Chapter 1

I'm Ranma Saotome... Sorry About This

"Mommy, mommy! I wanna octopus puff!" Hiroshi tried to pull his mother towards the stand. His mother smiled and allowed Hiroshi to lead her to the snack stand.

"Good morning, Mr. Watanabe!" Mrs. Takahashi greeted the stand owner. "One set of octopus puffs please!" She smiled and handed Mr. Watanabe some yen. Walking from the stand, Mrs. Takahashi grabbed a toothpick with a puff on it and handed it to her son. Just as he was going to grab the treat, a tremendous pounding of the ground shook the puff out of Mrs. Takahashi's hand. Scared, Hiroshi hid behind his mother. Fearful herself, Mrs. Takahashi edged closer to the snack stand and looked towards the sound that had accompanied the mini – earthquake seconds earlier. The tall bushes on the side of the road began to rustle and suddenly, a red – haired, teenage girl jumped out facing the bushes with determination on her face.

"Come out and fight fair, you stupid, old man!" the girl yelled toward the bushes. Mrs. Takahashi began to try and ask the girl what was going on when another rumble shook the ground. The bushes shook again and Mrs. Takahashi lost all rational thought as a giant panda came lumbering out of the foliage. Fearing for her and her son's lives, Mrs. Takahashi dropped the box of octopus puffs, grabbed her son, and ran off before the panda could do anything to them.

"Oh, great job, pops! You went and scared off some poor lady and her son! You should know better than that!" the red – haired girl shouted at the large mammal in front of her. All she got in response was a grumble from the animal.

"Did she really just call that panda her 'dad' ?" Mr. Watanabe wondered to himself as he slowly slid behind his snack cart counter. Meanwhile, the red - haired girl jumped into the air and tried to land a kick on the panda. However, the kick was blocked and with a flip, the girl landed behind the animal.

"Well, I still say it sucks. Picking out my fiancée without even asking me!" The two continued to fight it out as a small crowd slowly gathered to watch the spectacle. "Did you ever consider my feelings in the whole matter, well did 'ya?!" The girl finally found an opening, grabbing the panda's arm as it tried to land a punch on her. Taking the panda's momentum and turning it against it, the red – haired girl threw the large animal into a stop sign. Panting for a moment, the girl scrunched her face into an angry look. "I'm going back to China now! So suck on that, old man!" she announced, snatching up her pack she had thrown down to fight. As she turned away, the panda got back up and looked perturbed as it grabbed the stop sign it had landed into out of the ground. Mr. Watanabe could only watch in disbelief as the panda walked back towards the girl. However, she never noticed, too engrossed in getting back to China and the panda whacked her in the back of the head with the sign, effectively knocking her out.

The panda replaced the sign back into the ground (in no spot in particular) and picked up the girl in his arms along with her pack. He started walking a few feet but stopped, realizing something was wrong. Looking behind him (without having to move his body), the panda realized that there were onlookers making many remarks about the whole ordeal.

"Are you kidding me? How does a panda become some poor girl's father? That just doesn't make sense genetically!"

"He scares me mom!"

"I can't believe he did that to that girl! I hope she's ok."

Growing angry, the panda growled at the crowd. Not wanting to become its next victim, the crowd of people turned away from the panda and girl. Pleased that they were no longer bothering them, the panda threw the girl onto its back and lumbered off into the rain that had begun falling. Mr. Watanabe came back up from his hiding spot and breathed a sigh of belief. Though he was absolutely concerned for the poor girl's condition, he knew one thing for sure: no one wanted to get involved with those two if this was how life was for them.

Meanwhile, at the household of a particular family, the master of said household trembled over the piece of mail he had received just a few days prior. "At last! Ranma is coming!" Soun Tendo spouted happily as he mulled over the postcard in his hands and wept for joy. "How I've waited for this day! And soon, very soon, Ranma will be here!" Soun flipped the postcard over and over again as he smiled at the coming of the day when his friend and son would be arriving at his household. "That's it then!" Soun placed the postcard on his kitchen table and stood up with pride on his face.

"Listen up! Kasumi, Nabiki, Akane!" Soun called out to his daughters as he began to search for them. Walking into the kitchen, he found his eldest, Kasumi, preparing dinner as usual. "Kasumi!" Soun greeted her as he held the door covering out of his face.

"Yes, what is it father?" Kasumi turned and asked with a gentle smile on her face. She had always been a wonderfully caring person but the tragedy in their family had brought even more of that out. Soun couldn't help but smile back.

"Please hurry over to the living room for a minute. I have news for you girls." Soun announced to her with joy.

