Ranma put his key in the door lock and opened the door to his new home in Shinjuku. The Tohno estate wasn't a great inheritance, but it was a well managed estate that more then satisfied Ranma's needs. His new home was a two bedroom apartment with a kitchen/dinning room, a bathroom/laundry room combo, and a good size family room. As Ranma looked at the empty family room in front of him it really hit him that this was real. From now on he had to depend on himself in order to survive in the real world. The emptiness of his new home reflected the emptiness of his heart with all that he had given up these past few months.
However, Ranma also considered something else as he continued to look at the empty room. There was another way he could look at the empty room. Instead of associating the emptiness with all that he had given up he should try to think of it as representing the unblemished future that he had before him. This place was his home, not his mother's home or the Tendo's home. Here, Ranma thought as he stepped into the apartment, Ranma Saotome's story ended and Ranma Tohno's story began.
After Ranma was in his apartment he closed the door and casually placed his backpack on the floor. Ranma then walked over to the phone hanging on the wall in the kitchen and started dialing. Once Ranma heard the phone being picked up on the other end he said, "Hello Mr. Kinomoto. This is Ranma. I just wanted to let you know that I've found a place to live. That's right; apparently my grandfather was a part owner of an apartment complex and was friends with the complex's manager. I was able to move into one of the empty apartments and because of my partial ownership of the complex I don't have to pay for the room or for utilities. Thank you once again for helping me out and goodbye."
Once Ranma hung up the phone he folded his hands across his chest and looked around the room. From what Ranma remembered of layout he had been shown he was currently in the kitchen/dinning room which was the room that was connected to the outside. If he considered the long wall with the front door as the bottom of the floor plan then the door opposite to the front door led to the family room. To the right were the two bedrooms and the bathroom.
At moment Ranma was confronted by one of the basic questions that all homeowners have to ask themselves: which room is going to be what? Ranma quickly decided to just use the rooms as they had been labeled in the floor plan with one exception. Since Ranma was the only one living here he decided to convert the second bedroom between the first bedroom and the bathroom into a study room. The reason why he picked that bedroom to be the study room was do to the fact that it didn't have any windows. True the chances that anyone would be looking through the windows of an apartment on the tenth story were slim, but Ranma didn't want to take any chances.
Ranma grabbed his pack and headed over to his room. When Ranma got there he pulled out his sleeping bag and climbed inside. Today had been an extremely long day for Ranma do to dealing with all of the paperwork needed to get his life back on track. Filling out all of those forms and reading all of those documents had been aggravating, but well worth it in the end. Tomorrow Ranma planed to go shopping for some furniture and groceries. Hopefully by next week he would be enrolled in one of the local high schools.
Kasumi walked out to get the mail with a sad look in her eye. Things hadn't been easy at the Tendo house ever since the wedding disaster a few days ago. With the destruction of the dojo everyone had become a lot tenser and short with each other then they used to be. Ranma's disappearance hadn't helped the mood improve at all. In fact, it seemed to Kasumi that the boy's disappearance had made everyone else in the house even more short tempered then Kasumi had expected.
Practically everyone was blaming Ranma for at least part of the disaster that the wedding attempt had become. Kasumi honestly couldn't understand how anyone could say that Ranma had any blame in the fiasco. Ranma hadn't even been at the wedding and Akane, who was the last person to see the boy, claimed that he started running as soon as he found out about the Nannichuan water. Sadly father and Uncle Saotome seemed to see that as reason enough to blame everything on Ranma. According to their version of the story everything had gone wrong because Ranma hadn't ended his unseemly relationships with other girls and married Akane like he was supposed to.
As Kasumi was looking through the mail her eyes spotted the return address of one of the letters and it forced her to stop in her tracks. Kasumi quickly grabbed that particular envelope and noticed that it was addressed to the Tendo and the Saotome families. Although Kasumi knew that this letter should be read with everyone present her curiosity and fear got the better of her. Once Kasumi read the letter in the envelop she rushed inside to talk to everyone practically yelling for everyone.
Naturally the other Tendos and the Saotome couple were surprised to hear Kasumi yelling. All five of them quickly gathered in the family room and Akane was the first one to speak. "Okay Kasumi we're here. Why did you call us?"
