Chapter 1- Aftermath pt.1 -Wedding Blues

"Whoever understands the first truth should understand the ultimate truth.

The last and first, Are they not the same."

- Zen koan

"Ranma-kun, when will you learn? I know everything. I always know everything."

- Nabiki Tendo

Nabiki closed her eyes and sighed. She didn't want to see the disaster anymore. The damages were going to drain her bank account yet again. It had been barely a day since they had returned from their trip to china. Daddy and Genma hadn't even let the dust settle before knocking Ranma-kun unconscious and setting up this farce of a wedding. She'd known there would be chaos after she invited all of the Fiancées and Rivals, but nothing could have prepared her for the sheer magnitude of the disaster.

She should have been able to see this coming. Her predictive modeling was flawless despite the short period of time that she'd had. Dimensional Chaos readings were well within normal ranges even including maximum adjustment for Ranma-kun's natural entropic field levels. How could she have miscalculated so badly? Sensei would definitely be disappointed in her. She was going to have to recalibrate all of her detection equipment all over again.

She opened her eyes and surveyed the damages again. The dojo was a mess and the yard and surrounding area weren't much better off. Quickly calculating the likely cost of repairs nearly brought her to tears. Hopefully none of her equipment was broken, some of those parts cost a small fortune to replace. "I'm going to sell that damn fat freeloading panda to the zoo if so much as one diode is broken. Hell I might do it anyways. Stupid panda, stupid Daddy."

"Hey Nabs. Anything I can do to help?" Ranma queried from over her shoulder. He sounded tired. "Oyaji and your pops already beat it to the bar, and Mom's busy giving a piece of her mind to the Fiancée Fiasco. Ha... They'll be lucky she doesn't give them the sharp end of her katana too. Honestly okonomiyaki bombs and exploding rammen? What the hell were they thinking? For some reason she's ticked at Akane too. Probably cause she knew about the Nyanniichuan in advance and didn't let anyone know. What a drag."

"Hey Ranma-kun. No from the look of things, unless you have a secret cache of money you've been hiding from me, or somehow learned the ancient art of martial arts construction, then I think I'll be on my own here. Besides it's mainly my fault for sending out all those invitations."

"Yeah... About that." He paused and she turned to look at him. He had a pensive look on his face. Oh yeah she knew that look. Definitely time to get her comeuppance.

"Out with it Saotome. Don't be shy, I'm a big girl I can handle it."

"Hmm..." He seemed confused. "Well like I was gunna say, Thanks."

Huh... Now that wasn't what she was expecting. Thanking her? For what? Now she was curious. "Um... Ranma-kun... What exactly are you thanking me for?"

"Well I'm sure that you didn't intend for it to get quite this bad, and I know you were just making sure that the stupid scheme the old men came up with fell apart. I mean there's no way you did this," He waves his hand at the destroyed yard and Dojo, "on purpose. I mean really you're the one who'll be paying for it. Come on, I'm not that dumb. Besides not only is this the absolute worst time for a wedding, which neither me nor Akane wants by the way, but all this probably would have happened whether you sent invites or not. It's just Karma or something paying me back for some lucky miracles that I managed to pull off in China. And if this is all the Kami are going to do to me in exchange, well then I got off light."

"Wow Ranma-kun. When did you get so philosophical?" She asked with a snort.

Ranma frowned slightly before answering in a quiet voice. "About 3 seconds before I tore a Phoenix God into itty-bitty teeny-tiny pieces, and unknowingly almost wiped his people out. Luckily he was reborn, so now they're just set back a decade or so, while he grows back up. Not like it was even necessary, Ryouga'd already saved Akane by then. I suppose I didn't know, but..."

There were so many things wrong with that last statement that Nabiki didn't even know where to begin. "Eh..."

