Mother's Gift

                                  Part 1

                                    By

                              The DragonBard


     This is a Ah My Goddess/Ranma 1/2 fan fic.  And unlike my other 
stories, this is not a part of any series that I'm working on.  This is 
a one-shot fic.  When it's over, it's over!  Though, if someone else 
wants to write a continuation of it, that's their perogative, just tell 
me about it, and give me the credit I deserve, and everyone will be 
happy.

     This happens sometime after the final manga issue of Ranma 1/2, and 
after the last episode of the Ah My Goddess anime.

     I don't own these character, and I'm just using them for 
entertainment value, No copyright infringement is intended, so don't sue 
me! 

     All my past fan fics can be found at RAAC archives.

     I've never heard a name given to Mrs. Tendo in the official 
storyline, and most of the stories that I've read give her the name of 
Kimiko, so I decided to go with the flow.

  And now, I give you,  Mother's Gift.

**********************************************************************

                           My e-mail address is

                          dragonbard@hotmail.com

**********************************************************************

______________________________________________________________________


     "Blech!  And here I thought Kasumi cleaned everywhere!"  Nabiki 
Tendo muttered to herself.  While her older sister was extremely tidy, 
and thorough, the attic looked like it hadn't been cleaned in ages.       
"Well, I guess even Kasumi has her limits, not that I blame her, Yuch!  
But this is going to make it alot harder to find that stuff."       
Nabiki had decided to go over some old family documents, hoping to find 
something that her father may have forgotten to mention, like a secret 
family inheritence that she could use to get some money into their 
meager savings account.  <Right!>  Nabiki thought, sarcastically <And 
it'll turn out we're actually richer than the Kuno's.>  However, she was 
having problems blackmailing her fellow students.  She'd already 
squeezed most of them dry of any money, and there wasn't anything that 
she could do with the favors that they owed her until some 'opportunity' 
came up.  Sales of pictures of Ranma had gone down since the wedding 
fiasco, Akane and Ranma were still mad at her for that one.  At the 
moment, the fact that the Kuno's were obsessed with their respective 
loves, Ranma for Kodachi, and Ranma-chan and Akane for Tatewaki Kuno, 
was the only thing keeping the family solvent, that and the many 
investments she had made over the years.
     Nabiki quickly sorted through several boxes of stuff, mostly 
children's clothing from when the three sisters were younger.  These got 
a chuckle out of her, as she remembered how her younger sister had been 
back then.  Then, she opened one box, and on top was an official 
document.  <This looks promising>  Nabiki thought.  Intrigued, Nabiki 
looked at it more closely.  As she looked through it, she was stunned.  
It was her father's birth certificate, but the name listed was for a 
Soun Ohken.  Quickly she replaced all of the boxes, dusted her jeans 
off, and went in search for her father.  She found him in his usual 
place, playing Go with his best friend, Mr. Saotome.
     "Dad, I was looking through some of my old things and came across 
this."  She said, handing him the certificate.  Soun glanced at it, 
while Mr. Saotome took the chance to move some of the pieces around.
     "Why, that's my birth certificate.  I haven't seen that in years."  
he exclaimed.  Mr. Saotome looked over his shoulder.
     "Yes, Dad, I realized that."  Nabiki said, "What I was wondering 
was;  why you changed the family name?"
     Soun Tendo looked at his daughter, with tears in his eyes.  "It was 
part of our marriage agreement.  Your mother insisted on keeping her 
family name."  Mr. Saotome nodded his head in agreement.  After all, he 
had been there for his best friend at the wedding.
     "So. . . Tendo was 'Mom's' family name?  I was just curious."  
Actually, it would be safe to say that curiosity, aside from 
intelligence, was Nabiki's most defining trait.  After all, it was her 
curiosity that had led her to find out those things that had lead to her 
career in blackmail.  She wondered why her mother had made her father 
change the family name, was there something important about being named 
Tendo?  It was a nice enough name, though your family being named 'The 
Way of Heaven' was a bit much, she thought.  She would have to look into 
this.  <After all,> she thought to herself, <for once, this is 
personal.>
     All this time, Kasumi was upstairs cleaning, when two feminine 
hands came over her eyes.
     "Guess who, Kasumi-chan."  The woman said.
     "Mama!"  she answered, and laughed as she turned to embrace her 
mother.  "I'm so glad to see you!  But, why did you come?  Nabiki and 
Father are here.  What if they see you?"  Kimiko Tendo frowned. as she 
sat on her daughter bed.
     "Don't worry, my dear one, I put a small spell that will make sure 
we aren't interupted."  Kimiko shook her head.  "Kasumi-chan, I wish I 
could have told them that I was only leaving, not dying, but Father 
would only allow me to tell you children, and then, only when you were 
old enough.  Then that mess in the other planes came up, and I had to 
leave before your sisters were old enough to be told."  Kimiko looked at 
her oldest daughter and sighed.
     "Kasumi, the time has come for your sisters to know about my side 
of their heritage."
     "Does that mean. . . ?"
     Kimiko shook her head.  "No.  As much as I wish it did, I still can 
only leave the other plane for a short time.  I have talked with some of 
my relatives living here in the mortal world, and they have agreed to 
help explain everything."  She handed Kasumi a piece of paper.  "This is 
the address where they are staying with the middle sister's human 
boyfriend.  It's a temple they rebuilt."  At the phrase, 'human 
boyfriend,' Kasumi winced.
     "Does he know about . . . ?"
     "Yes.  He met Belldandy through a wish, and he ended up wishing for 
her, but she was already in love with him.  It's a long story.  Anyway, 
her sisters are staying around for their own reasons, and they'll be 
able to help you."  Kimiko quickly got up off the bed, and hugged her 
eldest daughter.
     "I have to go now.  Remember everything I taught you, and I love 
you."  With a sudden gesture from her arms, Mrs. Tendo was swiftly 
surrounded by a vortex of mist which engulfed her, then vanished, 
leaving nothing behind.

