Ranma 1/2 and Sailormoon are the property of their respective authors.
Not me, so don't bother suing me. If I had any money, I'd be out
spending it anyway.

Title not yet decided.
By Sining(shihlin@pacific.net.sg) and HPackrat.(gulrey@webquest.com)


 "Okaasan? Otousan??" a child's voice cried out as he tried to look
around him. It
was so dark...  He was scared. Otousan said it wasn't manly to be
scared, that a martial
artist should not be scared of anything, but he was. Fear grew in him,
threatening to devour
him whole. He started to cry, soft little sobs of heart-wrecking fear.

 His child mind tried to rationalise what had happened but it couldn't.
One moment,
he had been sitting down with his Otousan and Okaasan when
suddenly....the earth seemed
to shake under them. His Okaasan had screamed out his name, reaching for
him before the
ceiling had fallen on her. Her hand was right next to him, the only
thing he could see that
comforted him. Slowly, he reached out to it, touching it. It was so much
bigger than him,
and it made him feel safer already. Dried streaks of blood ran down her
hand. How long
had it been since he had been trapped like this? He could not remember.

 Suddenly, he heard something moving up above. He jerked his head up to
look at
the low ceiling; so low that he could not even stand up. He waited for a
moment or two,
hope shining in his eyes. Maybe someone had come to rescue him? The
sounds continued
before finally the ceiling above him was lifted up. He looked up
hopefully into the face of
the man who had rescued him.

 Happosai sighed as he looked at the young child in front of him. True,
he had been
looking for revenge when he had finally broken free of that accursed
cave but he would
never had wished for their deaths. Yet, that earthquake had settled
everything for him in a
cruel twist of fate. He looked back down at the boy in front of him; who
was looking at him
with eyes filled with hope; an emotion he was not used to seeing in
other people. He felt
his heart soften, it was a miracle the boy had survived. But perhaps it
would have been
better if he hadn't for what lay ahead of him now? Other than being
shuffled into an
orphanage and hoping that someone would adopt him.

 "What is your name little one?" he said as he started to drag the boy
out.

 "Ranma," he said before looking around; confused as he searched for any
signs of
his okaasan or otousan.

 "Ranma," Happosai said to himself. The son of his former student Genma
no doubt.
He turned to look back at the little boy who seemed to be looking around
for something.
The least he could do was take care of the boy and make him the heir to
the school of
Anything Goes, he owed his former departed student that much at least.

 ---Several years later---

 "Relax Ranma. You know your Jiji would never do anything to harm you
right?"
Happosai said as he continued to strap the fish-cake sausages around
Ranma. Ranma had
grown quite some in the past few years since Happosai had adopted him as
his student and
he now towered over Happosai.

 "But...I don't want to be in the dark again," Ranma said, sniffling a
little as
Happosai finished tying the sausages to his body.

 "Don't worry, this is for you own good," Happosai said, smiling at the
little boy
before pushing him into the pit. Almost immediately, snarls of hunger
could be heard;
almost drowning out the screams of a young boy. Happosai sighed, he
didn't want to have
to do that but he did want Ranma to master the Neko-ken; one of the most
powerful attacks
ever. It was his wish that Ranma would be the best Martial artist of his
generation; if
Ranma was to be the master of the School,  and he was going to do
everything he could to
make Ranma into that.

 No matter what the cost.

 ----Several years later; Jusenkyo---

 "I don't like this one bit at all," Ranma said as he walked along the
beaten path.
"Where are we going??" he asked as he flicked his hair out of his face
as he regarded the
short figure in front of him.

 "Jusnekyo. It's a legendary training ground," Happosai said, walking
along the
forbidden path; ignoring the occasional sign that said <WARNING:
JUSENKYO AHEAD.
DO NOT ENTER!> in chinese.

 "So we're going to train there??"

 "No...we're going to get something there," Happosai, his eyes misting
over slightly
as he wondered how a female Ranma would look.

 "Get what!?" Patience was not a virtue that Ranma commanded. He was
tired from
having to drag around the big bag which contained both of their supplies
while Happosai
walked along, carrying nothing. He claimed it was a student's duty but
Ranma sensed that it
was just because Happosai was too lazy to carry his own share. "What
ever we're getting, I
hope it's worth it."

 "Oh, it will be. It will be."

 ---That night---

 Ranma silently waited until the old man had fallen asleep. It had been
worth it,
stealing all that sake from the Amazon village<even if he had to defeat
some purple-haired
guard to get it>. He fumed with indignation as he remembered what the
old man had done
to him. Splashing him with Nyannichuan, turning him into a girl before
attempting to fondle
her. He had punted him off his girl form then before deciding he needed
to do something
about the old man once and for all. Murder wasn't his style so that left
sealing him up. He
had heard that his father had done that once. Unsuccessfully as he could
see.

 Grinning, he remembered Happosai talking about all the trouble he had
when he
went to the Amazon village last. If Happosai's behaviour had been true
to form, he must
have made a lot of enemies in the Amazon village. He went to work,
dumping Happosai
into a large barrel before tying it up with chains.

