------

When are you planning to head out?" Akiko asked.

Tomorrow morning," Ranma replied. "I want to get as far as Ueda before sunset."

"What's in Ueda?" Michiko asked.

"There's a dojo there that specializes in thrown weaponry I want to check out," Ranma explained in a very excited voice. "It requires excellent control of ki to even attempt it. It involves being able to infuse, control and steer an object by just using your ki. I want to see if I can learn it."

"That sounds difficult," Michiko commented. "Are you sure you can do it?"

Ranma looked as her sister through half-lidded eyes.

"Sorry," Michiko said with a grin. "Stupid question."

Ranma dropped the look and returned the grin.

"You wanna come along?" Ranma asked, half serious.

"I'm not that adventuresome," Michiko replied.

"This is from someone who is starting to race motorcycles," Ranma pointed out.

"Well... that's different ," Michiko answered, slightly sheepishly. "I know what I'm doing."

"Well, I know what I'm doing," Ranma replied happily. "This is like old school for me."

"Well, if you're going hiking and camping I'll get some nonperishable foods together for you," Akiko said while smiling at the younger girl's excitement. "I'll be in the kitchen, do you need any help packing?"

"No Granny," Ranma informed. "When I get up tomorrow, I'll grab some clothes, my old pack and my hiking shoes."

"And money and the cell phone," Michiko chimed in.

"Right," Akiko agreed. "Now Ranma I know you can take care of yourself, but I expect a phone call from you at least once a day."

"Granny, you don't have to worr-," Ranma began, only to be cut off by the stern, yet caring look from her grandmother. Ranma knew there was no debate here and did the only thing she could do. "Yes ma'am," she answered, while tugging the base of her pony tail.

Akiko smiled at the younger girl.

---------------

Today was the day.

Ranma stretched and yawned while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Looking over at her still sleeping sister, Ranma smiled.

"It is good to be home," she thought. "But I wanna hit the road before it gets too late."

Silently moving, Ranma entered the hallway and stopped before the storeroom door, the one filled with unused tables and chairs, to retrieve a piece of her past. Opening the door, she scooted around the small, cramped room, around the many stored items. Making her way to the corner, where some of the families personal effects were stored, Ranma began to rummage through an old cardboard produce box. Digging around for what she sought only took a few seconds as she pulled a bulky item out, something she hadn't seen since after the first week she arrived at the restaurant.

Her old pack.

Her other, newer pack was lightweight and held almost all the clothes she took to and from school, but it wasn't as durable as her old leather one. Ranma held the old weather-beaten pack up to the filtered, morning light coming through the window and examined it as if were an ancient artifact. She looked over the heavily creased surface, the darker splotches that dotted the lower half of the lightly tanned bag and the heavy straps that were still held in place by the slightly rusted metal pins. The edges of the leather, where it was stitched together with heavy twine-like threads, were more than a little frayed. Overall though, it wasn't in too bad of a shape and still very serviceable.

She smiled and put it on experimentally.

It felt different. Ranma blinked at that. It wasn't quite the same as she remembered it.

"It use to feel so much different before," she puzzled. "I wonder what's changed?"

Ranma removed the pack and examined it again. She watched the empty, battered old pack sag in her hand.

"That's it," she thought with a renewed smile. "There's nothing in it. The last time I had this I had everything I owned shoved into it."

Ranma almost reconsidering taking it. The backpack was an old thing, a part of her past that she wondered if she just should forget. Forget taking her old pack. Forget even going on this trip. Ranma shook her head and shrugged off the almost overpowering sense of nostalgia as she squeezed through the storeroom back toward the door.

"This is going to be fun," she reaffirmed to herself. "It'll be great to hit the road for a bit. See things, do things...

She closed the door of the store room behind her.

"... see Tenchi again."

A faint smile crossed her lips.

She froze on that, shook her head and quickly added, "For sparring purposes only! He's only a friend."

Ranma made her way back to the room that she shared with Michiko. Once there, she carefully organized and packed her old pack with clothes, socks and underwear - remembering to leave the dreaded green, frilly ones behind. Once packed, she re-shouldered her pack and nodded to herself.

"Much better," she thought as she rounded her shoulders, letting her backpack settle into place. "Head down and pack some food. Wait for Michiko to wake up so I can say good-bye and then check the train schedules."

