"Speech"
''Non-speech quotes''
"Foreign language (not Japanese)"
'Thoughts'
Sound
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Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome Tradition of Anything Goes Martial Arts, one of only two know aqua-transsexuals, fiancé to Akane Tendo, also fiancé to Ukyo Kuonji, husband (albeit only according to Chinese Amazon law) of Xian Pu (A.K.A. Shampoo) and consequently son-in-law (again, Chinese Amazon law) of the Amazon matriarch Kou Lun (A.K.A. Cologne, A.K.A. Granny, A.K.A. the Old Ghoul), Kodchi Kuno's love interest (oh the horror!), fiancé of thirty women he doesn't know (mostly because of one stupid, greedy, immoral, and hedonistic panda-man of a father), rival of Ryoga and Mus Shu, and man amongst men (even when he's a girl, thank-you very much), was irritated.
Kasumi had asked him to go pick up some vegetables for dinner, and Ranma, always ready to help out for a good cause, especially when that cause was one of Kasumi's Home Cooked Meals™, readily agreed (not what he was irritated about). This found him in the North Market carrying two bags of groceries, and struggling with his temper.
Ranma was irritated because he was being tailed, and that always ended badly. He was irritated because the month was almost up, and he had been so tantalizingly close to achieving a record low of only two major ordeals this month, and this had the makings of a major ordeal.
He knew the two young people behind him were following someone because they were doing an extremely poor job of it. Whenever he looked at them they always were looking at a vendor, or a fountain, or any number of distractions but, when he saw them in a reflective surface they were whispering and pointing in his general direction. He had futilely hoped that his pursuers had been following someone else. Up until the last turn he had made, it had been possible that they had been following the old lady with the umbrella. It had been possible, but not likely considering his luck in the past.
Ranma made a quick decision, ducked into a garbage strewn ally, hid the bags under a broken pallet leaning against the right hand building, scaled the opposite wall, and took up a strategic position on a roof high above.
The two youths hurriedly rounded the corner, and entered the ally. Seeing no-one they stopped short, as the other side of the ally was blocked. Ranma took the opportunity their stunted silence granted and evaluated them both. He decided that they couldn't be older than thirteen and, while he could tell one was female and the other was male, apart from slightly different styles of hair, they would look identical to the untrained eye.
Most people who saw the twins, for that was what they surly were, next to each other would have difficulty indicating which gender either teen was. Ranma, however, was something of an expert on the subject, having learned his lesson from Ukyo, and since he himself could turn sexes at the drop of a bucket (literally).
From his vantage point on the roof Ranma used his highly trained eye to determine their ability in the art. 'The sister is more advanced,' Ranma thought, 'But even Akane could take them both, separate or together.' Ranma paused his train of thought and squinted in concentration, 'They look familiar too.'
Unable to place them, Ranma moved on to an analysis of their clothing. Both wore conservative, if a bit thread-bare, American style dress shirts and slacks, the male version of a school uniform in Japan. 'Too restrictive for free movement,' Ranma thought disapprovingly from his perch.
Both also had the remarkably black, straight hair and dark eyes of most Japanese. The boy wore his in a simple, if shiny and perfectly groomed, pony tail that looked like it reached at least to his back. The girl wore her hair in a close cropped spiky style, and Ranma found himself thinking that Principle Kuno would have liked her, since her hair was even shorter than what he called for.
The boy turned his head and spoke to his sister in a whisper, "He is gone."
"He cannot be gone," the girl said sounding as if she were also trying to convince herself of this, "I'm sure it is him. Come, help me search for him."
The twins started at the mouth of the ally where they stood, and investigated every piece of garbage that could conceivably have held a human form. Ranma cursed under his breath as they moved the broken pallet and found the groceries. He had been hoping to pick the bags up after they left and be on his way. That looked like it was no longer an option. Ranma assessed his options and, coming to the unhappy conclusion that he needed to confront his pursuers, silently jumped down just outside of both twins peripheral vision.
"Only his things," the girl said, poking through the produce with her brother, "but if his things are here he must be too."
"What do you want," Ranma said as softly as he could.
The twins screamed in stereo.
"YAHHHHHHHHH!"
Swish
Thunk
"OW!OW!OW!OW!"
Groan
Ranma was expecting a surprised reaction, and he was not disappointed. The boy attempted to spin around in place, but only managed to trip himself. On his way down he had managed to avoid landing on the groceries, but struck his head on the brick wall.
The girl's reaction was slightly more spectacular in Ranma's opinion. She had jumped five feet in the air from a standing position, an impressive height considering her apparent lack of advanced training, but landed wrong. Ranma winced in sympathy at what looked like at least a painful sprain.