 Next morning, the entire Amazon village awoke to find a neatly bundled
up barrel
in their town square. They were even more surprised when they discovered
a sleeping old
man in it. Ranma had by that time long departed.

 -----

 Ranma frowned as he tried to remember the address of his father's
sister. If it
wasn't for that lawyer who tracked Happosai down, he wouldn't even have
known that he
had an aunt! Now what was the family name again??
Tukimo..Tsikomo...Tsukino..That was
it! He stopped as he tried to figure out how he could get to the Tsukino
family. Looking up,
he noticed a shrine directly in front of him. After thinking for another
moment, he decided
he would go up and ask the people in the shrine if they knew where the
Tsukino's lived.


 He started up the stairs to the shrine, occasionally leaping up 4 or 5
steps at a time.
For some reason, he found himself in a hurry; impatient to get it over
with. As he reached
the top, he noticed a dark-haired girl tying a fortune to a tree. He
walked towards her,
intending to ask her how he could get to the Tsukino family when all of
sudden, the tree
came alive; turning into a monster of some sort and started chasing
after the girl.

 Sighing, Ranma dumped his heavy duffel bag onto the ground. Just when
he had
been about to ask for directions, some stupid monster had to show up and
scare away the
girl.

 Mikuuji had been so intent on getting the raven-haired girl's heart
crystal that she
hadn't noticed the other person in the shrine, or perhaps she had
noticed and had chosen to
ignore him. However, he was brought to her attention as a pebble bounced
off her head,
which was quickly followed by another. She turned to see who had thrown
it and to her
surprise, she saw a strange boy with a pony tail; dressed all in black,
pointing towards her.
He made a 'who, me?" gesture towards herself before the boy nodded.

 "Let me guess, you're taking a maiden sacrifice," Ranma said with a
tone of
disrepect in his voice that was clearly audible. However, he found it
wierd that a monster
would actually be able to sneak into a shrine, where the aura of the
shrine itself should
have intimidated any lesser demons. At this moment though, he didn't
really care.

 "No, actually I needed her pure heart."

 "........Ok-aay," Ranma said, dragging the word out as he digested this
new
information. "To each his own I guess. Anyway, it's your bad luck to run
into me then. I'm a
martial artist and we're supposed to protect people weaker than us, and
I think the girl you
were chasing qualifies. So what say you just slink back to whatever
hell-hole you came
from and I let you live?"

 "You must be kidding! What could you possibly do to me!?" Mikuuji said,

guffawing as she looked at the human in front of her. In hindsight, she
realised she probably
shouldn't have done that since being laughed at was one of Ranma's pet
peeves.

 Ranma scowled as he dropped into an attack posture, fully intending to
show this
monster what he was capable of. That was when he became aware of
something rubbing
against his leg; something that felt slightly furry and soft. He looked
down only to see his
worst fear looking back at him through half-closed eyes.

 "Meow?"

 "Aaaargh!!" Ranma screamed in fright as he jumped up and clutched at
the first
thing he came into contact with. Which, unfortunately, turned out to be
the monster.
"C...c...cat!!" he said in terror, squeezing the monster harder in
fright.

 "Get off of me!!" the monster yelled as she tried to extract Ranma from
him, pulling
and tugging at his shirt, with no luck what so ever. What was wrong with
this human
anyway? First, he was all bravado then this, being scared of a cat of
all things!

 The cat observed all this with no interest what so ever as it looked at
Ranma with
nonchalent eyes. Finally, it decided that what ever was going was no
business of its and
left.

 "Phew." Ranma blew a sigh of relief as he jumped off of the Daimon and
back onto
the ground.

 "What kind of man are you! Scared of a little cat!" the Daimon taunted,
which
turned out be another mistake since Ranma had been awfully sensitive
about his gender
ever since he had been cursed.

 "It's not my fault!! It's all Jii-san's fault that I'm scared of cats!"
Ranma yelled back
at the Daimon angrily. "And I'm a man damn it!" he screamed as he
launched a flying kick
at the monster; who countered by shooting out some fortune-telling
sticks, out of a case she
carried on her back, at him, causing Ranma to cancel his attack and
dodge them.

 "Hah! You're throwing pieces of wood at me?" Ranma taunted as he
twisted in mid-
air to avoid the fortune-telling sticks the monster was throwing at him.
"That's your attack?
You're a really pathetic monster you know that?

 "Shut up!!"

 "You wouldn't even be able to hit a four year old with those kind of
tricks!" Ranma
yelled as he ducked under the barrage of fortune-telling sticks that
were now shooting
towards him with a vengeance. The bad thing was that the monster's
sticks was that they
were coming too fast for Ranma to afford slowing down and use one of his
special attacks,
without being hit and it was keeping Ranma away from the monster so he
couldn't use his
close-combat techniques. So currently it was a stalemate as he waited
for the monster to
run out of sticks or for an opening.

