Ranma ½: The Taking-Down of Happosai!
By 'Lt. Rick Hunter'
(Note: The Ranma ½ Universe and all of its wonderful possibilities are, as always, © Rumiko Takahashi. To reiterate: I wish I could make some claim here, but I can't. Darn.)
Part I: A New Hope
It was an abnormal morning in Nerima, Japan. Abnormal in the sense that it was, for the first few minutes of its existence, normal.
It was times like this, when the sun and the citizens first rose, that Ranma Saotome enjoyed. The ambient sounds of the city were a perfect distraction, and the brilliant red and orange of the sunrise streaking the sky, tinting the sides of clouds, reaching it's bright and benevolent fingers all the way past a viewer's field of vision, was enough to make one pause and sigh in contentment.
From his vantage point on the roof of the Tendo Dojo, Ranma did just that. Simplicity had just not been something that he could experience lately. Life was so complicated sometimes, what with the whole water-triggered gender-switching curse thing and the whole multiple-fiancée thing and the entire martial-arts mastery thing. Normally, he would be warming up for the chaos of the day with a quick session of Taijiquan at this time, but the amazing summer weather had begged to be experienced, and he'd cut the practice short. Not that he was missing much by neglecting the last few minutes of his exercise, he thought: it was as second nature to him as brushing his teeth.
He wondered idly where the first disruption to start his day would come from. Which direction...
And as he heard a distant shriek, someplace to the east of where he sat, he nodded. "Time to wake up…" he thought as he stood up, brushed himself off, and launched himself expertly from rooftop to rooftop.
It was a woman's yell of anger, so he'd already narrowed the cause of the problem down in his mind to the most likely candidates. Shampoo squaring off with Akane after another early-morning provocation, perhaps? Maybe trouble at Ucchan's restaurant?
Nope, it was the cry of someone who had caught a thief in the act. The act of stealing a very personal item. Not of real value, of course, but something that one isn't comfortable with having stolen. Likely, underwear. The thief, in that case, would be good old Happosai.
As he reached the apex of another roof, he looked down into the street just long enough to catch a glimpse of an impossibly small old man hauling an impossibly huge bag away from... was it? Yes! A women's dormitory. A trail of underwear followed.
Damn, I'm good at this,
Ranma thought. He leapt down and surveyed the scene."Stop, thief!" cried a college-aged girl at the old man, ineffectively.
"You know, something tells me he won't." Ranma said, putting his hand on his hip and shifting his weight onto one leg for a moment before realizing what he was doing. He dropped the feminine gesture hastily, hoping that no one noticed.
"You saw the perpetrator, Mr…?" asked a neighborhood policeman nearby, who had just gotten to the scene on a bike.
"Ranma Saotome, and I didn't just see him, I know him. His name is Happosai, and he's an old, shriveled pervert." Ranma clarified.
"Miss?" the policeman asked the girl. The cop wore aviator-style sunglasses, a serious frown, and looked like he was very into his job. Apparently, he was new to Nerima, as Ranma couldn't recall having seen him before. Him or any other police, for that matter...
"Yes! That's his description, all right!" the girl answered.
"Young man," began the policeman, who was beginning to take on a strange, unnatural monotone, "I know that most people your age may think it's not 'cool' to 'rat' on someone, but your friend here has committed a very serious offense..."
"What! That ol' goat, my friend!?"
"...Yes, it's true, he's stolen a massive amount of private property today, and as such, he is now a wanted criminal."
"No, I mean he's not my fr.... whoa. H-he's wanted?"
"Yes."
Ranma's momentary anger at being associated once more with Happosai had subsided, and was replaced with a rapidly-forming idea.
"So," Ranma asked the policeman casually, "How much trouble is he in, anyway?"
"This is his first offense, so we're only looking at..."
"Actually, officer, he's been doing this for, uh, quite some time." Ranma interrupted, acting nonchalant.
"How long?" The policeman said, whipping out a pen and paper, clenching his jaw as if he was ashamed on behalf of the more misguided citizens of Nerima.
"As near as I can guess... that ol' man's been around for at least three hundred years, and he's been doing this... I think it's safe to say, ever since bras, and probably panties, were invented..."
The officer's stern expression hadn't changed, except for a rather noticeable sweat drop on his forehead. He wrote something on his pad.
