Another Rainy Day in Nerima
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or any related characters in any way, shape or form.
Author's Notes: happy new year, to all those of you who've had the patience to wait for my return. Now, normally this chapter would have been decided by vote. However, for various reasons, Gideon020 and I have decided to throw the order out of whack for this chapter and the next two after it. Please continue to vote; as that will determine what oneshots we begin tackling after these three chapters are done.
Chapter 9: Parenting Potential
Ranma had seen much in the Eye of Zygyg, but… for a reason he couldn't explain, yet which might have had something to do with the bulge in Ukyo's stomach, the promise of a son or a daughter, he felt compelled to ask if there was something more he could see with this Heartbourne Eye.
"Hey, Abe? How far into the future can I look with this thing?"
"It's hard to put a specific limit on it. What are you trying to do?" Abe looked up from the object he was currently tinkering with, something vaguely like an ouji board, only with runes and a carved gemstone, and then smiled. "Ah, I see; you want to make sure that you'll be a better dad than Genma was, eh?"
"I couldn't be any worse." Ranma groused with a hint of worry, who hadn't thought of that possibility before now.
"Trust me, there are far worse than him out there. I met this one customer once, rather nerdy sort, yet weirdly charismatic for it. If I'd known just what he was after, I would have rammed a Fireball Bead where the sun don't shine and considered myself a better person for it. When his old lady died, he tossed his kid out like a piece of rubbish so he could mope for her uninterrupted. Real sick freak, he was." Abe said distastefully, scowling at the memories.
Ranma looked askance at the self-admitted wizard, but chose not to comment, instead staring once more into his magical mirror. Which timeline he would investigate first was a no-brainer; he wanted to see Ukyo's son. He couldn't really decide what he wanted to see, but the mirror seemed to sense his indecision and began to look in on a random scene, Ranma content to merely go along for the ride.
Nerima's vacant lots had seen much use, in their time, as impromptu camp-sites and training spots for wandering martial artists. No one knew when it started, it just was. And the vacant lot currently being shown to Ranma-Prime was being used right now, the distinctive sounds of one martial artist practicing their skills echoing into the surrounding streets. The current occupant was Seichi Saotome, eldest child of Ranma and Ukyo Saotome. And the new title was really feeling strange to him; until about six months ago, when his parents had sheepishly announced Ukyo was pregnant again, he had been the only Saotome child. It wasn't that he minded being an elder brother; he just wondered why they had waited until he was 16 to have kids again. Any tension about that fact had been worked out months ago- he'd taken after his father in that regard.
No, what was currently bothering him was something much newer and much more personal. He had found out earlier today from his parents that he was engaged- and to a girl none of them had ever met before. They had mentioned their run-ins with the "Joketsuzoku", a village of female martial artists from the nowhere-lands of China, before, but never had they mentioned anything about him being intended to marry a girl from there! He had been told the story in full detail, and he knew in a detached manner that it wasn't their fault, but suddenly finding out you were engaged to a girl even his parents had never met was still disconcerting.
As he began throwing himself into his kata with even greater fervor, his danger senses suddenly screamed at him. With the speed and skill expected of a Saotome martial artist, he whirled around and struck, deflecting the speeding projectile in mid-air with almost contemptuous ease, settling into a battle-ready posture as he withdrew from the blow. He was rewarded with the sound of clapping.
"Was there any reason for that, or was that your idea of fun?" Seichi asked casually before turning to see just who had shot at him.
Standing on the rooftop was a Chinese girl, the likes of which Seichi would freely admit that he had never seen before. It wasn't the silver hair, tied up into a number of braids; it was the height of her- she was easily as tall as his father, though possessed of a definitely feminine slenderness. Tall as she was, she was clearly no dainty wallflower- the fact she was actually carrying a dadao, a Chinese greatsword, in one hand with all the effort of a tennis racket was ample proof of that. Seichi couldn't quite fathom what she was carrying in her other hand though. Not because it was extremely heavy or anything (though, from what he knew, they did have a decent heft to them), it was because of a simple fact: who would use an antique weapon like a zhuge nu in this day and age? This she slung away before bounding down to join him in the vacant lot, studying him as blatantly as he was studying her.
Lo Xiong felt a twitch as she regarded the boy that Khu Lon said was Seichi Saotome. Prospective husband or not, no woman would be able to simply ignore those almost effeminate looks, the type that her friend Sou Pu's manga called 'Bishonen'. Well, at least his hair was cut short; Lo Xiong didn't know whether she'd be able to handle a boy with better hair than her. Finally, she decided to break the silence- best to confirm that this really was her future husband (and she wasn't too sure she'd mind that much if it turned out she had the wrong person here).
