RanHearts01

The Horse and Butterfly:

Fluttering Hearts

By Jim R. Bader

(Inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi)

Act One.

Odd how little things can cause large changes in the span of destiny, like the flapping of a butterfly's wings causing a small displacement of the air that results elsewhere as a raging hurricane. That was what it seemed like on the day that a young girl named Tendo Nabiki heard the phone ring just as she was passing through the hallway. She considered leaving well enough alone until her older sister called out that she was busy, and so Nabiki-faintly bored and curious at one and the same time-paused to answer it, and so changed the pattern of what had been her life forever.

"Mushi-Mushi," she called into the phone in typical Japanese greeting.

"Sempai?" the voice was unmistakably that of Ryonami, one of Nabiki's underlings who often helped her with her betting pools and the collecting of loans paid to fellow students, "It's me...are you busy?"

"Ryo-chan?" she asked, though affectionate pet names were most emphatically NOT her normal habit, but she had always thought of Ryonami as the next best thing to a friend and tended to favor her with an unusual degree of attention, "What's up?"

"I just found out that Gosunkuji-kun is taking unauthorized pictures of your sister again, without your permission," Ryonami replied, "I told him that he would have to pay you a commission for that privilege, but he refused...I think he's being stubborn...either that or Kuno-Sempai has been leaning on him again. Can you come to school and help us to persuade him?"

"I'll be right on my way," Nabiki replied, hanging up the phone before calling out to Kasumi, "I'm going out, Oneechan, I'll be back later!"

"Oh?" Kasumi called back to her, "If you're passing by the store, could I prevail on you to pick up a bottle of Soy sauce for us, Imoutochan? Oh yes...and some soba noodles would be nice..."

"Fine," Nabiki said as she headed for the door, pausing to pull on her shoes before adding, "Whatever."

"Oh," Kasumi called out again as if in afterthought, "And could you bring in the mail if it's been delivered?"

"Right," Nabiki paused to check the mailbox at their gate, thumbing through a pile of mounting utility bills before noticing a post card that had a picture of a panda on it. She turned it around and saw that it was to her father from some guy named Saotome Genma, mentioning something about coming to Japan from China and bringing along his son, a boy named Ranma.

"Ranma?" she frowned slightly, wondering why a man named "Dark Horse" would name his son "Wild Horse," but then she dismissed the matter as being something more typical of her daddy. The idea of having a boy come visit their house was vaguely interesting...she wondered if the boy was cute. Then she dismissed the matter entirely from her thoughts, bringing the mail back to the front porch and setting it down by the table, notifying Kasumi of same before pulling her shoes back on and heading out the gateway.

She was therefore not present in time to see her father pick up the card and weep openly as he read the message, or when he called out for his daughters, only to discover-much to his annoyance-that his middle child was absent.

Oh well, he shrugged, Akane at least should be excited to hear that they were having a visit and that a boy her own age might well soon become her fianc e...provided she did not kill him on sight, boys being such a tender subject with her these days...or maybe Kasumi wouldn't mind meeting a young man who was a few years younger? Either way, Nabiki had seemed a longshot as a potential marital prospect, more likely to fleece the boy for all he was worth and thus not a very suitable candidate to fulfill their family's honor, at least to his own admittedly biased perspective...

"Look out!" someone called out just in time to alert a young girl named Saotome Ranma of the danger that was looming over her, and with battle hardened reflexes said redhead ducked instinctively as a metal stop sign when whizzing past her head.

"Why you-!" she snarled as she lashed out with a surprisingly powerful kick, toppling the panda that had attempted to kayo her, sending said panda sprawling up against a nearby ally, momentarily stunned and unable to further attack her.

"Serves you right, you old fool!" the redhead declared, "You won't be dragging me anywhere with such a lame sneak attack! I'm not going and that's final!"

With that the redhead sprang up to a nearby wall and started running, even as the panda slowly dug his way out from under the debris of an overturned trash can, making vague animal noises in protest as the girl vanished with a leap that carried her over a nearby house and beyond the line of sight of the panda.

