MY PAST, MY FUTURE 
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Andrew Dynon 

Ranma 1/2 and all characters therein (c) Rumiko Takahashi All
original characters (c) Andrew Dynon

Author's Notes: I was originally going to make Hikaru a boy, but
decided to make her a girl instead.

Any and all C&C Needed.  MSTs especially welcome.

CHAPTER THREE

1500 YEARS AGO

Akkami rushed, panicked, up the mountain path.  Hadn't she told
them to wait until help arrived?  They had ignored her, rushing
off to take the demon on, and now they had paid the price for it.
She only hoped that she would still be able to save them.

     Her hopes were dashed as she reached the bare mountaintop. 
One of her sword-brothers lay, beheaded, on the mountain path,
and her chestnut-haired sword-sister Ruki had fallen not far
away, with a foot-wide hole through her torso.  A short distance
beyond her corpse, another body lay, a youth with black,
pigtailed hair, blood still flowing from the slash across his
chest.

     "Katen!!"  Akkami rushed toward her mortally-wounded
sword-brother.  Could she still save him?  She had to!  He meant
more to her than her life, her oaths, anything.  Oh, please,
kami, don't let him die.

     "I thought ... there was ... nothing ... I couldn't ... beat
..." Katen said, fighting to avoid submitting to the pain he was
in.  "Looks ... like I was ... wrong."

     "KATEN!!!!  You can't die!!  You can't!!"

     "Gomen... A'chan... Now... you have to... fight... alone." 
After Katen had finally managed to get the words out, his eyes
closed, and body went limp.

     "NOOOOO!!!!!!"  Akkami's anguished scream echoed around her.

*    *    *    *    *

PRESENT DAY

Akkami knelt down next to the spring, trying to expel the
memories from her conscious mind.
     "No," chided herself.  "No matter how similar they are,
Ranma is *not* Katen.  He must be free to choose his own path,
his own love.  I have no right to interfere with that."  
     Out of the bag lying beside her, she took a large, metal jar
with many kanji etched around the rim.  She plunged the jar into
the spring, filling it up with water.  Taking it out, and placing
it in front of her, she began to call upon the magic within her.

*    *    *    *    *

FUTURE #3

     The school bell rang, signalling the end of another day of
school.  Students packed their books up, and the teacher reminded
 his students of what homework needed to be done.  A figure
sitting closest to the door, a girl with short, dark-brown hair
and eyes of the same shade, who could pass for a boy with ease,
rose and prepared to leave. Apart from arriving at school, this
was the part of the day that Hikaru Saotome most dreaded.

     As soon as she set one foot outside of the door, she was set
upon.  Dozens of boys rushed her in the daily attempt at embrace
that made her sick in the stomach.  Instantly producing a pair of
three-foot-long spatulas from hammerspace, she ran at full pelt
through her crowd of admirers, more worried about getting away
than hurting them as she felt they deserved.  After she got clear
of the crowd, she dashed down the street, and within ten seconds
was two hundred meters away from the school.

     Hikaru was relieved to once again escape the croud of
suitors, but she suddenly noticed somebody else standing in her
path - a girl of her age, clad in Samurai clothing, with
ponytailed, light brown hair and a bokken slung across her back,
who was looking at her with hearts in her eyes.

     "Hikaru Saotome, I, Jeanne d'Arc Kuno, WOULD HAVE YOU AS MY
HUSBAND!!!" Jeanne ran at her with open arms, and Hikaru leaped
to avoid her.

     {Doesn't she realise I'm a GIRL??  I suppose it's too much
to expect with her gene-stock... Tatewaki Kuno and Azusa
Shiratori,}  An I-am-going-to-throw-up-any-second expression
appeared on her face.  {What a combination.}  She landed behind
Jeanne and kept running towards Ucchan's.

     [LATER]

     Hikaru dashed into Ucchan's, and leaned against the wall,
exhausted.  At the sound of her entering, her mother looked up
from the okimomiyaki she was cooking. 