--------------------

It was late at night or as it were, early morning when Ami rubbed her tired eyes.

Ranma had left on a training trip a few days ago, but that didn't matter. There was only one Mercury computer and only one person could read it at a time. For the first three days, they took turns reading the vast information displayed on the tiny screen. But the information was so massive that they took to skimming what looked interesting in a hit-and-miss fashion with little positive results. There had to be a way to narrow it down further, but Ami was at a lost on how.

"There has to be a way to narrow this down some more," Ami thought slightly peeved that she couldn't find what she wanted. "There's over eighty-five hundred files here between these guys."

Ranma, before she left, realized the problem before Ami did and suggested they should reconsider working on this since there was no real reason to pursue it. Ami, being the curious type, forged ahead.

Ami paged through the lists of projects than the 'super seven', as Ranma dubbed them, worked on. They all had long lists and two or three had ridiculously long lists. At first they thought there must have been a mistake, but no. There was no mistake.

The 'super seven' were engaged in what seemed to be every major project that the Moon Kingdom had. It was fascinating stuff, but unfortunately next to the file names where a brief description would be listed was the word 'classified' marked in red. These files were beyond their reach to delve into so they had to be satisfied with looking at the mysterious project names.

Fortunately, the files they could access had accurate descriptions next to them, so it was easy to weed out such things as 'Stargates', 'Space Folding' and 'Reflex Based Weaponry' projects from their search. The remaining unflagged red files were still daunting.

"How can seven people accomplish so much in one life?" Ranma had asked. "I mean they must have worked nonstop from the moment they were born until they dropped dead - probably from exhaustion."

"Maybe they had longer life spans," Ami suggested. "After all the Senshi had longer life spans. With the right conditions, medical technology and genetics - who knows how long people lived during the Silver Millennium?"

Ranma shrugged as a response to Ami's suggestion.

"There are a great deal of projects listed for medicine and genetics, and they managed to bind our souls with planetary power," Ami reminded. "Who knows what else they were capable of?"

Ranma nodded, but didn't really have a reply to that.

-------------------

Washu moved among the rows of closet-sized lockers that was located in a dimly lit corner of her immense lab. She would select one, seemingly at random, look through it, before moving onto another random locker in the row.

"According to my archives, it should be in this block of lockers," she thought as she dug through another oversize locker. "I know I put it here, I know I did."

Opening another closet size locker, Washu was immediately buried in a pile of yellowed paper, a device that resembled a rack of large, long tubes and other miscellaneous small items.

"That is it! I have got to get my older stuff better organized," she griped aloud while pulling herself from the bottom of the pile.

"I swear, I never thought...," her voice trailed off as she picked up a cylindrical object from the floor.

"That's where that got to!" she cackled excitedly, forgetting her earlier indignation. "I always wondered what happened to my sonic screwdriver."

Pocketing the device, she summoned one of the robotic clean up crew to repack the locker before moving on to the next.

"It's around here somewhere," Washu thought determinedly as she dug through another locker. "I know it is."

------------------

After traveling three quarters of the day, Ranma arrived in Ueda.

It was a nice sized city that ran along the valley of the Chikuma River valley. Ranma watched the landscape go by as the nearby as the tree covered Mounts Eboshi and Taro framed the scene. She reveled in the feel of the wind blowing through her hair and the warmth of the sun caressing her body. The cityscape in the foreground couldn't mask the natural beauty that surrounded the city.

"This is a nice looking place," Ranma commented as she watched the train near a bridge as it approached the Ueda Station. "The kind of place that I might look to settle down in."

Ranma studied the areas near the tracks, looking for a good place to get off.

"And if my sources are right," she mused as she spied a good place to get off coming up. "That is, if what I found on the internet is to be believed, then a practitioner of an unusual martial arts has a small dojo here."

Jumping from her resting place on the roof of train, Ranma alighted not far from where a local line crossed under the JR line. Removing a map from her back pocket, Ranma looked about for landmarks to find her bearing.

"Lets see... the tracks cross here...," she thought as she took in her surroundings, "... a National Road is northeast of here... Shinshu University is here... hmmm..."

Ranma's brow furrowed as she studied the map.

"West," she concluded. "If I head west, I can meet National Road 141 where it splits and follow that north. Then I can head west on this road," she continued her thoughts as she traced her route on the map, "and that will take me by Uedahigashi High School. The Seiji Dojo is just northwest of there."