The metaphorical shoulders of the panda noticeably slumped in temporary defeat and resignation...right up until he began to smell uneaten food among the trash, and without pausing to think twice about it he began to riffle through the mess to appease his endless hunger.

Unseen by the panda or the general onlookers, a man and a woman poked their heads from around behind the corner of one wall and took stock of these recent events, then one turned to the other and said, "So far so good...are you sure this is going to work, Ryo-chan?"

"According to my best calculations, yes, Gos-chan," a thirtyish Ryonami replied, "Now, unless I've missed a calculation somewhere, we should have timed it just right so that the two of them will meet just like we wanted."

"I sure hope you're right, Ryo-chan," replied a thirtyish Gosunkuji, "So many factors could still go wrong...they might not meet at all, or it might not turn out like we hope..."

"Either way we should find out in another hour or so," Ryonami replied, "So just be patient and let the experiment play itself out. With any luck they may be thanking us before too much longer."

"We'll see," the slightly built, somewhat nerdy looking man replied, marveling at the audacious simplicity of the scheme his companion had hatched and wondering if it could truly make the difference that was needed...or if cheating fate were really even an option. Either way they would know how things turned out in the very near future...

No more than twenty minutes later a vexed and bewildered Nabiki was trudging her way back home with a scowl marring her usually sardonic expression. Try as she might she could not make sense of what had just happened. She had been utterly convinced that it was Ryonami with whom she had spoken, and yet her factor had denied that she had made any such phone call, denied with such sincerity that Nabiki had been forced to believe her, or at least believed that Ryonami had believed that she was innocent of luring her Sempai out to school under false pretenses.

But if it was not Ryonami who called, then who was it that was trying to hoodwink Nabiki, and in such an obvious fashion?

That question was much on her mind as another young figure came rushing out form a local bath house, having hastily taken a plunge to restore himself to his regular status, and very much in a hurry to avoid having to ask any question from the men inside the bath, who would have sworn on their Ancestors that they had just seen a girl turn into a boy before their very eyes. The absolutely last thing Ranma wanted at that point was to get himself any deeper into problems for which he had no mental way of coping, and so he was less than fully alert about what he was doing and where he was going when he suddenly took notice of the young girl who appeared directly in his path.

Sensing eminent collision, Ranma slammed on the breaks, but just a little too late to avoid running into the other teenager.

"OOF!" they both said together as Ranma instinctively reached out with both hands to steady himself, unintentionally making contact with the girl as he discovered a certain softness to her body. Said girl started to lose her balance as she rebounded off his chest, forcing Ranma to steady her in order to prevent the girl from falling.

"Are you all right?" Ranma gasped, only belatedly getting a good look at his near-victim, a beautiful girl whose short brown hair was cropped in a curious "helmet styled" pattern.

"You clumsy oaf, why don't you look where you're...?" Nabiki's voice trailed off as she found herself looking into the face of a very handsome teenaged boy, one whose magnetic blue eyes caused her to momentarily forget her own outrage.

"Uh...yeah," Ranma reluctantly let the girl go, "Um...sorry, didn't see you there. I was kind of in a hurry..."

"So I noticed," Nabiki said in an even tone of voice, slowly backing up to get a better look at the pig-tailed boy wearing the red and black Chinese outfit, even as she read the concern on his face and wondered just what to make of him, and why was her chest beating like that anyway? She sternly told herself that she could not be frightened by a little thing like a chance encounter...she was Tendo Nabiki and her nerves were like iron! A mere coincidence like this was not enough to rattle her. She just had to say a few words to the other youth then be on her way back to her home hopefully in time to give Kasumi those groceries she was wanting.

As she continued to move back, however, her foot partially went off the curb even as she set full weight upon it, and the result was that she momentarily lost her balance, her ankle twisting slightly so that she yelped in pain and went down into the street...directly into the path of a car that just happened to be looking for a parking spot at that exact moment.