"Are you Seichi Saotome?"
"That depends; are you Lotion, of the Joketsuzoku?" He fired back.
Lo Xiong quirked an eyebrow, with a hint of interest, at the speed and defiance of his retort. Her size and strength tended to intimidate others, so she naturally preferred those with courage. And if this boy was Seichi, and he did have the right attitude, then maybe he wouldn't be such a bad fiancé after all- bad enough to be engaged to a boy who looked like a girl; worse still one who was a dainty, cowardly fop.
"Does the pretty boy want to fight, then? Aren't you scared I'll mess up your good looks?"
"My name is Seichi Saotome, and even messed up, I'd still be better looking that you. Not that you can actually hit me." Seichi drawled in response. He was used to getting mocked for his looks, so he'd learned to put up with them. Nevertheless, if this girl wanted a fight, he'd be happy to give her one.
Lo Xiong, unfortunately for her, was not so adept at controlling her temper. She flushed and swung her dadao menacingly. "You got a mouth on you, don't you? Well, I am Lo Xiong of the Joketsuzoku, and I accept your challenge."
"May I point out that you were the one who shot a bolt at me first?" Seichi commented.
What might have happened next was anyone's guess, but as it was, the thick cloud cover that had been looming over the town for several hours now chose that moment to dump its load, a heavy shower opening in surprisingly little time. Seichi took it in stride- for some reason, even though his father had been cured of Jusenkyo's transforming curse before Seichi had been born, all of the Saotomes retained a weird knack for attracting water, hot or cold. As a result, he was used to being wet; it wasn't really a problem for him. For Lotion, however, that was far from the case; before Seichi's eyes, the towering Amazon girl shrank down into her clothes and vanished, her last expression one of dismay and embarrassment. Seichi stared at the apparently empty pile of clothing in disbelief, which gave way to understanding when a very depressed looking fox- with silver and golden fur, reluctantly crawled out.
Ranma-prime pulled out of the timeline at that moment. "Well, they're getting on like a house on fire." He commented aloud to nobody in general. The choice of the next child to look in on was obvious; the only child he had seen himself as a father to was Kasumi's daughter Yuzu. Obediently, the Eye shifted through reality and began to display for him.
Ranma was looking at a ruined section of city, the ruins of Tokyo Tower situated below a gigantic alien vessel as tiny UFOs flitted around it. Finally, one of the small vehicles, which looked about as big as a small car, hovered to a stop above the pavement and extend four legs and landed with a soft metallic thud and the glass dome retracted in a cloud of steam.
Ranma-prime was on the edge of his seat as a figure hopped out of the craft and waddled, actually waddled out of the steam to reveal...a purple polka-dotted penguin at least four feet tall holding a rifle with a section of the weapon glowing an ominous yellow. Then it blinked and simply said…
"Wark?"
Ranma-prime sweat-dropped as an incredulous smile came to his face, "The earth gets invaded by purple polka-dotted midget penguins if I marry Kasumi? What the hell? What the hell is a penguin going to do?"
As if to answer the question, the penguin aimed its rifle at a Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force tank that had rumbled onto the scene and fired. With a harsh Zark! sound, a bolt of yellow-white light hit the tank and it exploded in a garish fireball that had Ranma-prime sweating, not only from the firepower the penguin was packing, but also from the fact that in the corner of the mirror, tiny kanji had popped up that actually said, "This is not a drug trip. The Earth is actually being invaded."
Ranma-prime wondered why the mirror had stopped on this point; wasn't he supposed to be seeing how one of his potential future children turned out? Then he saw a shadow move in a wrecked building and get closer to the celebrating alien penguin, and just as it sensed something approaching, the shadow struck. He winced as the penguin-thing exploded into a spray of purple ichor and jelly-like meat, whereupon the shadow scraped its boot against the pavement with a distinctly feminine noise of disgust before the light shifted and Ranma-prime saw the alien's killer revealed.
She was sixteen and the combination of hard blue-gray eyes and braided brown hair easily allowed Ranma-prime to see that this was his daughter. Ranma-prime had wondered what sort of clothing she would be wearing, but it was clear that he had missed the mark in terms of wardrobe. She was wearing what was easily nothing more than normal casual street clothes, the kind that no one took notice of and Ranma-prime nodded in satisfaction at the realization that she could essentially vanish into a crowd with little trouble. Though the handcuffs hooked on her belt and the obviously reinforced gloves were the only things about her that raised an eyebrow from Ranma-prime, she looked essentially like a normal teenage girl even as she kicked off a stray piece of gore still attached to her boots.
