Falling to Earth

A Ranma ½ Fanfiction
by
Sinom Bre

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Chapter Three

Chakudan
(Impact)

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Kasumi watched Nabiki. Something gnawed at the older of her two younger sisters and had been doing so for two days. After Kasumi had heard from her friend concerning Jusenkyou on Wednesday morning, Nabiki had left for school but had come home after school almost an hour later than usual. She seemed all right at the time, but as the evening wore on, Nabiki's mood had slowly faltered for some inexplicable reason, although Kasumi entertained a half-formed suspicion.

The next morning, Nabiki had again seemed in regular spirits, had gone to school, and returned, but again, as the evening wore on, she seemed to fall into a mild depression. Oh, if anyone spoke to her, she seemed quite herself, but it was in unguarded moments that she lost her usual spark and either brooded or stared into space. Kasumi held her peace, but when she saw the pattern repeat itself on Friday and when she saw that even Akane, who was not nearly so sensitive to Nabiki's little signs, had noticed, she knew that something was seriously upsetting her normally unflappable sibling.

After the evening meal and the clean up, Kasumi prepared a tea tray and carried it out of the kitchen to the dining room, where Nabiki and her father desultorily watched what appeared to be one of those popular cooking show contests on the television and Akane made heavy weather of some homework at the other end of the table.

"Nabiki-chan, Akane-chan, would you join me in my room for a bit?" she asked.

Her two sisters looked up, surprised. Sisterly meetings weren't unheard of, but they'd just had one three days prior.

Soun, however, just smiled at them. "Ah, more secret girl talk is it?"

Kasumi smiled rosily at him—sometimes she just loved him to bits—but her smile turned a little mischievous. "Why, yes, Father, although I could loan you an apron and you could join us..."

Reddening slightly, Soun shifted uneasily and harrumphed, while Akane and Nabiki grinned at him.

"We'd have to shave off that mustache, Daddy, but it could be fun," Nabiki joked.

"I think I'll just stick with Iron Chef, if you don't mind," he said, smilingly slightly and finding the humor in the situation.

"Well, if you're sure..." Kasumi left the question hanging.

"Ahem! Quite."

"Then come along, ladies. Sinister female secrets await." Kasumi led a procession of giggling girls down the hall and up the stairs. Soun chuckled and turned back to his show.

- - -

Akane quickly nabbed a cookie once Kasumi had set the tea tray down on the floor of her room. "What's on your mind, Oneechan?" she asked.

Waiting to reply, Kasumi poured tea for Akane and Nabiki, and Akane returned the gesture by pouring for Kasumi. The eldest smiled and nodded at Akane in appreciation of the common courtesy, many times all too lacking with people. Nabiki just rather sat there, looking only half-interested and still somewhat dull.

"Well..." Kasumi finally began, "to be honest, I don't know what's wrong, but I was hoping Nabiki would enlighten us."

It took Nabiki a couple of seconds to register Kasumi's statement before she jumped. Whatever this confab was to be about, this she hadn't been expecting at all. "... What? About what?" She tore through her mind, looking for anything that might have been going on that related to the family. "We're all good, as far as I know." She frowned slightly. "Or has Daddy gone and done something silly again that I haven't heard about?"

"No, Nabiki." Kasumi sighed. "It's you that I'm concerned about."

"... Me?!" Nabiki was completely at sea, and it showed in her expression, as she looked quickly back and forth between Kasumi and Akane.

"Yes, you." Kasumi paused, pursing her lips and choosing her words, although in this case it wasn't for sensitivity. "You saw him Wednesday after school, didn't you..."

It was remarkable to Kasumi and, frankly, staggering to Akane to see Nabiki's emotions writ so plainly upon her face, in her posture, and from the frantic movement of her hands. "I! That is... I didn't... ... ..." Nabiki wilted. "Oh, freaking crap," she muttered, looking away from her sisters.

"Nabiki!" Kasumi scolded, but Akane burst into laughter.

"No denying it now, Oneechan," Akane said, still laughing. "So did you make any time with the hunky guy who saved you in a romantic, daring rescue against impossible odds?"

Kasumi looked at Akane with her mouth slightly open, and even Nabiki had to crack a weak smile at her older sister's reaction and Akane's sudden attack of melodrama. "Well... Truthfully, he was a she at the time. The whole time... And you wouldn't believe what I caught him, er... her doing."

