Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or any of the characters. This is simply a what-if situation. What if this had happened? Also, I would like to apologize to those that are waiting on me to work on "Evil Kasumi Returns" or "Ranma and the Outers" and "Primal Ranma." Although I've had many ideas for them lately. I'm just taking a slight break from them to work on some other ideas that won't get outta my head until I write them down.

For an hour Nabiki sat in her room and stared at all the information she had collected, there seemed to be nothing that could break the engagements other than seppuku or he marries them all. "While I don't think Akane…" she said out loud, though quietly she added herself, "would mind marrying him… there's no way they'd all go for it."

Picking up the discarded marriage license that was never completed with Ranma and Akane's names she sighed. Looking at Genma's name on there, she sneered at it. "You lousy jerk… because of you he'll never be happy." She looked over his information and chuckled. "Well at least your one thing about your blood type… when you have your eyes on a goal, you never let up… kami knows you've never given them any peace over this."

Nabiki looked over the license one more time and sighed in frustration. "Little sister?" a voice called from her door.

"Come in Kasumi."

Kasumi stepped into the room and looked around at everything. "Oh my… Nabiki what is all this?"

"All this… is Ranma's messed up life."

This caused the eldest to blink. "Oh?"

"Ever since they came back from China… Ranma's been distant. He just wants out… and I told him I'd help him."

"But… but why'd you do that?" Kasumi asked in alarm.

"It's either this… or Ranma will find an out for himself…" Nabiki told her sister emptily.

"What do you mean?"

Closing her eyes, Nabiki told her, "Ranma will commit seppuku if I can't find a better out for him."

"What… you're not… you couldn't be…" she gasped out.

"No, he's very serious. I've seen the Saotome tanto…"

"Oh… oh my…"

"Yea… and his bastard of a father has him so completely trapped he either destroys his honor or his life. And we both know how he feels about his honor."

"I... I see…" Kasumi said as she stepped up behind her sister to look at the papers spread out on her desk. Looking over the papers, Kasumi saw something that looked rather interesting. "Sister…"

"Hum?" Nabiki asked as she tried once again to find the answer.

"Are you sure that Ranma is not adopted?"

"I'm sure… we have his birth certificate here… as well as all his other papers showing that Ranma is his child."

Kasumi mumbled as she looked over something. "But that's not possible…"

"What?"

"Well, it says here that at birth his blood type was a type B… but on this one just last week it says that he's AB."

Nabiki blinked. "And?"

"But if Ranma was one type at birth… that doesn't change… and see, it shows his mother as being an O while his father is a B," Kasumi tried to explain.

Nabiki rubbed her eyes. "Ok, I don't get it."

"Well, if Aunty was an O… and uncle was a B… they could only have children that were a type B or O. And Ranma being AB is impossible." Kasumi explained simply.

Needless to say, Nabiki was confused. "OK, wait... what?"

"In order for Ranma to be an AB, then Auntie would have to be an A… but you just don't change your blood type… it's impossible."

"Then someone made a mistake… or perhaps it's the curse's fault?" Nabiki tried lamely.

Looking over the paperwork, Kasumi made a few noises, as she looked it over. "No… these tests were done by the hospital. So there was no mistake… maybe it was the curse's fault."

The middle daughter thought it over, and decided that this was the best they had. If they could prove that Ranma was not Genma's son… then that would eliminate everyone but Shampoo. 'She'd be happy about that one… but… there's something missing here…'

Thinking it was better than nothing, and possibly some slight good news, Nabiki went to talk to Ranma… but if anything, it depressed him even more. "Ranma… if a court or someone tries to prove your relationship to him, then these blood tests will disprove it."

"But what good will it do? You said that my birth certificate said I was their kid… so how can this be possible?" He asked close to a breakdown.

"I don't know… but I will find out. Just don't do anything rash… ok?"

"Ok…"

"Good… now night Ranma," she told him and moved to the door.

"Night Nabiki…" he said and settled down on his bed as she stepped out and closed the door.

Secrets, everybody has them and everybody will usually try to keep them as they are. Secret. However, there are times in ones life when those secrets may need to be brought out into the open and made known. Sometimes that process or revealing secrets is easy to do. And other times it is very painstaking and occasionally heartbreaking.

There is that rare occasion that bringing the secret out into the open will be both a relief and the greatest heartache. For one woman that lived in an area near Tokyo, she was faced with a decision. On one hand, she could keep her secret hidden and then no one would know, or be the wiser. Or she could tell her only son the truth. This truth though could possibly ruin what little remained of her relationship to her son. While it may free him from many problems, it most certainly would create others.

Day in and day out, Nodoka Saotome thought of the implications of what she must one-day face, and she was not happy with the prospect. "Oh my little boy…' she said as she looked at a picture of her one and only son, Ranma Saotome. "I need to tell you, but I don't know how."

In a place not too far away from Mrs. Saotome was a suburb or Tokyo called Nerima, the place where her husband and son have been staying since their ten-year training trip ended. She allowed herself to be lulled into a lie, a lie that her son and husband used to hide from her. And for some time she allowed that lie to continue. And when their secret became known to her, she did not want to believe it. But the time had finally come to accept it, and not only that but to come clean with a secret that she kept as well.