"A... a real, serial criminal! This could be very serious- private property is property." the policeman concluded to himself. "I'll see to it that there's a warrant made- he's looking at some jail time and not a little bit of therapy, if what you say is true. If you see your friend or become aware of his whereabouts, please notify the Nerima police immediately. Don't try to alarm him. It's important that this man be made to see that what he's been doing is wrong."
"Roger that." said Ranma, as the policeman left to deposit his report at the station. He had unfortunately neglected to tell the policeman one very important fact- that periodically, Happosai would appear at the Tendo Dojo to eat, drink, and use Kasumi's clothes iron on the stolen property.
Ranma whistled a happy tune as he thought about how he'd introduce the events of that morning to the Tendo Family at lunch. Today was looking up, to be sure.
"You mean we've been letting a person who was technically a wanted criminal, all this time, into our house?" Nabiki, middle sister of the Tendo family, asked incredulously. "Do we know if there's a reward on his head yet?"
"Sure, I bet there will be a little reward." Ranma speculated, "Though 'on his head' is a little bit much." It seemed good enough for Nabiki, who usually didn't associate with Ranma's fellow martial artists, and whose relationship with Happosai before the reward came up was basically that of a seller with something to offer him- namely, pictures of Ranma's female form and occasional articles of clothing. Ranma resisted the temptation to bring that factor up, for he was aware that Nabiki was, in her own calculating, non-martial-artist way, a powerful and resourceful person. If his plans were to work out, then he might need Nabiki's help.
"Few people have such a legacy as Master Happosai." marveled Genma 'Ranma's Dad' Saotome, now out of his cursed Panda body for ease of conversation.
"I guess he only didn't get reported because most people won't admit to having their underwear stolen, anyway..." Akane, youngest Tendo sister and the most promising of all of Ranma's fickle fiancées, voicing her thoughts.
"You should thank him for taking that awful polka-dot pair off your hands." muttered Ranma, cringing in anticipation of a bump on the noggin before he even finished the sentence.
"Ranma!" Akane only said, seething in her dangerous-yet-not-exactly-uncute way. For all his lack of social skills, and for all the times he had said the wrong thing to her before thinking, she still hadn't killed him in his sleep. He figured, deep down, this meant that their arranged betrothal wasn't such an uneven match after all.
"I would be ashamed of having to report it to the police..." Kasumi, the oldest sister of the Tendo family, said. Ranma was glad she sympathized- after all, Kasumi was the voice of reason in the household, and with her support he knew they were on the right track. Still, he didn't expect too much help from her- she possessed a lot of respect for her elders, which was something that Ranma had never really had any cause for.
"I'm sure that justice will take its course now that a poster is up." Ranma said confidently. "The victims will probably come out of the woodwork. We can get a posse set up, too, to help us out. Once Happosai has been jailed, we can finally be free of his freeloading, underwear-stealing hide!"
Everyone around the table was now looking at him strangely; Ranma realized with a start that he had stood up from his seat and started speaking into a microphone during the course of his last sentence. He cleared his throat, put away the microphone, and sat down again.
"Plus, I figure that by now he could use a little lesson." Ranma concluded evenly.
"Oh, Ranma…" sighed Akane, shaking her head.
"It won't be that easy, son-in-law." Soun Tendo, who was technically master of the house, warned. "Happosai won't fall for mere simple tricks."
"Once Master smells a trap you will be in for both the fight, and subsequent royal butt-kicking, of your life." agreed Genma.
"I know he's crafty!" Ranma yelled. "I've fought him before on a small scale, remember? But I also know that enough straws can break the camel's back. And if we can find enough fighters to help us..."
"Even the most novice group of fighters, striking all at once toward the same point, can inflict quite a wound." Soun admitted. "There is a possibility, however small it is, that the old master can be subdued with the aid of good teamwork..."
There was a pause from all those around the table as the phrase "good teamwork" sank in. It wouldn't be easy to get everyone they knew on the same side.
"Well, we've got some preparation to do." Soun rose from his seat. "Be patient, everyone, and try to get as many of your friends as possible to help you out. This is a fight that we all must be united towards if we want the slimmest chance of winning. Ranma, I want you to negotiate a cease-fire with all of your fiancées."
"That'll be a battle in itself…" muttered Akane.
-Up Next: Showdown at the Tendo Corral!