Time seemed to freeze for just a few seconds as Nabiki-not yet all the way to the ground-got a good look at the front-end grill of one of Japan's top-of-
the-line vehicles, which was pulling to a stop but not at a sufficient rate that it could avoid running over her like a speed bump. The shock of that realization was almost instantaneous, and Nabiki had a brief flash of herself becoming a momentary hood ornament, right before powerful hands reached out to grab her up, and all at once she was airborne, soaring high above the traffic with a sudden lurch that threatened to displace the contents of her stomach.

All at once her rapid climb to the skyline came to an abrupt halt as Ranma got his legs under him and came down for a one-point landing, the girl he had just rescued cradled in both arms as though her weight were only of slight inconvenience to him. Once he straightened up he looked with even more concern than before into the frightened eyes of the damsel whose distress he had just relieved, then for the second time within a half a minute gap he asked, "Are you all right now? That was pretty clumsy of you, falling into the path of that car like that."

Nabiki slowly turned her "Doe-in-the-headlights" widened eyes away from the cobalt blue of her rescuer and took a good look at their surroundings. To her astonishment it appeared as though they were on the rooftop of a two story building, but that was flat-out ridiculous, and how had they gotten up there anyway? Did they fly? She turned and looked back at the edge of the building, then over it at the street now six or seven meters below their elevation, at the bathhouse across the street and the car that had so nearly come close to turning her into road pizza. Some rational part of her mind did the quick math, estimated that they had come roughly twelve to fifteen meters in the space of two seconds, and with a formula that went something like: "Half the Mass times Velocity Squared versus Nine-Point-Six Meters-per-second-per-second," and with a little handy calculation she arrived at a "Thrust-to-Mass" equation that was flat out insane...or well beyond the capabilities of anything human and mortal.

"Don't worry," he said more confidently, "You'll be all right. I'm gonna set you down on your feet, now...is that okay with you?"

Nabiki just continued to look back at him with a blank expression, so Ranma took that for a yes and began to lower her so that she could rest her weight on her own two feet...but the moment she did one of her ankles began to yelp in protest.

"Ah-!" Nabiki exclaimed with a sharp intake of breath, the pain momentarily cutting through her astonishment as she belatedly realized that one ankle was partially twisted.

"Oh, sorry," he gathered her up into his arms again, "Does it hurt? Um...well...I guess I'd better carry you back down, then...if it's all right with you, that is."

"If it's...?" Nabiki blurted out, "Who are you?"

"Saotome Ranma," he replied, "Sorry about this."

"Saotome...?" No way! Nabiki did not believe in coincidences, and this was a whopper even in her book! The handsome body supporting her in his arms was the son of a friend of her father? And someone capable of an astonishing feat-NO, make that a flat-out INSANELY IMPOSSIBLE FEAT OF SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE-was a friend of her father's? Then who the heck was he...really?

"Um...is there someplace I can take you to get that foot looked after...ah...?" he looked confused for a moment then said, "What's your name again?"

It took two tries for her to get the words out, "T-Tendo Nabiki..."

"Oh, okay," he smiled again, "Nabiki. Now...where would you like to have me drop you off?"

"Ah..." the rational part of her mind gave the part currently stuck in idle a good kick to get her thought processes rolling once again, "I...ah...know a family Chiropractor...he has a clinic not too far from here. I'll tell you how to get there."

"Sure then, Nabiki-san," the handsome boy smiled, and the rational part of Nabiki's mind threw up its hands as the unused emotional side of her persona went "GUH!" in a surge of hormonal reaction...

"Did you arrange for all that?" Gosunkuji asked as he scratched the back of his head with a look of faint wonder.

"Are you kidding?" Ryonami replied, "You think I'd risk Sempai getting hurt like that? That happened all on its own...all I did was time things so that they'' run into each other, literally if need be."

"Well, they've met," Gosunkuji stared at the rooftop where Ranma and Nabiki could be seen talking together, "Think they'll hit it off this time around?"

"I sure hope so," Ryonami replied, "We went to all this trouble just to fix them up, but I'm afraid the rest is up to the both of them. Come on, let's get back to the office, we can monitor things from there."