"What?" Akane asked.

"I saw her put on one of the worst cutesy acts I've ever seen to scam some free taiyaki from a young guy running a cart. The weird thing is it worked like a charm. She had him wrapped around her little finger, big toe, and anything else you can imagine. Poor guy probably took an hour to recover. It was quite a performance, made even more amazing by how well it actually worked."

Akane scowled by this point. "So he's a pervert, after all?"

Rolling her eyes, Nabiki just shook her head. "No, Akane, not like that at all. Must anything even slightly left of center be perverted to you?" Akane huffed. "No, Akane, he seems to treat turning into a girl like, uh... like you would putting a bow in your hair... or deciding to put on a necklace. It's like an accessory... or maybe a tool, more like."

Still scowling, Akane shook her head in incomprehension. A tool? Tools with regard to gender flipping certainly sounded perverted to her.

"A tool?" Kasumi asked. "A tool for what?"

Nabiki sighed, losing her humor completely. "And that's the rub. The why of it, I mean. It's a tool to get food. Otherwise, I think he'd starve... or have to steal, and he claims that while he has stolen food, he doesn't like having to do it."

The other women digested that for a moment. "It sounds like his is a complicated story," Kasumi finally noted. Akane thought it might still be considered stealing, but she was having a hard time working out the ethical mechanics behind the idea.

"Yes... and no." Nabiki looked down and ran her hand along the tatami floor covering, feeling the texture of the weave on her fingertips while collecting her thoughts. "It depends on how you choose to look at it, I suppose. Depends on what your take on it is, on what you expect to take away from it.

"In one sense, his story is very simple. His father, who happens to be in jail at the moment for an unspecified length of time for food theft, has hauled him around on a martial arts training journey since he could walk, practically, and now they are in Nerima for some reason his father won't tell, or won't until he gets out of jail, apparently. They may very well be homeless, although he doesn't know anything about that either. Seems the father plays his cards close to the chest in everything. And so Ranma-kun is just knocking around until he finds out, one way or the other. End of story.

"It's simple because I thanked him for what he did and left. It's simple because I've got no use for a pair of itinerant martial artists in my life and in my plans, one of which is a convicted thief and the other a reluctant thief with permanent gender flux. End of story."

She reached up and played with some of her hair by her chin. "It sounds complicated at first blush, but I guess it's really simple when you lay it out like that." She scowled at something only she could see. "Simple for me, anyway." Nabiki crossed her arms and looked away, radiating defense of her thoughts and conclusions.

Akane struggled with everything Nabiki had said. It sounded like her sister had the matter neatly wrapped up, but something nagged at her that it was truly more complicated and was so in ways Akane couldn't recognize. Kasumi, on the other hand, had no such difficulties driving straight to the heart of the matter.

"You like him, don't you?" Kasumi declared, setting down her own tea and crossing her arms, albeit not as a gesture of defense but as one of certainty. "In spite of all that you've said is wrong, you still like him."

Nabiki said nothing, which spoke volumes, and Kasumi went on, uncharacteristically relentless. "I know you, sister. You have some of the highest standards in friends and acquaintances of anyone I know. For you to be this out-of-sorts, there must be something else going on here. Please tell us? Akane-chan and I care for you very much, and we'd like to help you with this trouble... and I feel like... you perhaps aren't being, mmm... entirely honest with yourself about some part of this."

Nabiki stayed silent, as did Akane, as that one felt she was still in more than a little over her head, but Nabiki eventually broke her posture, sighed, and leaned back with her hands on the floor behind her, supporting her.

"You just had to be there, Oneechan. Some people are just... there. Do you know what I mean?" She gestured helplessly. "They have... I don't know... power in them. You can feel it when you're around them that you are around them... Bah!" She brought up one hand to rake through her hair and then pull down her face. "That makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, it's not power like what Akane and I saw at the building, but like they're... bigger than life in even the smallest of things. When she laughs, the world laughs. When she cries, the world cries. She... He has... ... ... presence! Yes, that's the word, and it's like being next to a bonfire you can't see or touch, but you damn well feel it!"