             *                    *                      *

     "Hi Bell-chan."  Keiichi Morisatto said.  It always amazed him that 
there was a woman in love with him.  Even more so since, not only was 
she kind, beautiful, and a great cook, she was also a kami.  Oh sure, 
there were problems sometimes, such as when her older sister Urd tried 
to get the two of them together using love spells, or with her younger 
sister Skuld tried to break them up out of jealousy.  Then there was 
Mara, a demoness who just seemed to get some kind of perverse joy out of 
making their lives miserable.  One thing was for certain though, he 
would take all that trouble and more, and all he would do would be 
greatful, just to be with this divine woman whom he loved.  "What's up?"
     "Hi Kei!"  Belldandy said with her usual cheerful air.  "Some of 
our relatives are coming over for a visit, remember?"
     "Oh yeah, right.  I forgot."  A huge sweatdrop appeared on his 
head.  You may find it strange that someone could forget about his 
girlfriends relatives coming for a visit, especially when those 
relatives are likely divinities, but living with three goddesses, and 
the assaults of a demon had made Keiichi somewhat matter-of-fact about 
it.  Unless it was her Parents, Kami-sama/God/Odin/Yahweh and 
Gaia/Isis/Amaterasu Omikami.  He had yet to meet them, since, according 
to the goddesses, they rarely, if ever, left the Heavens.  Especially 
their mother.
     "So, where should I expect them to pop out of?"  Keiichi asked.  
Every goddess that he had met had their own prefered medium of 
teleportation, they said it required less of their own strength to do it 
like that instead of simply appearing or disappearing.  If you didn't 
know that they were going to show up, it could cause some embarssing 
situations.  When Skuld first showed up, Keiichi had been taking a hot 
bath, and Skuld's medium was hot water.  Needless to say it hadn't been 
pretty.
     "Nowhere, really.  They'll be walking."  Belldandy answered, 
putting the finishing preprations on a meal.  Keiichi scratched his 
head.  <Walking, huh?> he thought, <Well that's a first.>

