190Down The Rabbit Hole
(Love Hina Arc)
See Chapter One for both the disclaimer and the story key. If you read past this point means you have read and understand both. Enjoy.
!A REQUEST FROM THE AUTHOR!
If while reading this story you happen to find any incomplete or half-finished sentences, spelling errors, grammar in need of correction, or things that just don't make sense, I ask you to feel free to send me a private message so that I might correct them. After all, I am human, thus I make mistakes. I ask for your assistance to be less human. (Private Messages can be sent via my profile.)
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Chapter Two
– The Promise –
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"Did you know that if two people who love each other go to Tokyo University They'll live happily ever after?"
These words were the first thing to register on Ranma's consciousness after he was tossed through the mirror. Next was an image of a young boy sitting in a sand box making a sand castle with a young girl; the world around them foggy, elusive, and incomplete. The same could be said of the girls face for it was a blank space containing no discernable features.
"Really?" He heard the pig-tailed boy with the small shovel ask in response to the girl's statement about future love and happiness.
"Oh great, that must be me as a child." Ranma said, his voice having no effect upon the scene before him as the girl leaned over the beginnings of the sand castle to cup the cheek of his younger self. "When we grow up…" he heard the girl say as she kissed the boys cheek leaving him with a wide-eyed and shocked expression "…let's go to the university together."
That done what happened next was hardly a shock to Ranma as a second girl formed from the foggy mists in a similar position as the first girl at the young boys side; she was kissing his other cheek.
"Figures. Even this version of me is doomed to a sucky love life. I am so going to make you pay for this Gramps."
What was worse was that this second girl was even less identifiable then the first as her hair shifted in style and color, from short and brown to long and black along with every possible permutation in-between.
"Great, just wonderful. Thanks a lot Gramps! How the heck am I supposed to know who to avoid!" He yelled at the formless sky above.
When he lowered his head back to witness his younger self being dragged away from the sandbox by a large portly man in a white gi.
"Pops?" Ranma then chuckled. "He had hair."
As his old man dragged the younger him away the two young females stood crying, as they watched him being dragged away. Twin echoing voices called out to his departing form telling him goodbye and they would see him again. He heard the voices asking him to remember that they would meet again in Tokyo U someday and asking him to promise to be there.
"Don't do it… oh please don't." Ranma moaned in response to their request.
His shoulders sagged and he let out the breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding when the younger him yell back he promised. Ranma could feel it in his very soul, a reverberation of time echoing back on him as he felt a metaphorical noose tighten around his neck.
The young boy echoed his next words as his father dragged him into the fog. "And Ranma Saotome never forgets a promise."
The scene again shifted, showing him many images of bits of his life in this reality and the damnable training trip he'd already survived through once. However, this time things went a bit differently.
He watched as at every turn his father tried to keep the younger Ranma from reading what he denounced as useless books harping pointless it was for the young boy to read them when the only thing he needed to know was the art. Besides this penchant for learning everything followed most of what he recalled of his life right up until he was supposed to meet with Ukyo; which in this life apparently didn't happen as his father decided that more drastic measures were needed to force his younger self upon the proper path. This of course meant learning the Neko-ken at even an earlier age.
With a shiver Ranma watched Genma collect dozens of cats and toss them into a pit while the eight year old version of himself sat on a nearby boulder enjoying a book – one Ranma instinctively knew to be quite advanced in level for one of such a young age to be reading. On the cover he read the words 'Advanced Calculus'.
"Cool, at least I'm some kind of genius or something." Ranma said proudly before his father's grumbling about the other him's useless desire to do schoolwork brought him back to the fact he was about to suffer through the Neko-ken a second time.
Wishing he could turn away as his father was about to toss the younger him into the pit for the third time a little old woman showed up and proceeded to trounce Genma into next week in the name of defending her grandchild.
It was from this point forward the two Ranma's lives truly diverged.
From there on he, the younger Ranma, spent half the year in training the other with his grandmother; a deal Genma managed to work out with the older woman after she'd chased him down the seventh time he'd kidnapped the young boy from either her or his mother in an effort to keep the boy on the proper path of a martial artist.
The watching Ranma observed the changes wrought on his life due to the interference of the old women he'd come to know as his grandmother who fostered his love of learning. He saw as he met his adopted sister Kanako and how the other him helped her adapt to being in a new family. He couldn't help but chuckle at seeing how exasperated his mother became when he encouraged Kanako's early love of martial arts.
It tore at his heart each time he watched the same little girl cry when it came time for Genma to take him away for a six month training trip; each trip ending when his grandmother came to retrieve him despite the old bastards attempts to keep Ranma to himself.
While with Genma the younger Ranma learned as much about Anything Goes as the man could stuff into the smaller amount of time. This of course meant that Genma took even more insane risks to ensure his child was the best. He of course forbade any books being brought along on the trip and would burn or destroy any he found the younger hiding. It also resulted in even more difficult and dangerous training.
During his time away from his father his younger self would spend time with his family and going to school which gave him the chance to interact with people instead of being forced to lean on his old man as the observing Ranma had. Despite this the younger Ranma had few friends as he devoted himself to his book learning and spending time with his sister teaching her what he had learned, that is when he wasn't spending his time with his grandmother learning the Urashima Style. Of course throughout all of this the younger Ranma found a way to study for school with the same relish he threw at learning the arts.
Inevitably Genma would show up one week before it was his time with his son and try his best to be with his wife in a marital way. His mother, Nodoka Urashima at the time Saotome, wanted nothing of her husband citing that Genma was not the man she thought she had married. Not only did she considered him unmanly for his failure to provide her with a second child but for his refusal to allow her son anything in the way of scholarly pursuits so that he would not become the uncouth ruffian her husband seemed set on turning him in to instead of the epitome of manliness she wished her son to be.
