Er, sorry about this. I mistakenly attached this 
story as a chapter of the Original Writing Series 
earlier. This has been corrected, but the reviews 
are now associated with OWS. Sorry about the 
incovenience.

This story will be continued by Silverleaf12@AOL.com
Thanks, Nixa!

You probably know the disclaimers by heart. On 
with the fic.

SeventhOne

***
F A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
U Alternaverse
S by
I SeventhOne
O
N A teaser

***
A boy shows up at some dojo in Tokyo, meets 
the master's daughter, and it's hate at first sight. 
You've seen it before? Sure, seen it lots of times. 
How about this one? The boy, get this, has 
actually been studying martial arts abroad, and is 
currently one of the strongest people around. 
Yep. Seen it before. And I'll tell you what. I 
know what happens next. He beats up the girl, 
right? Right.

Course, often as not, the boy's called Ranma, 
and the girl's called Akane, but that's merely 
chance. Lots of other times, you get different 
names, like, for example, Kenshin and Kaoru, or 
Ryu and Akiko. The name's not important, but 
you get the general idea. There are variations 
upon variations, and all the rest of the whatnot.

But, to quote some famous author, can't 
remember the name, "This story doesn't begin 
that way." Nope. This story begins with an 
arrival.

"Hello?"

Yes, an arrival. I know what you're expecting. 
Ah, it's an arrival at a dojo, you think. Guess 
again.

"Anyone?" 

It's a girl's voice, and she's calling out into the 
mist.

"Father?"

She'd been travelling around a lot with her father 
lately. Martial artists tend to do that a lot. Stupid 
martial artists.

"Akane!" 

It was another girl's voice, slightly older. Akane 
looked across the mist, in the direction of the 
voice. She recognized it.

"Kasumi! Are you there?"

To tell the truth, no. Her sister hadn't come along 
on this trip. She was at home, safe in bed. Fear 
tends to distort thought processes.

"Akane! I'm over here! I can't see you!"

Who, do you suppose, is calling, then?

"I'm coming!"

Akane ran forward, into the mist.
And then, suddenly, she was falling. And wet. 
Water. Air . . . mist . . . cold . . . must breathe . . .

"Akane. Akane? Akane! Answer me!"

The other girl approached the place where 
Akane had disappeared. 
You really wanna see her face? Well . . . you've 
seen it before. The girl is . . . Kasumi. A wet 
one, wearing a brown gi. And extremely afraid. 

Eyes trailed down to pool, still bubbling from 
some object that had recently fallen in. Eyes 
widened. Eyes filled with tears.

"No!"

***
What do you do with somebody who looks 
exactly like you, refuses to talk, and continues 
crying through your attempts to comfort her? 
This isn't a question most people are faced with. 

Kasumi Tendo currently faced it.

With her father gone travelling with one of her 
sisters, and her other sister out at a friends house, 
Kasumi had found herself basically alone. 

And then this girl had shown up.

Kasumi sighed. She usually didn't, but this was a 
little too frustrating, even for her.

"At least I've gotten her to stop crying," she 
thought to herself. The thought cheered her up 
immensely.

"Let's try this again. What's your name?"

The girl sniffled a bit, then wiped her face on her 
gi. Kasumi tried again.

"Your name?"

" . . . Mayumi."

"Okay, Mayumi, I want to tell me exactly why 
you're here."

" . . . I . . . I'm here to tell you that . . . your sister 
and your father . . . they aren't coming back."

Kasumi stiffened for a moment.

"What?"

"Your sister and your father aren't coming back."

" . . . are they . . . "

". . . No."

"Then . . . "

"Please don't ask. I really don't want to tell you."

Kasumi felt herself on the verge of crying, but 
she stopped herself.

"I see."

***
Akane opened her eyes. 

There was a panda staring her straight in the 
eyes.

"AHH!" 

She jumped back. Or tried to. This is very hard 
to do while lying down. She banged her head 
against the wall. 

"Oww!"

"Young Mister Customer finally wake?"

Akane rubbed the back of her head for a moment 
before eyeing her surroundings. 

"Where am I?"

The panda raised a sign.

[Welcome back to the world of the living, son.] 
said the sign.

"Son? I'm not a son. And my father's not a 
panda."

The panda whacked her on the head with the 
sign.

"Young Mister Customer get personally change 
from Spring of Drown Nihon Girl. Very tragic 
story. No one fall in spring before."

"Person . . . personality change? What do you 
mean?"

The panda twirled its eyes around.

***
You've heard it. It begins with a postcard.

And then a boy shows up at some dojo in Tokyo. 
You've seen it before, right? Sure, seen it lots of 
times. 

Bet you hadn't seen this one yet.

To be continued . . . (maybe)

***
Anyone want to pick this up?