Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Clan Of The Dragon God ❯ Chapter 01 ( Prologue )

A Ranma One Half & Wheel Of Time Crossover Story

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma, nor do I own Wheel Of Time.

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Ranma ran his fingers over the intricate lines of the dragon tattoo, each scale perfectly smooth and unmarred even in the ridged areas of his upper torso and muscled neck. It seemed almost alive, a perfect representation. "Farewell, Nerima," the martial artist whispered, his expression sorrowful, almost pitiful, as he stared at the Tendo Dojo. "I cannot in good conscience stay here any longer, for I fear I would lose my very identity." His sigh was one of sincere resignation. He had fought long and hard, and at great sacrifice, to get to this point, yet Ranma had come to know it was a false victory. He wanted to deny it, to walk right back inside and go blindly on, hoping for the best.

Ranma sighed away the momentary weakness and turned to begin his journey, only to be confronted by the wizened grandmaster, Happosai. Happosai stared up at Ranma for a long, silent while, until finally he seemed to reach some decision. "I will not stay" Ranma reminded him. The features of the grandmasters weathered face crinkled, for he knew that this would be their final meeting for the next few years. Even though he seldom let it show he truly did believe that Ranma was his heir, it was just, until this point, the boy had lacked maturity. However, he had now demonstrated to his satisfaction that things had changed. As he had always planned, Happosai reached into the recesses of his gi, and drew forth a large hide bound book.

Now Ranma was shocked, he knew the value of the book he drew forth, as it was what had brought him to this path. To say that Happosai was acting out of character would be a major understatement. "You are sure," Ranma argued, not yet reaching out to obtain the tome. "I may not return, and it would be lost..."

"Take it," Happosai demanded sharply, "For all you have sacrificed to reach this point; there is no other I consider worthy". The master paused, his gaze locking with Ranmas cobalt orbs. "My Student." Ranma eyed the leather bound volume a long time. He had found it one afternoon a month previous, while searching Happosais room. It was a listing of every technique the master had ever encountered, those he could use and those he could not.

"This should help you fulfill your desire," Happosai said helpfully. Still Ranma made no move. "I want you to have it," Happosai insisted, understanding the boy's hesitation and jerking it out toward Ranma. Finally accepting the wish of the master, he held up his upraised hand, accepting the book and placed it in subspace via hidden weapons, and Happosai, after a momentary pause, shrugged his shoulders, and brought out his pipe.

Ranma left without a word. Many hours remained before dawn; Few people stirred in the Tendo Dojo, It seemed perfectly quiet, perfectly peaceful. The young mans hardened fingers traced the grain of a wooden door. He had no desire to disturb the person within, or should that be people, for as had been the case since the month after Ryoga arrived, there was the steady breathing of two people within. Why she had insisted on the cruel charade he did not know, and finally he could put thoughts of the two unpleasant people contained within the room behind him. With only a short pause at another door, that of his dearest friend, he left his home of the past year, perhaps forever.

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Ranma was a long way from Nerima when the sun came up. He didn't sit and enjoy the dawn this day. When the initial glare had subsided, he looked out towards the north and west, to the distant spectre of Mt Fuji, and remembered. . .

The month following his confrontation with Herb had been rather trying for him, yet not unmanageable. He had become complacent in his time at the dojo, and ultimately forgotten what and who he truly was, the martial arts were all about the never ending search for self improvement, and he had become content to remain at the same level, sure he may have learnt some new moves, but not one had been learnt for the pure sake of self-improvement. He had allowed the mentality of the others around him to become his own, this was not good.

Cologne and Happosai both had their own agenda's and ultimately, learning techniques which they had mastered years before would be detrimental to his standing with them, if he ever wanted to gain their respect he would need to start on a training mission of his own, away from their sphere of influence.

Ranma had thought long and hard about this, and in the end the simple truth was that martial arts was number one in his life at the moment, and most likely always would be, just when he had lost track of that he did not know, but it was past time to do something about it.

This had led to him finding Happosais tome, and the event that had changed his life. The first thing it contained was an in depth description of ki, in all of its forms. And there were more than one; this was but the first of many such discoveries.

Emotional ki, the most common and widely known variant, required an emotional focus to access, its fatal flaw, as the more someone used this ki form, the more their emotional focus came to dominate their behaviour. Happosai, Genma, and Soun were prime examples of that behaviour. He had confronted Happy on this, and Happy told him that by the time he knew of the other forms, he had used emotional ki too long, and his behaviour was irrevocably changed.

Pure ki, the most user friendly, but also the most difficult to access, required a person to be absolutely centred. And the amount drawn would only grow with time and use. Elemental ki, drawing in the ki from a single element, and when applied the ki took the form of that element. Environmental ki, drawing in the ki from the environment. Normally both environmental and elemental ki could be drawn in only in the amount of pure ki you had, however that was where the second thing it detailed came into play.

It detailed a ki construct called a ki void, a very complex concept that used a large variety of different elements. It had two primary abilities, the ability to constantly draw in ki from the environment, the ability to provide ki for external use. Both of these things could be performed simultaneously, and to finalise the construct one had to focus the construct within themselves and it would morph into a physical object of some kind.