               *                 *                    *

     "Could somebody explain to me, why we are doing this?"  Nabiki 
asked, irritatedly.  She had been planning on checking up on some 
records that might give her more information about her mother and her 
family.  Instead, she and her two sisters, Kasumi and Akane were riding 
in a train to a different part of Tokyo, supposedly to meet some friends 
of Kasumi's from highschool.  Nabiki found this highly unlikely.  Not 
that Kasumi hadn't been popular in school, but if it was one of her 
friends, why bring the two of them as well?
     "Very well, Nabiki," Kasumi said.  "You see, I told a little fib.  
We 'aren't' going to see some of my friends from school.  We are going 
to visit some of Mother's family.  I didn't want to upset Father, so 
when I found out that they were in Tokyo, I decided that we ought to 
meet them.  They are, after all, family."
     Nabiki was stunned, as far as she could remember, Kasumi had never 
even told a small fib, not even a white lie.  She might make something 
sound nicer, but never had she actually lied.  This would bear some 
investigating.
     A few moments later, the three sisters found themselves in front of 
a large temple that someone had transformed into a house, or to be more 
exact, a home.  Kasumi smoothed out her dress and knocked at the door.  
Within seconds, a beautiful young woman opened the door.
     "Ah, hello there.  I am Belldandy.  You must be Kimiko's daughters.  
Come in, please."  Belldandy motioned for them to come in, with an 
expectant yet joyful look on her face.
     <We have 'got' to be related to them!>  Nabiki thought to herself.  
<There's no other way that Kasumi and this Belldandy could be so 
similar.  Though> She thought with a frown, <I don't remember Mother 
being a gajin.>
     "Here you go,"  Belldandy said as she guided them into the living 
room, and motioned for them to sit down.  There were three other people 
in the room with them.  One was a short japanese man, the other two were 
ladies.  One was an beautiful, statuesqe, older woman, with tan skin and 
platinum blond hair, who looked like she could be partially japanese, 
and the second was a younger girl, twelve to thirteen at the most, with 
jet black hair, who looked vaguely like Belldandy.
     "These are my sisters, Urd," Belldandy said, gesturing to the 
blond, "and Skuld." and she gestured to the younger girl.  "And this is 
Keiichi Morisato.  Please, sit down.  Dinner will be ready shortly."  
And with that, Belldandy glided out of the room.
     Nabiki looked at her newly discovered relatives.  As far as she 
could tell, from the look Keiichi gave Belldandy as she left, it was 
obvious that he was in love with her, and it looked like Belldandy was 
in love with him too, from the way she had said his name.  That brought 
several questions to mind; were they lovers?  How did Belldandy's 
sisters fit into this?  All the while, Urd was evesdropping on her 
thoughts.  <Not bad.>  She muttered to herself as Nabiki mentally 
generated some schemes to make use of this information.  <I may be able 
to use this girl to help get Belldandy and Lover-boy together.  Though 
we'll have to break her of blackmailing people.  Kami-sama would have a 
fit when he found out.  At least she does it for a good cause, so he 
might go easy on us.>  Urd mused.
     Belldandy quickly walked back in, carrying a small tea service.  
She quickly served the tea, handing everyone a cup.  Her friendly smile 
grew just a bit as she handed Keiichi his cup.  Then she sat down with 
her own cup of tea.  The group drank in silence, until, Nabiki curiously 
asked a question.
     "So, how is it that you were related to Mother?"
     "We have the same parents."  Urd said, offhandly.
     <BRRRTTT>
     Akane and Nabiki quickly wipped the tea from their mouths and 
stared in shock at Urd.  Keiichi just sat listening with interest.  He 
had always been a bit curious about how all the gods and goddess were 
related, especially when he found out that Kami-sama was there father.  
For a few moments, the younger Tendos looked at their newly discovered 
aunts with amazement.  That didn't last too long however.
     "You have WHAT?!" Akane asked shocked.  She couldn't believe it.  
These women were her mother's sisters?  Kasumi just sat there, as calm 
