Chapter 7: When He Died

After several hours had passed, Ranma began to stir from his slumber upon hearing a series of seven bells chiming in the distance. Stretching a bit and yawning, he reached up to rub his eyes. Even though he wasn't sure how long it was that he had been out, he felt more rested than he had for quite a long time. Because he had been so exhausted, this wound up being the first night since the incident with the mushrooms where his subconscious wasn't plagued with nightmares. Cracking his eyes open slightly, he noticed light filtering into the shed through a crack in the door.

"Mmmm, that felt nice." he thought. "Time to go and find Dr. Tofu."

All of a sudden, Ranma heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

MEOW

Ranma began to tremble. He thought perhaps that he might have been hearing things, but he soon heard the sound once again.

MEOW

"No, not now. Why did this have to happen now?" he thought in terror.

The sound was unmistakable. Ranma was all too aware of it and what it was capable of. During his first go around through childhood, that sound had represented the fullest extent of hell that Genma's training was capable of delivering. Ever since the day when Ranma was first wrapped in fish sausages and tossed into a pit, hearing that sound had always left him feeling terrified beyond belief. And now here it was once again, sneaking up on him when he least expected it with the sole intention of dragging him back down into that dark abyss.

MEOW

Ranma immediately sat up in a panic and attempted to back himself up along the floor to get away from the noise. This failed however due to the small size of the shack. Ranma had collapsed the previous night very close to the back corner, so his back wound up pressing up against the far side of the shed almost immediately. He was trapped, there was no way to get out.

MEOW

Trying to look around to see where the sound was coming from, Ranma suddenly realized that there was a strange weight on top of his chest.

"Oh no, don't tell me…" he thought.

Looking down extremely slowly, Ranma's worst fears came true when he saw what was causing the strange weight. On top of his stomach was an extremely tiny grey and black kitten. It had apparently been curled up in a ball on top of Ranma while he was asleep, but Ranma's sudden movement had caused it to wake up. It took a few seconds to stretch before glancing around to see what had caused its peaceful surface to suddenly move. After a few seconds, it locked eyes with Ranma and began to stare at him. Nothing else happened for the next several seconds. The kitten remained perfectly still while continuing to stare, and Ranma was too terrified to do anything whatsoever. It was the kitten who eventually decided to break the silence.

MEOW

Ranma instinctively tried to move back in terror, but once again found himself unable to do so. Soon after, the kitten took a step forward in the direction of Ranma's chest.

"No…please…stay back…" he stuttered out.

The kitten appeared to obey Ranma and halted its movement almost immediately. After a few more seconds, however, it took another step forward.

"This is bad. I'm gonna die." Ranma thought.

Ranma moved his hands along the nearby ground. He thought that perhaps he might find a small rock or a weapon; anything to make the kitten go away. All of a sudden, his right hand gripped onto something small, warm, and fluffy. Another wave of panic rushed through him as he glanced over to see what it was that he had just touched.

"No way…is that a…?" he asked, shaking as he did.

Ranma gulped as his fears were realized once again. Lying next to him, right beside his right hand, was another ] black and gray kitten, nearly identical in appearance to the one standing on his stomach. As Ranma retracted his hand in horror, the small creature looked right up at him and made its presence known.

MEOW

Ranma was about to stand up and run out of the shed as fast as he could when a sound that chilled him to the bone echoed throughout the small space. A series of identical MEOWs rang out from every direction. Out of a mixture of terror and confusion, Ranma curled himself into a ball and began to look around in all directions. The kitten on Ranma's stomach jumped onto the ground but continued to stare at him all the same. Terrified, Ranma scooted himself into the nearby corner of the shed; the farthest that he could move to get away from the kittens. Now that he had a better view of his surroundings, it was finally clear to him just how dire his situation truly was.

As it turned out, there were not simply two kittens in the shack, but five of them. All of them were the same size with very similar black and grey patterns on their fur. The three that Ranma hadn't noticed before had apparently been curled up next to him in various places around his body. One had been lying on its side next to his hips, while the other two had splayed themselves across his legs. Ranma's antics had caused all of them to wake up and/or jump down from their resting positions. Now they were all staring at Ranma and surrounded him on all sides. One by one, they began to slowly move forward towards him.

