Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction: The Echo

Prologue: "One step forward, and a long way back."

' '- denotes thoughts

""- denotes words spoken in Japanese. Sometimes will actually be in Japanese.

"/ /"- denotes words spoken in English.

Final entry in the journal of Andrew C.

June 19, 2008:

Japan is everything I had hoped it would be. I just wish my wife Darlene could have come with- of course, that's rather a silly wish knowing what is going on these days, and besides, Japan never really appealed to her on the level it does to me. Besides, Dustin- or D. Dawg as he insists we all call him instead of his "government name," needed summer school and so he couldn't go out of state to visit his dad for the summer. And I miss them both terribly.

Even so, I am having a wonderful time. I've only been here for a week, and I still have another three weeks to go here in Tokyo, and it's been beyond amazing already. I got this map yesterday from a street vendor and check this out: there's actually a prefecture here in Tokyo called Nerima! I can't tell you how familiar it looks- the animators got it PERFECT. I almost expect to see people running around, jumping roof top to roof top throwing energy blasts

"/Ki blasts./" Said a voice in accented but perfectly understandable English.

Andrew looked up from where he sat on the bench, writing in his journal. He turned his head to look over his shoulder at the speaker, a young Japanese man who looked to be about high school age. "Ano?" Andrew asked.

"/Ki blasts./" Repeated the teen. "/Not energy blasts./"

Andrew brushed over the faus pax of someone reading over his shoulder as he wrote; much as he'd tried to learn about Japanese culture back home, he wasn't sure that this was a rudeness here. He was, after all, in a public setting. As he looked the youth over a little more closely, Andrew felt something familiar about the boy. "/Uh, have we... met before?/"

The young man blinked a moment before shaking his head in the negative. "/I don't think so./" The boy looked him over a moment, before tentatively saying, "Ohaiyo Gozaimasu. Watashi wa Moroboshi Daisuke desu. Yoroshiku."

Andrew grinned at him, and replied, "Ohaiyo gozaimasu, Moroboshi san. Watashi wa Andrew desu. Dozo yoroshiku."

Daisuke smiled back, and gave a smooth bow. Andrew stood and returned the bow, somewhat clumsily, but with feeling. As he straightened up, however, the smile slid off his face when he caught sight of someone approaching over Daisuke's shoulder. Daisuke looked at Andrew puzzled for a moment, before turning to face the teenager walking toward them, a young man with somewhat unruly hair, bound back with a black and yellow striped bandanna. He wore a yellow, long sleeved shirt tied off at the wrists, black pants, and a backpack with a red umbrella slung horizontally over the top of it.

Andrew's face started to go numb. 'No way,' he thought to himself. ' I'm hallucinating. Gotta be.'

The stranger walked up to the two of them, looking somewhat tired. "Can you tell me where Furinkan Highschool is?"

Andrew lost more color in his face as he looked over to the side at the plaque on the wall next to the bench. Daisuke himself stood dumbfounded a moment, before he slowly lifted a hand to point at it. The stranger took another step past them both, before slowly tracing the kanji engraved on the plaque with his hands. "Fu... Rin... Kan... Koukou." He recited softly. A moment of realization seemed to revitalize him. "At last!" He exclaimed. "Where is Ranma!?" He demanded.

Andrew felt his world wobble around him; weakly he asked, "Do you speak of... Saotome... Ranma?"

The bandanna clad boy, who could only be Ryoga Hibiki, whirled on Andrew and grabbed him by the collar. "Do you know him?"

Andrew gave a faint, disbelieving "Heh." And then suddenly, everything went grey.

--

Here is the prologue to the first real attempt at fanfiction I've made in years. It's an old anime but still it retains a fairly faithful fan base, myself included. I hope that this story gains some small bit of attention; I'd appreciate feedback on it. In case anyone is interested, yes, this is in fact a self insertion, but I'm trying to give a new take on the whole SI fic thing. Nobody ever portrays themselves well, but I've had enough oddity come up in my life that I think I might actually fit in, even if just a little, with the Nerima crew. I've studied martial arts for most of my life, even when it was on the outside looking in and trying to imitate what I saw strangers do through glass windows until the instructor chased me off because I had no money (This was especially common when I was a kid) to pay for classes.

Before anyone makes a fuss about it, yes I intend for Andrew to be on the receiving end of a bit of "Gaijin" treatment. It will also be fairly apparent that Ranma, in spite of his poor social skills, will likely be the least judgemental of the Nerima gang on early acquaintance. This is in fact intentional and well thought out. For the most part, nearly nobody else in the core group(Tendo daughters, Ukyo, etc) have spent any significant amount of time out of Tokyo, much less Japan. Genma and Soun will be more cosmopolitan, due to their tutelage under Happosai, but their attitudes will be shaped as much by their age as by their early training. And most of the Nerima crew, in spite of the clownish way they are sometimes portrayed, are still fairly intelligent, most especially Ranma, and close acquaintance will likely shape their views of him as time goes on.

I have not fleshed out much in my outlines of how Andrew will develop as a martial artist- obviously he will not be near anybody's level in skill in the beginning, probably a bit higher in terms of skill than most of the Hentai horde, but nowhere near the level of even Akane, much less any of the real fighters. Maybe he will learn in his time in Nerima a bit; I highly doubt he will ever receive Amazon training. But who knows what the future will hold.

Anyhow, lemme know what you all think of it.

-AXENOME