She shook her head in fairly obvious disbelief- not that Ranma-Prime blamed her, as he himself couldn't believe what had just happened. "Purple polka-dotted pygmy penguins from the planet Sigma...." She muttered to herself.
Then she frowned, and suddenly shouted, "Dammit Jewel! What the hell is this?"
Ranma-Prime had no need to wonder who "Jewel" was, as he chose that moment to appear. A Chinese boy of about the girl's age, the mirror depicted him with a kind of subtle 'glow' to him; not battle aura, but something else. Could it be... magic? He was quite obviously Shampoo's son, no matter what he was: his hair was the spitting image of hers in style and color (a shade darker than his mother's, maybe). Ranma-Prime couldn't help but wonder if Jewel was actually his name, some kind of translation, or a nickname. The latter seemed most likely, given the elaborate gemstone facial piercings the boy sported.
Then he replied calmly, as though having expected the violent outburst, "You could say that this is the weirdest week we've had this month Yuzu." Then he flicked his hand and a stream of flames consumed the alien corpse as the girl, who Ranma realized was 'Yuzu', snorted and spat on the ground.
"Not even a challenge. You'd think that an alien invasion would actually be difficult to fight." She snarled and turned towards the alien ship, "You hear me you bastards? How about a real challenge down here!"
Ranma-prime blinked, and then bowed his head while shaking it ruefully; if this was his daughter, then it only meant one thing… one hell of a fight. A glance at the mirror showed a large shape being launched from the alien ship towards the pair, prompting a predatory smile as Yuzu cracked her knuckles while Jewel rolled his eyes and backed away from the girl as the shape smashed into the concrete, the dust hiding it before, with a sound like a train wreck mating with an earthquake, a giant leg came out of the dust to arc down and slam meters from Yuzu, whose smile only widened at the possible size of her opponent.
She wasn't disappointed and Ranma couldn't help but wonder: what had his counterpart done to raise a kid who was willing to face off against a giant robot with her bare fists? Then he shook his head. No, he had to admit; Yuzu was the sort of kid that he'd end up raising, no matter who her mom was. Still, that Jewel guy hadn't made a move, and, hell, he was still as a statue while Yuzu was a blur in action, fists tearing holes and ki-blasts ripping through the amour of the alien war-machine as it staggered like a drunk. Then Jewel moved, his hands moving in strange patterns while he began a short chant in a strange language that Ranma-prime couldn't identify before the hands faced palms out at the machine, and a triple helix of energy leaped out towards the machine.
The first strand of energy struck a section of one of the other legs and Ranma-prime winced at the heat that quickly made the metal glow white-hot. Then the second stream hit and the section was hit by ice, exploding into steam and superheated water, the shock causing the metal to shatter and warp.
Then the final stream, a blast of electricity, snaked through the hole and the machine jerked and twitched madly, smoke and sparks flying from joints and holes made by Yuzu as the girl in question landed on top of the machine and with a warcry and an almighty punch, the cockpit caved in and Yuzu nonchalantly leaped off to land as agile as a cat before holding her arms up in victory, "Hah! Flawless! Didn't even get a scratch on my perfect body!"
Jewel chuckled. "Looks like your ego didn't get scratched either. Pity, it could have used some deflating before you started floating away on your own hot air."
He ducked a ki-blast as Yuzu started chasing him, Ranma-prime watching the scene while shaking his head just as the mists came in to finish the end of this little preview.
Having seen the two children he knew existed (sort of- proper tenses when time travel was involved was almost as confusing as proper gender nouns when a person switched sexes due to water), Ranma-Prime wondered where to go from here. He figured that the other timelines he'd seen probably had kids show up at some point, so the Eye should be able to direct him there. The question was: which child should he look in on next?
Ranma leaned on a fist with his free hand idly shifting the mirror to see how it played with the light before he decided on seeing how a kid between Nabiki and him would work out and focused his attention on the mirror, which obediently began moving through the threads of time. The scene that the Eye was now showing Ranma-Prime was a familiar one- so familiar, in fact, that it took him a few moments to recognize it as the very street that he and Akane took to reach Furinkan High School. The brown-haired, blue eyed girl currently racing along it, a piece of toast clamped firmly in her mouth, even reminded him of his and Akane's own occasional frantic rushes to school. The biggest change was her semi-frantic litany of "Oh crap, oh, crap, oh crap, why does this always happen?"
This scene of perfect normality was disrupted when a figure suddenly hurled itself from the mouth of a side-street at the girl as she passed by, with a loud declaration of "Kin Saotome, I shall claim your panties!" erupting from it as it did so.
