Storms of Change
A Ranma ½ / Love Hina crossover
By: Kiikun

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½ or Love Hina and did not ask permission for their use. I make no money off of this and have no money to begin with, so suing me won't get you much.

01 – A Bolt from the Blue

On a small, one-town island in Japan's Okinawa prefecture, Otohime Mutsumi was walking barefoot through the watermelon patch set near the back of her family's property. She wore a sun bonnet and a dress with the skirt pulled up to her knees from its normal angle length. She had her hair tied in twin loose braids tied high near the back of her head.

Nearby, her younger twin sisters, Akari and Kagari, were playing with the family dog, Pochi. They both wore identical simple light tan dresses. Their hair was wild and short, not reaching past their shoulders, and had twin 'antennae' like their eldest sister's.

Mutsumi was tending to her watermelons while watching them. She was surprised when Akari called out to her.

"Oneechan, what's that?" Akari asked as she pointed past her in the direction of the distant storm clouds.

"It's just a storm, Akari," Mutsumi said to her with a smile. "No need to worry about it. It won't be coming this way."

"No, no, Oneechan, not the storm, that other thing," she said waving her arm around while still pointing at it.

She took a bit longer looking this time, and noticed something falling from the sky. It took a moment, but she was able to recognize it as a person very high in the air.

"It looks like a skydiver," she said after a moment.

"What's that?" Kagari asked from her spot on the ground where she was petting Pochi.

Mutsumi looked thoughtful for a second. "A person who likes to jump out of planes and fall back to the earth. They wear backpacks that let out a big cloth that slows them down before they hit the ground."

After a minute, Akari spoke up again. "When do they let that big cloth out?"

"I'm not sure exactly," Mutsumi said to the kids watching the person in the sky as she turned to look up herself. She noted how close the person was coming and idly thought they should have released the chute by now. As her eyes refocused, she noticed the person didn't even have a parachute!

She spun around and glanced over the area. "Akari, Kagari, get behind that tree with Pochi! Now!" she said in panic as she moved behind another tree herself while the twins scampered to theirs with Pochi close behind.

The moment the girls got behind their tree, the 'skydiver' crashed into the ground where they had just been playing and kicked up a large cloud of dirt that hid the sight from view.

Mutsumi waved the children back as she approached the newly-formed crater, afraid of what she would find. The wind was slowly blowing the dirt-cloud away as it settled back down. In the darkness, she began to see a mass of red which caused her to pale. As more light filtered into the area it revealed that the red was not blood, as she thought it was, but hair.

Resisting the urge to let her body shut down from the shock of the sight, she stepped towards the crater to check on the person. The person, a girl, was still in one piece, but what wasn't already buried was naked and burned badly in some manner. It wasn't fire burns, Mutsumi knew that much, but they looked bad. She checked for a pulse at her wrist and was surprised to find it there and still strong.

Turning to her sisters, who were standing back far enough to not be able to see into the crater, she told them to go to the house and tell Ojiisan that the girl needed to get to the hospital quickly, and to bring a blanket. As the girls and Pochi ran to the house, Mutsumi started digging the girl out.

Mutsumi was pulling the girl out of the hole when Ojiisan, Akari, Kagari, and Nanami, her second eldest younger sister, came running back with the cart in tow behind Ojiisan. Nanami twin ponytails ran up behind her as she ran up with the blanket and covers the naked redhead. A quick lift onto the cart and they were off to the hospital.

The hospital was not exactly a large building by any standard. It was only two stories high and footing no larger than the average high school. In fact, the building had once been a school decades ago, but population growth left it unable to serve its purpose and a newer school was built elsewhere, so it was renovated to be used as the 'new' hospital.

A doctor was waiting for them when the reached the main entrance, thanks to a quick phone call from the Otohime matriarch, Natsumi, and they quickly moved the unconscious redhead from the cart to an awaiting stretcher. The doctor rushed with the girl to an examining room while everyone else waited in the lobby.

Ojiisan had to leave before the doctor came back out, and took the cart with him. When the doctor finally did emerge from the examination room, he looked over at them worriedly for a moment before smiling.

"She's stable and resting for now," he said as they approached within hearing range. He turned to Mutsumi, "Can you tell me what happened to the young lady and what you know about her?"

"We don't know who she is, she just fell out of the sky on us," Mutsumi said. "We got her here as quickly as possible."

"Hmm," the doctor mumbled while rubbing his chin absentmindedly. "Not that I doubt you, Mutsumi-chan, but you are sure she fell out of the sky and not a tree?"

"She fell from way, way up!" Akari said while waiving her hands in the air as a representation. "Way higher than the trees. Maybe she fell from the clouds?"