Ranma began to feel dizzy as his fear levels increased. The closer that the kittens got to him, the greater this feeling became. Anytime that he started to feel like this, he knew that things were about to get really bad. He had no memories of the times when he mentally became a cat due to the Cat-Fist training, but he had heard horror stories from his father, Akane, and several others that had witnessed him in such a state. Whenever he ended up like that, it would typically spell nothing but disaster. The odds of dangers were especially heightened now though. When Ranma was in Nerima, he would have Akane around to trust in and comfort him until he returned to his normal state. Unfortunately, he was no longer in Nerima. Instead, he was in a strange new town far far away from the only person in the world who was ever able to make things better during such episodes. If he transformed right now, there was a heavy chance that he would never be able to go back to normal.

The kittens continued to move in closer, and Ranma could feel his mind beginning to slip into the void.

"And so this is how it ends for me." he thought. " I'm sorry, Akane. It looks like I failed, and right when I was so close to finding a way to return to normal. My, how I wish that you were here right now. I should've waited and asked you to come with me on another day. If you were here with me right now, there's no doubt in my mind that you would've found a way to make things better. I don't say it often enough, but there really is no one better at doing that for me than you. Goodbye."

Ranma closed his eyes and prepared for the Cat-Fist to take over. Just before the kittens could reach him though, a much louder sound suddenly rang through the shed.

MEOWWWWW

Ranma opened his eyes in confusion. All five of the kittens halted their movements and glanced off towards the opposite side of the shed. Ranma did the same, and his mouth dropped open at what he saw. Out of a large hole in the wall on the far side of the shed, a large grey cat emerged and began to walk towards Ranma and the kittens. This made Ranma extremely nervous. Even though it was no bigger than a normal sized cat, it may as well have been a tiger from Ranma's perspective due to his newfound size. The cat continued to move forward until it was less than half a meter away from Ranma. Very slowly, it turned its head to look right at him and did so for several seconds before breaking the silence.

MEOW

Ranma began to tremble. There was absolutely nowhere left for him to run. It had been bad enough when he had to deal with the five kittens, but now there was a full-sized cat added into the mix as well. It was without a doubt his worst nightmare come true. He immediately shut his eyes and prepared for the end to come at long last.

"Okay, just get it over with already." he thought. "I really can't take this anymore."

Ranma kept his eyes closed for several seconds, but nothing happened. Out of confusion, he slowly opened his eyes back up and noticed that the cat was looking around the room at each of the kittens. Eventually, it realized that Ranma was looking at it again and turned its attention back to him. Ranma jumped a bit at this action. There was more awkward silence that followed before the cat decided to break it once again.

MEOW MEOW

The cat immediately looked away from Ranma before walking right up to the nearest kitten and picking it up in its mouth.

"Huh?" Ranma asked with a mixture of fear and confusion.

The cat immediately turned around and carried the kitten towards the hole in the wall where it had just come from. Once it was there, it dropped the kitten onto the ground before returning to the open area to repeat the process with the other four kittens. In all, five trips of this nature were made, and Ranma found himself unable to look away. He was still beyond terrified of the cats, but this bizarre sight was causing that fear to be slowly replaced with confusion. He was finally able to piece things together by the time that the last kitten was being carried back across the room.

"Oh, I get it now." he thought. "That must be their mother, and the six of them live in this shed together. I was so tired last night that I didn't even consider the fact that something else might be living here. After I basically intruded their home and fell asleep, those younger ones must've sensed me and decided to curl up next to me for warmth or something."

Ranma shuddered a bit at the thought of such an action.

"Can't say that I blame them, though. Living on the streets ain't comfortable in any way, shape, or form. I know that better than anyone."

As soon as the mother cat had deposited the last of her babies in the hole in the wall, she turned around, sat on her hind legs, and began to stare at Ranma once again.

MEOW

Ranma slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off the cat. That awkward silence once again filled the room as neither side did anything for over half a minute.

"Why does it keep staring at me like that?" Ranma thought. "Does it want me to do something for it?"

Almost as if it could read Ranma's mind, the cat immediately gave its answer.