"I'm with you there," the slightly built man replied as he touched his wrist chronometer, summoning up a time portal to whisk them back into Limbo...

If Nabiki had realized just what the boy carrying her had in mind for "taking her to see the doctor," she would have registered an immediate protest. As it was the sensation of being carried aloft as he raced from rooftop to rooftop, pausing only to vault the distance between buildings, was enough to fray what few nerves she had left to her former "Ice Queen" self-image. At last Ranma dropped down before the clinic of Doctor Tofu, alighting easily after carrying her for over a kilometer at break-neck speeds, and then he freed one arm in order to pry open the door before carrying her inside, all the while Nabiki maintaining the same astonished expression, as if afraid that he would drop her at any second.

Once they met Doctor Tofu, however, Nabiki managed to recover some of wits about the whole matter. Sure the boy was inhumanly strong and fast, and obviously he had the moves of a fighter, and given that he was unquestionably the best looking thing that she had set eyes upon in quite a while, but he was only mortal after all, a fact proven when Tofu snuck up on him with his skeleton, "Betty," and frightened Ranma into jumping onto a door as though he had seen a ghost, a sight that Nabiki found both amusing and reassuring, as though this proved in her mind that her rescuer was indeed human.

From there she stoically endured Tofu's probing touch before he gave her foot a wrap in an elastic bandage and perfunctorily told her not to put any weight on it for the next twenty-four hours. Tofu then asked a few friendly question about Ranma, such as how he had come to meet Nabiki, a point which set Nabiki slightly on edge as she belatedly realized how compromised her situation was and what such a revelation might do to her self-image.

"Ah...we just met by accident, really," Nabiki hastily explained, "I'm afraid I took a bad spill, and Ranma here was kind enough to bring me here at my request."

"Yeah, that's kinda what happened," Ranma relaxed a little, "Well...you'll be all right, Nabiki-san? 'Cause if so, then I'll be going now...maybe see you again sometime..."

Leave? Suddenly Nabiki felt something in her breast go lurch (she would deny that it was her heart, of course, anatomical location notwithstanding) and she rather hastily said, "Go? But...I need to get home...couldn't you at least carry me to my house?"

"Can't you call somebody to come pick you up?" Ranma asked quizzically.

"Uh...sure, but..." Nabiki thought quickly, "...My older sister isn't very strong, my younger sister is a bit shorter than me, and my Daddy...well...he kind of gets worked up a lot about most things. I'd rather not worry him too much if I can avoid it. I mean...you're not too busy at the minute, are you?"

"Uh...well...not really," Ranma turned back to her and said, "It's just...I need to get back to China real soon. There's something I...need to do there that I left unfinished..."

"China?" Nabiki blinked, "You have to get to the airport?"

"Airport?" Ranma blinked, "Why would I need to go to the airport? I can just swim there, like I did the last time..."

"Swim?" Nabiki blurted out, only to decide a second later that the pigtailed boy had to be making a joke, so she just smiled and put on her most saccharine-sweet look of entreaty as she said, "Please?"

"Uh..." now Ranma seemed to be the one at a loss for words as he stared at the really cute girl giving him the pleading look that might have given cavities to an Oni, or insulin shock to a grizzly. He found himself agreeing to give her another lift to her home, only this time the girl insisted that they not travel at rooftop level, so he found himself shortly thereafter carrying her as he walked down the street, feeling very strange about the matter as the girl heaved a sigh and placed her head against his shoulder.

"You're strong," she said in clear admiration, "You must work out a lot...Ranma-
kun."

"Er...yeah," he replied, "I'm a martial artist...heir to the Saotome Ryu of Anything Goes..."

"Anything Goes?" Nabiki reacted with a start, turning to look at him with yet another astonished reaction.

"Uh...yeah...why?" he asked, now utterly bewildered at the behavior of this mercurial girl whom he had only just met by chance a short time back.

