Ranma Lost, Ranma Found

By Paks )

Chapter 1 - Honoring the dead

Disclaimer

1) The characters and story of Ranma 1/2 and belong to their respective creators, and are used here without permission or license.

2) No claims to the above copyright are made by the author of this work.

3) This work is for non-commercial use ONLY, and is produced for the enjoyment of fans only.

4) This work is the expression of the author and the depiction of the Ranma 1/2 characters herein are in no way represented to be a part of Ranma 1/2 as depicted by the original author and copyright holder(s).

Authors note: This story is set to be a mega-crossover, you have been warned.

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Ranma pulled himself from the cold ocean. His face was expressionless, manly men did not cry. He would have two weeks to master Ryoga's last technique before he reached the Tendo's. He owed it to them to bring them the news of Akane's death in China. Grimly he plotted a course towards Tokyo and began walking, if he ran and hopped onto the roof of trains he would get there, hopefully before the corpse arrived.

The painful memories of what happened at Jusendo still plagued his nightmares. He had both killed and seen his friends killed in turn. Now all he had left of his life was honor, first to honor Ryoga's last request and then to honor the Tendo-Saotome agreement. That is if one of the other sisters would have him. His mother had already released him from the seppuku pledge before he left for China, Shampoo was dead, Ukyo was not really engaged to him, as she had gambled away the cart before his father had stolen it.

He also needed to improve his art, obviously he needed to improve if he could not even protect his family and friends. Ryoga's technique should help with that. While he did not intend to marry any of his fiancés, he still loved them all as friends. It was true that he did not enjoy being beaten on constantly and treated as an object to be possessed, but he could usually count on most of the crew to support him when everything went bad.

Shouldering his overly large pack Ranma got ready to find his way back to the Tendo's. He did not even bother changing back to his male form before he left. His curse seemed so insignificant when he thought of his dead friends. 'Ranma Saotome never loses' his battle cry, now sounded overly arrogant and prideful. He had not lost the battle but the cost of his arrogance was too high.

Reaching his first town Ranma began roof hopping to the nearest train station. Shortly after he arrived a train heading towards Tokyo pulled up at the station, as it left it had a passenger crouched on its roof. Between intensive training and traveling Ranma would not have a lot of time to dwell on events at Jusendo - he could not avoid the nightmares that plagued his dreams though.

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After two weeks Ranma arrived back at the Tendo Dojo, alone. Hard travel and nightmares had taken their toll - bags blackened his eyes and his shoulders drooped. Kasumi answered the door, her ever cheerful smile plastered on her face.

"Ranma, your back." She exclaimed happily, "Where is every one else, will they be back later?" she looked around curiously. Finally she remembered herself and straightening her housedress she cheerfully said "Oh, where are my manners, do come in" and proceeded to lead Ranma to the table.

Soun sat in the house in his usual spot, by the shogi board, with his head buried in the newspaper. Nabiki was nowhere to be seen, probably in her room at this time of day. Thankfully his mother was not here, that was a distraction he did not need.

"Mr Tendo, I must speak to you, this affects your whole family." Ranma began.

Nabiki arrived at the foot of the stairs soon after Ranma spoke, obviously having heard the news from one of the numerous listening devices she had placed around the house. Kasumi, not yet having left, ushered her father to a seat at the table and seated herself. She was used to the numerous announcements Ranma made to her family and his friends. Nabiki took her place slowly at the table, her mind was working furiously trying to guess what it was that Ranma might announce, she did not like surprises. It was an ominous sign when Ranma remained standing with his pack on his back, almost like he was expecting to have to make a quick exit.

"Akane died at Jusendo." Ranma spoke directly, his face and voice emotionless.

The most telling sign in Soun Tendo's reaction was his lack of tears. Nabiki's face hardened - but a single tear trickling down her face showed her difficulty in maintaining her mask. Kasumi reacted with a typical "oh my", but her eyes showed that the airhead act was just that, an act. All that was missing from this scene was Akane caressing mallet-sama - but then, Akane would never do that again.

"Her body will be arriving in a few days," Ranma squared his shoulders "I am here to join the schools if you still wanted to".

Kasumi and Nabiki flinched, they had just lost a sister and this martial artist had as much as proposed marriage. Soun on the other hand was lost, where was Genma? He'd know what to do. Ranma stood in silence waiting for judgement.

"Ranma, where is Genma?" Soun needed his drinking buddy.

"Pops died at Jusendo." Ranma's voice broke as he admitted to losing his only companion for so many years on the road.

"I don't want a martial artist in the family who can't protect his fiancé. I don't want to lose another daughter to you."

This time it was Ranma's turn to flinch. It wasn't a demon head, but it was much colder than he ever expected from Soun. Still Nabiki had to get it from somewhere. Nabiki as her initial shock wore off, began considering Ranma's punishment. Kasumi's initial flare of intelligence faded as her usual airhead mask resumed.