"Of course!" Kasumi quickly finished up her stirring, replaced the lid on her pot, and after making sure everything was ok to be left alone, she made her way out of the kitchen. Meanwhile, Soun headed up to the rooms of his other two daughters. Knocking on the first door, Soun waited for a response.

"Come in!" he heard his middle daughter, Nabiki, respond. Opening the door, he found her reading a magazine on her bed. "What do you need, Daddy?"

"I have important news to share with you and your sisters. Please come with me to the living room." Soun answered. Placing a bookmark in her magazine, Nabiki set it down on her bed and followed her father as he went to knock on his last daughter's bedroom. "Akane!" Soun called to his daughter. However, he got no response. Soun knocked again and this time opened up the door without getting a response. It was, of course, pointless as his youngest daughter, Akane, was not in her room. "Where is that girl?" he wondered aloud. She was never around when needed, it seemed, and this was important that they all be present to hear.

"I think I might have an idea, Dad." Nabiki told him and proceeded to make her way downstairs.

"Thank you, Nabiki. Please send her towards the living room when you've found her." Soun told his daughter as they both descended and he went to the living room himself.

Nabiki Tendo made her way towards the family dojo outside and just as she had suspected, there was noise coming from inside. As she opened up the sliding door, she noticed as Akane was setting to a task in front of her. Nabiki decided to watch for a moment before grabbing Akane's attention. Set up in front of Akane were two cinder blocks set across two sets of smaller cinder blocks. Akane focused her energy into the chop and with a "Hiyah!" smashed the two cinder blocks laying on top with ease.

"That felt pretty good!" Akane announced to herself. Nabiki caught a piece of the debris with her foot as it flew onto the ground and tumbled towards her. She then whipped out her camera and snapped a shot of Akane wiping her brow. Hearing the click of a camera, Akane could no longer deny her older sister's presence. Looking up towards the clicking of Nabiki's camera, Akane finally acknowledged her older sister. "Oh... Nabiki."

"There you go again, Akane. This is exactly the type of thing that makes all the boys at school think you're so weird." Nabiki smiled on the inside knowing that she knew her younger sister well enough to lead her into the trap she was setting.

"You know Nabiki, not everyone thinks the world revolves around…" Akane paused momentarily before she yelled out, "…BOYS!" Feeling a little put off by her sister's comments, Akane turned her head away from Nabiki.

"Oh is that so? Well, then…" Nabiki stated as she began to leave the dojo, "I suppose that what dad's got to say wouldn't interest you." Despite the fact that Soun had never told the girls about what was going on this day, Nabiki had always been a good reader of people and knew there had to be something up. After all, why did he need to call all three girls in at the same time? Soun Tendo had always been something of a traditionalist and a martial artist to boot; there could only be one explanation in Nabiki's mind… some sort of suitor was coming soon and her dad meant to announce this to the girls. Nabiki sneaked a peak back towards the dojo as she walked back towards the house. Just as she had suspected, Akane was too curious not to follow suit. Nabiki smiled at her cunning and went to go put on a kimono to prepare for this "suitor."

Akane watched as Nabiki made her way towards her room and wondered what was going on. 'So she goes to get me but doesn't join the whole thing? What is going on?' Akane thought to herself. She decided to at least find out just what was going on before getting back to her workout. Finding both her father and eldest sister Kasumi sitting at the living room table, Akane sat down to ask her dad a question. "What's going on here Dad? Why did you call us here?" Akane asked with fervor.

"Hold up now, Akane. We need all three of you girls here before I can explain anything." Looking towards the dojo outside, Soun scratched his head with puzzlement. "Now where did Nabiki go? I just sent her after you; why didn't she come back with you?" Soun asked.

"Here I am, Daddy!" Nabiki answered as she sat down at the living room table, decked out in one of her formal kimonos. Kasumi smiled, Akane furrowed her brow, and Soun smirked a little.

'I never could keep anything from you, now could I, Nabiki?' Soun thought to himself, 'That's my daughter alright!' He smiled at Nabiki and she smiled back. This was definitely going to be a fun evening, she could tell.

"Ok, everyone's here. Now what's going on?" Akane demanded.

"Today, a very good friend of mine and his son will be coming to our home. His name is Ranma Saotome. If one you three girls were to marry him and carry on this training hall, then the Tendo family legacy would be secure." Soun explained. He figured this should be sufficient and looked at each his daughters to see their reaction. Kasumi seemed somewhat incredulous but still listened. Soun knew due to her upbringing with his late wife, Kirara, she would go as things planned. Nabiki, meanwhile, beamed and was more than happy about the situation. Soun smiled and turned to his youngest, Akane. What he found there was less then desired, anger spreading on her brow. She finally spoke up.

