In the immortal words of Samuel L. Clemens... "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR."
Disclaimer: "Ranma 1/2" is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and is used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit. Really, knowing my fan-status of both Ranma and John Wayne, I should've known I'd end up writing this eventually...
Consider this also as proof that just because I don't necessarily agree with Ranma/Akane, it doesn't mean I can't write it...
Well, sorta, anyway...
-o0O0o-
"Saotome!"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'
-o0O0o-
We now join our story already in progress...
"You two seem to be closer than you used to be," Ranma remarked, looking at the two Chinese teens.
"Elder Ku Lon has chosen to recognise my recent... victory over Xian Pu and make our marriage official," Mousse explained.
Shampoo blushed and subtly tried to rub her sore behind without letting anyone notice.
"Well, of all the Amazon marriages," Ranma chuckled, "I bet this is the only one that ever started off with a spanking!"
Mousse joined the Japanese teen in laughing, while Happosai simply folded his arms and looked at Ranma knowingly.
"Alright, you old letch," Ranma groaned as he started walking away, "I'll go talk to her."
"'Talk to her'? 'Talk to her'!" Happosai was almost as frustrated with the boy as he usually got with the two dingbats he had for students, "Talking won't do any good!"
-o0o-
As he stopped outside the room marked by the duck-shaped sign with 'Akane' carved onto it in kanji, Ranma reached out to try the knob only to find the door locked. Taking a deep breath and releasing the knob, he looked at the locked door and frowned before drawing back his fist.
"Katchu Tenshin Amaguriken!"
The wooden door collapsed into splinters under the onslaught of the 'Imperial Roasting Chestnut-fist'. Ironically enough, the duck-nameplate survived unscathed to land on top of the pile, facedown as though it were afraid to watch what was about to happen.
"What the hell are you doing, pervert!" Akane screeched, clad in only her underwear and trying to cover herself with her hands when Ranma stepped into the room across the dust and splinters on the floor that had once been her door.
The pigtailed-boy pointed a finger at her and spoke firmly, "You are gonna tell me why you went from saying 'Let's be friends' to trying to beat me to death when I got here!"
Akane started to back up away from him as he walked towards her, "I thought I had finally gotten my wish; I could have a best friend like me, another girl who practices the Art. Instead, I ended up with you; another stupid boy and a freak at that."
Stopping where he stood Ranma put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at Akane while she continued to move back, "And just what do you mean, 'a freak at that'?"
"You're a boy, but you turn into a-a-ah!" Akane's words turned into an exclaimation of shock as she took a wrong step and ended up falling backwards out of her bedroom window, landing flat on her back on the ground outside.
"I turn inta a girl!" Ranma pronounced as he walked forwards and stood in the window with his fists on his hips before jumping out of it and landing in a crouch next to her.
"And Nabiki's got the pictures to prove it, too!" Akane snapped as she rolled away from him and to her feet.
Ranma stood up and retorted, "Who cares?"
Slowly and steady, the pigtailed martial artist started walking towards his fiancee. Each step he took forward caused Akane to take one backwards until she felt herself bump into something and looked over her shoulder to see that she had backed all the way to the wall of the Tendo family's compound. Like a trapped rat that only knows how to bite and scratch its way to freedom, Akane's higher brain functions shut down and left her with only her instinctive response to any situation in which she found herself. From out of the folds between dimensions, that region known to so many simply as 'hammerspace', Akane pulled out a giant mallet that Gallagher would be envious of with full intent of using it to squash Ranma like the aforementioned comedian would a watermelon. Unfortunately for her, Ranma was not a watermelon, nor was he amused anymore by her and her mallet. He was at the end of his rope and he was going to start pulling it back. When Akane started to bring the mallet down, Ranma put his hand out and caught it by the handle, just below the head, and started to squeeze, ignoring the stinging feeling in his palm from the impact and momentum that the hammer had built up before he'd caught it.
"I'm getting real tired of this damn thing," Ranma openly admitted as he started to squeeze the mallet's handle, anyone around could hear the wood starting to splinter and crack, "And I think it's time it went away."
With that, Ranma closed his grip and the part of the handle he held essentially disintegrated in his hand, shocking Akane who - because of his preference to agile and aerobatic combat instead of direct assaults - had forgotten that the pig-tailed boy was just as strong as Ryoga when he chose to use that strength. The sound of the mallet's head dropping to the ground and landing there in the dust, though, stirred the youngest Tendo daughter to action.