He looked at the young girl momentarily before giving Mutsumi a questioning glance, who in turn nodded. "Well," he said with a sigh, "she doesn't appear to have any injuries from that. A lot of burned skin, probably electrical burns, but nothing critical. Though I really can't explain what caused so many burns like that on her. She also appeared to have had a hit to her head, a hard one, but it didn't look like there was any bone damage, just bruising."

The twins looked at the doctor questioningly. They didn't understand much of what he said besides 'she was burned and hit her head, but didn't break anything'.

"Skydiving Oneechan is going to be ok?" Kagari looked up to the doctor worriedly.

"That's what he said," Nanami answered for the doctor. "But how long will she be recovering?"

The doctor rubbed his chin in thought again. "Maybe... a month or two for the burns to heal completely. I still want to X-ray her, incase she has any minor bone fractures, but that would mean a trip to the mainland hospitals and I would rather wait until tomorrow to take her there. Right now she needs rest."

"We'll be allowed to visit her, right?" the eldest of the quartet asked.

"Unless the girl's family expressly forbids it, in this case, I don't see a problem."

The four girls bowed to the doctor and thanked him before they headed back home.

Back home, Mutsumi found Ojiisan out at the crater, trying to fill it up as to not be a lawn hazard anymore.

The next morning, the doctor walked into his newest redheaded patient's room to prepare her for the trip across the ferry to one of the mainland hospitals. He was surprised when he actually looked at her and thought the lights or his eyes were playing tricks on him. Had her burns not been as bad as he first thought?

After a quick re-examination, he noticed that almost all the burns were healing at a much faster rate than normal. Also that bruise on the girl's head now looked more like she had just bumped her head on something instead of the baseball bat strike it had looked like.

He shook his head in confusion. No one should be able to heal as fast as the girl before him was, it was just impossible. Yet, here before him she lay. Her burns would be gone by the end of next week at the rate she was healing, probably sooner too.

Later that day, Mutsumi, Nanami, and the twins went to visit the girl they had rushed there the day before. After checking in with the duty nurse, they went straight to her room.

They were only there a few minutes before the doctor came in to speak to them.

"You've undoubtedly noticed how much better she looks," he said as he entered the room.

"Yeah! Whatever medicine you're giving her must be good!" Nanami exclaimed after having looked over the girl's burns and comparing them to what she saw yesterday.

The doctor sighed. "I have given her no medication yet," he said to the confused expressions of the older two. "Somehow, she's healing this fast on her own."

"How is that possible?" Mutsumi asked.

"I've talked with some colleagues, and given her muscle tone," he said gesturing to the girl, "she must be some kind of martial artist. They said they usually only saw 'advanced natural healing' like hers among martial artists and other people who get harmed often."

"Maybe she wasn't as injured as we thought?" Nanami asked.

The doctor shook his head. "No, she was as injured as I first said, probably worse before she landed in your yard. I couldn't find a single broken bone, and she didn't appear to have a concussion."

"How long skydiving Oneechan going to have to stay here?" Akari asked.

"Probably after she wakes up," he said smiling down at the twins, who in turn smiled back up at him.

"And when will that be?" Natsumi asked.

"That, I don't know," he sighed. "At the rate she's healing though, I hope before the end of the week."

Mutsumi nodded. "We will keep visiting, but can you call us when she wakes? I don't think she would like to be surrounded by only medical staff," she said with a smile.

"I shall," he said.

The Otohimes stayed a few more minutes before heading home.

Two days later shortly after noon, the phone at the Otohime residence rang. There were only three people in the house at the moment. One was sleeping away the day as usual and another was busy studying in her room. That left the third to answer it.

"Moshi Moshi, Otohime Natsumi speaking," she happily greeted the caller.

"Greetings, Otohime-san. The doctor told me to call and tell you that Akage-chan has woken up," the nurse said with a hint of happiness and worry.

"Akage-chan? So that is her name. Have you contacted her family as well?"

"Ah... um... Actually, we don't know her name," she said worriedly. "That's just the name we call her around the offices because of her hair. We didn't like calling her 'that girl in 118'."

Actually, the nurse that had given her a sponge bath had nicknamed her that after finding out the hair color was definitely natural. She had used lukewarm water because the girl's burns hadn't healed yet and she didn't want to aggravate them.

"Ok, thank you. I will tell my daughters," she said moments before hanging up.

Natsumi walked across the house to Mutsumi's room and knocked on the frame.

"Yes?" Mutsumi called out from inside.

Natsumi opened the door to find her eldest daughter sitting at the low table and surrounded by the usual pile of watermelons.

"The hospital just called. Our little unexpected guest has woken up," she said with a smile as Mutsumi stood up.

"Ara ara! She must be feeling better now. Maybe I should bring her a watermelon or three," she said as she clasped her hands together with a huge smile on her face.

Natsumi went back to hanging the laundry as Mutsumi collected a few watermelons to bring to the hospitalized girl.