Holding back laughter despite the seriousness of the situation, Ranma moved to help the boy first, who was attempting to sit up, as head injuries where always very serious. "Here let me heh heh... let me help," Ranma said offering the boy support, as his sister whimpered slightly in the background. "Can you see how many fingers I'm holding up?" Ranma held three fingers five inches in front of the boys face, and watched his eyes. The boy blinked several times, groaned again, and attempted to focus on the fingers.
"Three, I think," he whispered. Suddenly the boy's cheeks bulged, he turned his head, leaned down and became physically ill (thankfully not on the bags).
"Stay here, don't move," Ranma said unnecessarily, "you have a concussion. I'll go check on your sister," Ranma got up, and moved over to his other triage patient.
Groan
When he turned around he saw the girl was trying to gingerly move her leg out form under herself, but wasn't having much success as she was wedged against a wall. Wordlessly, Ranma grabbed her arms, lifted her up, and set her down again, this time with the injured leg laid out in front.
"Tell me if this hurts," Ranma said.
"OW! OW! OW! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! STOP!" she screamed, tears coming to her eyes.
Ranma already had, in fact he had barley tapped her ankle. "It's broken," he said mater-of-factly, "I need to get both of you to a doctor."
Ranma knew that, while the girl's broken ankle was more painful, the boy's concussion was far more serious. Complicating maters, the only doctor Ranma knew in the city was Dr. Tofu, who was fifteen miles away. Ranma made another quick decision, went over and picked up the bags, and slid the handle up his arm. He then went back to the girl and squatted down with his back to her.
"Wrap your arms round my neck," Ranma told her, which she did, after some mild protest about helping her brother first. "I know, we're all going, now wrap the good leg around my waist," the girl did this as well, this left her with three points of contact, and her bad leg a couple inches off the ground. "Okay, your going to have to raise the bad leg up once we get going so you don't hurt it," Ranma saw her bit her lower lip and nod in his peripheral vision. "What are your names?"
"I'm Kentaro," she whispered, "this is Kato," she pointed from where her hands were around his neck.
Ranma turned his head to the girl and flashed an impish smile. His smile had gotten him out of almost as much trouble as it had gotten him into, and he knew it. "Look, if your father and my father arranged for us to be married, I'm taken by at least... um... four girls, I think? That I know of anyway."
"I'm not... What... Whoa!" Kentaro, if that was her real name (something Ranma doubted), nearly lost her grip as she tried to stammer out a response. Replacing her grip and finding some of her composure, she continued, "What kind of sick guy are you! I'm a boy! And how can you be engaged to more than one girl?"
"Firstly, if you're a boy, I'm a tree stump," Ranma shot back, getting irritated again, "and secondly it wasn't my doing." ''Kentaro'' looked away and blushed, making Ranma feel bad. "Look if, you want to dress like a boy it's not a big deal, my best friend does it all the time. Now I need you to raise your leg."
As soon as she had Ranma crouched down to her brother and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. The boy raised his head from where he had let it rest against his chest, opened his eyes, and tried to focus on Ranma. "Kato, I'm going to pick you up, OK?" The younger boy looked past Ranma at his sister, who Ranma felt nod, and then nodded himself. Ranma moved to the side, slid one arm under his legs, the other behind his back, and lifted the boy effortlessly.
"How are you doing this?" Kentaro whispered from her place on his back.
"Training, and this ain't nothin'," Ranma said, flashing his smile again.
Ranma turned his head back around to Kato, and saw the boys head had limply fallen back. "Hey Kato," Ranma said jostling the boy, who lifted his head and opened his eyes, "I need you to stay awake, can you do that?" The injured boy nodded.
"OK, Kentaro," Ranma turned his head again, "keep that leg up. Here we go!"
With only a little effort Ranma leapt nine feet up at one of the walls of the ally, and pushed off towards the other one, repeating this until he had gained the roof.
"AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH!" ''Kentaro'' screamed in his ear the whole way up, while her brother began retching again (thankfully it seemed he had left his lunch on the pavement below). On the roof Ranma paused and waited for her to stop.
"Could you not do that in my ear?" the girl nodded wide-eyed, and Ranma took off, roof hoping towards Dr. Tofu's office.
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Author's notes: Hi, I'm back! The long pause between this and my last post is due to the 'rents deciding that they don't like me "doing Anime", or, by extension Fanfiction. I went away to university about a week ago. Now, no longer under their roof I feel I can do whatever I want.
Blows a raspberry in parent's general direction
This is a rewrite/re-plot of Nadoka's Secret, which is now the only other Fic I've got posted. As this is a rewrite, if you have read Nadoka's Secret, don't assume anything stays the same. Also, I promise, New Addition will last longer than Secret but, since classes started today, will be updated only sporadically.
As always, please post a review or, send comments and criticism to my e-mail (in my profile). However if you do make a comment, good or bad, please give details.