Groaning, Nabiki leaned back forward and dumped her arms into her lap. Her helmet-cut hair swept forward to partially hide her face, as she went on in a different vein. "And there she is! Dirt poor! Sometimes a thief, and nothing and no education to her... damn! Nothing to his name!" She barked one strained laugh. "And the oddest thing keeps popping up in my head when I think about him, as if I can seem to stop thinking about him at all. I keep thinking what an incredible person she could have been under other circumstances. A genius? A world leader? Novelist? Business Tycoon? Like her presence, I can just feel potential coming off of her—ARGH! Him! Him! I can feel it coming off in waves! Half of me wants to grab him, her, whatever and make it all better and show him a bigger, better world! And half of me wants to stay the hell away from everything he represents, everything that's so fundamentally wrong with his life! I... I just don't know what I want!! What to do!!"

Both of Nabiki's sisters were shocked at the uncharacteristic emotion displayed by her and how she became increasingly strident as she went along. None of the three commented but rather sipped their tea and nibbled their cookies and thinking, absorbing, digesting.

As Kasumi mulled over Nabiki's words, one aspect of her attention was focused on the sudden, surprising changes in Nabiki's behavior, but another part of Kasumi was entirely unsurprised. That part had, in fact, known this or something along these lines was coming for a long time. Nabiki was, not to put too fine a point on it, a list maker. She knew what she wanted and had mile-long stacks of bullet points that had to be met before she would accept a thing... or a person. The problem, Kasumi knew, is that it truly only took one right person, one special person to send that scheme happily laughing out of the window, and the trick now was getting her sister to see that it wasn't a bad thing. Some lucky people managed to move beyond the list stage, managed to unbend and accept that good things can and did happen outside of checked-off lists, amazing, wonderful things even; unlucky ones did not. Which would Nabiki be?

"One thing is clear," Kasumi said, and the other two focused on her. "She... Sorry, he... No, let's say it right. Ranma-kun made an impact on you, Nabiki. A strong one. One that has you questioning your rules about how your world works and is supposed to be. Questioning your rules about how to live your life."

She paused and delicately massaged her lower lip between her teeth. "I suppose... there could be some residual, er... fascination? I'm not sure if that's the word I want to use, but there could be some fascination from you involved, since he did save you from, ah... Since he did save you." None of them wanted to actually put into words that Nabiki should have died that day.

"I know, Oneechan," Nabiki said, "and that thought has occurred to me, but... it's hard to separate it out from other feelings right now."

"Yes, I can see that, but it could also be that you're worrying about it too much. Trying too hard to make him fit your life view."

Nabiki frowned. "I understand your meaning, but I'm not sure to which part of this you're applying it."

"You'll have to pardon me, Nabiki-chan. This isn't easy to verbalize." Kasumi smiled gently. "It's all about feelings, and feelings are always... messy." That earned a snort from Nabiki, but Kasumi forged on. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that you're trying too hard to make him fit into your world and not giving it, be it friendship or otherwise, a chance to breathe and find its own fit."

"I... I, uh... Hmmm. Again, I understand, mostly, but could you be a little clearer, Oneechan?"

"Not everyone fits neatly into our little molds or pigeon holes, you know. And if you limit yourself to only those people who do fit neatly, you may miss something special. Truly wonderful friendships evolve, Nabiki; they don't just happen, usually. True friendship means knowing and yet accepting another's faults. While I will admit that some of what you told me about him is disturbing and that caution is advisable, the fact that it's bothering you as much as it is tells me that you are unhappy with your decision concerning a possible friendship with him. I think, deep in your heart, you know that just because he doesn't fit your pigeon holes you are not, as they say, giving him a fair shake."

Nabiki sat still, thinking about Kasumi's words.

"Nothing is written in stone on this," Kasumi continued, "and it may come to pass that nothing comes to pass, as it were, but at least you'll then be certain that it had nothing to do with cutting it down before it had a chance to live." She put down her cup of tea and laced her fingers together in her lap. "In other words, my dear sister, to use terms that you can easily identify with, it's a gamble, and right now it's one with very little to lose and possibly much to gain, even if you feel it's remote. The odds will shift somewhat the longer it goes on, but for right now... what have you got to lose?"

Kasumi refreshed everyone's tea, and let her sisters think over what she'd said. Their father's laughter carried up through the floor.

"You do know," Kasumi finally said, "that Father was a poor, itinerant martial artist before he married Mother. Something to remember."

Nabiki smiled crookedly. "All right, all right. You sold me. I suppose I could give it another chance and see how, ah... the odds run."