     "How was your day today, Hikaru?"

     "Not too bad, apart from the usual two-kilometer sprints to
and from school.  Sheesh, I make myself look like a guy and they
still come after me!"

     "Ah, it's good exercise for you."  Ranma entered the room. 
"By the way, you can have the night off from waitressing.  The
Hibikis are gonna be visiting."

     Hikaru's face fell.  "Dad, I know that Toshi-kun's a nice,
good-looking guy and all that," {and doesn't try to glomp me as
soon as he lays eyes on me}, Hikaru said, "But I *really* don't
like being forced into an arranged marriage with him."

     "Yeah, I hated doing it, but it couldn't be helped.  The
only way oyaji and Tendo-san were going to let me and Ucchan be
married is if we agreed to marry any children we had to Akane's
kids.  And, as you say, you haven't met anyone better than him
yet."

     "Well, I suppose any marriage is a way off yet.  And it'll
be good to see Toshi-kun and Ryoko again ... even if Ryoko still
qualifies as a 'depressed psychopath'."  

*    *    *    *    *

FUTURE #1

     "Masaka..." Ranma gasped "Does that mean... were you..."

     "Yes.  I drowned in the spring you fell into.  There's
really no time to go into much detail here, but I'll try to
explain what's going on.  I was born into a sect of mystic
warriors called the Tohsei, and trained in magic and martial arts
from a very young age, becoming one of the best mystic warriors
the Tohsei had ever known.  The Tohsei were dedicated to
protecting humanity from evil spirits, and, soon after I was
initiated, began a major conflict with an extremely powerful
demon named Shigami, who, in the thousand years since he had
arrived on this plane, had been claiming more and more of the
world as his domain."  An expression of sadness appeared on
Akkami's face.  "Nearly all of the Tohsei were killed in the war
against Shigami and his minions."

     Cologne frowned.  "Yes, it has been recorded in the
Juketsuzoku's history.  The Tohsei were perhaps our tribe's
greatest allies.  Their loss was a great tragedy for us."

     "Eventually, Shigami and I met in single combat, at
Jusenkyo.  I managed to defeat him, barely... but his spirit
entered my body.  I was forced to drown myself in order to
prevent him from taking it over."  

     "At least it's reconciling to know that the girl who drowned
in the spring I fell into wasn't some kind of whiny crybaby."
Ranma said.  "I don't know how I'd be able to live knowing that I
fell into the spring of drowned Tsukino Usagi."

     Akkami continued.  "As a result of that battle, Shigami was
banished from the Earth, and I was reborn in another dimension to
fight him.  I discovered that Shigami was in fact three demons
combined.  I managed to create three seals, each preventing an
aspect of him from returning to earth, and sent those seals into
different futures.  Ranma, I intended your children in each of
those futures to become the guardians of those seals.

     "However, a stellar alignment, the same one that happened on
the night I fought Shigami at Jusenkyo, occurred, allowing one of
the demons to escape.  It came here and took a magical amulet
which allows it to travel between timelines."

     "To break other seals, release other demons!" exclaimed
Shampoo. 

     "I gotta stop that thing!  Akkami, is there any way we can
chase after it?" Ranma yelled.

     "Yes, I can use my magic to pursue it.  However, Ranma, you
are unable to come with me.  It is not possible for more than one
of the same person to exist simealtaneously in the same
timeline."

     "Then *I* go and help her."  Shabon rose to a crouching
position.  "I want to get that thing for what it did to me."

     "Shabon!  But you're hurt - it's not safe!" cried an
obviously concerned Ranma.

     "She can come.  Posession leaves the victim exhausted for a
short while, but they regain their energy quickly.  And I'm going
to need all the help I can get." Akkami replied.  She closed her
eyes and chanted, and she and Shabon disappeared into a glowing
orange light.

     Ranma looked at where the two had disappeared.

     "Shabon, take care."