MEOW

Unlike the previous times, this particular sound had a noticeable amount of hostility behind it. It was clear that this cat didn't want Ranma to be anywhere near her right now, and the feeling was mutual as far as Ranma was concerned. Without any hesitation, he raced towards the slightly open door at top speed.

"I'm sorry, please forgive me. I'll never bother you again, I swear." he yelled frantically.

Ranma crashed into the door to force it open and began to take off down the nearest street at top speed, never looking back once. Within a few seconds, the shed had become a distant memory.

With her secretive home now filled with light from the open door, the mother cat walked back over to the hole containing her babies. After curling into the small space, she laid on her side and closed her eyes as the five kittens began to nurse from her.

Ranma wasn't sure just how long he continued running for before he was forced to stop to catch his breath. It felt like hours to him, but was likely no more than a few minutes at best. In any event, he began gasping for air and remained hunched over while he did for over a minute before getting back up. His tiny body lacked the stamina that it once did, and the fact that he hadn't eaten anything since the previous night certainly didn't help any. One thing was clear to him though. He felt infinitely better now that he was far away from that terrifying situation.

Once he became upright again, Ranma glanced around in both directions and then breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good, the cats are gone." he said. "I can't believe how close I just came to almost dying…again. What does this make it now, the third time? Urgh, this is really starting to give me a headache."

Ranma quickly dusted himself off with his hands.

"But, at the very least, I did manage to make it to get where I needed to go to plan my next move." he continued. "So this is Himawaridai Town, huh?"

Ranma began to walk down the street once again, this time taking note of his surroundings. The area that he was in looked almost like a modernized version of Nerima. There were a few trees scattered here and there, definitely more than he would see on his morning walk to Furinkan High School, but there was a constant string of small and medium-sized houses that were only broken up by the various perfectly straight roads and intersections that covered the area in a large grid-like pattern. In a sharp contrast to Nerima, the roads looked as if they had been recently paved, and every single one was populated with cars heading in all directions.

Ranma wouldn't have considered this to be an unusual sight when he was still on his training trip with Genma, but it was pretty jarring after living with the Tendos for as long as he had. Most people he knew back in Nerima who were old enough to drive never really needed to. The fact was that because they lived close enough to everything they needed, they simply walked everywhere or took the train if they needed to go somewhere out of town. The only people that he had ever seen who owned cars were rich individuals that flaunted them around like status symbols. Because there were very few such people back in Nerima, it was considered unusual to see even a single car on the road. Therefore, seeing this many all in one place was quite the culture shock from Ranma's perspective.

"Well, what do you know? It seems like the people in this town have a much higher standard of living." he thought. "I think that I'm starting to understand why Dr. Tofu would've wanted to move here."

Ranma rounded a corner and gasped at what he saw. Not too far away was a different part of the town that put this section to shame. It was much more urban in nature, with several large buildings towering overhead. Considering that Ranma hadn't really seen too much of Tokyo in his travels, it was quite the breathtaking sight indeed.

"Woah." he said in awe.

Not even considering where he might end up, Ranma began to walk down the street in the direction of the buildings. Before long, they surrounded him on all sides. The sheer size of these structures was truly something to behold, emphasized by Ranma's extremely short stature in comparison, and they seemed to go on forever in all directions.

"Never seen so many of these in one place before." he thought. "I guess that there must be a lot of companies that have their headquarters here. Trying to find Dr. Tofu mixed up in all of this is going to take forever."

All of a sudden, Ranma's stomach growled loudly which caused him to suddenly feel much weaker.

"First things first though. I really need to find some food."

Scanning around the area he was in, Ranma's eyes immediately fell upon what appeared to be a small, western-style bakery and cafe that had a small line of people leading out from one of the doors. Once again, Ranma felt very off balance at seeing this. There were no places like this back in Nerima, and he had never eaten at such a location before, during, or after his long training trip with Genma. He wasn't sure if the food served there would be any good, though at this point he was way too hungry to care.

"Oh well, it's better than nothing." he shrugged.

Ranma quickly made his way over to the cafe and got on line. Reaching into his pocket, he took out what was left of his loose change and began to look at it. With his free hand, he separated ¥700 worth of coins from the pile and placed them in his left pocket. Counting up what was left, he noticed that he had exactly ¥1375 left over.