Kasumi beamed at her, and then she smiled conspiratorially. "Tomorrow is an off Saturday from school, and it's still more than two hours before dark..." She let the suggestion hang in the air.

Shaking her head and chuckling, Nabiki got up, hugged her sister, and left the room.

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"Nothin' doin', Pops. You peeved the wrong guys, this time, and they ain't budgin'. You're gonna have ta sit this out the full month, and there's three weeks ta go." Ranma rubbed his nose and then placed his hands on the crossbars of the jail cell door. The metal was uneven to the touch, layers of drab gray paint over old pits and scorings of rust. "Maybe you'd better be glad they ain't gonna ship you off to the prefectural prison and just count your blessings."

"I can't believe you couldn't cajole them into lessening the charges or even dropping them altogether," Genma intoned from his seated position in half-lotus in the middle of his cell floor. "I taught you better than that!"

Ranma rubbed a tired hand down his face; taught him better his ass. "Taught me what for shit like this? All you taught was to run like hell and move on to the next town! I don't remember nothin' about no Saotome Technique of Gettin' Charges Dropped! Been holdin' out of me, Oyaji?! I doubt it. I doubt talkin' folks down is any part of your trainin' either, so just clam up about teachin' me better'n that!" In the two days since he'd been raised to heaven and dropped to hell over his possible and then failed friend, Nabiki, Ranma had been going around and quietly speaking with the angry owners and proprietors of Nerima food shops concerning Genma's jail sentence and making zero progress. And he'd found out why.

"Face it, Pops. Even if you didn't know it, you put your foot in it this time. There's been a rash of 'lifters, and they all put in cameras to watch out for it. They got you dead to rights, and between the three of 'em that got you on tape, they figure you gobbled about 250,000 yen of food. And you're lucky you don't have a rap sheet here, Pops. Them owners were pushin' for a year at the prefectural prison, and that place ain't no picnic from what I hear outta the cops here. But since you were a first offender to the judge, he gave you an easy month of just squattin' in the local jail. The prison woulda had ya chained to a gang and buildin' roads all day or somethin'! So like I said, count your damned blessin's and shut the hell up about it!"

Genma said nothing, as he continued sitting with an inscrutable demeanor, and Ranma's aggravation with his father just seemed to climb another level since this whole Nerima escapade started. He knew that his father could've evaded capture with laughable ease, but he didn't. He went quietly! That was so... wrong for the man that was his father. Leopards don't change their spots, and it made Ranma uneasy and highly suspicious.

The silence between them had hung for almost a full minute, and Ranma wrinkled his nose. The air of the jail was pungent with the odor of bleach, but it didn't effectively mask the underlay of stale sweat and urine, and it was starting to get to him. Ranma caught a further whiff of something that smelled suspiciously like old vomit.

"Are you keeping up your training?" Genma finally growled, moving on from the previous subject.

"Yeah, Pops." Ranma sighed at the constant single-track of his father's mind but then peered through the bars. "And are you?" he jabbed, crankily.

"Never you mind about me. You just watch yourself, boy. Don't get caught up in anyone's schemes—"

Ranma, feeling particularly uncharitable towards Genma at the moment, thought his father probably meant any but his own schemes, but he declined to voice this opinion and made a point of looking away.

"—and stay away from women," Genma finished.

And Ranma made a point of looking back. This was twice... Well, twice in the jail, but something like nine or ten times total that his father had pointedly exhorted him in one fashion or another to steer clear of the opposite sex. Sure, the old man didn't think much of women, on the whole (and Ranma filed that thought away with a neon label to be revisited again in detail with regard to his curse), and he didn't have much use for them as martial artists, but this was something else entirely. The second Genma had crossed the border into Tokyo, this new, harsher attitude had suddenly popped out from the man's head fully formed as if well-aged and fully considered, and Ranma could no more glance at anyone female and more attractive than a hippo without Genma landing on him about it. And it wasn't as if Ranma had given his father any prior cause for concern, as he had largely ignored girls and concentrated on his art as he was raised to do.