"My father teaches the Tendo Ryu of Anything Goes Martial Arts," Nabiki revealed, "It sounds almost like the very same system..."

"You mean your Pop studies Kempo?" Ranma blinked, "Whoah...what are the odds?"

"You'd never believe me if I quoted them to you," Nabiki replied, "I guess that means your father and my Daddy must know each other..."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed, "Or else they studied the same system. Uh...hey...you wouldn't happen to know anything about a promise, would you?"

"Promise?" Nabiki asked, "What promise?"

"Nothing...forget about it," Ranma said a bit too hastily, "It's just a dumb idea my Pop has...it's part of the reason why I ran away from him...he's always screwing up my life with one stupid thing right after another..."

Nabiki was surprised to hear the tone of bitterness in the handsome boy's voice, and reflexively she asked, "Who is your father?"

"Saotome Genma," Ranma revealed, thus confirming the rest of Nabiki's suspicions, "Believe me, you don't wanna meet him! He's a lying, two-faced, greedy, backstabbing bottomless pit who never thinks at all before he does something. He dragged me off to China for this training mission at this place called the Cursed Springs, as if the name didn't give it away, and...well...let's just say he really messed my life up something awful. That's the reason why I gotta get back to China, I need to find a cure for the thing he did to both of us...the Baka..."

"The thing he did to you?" Nabiki repeated, "What cure?"

"Aw, never mind," Ranma growled, "No reason why I should burden you with my life story. It's just that I never get to settle down in any one place for very long before Pop drags me off on yet another stupid training mission. It's one thing right after the other with him, and he's always going on about how important it is for me to be a 'Man among Men,' like the Martial Arts are the only thing in life that's worth doing..."

"And you don't agree?" Nabiki asked.

"Hey, I like the martial arts, don't get me wrong," Ranma frowned, "But there's gotta be more to life than just fighting, right? I mean...there's stuff I ought to be doing with my life that's gotta mean more than just who I'm gonna fight next, or where I'm gonna train. I don't even know what it's like to be just like normal people who got families and a roof over their head..."

"You should meet my little sister," Nabiki said in irony, then suddenly realized what a bad idea that would be, given the effect her sister had on most male members of the species.

"What was that?" Ranma blinked.

"Uh...nothing," she said evasively before adding, "I take it you don't have a lot of money?"

"Only what little we can earn doing honest stuff, when Pop isn't stealing it when I'm not looking," Ranma growled, "I swear, one of these days he's gonna get us both in trouble with the law...he already got us kicked out of most parts of Asia..."

"Mind if I ask you something?" Nabiki asked, "Just how good are you at the martial arts?"

"I'm the best there is, except for Pop," Ranma stated flatly, as if this were not even a question in his own mind, "I never lose...even when I go up against somebody who's tougher than the last guy I fought. I've been doing this my whole life and I've never yet met anybody better."

"Interesting," Nabiki mused, "And...how would you feel about having an agent?"

"An agent?" Ranma blinked, "What would I need one for?"

"To manage your affairs, of course," Nabiki replied, "Help you earn a living, take care of your money, see that it gets invested wisely while showing you how to earn more cash than you could ever imagine."

"You mean like a fight promoter or something like that?" Ranma asked.

"Something like that," Nabiki's smile deepened, "So...how about it? Would you like to have an agent?"

"Are you kidding?" Ranma asked, "But where am I gonna find someone like that?"

"I...could suggest a few possibilities," Nabiki said a bit evasively, realizing as she snuggled into the boy's arms that she rather liked the feeling of being carried, and the close contact was more intimate than anything she had ever before shared with another human being...except maybe for Kasumi and their late mother, who were always good for an affectionate hug when the nightmares happened.

"But...um...well," Ranma faltered again, and Nabiki realized something else rather astonishing, how cute he looked when he was being so awkward, "Ah...no offense...but why would you want to help me out? I mean...we only just met each other..."

"No reason," Nabiki replied, "It's just that you interest me, Saotome Ranma. You're quite an unusual guy, did you know that?"