Mutsumi had just arrived at the hospital when the nurses held her up from going to 'Akage's' room. They asked her to wait in the lobby for the doctor to come and explain the situation to her, which confused her that the nurses couldn't do it. The doctor came after a few minutes.

"Mutsumi-chan," the doctor said as he sat down across from her looking worried. "There has been a... complication with the girl."

"What's wrong with her?" she asked, now mirroring his worried expression.

"Amnesia," he said with a sigh. "She doesn't remember who she is, where she lives, or anything to help identify her. The bruise on her head when she came may have been the cause, or it may have been the electrical burns overloaded her nervous system and caused the memory loss," he sighed.

"She's going to get her memories back though, right?"

"We don't know when, or even if, she will. I called for a neurologist to come and look at her, but he won't be here until the day after tomorrow. The reason I wanted to talk to you first was because we don't want to stress her too hard yet. She needs a friend right now more than a doctor, and I was thinking that you and your siblings could be that."

Mutsumi smiled at him. "I would be glad to. I think Na-chan and the twins will as well."

The doctor nods and stands, holding a hand out for Mutsumi. "Let's go see her, Mutsumi-chan. I told her the nurses have been calling her 'Akage', but she doesn't seem to like the name."

They entered the room and Mutsumi walked over to the confused redhead and smiled.

"Hello," Mutsumi said with a smile.

"Are you another doctor?" the girl said worriedly.

"No, I am not. You dropped in on me and my sisters and we brought you here."

The redhead looked curiously at Mutsumi for a moment before asking, "Do you know who I am?"

She looked down at the redhead with a sad smile before hugging her gently. "I'm sorry. The doctor told me you didn't like the name 'Akage'."

The redhead hugged her back, albeit nervously for some reason.

"Is there a name you want to go by?"

She shook her head. "I want to know my real name, but my head hurts each time I try to remember anything."

"Don't force yourself. You'll remember sooner or later," she said with a smile after pulling away. "I forget lots of things, often!" she giggled.

She looked at the older girl for a moment before laughing herself.

Mutsumi smiled as the girl laughed. She really needed it right now. "How about I come back later with my sisters and we can fix your hair? Maybe we can even make up a name you'll like to use until you remember your own." she smiled.

"My hair?" she asked as she reached around to pull some loose hair into her field of vision. Her hair barely reached past her shoulders now and the ends were all dark from having been burned. While examining her hair with her hands, she did find a small amount that was still long enough to put back in the pigtail she used to wear, not that she remembered it, but it was still singed badly. She looked up at Mutsumi, scared. "What happened to me?"

She held the girl's trembling hand "You were burned by something. I don't know how much the doctor wants me to tell you, so I think you should ask him. But your fine now," she smiled and firmed her grip to reassure the redhead.

Mutsumi left shortly after because she had to meet her siblings after school. She gave the girl the watermelons she brought, much to the girl's confusion as what to do with them.

Mutsumi returned awhile later with Nanami, the twins, and her mother. Ojiisan was still at home watching Tamami, Tsukumo, and Pokari making sure they stayed out of trouble, Tsukumo especially. He had a knack of causing trouble.

After the introductions, and a quieting down of the twins, Natsumi and Nanami started working on the redhead's hair. They decided to cut it short and abandon the burned parts. In the end, she had a hairstyle similar to the twins, including the 'antennae'.

"Oooooh! You look so cute!" Natsumi gushed as she hugged the redhead while said girl just blushed at the attention and the others laughed.

"Th-Thank you," she said nervously for some reason.

After a bit of idle chatter, Mutsumi thought of something. "Have you remembered or decided on a name?" she asked.

The redhead fidgeted a moment before shaking her head.

"How about 'Akage' because of your hair?" Akari asked.

Nanami sighed. "The nurses are already calling her that and she doesn't like it. How about 'Nanashi'? I think it sounds cute," she said with a grin.

Natsumi looked at her third daughter questioningly. "You want to name the poor girl 'nameless', Na-chan?"

"I just thought it sounded cute," Nanami pouted.

Mutsumi taped her chin for a moment while thinking. "How about 'Mei'?"

Natsumi looked at the redhead and smiled. "Actually, I think 'Ikumi' fits her better. Do you like that one?"

She sat there and mouthed the name for a moment before she smiled. "I think I like that one. Better to be searching than 'lost', right?" Ikumi smiled.

"Wai! Ikumi-neechan!" the twins squeeled as they hoped up on the bed and hugged the newly named girl, who was just startled by the outburst. After a moment she smiled and hugged the girls back.

She looked up from the twins to the eldest Otohime. "Thank you, Otohime-san," she smiled.

Natsumi smiled back. "It's actually time for us to leave. I'll speak to the doctor about letting Mutsumi-chan bring you some food. I know the food they serve here isn't exactly delectable."

