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                      RELENTLESS
                A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction

                   By Grayson Towler
               =========================

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                        PROLOGUE
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Ranma awoke with a shout of terror, lurching forward and 
clutching his chest.  

<A dream!> he told himself.  <Just a nightmare!  Man, that was 
spooky.>  He tried to fit together the jumble of ephemeral 
images and sensations from his nightmare.  Something dark... 
something with claws... three burning globes set against a 
black field...

Before he could really apply form to the dream memories and 
make sense of them, he was caught totally unaware by his 
father's kick.  His body went sailing out the window, hurtling 
through the air towards its inevitable destination...

<The pond,> Ranma thought with bitter resignation as the 
jarringly cold water enveloped him.  <I spend more time in this 
stupid pond...>

"Hey, old man!" the drenched and irate Ranma-chan shouted.  
"What the heck d'ya think you're doin'?"

"How dare you wake your father up from his well-earned rest!" 
Genma shouted back in that righteous tone that set Ranma's 
teeth on edge.  "I was too lenient on you, boy!"

"I had a nightmare, ya stupid old goon!"  

Genma snorted.  "You and your nightmares.  And that's your excuse 
for letting your guard down?"

"I shoulda known better than to expect sympathy from you!"

"If your dreams are so vivid, Ranma, maybe you should be 
practicing in your sleep!" the elder Saotome asserted with 
a sneer.  "Maybe then you wouldn't be so sloppy in your 
defense.  Why, I ought to..."

>SPLASH!<

"Growf."

"Will you two knock it off?" Akane threw down her now-empty 
bucket and stomped back towards her room.   "People are trying 
to sleep here!"

Ranma-chan refrained from making a comment about Akane's need 
for beauty sleep.  It might have surprised some people to find 
that Ranma-chan didn't actually blurt out every snide remark that 
leaped into her head.  The circuit breakers between her
brain and her mouth weren't the best, but they did actually 
exist.  

Ranma-chan picked up a towel on the way back to bed.  It was 
a warm summer night in Nerima, so at least getting dunked didn't 
end up making her miserable.  Her moronic panda father was 
already sleeping like a stone when she got back to the room.  
She toyed with the idea of sneak-attacking him, as he'd done 
to her, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble.  

<That jerk,> she thought as she drifted out of consciousness.  
<I can't even remember my dream now.  'Practicing in my sleep.'  
Brilliant idea, you dumb fuzzball.  Where the heck... does he 
come up... with this stuff...>

Soon, Ranma-chan was snoring in time with her father.  Peace 
returned, at least temporarily, to the Tendou Dojo.

- - - - - - 

It was a special evening at the Temple of Three.  The old 
high priestess had passed on, and her daughter was soon to 
take her place.  Tonight was the night of the Past, 
the night of remembrance.

The Temple of Three was a place where the oldest of religions 
is observed.  It was a secret place, known only to the women 
who have been brought into its fold and taught its ancient 
ways.  If there was a similar faith reserved for men, the women 
of the Temple of Three do not speak of it, and this story 
does not say.  The incarnations of the Three have permeated 
religions and mythology since human beings first began to 
speak.  Whatever they have been called- Goddesses, 
Fates, Norns, Furies - they have always represented the Past, 
the Present, and the Future.

Tonight, they remembered their dead.  Aoki Nariko, soon to be 
High Priestess, stood before the altar of the Past and addressed 
the small assembly.  She held her chin high, her beautiful dark 
eyes sparkling in the torchlight, her long hair braided with 
shining beads.  

She was only human, of course, and still filled with the 
uncertainty and sadness which follows the death of one most 
loved, but she had been prepared as a person could be.  The 
funeral had been days ago, but it had not seemed real to her.  
This was where she would truly bid farewell to her mother, 
and this is where she would finally pick up the torch which 
had been carried by the women in her family for countless 
generations.

Her voice was clear and steady as she spoke, and this pleased 
her.  Tonight was not the night for grief - this was the ceremony 
of the Past, where her mother would always exist.  Tomorrow, 
in the ceremony of the Present, she would be free to cry for 
the loss of the person whom she loved so dearly.  And the night 
after, the night of the Future, she would gird herself to carry 
on, and pray for the reunion which she hoped her future would 
hold.

Tonight, Nariko spoke of her mother's achievements, of the life 
she had lived.  She spoke of her family, of their friends, of 
times dark and light, and of the secret Temple where she had 
done so much to keep the oldest of faiths alive and strong.  
Others added their memories and spoke of their friendship with 
the woman that all of them would keenly miss.  It was a time 
of bittersweet joy, a time to remember, a time to cherish what 
has been.