"Daddy!" Akane called for help, causing the fathers to appear ready to blame everything on Ranma as usual.
"Boy, whatever you've done, you're going to apologize and marry her to make up for it, got it?"
Ranma moved the same hand that had just destroyed Akane's mallet and pointed the palm at Genma, "Shut up already, you wouldn't know honor if it bit ya."
The blast of pure ki that sent Genma flying wasn't a Hiryu Shoten Ha or Moku Takabisha, it was much simpler than that; it was simply Ranma focusing his Ki and using it to achieve a desired result - a panda-in-human form knocked unconscious by a headfirst impact with a wall. Then Ranma turned that palm towards Soun.
"What about you? You gonna be stupid too, Tendo-san?"
Yes, one could say that Ranma's patience with the fathers' interference in his life had run out along with his tolerance for that mallet.
"How could the son of my oldest friend be such a disrespectful child..." Soun wailed.
"I learned it the same place I learned everything else," Ranma snapped at him, "From your 'oldest friend'! So, you gonna be the smart one or ya following him?"
"So disrespectful," Soun muttered again as he stepped to the side, leaving Ranma to groan at the sight of the open gate further down the wall that Akane had escaped through while he was distracted by the fathers.
"Not this time," Ranma grumbled, knowing that most situations ended when one of the involved parties either escaped or were sent flying half-way out of the district. Giving his shirt a quick tug and adjustment, Ranma marched towards and out the gate, looking first one way and then the other down the street. When he saw a familiar figure disappearing in the distance, he started walking after it.
-o0o-
Kuno Tatewaki's day was a glorious one; the light of the Heavens shone down upon the Blue Thunder, the mercenary sister of his beloved had supplied him with new images of the fair Akane with which to bask in her beauty, and even the Foul Sorceror had not shown his presence in Nerima Ward in some time - surely driven off by fear of the divine wrath of the Blue Thunder. It was glorious. Then his jaw dropped in shock and awe as he saw the gift of the Heavens Tendo Akane running down the street towards him clad in little more than her own glory.
"A-Akane?" Kuno managed to stammer out in shock as she ran past him without pause, followed by the obvious reason for her fearful flight...
"Saotome! You foul cur!" Kuno cried out as he drew his bokken, intent on putting a stop to whatever vile intent the creature that approached him had for the fair Tendo maiden.
With righteous fury guiding his actions, Kuno swung his bokken... only for Ranma to catch it in his hand - just as he had Akane's mallet earlier - and give it a good jerk, pulling the bokken and Kuno towards him. Catching Kuno in the midsection with his other hand, Ranma used the Furinkan Kendo captain's own momentum to lift him up and send him flying back the way that Ranma had come from until his flight was arrested by a concrete wall surrounding one of the nearby buildings that had the added effect of knocking the 'Noble Scion of Kuno' unconscious. Kuno dealt with, Ranma turned his attention back to the reason he was there in the first place.
"Tendo!" Ranma called out after Akane as he started walking again, "I ain't through talkin' to you yet!"
All of this had been seen by other residents of Nerima Ward, including two particular ones of note - two that would nervously deny they were on a date because the sheer thought of them dating would send one of them into paradoxical spasms of abnormal behavior with happiness, so the one was merely helping the other with her family's monthly grocery shopping. Tendo Kasumi wasn't one for profanity or obscenity; not only was it highly improper, but she also felt it was a sign of weakness that one couldn't say anything better. Therefore, in situations where most would swear, Kasumi used her own subtitute term...
"Oh my!" Kasumi gasped after watching her sister run by wearing only her underwear and Ranma throw one of his rivals into a wall. She wasn't the only one who was stunned by what they were watching.
"Well what kind of a family is that?" Another Nerima Ward resident demanded to know.
"The best!" Kasumi answered before backhanding him, taking everyone who knew the normally gentle and kind-hearted Tendo by surprise, and storming off after her sister and future brother-in-law.
Holding most of Kasumi's shopping, Doctor Tofu shook his head and grinned, "And dangerous, too."
-o0o-
The middle Tendo sister was walking down the sidewalk with a clipboard in her hands, casually going over her 'business' finances - payment to her 'minions' going out, payment from debts, bets and the latest batch of photos sold to Kuno coming in - and smiling because profits were good. Good enough, in fact, that if the current income-to-outlay ratio continued for another year or two, she'd have enough just from 'business' affairs to fulfill a dream she had since childhood. Her happy thoughts were disrupted though, when someone shoved her in the back as they ran behind her, causing Nabiki to glance back to see who it was.