The whole thing happened so fast that Ranma-prime barely had time to verify that it wasn't Happosai (too tall, and the choice of words was more like Kuno) but some completely new freak before the aforementioned Kin simultaneously scowled in fury, shouted "get lost you pervert!" (Catching the toast neatly in her hand as she did so) and kicked backwards, catching her attacker cleanly in the head and sending them skywards into LEO.
"I give that an 8.7." Ranma-prime muttered to himself.
As the mysterious attacker vanished into the sky, Kin shuddered. "Why am I the only one that freak targets? Does she get off on getting beaten or something?" She complained. "Ack, I'm late!" She suddenly shrieked, remembering the rush she was in, and promptly tearing off down the street again, shoving her toast back into her mouth as she did so.
A brief timeskip later, and it was lunchtime at Furinkan. Kin was sitting at her desk with a group of about four other girls gathered around her, eating and talking just like any teenager.
"So, Kin, how'd you do in that big maths test?" Asked one girl, notable by her hairstyle- it kind of reminded Ranma-Prime of Azusa Shiratori.
"…Not so good." Kin finally revealed. "Mr. Daisuke said my father used to get better marks in maths, never mind my mother."
The other girls winced and murmured in sympathy, while Ranma-Prime had to fight off a momentary brain freeze: Nabiki's daughter, bad at maths? It just wasn't right! Finally, a different girl, one with obviously dyed red hair, broke the silence.
"Still, it's not all bad, right? I mean, you do better in the other classes, right?"
"Yeah, if you call 'ranging from "just passing" to "purely average" better, sure." Kin grumbled, then sighed dramatically. "My academics suck, my physical classes are embarrassing, and to top it all off, Yukio still doesn't seem to know I even exist." She put a hand to her forehead and leaned back in her seat in a theatrical manner. "Oh, why must the life of a schoolgirl be so unfair?"
None of her friends looked very impressed with her antics. "Oh, sure, you're acing every damn PE activity you get involved with, you're the best fighter in school, and your dad is A: a famous martial artist and B: hotter than any guy in his 30s has any right to be. Yeah, your life really sucks, big time." Groused the girl with Azusa's haircut.
"Chidori, that's just plain creepy. And I don't want to be the best fighter in school- I mean, would any of you want to be able to beat up every jock in school at once?" Kin asked.
Unfortunately, her attempt to prove her point backfired fairly predictably when each and every girl sitting with her promptly replied with some variant of "yep". She slapped her forehead and groaned in exasperation, but whatever she might have said or done next was cut off as a voice suddenly rang out.
"Excuse me? I'm looking for Kin Saotome- is she in this classroom?"
Just about everyone looked up from what they were doing to the door of the classroom, where a fairly ordinary looking guy was standing. At least, ordinary to them- the way he moved was ample evidence to Ranma-Prime that he had to be a martial artist, and he couldn't help but wonder if maybe the black of the guy's hair was a bit too dark… maybe dyed? Anyway, he would have bet money that this guy was this timeline's version of the "Amazon Groom" sent to claim the Saotome bloodline for the Joketsuzoku. Or maybe he was just being paranoid and this was a challenger or something; hard to say.
"I'm Kin Saotome. Why do you want to know?"
The stranger walked over until he was standing in front of Kin's desk, before theatrically putting his hands on his hips and declaring. "Kin Saotome, I have come a great distance to test your skills in combat. I challenge you to meet me at-"
He broke off suddenly, interrupted by an audible sniveling sound. He stared at Kin in obvious shock, quite understandable given that the girl had suddenly teared up and looked ready to burst into Soun Tendo-level waterworks. "…What's wrong?" He finally asked in deep confusion.
"You're cruel…! Why do you want to pick on me, I've never done anything to you!" Kin suddenly burst out, following her words with a torrent of tears quite clearly inherited from her maternal grandfather. The stranger recoiled, clearly confused beyond words, but just when the situation seemed like it couldn't get any weirder… it did. The red-haired girl delivered a thunderous slap to the back of Kin's head, an irritated look on her face.
"Knock it off, Kin! Kami, you try to pull this stunt every time! Where's your pride as a martial artist?"
"I think you're confusing me with another girl." Kin groused.
Ranma-Prime chose that moment to withdraw; this was just too weird. A part of him began to wonder (and another part to fear): if these were his children from the Japanese timelines, then just what sort of children he'd become a father to in the timelines where he had become a member of the Joketsuzoku? Finally, his (morbid?) curiosity overwhelming him, he decided to look in on the timeline where he had married Shampoo- the potential horrors of what awaited him in the one where he'd married Shampoo and Ukyo simultaneously meant that he wanted to put off viewing that for as long as possible.