as always.  She had already been informed about their mothers family 
when told of their mother's status as a goddess. 
     "You see," Belldandy began, "We have a very large family.  Because 
of this, and because of difference in our ages, most of us don't really 
think of ourselves as brothers and sisters.  That is, unless we tend to 
work together alot, or have similar natures."  With that, Belldandy 
turned to smile at her two sisters.
     "It may not look it, but in fact we're triplets."  Urd said with a 
grin.  She got a bit of a kick from knocking these girls off balance.  
Akane seemed to remind her of Skuld.  Not that Akane seemed to be 
mechnically inclined, but rather the fact that both seemed to wear their 
hearts out in the open, making it easy to push their buttons.
     "How can you 'not' think about being someone's sister?  How big is 
our family?!"  Nabiki asked.  This was a total shock to her.  She had 
spent quite a bit of time looking into her mother's past.  However, all 
she could find was a marriage certificate for her parents wedding.  
Skuld pulled out a small calculater and began typing on it.
     "We have approximately 678,243 brothers and sisters."  She 
announced after a moment.  Nabiki, Akane and Keiichi all stared at her.  
<I never realized there were that many.>  Keiichi thought to himself.
     "That's impossible!"  Akane said.  "No one can have that many 
children!  It's not humanly possible!"
     "Ha!  That's because we aren't mortals."  Skuld said, disgustedly.  
"We're goddesses.  Well, some of us are."  The look she gave Keiichi 
left no doubt to her meaning.  Nabiki and Akane just stared.  It was too 
much.  They had both encountered alot of strange things over the past 
year or so, but the fact that these three women were their aunts, and 
that they said they were goddesses was too much.  They both started to 
giggle, then after a moment.  They burst out laughing.
     "Oh My."  Kasumi said.  She had decided on her way to the temple 
that it would be much easier if she just allowed the three goddesses to 
explain things.  But now she saw that she needed to take a hand in 
matters.  As she quickly went over two Akane, she saw Belldandy going 
over to Nabiki.  The two ladies touched the shoulders of the younger 
Tendo sisters, and a calming, soothing glow appeared around them, 
flowing into the woman they were standing by.  The hysterical laughter 
quickly subsided, and the glow faded away.  Kasumi looked steadily at 
her two sisters.
     "It's all true.  These three women are our aunts, and they, and our 
mother, are all goddesses."
     Nabiki took a deep breath and began to focus her formidable 
intellect.  She tried to concentrate, to sort through the information 
given to her.
     "Kasumi, what's going on?"  Akane pleaded.  Most of the time, 
whenever anything strange happened, she could always blame it on Ranma, 
or things were happening too fast for her to ever really effect her, 
since she would usually be too busy fighting for her life or freedom.  
However, things seemed to be getting strange, and there was nothing else 
she could concentrate on to try and sort things out.  So she turned to 
the one stable constant in her life, Kasumi.  Kasumi and Belldandy moved 
to sit down, but instead of resuming their previous positions, they sat 
next to Akane and Nabiki.
     "You see, when I turned seven, I began to notice some things, 
things that the adults didn't see.  When I tried to ask about them, 
Father thought that I was just imagining them, but when I asked Mother, 
she took me too her room, and told me the truth.  She was, and still is, 
a goddess.
     Kasumi looked into the stunned faces of her sisters, and decided 
that it was best if they new the whole story as quickly as possible, 
since they seemed to be somewhat numb at the moment.  "Mother explained 
that what I was seeing was really part of her fathers gift to all of his 
descendents.  That most people couldn't see them because they weren't 
ready to.  You may have noticed that our hosts have those marks on their 
faces."  She said, motioning to the three goddesses.  "Those marks are 
their diety signs.  They are invisible to most people, but to someone 
who is even partially a god, they can be seen.
     "Mother told me that her father father's gifts would come to us, 
only after we had turned seven, and that she couldn't tell any of us 