Kasumi pulled out a letter and said, "This letter was delivered today and it was address to all of us. Let me read it to you:"
"Tendo Family and Saotome Family"
"This letter is to notify you that as of XX/20/199X one Ranma Saotome is no longer a member of the Saotome Clan. The aforesaid individual has, of his request, been moved to a different clan. Any attempts on your parts to try and arrange a marriage or any other agreement involving Ranma Saotome will be reported as fraud and those individuals involved will be punished to the maximum extent of the law."
"Ranma freely made this decision knowing the repercussions of his actions. He has also confided in me that he bares none of you any ill will. The reason why he proceeded with this course of action was that it was the only honorable way that he could live his life. I fully agree with him and I'm sure that we all wish him a happy and quiet life for the future."
"Signed,"
"Sanoske Kinomoto chief judge of the Kanto District Court"
Akane and Nodoka were completely shocked to hear that Ranma had left the Saotome family. Genma and Soun immediately started babbling about how Ranma was being disrespectful and acting in a dishonorable manner. Nabiki's reaction was to grab the letter out of Kasumi's hand and read it again. After Nabiki read it she turned to the two fathers who were planning on going do to the court house to put an end to this nonsense and said, "Stop right there. Both of you forget any and all plans you have of trying to get this overturned right now."
Both fathers immediately turned to face Nabiki and Soun responded, "But daughter, the schools must be joined. This is about an honorable pact that Genma and I made. Ranma must be found and brought back so that he can marry Akane as honor dictates."
Nabiki immediately scoffed and said, "Look we all know that this whole agreement isn't about honor so don't try to kid us. That honor thing may work on Ranma, but it doesn't work on me. You two want Ranma here and married to Akane so he can run the dojo for you guys. Personally I think that it's a reasonable plan considering your planning abilities. Ranma works while you guys get to go into early retirement."
Ignoring the shocked gasps from the other girls in the house Nabiki continued on. "However, what neither of you two is considering is that this letter comes from the district judge. I'm not talking a simple letter that a secretary at the district court office wrote. This is a handwritten note that is signed and sealed by the district judge himself. In case you're having trouble connecting the dots that means that the district judge of our prefecture is personally looking out for Ranma."
"With Mr. Kinomoto looking out for Ranma you two have zero chance of getting Ranma back with whatever plan you're cooking up and a high chance of ending up in jail. To get Mr. Kinomoto's ruling overturned you'd have to go to one of the high courts. Provided that you two even manage to get your case brought before the high court for judgment you'd have to defend yourself. It's likely that Ranma and/or Mr. Kinomoto have a lot of evidence to burry you under in court since Mr. Kinomoto said that he was sure we all wish Ranma a quiet life. Besides, by the time you two could pull this off Ranma will probably be of legal age and he wouldn't listen to you anyway."
After Nabiki finished explaining why Ranma was free from the fathers' control she immediately left the room. Out of all the people in the house Nabiki was probably the only one who was truly happy that Ranma was gone. Sure, she enjoyed watching the trouble that the jock could get into at times and the money she could scam off the pigtail boy's associates. But in the long run, Nabiki preferred to have Ranma as far away from herself as possible. As much as Nabiki valued her entertainment she valued her health more and as she could attest, staying around Ranma was not the wisest move that anyone could make regarding his or her health.
Once Nabiki left the room Soun and Genma went out to the local bar. They wanted Ranma back to unite the schools and run the dojo. However, they also wanted to avoid getting in trouble with the law. The only solution that their brains could think of to this conflict of interests was to get plastered.
That left Akane, Kasumi, and Nodoka remaining in the room. The trio looked at each other silently asking with their eyes for someone to tell them what to do. Each of them cared for Ranma and it was incredibly painful for them to consider that Ranma had decided to leave their lives. Silently the three of them walked towards each other and got in a big group hug. Ranma might be gone from their lives, but at least they knew that they weren't alone in missing him and that they could count on each other for comfort in the days ahead.
Ranma stood on top of his school that he had been going to for almost two weeks and carefully looked around the roof. After double checking that he was alone on the roof Ramna started thinking about his new life. Less then week after Ranma had moved to Shinjuku he had enrolled at the local high school. The people who had met Ranma Saotome would probably have been shocked that Ranma Tohno had started going to school without any prompting.
As far as Ranma was concerned his minor personality and major behavioral changes were the result of him growing up. When Ranma looked back on his battle with Saffron and the choice Saphir had offered him, he was now able to truly appreciate how important that event truly was. Ranma knew that in that moment he had chosen the kind of man he was becoming. If he had rejected Saphir's offer and somehow managed to win he would have continued living like he had been until something came along and killed him. On the other hand, had he rejected Saphir's offer and Akane had died then his life would have spiraled down the drain probably ending with him committing suicide.