Before she could say anything though, Ranma was speaking again. "Hey Nabs, I'm going to need a favor from you. Whatever the cost I'll come up with it, I know you'll be fair. But I need your help making sure I don't get attacked for any reason this week. I'm pretty sure we can count on both Ryouga and Mousse to assist, but if I get attacked by anyone this week, even Akane, I'm gonna be in real trouble, and if I manage to survive, well everyone else'll be in worse trouble. I can't really explain anything, just really gonna need some help on this one. And if ya don't think it's feasible I'll have to leave nerima. Ya know how well that'd play out don'chya?"

Something was seriously off here. She deepened her concentration and drew upon her will. Forcing her subconscious mind to review all the data and flashing over the events of the night before. Images and probabilities flashed in her conscious mind quickly drawing on a conclusion. "So something happened to your Ki. Happosai get you with the Moxibustion Point again?" She asked, knowing it was likely something more serious than that.

"Well I was sure you'd figure it out sooner or later, but what did you just do with your Chi? Some sort of mental martial art or something?" Ranma asked in a curious tone.

"Crap." She thought. "Ranma-kun did not just ask me what I think he did, did he?"

Nabiki shivered at all the possible consequences that flashed across her mind if Ranma could sense etheric manipulation now. "I'm certain I have no Idea what you're talking about Saotome. However you are going to come with me now and tell me everything that happened in China over the last 3 weeks. You are not going to leave out a single detail or by the Kami I will have Akane cooking your all your meals for the next year."

Ranma shivered slightly at the cold tone Nabiki had shifted to. It pleased her that he respected her enough to take her seriously even in the midst of all the wreckage surrounding them. "Alright Nabs. You'll get it straight from the source this time. Anyways, do you think its feasible? Keeping everyone from attacking till I get a handle on what's going on? Or should I not bother unpacking?"

She nodded, her voice cooling a bit as she considered how helpless he might feel if there really was an issue with his Ki. "Sure Ranma-kun, I can call in some favors and make sure you get some peace for a while, barring another major incident. We'll discuss payment later, you did say Anything right?" She smirked and turned on her heel.

"Oh he's going to regret that, and his honor will guarantee payment too." she thought.

Suddenly she felt a lot better. "Come on Saotome. Don't dawdle now. Time is money you know, and as of this moment the meter's running."

"Erk!" was his eloquent reply as he quickened his pace to catch up with the middle Tendo daughter as she headed inside.

Nabiki listened intently as Ranma relayed his adventures in Jusendo and on the Phoenix Mountain. The story was incredible to be sure, however compared to the rest of Ranma-kun's life or even her own life since meeting the pigtailed martial arts prodigy; it was par for the course. At least till he came to the battle with Saffron that is.

"So there I was, Ki nearly spent, worried that your sister was going to die, and facing off against a being that seemed to have every right to call himself a God. I mean that wasn't martial arts he was blasting me with. He was just up and throwing honest to Kami-sama fireballs at me. Now I can't discount magic, for crying out loud I turn into a girl with a splash of cold water, but I'd never dreamed that level of magic was real. So what was I to do, I'd frozen my whole body using the Gekkaja and it was barely holding off the Kinjikan. So I got a flash of insight, I'd use those atmospheric principals you and Cologne helped me to understand during the Hiryu Shoten Ha training. I mean there was all this excess heat around and if I could use the last of my Ki to enhance the Gekkaja's freezing, then I could create a razor thin funnel of air and tear him apart. But at the moment I managed to use the last of my Ki to freeze myself Saffron hit me with another one of his massive fireballs at point blank range. I felt the flames wrap around me and..." He trailed off.

"Come on Ranma-kun you promised you wouldn't leave anything out."

"Yeah, Yeah I know, but it's really hard to explain what came next. One moment I was fighting for my life with the last of my life-force emptying out of me, and the next..." He paused again before continuing. "The next moment it was as if all of eternity was stretched out before me. I wasn't fighting Saffron anymore. I was the universe. No. I was more than the universe. I was..." he trailed off again not knowing how to explain it.