The scene that the Eye unveiled before his eyes depicted a teenaged boy practicing by himself near a glassy pond. Ranma-Prime couldn't help but smirk: even if he hadn't been the one to direct the Eye, he would easily have recognized the boy as being Shampoo's son. The eyes, the same red as his mother's, were one give away; the reddish-purple hair was another. The strangest thing about the boy, at first glance, was his choice in weapons; neither Japanese nor Chinese in origin, they were basically single-edged sword blades that projected at an angle from a band around either wrist, jutting back along his forearm to stick out past his elbow.
Though the adjustments made to the style to account for his weapons were obvious, and it was clearly more orientated towards offense than Ranma's own version, it was plain to see that the boy's fighting method was nothing less than Saotome Anything-Goes. Ranma was rather surprised at the sudden swell of pride, both parental and as a martial artist, that flooded his heart as he studied the diligence and capability of this "son that might have been". Finally, he finished his practicing with a final elaborate flourish, then walked over to the pond before kneeling down and scooping up a handful of water to drink. As he went for a second handful, a voice spoke from somewhere out of view.
"So, Yemon, you really intend to go through with this?"
Pausing only to nonchalantly drink his fill, Yemon wiped his mouth and replied, not even bothering to look in the speaker's direction. "Yes, I do. I fail to see why you care, Okkuu."
The grass stirred nearby, before an ordinary looking ferret crawled out and fixed Yemon with a steely gaze, pausing to scratch its ear with its hindleg. When it spoke, in perfectly understandable Japanese, Ranma-Prime was, needless to say, a little shocked. But compared to people who turned into animals when wet, and three thousand year old ghostly cats who were after human wives, a talking ferret was normal. Wait; what was he saying? It was almost boringly mundane.
"Oh, I don't care, but I just don't see why you want to go through with a ritual that's considered archaic and pointless- and you people still keep hold of the Kisses of Death and Life! Why do you want to leave this place, where you've lived all your life?"
"It's precisely because I've lived here all my life that I want to go. I wanna see the world, meet new people, fight strong opponents, maybe even meet that special someone every person wants to meet."
He sighed, somewhat melodramatically, and the ferret audibly snickered.
"What girl in their right mind would want to date a fight-crazed loser like you? Name one girl who's approached you here who you can prove didn't just want in with your parents- and they're only famous here in the Byankalas."
Yemon's face went blank and expressionless, the martial artist fixing a frigid stare at the talking ferret, who ignored it casually, before getting up and striding away. The ferret watched him go, then sighed and scurried after him.
The mists gently overlapped the picture, then faded away again, depicting a moment slightly ahead in time of the original scene it had shown him, consisting of Yemon standing outside of Ranma and Shampoo's house with Cologne at his side, a rather battered pack on his shoulders, and two rather upset young girls standing near his father and mother.
"…Well, I guess this is it. It's time for me to go." Yemon finally said.
Ranma nodded, then clapped his son comradely on the shoulder. "Take care of yourself in Japan, son. I still don't really see why you feel you gotta go there to train when there's all of China to explore."
"Well, you managed to get good there, didn't you? I just thought it was time I saw what the place you came from was like." Yemon replied.
Ranma seemed about ready to say something on that rather flimsy excuse, when Shampoo gently touched his shoulder, that simple contact apparently all it took to make him reign himself in. One of the girls, slightly taller than the other, spoke up instead.
"Do you really have to go, Yemon-chan? I don't like that I'm never gonna see you again." The girl spoke with a quivering lower lip and her eyes were wide and tearful, as if she was about to burst into tears if the young man continued on with his decision. Any other person would likely have faltered and Ranma-Prime certainly felt a slight tug at his heartstrings looking at that cutesy expression.
"Oh, Sakuranbo, I won't be gone forever… and what have I told you about acting all cutesy like that? You're ten years old- you should have more pride in yourself."
The ten-year-old flushed a red that was almost as bright as the cherry hue of her hair. Meanwhile, her slightly shorter sister (who, weirdly, had the exact same hair colour while otherwise looking completely different) suddenly chose that moment to lunge forward and latch onto Yemon's waist, prompting a hint of an irritated grimace before his expression went blank as plastic.
"Ying, cut that out. When you're eight years old, you're too old to do things like this." Yemon said, his voice ice-cold and almost cruelly collected. Ying looked up at him, eyes wet with tears, though it was hard to say whether from the fact her elder brother was leaving or from the tone of voice, then finally let him go and stepped away from him, whereupon Yemon's expression softened slightly.
"That's better. Look, I know you don't want me to leave, but this is something I gotta do. I'll come back home soon, I promise."