"Hey, wait a minute here, don't we get to have some say in who we're going to marry?!" Akane bursted out. Soun expected this but still knew what was was and Akane would have to deal.

"I understand your concern, but Akane dear, it's for the family legacy!" Soun explained with even more furvor in hopes Akane would accept her position. It didn't work and she crossed her arms in a huff.

"Maybe you should wait until you meet him." Nabiki countered, as she leaned her head towards her angered sister and lowered her eyelids with a grin. "You never know, he might be really cute!" As much as her life revolved around the goading and fooling of others, Nabiki was still a girl on the inside and had just as much interest in boys as any teenage girl her age. Meanwhile, Akane merely shook her head turned her gaze away from Soun. "Right, Daddy?"

Soun laughed at the young exuberance in Nabiki's words. After a bit of laughter, he picked up the postcard from his friend again. "He'll be here any minute. At least, according to this they should be here soon." He replaced the postcard on the table and stood up. All three girls looked at their father as he stood and although she was still upset about it, Akane listened. "We should greet them with great furvor and welcome. Ranma and his father having been on a training mission. Recently, they crossed into China. And I haven't seen either of them for so long, but I understand what is to train hard." Soun walked towards the view of their yard and looked into the sky. 'It has been very long indeed, Saotome, but I know your word is your word. You will be here!' Soun began to get teary eyed.

"Oooh, China! That must have been hard!" Nabiki swooned slightly. Still upset as ever at their predicament, Akane looked to the floor.

"So he hiked all the way to China; wow, big deal!" She wasn't interested in any of this and just wanted to get back to the dojo.

"You can't really 'hike' to China from Japan, Akane." Nabiki countered again. Akane gulped from embarrassment but luckily for her, no one caught it.

Kasumi finally spoke up from her incredulous silence. "Father, how old is this 'Ranma'? " she asked and tried to hide her concern. As she had gotten older and combined with the role she had taken amongst the Tendo family as surrogate mother, Kasumi's taste in men had become quite different from the traditional girl her age.

Before he could answer that, another question came, this time from Nabiki. "Is he cute?!" she espoused with girlish excitement. Clasping her hands together, Nabiki realized she was showing a side of herself no one at school should ever, EVER see.

"Younger men are so, young." Kasumi announced. It seemed both girls were in their own world as neither seemed to care that they were interrupting each other. Soun turned back around to face his children as they continued there musings.

"Well, what kind of guy is he?" Nabiki asked. It was the most important question of all since good looks never meant good personality; one student in particular proved that and Nabiki smiled devilishly at the thought of that incredibly stupid yet gullible boy.

Meanwhile, Soun began to laugh nervously again. He went on for quite a bit and the three sisters sat watching him ignore their questions. Something was up and even good natured, never bother a soul Kasumi knew it. Soun finally stopped laughing and looked at his daughters. "I don't know." Soun answered finally and turned back around yet again to face the koi pond.

"You don't know?!" Nabiki asked with a tinge of anger. Even though Akane was the usual candidate of the three of them to anger easily, this was incredibly wrong in Nabiki's mind. She started to look daggers into her father's back.

Soun turned his head back around to finish the conversation. "I've never met him." he announced and turned his back. How could he? Ranma was really only a small child of six when they left and to really "know" someone you had to watch them grow up, right? 'Right.' Soun agreed with himself silently.

'Oh please, I don't believe this!' Akane growled in her mind.

Yet again, the Tendo daughters just stared at their father, this time the incredulity of the matter had crept across all three faces. Of course, each was tinged with the thoughts and personality of each one. Kasumi was concerned with just how much she could really love a man even her father didn't know much about. But somewhere in her heart, she knew she could. Still, her concern was plastered in her looks. Nabiki was much more concerned with the insanity that sat before her; how could her father want to engage them to someone that he never knew? Of course, her father wasn't always the greatest of planners and this was par for the course but still... if she was going to marry someone, shouldn't her father have done something in the way of research? As the musings of the older Tendo daughters continued, Akane sat fuming. Still looking to the floor, she couldn't help but think one solitary thought.

'Why does my world always have to revolve around boys?' Akane ground her fists into her legs stared at those now. 'It's bad enough that at school I...'

She never finished the thought however; as a koi leapt from their pond, a sudden stir of noise came from the front gate of the Tendo dojo. Soun turned his eyes towards the entrance hallway and began to find even more excitement in his being than before.

"Let go of me you old fool!" they all heard from the front entry. "I don't want any part of this, now put me DOWN!" Finally, the front door opened and the Tendo family stared toward the hallway together.