"Okay then." he thought. "It's not exactly much, but it should be enough for one meal at the very least. At this point, I'll just take whatever I can get. Anything else that I might need later can be substituted by the invigorating feeling of knowing that a potential cure is right around the corner."

Slowly but surely, Ranma managed to move up the line as the people ahead of him ordered their food and drinks. Although it was quite boring for him to have to wait there for several minutes, the line moved much faster than he would've expected. It seemed as if this place was extremely efficient when it came to customer service, and this made Ranma wonder if this was the reason why so many people had decided to show up here so early in the morning. Because he had to wait as long as he did, he decided to use this time to try and figure out his next move.

"This town is certainly a lot bigger than I expected." he thought. "It doesn't have the same 'small town where everybody knows each other' vibe that Nerima does. Considering that, I doubt that I'll get very far trying to ask a bunch of random people on the street if they know Dr. Tofu. I suppose that I could try looking for a phone booth or something, although I didn't see any on my way here. Maybe I'll ask the person working behind the counter if they know where I can find one."

All the while, Ranma noticed out of the corner of his eye that several of the people in the cafe were giving him stares. Although it was weird, he couldn't exactly blame them for doing so. The vast majority of people who were in here looked to be at least high school age or older. There were at least a few people there who were likely in middle school based on the different-styled uniforms that they were wearing, but there were certainly no other children besides Ranma. Everyone in there towered over him, and as a result his short stature made him come across like some sort of oddity. Some people appeared confused, while a few others appeared annoyed as if it was somehow taboo for a six year old kid to come into such an establishment. One of the strangest looks came from a group of high-school girls, who seemed to be quite enamored by Ranma's presence. Ranma caught them blushing and giggling behind their books when they thought that he couldn't see them. In any case, Ranma did his best to ignore every single one of the stares and just stare ahead at the front counter.

"Don't worry. It's not like I came in here to muddy up your little sanctuary." he thought. "I'll be out of your hair as soon as I get my food."

Before long, the person in front of Ranma had finished placing their order, and the lady behind the counter called for the next person to step forward. Ranma walked up to the counter and placed his hands on the edge of the counter before pulling the upper half of his body off the ground. Once he had a solid grip on the counter, he looked the cashier straight in the eye, who greeted his gaze with a bright smile.

"Well hello there. What would you like to order today?" she asked.

Lowering one hand, Ranma reached into his pocket and placed his entire stack of change on the counter.

"I've never been to a place like this before, so I don't really know what's good and what's not." he answered. "I am very hungry though, so tell me, what would you recommend that's tasty, extremely filling, and won't cost me more than ¥1375 after tax?"

"I think I know just the thing." the lady answered. "We have a deluxe breakfast sandwich combo available for ¥937. That comes with the sandwich, complete with bacon, eggs, and cheddar cheese on a toasted bagel. The combo also comes with a free small bottled drink of your choice from the fridge by the checkout counter. If you'd like, I can add a slice of avocado onto it for an extra ¥100."

"Alright, I guess that that's okay." Ranma shrugged.

"Okay then. Is there anything else that I can do for you today?" the woman asked.

"Actually…there is." Ranma answered. "Do you know if there's a payphone near here? I'm trying to find an address that I need to get to as soon as possible."

"There's none close to the cafe as far as I'm aware of." the woman answered. "However, I do believe that there's one about two blocks from here. Just go right when you exit and it should be a straight shot from there."

"Thanks. You're a real lifesaver." Ranma said.

"You're very welcome. Is there anything else you need today?" the woman asked.

"No, I'm good." Ranma answered.

"In that case, your grand total comes out to be ¥1037."

The woman scooped up the pile of change and began to set aside the proper amount from the coins. As soon as she had gotten what she needed, she rang up the order and slipped the coins into the cash register. A few seconds later the receipt printed out, and she placed it, as well as the rest of the coins, on the counter in front of Ranma.

"And ¥338 is your change." she said. "The order number is on the receipt. We'll call you once your meal is ready. Enjoy, and thanks for choosing us today."

"No no, thank you." Ranma said with a smile.

