I found the writing itself quite interesting in this, though
the story was rather less so.

  Yeah, it is late for the first,

If this was supposed to be an April Fool's fanfic, that fact
is not obvious from the fic itself.

I offer this, my first effort but not likely my last

This is a first fanfic?  Very impressive writing.

If this is your first, though, I'd better reiterate:  what
follows is MY opinion only; take or leave, as you please,
whatever you find useful.

A story about five minutes in the world of Ranma, where they 
lose a little bit of Ranma. For a reason.

Is that was this was about?  While the story contains some
compelling images, I couldn't really figure out what it
was 'about'.  In particular, how did 'they' lose 'a little bit'
of Ranma?

  It was night, maybe still late evening, though the sun was 
not visible, hidden by large opaque clouds to the far West from 
where it would not return. Saotome Ranma sat perched, smoking, 
on the roof of an unknown house in the far reaches of Nerima, a 
house he neither knew the address nor the owners of, nor had he 
ever seen by day. He was squatting on the curved tile spine of the 
roof with one finger pointed out before him for extra balance, and 
he was listening to the rush of flowing water.

That's quite an extraordinary start to a fanfic.  The first
sentence is good imagery, though I think it could stand more work.

The second sentence, however, really strikes the reader as unusual.

Suggest some rework, though, as follows:

   It was sunset, the sun hidden by large angry clouds in the west.
   Saotome Ranma sat perched in the growing darkness, smoking, on
   the roof of an anonymous house far from his usual haunts.  He
   neither knew nor cared who the owners were.  He squatted on the
   curved tile spine of the roof, one finger poised for extra
   balance, as he listened to the rush of flowing water.

Shorter sentences usually make for bigger impact than long ones
(use long ones to lull your unsuspecting readers into thinking
you're not about to surprise them).  Concrete details help.

All this, however, is just practice:  the core image which remains
is yours, and quite striking indeed.

  It always started as the sound you hear riding a bicycle 
through thick fog. Just a far away whisper. And then you would 
begin to hear the sloshing around the rocks, then the hiss of the 
faster current, and finally the burbling of the surface water 
itself, a much greater noise, but somehow hidden behind that
of the others.

Again, I find this quite striking in conception, but wordy.
If you cut to about 2/3 this length, I think it will be even
more effective.

Confused, though, about the source of the sound of water.  Is
this objective or subjective?

  He stopped breathing for an instant and let the hot smoke 
chimney up his nostrils and burn the sensitive skin. It hurt, though 
it was the fourth time he done so with this long Taiwanese 
cigarette. 

Good details.  Good description.

  "Shhhhhhhhhhhh...." he finally allowed himself.

  He sat on the roof of a house in a place he was mostly sure 
that he couldn't possibly run into or be found by anyone related to 
him, either by blood, by law, or rage-uttered personal oath. He 
laughed when he thought about Ryoga, nodded when he thought 
about Kuno, smiled when he considered Shampoo, frowned when 
he visualized Akane, probably asleep on her futon, thinking about 
some facet of her life. All of them, always there. Always more than 
he last counted, and always the bringers of some new emotion. It 
was funny how the more they hated him(or loved for that matter), 
the closer they became up until the onset of a physical conflict, 
which he always won, and always sent the loser home with a 
lesson in personal diplomacy.

  "...it," he finished.

Heh.  Very nice touch; I didn't expect this from its beginning.

I'd recommend trimming the paragraph about his thoughts, though.
Consider adding with descriptive detail when he pictures the people
other than Akane, similar to the way you have Ranma picturing Akane
sleeping (btw, Akane has a regular bed, not a futon).

And given the mood you're successfully establishing, I'd recommend
you delete the last two lines or so; Ranma's ego need not, IMO,
be brought up.

  It filled some small errant desire in him to do this once a 
month and let his mind indulge in the fear of the unknown. Ranma 
had no doubt that he was a model among men, but over the last 
year or so he had noticed the smallest tinge of something like 
xenophobia or possibly agoraphobia. 

The first sentence starts well, I think.  I'd reconsider "fear
of the unknown", though.  May just "let his mind indulge", or
"let his mind wander".  And the second sentence, IMO, needs work
too; I'd take out the first clause entirely, and just start
with "Over the last year or so..."  But how can xenophobia,
fear of foreigners or the alien, be mistaken for agoraphobia,
fear of open spaces?  This last bit needs to be more concrete,
I think.

  It had happened like this. Weeks ago, he who calls himself 
Ryoga had borrowed a bokken from him with some fairly nice 

don't see the point of "he who calls himself".

kanji inscribed on the handle to practice 'menn' strikes on 
Tatewaki Kuno's head, who had apparently trampled him several 
minutes before in a rush to ogle Akane. Or maybe it had been him 
in his girl form, he couldn't exactly remember. No, wait, it had 
been Akane, because he remembered having some interest in doing 
the same thing when Nabiki had come around letting people know 
that her sister was practicing swimming in the baby pool. Ryoga 
had been shouting his head off about what a simp Kuno was for 
thinking an apology meant anything in this neighborhood, so 
Ranma gave him one of Soun's lesser ornamental weapons to get 
him to go away. Of course there was a fight, and the bokken broke, 
and Ryoga, secretly stabbed with guilt, came running at him again 
that afternoon yelling something about the idea that it was 
Ranma's fault there was a fight, and therefore damage to the 
bokken had been as well.