"Sounds like we have visitors." Kasumi announced the obvious as she arose from her pillow.

Nabiki had been mulling the whole thing over in the few seconds since their discussion of Ranma. Even though she wasn't thrilled with her father's capabilities at planning to the last detail, she'd decided to go with it anyway. After all, he might be cute!

"Ooo!" she gushed. "It must be Ranma!" Standing up, Nabiki headed towards the front door. Soun broke from his stance and followed after Nabiki.

"Saotome! My friend!" he called out. "We've been waiting!" As her father turned the corner, Kasumi went to join them. Akane figured she might as well get the whole thing over with and stood up to follow her sister.

"I do hope that he's older than me." Kasumi hoped aloud as they walked towards the corner of the hall.

That corner was quickly occupied as Soun and Nabiki were running back towards the living room. Nabiki whimpered a cry of slight fear and Soun's face espoused confusion mixed with fear. Kasumi was about to ask what was going on but she didn't need to. Behind her father and sister turning the corner was the answer to their sudden change in mood. A panda holding somebody over his shoulders was walking with no particular malice behind them. None the less, Akane and Kasumi joined their father and sister in the scare. Why was a panda with a person on his shoulder in their household? They all watched as the panda approached them.

"Come on, pop! You're scaring 'em spitless!" the person on the panda's shoulder shouted, punching their fists into the panda with no avail. The Tendos could only find the courage to watch as the panda continued its vigil and stand before them all. Soun stared wide eyed at the spectacle before him. The incredulity had returned to Nabiki's face and she was wondering what sort of wackiness had befallen their home. Akane had recovered somewhat and knowing that this wasn't what her father had talked about, had regained some of her composure. At least it wasn't some stupid fiance!

Kasumi spoke of the matter first. "So father," she began, "this is your friend?" If it weren't for the fact that a giant panda stood before them, Nabiki would have been proud of the tinge of sarcasm in her older sister's voice. Meanwhile, Soun merely shook his head.

"Uh – uh, uh – uh, uh – uh, uh - uh!" he spouted, still scared at the strange event at hand.

"Oh, so this panda just decided to drop in? Is that it, huh?" Nabiki asked skeptically. Once again, Soun only shook his head fervently.

"Uh – uh, uh – uh, uh – uh!" he spouted again. The panda took another step towards the family and all but one of them took a step back. Akane, meanwhile, was just staring with fascination. It was not, by far, the strangest thing in her life right now.

The panda took the person off of his shoulders and placed them in front, as if for the Tendo's inspection. Soun regained some of his own composure and took a look at the person before him; they had bright, red hair and currently they looked embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Suddenly, a thought occurred to Soun. "You wouldn't be..." Soun trailed off. As he began to study this person, something seemed wrong.

"I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this." their guest announced and continued to stare beside themselves embarrassed.

"At last, you're here!" Soun excitedly espoused. However, Ranma's speech seemed much more of a surprise to Nabiki than the panda in the room. This person claimed to be the Ranma Saotome their father had talked about but something seemed off, especially when Ranma had just spoken. Staring at Ranma, Nabiki began to realize what exactly was wrong. Before their father could bury Ranma in a hug as he had been about to, Nabiki grabbed at Ranma's chest and began squeezing. At this, Ranma seemed to get both embarrassed yet annoyed. Having confirmed her suspicions, Nabiki stared back at her father who had begun to realize the same.

"Ranma's not a boy, he's a GIRL!" Nabiki shouted with disdain. She had thought the red head looked cute as she had been hoping but knowing it was due to her femininity, Nabiki was let down.

"A... a... girl?!" Soun managed. This was not what he was expecting; even though he wasn't the smartest of men, he could definitely tell the difference between sexes and Ranma was definitely a girl. What was going on here? He knew his friend Saotome had had a son. What was going on? It became all too much for Soun and soon, he found himself falling.

"Aaaaaaaauguuuuoyya!" he shouted as he fainted and fell to the ground. The last image he saw was that of the red head claiming to be his friend's "son" and heard Kasumi shouting concernedly for the man.

"Father!"

End Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER NOTICE

The preceding story contains characters and elements from the anime/manga Ranma 1/2. The these characters and elements belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan Inc., and Kitty Films. None of these were used to plagiarize from the broadcasters Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan Inc., and/or Kitty Films. Rather, this story was intended for entertainment purposes only, not commercial or for profit. In the same way, this story's depiction of the plot elements or characters from Ranma 1/2 are an expression of the author and are not meant in any fashion to be a depiction of the canon that is Ranma 1/2. All original characters depicted in this story not a part of the original Ranma 1/2 canon are Copyright 2013 by the author.