By accepting Saphir's offer, Ranma had altered the course of his life. With the loss of his amazing martial arts abilities he had been forced to realize that there was more to life then the art. Sapphire's lecture and question teaching style along with his positive reinforcement had opened Ranma's mind to thinking more about problems. These two subtle shifts in Ranma's thinking along with his increased magical knowledge had set him up for his next critical life decision.
When Ranma reflected on his decision to leave the Tendo house and his family he was able to clearly see how significant it was. That was the moment where he had to choose between trying to live his immature life like he used to or to take what he had gained during the battle with Saffron and let it grow to its potential. How ironic really that it took a battle with phoenix for Ranma to gain a new life.
Ranma returned his mind to the present and said, "Alright enough of the reminiscing. I'll have more then enough time to do that when I get old and fat. Now then, let's see if my long distance teleportation works like it should." With a confident I-can't-possibly-lose grin on his face Ranma created a man-sized swirling black void in front of him. Ranma then walked into the void with it collapsing behind him.
Usagi screamed out as she tried to avoid one of the daemons' attacks, "This is not good!" Instead of the usual single daemon that the Scouts usually faced this time they had to deal with two daemons. What made this such a big problem was the fact that two daemons seemed to have been carefully designed to work together. One daemon was very fast and used quick attacks that didn't do much damage. The other daemon was very tough and it had very powerful attacks that took a while to charge.
If whoever was behind this attack and all of the previous attacks was trying to take out the Scouts by using new tactics, then Usagi could vouch that the plan was working. The Inners, along with Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Chibi Moon, were ill prepared to fight against this new tactic. According to Ami, Usagi was the only one who had an attack strong enough to get through the stronger daemon's armor unless the other Scouts were to use the Sailor Attack. However, the armored daemon couldn't be taken out because the speedy daemon was interrupting the Sailors' attacks and wearing them down.
At the moment Usagi was wishing that Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune would show up to help out. Even if they were very condescending towards everyone else Usagi would be glad to have their help in this fight. Usagi was trying desperately to think of a way to win this fight, but she couldn't stop having to run long enough to think of a plan. Then as Usagi tried to catch her breath she watched as Chibiusa tripped and fell onto the sidewalk. Usagi felt her heart jump into her throat as the speedy daemon raced towards Chibiusa with an insane grin on its face.
Suddenly from out of no where a red blur appeared and collided with the speedy daemon. Everyone watched in shock as that daemon screamed out in agony. Usagi looked and saw what looked like a large mechanical dog with a big gun on its back biting down on the daemon's entire hand. She was about to tell Chibiusa to get up when her future daughter jumped to her feet and ran away. The daemon tried to slash at the mechanical dog when the droid turned its gun towards the daemon and fired. Now the droid's attack didn't destroy the daemon, but it did leave some fairly nasty scars.
Right now the Scouts weren't such what they should make of the mechanical dog that had suddenly appeared to help them out. After all, help usually didn't appear in the form of a monster of the week. However, the question of what they should make of the dog was quickly taken out of the Scouts' hands by the other daemon. It used the time that the Scouts were too surprised to move to charge up its attack and then it launched the attack at the droid. Sadly for the droid its armor was unable to withstand the daemon's attack and it was quickly destroyed.
Fortunately for the Scouts, the armored daemon's attack had enough power left over to destroy the wounded speed daemon. Now the battle was back to what the Scouts were used to. Each Scout took turns blasting the remaining daemon to keep it on the defense while Usagi charged up her attack. The end result of this as always was the daemon being destroyed with a Moon Spiral Heart Attack.
Once the battle was over Usagi said, "Uh did any of you guys see where that dog came from?" This question set of a string of I don't knows from everyone and left them wondering where the timely assistance came from. During the Scouts questioning on the battlefield Chibiusa's eyes narrowed. There was only one person in this timeline in Tokyo besides the Death Busters that could possibly know how to create that creature. She finally had a lead on the missing prince of Nemesis.
While the Scouts were standing in the street trying to figure out what was going on Ranma was walking on the other side of the block. Ranma was a little down because his first attempt at long range teleportation had been a flop. The reason why the attempt was flop in Ranma's mind was because he went to the wrong place. He had been trying to teleport to his old high school's roof and instead he had teleported to a roof that gave him a view of a magical skirmish. As far as Ranma could see he must have messed up the part of the spell specifying the end point's coordinates.