  Shampoo had been with him at the time, and they were 
chatting about school, and why she should really go if she ever 
wanted to get out from under her great grandmother's thumb 
(Ranma's idea), and upon seeing Ryoga bust through their fence, 
probably with the use of directions supplied by Akane's sister, she 
had smiled and walked away to let whatever was going to happen, 
happen without her. Ranma had looked over at the form of his 
furious friend, felt the intense battle aura tingle against his nose, 
and had waited for the first sign of impending combat. 
That sign was a tightening of his waist usually followed 
closely by a hot flash on his face as his brain shifted its 
concentration to his muscle.

While the detail here is nice, I began to lose the thread
of the narrative at "waited for the first sign of impending
combat."

  And of course that happened as he knew it would. But he 
had realized in that long past instant that the reaction 
hadn't been a true reaction this time. No. It had been an
instinct, one-second-delayed and perfectly punctual at the
sight and feel of Ryoga's rippling shape.

And here I'm completely lost.  He had the reaction he was
expecting, but it wasn't a "true" reaction?  It was both
"one second delayed" and "perfectly punctual"?  While your
language itself is nice, and flows quite well if I don't
stop to parse it, it doesn't seem to bear close examination
to try to figure out what you mean.  You're not clear,
in other words.

And "feel"?  They haven't come into contact yet.

The whole line, "sight and feel of Ryouga's rippling shape",
tends to suggest that this fic is headed in a yuri
direction.  If that's NOT what you intended, you might
want to reword a bit, just to kill that off before it
starts.

  Shaking his head at Ryoga after a moment where he 
considered whether or not to care about this little discrepancy, the 
other man cocked his head back, dropped the pieces of the 
shattered wooden sword, and asked, "What?"

Strikes me as a bit OOC for Ryouga to stop his charge at
the hint of Ranma acting slightly different.

  Ranma had looked down after a second and shrugged. "I 
don't know," he had said. "Something just felt wrong."

  "What are you sick?"

needs a comma after the "What".  Wow, an actual grammar
comment; rare in this C&C, which shows again that your
writing itself is quite good.

  Ranma had been thinking about that afternoon off and on 
for a solid month now. It had completely stopped 'bothering' him, 
but the fact that it had been such a weird, uncharacteristic thought 

I thought it was a reaction?  Now it's a thought?

had not let him forget it; especially the moment where he realized 
he was actually going to try to figure out why the reaction had 
been fake and not real.

It was fake because it was delayed by one second?

a self of the recent past. A self that had fit in, otherwise 
perfectly, 
in the sequence of selves up until that second and for every fraction 
of a second afterward until the present.

uh, oh, somehow we've drifted into an Evangelion fic here... ;)

  He stopped breathing once more and let his nostril bite a 
small whiff of smoke. 

Good break.  There's a real constrast, I find, between the
not-very-specific, or not-very-meaningful-to-me, thoughts which
Ranma is thinking, and the concreteness of his physical surroundings
and actions.  I think your goal is to make his thoughts equally
concrete, and, given that it's Ranma, this should be by cutting
words and using more pictures, or maybe martial-arts-related
similes.

comfortable. When it could, anyway. Training allowed greater 
chances for that, and this simple exercise with the cigarette fell 
well within those bounds. 

  He didn't even like cigarettes. 

I like this detail too.  This is training, somehow, similar in
unpleasantness to many his father subjected him to.

  So he squatted there, rocking himself back and forth mere 
millimeters as his single finger made tiny, minuscule corrections in 
applied force in completely subconscious reactions to the tiny 
changes in a barely perceptible wind; and he looked at the clouds 
in the distance, and he wondered where the sun was, and then he 
thought about what a damn riot it would be if he had Shampoo and 
Akane both in one of his harder classes next year.

???  That's the end?  "Damn riot", maybe; but certainly painful
for Ranma, I'd think.  Ranma should know perfectly well that
Akane and Shampoo seldom fight each other; all his girl friends
are far more likely to hit Ranma, on purpose or by accident,
then each other.  Fights between them are rare.

  I didn't label this dark or anything because it isn't.

Agreed.

Just unusual

Also agreed.

I hope the point of this came across

Well, if the point was to give us some striking images and
food for thought, yes; otherwise, no.

I would love to hear what you think.

I hope I have obliged you in that.


Given the quality of the writing here, I certainly hope
to see more from you, either other fics or another draft
of this, or both.

As a vignette, this contains very interesting images,
and I think I'd suggest keeping it at that.  I'm not
sure what it was supposed to "mean", but I think this
is likely to be more successful if you don't try to make
it "mean" too much.  Let each reader find their own
meaning by not trying to tell the reader what it was supposed
to mean.  Mostly, that seems to be what you're trying to do;
but you have Ranma's thoughts get wordy in places where IMO
they should be pictury.  Maybe we should have more flashbacks?

Anyway, thanks for writing and sharing.

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