Ying sniffed and wiped away a few tears, evidently over any upset caused by Yemon's sudden brusque behaviour, but stepped back and nodded. Yemon smiled gently at her, then turned to leave, Cologne waiting behind to share conspiratorial gestures with her great-grandchildren before pogoing after her great-great-grandson. The scene was disrupted when Okkuu suddenly spoke up.
"So, why is it that I have to come again?" The talking ferret complained.
"Because when we're apart too long, we suffer terrible pain and then die." Yemon responded calmly.
"…That's not an excuse!" Okkuu finally snapped.
Ranma watched his son and great-grandmother-in law leave, his daughters running after them with the intent to follow them to the village's edge, and sighed as he shook his head. "I kind of knew that something like this was always going to happen… but still…"
"Martial artists have to wander if they want to prove themselves truly worthy of the title. It's just the way things are. If it's any comfort, then be relieved that at least you won't have to do this with Sakuranbo and Ying." Shampoo said, laying a comforting hand on Ranma's upper arm.
"That's true. Sakuranbo wants to be Healer- ever since she was a little girl. And Ying wants to join the Loremasters so she can 'make the pretty lights' like Lei Xiu does." Ranma mused, suddenly wincing as Shampoo's fingers began to dig into his flesh.
"That… boy… had better stay away from my little girl!" She hissed.
"…Shamps, we've been over this before; Lei Xiu is a good boy and he's no worse an influence on Ying than any of her other friends. You've got to stop treating him like he's evil just because his father was exiled from Togenkyo- need I remind you of what my father was like?"
Ranma's tone was no less bitter than it had been after Genma had first betrayed him in this timeline, and Ranma-Prime chose that moment to withdraw from the Eye. His curiosity aroused, he left off reactivating the mirror's magic to ask a question.
"Abe? What's Togenkyo?"
"Togenkyo? It's a magical kingdom, located somewhere in the South Seas."
"…Somewhere? Can you be a little more specific?" Ranma asked.
"No, I can't- the damn thing's on a floating island dominated by a peach tree the size of a mountain. It's got a long history of martial arts and illusion magic- as a matter of fact, the royal family is traditionally expected to be a master of both." Abe explained.
"I see… so why would Shampoo be so distrustful of someone who came from Togenkyo?"
"The Joketsuzoku don't like Togenkyo much- and you can't really blame them; they are slavers."
"…Slavers? In this day and age?" Ranma finally asked in disbelief.
"Pretty much. They kidnap women from other lands and force them to marry the locals- y'see, the giant peach tree is magical, and at its center is a spring that, thanks to the tree's sap, has become a powerful transformative spring. Anything touched by its waters is turned into a man- there's something of a tradition of using it on animals to make bestial men as warriors and guardians. And before you get any ideas, I don't know if it would cure your Jusenkyo curse or not, but I wouldn't recommend going there: mixing magic can be dangerous. Anyway, this water contaminates all of their groundwater, so any women who live on the island can only bear sons while they're there. That means Togenkyo needs to keep kidnapping women from outside to have children."
As Abe finished his explanation, Ranma nodded to himself. That explained everything, and gave him a possible cure- though he wasn't stupid enough to go chasing after this one blindly. That was something that could wait for later: for now, he resumed his peering into Zygyg's Eye.
The only two choices left were the 'double marriage' timeline, and Kodachi's timeline- well, technically, he had two choices for Kodachi, but they both had the same general 'root', so he didn't suppose that it really mattered which he looked in on. As he'd already seen one example of an Amazon child, he decided to look in on the Saotomes-nee-Kunos. The mirror obligingly showed him two children, a boy and a girl- strangely, while the others he had seen had all been about his own age of 16, he had a distinct sense that these two (twins, if he was any judge) were younger than that, though he had no idea how old they were.
"Come on Hisoka, momma's got our presents!" Hiromi Saotome-Kuno tugged at her twin brother's arm as the boy groaned and raised a messy head of short hair to stare at a digital clock while his sister bounced in place, causing her waist-length hair to fly everywhere as he grunted and allowed himself to be dragged out of bed.
"Ugh, how do you get so hyper in the morning Hiromi?" Yawning slightly, Hisoka adjusted the collar of his shirt as Hiromi bounced in all directions as the family's servants nimbly dodged and weaved around the girl in their tasks while those who were not working bowed to the young twins as they arrived at the breakfast room and entered.
Seated at the table were the twin's parents and Ranma-Prime raised an eyebrow; while his counterpart only had a ponytail instead of the usual pigtail- and was wearing what appeared to be a casual business ensemble, those were the only differences from his norm. Meanwhile, the seated Kodachi appeared almost like a queen, and Ranma-Prime gave a low whistle at the regal beauty reading business documents with sharp eyes while the children took their seats and were served, sharing morning pleasantries with their father while their mother simply nodded, but Ranma-Prime could see that it was only because she was so focused on the document in front of her before she took a pen, signed it with a flourish and passed it to a personal assistant standing nearby before her face was split by a radiant smile.