"You were the Alpha and Omega. All facets of our limitless existence were stretched out before you. Life was one with energy and matter. Dimensions were infinite and Time was eternal. Chaos and Order. Life and Death. Spirit and Dream. Everything and Nothing. And you were a part of it. You were the whole of it. It was a whole of you." Her voice became dreamy as she spoke about it. Lovingly she caressed the words as they stoked the memories deep in her subconscious. She cleared her throat and came out of her reverie. "And then it was gone. You were back to being you. A moment of clarity and an eternity striving to regain it." She sighed and giggled a bit.

"Yeah. That was exactly it." His eyes narrowed a bit, and he seemed ready to ask a question, then shook his head and continued where he left off. "Anyways, that wasn't quite the end of it. There was this voice. While I was still halfway between existence and nonexistence, and that's the best way I can think to explain it, so don't ask me to clarify. It said I knew what I needed to know now, and to go survive. And told me something about enjoying the journey more cause the destination isn't all that important. I've thought a lot on those words and I don't know what the voice was but I know it was important." He sighed and seemed to be thinking about something for a moment before continuing. "And when I came to, it was as if no time at all had passed. Saffron's flames were still surrounding me, and the last of my Ki held me frozen in the Ice of the Gekkaja. But I was different. I had Knowledge. And that knowledge changed everything. I was still one with something greater than me. It guided my actions from there. I willed things to happen and it made it so. All about me was Power. Chi. Different than the Ki I use from within, but the same. It was everywhere. The world was aflame with it. It filled Saffron's flame and was concentrated within the very air around me. I thought that maybe I was just seeing the world for how it was then. But I know now that while the Chi is around us, that at that moment I was engulfed by enormous amounts of it. I drew it into me from the Pattern around me and used it in place of the Ki I didn't have left. I ripped it out of the Pattern it existed in and infused myself with it. And I blasted Saffron with my newly created Hiryu Hyou Toppa. It was euphoric. I tore him to shreds. This being that only moments before had been of unimaginable power, I just tore it apart as if he were nothing. And I didn't care. I took a life and didn't even care. Not to save Akane, not to protect someone, Not even to further the Art. I killed him, just because I could. And I reveled in the sheer joy of the feeling. I was still connected to him you see. I could still feel the pattern of reality that made him what he was. And I felt it as it was destroyed. Then the unimaginable happened yet again. The ashes of the old pattern re-forged themselves into a new pattern all on their own. He rebuilt himself from the energies that had destroyed him. The energy I'd fueled through my own being. And you know the worst part? It used part of my pattern. It copied a piece of what I am and used it in its rebirth." Ranma trembled as the weight of his words seemed to press down on him. "He may have done wrong, but the wrong I did to him can never be forgiven."

Nabiki nodded quietly and let silence fill the room. She stood and embraced him. No words were exchanged. Just a silent comfort. Pulling back from him once he'd stopped shaking she smiled. "Don't worry Ranma-kun, I'll just add it to your tab."

"Huh?" he asked

"You copped a feel, and I don't come cheap."

"Ahg... I mean... uh..."

"Oh relax Saotome. Jeez, you're such a prude." She said laughing. She smiled again. It had worked; his mind was out of that self-destructive path. She was going to have to help him get someone to talk to soon. Else who knows what sort of long term consequences this might have. "So what then?"

Ranma nodded and continued. "Anyways, I ran off to make sure the Tomboy was okay. And what do I see? Akane was fine; they'd gotten the water from the dragon tap for her. She was there in a lip lock with Ryouga. I couldn't believe it. And you could tell he couldn't either. It was almost funny watching the blood shoot out of his nose like that, the damn pervert. I realized then that she wasn't really in love with me, and well with everything going on I realized I didn't really care. Of course this is when my adrenaline or something ran out and I passed out. I haven't really said anything to her since then and I don't know if she knows what I saw, but that's why I couldn't believe that she actually agreed to the wedding. And then she had the gall in the middle of the wedding to tell me... not ask me, but tell me that I "loved her". I mean how delusional can someone be. Anyways, ever since I woke up I realized that my Ki's not responding like it did. Nothing works the same anymore. All my martial arts skill is the same but I'm limited to the levels of strength, speed, and stamina that I have without my ki and none of my ki related attacks work either. Then there's the fact that I felt, i mean really felt, as in like a physical sense how the universe was paying me back for daring to change it. So all the chaos woulda happened no matter what anyone did."