"Or," Ranma thought with great mirth as she carefully folded the map and placed it back in her back pocket, "I could roof hop and just head straight north from where I'm at..."

With a broad smile on her face, she donned her backpack and leapt on the nearest telephone pole. From there, onto the nearest rooftop and she headed due north.

------------------

It took far longer for Washu to find what she was looking for, but to be fair, she didn't think she'd have to go that far back. Way far back.

Almost to the beginning.

It appeared to be a flat, unremarkable looking pane of dark colored glass. Washu studied it carefully for damage.

"It looks like it's okay," she thought as she looked for obvious signs of damage. "The stasis field successfully protected it from age."

Finding no damage or decay, she held out out before her in one hand as the other touched a flushed, unnoticeable key. Washu felt a certain thrill when the the device opened itself on its motorized hinges.

She smiled while looking at the exposed keys, "It has been a long time."

She couldn't resist activating it first, before plugging it into her newer, better system. Washu carefully removed a small, flat object, about the size and thickness of a nickel from the smooth, glass-like surface and pressed it against her temple. The disk glowed and grew into a semitransparent visor that cover Washu's eyes, but was still clear enough not to obstruct her vision.

Patterns of light danced on the flat handset that she held, before settling on a grid. Tapping the just formed keys on the handset, the visor began displaying it's startup sequence.

"Welcome to the Mars Computer," Washu read. "Please stand by as startup completes."

----------------

Ranma looked at the sky and reveled in such a perfect day. She was only three days out of Ueda, on her way to Okayama. Her progress had been slowed by being sidetracked by almost every dojo or shrine she ran across. She hadn't done anything comparable in well over two years and was throughly enjoying herself. She had made good time between the visits to the dojos and shrines that she discovered, and found herself approaching the outskirts of Gifu. She was tired, but happy and was looking forward to a good soaking bath in a public bath house.

"This is just what I needed," Ranma thought happily as she walked along the road. "The dojo in Ueda was still the best I visited so far! Who would've thought that ping-pong balls could be used in such an offensive way?"

Birds whistled overhead as Ranma decided that the tree tops were the place to be. Using a bit of ki, she leapt onto a tall branch of a nearby tree and began tree hopping. Tree hopping was far more challenging than the roof hopping she used to. Having to track and watch out for the many branches in the way of her target branch and an occasional weak one that broke when she landed, kept her on her toes. She found the thrill of the unexpected exciting.

Then there was the too unexpected.

The previous day, when she was at the apex of a tree hop, a stray bird flew right into her flight path, hitting her shoulder before entangling itself in her flowing hair. This had the effect of upsetting Ranma's fine balance and she tumbled uncontrollably to the ground. Ranma frantically batted her hands around as she desperately tried to free herself from her unwanted passenger and tried to regain her balance. Her efforts to right herself in mid-air failed, but she managed to succeed by snagging the end of a passing tree branch just before touch down.

Once coming to rest on terra firma, she carefully untangled her hair and freed the black bird that she netted. Watching the panicked bird fly away, Ranma started to giggle.

"All the power at my disposable and I nearly get taken out by a stray bird," she thought with a chuckle. "A stupid bird."

Though the fall wouldn't have killed her, it could have seriously injured her. Combing her hair back, she quickly redid it into a long, rope-like pig tail. After assuring herself that her hair was put back safely, she took to the trees once again.

That was yesterday, today Ranma was whistling a happy tune as she continued into Gifu where she would rest for the night.

"At this rate," she though while whistling, "I'll make Okayama in two - four days tops. Unless I find more cool dojos like I have been doing."

Paralleling the road that followed the Nagara River into Gifu, Ranma happily hopped from one tree to the next until the treetops turned into rooftops. She then took to the streets and walked. As Ranma entered city proper, she took in the sky and noted the changing weather and made plans to find someplace to sleep indoors for the night.

--------------------

"This Hans Zarkov must have been an overachiever," Ami commented to herself. "Over sixteen hundred projects, most of which I have no idea what they are."

Ami was back at paging through the files of the 'super seven', but now she found the official title was 'Tech-master'. To Ami though, 'super seven' sounded - cooler.