"Watch where you're going, Akane!" Nabiki shouted, then did a double-take as she realised how her sister was dressed, "Akane?"
By this time, a crowd had begun to follow Ranma who himself was following Akane at a steady walk compared to the tomboy's frantic running and as they went by the bob-haired brunette, Nabiki shook her head, mentally thanking the Gods of Wealth that she wasn't the one involved in the whole Saotome/Tendo arranged engagement plan of the fathers'. Then she smirked and joined the crowd, pulling a small disposible camera that she kept for emergencies or opportunities from her pocket - if nothing else, Nabiki knew that Kuno would pay well for pictures of Akane in her current 'situation'. After all, family was family, but business was business.
-o0o-
Akane was beginning to panic; it seemed to be impossible to escape the pervert following her, he just kept coming like some unstoppable tide. Every time she risked to look back, he was there - even trying to pull ladders down into his path or push carts at him had failed to slow his advance. Turning a corner, she looked around and saw what might be a safe haven and ran for it. Suppressing a cry of delight when the door was unlocked, Akane darted into Ucchan's Okanomiyaki and shut the door behind her, pressing her back against the wall between the door and a window hoping that Ranma wouldn't be able to see her. She hadn't even realised that Ukyo herself was in the building until the other girl spoke.
From behind the counter, Ukyo looked her barely-dressed rival over and raised an eyebrow, "You settin' a new style, Tendo?"
Looking down, Akane quickly jerked one of the tableclothes off its table and used it to cover up with. Seeing Ranma turn the corner through the window, Akane quickly raised a finger to her lips and began softly shushing Ukyo, something that offended the chef as it was her own restaurant that she was being shushed in.
Ukyo waited until Ranma had walked just past the front of Ucchan's and Akane had breathed a quiet sigh of relief, then smirked as she called out loudly, "Ran-chan! In here!"
Akane's jaw dropped and she shot Ukyo a look of betrayal as she started to run across the room towards the back of Ucchan's. She didn't get far before the front door opened and Ranma entered to follow her. By the time Akane had reached the counter and had started to climb across it, Ranma had caught up to her and easily grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder, ignoring the kicking and thumping of her fists as he nodded to Ukyo.
"Thanks," he added.
Calmly, Ranma turned and carried Akane out the door, through the crowd and to a bench across the road where he sat down and swung her down to lay on her stomach across his lap while the crowd - including her own sisters, Ukyo and two Amazons - moved to watch what was to come.
"If I get through this humiliation, you'll rue the day you ever met me!" Akane spat at him.
"What makes you think I don't already?" Ranma snorted as he used one hand to firmly hold her down, "You've been digging spurs into me ever since I got here - well, now you're gonna get what's coming to ya!"
Nabiki rolled her eyes, "Just because your name means 'Wild Horse' doesn't mean you need to start making horse puns, Ranma-kun."
Ranma looked at her and narrowed his eyes, "Just keep it up, Nabiki, and yours'll be the next hide I tan."
Raising his free hand, Ranma felt something land in his palm, causing him to look back over his shoulder at where the two Amazons stood.
"Uh," Ranma frowned at the short-handled coal shovel Mousse had put into his hand, "Thanks?"
The male Chinese Amazon rolled his eyes and nodded towards Akane.
"Ah," Ranma smirked as understanding dawned, "Thanks."
For a dozen times, the flat of the coal shovel landed on Akane's rear, elicting shrieks of pain and embarrassment each time until her unwanted fiancee was finished.
"Now talk to your 'daddy' about ending the engagement," Ranma snorted as he pushed Akane off his lap and onto the ground, handing the coal shovel back to Mousse with an observation, "Keep it - you may need it."
Ranma tried not to smirk at the look Mousse and Shampoo exchanged when Mousse tucked the coal shovel away up one of his sleeves.
"Don't think you're gonna get away with this that easy!" Akane shouted at Ranma as he stood up and - as calmly as he had followed her all the way there - walked away, feeling as though a world of weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
-o0O0o-
Author's Note; Unfortunately, I had no way of including parts like Birnbaum's store or the wrong woman in the water trough without them being forced... The hard part is that so much of the scene was visual that a lot of it couldn't be translated well to written form.