Nodoka looked around the destroyed compound. Just over a month ago they tried to hold a wedding here at the dojo belonging to her husbands life long friend, Soün Tendo. But it was to be all for naught. The party had been crashed, and everything had been destroyed. Her sons wedding, the dojo, and his relationships with several females. Females that she had hoped that he would like and hopefully marry one of them and produce a grandchild for her to spoil. "But then I'd still be living a lie," she told herself sadly. Approaching the door, she steeled herself for what was to come, but she didn't know how to do this.

However before she could open the door, the door was almost yanked off its hinges as Ranma stalked out the door and almost ran over his mother. "Fine! I don't care any more Akane! Just… oh hi mom!" Ranma said nervously as he came face to face with his mother.

"Morning Ranma…" She said and he noticed that she omitted the 'good' as well as calling him Ranma, and not son.

"Um… What's up?" Ranma could tell that she wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear even more bad news.

"Ranma… there's something I need to tell you… do you think you can skip a day of school?"

"Oh yea! I mean, it's no problem. What's up?"

"Please Ranma, if you would… there… there's something I need to tell you and show you."

"This had better not be another fiancée Saotome," the cool voice of Nabiki sad from behind him. 'Kami… not another one… please…'

"Uh… hehe… I…"

"You have my word Miss Tendo that this is not a fiancée," she said stiffly though she mentally added, 'though it will affect all of them.'

"Um… come on mom… let's go." Ranma tried hastily to pull his mother away from the door to make sure that there wouldn't be any more problems.

"Ranma…" Nabiki said sternly causing him to turn around. "…Remember what I talked to you about."

With a dejected sigh, he replied, "Yea… though I don't think it's gonna really help any."

As the two walked away from the Tendo home, they could hear Akane yelling something as she started running towards the school followed by a walking Nabiki. "Ranma dear, what did Nabiki talk to you about?"

"Um…" he said as intelligently as he could. "It's nothing, don't worry about it." Mentally he was cursing himself, 'Idiot! Why didn't you just ask her? It's not like it'll make any difference anyway,' he thought glumly. Last night Nabiki talked to him about his blood type, and although he hadn't really understood a lot of it, he understood enough, it would be difficult if not impossible for them to be related.

Naturally, when she brought this up to Ranma she had thought that this could be used to get him out of some of his troubles, but while it could possibly be used to negate the Tendo and Kuonji agreements, he would still have the nutcases of the Kunö clan as well as the Amazons after him.

When Ranma came out of his thoughts, he blinked as he realized that his mother had led them to one of the train stations. "Hay mom, where're we going?"

"To a very special place… this trip, I suspect will take most of the day…" she told him and mentally added, 'If not all day.'

This caused him to blink. "How long will it take us to get back? Ya know if I'm gone too long that un-cute tomboy will throw a fit." Though he tried to sound upbeat, it was plain that all of his fiancée troubles were weighing him down.

With a slight waver to her voice, she told her son, "Ranma, there are a number of things that I need to tell you… but I'm not sure how."

"Like what?"

"Now is not the time or the place… please… just wait a little longer."

Ranma nodded and followed his mother onto the train. And while there was a lot of people on board, it wasn't overly crowded. The train ride lasted about two hours, two hours of which Ranma waited nervously in silence. Finally, at the last stop, Nodoka rose and motioned for her son to follow her.

Noticing her tense movements, Ranma followed her quietly. After leaving the train station, the two walked for another hour, still without a word being said until they arrived at the gate to a cemetery. Ranma blinked and looked at the place, and could not help but feel that his life was about to get even more complicated. For a brief moment, he thought that maybe his mom was finally going to make him follow though with that seppuku pledge. But that thought was banished as quickly as it came to him since for the first time, he realized that his mother didn't have her katana with her. 'What's with the basket though?' he asked as he finally noticed it on her arm. "Mom…"

"Ranma…" she said slowly as she proceeded into the grim looking place. "Seventeen, almost eighteen years ago, tragedy struck the Saotome family."

"What happened?"

"The day that was supposed to be one of the happiest days in my life, turned into bitter heartbreak." Ranma swallowed as she said that. His mother just seemed to be walking along the many tombstones that were around as if she knew where she was going. "I was pregnant with the first Saotome family heir… and was in the middle of giving birth to my son, when the unthinkable happened."

"What was that?" He asked and tried to keep his mouth from going dry.

Nodoka stopped and turned toward her son. "On that day… my first son… my precious Ranma… died before taking his first breath of air." She choked out and fell to her knees beside a small decorative grave.

"What?" He asked and he couldn't believe what he was being told. He died… even as a baby? "But…. Mom… I… I'm right here. I mean I lived… right?"

Sadly, Nodoka Saotome shook her head and pointed to the grave. It was then that Ranma received the shock of his life causing him to fall to his knees. They were standing at the gravesite… of Saotome Ranma, and on the headstone, it simply said… "Ranma Saotome. My precious child," but what shook him was the dates that showed he was born as well as died on the same day.