Meanwhile, back in Nerima, darkness had settled on the ward. Everyone had heard of that the Tendo heir has done to her fiancé, and in turn what the okonomiyaki chef had done to her. Akane was still in a nearby hospital, sporting a number of scars and a badly broken arm currently in a cast. No one has any idea what happened to Ranma afterwards though. Some are adamant that he's still alive somewhere, while others are saying the storm probably vaporized him.

Kuno has been parading around claiming that he defeated the 'vile sorcerer'. Ukyo disappeared the day after the storm and Konatsu was now running Ucchan. Kodachi had not left the Kuno Mansion since she heard the news, but her dear brother would only say that she was 'overcoming the spells the sorcerer placed on her.'

The Tendo Dojo was filled with mixed emotions. Soun was wailing about his baby girl getting hurt and that the schools wouldn't be joined. Genma was complaining about his cowardly 'weak girl' of a son. Akane's sisters were disgusted with her. They knew the couple had arguments, and that Akane was less that forgiving with him, but she had most likely just killed him. Nabiki had said so, quite loudly, to her the one time she visited the hospital. Nodoka, though, was oddly quiet and rarely left her room. She had said a few times that her son was unmanly for not returning, but to Nabiki it sounded weak and strained.

Nabiki had contacted the police to put a missing persons report in. She knew something was wrong since Ranma hadn't returned within the day, and they had better resources for finding someone than she did. The only odd thing she told them was that she only wanted them to contact her or Kasumi when they found him, not bring him home or tell anyone else. Surprisingly, they agreed to that, having heard the rumors about town about the household.

The Nekohanten wasn't much quieter. The moment she heard about what Akane did, she had grabbed her sword from her room and was about to 'get rid of the obstacle' when her great grandmother knocked her out with a few pressure points. Cologne thought it better to wait a bit longer before letting the girl carry out the widow's rights, and then it would be best to kidnap Akane and take them all back to the village. Mousse was left to take the brunt of her aggression for the moment. She had threatened to stir-fry him, seriously.

Author's Notes: Thank you everyone that reviewed. I really didn't want to touch back with the NWC as soon as I have, and didn't really have enough space to do anything justice, so please forgive the hyper-compressed bit of Nerima. I also didn't really want to get to the naming this soon either. I was hoping to get Ideas from all of you, but I had to run with it since I wanted to get that done before Nerima. Originally I wanted to end it with Ranma asking a nurse "Who am I?" or something similarly cliché-ish / cliffhangy, but the pixies and imps wouldn't let me. Oh well.

As I said in the prologue's author's notes, I have no definite romantic pairings or anything yet regarding them. I'm only leaving the doors open for most and closing ones I know I wont use (Ranma/Akane Ranma/Shampoo). The situation with Ukyo is simply because I think she's smart enough to have realized after the disaster they made of the wedding, and the stories she heard about the battle with Saffron, that Akane had 'won'. She didn't want to just leave her with him though because of how Akane acts. Ukyo was trying to play a calming force between them instead of the instigator she was before. I might write a side story or something about the months leading up to this, but it's not priority at the moment.

RubberNeck: Actually, I think I overdid Akane a bit, but it was needed. I'm by no means an Akane fan, but some of the ogre-Akanes out there just overdo it by miles. The 'kind' Akane will be in this story too, but there was no reason for it in the prologue. I mean, come on, she mallets him for even the littlest things and walks off in a huff. Here she thinks something major happened and has basically blown a mental fuse. And I've got a few ideas on what to do to Akane. (note: Amazon 'Widow's Rights'… and you thought the Kiss of Death was bad evil grin)

Post-Post Note: I removed this earlier, but after RubberNeck's question, I thought it should be cleared up. At the moment Ranma/Ikumi is already in the manga-cannon Love Hina storyline, just that (s)he is there with Mutsumi while she's gone from Hinata (and thus the main LH storyline) for months. I've purposely timed it to be August 1999 because Mutsumi returns back to Hinata in November. Not really a spoiler, but Ranma/Ikumi will be going with her and that's when the main LH cast comes into play (and when the doors open for the NWC to stumble across him evil grin)

Otohimes by Age (manga-cannon):
Natsumi (, mother of 8)
Mutsumi (21, eldest daughter)
Chinami (, didn't see in manga)
Nanami (, high-tied ponytails on both sides of head)
Tamami (9-10, appears year later in 5th grade)
Tsukuro (8-9, appears year later in 4th grade, eldest and only son)
Akari and Kagari (, twins)
Pokari (, description for her said 'always sleeping')

Thanks to the people of Shinji's Sharing for helping me pre-read.
MGsaintz (for being my personal idea-board, you get top billing :P)
Shadowbakasama
Diablo

And thanks to everyone that reviewed. Please keep reading and reviewing and I'll keep the ideas flowing. (I was seriously giddy when you all reviewed so quickly.)