After a few minutes had passed, Ranma exited the cafe with his breakfast sandwich in hand. He gobbled it down as quickly as he could as he walked in the direction that the woman had told him to go. By the time that the phone booth was in sight, he had finished the entire thing and had a feeling of complete satisfaction radiating throughout his body.

"Mmmm, that was pretty good." he said. "Not as good as Kasumi's cooking, but certainly way better than the rice that I always ate on the road with Pop. It's a shame that I don't have enough to stop there again on my way out later, but at least it didn't cost me everything I could spare. With what I have leftover, I should be able to buy a snack at the train station before I make my way back home."

Ranma made his way up to the phonebooth and stepped inside. Looking beneath the receiver, his eyes lit up when he saw that there was indeed a phone book lying there.

"Perfect." he said. "Now let's see if we can find Dr. Tofu."

Ranma pulled out the phone book and opened it up. He flipped through the pages until he came across a section related to medicine and doctors. Putting his finger on the page, Ranma moved it down until it stopped on a single entry. He smiled big, as it was exactly what he had expected to find.

New Means Healing Center

Dr. Tofu Ono - Chiropractor, Pediatrician

Dr. Junichi Sakurada - General Practitioner, Radiologist

Dr. Mitsuki Kabuto - Hematologist

Ranma jumped for joy and let out a large scream of delight.

"Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about." he yelled. "Dr. Tofu is still alive, and now I know exactly where to find him."

Looking at the book again, Ranma took out a coin from his pocket and slipped into the phone. He quickly dialed the number for the healing center and placed the receiver to his ear. After a few rings, a female voice could be heard coming from the other end.

"Thank you for calling the New Means Healing Center." the voice said in an automated tone. "The offices of…Dr. Tofu Ono…Dr. Junichi Sakurada…and Dr. Mitsuki Kabuto. The office is currently closed for the day. Our hours are…Monday through Friday…9:00 to 17:00, and Saturday…8:00 to 12:00. We hope that you have a wonderful day. Goodbye."

There was a click on the other end as the line went dead. Ranma placed the receiver back in place before placing his hand on his chin.

"Okay, that's a good sign." he said. "At least I know that this info is accurate. Now I just need to figure out where it is."

Ranma carefully tore out the section of the page containing the address and contact information for the business and placed it in his pocket.

"They may not be open right now, but they should be by the time that I manage to get there." he continued. "Only problem is, where do I even begin? This town is so large, and since I know absolutely nothing about anything here I may as well be Ryoga when it comes to looking for one specific location. What to do…?"

Glancing up slightly, Ranma noticed a male police officer walking past the phone booth. Ranma let the officer pass by then peeked his head out to get a better look at him as he continued along down the street.

"Hmmm…it may be a bit risky, but he'd certainly know his way around here." he said.

Ranma quickly exited the phone booth and began to run after the officer.

"Excuse me, I could really use some help." he called out.

The officer immediately turned around, allowing Ranma to catch up with him. Within a minute, Ranma had explained to the officer where it was that he wanted to go.

"Oh, the healing center you say?" the officer asked. "Yeah, I know where that place is. I've taken my kids there a couple of times ever since it opened a few months ago, and it's been an absolute godsend."

"That's good to hear." Ranma said. "Can you tell which way I need to go in order to get to it? It's kind of an emergency."

"You plan to go there right now?" the officer asked. "It's not even open yet. And besides, shouldn't a young one such as yourself be heading to school at this time of day."

Ranma froze in place for a few seconds before responding. He had feared that the officer might wind up asking too many questions, and would have to answer carefully to avoid arousing any further suspicion.

"Oh…I am." he answered. "I have an appointment with Dr. Tofu there after we get let out for the day. I only just arrived in this town recently, so I'm not very familiar with the area yet."

"Well couldn't you just ask one of your parents or guardians to drive you there or something?"

"Um…both my parents work pretty late." Ranma answered. "They told me though that it was close enough to the school that I wouldn't have to walk very far. If you can give me some details about the area where I need to go, I'm sure that I can figure it out no problem."

The officer looked at Ranma for a few seconds without saying anything. Ranma started to grow a bit nervous that the officer wasn't buying his lies, but those fears came to rest when the officer began to smile.

"Okay, I'm happy to help." he said.

Ranma let out a large sigh of relief.