about it until after that.  Since Mother left us before either of you 
started showing signs of your powers awakening, you were never told.  
Since you are old enough now, however, it was deemed time that you 
knew."
     "Mom is dead, Kasumi, and gods don't die."  Nabiki said calmly, 
almost too calmly.  "Gods can't exist, if they did, then Mom wouldn't 
have left us."
     Kasumi sighed.  "You're right, gods 'can't' die.  Mother is very 
much alive."  For a brief moment, naked pain and need flashed on 
Nabiki's face.  The pain and need for a mother who was no longer there.  
It was quickly covered over by red-hot anger.
     "Mother's dead, Kasumi!  Dead, dead, DEAD!  Ever since you've been 
living in your own privite dream world, where mother is alive and 
nothing strange or bad happens to us, but it's not the real world!"  As 
Nabiki ranted, Kasumi closed her eyes, and reached out with a glowing 
hand.  Nabiki quickly calmed down again.  Akane's eyes grew wide.  She 
had been looking at her two older sisters this entire time, and when 
Kasumi's hand had begun to glow, three strange marks, similar to the 
ones on the three self proclaimed goddesses faces appeared, and faded 
with the glow.
     "Now that you've gotten that out of your system,"  Kasumi said, 
opening her eyes, "I can go on with my story.  
     "Mother told me that she had been on Earth, or as she called it, 
the Mortal Plane, doing some research when she met Father.  It was love 
at first sight, she said.  He was still studying under Grandfather 
Happosai at the time, but she could see the good man that he was.  She 
had to do some fast talking to her Father, but in the end, she was able 
to gain permission to visit our world.  Eventually, after she and some 
of her family help seal Happosai away in that cave, she and Father 
married.  Her Father told her, as part of the condition so that they 
could marry, that she could never reveal her true identity to Father, or 
to us, until we had each reached a certain age.  Before you were old 
enough, our Grandfather, summond Mother back to Heaven, and informed her 
of something that urgently required her assistance.  She had to leave 
us, and make everyone who didn't know her true identity believe that she 
had died.
     "She's been allowed to visit us for short periods of time, but 
never long enough to talk to you, and explain everything.  It's only 
because our aunts here are staying on the Mortal Plane that you've been 
told now."  Kasumi then sat down and sipped her tea, and calmly looked 
at her aunt Belldandy.  Belldandy calmly, with a wave of her hand, 
altered her clothing to her goddess uniform.
     "Would you like to see your mother?"  Belldandy asked.  Nabiki, 
still under the influence of Kasumi's calming spell, and Akane, still 
too stuned by everything, simply nodded.  Belldandy quickly turned to 
her sisters and Keiichi, and the three goddesses quickly linked hands in 
a circle around the Tendo sisters, and closed their eyes.  From the 
strange mark in each of the Norns foreheads, a beam of light shot up to 
the ceiling, through it, and into the heavens.  The goddesses began to 
float into the air, and from the heavens, as if in answer to the light 
that the goddesses had sent, a rainbow of unparalelled beauty came down, 
and eveloped the six ladies.  Once it was gone, so were the six young 
women, leaving behind one Keiichi Morisato.  
_____________________________________________________________________

     Because I've had some trouble savingg this as one big file, I've 
decided to make this fic a two parter.  This is part one, part two will 
tell the Tendo sisters time in heaven and should be out in a few days.  
If you are planning on sending me C&C, please don't do it during the 
weekend.  I won't be able to access my hotmail account and if I can't 
clean it up it sometimes overfills.  Thanks.

>From the Pen of the DragonBard:
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*"There are more things in Heaven and Earth . . .  *
*then are dreampt of in your philosiphy."          *
*Hamlet                                            *
*                                                  *
*"I can summon spirits from the vast deep!"        *
*"So can I, but will they come when you call?"     *
*The Tempest                                       *
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