He narrowed his eyes at his father. To further enhance his already high suspicion, it was becoming plain that this new attitude and the as-yet-unsaid reason for their prolonged stay in Nerima were connected somehow, and Ranma was sure that Genma had been just about to drop whatever this bomb was on him when the police showed up right after they crossed into the ward. Damn the old man. Of course, it started raining not two minutes later, and the police were wondering where the handcuffed panda had come from. It had taken Ranma an hour and about seven demonstrations of both curses before they finally took Genma off to plead his case before the judge. Genma had clammed up on the Nerima matter after sentencing, and Ranma had wanted to strangle him and then only after a sound thrashing. For now, he doubted he could drag the answer out of the stubborn and secretive panda-man with a team of elephants. That didn't mean, however, that he couldn't wind him up about it and hope for a slip.

"Yeah, whatever, Pops," Ranma said casually, crossing his arms behind his head, leaning against the corner of the cell, and looking up at the moldy ceiling. "You're in there, and I'm out here, and there's a whole sea of ladies just waitin' for me ta—"

"You heard me, boy."

"Yeah, right. Like you didn't visit a soap house or forty since we've been on the road." He turned the screws on his father a little tighter. "Hey, I might just be able ta scrape up enough yen to get into one of the cheaper ones. Maybe she'll take a likin' to me, and we can set up house for a while and—"

"BOY!" Genma hopped to his feet, fists clenched. "You will NOT disobey me in this!"

"Damn it, old man!" Ranma spun and fell into a combat stance, facing his father through the bars. "Then give me a reason! I'm sick up ta here—" He made a chopping motion at his neck. "—with you not tellin' me shit before it's too late, an' it's all 'cause it always ends up shittin' on me!"

His father dropped his tense stance, turned, and sat back down on the floor with his back to the door and his son. "You heard me. That is all I have to say on the matter." Genma crossed his arms and closed his eyes, tilting his up head slightly.

A kick rattled the iron-bar door behind Genma hard enough to cause embedded steel bolts to grind in the concrete divider walls and flakes of that drab paint to drift off the bars to the floor. Genma continued his silence, but a large drop of sweat formed on the back of his head.

A uniformed officer leaned into the corridor from the connecting office further up. "Oi! What's all the racket?"

"Sorry, Sir," Ranma said, never taking his eyes off the back of his father's head. "A panda was bein' a pain in the—"

"Son," the officer interrupted, not unkindly, "watch your language. And it's almost nine in the evening. Time to say your goodbyes."

"Uh... Right." He gave his father one last scowl, scuffing one slippered foot on the gritty concrete of the floor in agitation, like a bull preparing to charge but restrained from doing so. "See ya, Pops... in three weeks," he growled and padded down the corridor, but he threw some last words over his shoulder just before passing through the door to the cell corridor. Taunting was, after all, part and parcel of the Anything Goes style. "Got girls ta see and skirts ta chase, old man!"

The metal door shut with a clank, cutting off another round of ranting from Genma. Experiencing an uncomfortable mixture of satisfaction and irritation, Ranma breathed out noisily, plopped into a second chair next to the jailer's desk, and put his head in his hands. He really needed to think about what his old man had up his sleeve about Nerima.

The officer acting as jailer for the shift sat back down and studied the aggravated young man before him. "Spot of tea, son? Or a soda, maybe?" he asked.

Ranma quickly looked up, surprised at the offer. "Er... Tea, I guess. Don't much care for soda. Thanks."

There had already been an electric kettle heating on the desk, and the officer spooned some tea into a pot and filled it with hot water. "That's odd. Most kids can't get enough soda. It's all they drink, nowadays."

"Huh. Didn't know that."

The older man eyed Ranma for the strange response to his comment but declined to address it. They waited the requisite three minutes or so for the green tea to steep, and the officer poured mugs for the both of them.

"Thanks," Ranma said, warming his hands and enjoying the steam and aroma rising from his beverage.

"I know what it's like," he said archly, instead of acknowledging Ranma's appreciation. "My father and I had it out many, many times when I was your age. He wanted me to follow him into the company he worked for, but I had stars in my eyes about being a famous police detective." He laughed. "Neither of us got what we wanted in the end, it seems, but that's life."

"So you're not a detective?"

"Ha! No. Very few of us grunts get the chance to advance that far in the force. If I make patrol sergeant before I retire, I'll be doing good."

"Huh." Ranma took a tentative sip of his scalding tea. "So what did your pop do at that company?"

"Assembly line work for a car manufacturer." Ranma just looked at him blankly, and the officer chuckled. "It's dull, monotonous work, son, and can wear a man down to a nub. I don't recommend it. Even if I never make detective, I'm better off than my old man was or will ever be."