Ami skimmed the summaries for the 'Space Field Modifier Generator' and 'Sub-Field Gravitational Stabilizers' and shook her head. So much of the alien terminology was lost to her. She had spent a great deal of time looking for some sort of glossary or dictionary of terms, but was either met with failure or the definitions that were found contained even more alien words.

The next person on the list was a Elias Huer. He had nearly the same amount as Zarkov with a list of descriptions just as cryptic. The next two names on the list had a mixed bag of classified and mostly unclassified file listings. The last three names were women. That pleased Ami to no end.

The first women on the list had no classified files. Ami felt disappointed in this, but after scanning the lists for anything useful, she moved on.

Ami looked at the next overachiever on the list. She was involved in everything from the 'Folding Hyper-space Pockets' to mundane sounding things as 'Gravitational Deep-space Probes'. What really drew Ami's attention was the large number of projects that this Techno-mage was involved in that were labeled classified in comparison to the others. About eighty percent were classified.

The next woman was even worse, as far as being able to access her files. There were so many projects marked in red it looked like the screen was bleeding. In a sense it was, this Techno-mage had almost all of her projects listed as classified.

Neither her or Ranma attempts to open any of the red flagged, classified files came to anything and they were reluctant to call Usagi in for help. They both agreed that calling Usagi would be the last, desperate act that they would do. They would first exhaust any and all other possible venues of search first.

"Ranma is right, there is no real emergency or urgency," Ami thought to herself. "I could read over the files that we have access to at our leisure. This is mostly an exercise in curiosity, not need."

Ami shut down and put away her computer and prepared for bed.

"Besides," she mused, "it's summer break. I have to have some fun sometime."

Clambering onto her bed and pulling the sheets over her, she had one last, sleepy thought, "For now, I'll be content with reading over Hans Zarkov, Elias Huer and the other Tech-master's records to see where that leads me...."

Ami stretched and yawned underneath the covers, letting the comfortable warmth of the muscles relax her.

"... and leave Tech-master's Washu Hakubi and Tsunami Jurai's files for another time."

-----------------

Notes:

Howdy all!

Other chapter completed.

I don't know if it is proper etiquette to do this, but I've seen other writers do this - so what the heck.

---

On 2004-11-12, Togashi Gaijin wrote:

--I'm surprised no one has caught on to Ranma's roommate yet.--

Heh. Not everyone has access to the fansubs of Tenshi na Konamaiki. :)

-You got it!

Crowd goes crazy, screaming, yelling and throwing confetti, balloons, women's undergarments...

... women's undergarments?

"Happosai! Stop that!"

For those who don't know: Tenshi na Konamaiki (or A Cheeky Angel, as released by Viz) is the story of a boy, Megumi Amatsuka, who makes a wish on a cursed book to be a 'man among men'... and gets turned into a girl.

Hmm...

When I saw that, I thought, "What a prefect roommate for Ranma - so much in common".

---

On 2004-11-14 Anonymous wrote:

Also I think that it's Tsunami's plan for Tenchi to marry all 5 of them, and it's no coincidence that Washu, her daughter Ryoko, and her great-great-granddaughter Mihoshi all met Tenchi, as well as the 2 Juraian princesses, one of whom is assimilated with Tsunami, Washu's sister.

-I have only watched the OVA's, but I did look up a few sites on the internet and was surprised on how the writers of the anime had changed the characters - major ones - from one series to the next. Some of the changes were enough that on some of the sites I had looked up, had to write the characters bios as "in the OVA's she was this, in the TV series she was that, in 'Techi in Tokyo' she was changed to this" - and remember, this was a bio for the same character. I will most likely try to stick with what I know, extrapolate from there and put my 'spin' on the characters as I go along. As you can tell, I already started on Washu and Tsunami.

If I had been Ami, I would have wanted to observe at least one of Ranma and Tenchi's sparing matches and get some readings on his power.

- bonk , bonk , bonk (sound of author beating head against desk)

You're right. I wish I could say I thought of that, but that would be lying. I can't believe I missed that, especially when Ami is right there!

You know, I'm gonna have to go back and add something in there now.

You should go over your story and correct some mistakes in grammer and spelling.

-I fully intend on revisiting and revising the earlier chapters before I got a good, steady pre-reader. Right now though, I'd like to concentrate on getting the story out. I'm afraid if I go back and start revising my earlier chapters, I would get bogged down doing that and not make any progress on the story.

Thanks for reading.