Disclaimer: Now I’m going to do something silly. I decided to write a prologue to a story that already has three chapters. Oh well, hopefully no one will get too confused. Oh yeah, Ranma ½ is Rumiko Takahashi’s work, and though I am sure my fanfiction would insult her, mainly because it is so terrible, hopefully she would realize I mean no harm, and forego legal action…er, right Takahashi-san?

 

 

 

 

Ranma ½

Heirloom

Prologue: “Wedding Night”

By Gray

 

 

It had been several hours now since the wedding. The people had left, the gifts had been put away, the mess had been cleaned, and the debris left over from the explosions, special attacks, and general fighting had been cleaned to acceptable levels. Naturally, there was still a lot of work to be done in regards to the mess, but the worst of it was done. The groom sat in silence against the wall of the Dojo. His body was covered in shadow and only a thin sliver of moonlight illuminated a portion of his face. One eye shined in the light. But it was not a hopeful, happy shine. It was a dark, raging kind of shine. The type that emanated from a fire that could rage out of control at any moment. The eye was blue with hints of gray in it. Rather peculiar, but oddly beautiful in its own way. The eye had seen much in its owner’s short span of life. Battles, Dragons, Phoenixes, Demons, and everything in-between, the eye had viewed it all. Yet never had the eye shown such dark despair or frigid fury as it did now. It almost seemed to glow in the darkness of the night, like a beacon of hopelessness in a sea of carnage. The groom had been pushed too far. Today he had seen friends turn to enemies, family become exploiters, and his own wedding, to the girl he loved, ruined. Yes, tonight was Ranma Saotome’s wedding night, or rather would have been had his wedding not been bombed, attacked, and in general just destroyed by the petty fighting of jealous rivals and bickering fiancées. In truth he should not have expected anything less. These people had certainly never shown him any other sort of behavior, so why on earth would they start now…? Oh that’s right…China…and more specifically Phoenix Mountain, where death had nearly claimed one of their number, and the greatest, most brutal battle of his life had taken place. He had thought that after such a climactic, traumatic, and altogether sobering experience such as that would have changed the others. It had certainly changed him after all. He was still a rude, egotistical chauvinist of course, but something within him had definitely changed after Saffron. Perhaps it was the simple fact that he no longer saw the world the same way. He had faced life-threatening situations before, but never had they hit so close to home, or been so important. He had fought a God! How he was still alive to even to think about it still eluded him. And more importantly, he had very nearly lost his dearest friend and perhaps future wife to the icy claws of death. He no longer saw the world with the same innocence he once did. He realized just how dangerous his life was and just how incredibly close he had come to losing Akane and his own life as well. In short…Ranma Saotome had grown up. He was still a long way from being a responsible adult, but he had reached the turning point. He was on the road to adulthood. It was just such a shame that at the moment, he was walking it alone…The others had acted as if it had all never happened. How truly typical! Whenever something bad happened, what did the residents of Nerima do? Why, they ignored it of course! Pretended it never happened. Refused to face reality. His Father, Mr. Tendo, Shampoo, Ucch…Ukyo, Ryoga, Kuno, Mousse, and even Akane! They all practiced this bizarre ritual of pretending that what they believed, no matter how skewed or unrealistic, was the truth. Never mind the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whenever their fractured little views of the world were threatened somehow, they simply refused to believe it. And usually, they got violent…Today was no exception. It wasn’t that it was anything new for them. Oh sure Ukyo and Shampoo used bombs, and Kuno had a real katana, but really, similar things had happened before. That wasn’t the point. The point was that even after perhaps the most traumatic event of his life, they still had to go and ruin everything…it just wasn’t fair. And Akane…Now she was angry, nothing unusual, but she blamed him for all this. She had said, or rather screamed, that if he had just gotten rid of his “floozies” and been nicer to Ryoga, and Mousse, and hadn’t fought over the Nannichuan cask, then her wedding wouldn’t have been ruined. Once again, no matter how much the circumstances proved otherwise, she had to go and blame him…it just wasn’t fair…Did she thing he wanted this? Did she think he wanted all those nutcases to come and endanger his family’s lives with their psychotic brawling, and what about Nabiki leading them there, or Mr. Tendo keeping the Nannichuan from him? That really made him angry…Old man Tendo had a full cask of Nannichuan, and instead of letting him use it, he held it over his head and used it to force him into marriage…and his own Father! Fighting him for the damned water! Even though he already had a life before getting cursed, even though it was his fault in the first place that they were cursed…He still fought tooth and nail and helped cause the Nannichuan to be lost forever…Ranma’s fists clenched as his visible eye burned with fearsome rage and hate. But after a moment he sagged, his head bowing, his hands relaxing. What did it matter? It was bound for disaster even before it had begun…One thing was for sure though…His head snapped up, the moonlight once more embracing his right eye…One thing was for sure…Things needed to change, and soon…or else he was going to go insane…the problem was…things rarely changed around here, without affecting him in some way, and usually not for the better…

“I’m not sure how much more of this I can take…” Ranma whispered. A cloud passed over the moon, blocking its light momentarily, and Ranma was plunged into darkness once more…and oddly enough…He didn’t move a muscle…He stayed that way…deep within the darkness…until a stray breeze picked up…and a misty fog grew outside…

 

Author’s Notes: Okay! The true beginning of this fic! A little dark I admit, but hey, this is how I sort of saw the aftermath of the wedding going, at least in Ranma’s case…thought there’d be some lemony content judging from the title huh? Well, not from this author…I’ve never done a lemon before, and I’m pretty sure that if I did, it would be so bad that I would become the laughing stock of the fanfiction world…What’s that? I already am?!?! Oh, well… never mind then… maybe I’ll write one some other time…Now go and read the next three chapters! I revised them and I think they’re a lot better now! Go on! Get out of here!