"Ah...heh...you don't know the half of it," Ranma said a bit sheepishly, then added, "Look...I don't wanna freak you out or anything, but...there's stuff about me you'd have to know about if you wanted to hang around me for very long. It's Pop's fault, really, but...well...I'm not like other guys because...oh no...oh Kami!"

"Eh?" Nabiki realized that a few drops of rain were falling and she looked up at the sky in surprise, wondering at the sudden change of the weather, "That's odd...those clouds weren't there before...though, come to think of it, it was raining earlier in the day..."

"We gotta find shelter," Ranma quickened his pace and said, "Any place where we can duck indoors?"

"It's another few blocks to my house," Nabiki replied with a frown, wondering why the boy carrying her was so excited all of a sudden, almost alarmingly so, as if something bad were about to happen, "But there is a park nearby that has an awning..."

"Fine, I'll take it!" Ranma quickened his pace, though his voice started to arc in pitch mid-way through that last statement, and it almost seemed as though he were shrinking a bit in the rain, even as the droplets fell more heavily, and it almost seemed as though his hair was changing color from black to nearly crimson...

All at once they made it to the park and Ranma set Nabiki down on a metal bench underneath the awning just as the sky opened up all around them into a brief but furious downpour. Ranma took several moments long seconds getting his breath back, but now Nabiki could not help but see that something had fundamentally changed about her companion. Ranma's clothes were hanging a bit looser about his body, and he seemed to have lost quite a few centimeters in height, and his chest was jutting forward a bit and...

Without a word Nabiki poked out with a finger and touched the right breast of her companion, finding it soft and yielding instead of the formerly hard muscle of his pectorals.

"Please don't do that," a much higher pitched voice urged her softly, "I'm sorry about this...I didn't want you to see me this way...I guess maybe now you'll be freaking out about it, but I really did want to warn you..."

"Warn me...?" Nabiki blinked before stammering, "Y-You're a girl?"

"I am now," Ranma said disgustedly, straightening out and looking down at herself, "Now do you see what I mean about Pop messing up my life?"

Nabiki considered fainting, but she was already well beyond such a typical reaction.

"B-But how?" she stammered with blank incomprehension.

"It's a long story," Ranma sighed, "But it starts, like I said before, when Pop insisted on dragging me to a place in China called Jusenkyo..."

Saotome Genma was not a happy man...if anything he was downright aggrieved with his son for bailing out on him in such a craven manner. As if being taken to meet his future bride was such a bad thing (but of course it was hardly surprising that a Saotome male should develop cold feet over the fianc e issue, he silently amended). As if the boy did not trust his own father to look out for his best interest, just imagine!

That said, it was finding his wayward son which was proving to be a bit difficult at the moment, even as he slogged along with a miserable expression, the rain falling upon his head as he went trudging past a local park, a panda in despair, not daring to confront his longtime friend without the goods in hand as promised.

(Damn the boy's stubbornness,) Genma thought to himself, (Just like him to go missing when his own father needs his help to insure we both have a roof over our heads in the future...)

It took the upright panda a moment to register something very odd that caught his peripheral vision like a pair of fuzzy blobs normally indistinguishable without his glasses. In Panda form his vision was somewhat sharper than as a human, and so he turned his head to get a better look at the two people he had almost missed noticing in passing...and then his eyes grew as wide as dinner plates as he saw the cursed form of his boy talking to another girl, one who seemed to be asking questions and nodding her head faintly as she listened to the answers.

(Just like the boy to goof around when there's something important that needs doing!) Genma growled to himself, swerving around at a ninety degree angle and angrily storming up towards the boy, prepared to give full chase if the redhead took off again like an irresponsible coward.

Much to his surprise, though, Ranma just turned to see her father approaching, then sighed, "Speak of the Oni himself...here comes Pop now. Don't get scared at seeing him, Nabiki-san, his growl is a lot worse than his bite."

The brown haired girl being so addressed turned an arched eyebrow and stared in dismay at the sight of the panda, but she did not revert to full panic mode as she exclaimed, "You weren't kidding...I don't believe this! That's your Daddy?"