"And how does it feel to be another year older my darlings?" Ranma could practically feel the motherly warmth radiating from the woman; who knew that Kodachi could mellow out enough to be a mother? He shrugged as he refocused his attention to the scene as Kodachi shared a look with her husband, who winced slightly before starting to speak.
"Kids, your mother and I have been...discussing the matter of your birthday presents." Hiromi cheered while Hisoka smiled slightly as Ranma motioned for the girl to calm down, "Your mother feels that since the two of you are now thirteen, that you can handle the responsibility and discipline of more advanced training in the Art." At the confused looks from the two, Ranma sighed, "Remember when your mother asked the two of you what sort of weapons you would want to use once you were old enough?" At the two nods, Ranma glanced at Kodachi who regarded him with a regal stare that plainly said, 'You are not backing out of this' and continued, "Well, your advanced training will now consist of training to master weapons along with unarmed combat, starting with the weapons you chose when you were ten."
Ranma-Prime saw that his counterpart was nervous for some reason, as Kodachi snapped her fingers and an older Sasuke appeared in a puff of smoke holding a pair of large cases that he handed to a pair of servants, who opened them to reveal a coiled whip that had a metallic sheen to its length and a pair of traditional Japanese kodachi or short swords, crossed over each other with an obvious pattern of circuitry on the blades as the two children gasped in wonder at the weapons.
Kodachi smiled warmly, "Happy birthday Hisoka, Hiromi."
Beaming hugely, like any kid with a present, Hisoka took the whip and Hiromi the kodachi, and then the two of them ran eagerly for the window, opening it and leaping out into the garden to eagerly test their new presents. Kodachi turned that warm smile on a relived looking Ranma.
"And you were afraid that they would start practicing indoors."
"Well, kids can get carried away when they're excited. But, you're right, I should have had a little more faith in them." Ranma replied, walking over to the window to watch his offspring merrily do their best to kill each other. Kodachi joined him in a contended silence, which lasted until she, somewhat reluctantly, broke it.
"Ranma? Are you… happy… being a father?"
Ranma looked confused as he replied that of course he did, so why was Kodachi asking. Kodachi looked shyly down at her feet as she went on speaking.
"Well, I've been giving things some thought and, um… how do I say this? Would you like, I mean, would you mind having, oh, this is so hard to phrase delicately…"
She was cut off when a smiling Ranma put a gentle finger on her lips. "If this is your way of asking if I'd mind having more children, then no, I wouldn't mind… but are you prepared to go through with what it takes to get them?"
Kodachi's face took on an expression of predatory delight, her arms snaking quickly around Ranma's neck. Leaning in towards him, she purred hungrily. "Prepared? I'm looking forward to it…"
And that was when Ranma-Prime chose to leave this timeline. With only one choice left to examine, Ranma sent the Eye peering into the future of his 'double-wedding'. When it promptly showed him the sight of a hole in the mountains, he couldn't help but wonder for a second if it might have malfunctioned. Then it 'zoomed in' and he found himself peering at a crumbling, ancient building buried within the stones, a sight which he was actually rather familiar with thanks to his training trip and his father's fascination with... er... "obscure" training locales. Two figures were currently occupying the room, lit by the flickering of a basketball sized orb of blue flames that floated lazily and randomly around the ceiling. Standing in a posture that simultaneously suggested she was on guard and that she was too bored to actually do her job was a girl who looked surprisingly like Ranma's girl form... only Ranma wouldn't have been caught dead in clothes like that! The meteor hammer (the weight of which was A: several times the size of an ordinary meteor hammer's, easily the size of a flail's head, and B: apparently made out of rock) she was swinging around idly was also a difference. She stretched lazily and then gave an exaggerated sigh.
"This is boring! Katsutoshi, why is this taking so long?"
Her companion, and most likely brother, looked up from where he was rummaging in a pile of debris, idly brushing a forelock of green hair (which, given the rest of his hair was dark blue, kind of put Ranma in mind of a skunk stripe) out of his eyes in an unconscious reaction.
"Patience, Hatsumi; there's a reason it's called dungeon crawling, you know."
Hatsumi merely grimaced. "But why are we here anyway?" She whined.
"Well, it depends. You are here because you're nosy and you thought you'd get points with both our mothers by tagging along to 'watch my back'. I am here because I want to further my studies."
"...You mean that crazy old hag the Loremasters have currently assigned to be your teacher is sending you to retrieve some trinket or other as one of her little 'tests'." Hatsumi observed.