This brought his thoughts to Happosais pipe and Colognes staff, both items he knew should hold no real importance to either of the grandmasters, but oddly were very important to them, now he knew why. Curious as to what form his construct would take he followed the instructions and created the construct. However when he went to focus it within himself, he had felt an overwhelmingly painful sensation stretching from just above his abdomen, to just below his chin, this was not supposed to happen, yet before he could do anything about it, he passed out.

Upon awakening, he immediately noticed something different, He had a huge tattoo of a dragon winding it's way around his body, the tail starting at the small of his back and the snout finishing at his neck, strange, looking around for his new void he could find no new object within the room, once again looking at the tattoo, he reached out to it and tried to obtain the ki within, and just like that it came to him, within moments he had a ki-ball easily the size of a moko takabisha within his hands.

Now deciding to see if anything else had changed, he released the ki from the dragon, and attempted to summon his battle aura. Nothing happened.....

Or for a moment it was seemingly so, but upon closer inspection the tattoo had begun to move as if alive and he could access his ki as normal. This was very bizarre; he no longer could call forth a battle aura. Thinking on this he eventually came to the conclusion that it was actually an advantage, as an opponent could no longer tell if he was powering up or not.

Satisfied with this, he had replaced the book and left Happosais room, hopefully he could hide his new knowledge from the others. He would spend the next month learning to access the other ki types on his own, by that time, if nothing had changed, he would leave.

As he had arranged he had gathered everyone at the dojo to tell them of his decision, and its ramifications on his life.

Well, there was no time like the present. Quietly descending from his perch on the rooftop he came to rest before the koi pond, initiating the umisenken cloak, he made his way inside to get a feeling for the emotional state of those contained within. It seemed that Cologne could see through the thief cloak, interesting, as she watched him make his way around the room, yet she did not alert the others, so he did not make an issue of it, just another thing for him to improve. Satisfied that he could handle the reaction of this oftentimes volatile group, he dropped the technique.

Now that he now had their full attention, he began. "I am glad that you have all decided to come along as I had asked, as I have recently come to a decision on how I have been living my life, this was made after a lot of thought on my part, so do not think for a moment that anything you could say will change my mind, no I have not decided who I will marry, I am still young and have no intention of marriage until I am at least 21, five years from now. I have decided that at this time in my life martial arts are the most important thing to me, and over the time I have been here I have somehow lost track of that. To rectify this I have decided to go on a training mission consisting of one, myself. I will not return until this day four years hence. Should any of you find this unacceptable I only have this to say to you, I will no longer consider you engagement valid, as any woman I would even begin to think of marriage to would respect my decisions. Finally to remain in contact with those of you who wish to I have opened an e-mail account, and will communicate through this method. Any Questions?"

There were, however ultimately he made them see that his decision was final, and gave them his email information even though he suspected that the only ones who would contact him would be Kasumi and Nabiki. And, that was that. . .

Shaking himself out of the memories, he set off once again, if he was to reach his destination by nightfall, there was no time to waste.

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Ranma picked his way south for many days, putting as much ground between himself and Nerima as he could. His trail eventually led him to a wide pass in the mountains and to a steep and rocky gorge filled by the mist of some roaring river far below. The air had been getting colder, and the moist vapor felt good to the boy. He picked his way down the rocky cliff, a journey that took him the better part of five hours, and found the bank of the cascading river.

Ranma had seen many rivers in his travels, but none to rival this. The Tamagawa leaped across stones, throwing spray high into the air. It swarmed around great boulders, did a white faced skip over fields of smaller stones, and dove suddenly into falls five times the boy's height. Ranma was enchanted by the sight and sound, but, more than that, he also saw the possibilities of the place as a sanctuary. Many culverts edged the river, still pools where water had deflected from the pull of the main stream. Here too, gathered the fish, resting from their struggles against the strong current.

The sight brought a grumble from Ranmas stomach. He knelt down over one pool, his hands paused to strike. Suddenly, with a cry of "Katchuu- Tenshin-Amaguriken" Ranmas hand plunged down and came back up firmly grasping a foot long trout. Ranma tossed the fish away from the water, letting it bounce about on the stones, and soon had caught another. He would eat well this night, and he had enough clear and cold water to satisfy any thirst.

To Ranma, with the easy supply of food and water and the comfortable mist to battle the surprisingly chilly air, this gorge seemed the perfect retreat. He decided that for at least the next few months, this gorge would be his home. Acting on that decision, he set his tent up in one of the many shallow caves provided by the cliffs overhang, and then made himself a vast store of firewood from one of the many trees in the ravine.

His first few days in the retreat were entirely consumed by him reading the entire booklet, thrice. When he was satisfied that he had committed its contents to memory, he then examined the time available to him, and what he wanted to accomplish.

His current ki level still remained low, if gathered in it's entirety to form a ball it was around the size of a softball. Emotional ki was out, after a week of cold turkey, he could now see that he too had fell victim to the pitfalls of that element. Confidence, while a benefit in small portions, the overwhelming certainty of his own superiority had just been pure foolishness. To face combat without even a trace of fear was just asking for defeat.

Elemental and Environmental ki could not be stored in the body, and the amount that could be drawn in was limited to the amount of pure ki one had available. Hence, as planned, for the month following his arrival he worked 6am-9pm exclusively on that aspect. The book said that building your reserves entailed time, and use. So he conceived of every possible basic use, and implemented those uses in stages, all the while drawing on the exercises contained within the book for guidance.

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New Story, eventual wheel of time crossover but not for a long time yet. Reviews please.