"Whew, that was a close one." he thought.

The officer began to point down the street in the direction that he had just been walking.

"If you follow this road for twelve blocks, turn right, then continue down that road for five more blocks, you'll find it. Look for a large white building across the street from an aluminum tesseract statue. If you see the gates of Izumigami High School, then you've gone too far. You'll also know that you're on the right street if you see the Jinnoh Chemical company headquarters in the distance. It's a large building made up of blue-colored glass windows, so it shouldn't be too hard to miss."

"Thanks, I owe you one." Ranma said.

All of a sudden, the officer's watch beeped twice and he looked at it.

"Oh my." he said. "It's 7:30 at the moment, and if memory serves me the vast majority of elementary schools in this town that I know of start classes at 7:50. You have an awfully long way to travel in such a short amount of time. Would you like me to give you a lift in my patrol car? I'll let you ring the siren if you want to."

"Nah, it's fine." Ranma said. "I'm very fast, so I'm sure that I can make it. Besides, I could really use the extra training."

Not wanting to give the officer any further attempts to respond, Ranma began to race down the street at full speed, jumping over and on top of several objects as he did. Before long he had disappeared from sight, leaving the officer standing alone and confused. After a few seconds, the officer simply shrugged and continued on his way.

"Heh, kids today." he thought. "They always manage to find a way to surprise you."

Ranma stopped running once he was sure that the officer was no longer in sight. Now that there was no one left to look at him suspiciously, he would be content to simply walk the rest of the way. Given that he still had a few hours to kill before the healing center opened up, he was perfectly willing to take as much time as he could getting there.

As Ranma walked several more blocks, he became aware of a sudden influx of boys and girls of all ages wearing school uniforms crowding the sidewalks. He didn't find this surprising. Like the officer said, most schools were beginning their classes in less than half an hour, so everyone here was rushing to make it on time. Ranma felt a small smug sense of satisfaction at this due to the fact that this was one day where he didn't have to worry about such a thing anymore. He didn't exactly dislike high school as a concept, but the various gaps in his educational abilities combined with all of the madness that surrounded Furinkan High School on a daily basis didn't exactly make him eager to go back to it. He did still want to return to his original age, but for the time being he was more than happy to enjoy this unintentional sabbatical from the daily grind of high school life.

Ranma eventually came to the intersection where he was expected to turn off in order to find the healing center. Glancing down the street, he smiled upon seeing a large blue building in the distance with the word 'JINNOH' plastered on the exterior close to the top floor.

"There it is, Jinnoh Chemical headquarters." he thought. "I'm so close now. Just a few more blocks and I'll finally be able to see Dr. Tofu again and hopefully find a way to return back to normal."

Ranma was so lost in thought that he failed to notice when two people hoping to cross the street walked right up next to him. He wound up jumping a bit when he turned around and saw them standing there. They were both students, that was clear from the uniforms that they were wearing, though it was heavily apparent that they didn't go to the same school. The first person was a tall and rather scrawny male with jet-black hair who was wearing thick glasses which concealed his eyes. From the look of it, Ranma estimated that he was likely in high school, and roughly around the age that Ranma himself had been before the incident with the mushrooms. Although his entire ensemble made him come off almost like some kind of dorky bookworm, he had a bright and confident smile on his face. He stared up at the sky slightly, as if he was anticipating something. Ranma ultimately found this to be a bit off-putting and decided to ignore him.

The other person was a young girl about Ranma's age. She had long, shiny black hair that stretched down to the center of her back. Her uniform consisted of a green tie combined with a reddish-pink blazer and matching pleated skirt. She also wore an identically-colored beret on top of her head. One of the most noticeable features on her were her extremely large blue eyes that reeked of purity and innocence, and which Ranma found himself unable to look away from. When she noticed that Ranma was looking at her, she glanced over his direction and gave him a large smile.

Ranma nearly stepped back a bit at this, feeling a bright and shining aura emanating from the young girl that he had never experienced before.

"She shines too bright." he thought. "Just what kind of town is this anyway?"

All of a sudden, a massive gust of wind blew in the direction of the intersection. The girl's beret was blown off her head and into the street. Not thinking about anything else, she immediately walked onto the road to retrieve it, not seeing a massive truck barreling down the road at full speed towards her.

