Dreamwalk With Me
A Ranma Nibun no Ichi FanFic by Anansi42
Disclaimer - This is a story based on characters created, owned and copyrighted by Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan Publishing, VIZ Communications, the JSDF, Kitty Film, Fuji TV and other various parties. I'm only borrowing them for a bit without permission (like a joyride, but with words). This story is written expressly for entertainment purposes.
Prologue
It was a pleasant day in Nerima, and this was no less true in the dojo. A full class of twenty students went through their katas or sparred in the center of the training area while their master stood off to the side, watching them with an appraising eye. Ranma looked over his students as class was coming to a close, and he had to admit that he liked what he saw. They all had a long way to go before he could feel comfortable calling them martial artists; but they were all progressing nicely. He felt pride in how far many of them had come since beginning their lessons at the dojo.
None of them were as good as him, of course, but for some of his students that was just an accident in their upbringing; if, like him, they had been trained from childhood they would have been much better than they were. Ranma just treated that as a goad for him to become a better sensei.
He still had a hard time thinking of himself as a sensei, a teacher, with students relying on him to know the answers. Growing up, he had always relied on Genma to know the answers. Sometimes answers came from the martial art masters Ranma and his father had encountered in their travels, other times from what they saw in nature; but his father always had final say. That was before China: before Jusenkyo.
All of Ranma's childhood preconceptions had crumbled with one splash of water.
Genma, though skilled in martial arts, turned out to be a fool. As time went on, Ranma saw that his father was also an idiot, a liar, a cheat, a coward, and a lazy freeloader to boot. Genma's full measure of stupidity had left his son saddled with a mountain of debts, more fiancées than any man should ever have (especially all at once), and the threat of death from his own mother because of a curse that at times made him doubt his own identity; sometimes even to doubt his own sanity.
What a nightmare that was.
Ranma had had a very hard time after Jusenkyo; but finally came through the ordeal stronger, more sure of himself, maybe even a little wiser. He had gotten his life together and started to build a career, a family, and a home. A hard part of this, maybe even the hardest part, was when he had chosen a wife. He had never intended to hurt any of the women who wound up as his fiancées (and, as he guiltily admitted to himself, he had sometimes liked all the attention) but finally realized that not choosing had also been a choice - the worst one possible.
The other fiancées had taken his choice hard, but had eventually accepted the fact that the contest was over. Kodachi, oddly enough, had been the first to accept Ranma's decision: the whole thing had been an elaborate game to her, never truly serious. According to her last letter she was in Europe, training gymnasts and chasing men with equal zeal. The others had each come around in their own time and in their own ways. He still kept in contact with them.
After the wedding, Ranma had finally met man-to-man, eye-to-eye, and knee-to-groin with Genma and made it plain that the elder Saotome was not to darken his door again on penalty of death. Genma had laughed at that until he saw the steely-eyed, murderous gleam in the eyes of his new daughter-in-law and the matching gleam of steel on the edge of Nodoka's honor blade, loaned to the newlyweds for the purpose of dealing with… dishonorable things. Faced with Nodoka's honor blade, and a daughter-in-law who wasn't at all afraid to use it, Genma decided that the best thing for him to do was to take a training trip, a long training trip.
Living on a modest stipend from the dojo, Ranma's father was still somewhere on the road, which suited Ranma just fine. Tendo Soun had gone along with Genma, and the two old friends were apparently having a ball camping out, hitting every bar they found, and fervently hoping never to meet Happosai again. The pruned pervert had left Nerima for parts unknown, undoubtedly looking for exotic items to add to his 'collection'. Ryoga had once visited with news of a 'lecherous leprechaun' in Ireland, but other than that there was no clue to where Happosai had gone.
The farther away, the better, thought Ranma.
Ryoga himself had been much less trouble since getting married. He now spent more time at home with his wife and new son; or at least he was around the same prefecture more often.
I'm glad Ryoga finally settled down, Ranma thought. And if he had to marry someone, at least it was someone who liked pigs.
Ryoga was still bothered by his curse; but at long last that was something that no longer troubled Ranma.
I thought I'd never find a cure to the Jusenkyo curse. To be fair, I didn't find the cure; she did.
I'm so very glad I married her.
Even without being cured, I'd have chosen her. My only regret is that I didn't do so sooner. I was only trying to be fair to everyone because I couldn't stand to see any of my new friends go, but I wasn't fair at all, not to them or to myself.
What an idiot I was.
Focusing back to the present, and his students as they left the dojo, Ranma was well aware that he didn't have all the answers; so now he encouraged his students to find their own paths and not to just blindly follow what he said. Many of the things his students came up with weren't right, and some were positively strange; but with a gentle nudge here and there, or a carefully worded suggestion, Ranma was able to guide them back to a more proper path. It was hard at times, letting his students find their own way when Ranma's own had been pushed on him as a fait accompli; but the rewards were more than worth it.
The best lessons are the ones we teach ourselves; provided we actually learn from them.
"Hey."
He smiled when he heard her voice, he always did.
Ranma turned to look at her, the few students still trailing from the dojo forgotten for the moment, "Hey, yourself. How is everything coming along at work?"
"Good. We should be able to open the new franchise next week, right on schedule," she gave him a gentle hug. "Will you be able to help out?"
He returned the embrace, drawing her close, "Say the word and I'm yours every evening."
"You're mine all the time! I just hope you can come for the opening."
Ranma kissed her forehead, "Just try to keep me away!"
She drew his face down to hers to give him a proper kiss, "Airen."
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Above the Nekohanten, Shampoo smiled in her sleep: this was an unexpected, but wonderful dream.
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