At least some good seemed to have come out this mishap. From what Ranma could see those girls in the short skirts had been at the end of their rope facing off against those two chaos magic summons. Since Ranma didn't know what the fight was about he hadn't immediately jumped in on one side or the other. It was only when that pink haired girl looked like she was about to be seriously hurt that Ranma had decided to act. The droid that Ranma created had been given the simple order to stop that summons' attack, but to otherwise only react to attacks on itself.
As Ranma looked at the street signs to figure out where he was he thought about what he had learned from that battle. He still didn't really know who was fighting or what the two magical groups were fighting over. However, he did know that those girls were concerned about their teammates while whoever was behind the summons didn't worry about their underlings' health. That fact really burned Ranma up inside because he cared about the safety of each and every droid he created. Yes Ranma knew that his droids would be destroyed from time to time, but at least he tried to help them and he respected them. None of his droids would risk hurting one of their brethren like that one summon had done.
Deciding to put the whole situation out of his mind Ranma smiled when he saw a sign stating that he was in Juuban. Ranma walked over to one of street venders and said, "Excuse me sir. Do you know the directions to the nearest subway station? I'm a little lost and would be grateful for any assistance you could offer." At the moment Ranma did not want to try another long range teleportation spell to get home. Knowing his luck he might end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Luckily for Ranma the vendor that he had asked was friendly and had given him the directions. Ranma thanked the vendor for the assistance and promptly headed off to the subway station. Once Ranma got to the station he quickly bought a ticket to Shinjuku and sat down to wait for his train. As Ranma waited for his train his mind returned to fight he had observed. Thanks to Ranma's training he knew that the girls had to be order mages. Their magical aura was exactly how Sapphire had described how an order mage's aura felt.
However, there was one exception that was bugging Ranma. That young pink haired girl's aura as impossible as it should be had touches of chaos magic in it. Ranma's curiosity at this strange phenomenon led Ranma to scanning that girl's aura again. What blew Ranma's mind was the fact that not only did that girl's aura have some of the characteristics of a chaos mage, but for a split second he thought he saw the image of an older version of the girl.
What did all of this mean? Was that girl under the effects of something like the age mushrooms? Or was something completely different happening here? Ranma didn't have a clue about what was going on and he was feeling a headache starting to form. Eventually Ranma decided to just ignore that whole situation for now and ask Sapphire about it tonight. Hopefully Sapphire could answer his questions. If not, well Ranma figured it really wasn't his business anyway. He didn't like people poking their noses in his business so why should he poke his nose into other people's business.
Soon enough the train pulled up and Ranma got on board. Ranma took a quick look around and after seeing that it was standing room only he grabbed one of the handrails. As Ranma silently traveled back to Shinjuku he made a promise to try and find out more about that group of magical girls. Even if Ranma didn't want to poke his nose in their business he figured that he'd eventually cross their path again. Any information that he could find about them would help him decided how to treat them.
About an hour after the daemon attack the Inners, Chibiusa, and Mamoru were sitting in the Hikawa Shrine trying to figure out what had happened in their last fight. Currently everyone was looking at Ami and waiting for her to finish analyzing the readings that the mercury computer took of the battle. Ami looked up at everyone and said, "Alright. I've completed my analysis of the robotic dog that helped Chibiusa out and I've discovered something interesting about it. That dog had almost the exact same properties as the droids that the Black Moon Clan used."
Usagi was the first to react to Ami's news and she screeched out, "What!" Then Usagi grabbed Ami and said, "How can that be Ami? That dog looked nothing like the minions that the Black Moon Clan used. Besides, all the members of the Black Moon Clan are dead. Remember Ami that Chibiusa and I were there when that scary Death Phantom was killed so the dog couldn't have been from the Black Moon Clan. Also, if it was from the Black Moon Clan why did it protect Chibiusa?"
In an effort to calm Usagi down Makoto said, "Usagi, Ami said that the dog was very similar to the monsters used by the Black Moon Clan. That doesn't mean that the dog was from the Black Moon Clan." Makoto then looked at Chibiusa and said, "Could the dog have been sent by one of the Black Moon Clan's ancestors living in this time?" Everyone else in the room caught on to what Makoto was suggesting and they turned to look at Chibiusa as well.