Not having a second child was the reason behind Nodoka's adoption Kanako. She had hoped to fill the void in her life with a second child, one whom she demanded act like the perfect Japanese woman. This went over about as well as swimming with a boulder on your back with the more physically inclined Kanako who saw learning martial arts as a way to remain closer to her brother, a brother upon whom she doted whenever possible.
The observing Ranma watched as his mother's demands upon the young girl drove her to spend more time with her grandmother during the times his younger self was off training with his father resulting in a split in the family as Nodoka slowly turned away from Kanako saying she was more her mother's child then hers. Shortly after Kanako's tenth birthday, during Ranma's thirteenth, Nodoka gave up all attempts to raise the young girl pushing her off on to her grandmother.
It was also about this time that Nodoka began seeking to end her marriage with Genma so that she could legally prevent Genma from taking her son away from her for half the year. These proved unsuccessful as the courts denied her as she had no solid grounds upon which to request it or proof that Ranma was unsafe in her husband's care. Things might have been different had Nodoka been willing to seek her grandmothers help but she stubbornly refused to accept assistance from the woman whom she felt was responsible for turning her adopted daughter against her by teaching her the unladylike warrior arts during Ranma's times with his father.
By his fourteenth birthday and Kanako's eleventh, young Ranma had no contact with his sister, his aunt, or his grandmother as Nodoka shunned them. His every moment had become filled with training – the fighting arts when with his father and the manly when with his mother. This left the younger Ranma with little time to spend for himself as all this time was taken up by his parents expectations – expectations that despite his best attempts to meet neither parent seemed satisfied with as they pushed him for perfection while condemning the others teachings as a waste of his potential.
Things became clouded to the observing Ranma during his younger selves sixteenth year. He was able to see highlights such as his father taking the other him to Jusenkyo where, just as before, they ended up cursed – Ranma as a girl and his father as a panda. He saw how when Genma failed to return with her son that fall his mother turned to her mother for assistance. What happened to him over the next several months was shrouded by fog up until elder Urashima woman, his alternates grandmother, caught up with Genma at the Tendo home in Nerima where she yet again taught him that despite her age she was not one to be trifled with. After this time seemed to jump around rather than be shrouded in fog; the one thing that came through quite clearly was that Nodoka finally accepted her mother's assistance in getting Genma out of their family's life. Thus by the beginning of Ranma's seventeenth year of life he, his sister, and his mother were removed from the Saotome register and transferred to that of the Urashima Clan – the marriage between Genma and Nodoka having been stricken from the records completely.
Another thing he saw was how the newly cursed Ranma lost his confidence; quickly growing distant from everyone, turning to his school work as a means of escape. Eventually his lack of confidence extended even to this aspect of his life as he began to second guess his answers for even the simplest of questions resulting in further despondency. Despite this Ranma didn't give up, his hopes now pinned on meeting up with his promised girl and living happily ever after.
The watching Ranma observed as his now older counterpart let this drag on for three years, making fewer friends and even less social contact with people than he'd had while being chased by his fiancée's. He watched as the older Ranma buried himself in the goal of meeting his promised girl and the dream living happily ever after; hopes which were suffering a severe beating when he'd failed the entrance exam to Tokyo University not once but twice due to self-doubt or plain bad luck.
A month or so after failing the second time Ranma got into an argument with his mother over his refusal of another miai with one of the girl's his mother had found for him to marry. The meeting itself turned into a martial arts match as it coincided with the arrival of another fiancée courtesy of his estranged father who seemed to have continued to live his life as if Ranma were still a Saotome and not an Urashima.
Instead of laying the blame upon her husband Nodoka instead laid it upon Ranma who she felt was failing to meet his responsibilities as a man; thus in the aftermath of this catastrophe she made it clear he was to leave her home not to return until he had both a University Education, wherever he could get it, and a prospective bride. Nothing else would be acceptable.
Thus it was with a heavy heart the alternate Ranma, now twenty, found himself standing on the opposite side of the street from a long flight of stairs leading up to a building high above on the hillside. Idly both Ranma's noted the quaint little teashop at the bottom of the hill to the side of the stairs appeared to be doing a small bit of business if the customers they saw were any indication.
For some reason Ranma could hear the boys thoughts as he looked longingly across the street. 'Here it is! This has to be the place Grandma runs. The Hinata Inn. I hope she'll welcome me. She seemed glad to hear from me when I called after all she invited me to visit.'
"So, this must be the place the old man told me I have to live in 'til I figure out his 'lesson'. It doesn't look so bad." The observing Ranma commented to himself as he watched his counterpart heft his backpack into a more comfortable place on his back before starting to cross the street. He also wondered how soon he would be more than just an observer in this little drama. He got his answer as a car clipped the young man sending him flying to slam into the stairs after which he saw the older Ranma's spirit lifting out of his body even as he felt himself being pulled towards the downed body.
"Aw man… done in by a car? You've gotta be kidding me…" Ranma said as his floating form approached that of the downed body. Just before the two of them touched, Ranma saw the boys eyes open wide in surprise to hear the whispered words of "What the…" come out of his mouth. Then everything tasted purple.
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Second Chapter Finished. I'm thinking I may make all of these much shorter than originally intended. We'll see.
Feel free to leave a review, its appreciated.
1) Miai – Formal marriage interview. (Wiki)
– Modified July 7th, 2011
– Modified August 23rd, 2011