"Precisely. So don't you complain when you had a choice! I had plans for today, and delving inside this old ruin wasn't part of them!"
"Oh? Little brother had a hot date today?" Hatsumi teased.
"Yes, I did, actually." Katsutoshi bit out. When Hatsumi's expression of shock at the blatant admission of truth became a deeply suspicious one instead, he voiced an audible groan. "Knock it off, sis; I'm sick of you treating Ra'fylle like some kind of brain-sucking monster, just because she happens to come from outer space..."
Any further comments he might have been about to make (and Ranma-Prime was torn between whether or not he wanted the whole story) were cut off as a rock wall suddenly exploded outward with a tremendous roar, the stones reshaping themselves into a roughly humanoid form.
"Don't see many of those these days." Ranma-Prime commented casually. An outsider would have been shocked at how he wasn't filled with worry for the fates of his semi-children, but Ranma had confidence enough that they could take care of themselves.
Hatsumi sniffed, "And that is exactly why I have to keep an eye on her. Who knows what sort of insidious plot she has to take over the world?"
Katsutoshi simply blinked, before opening his mouth and then shutting it again before he spoke.
"...Have you been playing that X-Com game on Mei-Ling's computer again? I swear that game is meant to reinforce a negative stereotype that all aliens want to take over the Earth."
Hatsumi sniffed, turning her nose up at the accusation. "I don't see all aliens as evil...just Ra'fylle."
Katsutoshi snapped his fingers. "Ah ha! I knew it! It's not that she's an alien, you're jealous that I have someone and you don't!"
As his sister spluttered and tried to deny the accusation, the rock golem apparently had enough of waiting around and charged with a sound like an avalanche making out with an feedback-ridden amplifier, intent on crushing the pair in one attack.
What it got was a blast of pure shadow slicing off its arm as the girl leapt forwards and spun like an eye-watering tornado, meteor hammer striking like its namesake. Even as the giant golem's skin suddenly shifted into diamond, the hammer hit with enough force to crack the crystal, gaining a raised eyebrow from Ranma-Prime as he wondered what the head of the hammer could be made out of as Hatsumi brought it down in a vicious overhead swing that sent a crack clean down the center of the beast, before it shattered like glass as shadows wrapped around it and squeezed in some parody of a giant snake, sending huge chunks of diamond crashing to the cave floor.
Katsutoshi shook his head even as his sister began grabbing diamonds and stuffing them into her pockets, and grabbed a few of the better looking pieces to slip into the many pockets of his coat. Then Hatsumi whirled to face him, "For your information, I am not jealous of you having a girlfriend! I just don't like that alien!"
Katsutoshi shook his head as the pair started walking deeper into the cave, "And pigmen will start sprouting wings to fly." Mists rolled in as the pair began to resume their argument.
Ranma leaned back in his chair, stretching in a manner someone else might have likened to a cat- and almost leaping out of his chair when a sudden burst of thunder seemed to erupt just outside. Lightning could now be seen flickering through the windows, and Ranma's annoyance was almost a palpable thing.
"Oh, come on! The TV didn't say anything about any hurricanes! Where is this damn storm coming from?"
"It's Nerima- big storms like this aren't exactly uncommon." Abe pointed out. "It's not really business, but you're fine to crash here for the night if it won't let up- and if they couldn't even bother to come and see you at the hospital, I don't think they'll miss you for a day or so."
Ranma nodded gratefully, then began to look thoughtful. Now, he had seen himself wedded to each of the girls besides Akane, but he couldn't help but wonder: were there any timelines where he ended up with yet someone else? Someone he hadn't even met (at least, so far) or to which he had no 'official' ties?
Apparently reading his mind, the Eye began to wander once again...
And that's this chapter up at last. We hope you enjoyed our little peek into the futures of Ranma from the stories we've shown you already. The next chapter will be our Ranma/OC one, which Vassago-Toxicity has so kindly offered to beta for us. However, that means that chapter 11 (by chapter titles) will be voted for as normal. The previous chapter has the oneshots remaining to tackle, so vote for the one you'd like to see done next, please!
Oh, and this goes out to SuperLardBucket and all the others who keep advocating me to read the manga. Now pay attention to this, because I'm not going to repeat myself. I got into Ranma ½ via the manga- I read the manga first, and then I watched the anime. When I was done, I decided that I preferred the anime. Don't keep telling me that I'll like the manga better- I've seen the manga, I read it first, I liked it less. There's an essay I could write on this subject, particularly on the "adaptation decay" most accuse the anime of having, but that's not what this site is for, or why I'm here. I'm here to write fanfiction.