At the moment Chibiusa wished that something, anything, would get everyone to stop this particular line of reasoning since it might force her to reveal the fact that Saphir's son was living somewhere in this timeline. Knowing that she was short on time Chibiusa decided to give a little bit to keep the Scouts from finding out about the prince. "It can't be the ancestor of the Black Moon Clan. The individual who eventually founds the Black Moon Clan hasn't been born yet. His father, who is supposed to have been a great chiropractor, won't figure out how to talk to the Black Moon Clan's founder's mother without turning into a blubbering idiot every time he sees her for several more years."
Rei jump in at this point and said, "What if whoever made the dog droid isn't a member of the Black Moon Clan at all? It could be that whoever created that thing taught the Black Moon Clan how to use magic. After all the dog droid looked and acted very different then the Black Moon Clan's droids, but it also shares a lot of similarities to the Clan's droids."
Mamoru then continued Rei's line of thought by saying, "Rei does have a point. Crystal Tokyo is a thousand years in the future. It is possible that whoever created that droid provided the Black Moon Clan with the knowledge of how to create their droids. The only question I have if that is the case is what are we going to do about it?"
In surprisingly regal tone Usagi said, "We'll leave whoever created that droid alone. So far this person has done nothing wrong and has attempted to help us. Unless we fine real proof that whoever created the droid is misusing their powers we will not bother them. It would be a crime to attack someone just because of what they might do in the future." Usagi's tone and the look in her eye made it crystal clear that she would not tolerate anyone going against her decision.
As everyone was giving Usagi their promise to leave the mysterious helper alone Chibiusa smiled. The future princess was extremely pleased with how this meeting had gone so far. Not only did she manage to keep everyone else in the dark about the Nemesis prince, but she had also gotten a chance to see her mother in Usagi. Chibiusa knew that Usagi and Mamoru would, or a version of them had, become her parents in the 30th century. However, it was hard at times for Chibiusa to make that connection because of how differently Mamoru and Usagi acted when she compared them to King Endymion and Neo-Queen Serenity.
In Ranma's dreamscape the pigtailed boy sat in a chair across from Sapphire and then he said, "Sapphire, something strange happened today. During my attempt at a long range teleport I ended up in Juuban. While I was there I spotted these girls who wore these strange fuku like uniforms and they seemed to have some magical abilities. Do you have any idea who those girls are?"
Sapphire picked up a cup of tea from nowhere and took a sip. Afterwards he looked at Ranma and said, "Yes I know who those girls are Ranma. Those girls are the Sailor Scouts. They're a group of reincarnated high level order mages from a magical civilization known as the Silver Millennium. According to Saphir's memories your magical skills are better then the Sailor Scouts. Now the Scouts might seem better then you right now with their stronger attacks, but their attacks are all preprogrammed attacks that are built into their uniforms. At this time the Sailor Scouts have almost no real magical training."
"As I have told you Ranma, Saphir was from an alternate future. In Saphir's timeline the Sailor Scouts became the rulers of the Earth. A war broke out some time after the Scouts became the rulers of Earth and that war ended with Saphir's ancestors having to leave Earth for the hidden tenth planet in the Solar System. Under Saphir's brother the people of Nemesis launched an attack on the past causing your timeline to split from his timeline."
"Now the reason why this is so important for you to know Ranma is because the Sailor Scouts of your timeline were dragged into the Nemesis/Crystal Tokyo War. That means that the Sailor Scouts will probably be hesitant to trust you since you use the same droids as the Black Moon Clan. I believe you can and I encourage you to try to establish a peaceful relationship with the Sailor Scouts. However, if you do try to start an association with the Sailor Scouts you must be cautious. Remember, they have little reason to trust you and several good reasons to believe that you're a threat to them."
"Still Ranma, I would like you to try and solve things peacefully with the Scouts. Saphir never believe that the Sailor Scouts of this era should have been brought into the Nemesis/Crystal Tokyo War. If fact, Saphir thought that the war could have been avoided if both Neo-Queen Serenity and Prince Demand had been willing to sit down and talk about the situation."
Ranma nodded his head and said, "Don't worry Sapphire. I'll try to not repeat the Black Moon Clan's mistakes in my dealings with the Sailor Scouts. With me living in a different ward I think that I can at least get a non-interference agreement with the Scouts. It's not like I want to butt into their lives."
Sapphire gave Ranma a little smile and said, "A wise decision Ranma. Now, let's start your lessons again. I believe a fresher on basic teleportation wormhole casting is in order." Ranma quietly listened as Sapphire gave the lecture again hoping to find out what he had done wrong last time.