Both Ranma and the nerdy high school boy saw this though. The boy reached out his arm slightly in an attempt to do something, but Ranma ultimately managed to beat him to the punch.

"Look out." he yelled.

With as much speed as he could muster, Ranma jumped onto the street, yanked the girl by her blazer, swiveled her around, and pushed her back onto the sidewalk. As this happened, there was a very brief instance where their eyes crossed once again. Although the girl didn't say anything out loud, Ranma felt as if he could read her thoughts at that exact moment. He didn't know for certain, but he felt as if the girl was trying to tell him 'thank you'. In such a situation, a normal person would've said 'you're welcome', but Ranma wasn't about that. He had been taught that for a true martial artist, protecting those in danger was its own reward that didn't require thanks. Ranma held onto this belief strongly, as it was one of the few good lessons that Genma had actually imparted onto him, and felt a great sense of satisfaction over being able to experience this firsthand.

As soon as he landed on the street, Ranma attempted to jump back out of the truck's oncoming path. Unfortunately, he wasn't used to performing such tricks in his smaller body and had miscalculated just how far he needed to jump. In the blink of an eye, the truck struck him from the side at top speed. Ranma coughed up a large amount of blood as an unimaginable amount of pain radiated throughout his entire body.

"Owwwwwww." he screamed.

The sheer force of the truck's impact sent Ranma's small body flying down the street. Ranma winched in pain as he crashed back into the street and bounced off of it a few times. A few days ago, a single punch from Ryoga had made him feel as if he had been hit by a truck. As it turned out though, the actual thing felt a million times worse. Ranma felt as if all of his internal organs had just exploded inside his body, and given what had just happened he was certain that most of them had.

Ranma's body eventually came to a stop in a small puddle on the ground almost an entire block away from where he had been hit, changing him into a girl almost instantly.

With the last of her strength, Ranma opened one of her eyes and looked up slightly. It was all that she could do. She couldn't feel any of her limbs, and the world around her was slowly beginning to fade into nothingness. The next few seconds felt like hours from her perspective as she felt her soul begin to leave her body.

"So this is how my journey comes to an end." she thought. "I came all this way and got struck down right when I was so close to reaching my goal. And on top of that, the universe won't even give me the dignity to allow me to die as a man. I can't believe that my life could have possibly been this worthless?"

With that, Ranma closed her eyes and felt the last of her strength fade away. She exhaled one last breath as she allowed the darkness surrounding her to swallow her whole.

The next thing that Ranma was aware of was being surrounded by bright white light shining directly into her face. After trying to make sense of it, she tried to focus and noticed that the source of the light was actually a large lamp positioned directly above her.

"Huh? What's that?" she thought.

Ranma sat up quickly but immediately regretted doing so. Her entire head felt like it was full of cotton and she nearly threw up from the dizziness that suddenly enveloped her.

"Try not to move so fast." a female voice called out.

"What?" Ranma asked.

Glancing around, Ranma realized that she was in an unfamiliar place. It appeared to be some sort of makeshift scientific laboratory. Beakers, test tubes, and various mechanical devices were strewn about in a haphazard fashion everywhere. Turning around, Ranma discovered the source of the voice that he had just heard. In a large, swiveling armchair sat a young woman in her mid twenties sipping from a coffee mug. She had long black hair that was tied off in two short braids and wore a white lab coat. She also wore large glasses with thick lenses.

"What's going on, who are…ow." Ranma said.

Ranma winched in pain as a small headache pounded into her head before vanishing as quickly as it came.

"Don't worry, those shouldn't last very long." the woman said. "It's just your body adjusting back to reality again after having been out of it for quite a long time. Plus, given the state that I found you in, it definitely needs a bit of time to reacclimate back to a state of normality."

"State? I don't understand." Ranma said.

All of a sudden, the answer hit Ranma like a ton of bricks. She remembered the entire incident where she had pushed that girl out of the way and was hit by a truck. This experience caused her head to hurt once again, and she also began to tremble slightly. Out of a sense of shock, she placed both of her hands on her head.

"I remember it now." she said. "That truck hit me so hard that I felt like I was going to die. No wait…I did die. Or did I?"

