Interlude

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Ranma opened her eyes a dozen feet in the air in a mild drizzle. Quickly trying to orient herself, she saw a panda leaping into the air after her. "Boy, you've been fighting like a weak sissy girl," read the sign held in one panda paw. The sign quickly flipped over to read "You need to be prepared for attack at all times!"

Ranma growled in irritation, and snapped her body into and out of a tight ball, suddenly rotating about her axis. This brought her in line as she fell to meet her still rising father midair. One impossibly fast snap kick later, and she landed on top her unconscious father. This shouldn't have been that easy. Was the old man getting slow ?

Given a moment to think, Ranma begin to ponder. Where the hell was she ? Unexpectedly, she was not apparently in hell. At least, she didn't think Genma had died in her absence, although it would make sense for the old man to be there as a form of torment. She was still dressed in her combat outfit, and could clearly remember gathering and shooting off a huge ki blast.

Looking around, Ranma could see she was in a crude campsite, and that there was a large city visible in the distance. Wait a minute! That looked like Nermia! How in the world did she get here? Where was Nabiki, and the old crone? Had she failed?

Maybe she shouldn't have knocked out her pop so quickly. Oh, well. Might as well go home. Hopefully someone there could tell her what was going on.

Packing up the camp and putting on her pack, Ranma picked up the wet panda and started trudging toward the Tendo dojo in the rain.

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Nabiki opened her eyes, yawned, and blearily tried to take in her surroundings. This didn't look like hell, this looked like her bedroom. Hell didn't have beds as soft as hers was, not that she had slept in her bed for months. Maybe some tea would help. First, she'd have to get untangled from this damn lumpy assault rifle, though. And why was she wearing muddy boots and fatigues in her bed, much less boots in the house? Hmm, Ranma must have gotten up to work out already. Why had he let her go to bed dressed like this?

A knock on her door interrupted her muzzy thoughts. "Nabiki, Kasumi sent me to get you up. Breakfast is ready," called a female voice.

Nabiki was confused, who in the world could that be? Kasumi had sent her? Kasumi was paralyzed, how could she have made breakfast?

Nabiki finally got the weapon's sling off her shoulder, and stumbled to the door, leaving the it behind. Opening the door and trying to blink away the cobwebs, Nabiki was confronted by an impossible sight. There stood her dead younger sister, Akane, with long, lustrous hair and glowing with health from her normal morning jog. Nabiki did the only thing she could under the circumstances. She fainted.

Akane blinked in her own confusion as she caught her sister. Why was Nabiki wearing muddy camouflage clothing of all things, and boots in the house?

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Cologne opened her eyes, blinked in confusion, and looked around. From the angle of the sun through the window it was morning. A window? Wait! She was in her own bedroom, in Joketsuzoku! Was this all a dream? No, Cologne could feel the ache in her wrist where it had been broken. It must have worked! Thank you, spirits of my ancestors! Now, to find out when she is and where her earlier self is.

A short time later, Cologne pogoed out of the village on her staff, passing the spot where the formal challenge log was only now being taken down for storage until the next tournament. Her great granddaughter had been in chase of Ranma for only two weeks! There was still time to catch Shampoo and prevent the events she had seen.

One thing puzzled Cologne, however. Where was her earlier self? She clearly remembered being in the village on this day in her past, yet her younger self was nowhere to be found. It appeared as if she had in some fashion replaced herself. Shrugging off the mystery for now as an side effect of the mirror being first broken and mended, then shattered and mixed with a huge amount of spiritual energy, Cologne went to find Shampoo.

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Authors notes

Well, this signals a depature from the earlier parts of the story. The rest of the story will not be nearly as grim.

Now that I've gotten to this point, I can say a few more things about the story without giving stuff away prematurely. I plan to have the rest of the story deal primarily with the character's internal conflicts. Apropos, I may also change the style of writing a bit. Donno yet.

What brought this on was my recent interest in several of the recent 'character(s) get a chance to go back and fix their earlier screw ups' stories. It's a fun genre, but there were a couple of things which bugged me about the idea.

First, may of these stories seem to invoke some form of duex ex machina to get the character(s) back in time. I wanted to see if I could make a semi-plausable foundation for this premise (roughly) within cannon.

Second, many of these stories also seem to be an excuse to deal with the events of Ranma with one or more characters 'all growed up', as it were. Well, what if the characters who went back weren't necessarily any more mature? In fact, what if instead of being more mature, the characters were less mature, instead?

So, here we have a considerably darker Ranma and Nabiki. Ones with lots of hanging emotional issues, who have, in fact, spent the last several months becoming obsessed killers who were willing to suicide if it meant achieving vengeance. Ranma certainly has lots of unresolved feelings for Akane, and neither Ranma nor Nabiki really care that much about each other. Nabiki has a lot of guilt regarding her part in the disasterous wedding, so she might not want to stand in Akane's way. Yet, Ranma and Nabiki are married, sort of, or they will be, or would be, or something. For that matter, would Akane even fall for a Ranma who is a killer like she did for the lovable jerk we all knew?

What is worse, there are also demands of honor. Cologne is still in her trap as far as the Amazon law is concerned, and Shampoo is still obligated to carry it out. When Ranma and Nabiki come from, they are honor bound into a feud with the Amazons. Does it still hold? Will they want it to hold? What about the marriage obligations Genma made for Ranma? What about his seppeku pledge with Nodoka?

So, tune in next chapter, to the Path of Honor.