"Mind if I don't confess to that right away," the redhead hopped down and took a belligerent stance as she confronted her father, "What do you want, Old Man? Can't you see I'm busy?"

The insolence of the little ingrate! Genma at once assumed a fighting crouch and balanced on one hind leg, even as Ranma did likewise, knowing the counter. But then he saw a crafty smile cross the redhead's lips and without warning she surged forward with a kick aimed at the leg upon which Genma was balanced. Her father naturally hopped up out of the way of the kick, but Ranma's maneuver proved to be a faint and instead of a genuine assault, and instead she flipped around in mid-leap and thrust her hands against the ground, kicking upward with both feet and catching Genma by surprise as he found himself being propelled upward by the proverbial "mule-kick," causing him to arch skyward for a rude landing in a nearby duckpond.

"Come on!" Ranma called out as he raced back to where Nabiki was sitting and helped her to her feet, then hefted the somewhat larger girl in her arms and said, "I'll take you back to your place before he can climb out of there!"

"Oh my," Nabiki found herself somewhat torn between dismay and amusement, "Is this what your life is normally like?"

"Only until something exciting happens," Ranma replied, carrying her new friend the remaining few blocks it took to reach the Tendo house, at which point Nabiki urged them to come to a halt so that she could limp the rest of the way, resting her weight on Ranma's shoulder so that she could at least maintain the appearance of dignity when greeting her family with the minimal need for explanations.

Genma fished himself out of the pond, as mad as any wet panda. The boy was going to pay for this, he avowed, just as soon as Genma caught up with her and...

Wait a second...was Genma imagining things or was the boy headed in the direction of Soun's place? And who was that girl he was with anyway? He called her Nabiki...was it possible? This definitely bore closer investigation...

"Oh my, Nabiki," Kasumi-a tall and slender young girl whose grown hair hung in a pony tail over one shoulder-had a hand to her mouth as she saw her younger sister being helped to the door by a stranger, "What happened to you?"

"Tripped and fell, Sis," Nabiki replied, "My friend here helped me to Doctor Tofu's place, then brought me back here. Do you think you could get her a towel, and maybe some hot water?"

"I could certainly get her a towel," Kasumi replied, "But why the hot water?"

"Oh, no reason," Nabiki replied, "By the way...is Akane anywhere about?"

"I'm afraid not," Kasumi apologized, "Father had some rather surprising news...and I'm afraid she didn't take it very well. She went off to spend the night with one of her friends...she said she'd be back in time to get ready for school in the morning..."

"Swell," Nabiki smiled, surprising Kasumi as that was hardly an expression that she would have anticipated, but then Nabiki paused and said, "What news? What did Daddy say that upset her?"

"Oh my," Kasumi replied as she helped Ranma guide Nabiki into the kitchen, then set her down in one of the few chairs of the house, "It was quite a surprise, did you know that Father made an agreement of honor with a man named Saotome Genma?"

Ranma stiffened somewhat and looked more alertly at the older girl, "Saotome Genma?"

"Let me guess," Nabiki said, "The two of them were old friends from their days as martial artists, right?"

"Oh my, yes," Kasumi replied as she checked the bandage around her sister's foot, "How did you know that?"

Before Nabiki could reply their father-a very tall man with a mustache wearing a brown gi-came into the kitchen saying, "Nabiki, ah, there you are! You missed hearing the big news and...Nabiki, what's wrong, are you all right? What happened?"

"I'm all right, Daddy," Nabiki reassured her father, "Now...what was that again about me missing the big news at a family meeting?"

"Oh, quite right," Soun paused, noticing Ranma for the first time, "And who is this?"

"Saotome Ranma," the pig-tailed girl reflexively replied.

"Ranma?" Soun cried delightedly, and all at once threw his arms around the little redhead, "My Son, at last! You're finally...here?"

His voice fell off into a dull question mark, and then he started to feel out the slender body in his embrace, only to be pushed away as Ranma angrily glared up at him and said, "Do you mind?"

