hello,
If you have read the original Heaven and Earth, please
forget the whole thing. I have decided to rewrite the
story as I was convinced that I was plagirising Mr.
Granberry with that one. Anyways, here's the prologue
with a brand new plotline. Hope you like this one
better than the last. ^_^

Now, on with the story...

A SMARTALECK PRODUCTION
Heaven and Earth - A story of a love lost, a soul
consuming hate and thirst for revenge.

Prologue - revised version # 2

Completed on 04/14/2002

Disclaimer:
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and Viz
videos. Flame of Recca is owned by whoever created the
show. I certainly do not own any of it. The characters
I introduce are mine and you can use them if you so
wish.

***

The trees were a blur. Specks of green, yellow and
brown rushed by in the blink of an eye, interrupted by
bright patches of fading sunlight in between.

	Truly, the sunset at the Bayankala Mountains was of
breathtaking beauty, but Xian Pu did not have the
time, or the frame of mind to enjoy it. She was
fleeing for her life, her hunter, as yet, unseen, hot
at her heels in pursuit.

	Her breath came in ragged gasps, sweat pouring from
every pore of her body. Her eyes were wide and
dilated, and her face splattered with little droplets
of blood, contorted with fear and apprehension.

	She glanced back once in a while, trying to catch a
glimpse of him, or was it her, and failed yet again,
which only made the fear in the pits of her stomach
gain in strength.

	As she ran, the green leaves in the trees and the
brown, dry ones on the ground rustled on their own
accord once in a while, breaking the silence of early
evening in the forest around her. The sound of her
monotonous breaths was regularly interrupted with
cracks as wood splintered under the hunter's feet, who
remained silent at all other times, making her think
that the little sounds made by the errant footsteps
were a game on his, or her part, meant to increase her
fear and drive her to the edge, which it did.

	Colliding against yet another branch, which tore her
already ragged and dirty clothes to an even greater
extent, Xian Pu looked back, once more, to catch a
glimpse of her pursuer. And like so many times before,
she caught none, but this time there was a snicker to
her left, which brought her up short.

	"Who is it?" Xian Pu asked coming to a standing halt,
ready to flee, or fight at a moment's notice. Her grip
on her sword tightened considerably, her eyes darting
about the trees and her breath coming in quick,
shallow gasps.

	A distorted voice, barely recognizable as human,
replied.

	"Hahahaha! How does it feel to be the hunted, Xian
Pu? I bet that all of your prey has felt the same way
you feel right now!"

	The voice was male and Xian Pu could not help, but
feel that she had heard it somewhere before.

	"Who... Who are you?" she panted, fear gripping her
heart tighter in its vise-like grip.

	"I'm vengeance reborn, I am death incarnate..."

	Bam! A tree to her left exploded at its base, sending
sharp pieces of wood and bark into the air in a
brilliant shower of white.

	"Do..."

	Bam! Another tree, this time directly behind her,
fell.

	"You..."

	Bam!

	"Remember..."

	Bam!

	"Me..."

	Bam!

	"Xian Pu..."

	Bam!

	"Of..."

	Bam!

	"The..."

	Bam!

	"Joketsuzoku..."

	Bam!

	"Amazons?" the voice said, dripping with utter
contempt.

	Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

	Every tree within a thirty yard radius of Xian Pu was
destroyed now. She, herself, was on her back, a
painfully sharp looking strip of raw wood sticking out
of her leg, just above her knee. She crawled away from
the voice, rivulets of blood flowing from a cut to her
upper lip, where an errant chip of wood had struck and
from the gash in her thigh. She knew that voice and
once, she knew the man behind it. No wonder all
fifteen members of her patrol had fallen so easily.

	"Ranma..." she whispered, respect and overwhelming
fear in her voice.

	The air directly in front of her shimmered and Ranma
appeared, looking nothing like the eighteen-year old,
carefree teenager of three years back. His red silk
shirt had been replaced by a jet black one in those
three years, for better stealth and his shoulders had
broadened so that he was now, a true man among men in
the looks department. His facial features had become
more clear cut and his eyes were full of loathing, so
unlike the caring, compassionate ones she once knew.
The pigtail was gone too, replaced by a shoulder
length mane of black hair, which flowed without
hindrance from his head to rest on his shoulders. He
had a brace of wood from a very rare and very sought
after species of tree, which was particularly useful
in storing and focusing ki blasts on both his hands.
An errant beam of light from the setting sun fell on
his right hand as the trees rustled gently in an
unfelt wind and reflected off a metal brace, which
rested just under the wooden one. The metal was white,
highly polished and highly reflective in the shape of
a dragon of ages long gone. Ranma moved his hand
unconsciously and a stray beam of light fell on her
eye, blinding her just a little.

	"Glad to see you remember me," he spat,
contemptuously. "Do you like my new look?"

	Xian Pu did not reply, retreating even further from
him. If the brutality with which her patrol had been
'dealt with' was any measure of the things to come,
then she was in for a world of pain followed by a
merciless death separated from her family and friends.
He had plenty of reasons to harbor a murderous rage
toward her and had purposely let her live through the
slaughter of her companions in the squad.

	Ranma took a step forward, a small, dark smile on his
lips and Xian Pu cringed, prompting a derisive snort
from him.

	"Really, Xian Pu, for all the purported virtues that
an Amazon has, you and yours lack a lot of them," he
said, stopping and staring into her face. "I let you
live through that," he pointed the thumb of his left
hand behind him towards where the remains of her
patrol were scattered over a half mile area, "'cause I
have something in mind for you..."

	Xian Pu gulped.

	Ranma snorted, again.

	"Relax, will ya," he said, reverting back to his old
form of speech. "I'm not going to kill you... yet...
Tell the Matriarch, your grandmother, that Ranma of
the Hokage walks on this Earth once more and that his
heart craves the blood of those who destroyed his
life. Tell her that for the crimes that the Amazons
and theirs committed against the Clan Hokage, the
School Matsubetsu Kakuto Ryuu and its practitioners,
the life of all Amazons, both male and female, are
forfeit. Tell her, there is no place on Earth where
she can hide from me. Tell her I'm coming for her," he
said and vanished, leaving the startled, scared out of
her wits Amazon alone, breathing a little more freely
than before, now that the danger was gone, to ponder
the latest developments and what they meant for the
tribe's future survival.

	Seconds ticked by and Xian Pu remained as she was,
her eyes staring at the space where Ranma had stood as
her breathing slowly returned to normal. Finally, sure
that the danger was long gone, she stood up painfully
on her legs, balancing herself on her sword. Just as
she took her first step towards the village, Ranma's
voice echoed through the clearing, again.

	"One more thing," it said. "Die!"

	From Xian Pu's perspective, time seemed to slow to a
crawl. The sound of her heart beating in the confines
of her head seemed to amplify a thousand times until
all she could hear was its beat, which seemed to have
rocketed, again, into the mid-two hundreds. She barely
had time to react before Ranma completed his attack.

	A huge ball of ki, slightly larger in size than a
Volkswagen, formed in the air ahead of her and
exploded outwards, in a searing hot pulse of energy
that destroyed everything for hundreds of yards
around. The heat was so intense that it literally
boiled the flesh off her body.

	The thunderous boom and the blinding light faded as
soon as they had started, revealing a thirty yard wide
crater at the epicenter of the blast. The air at the
very center of the crater shimmered once and Ranma
reappeared.

	"One down, Akane!" he said aloud. And even though his
voice sounded weak, it was loud all the same.
Nevertheless, it was lost amidst the roar of the
inferno created by his attack and fed by the wood in
the destroyed section of the forest.

***

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