 That opening soon came as an irate Sailor Mars came into the clearing.
She had
been running for a while before noticing the monster was no longer
behind her. All her
work that had gone into leading the monster away from the public had
been wasted!

 "Burning Mandala!" she yelled as her attack came out and hit the
monster straight
on; so distracted by Ranma was it that she didn't notice Sailor Mars.
That soon changed as
the monster roared in pain and turned towards Sailor Mars, shooting off
some fortune-
telling papers which knocked her down.

 The monster soon found both of Ranma's feet embedded into her head.

 "That's for ignoring me!" he yelled as he landed back onto the ground
gracefully.
The monster turned back towards him, fortune-telling sticks already
shooting towards him
but Ranma was too fast as he dodged them neatly.

 "For attacking my friend, Sailor Mars, I shall punish you in the name
of the
moon!!Moon princess halation!" another voice yelled out as he continued
the dodge the
attacks. The monster never even had a chance as Sailor Moon's attack hit
it. Slowly, the
monster started to morph back into a tree. When it had finally finished
transforming into a
tree, something that looked like a giant egg popped out of the trunk of
the tree and broke
into two.

 "Hey! That was my monster," Ranma said indignantly. He had been doing
fine once
he had that opening he needed until these girls came along. In some part
of his mind, he
noted that all the girls were dressed in sailor fukus. *Wierd,* he
thought. *Maybe it's some
new fashion??*

 "Why, you! We probably saved your life here!" Makoto said, fuming as
she longed
to go up and slap the boy silly. Even if he was sort of handsome and
well-built, it didn't
give him a right to speak to them like that.

 "Ahh, I could've handled it," Ranma said dismissively. "Forget about
it, do you
know how I can get to the Tsukino family?"

 "Why do you want to know?" Usagi said suspiciously as she regarded the
stranger
in front of her. She knew she had never seen him in her life before.

 "Personal business, do you know the way or not?"

 Finally, they relented and told him.

 ------

 Setsuna watched thru the swirling void as the boy left the temple on
his way to the
Tsukino residence. She did not like how this boy had changed the outcome
of the fight in
the temple. Why didn't she see this outcome before? How did the boy
change an outcome
that she had already foreseen?

 ------

 "Hey, Usagi. Why do you think he wanted to go to your house anyway?"

 "Is he some friend of yours you never introduced to us?"

 "No! I don't know him at all! I would've remembered if I've seen him
before,"
Usagi said, exasperated by the endless streams of questions. She ignored
the disbelieving
looks her friends were giving her.

 Still chattering they entered the house. Almost immediately, they could
hear Usagi's
parents talking with someone in the kitchen. The voices drew closer
before finally, the
sailors could see who the mysterious person was.

 "Usagi, meet your cousin Ranma," Tsukino Ikuko said as she pushed Ranma
to the
fore.

 "You!!?" the sailors said as one, as they pointed towards him, most of
them with
their mouths agape.

 "Do I know you?" Ranma asked, frowning as he tried to remember if he
had seen
them before. For some reason, they seemed vaguely familiar.

 End.

Authors Notes: Wow, it's finally done. One massive re-write later, what
used to be known as IHNIWTCT is out. Um, well I had fun thinking up
these story although it did take lots of chatting with my co-author and
two days before it was finished. Anyway, C&C is appreciated and no
senseless flames please. Thanks. Oh and help us choose a title for this
fic. So far, me and my co-author can't agree on one so please send in a
vote on which title you prefer. <Fly in the Ointment> or <All Things
Chaotic>


Blooper 1:

Mars: Burning Mandala!!
Monster dodges out of the way neatly and the flame attack hits Ranma.
Ranma: Gack!
Charred, burnt Ranma lying on the ground, his limbs all askew.
Director: Cut!
Akane: Baka! Watch where you shoot those things!
Mars: Bite me.
<Blam!> Mars is introduced to Akane's Mallet.
Director: I wonder if I can get hazard pay for this?

Bloopers 2:

Sailor Moon: Moon princess hala-EEEeeeek!!
Happosai glomps onto Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon: Get it off me! Get it off me!
Happosai: Hm, too undeveloped. *jumps off and walks away casually*
Sailor Moon*seeing red*: Moon princess halation!!
Poof, instant Happy dust.

Bloopers 3:

Happosai picks Chibi-Ranma up from out of the rubble.
Happosai: Don't worry child for I shall save you
Suddenly, he notices a pair of panties lying off to the left, atop of
some rubble.
Happosai*drops chibi-Ranma back down*: My pretties!! *runs towards them*

Akane: Baka jiji! You're supposed to be looking after him! Not run after
panties!!
Ranma: Yeah, how could you do that to my kid!
Suddenly, a whole horde of kids with different hair colors and styles
rush Ranma, dragging him down under their weight.
Kids: Otousan!!
Soun: Ranma! How dare you be unfaithful to Akane!
Ranma: Actually, it was her idea. Who'd have thought she was into
groups?
Akane: Baka, not in front of the kids!
Soun faints.