"It's called Paradox Ranma-kun." She lectured. "Damn, I'm not really qualified to teach you anything, and a lot of what I might say could actually do you more harm than good. Jeez, I thought with all the weirdness in your life that you must have been incapable of the Awakening. I mean seriously I would have thought that you would have Awoken way earlier in your life if you were going to at all. Listen all I can say is that whenever you change things the collective unconscious of the rest of existence will push back. And when it pushes back, you'll be hit with Paradox. I'll try to get in touch with someone who might be able to help you out better. Just for now don't try to do anything, especially in front of sleepers. And that's everyone else right now as far as you're concerned. Listen, I went through something similar to what you did some time back. You can get yourself killed really quickly, if no one is there to help explain the pitfalls to you. However anything I try to explain to you might affect you negatively and I'm just not knowledgeable about things to safely explain anything. "

He shook his head and smiled, "Hey no worries, I'm just glad to know that I can talk about this with someone. Pops would have a fit if I tried to tell him about this, not to mention what else might happen. I mean can you imagine the type of training that he might come up with?" Ranma shivered.

"Yeah, anyways get out Ranma-kun, I've got a lot to think about, and you need to go get some rest. You look like hell."

"Thanks Nabs."

"Shoo…" she said, and waved her hands at him in a shooing motion. "Or I might charge you extra."

Ranma nodded and slipped out the door.

Nabiki shook her head and collapsed down on her bed in a heap. Damn this was going to cause her some serious migraines. She stretched and pulled out her cell phone and hit a speed dial. "Sensei? Problem for you. You remember my thesis subject? Yeah, that's right. Well he woke up. No I mean he Woke up. Yeah. I was thinking tomorrow we could skip school and take a trip to the Chantry. Uh huh. You know what I told you about his life as a sleeper. Now imagine what might happen to someone like that as a Mage. No I doubt he's got the mindset for the True Sciences. I suppose. It'll be his choice I suppose. Yeah I'll see you tomorrow after lunch then. Yeah I'll do that."

She sat down at her computer and got to work. Tonight was going to be a long night.

Author's Notes- Well I can't say that this chapter was what I expected to write when I began, but I think it turned out well. I need to address a few items here to clear up some confusion. First the setting for this story is the Old World of Darkness. Mage the Ascension not Mage the Awakening. Second it's set in the timeline before the Avatar storm, meaning that world power levels are still at their high point. Clan Ravnos among the Vampires still exists and you can cross the Gauntlet without having your Avatar torn to shreds. I'm actually adjusting the timeline for those events, they will eventually occur, but not at the May 1999 point that they did in the original WoD timeline. And if anyone's curious I have both Ranma & Nabiki's Character sheets available on my homepage, however they contain some spoilers and are accurate (for now) only after the apprenticeship arc. If you're wondering why Ranma's speech and vocabulary seem to improve when he talks about his experience, I assure you that it is intentional. Some knowledge remains in the subconscious after both awakening and subsequent seekings. However aside from slightly better grammar and vocabulary, there will be few if any changes to Ranma's character early on. I should mention that I'm using the Manga version of Ranma not the Anime version. Those of you who've read the manga will understand the differences. For those of you who are curious, in this chapter Ranma's Arete is One and the only sphere dot he has right now is First Dot in Prime. This will be his primary Sphere.

Secondary Note: I answer my reviews personally should you have any specific questions and any comments or constructive criticism is welcome. I'd like to thank all of you for reading and hope that you enjoyed my work. From time to time I'll put author's rants at the end of my chapters, if you're not interested, please skip over them. I'm notorious for ranting and babbling and quite likely even if you enjoy my stories you'll quickly get sick of my long-winded tangents.

Rotes used in Chapter-

Nabiki- Stroke of Genius (Sons of Ether/Virtual Adepts) Mind 1, Entropy 1

Ranma-Chi sight-(Chin' Ta) Prime 1