"Daddy, you're embarrassing me!" Nabiki complained, "That's no way to treat a house guest!"

"On my, I certainly agree," Kasumi replied before blinking her eyes, "Did you say...Saotome Ranma?"

"Uh...yeah...about that hot water already?" Ranma reminded.

"Heat up the kettle, Sis," Nabiki urged, "You're both gonna get a real surprise when you see this...in fact, I've gotta see it myself just to believe it."

"Oh...yes...I see," Kasumi replied, though it was obvious enough that she did not see at all. Just the same she went to set the kettle over the stove and began to heat it up when-not too unexpectedly-a panda showed up on their back porch, finding his way into the kitchen by following his nostrils.

The reaction upon the Tendo house was equally predictable, Soun backing away in dismay while Kasumi turned around and said, "Oh my...it's a panda," in the same tone of voice one might use to remark upon the weather.

"Stop it, Pop, you're scaring them!" Ranma immediately protested.

"Doesn't he ever give up?" Nabiki huffed, then blinked as the panda did something very astonishing, which was pull out a sign from seemingly no where and begin writing.

"Oh my," Kasumi remarked again, "It looks as if the panda is attempting to write something...I didn't know pandas could right, did you, Father?"

Soun shook his head so frantically that he risked giving himself a case of whiplash.

"You'd be surprised what this panda's capable of," Ranma groused as he went to check on the kettle, "Better sit tight, Old Man, it'll take another minute and...huh?"

The panda was holding up the sign now, which read-surprisingly enough-"Way to go, my Boy! I should have known you'd have things covered!"

"Covered?" Nabiki arched an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about?" Ranma asked, "You hit your head on the way into that pond?"

"What is the meaning of this?" Soun asked, turning from the redhead to the panda, "Who are you people-eh?" he blinked as he read the new writing on the sign and then gasped, "Saotome Genma? Is that you, my old friend? But...but how? And why are you wearing that ridiculous panda suit...?"

"It's not a suit," Ranma sighed, feeling the kettle with her hand, "Guess this is hot enough...get ready for a surprise, you're not gonna believe this."

"Not a suit?" Soun replied, "What are you...?" and then he gasped as Ranma upended half the contents of the kettle over her head and immediately expanded outward, then passed it along to the panda, who likewise used what hot water remained to collapse his form into that of a rotund man wearing a faded gi and a bandana over his head.

"Oh my!" Kasumi exclaimed as she put a hand to her mouth and gaped in amazement at the double transformation.

"Oh my indeed!" Nabiki stared appreciably at the handsome boy now restored to her vision, wondering how someone like him could have such a homely and ridiculous looking father.

"G-Genma?" Soun reacted in amazement, "B-But..."

"Never mind, Tendo-kun," Genma clapped the tall man on the shoulder, "I'll tell you all about it later, but for now we have great news to report. My son-sly dog that he is-has found his fianc e on his own. A real chip off the old block, eh? And such a lovely young girl...I believe her name is Nabiki?"

"Say what?" Ranma blinked his eyes, "What are you talking about Pop? What fianc e?"

"N-Nabiki?" Soun turned his eyes towards his middle daughter, who was simply staring as one stunned at the young man standing within arms reach of her father.

"Oh my," Kasumi turned to her younger sister, "Nabiki...did you just get engaged without telling me?"

There was a momentary pause before Nabiki and Ranma chorused together, "ENGAGED...?!"

It was starting out to be one of those days in the Tendo household...

Continued.

Comments/Criticisms/Alternate Bet Series: shadowmane

And so they met, Saotome Ranma and Tendo Nabiki, but was this a match made in Heaven or simply a case of a tale of two stars seriously cross-connected? Ranma and Nabiki start to take serious stock of one another as the rest of the Tendo household braces for the impact of having Saotomes under their roof, and Akane discovers a new sparring partner, but will she regard him as friend or foe when she hears about his connections to her sister? Tune in next time for: "Getting to Know You," or "A Very Scary Engagement!" Be there!

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