Ranma felt around her body. Much to her surprise, she felt no pain, no cuts, and no broken bones of any kind.

"Hold on, was it all just a bad dream or something?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not." the woman answered. "I was there, I saw the whole thing happen with my very own eyes. That truck really did a number on you. The paramedics pronounced you dead on arrival, and you likely would've stayed that way under any other circumstances."

"So, how am I alive then?" Ranma asked. "And why isn't my body injured in any way?"

The woman placed her mug down on a nearby table and smiled brightly.

"Why, because I brought you back to life, that's how." she answered.

Ranma didn't say anything for a few seconds. He was almost certain that he had misheard the woman.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked.

The woman twirled around for a few seconds before responding.

"As I said, it was me." she answered. "You had the great fortune of being saved by the heaven-sent god-child of science, and the world's greatest mind, Dr. Yume Kusanagi. Congratulations kid, you're officially the first human being in the history of the world to be completely resurrected through the power of science. Kudos."

Yume took out a small party favor and pulled it open, releasing a small amount of confetti inside. Ranma simply stared at Yume in shock, unable to say anything.

"Resurrected…from the dead…?" she thought.

End of Chapter 7

4/18/2025

Special thanks to my biggest supporters: Homura VanRoyen, sudowiki

Hi Everyone. Once again, this chapter took a bit longer than expected to write despite it being much shorter than the previous one. This was due to a combination of writer's block, lack of time to write, and an incident where my laptop's battery suddenly died on me which took a few days to fix. Problems aside though, I am happy. This chapter has finally introduced the crossover elements of this story, which means that after so long the real story is finally ready to kick into high gear.

Although I had a clear idea in my head as to what was going to happen in this chapter, getting it out on paper turned out to be much harder than I expected. It took me quite a few days to figure out the exact order to have these events play out, but I feel like it all worked out in the end. As I said before, it's difficult for me to write scenes where one character only has themselves to play against. Many of the moments where Ranma interacts with complete strangers was done to break up all of the exposition and internal monologuing, even if it does come off as a bit strange. As it turns out, Himawaridai Town's residents are a bit more friendly and open compared to Nerima, and that's not the only way that they come off as better.

The main purpose of this chapter was to allow you all to better envision the world of Ichinensei ni Nacchattara, as that series is extremely obscure. During this section in the original fic, the author introduced Himawaridai Town and killed off Ranma in two pages of pure expository text. It came off as hard to read at times, and the events happened so fast that it was easy to miss out on important details that help build out the world and its characters. I took some time to focus on the two characters at the intersection because they are two of the main characters from the original source material. As you can probably imagine, they will become more significant later on down the road, and this chapter was meant to softly introduce you to them before you learn just who they are.

One of the things that I didn't plan was the small epilogue at the end showing Ranma's resurrection. Originally, that scene was meant to open the next chapter, just like how the original fic did for the start of its second chapter (yeah that's right, I finally exhausted all of the original fic's material for its first chapter). Ultimately though, I found such an ending to be way too abrupt for comfort, and wanted to assure all of you that Ranma does indeed manage to come back from such an incident. It was also meant as a teaser of sorts to what will happen next. I am no stranger to the character of Yume Kusanagi, having included her in a crossover prequel fic with Onimai entitled 'How Young Should I Make Him?'. Back when I wrote that last October, I discovered just how fun it is to write for her character, and those two pages where she was included were the easiest of this chapter to figure out. I am so excited to introduce her in full, and writing that small section makes me so eager to continue with the next chapter as soon as possible.

I won't give you a hard estimate on when the next chapter will be finished, but know that I don't intend to take a break again until I finish covering the entirety of the original fic's material, and that won't be for some time. Who knows what might happen. I find chapters that consist of back and forth conversations between two characters the easiest to write, and the next chapter is that in a nutshell. I any event, I hope that you'll enjoy what's to come.

Please be sure to like and comment on this chapter as any feedback you give me is extremely helpful to me as an aspiring writer.

If you enjoy what you've seen so far and you're interested in seeing more, consider checking out my other stories.

I'd like to thank you all for your encouraging likes, follows, and comments, and stay tuned for Chapter 8, coming soon.