"Weird. I'da figured he'd want better for you than what he had."

"So you would think, but it doesn't always play out that way. Some do, of course. Others want to make their children into younger versions of themselves in any and all respects, and they get really bent out-of-shape when it doesn't work out that way. Of course, this forever-recession the country seems to be in isn't helping either case. No guarantees of work anymore like there used to be. When my dad got laid off at age fifty-four, the argument between us died, but the scars are still there, and that I'm working and he's not just rubs salt in the old wounds... Damn the kami for stubborn old men!"

The officer sighed heavily, sipped his tea, and propped his feet up on his desk while looking across the room, half lost in thought. Ranma felt the statement about younger versions of themselves had a lot of bearing on his situation—it was a given that Genma wanted him to follow in his footsteps, but Ranma wasn't entirely sure what that would mean for his life, and Genma had never even broached the topic. Would he be the same as his pop was now in twenty years? Contrary to his actions in the jail corridor, he did love his pop, but the idea of him being another Genma gave no comfort and twisted his stomach slightly.

"Parents are funny things, son," the officer went on, breaking into Ranma's introspection. "I've got a seven year old boy and a three year old girl, and I'm always wondering whether I'm doing a better job than my dad did, but I guess I do all right. You see the whole range of parenting, from horrible to wonderful, in this job, and it gives you a lot of perspective on your own life."

"Yeah, I guess I can see that."

The two men fell quiet again, enjoying their tea and listening to the distant bustle of the busier parts of the police station. Occasionally, some man or occasionally a woman would be loud and complaining, their voices cutting above the din. Ranma finished his tea and set his mug on the table.

The officer looked at him questioningly, as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Shouldn't you have been in school today, son?"

"Nah. We just got back from trainin' in China." Ranma began to scowl heavily. Something about China was an obvious source of aggravation, the policeman noticed. "We been makin' our way here on foot for the last two weeks, hitchin' rides and stuff. Pops has been dyin' ta get ta Nerima, but he won't say why." The scowl intensified. "Which always means it's somethin' not good for me when he won't say." He shook his head. "'Sides, got no money for school things. Can barely eat right now."

"What does your mother think of all this?" the officer asked with a serious tone. "Or is she even in the picture any more?"

Ranma froze and then blinked twice. "Uh... I dunno."

"Why not?"

He shrugged, although his expression was still distant. "Pops never talks about her. I think she may be dead 'r somethin'. I kinda remember some really foggy stuff about a lady, but I was like, uh, six when we left, and we ain't been back since."

"Never talks about her?" he asked, incredulous.

Shaking his head, Ranma said, "Not a peep."

"What's her name?"

"Uh... ..."

"You don't know your own mother's name?!"

Ranma just stared at the angry policeman, uncertain of what to say. The officer yanked his feet off the desk, scooted his chair forward, and picked up his phone and dialed an extension.

"Shiro-kun! It's Hiroshi down at the jail. Say, can you get on the department web and do a little looking for me on the sly? ... No, nothing illegal; just not really pertaining to any ongoing case. I've got a kid down here whose dad is marking time in a cell for a few weeks, and come to find out, the dad has never told him anything about his mother. The whole thing sounds fishy as hell. ... Saotome Genma. Son is..." He turned to the boy. "Your name?"

"Ranma."

"Son is Saotome Ranma. ... Yeah, I'll pour some more tea down him and maybe buy him some lunch off the cart. Yeah, I'll see that he sticks around for a bit. ... Yeah, thanks, Shiro-kun. I owe you one. ... Yeah, any of the seven-eight extensions. Since we've only got one 'guest' at the moment, I'm the only stiff down here. Right. Thanks." He hung up, and turned to Ranma. "Got anywhere you have to be for a little while?"

Now oddly nervous and apprehensive, Ranma just shook his head rapidly.

- - -

Two cups of tea, a couple of curry sandwiches, and Ranma left the precinct house with a name and address on a slip of paper. He wobbled down the road towards the shopping district, thinking on Officer Hiroshi's parting words.

"Son, I can't tell you what to do. I don't know what's gone on between your folks or where your mother and father stand with each other. What I do know is that parents generally love their children no matter what, and I would be very surprised if your mother wouldn't want to see you."

