Chapter 1
A crushing blow sent the captain of the Furinkan High kendo club sprawling through the dirt. Emerging from the murk of the dust, Tatewaki Kuno leaned forward onto his wooden katana and managed to muster a few words.
"Ranma Saotome, you bastard... how can you allow yourself to see the Kuno name degraded so?!"
"Kuno, Schmuno. What the hell are you going on about? Have you had enough, or what?" Ranma taunted.
Tatewaki wiped away a trickle of blood from his nose. His robe was torn in places, and conspicuously marked with dirt. Kuno himself was spent.
"You've bested me today, but I'll have you know that this is far from over."
Ranma's eyes were just about rolling out of his head at this point.
The kendo captain continued, "for I am Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thun-"
"Yeah, yeah, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, aged seventeen, we've heard it a million times already."
Kuno slowly ascended to an upright position. He took a moment to compose himself before saying "Such disrespect... I'd expect nothing more from a person of such low birth."
Ranma shrugged. "Hey, I ain't losing no sleep over it."
Akane Tendo, who had been watching the fight from the sidelines shouted "and there's no reason he should, either!"
Tatewaki turned to walk away. It pained him to see Akane take the side of that lout. Looking back he shouted "Akane Tendo! You'll see it my way one day, just you wait!"
"Fat chance," Ranma and Akane muttered in unison.
As Kuno made his ignominious trek home, his thoughts were abound with muck. If any divine beings held the Kuno clan in their favor, they made little attempt to show it.
Through his walk through the city of Nerima, Kuno's mind began:
"I can see a wall of roses, set alight, and the ashes of love scattered thousands of miles out of my reach. Though my heart beats, with every beat there is a different ache. My heart is brittle, like the bones of an old man. If only my heart were stone."
Tatewaki looked at the shops and mid-rise buildings as he trudged ahead. "There is something ugly about this labyrinth of concrete", he spoke, to no one in particular.
He passed a gruff middle-aged man leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette. Suddenly, an impulse grabbed him.
"Kind sir, could you find it in your heart to spare a cigarette?"
The man let out a grunt and handed him a smoke.
"And I hate to impose any more on you, but you wouldn't happen to have a lighter?"
The man let out another grunt, and a fart, and mumbled "matches. I got matches."
Kuno pretended to take no notice of the man's gaseous release as he lit the cigarette with a match. "Thank you kind sir, I am forever in your debt".
The man said nothing in reply. A second fart of astonishing resonance and bouquet sent Kuno on his way. Walking down a crowded street, he took his first drag. His ensuing coughing fit began promptly.
"My pristine, virgin lungs can become as black as coal for all it matters to the world."
His first drag was too big. He brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled softly. He let the smoke sift in his lungs for a moment, then he exhaled the plume. He could feel a pleasant tingle building up in his shins and slowly ascending his body. He took another, somewhat larger drag and felt the effects intensify.
Up and down his spine there was a soft pressure, and on his skull there were sensory waves slowly pulsing. For nicotine-naive Kuno, even this single cigarette was having a sensational impact. He even, for just a moment, forgot about Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo and the Pig-tailed Girl.
That is, until unkind reality pawed at him when he turned a corner and bumped into Nabiki Tendo.
"Kuno baby!" She said. Then her eyes turned toward the cigarette in his hand. "Are you smoking? Wow, Ranma must've really done you a number to see you trying to relieve your stress in the commoner's fashion! And you're all dirty. C'mon, don't let him beat you up so much."
"Don't patronize me woman. I wish to be left alone."
"Have it your way then, Mr. Moody. I'll catch you later!" Nabiki flashed him a smile and went off on her own. He continued his own journey home.
As Tatewaki arrived at the gate of the Kuno shrine, he paused to think about his encounter with Nabiki.
"It was almost as if someone cared for me..."