"I'll go and make some tea." she spoke as she got up and left the room.

Once Kasumi had left, Nabiki's face turned into a sneer. The only thoughts running through her head at this stage were that Ranma must pay for getting her sister killed. She knew from experience that more chaos would follow him around so she had to make him pay, but from a distance.

"Saotome if you know what's good for you, you'll leave." Ranma shuddered at Nabiki's tone.

Ranma turned and left the Tendo compound, never to return. Soun did not make any move to stop him. Eyes followed him out.

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Getting across Tokyo to Juuban to inform his mother of his pops death required lots of train hopping. He thought that he had acquitted himself well at the Tendo's, it was their reactions that he did not expect - well except for Nabiki. He had expected fountains of tears from Soun and a demand that he marry another daughter immediately. Secretly he had been hoping that they would take him back into the only home that he remembered. He had even rehearsed his visit in his head over and over since arriving in Japan. Now he rehearsed the visit to see his mother. He didn't know her - she had judged him manly, but her reaction would be unpredictable.

Arriving in Juuban he decided to camp in a local park, it was too late to see his mother, better to bring her these bad tidings in the morning. Finding a secluded spot he set up camp. Dumping hot water over his head to return to manhood he prepared to meditate on Ryoga's technique and perform quick katas. He needed to train after all, he was a martial artist and needed to protect the innocent - better than he had been at least.

The next morning Ranma rose to do his katas, today was the day to face his mother. Finishing his katas, Ranma sat beside the fire to prepare himself to meditate on Ryoga's technique, he just knew that this morning he would have a break through. Reaching deep inside himself he felt his ki, pulling it around himself he started to form it in the structures that Ryoga had described. The tingling that he had begun to associate with the technique began. Each day previously, he had lost his grasp on the structures soon after the tingling began, but the duration between the start of the tingling had been growing longer and longer. Finally, there was a flare of ki and Ranma's hold ki flowed through his fingers like water. Damn, lost it. My ki has never flared like that before. Hmmmm, why didn't the ki structures dissipate? Ranma kept his eyes closed as he kept pondering the technique. After a short while had passed, he opened his eyes.

"Where the hell did my camp go!" Ranma screamed when he looked around, he was in a park similar to the one he had started his katas in but his small camp was gone. He jumped to his feet and looked around, actually the trees looked different to how they looked last night when they set up camp. "So where am I?" Ranma muttered to himself.

Ranma, never one to give up decided to start looking for his camp. Whatever Ryoga's weird technique had done he couldn't be too far out from where he had started, right? Before Ranma had walked twenty steps his whole body began to tingle again, just like when he was attempting Ryoga's technique. With a flare of ki, he was looking at completely different surroundings, a jungle rather than a park. Ranma then had an epiphany of sorts. Ahhhhh, gotta get rid of those ki structures around me, it looks like Ryoga passed on his getting lost technique - ha, sneaky pig, some curse. After that I can figure out where I am.

With that thought Ranma began probing the structures, but his ki probes just slid off the ki structure like water. So he began walking in the hopes that he could prevent a ki flare when it happened. Suddenly Ranma was walking in a desert. Looking around Ranma thought to himself that since he had lost his pack he would need to be in a place where he could at least find better pickings, hunting wise that is, so he let the next ki flare go with only a little probe. This technique could prove invaluable if he could master it, with that he wondered if Ryoga ever mastered it. Probably explained why pig-breath could get lost when he wanted and find him at the most inconvenient times. By the end of the day Ranma's stomach was grumbling its complaints, and he was a girl, but he had at least managed to lengthen the times between the ki flares.

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By the end of the week Ranma was grateful to Ryoga for giving him this technique. He was planning to disappear after seeing his mother anyway. Working on mastering the technique was also taking his mind off his grief and guilt, it was still there, but dulled in his fervor to improve his art.

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At the end of the second week Ranma hoped he would achieve a breakthrough soon. His clothes were somewhat tattered, and he was in dire need of a bath. He hoped when he finally managed to control the jumps he was in a nice place. Randomly jumping was fine and dandy in a tight spot, but he ended up in the strangest and sometimes most dangerous places, as he thinks back to the female bathhouse.

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Authors note:

Well then, did Ryoga ever manage to master his technique? I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Will Ranma ever master the annoying get lost technique? Well, maybe. Where will Ranma end up? Ranma is quite angsty in the beginning after the deaths of his companions and father, but did he forget his grief too soon? Well he hasn’t really forgotten it – just buried it, forgotten about it, as he did with so many other things in his past.

RR would be greatly appreciated, if I can improve my writing that means better fics for you guys! I started of fairly dark, but it will get lighter, maybe.