*    *    *    *    *

PRESENT DAY

     "Moshi-moshi!  This is the Tendo residence!" Kasumi,
cheerful as usual, answered the phone.  She paused to hear the
reply.

     "Yes, I'll get her."  She strolled into the living room. 
"Kaede-san, telephone for you!" 

     Kaede-chan walked picked up the phone.  "Ah, moshi-moshi ...
Hikaru-san! ... Okay, where are you? ... Sure!  I'll be right
there!" She hung up, and walked back into the living room.  "A
friend just rang, she wants me to meet her at Ucchan's."

     [UCCHAN'S]

     Ukyo flipped the okinomiyaki she was making for her dinner
into the air.  {Oh, well, I suppose it's a change from guys who
disguise themselves as girls}.  The girl who called herself
Hikaru Kuonji had arrived this afternoon, saying she was a
relative of hers and asking if she could stay a while.  Being in
a good mood, she had decided to allow her to stay, and she was
currently washing the dishes from the night at the restaurant.

     Somebody knocked on the door, but before she started to walk
to the front door and inform whoever it was that the restaurant
was closed, Hikaru rushed past.

     "It's okay, Ukyo-san!  This is a friend of mine!"  Hikaru
opened the door, revealing a girl whom Ukyo recognised as Ranma's
relative from earlier this afternoon.  {Well, my father and Genma
had known each other for a long time.  It shouldn't be any
surprise that these two know each other as well}.  After the
introductions, the pair went into the back part of the restaurant
to talk in private.

     "Did you manage to get the Tendos to agree to let you stay?"

     "Yeah, It wasn't too hard.  I had a bit of an accident, once
again, but it turned out all right."

     "How good a martial artist is Ranma right now?"
     
     "I figure me and him would probably be fairly even.  I
didn't get to see what kind of chi attacks he can do, though."

     "It's better if you don't reveal any of that yet.  We're
supposed to try not to do anything to let them figure out where
we're from until Akkami arrives here."

     Kaede let out a sigh of frustration. "Mou, why IS that? 
It's no good practicing at below full strength."

     "Hey, I'll spar with you if you want!" 

     "It's your funeral."

     "Okay, we're agreed, but we need to go somewhere we won't be
seen."  Hikaru said.  "There's nobody at the school sports
grounds at this time of night, let's go there."  The two left
Ucchan's and raced each other towards Fuurinkan High.

*    *    *    *    *

FUTURE #2

     {Just like Kaede to arrange my a date for me at
*Shin-Nekohanten*, of all places}  Kento thought.  {If she *had*
to play that trick on me, she could have at least made it at
Shabu-Shabu, or some other place where the owner isn't someone
who hates both our mothers.}

     A hand touched him on the shoulder, and Kento turned around
to face a girl of his own age with short, black hair, dressed in
a black miniskirt with a green sash around the waist.

     "Kiriko-chan!  I ... uh ... you see ..." Kento tried and
failed to think of a way to explain the prank his sister had
pulled on them both.  

     "I realised it was really Kaede."  Kiriko said.  "Well,
shall we go in?"

     "Wait a minute!  You WANT to go in there?"

     "Just because Shampoo has a few arguments with our mothers
doesn't mean she's going to poison us.  Come on!"

     Trying to ignore the feeling of apprehension he had, Kento
followed his girlfriend into the restaurant.

END CHAPTER THREE
      

_______________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Dynon
- Eternal champion of the Iczer series
- Fan of Sailor Moon, Devil Hunter Yohko, 
     Teknoman, and many other anime series 
- RPG Player of Mekton-Z, Fuzion, AD&D and more
- Writer of fanfiction and original Sci-Fi/Fantasy
- Loyal supporter of the mighty Essendon Bombers (Australian Football League)

"I can't tell you how thrilling it is to be admired by a deranged maniac."
	- Blade to Axe, Teknoman (ep. 36)

HE WHO FLAMES BURNS HIMSELF THE MOST