Hiroshi had put a hand on his shoulder and had smiled at him kindly. "Another thing I know... One of the hardest lessons a child has to learn in life is that his parents are just people. They're not superhuman. They're flawed, and they make mistakes. And sometimes... sometimes, they are just downright wrong about some things. The trick for us kids is learning to know the difference between being disrespectful and knowing when it's necessary or important to point out to them that they're wrong. So listen to what your mother has to say about how things are between her and your father. There may be reasons involved that would never have or could never have occurred to you. Understand?"

Still pondering all he'd learned, Ranma arrived at the mall of the shopping district and sat down on the first bench he found unoccupied. He then proceeded to stare into space, the piece of paper in his hand fluttering in the light breeze. His introspection lasted uninterrupted for only ten minutes.

"Hi, Ranma-kun."

He blinked several times, allowing his mind to return to the moment in some small measure, and then turned and looked up into a face he'd thought to never see again. He just looked at the young woman blankly.

"Ranma-kun?" Nabiki waved a hand in front of his face. "Are you all right?"

Ranma opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, and then seemed to get hung up in his thoughts.

Nabiki reached out and tentatively touched him on the shoulder. "Ranma-kun?"

"I... ... ..."

"Yes? You what?"

At a complete loss for words, he simply handed her the piece of paper he'd been holding. Confused, Nabiki took it and read aloud: "Saotome Nodoka, 138 Arisugawa, Oizumi-cho, Nerima-ku." She looked back at him. "I don't understand. Is this your house? Who is this Nodoka?"

"I... I didn't know! He never said!"

Nabiki tilted her head, studying him.

"I... I have... a mother."

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END CHAPTER THREE

Thanks to Rakhal Stormwarden for some spot pre-reading and canonical assessment duties and LatinD for an eleventh-hour grammar check.

A Brief Discussion of Japanese Municipality as Applied to Ranma ½

NOTE: Some of the following information has been contested, and I will be reviewing this information and posting a corrected revision at a later date. Thanks to those who have written in on this matter.

The structure of Japanese municipalities is not nearly as consistent as that found in, say, the United States, and it has a lot to do with some patchy restructuring during the Second World War and, probably, not a little to do with substantially more history than we can claim here in the US—more time breeds more irregularity. I would invite you to surf Wikipedia for a fairly good discussion of Japanese municipal structure.

For the purposes of Ranma ½, what you need to know is that it takes place in:
1. Japan
2. Kantou Region-there are 8 Regions in Japan
3. Tokyo Prefecture (Tokyo-to)-there are 47 Prefectures in Japan
4. Nerima Ward (Nerima-ku)-there are 23 wards in Tokyo, although in Tokyo-to they are called "special wards".
5. Furinkan City (Furinkan-cho), which exists only in Ranma ½. There are three actual cho in Nerima-ku, those being Nerima-cho, Oizumi-cho, and Hikarigaoka-cho.

The Japanese municipal system doesn't line up well with what we Americans are used to, but very roughly speaking, a region would be something on the order of a large area of the US, like West Coast, South, or Midwest, a prefecture like a state, a ward like a county, and a cho like a city. This is a very weak comparison, especially when you consider the fact that the "state" of Tokyo is mostly nothing but solid metropolis, but from an organizational standpoint it's functional enough to be going on with.

And just to air out two of my pet nits in Ranma ½—Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon crossovers, first, Juuban does not exist, per se, but as it is often used in fanfic, it is not a ward but rather a city or cho of the Minato Ward, and it's correct, real-world name is Azabu-cho. Azabu-Juuban is the name of a train station there, and it may also be an appellation given to a set of schools, as well, but I cannot confirm that at this time. If anyone has further information on the "Juuban" matter, I'd be happy to hear from you and review your sources.

Second, the Minato and Nerima wards are not adjacent; the Nakano, Shinjuku, and Shibuya Wards separate them, although not in a straight line. This means that Ranma cannot just step over a border from Nerima into "Juuban", as he is found to so often do in fanfic—there's a fair bit of train ride involved. :)

And no, this is not a hint that Falling to Earth is crossing over into Sailor Moon. Got enough of that on my plate with Hime. :)

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Ranma ½:, its characters, and its situations are the property of Takahashi Rumiko, Shonen Sunday Comics, Shogakukan, Kitty TV, and Fuji in Japan. It is distributed in North America by Viz Communications, Inc.