"Now, we offer to the goddess of Past the artifacts of my mother's 
life, the things she cherished while she lived."  This was an old 
custom - the modern Temple no longer believed that the dead 
really took their possessions into the next world, but the old 
customs were still observed all the same.  Nariko gave a signal, 
and a procession formed towards the altar, each woman bearing 
some material goods from her mother's life.

"Here was the diary in which she wrote as a child.  Here were 
the photographs of her family, of her friends.  Here is a painting 
she made for her first love, who died in war and left her with 
a broken heart.  Here are the clothes she wore when she was 
courting the man she would marry..."

"How SWEET!"

The outburst was as jarring as a bomb blast in the solemn 
temple.  Nariko staggered back in shock, her mind totally 
unprepared for an interruption of this magnitude.  The lacquered 
wood box in which her mother's clothes had been placed suddenly 
burst open, and from it there exploded a figure so shriveled 
and misshapen that she at first could not believe it was human.

"PRETTY LADY!" it hooted, and launched itself directly at her 
chest.

Nariko shrieked and staggered backwards, desperately batting 
at the troll-like thing until it finally leaped away from her, 
bounding towards the pack of shocked and horrified women.  It 
ricocheted and rocketed around the room, carrying a bag 
overloaded with women's underwear... including those which 
had been in her mother's box.  

Several of the women here were fighters - the Temple had not 
survived this long without being able to defend itself.  They 
were the first to organize, advancing on the cackling old 
creature with weapons and fists.  Yet for all their skill, 
none could lay a finger on the demented being who had invaded 
their sacred temple.  The speed with which he moved beggared 
description.   He dove between the legs of a swordswoman who 
had never known defeat, bouncing out from under her dress and 
away like a rubber ball, with her panties in his withered 
grasp. 

"Nice try, girlies, but you have to be faster than that to 
catch the Master of Anything-Goes Martial Arts!"

Nariko could only gasp and clutch her chest, unable to properly 
draw breath, her mind reeling with the enormity of the affront.  
Here, in this sacred place, on this holy night, this horrid 
little creature had come and defiled the things most dear to 
her heart.  He had stolen her mother's clothes, he had tormented 
the members of her Temple, and he had... there was simply no 
way around the truth of it... he had GLOMPED her. 

The invader seemed to finally have had his fill, and had leaped 
to one of the upper windows to make his escape, when Aoki Nariko 
finally recovered her wits.  "Hold there!" she shouted.  Her 
voice was so filled with power and rage that even the old man 
turned to face her with fear in his eyes.

"You..." she thundered, her voice echoing off ancient beams, 
"... you have violated this sacred place.  You have dared to 
interrupt this holy ceremony, you have dared to profane my mother, 
you have..."  She seemed to falter for a moment, unable to find 
the words to articulate the depth of his transgression.

The other women had grown serious and solemn in their collective 
anger.  The old man looked down upon the assembly of women, their 
eyes full of silent fury, and listened as their leader spoke.

"Had you attacked tomorrow, the Goddess of the Present would 
have given us the power to defeat you.  Had you attacked the day 
after, the Goddess of the Future would have foreseen your coming 
and aided us in stopping you.  But tonight is the night of the 
Past.  The answer for your crime... is REVENGE."

She whirled and faced the altar of the goddess of the Past, 
raising her arms and focusing the magic which her mother had 
been teaching her since she had learned to walk.  "Seek the 
Master of Anything-Goes Martial Arts!  Pursue him to the ends 
of the earth so he may be punished for what he has done.  I call 
thee forth... REIKOKU!"

The assembly of women echoed the word.  "REIKOKU!"

"Oopsie," Happosai muttered to himself as he fled into the night.  
"Those ladies sure can't take a joke..."


                       end of prologue



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                      AUTHOR'S NOTES
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Anybody else ever notice that Ranma seems to have some really
vivid dreams?  

"Reikoku" is a Japanese word with the proper sound to it that
means, more or less, what I wanted it to mean - "relentless,
merciless, unstoppable."  At least that's what my Japanese 
dictionary seems to say it means.  With a different kanji, 
though, it comes out meaning "the regular time," which just 
goes to show that you have to be careful with this translation 
business. If anyone has some more insight into the word and how 
it's commonly used, I'd be keen to hear it.

REVISION NOTES: Nothing really for this intro.

COPYRIGHT STUFF:  All the Ranma characters belong to Takahashi Rumiko,
and are licensed in America by Viz Communications.    

GRT - May 1998
MODIFIED - April 2005
Thunderstruck_comic@comcast.net

All existing chapters of this story may be found at:
http://www.talesfromthevault.com/relentless