Chapter 1

As the weeks passed by, Ranma's encounter with the old priest slipped away from his mind. Which wasn't much of a surprise, considering some of the things that he had to deal with on an almost-daily basis.

To begin with, the girls had become less civil with each other ever since the day that he and a certain Tendo had been dressed in raiments most commonly worn for a Western-styled wedding. In particular, Akane had become the prime target of assassination attempts, what with having come the closest to getting what the other girls had wanted, regarding matters of the law and of the heart.

One would think that he would have drawn a line by now, and make it clear that he wouldn't be interested in anyone who would go so far as to attempt murder, but he didn't. He'd like to think that it was due to not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, but he knew that it was a weak excuse even though it was partly true. And while a guy could certainly be proud to have the attention of multiple good-looking girls, they were a lot more trouble than that was worth.

Even now, as he meditated in the dojo, he couldn't really explain his behavior. He was pretty sure that he didn't want to get married any time soon, yet he did nothing to dissuade anyone from trying to marry him on their own terms. He didn't want to be Shampoo's insemination machine, Ukyo's business partner and/or waitress, and he certainly didn't want to be Kodachi's... junkie? For that matter, he didn't want to be Akane's practice dummy, either. But, despite favoring Akane more than the others, he still made it his modus operandi to say and do things that couldn't possibly appeal to her.

Heck, back when Shampoo had appeared to lose interest in him, because of the reversal jewel, he'd gone out of his way to re-establish her attentions instead of being relieved and doing nothing about it. It didn't make any sense to him, despite the fact that he'd done it himself. Why in the world had he done something that he knew would be counterproductive?

Regardless of what he did, however, it didn't change the fact that he couldn't change the past. And now that things had developed as far as they had, he couldn't think of any way to resolve everything honorably without committing seppuku and removing himself from the equation, since he was the keystone at the heart of all of the designs imposed upon his person. Even his mother must have realized the kind of position he was in by now; frankly, he was surprised that she hadn't already come up to him and suggested doing exactly what he feared he would have to do in order to sort everything out.

He spent a few more fruitless moments thinking about it before he heard a knock at the door. Thankful for the distraction, he got to his feet and turned to face his visitor, who had already opened the door and crossed the threshold by the time he could see them.

"Oh, hey, Kasumi," he casually greeted the older girl.

As was common for most occasions, she was wearing a modest house dress. Usually she would have her hair tied back in a pony tail, with its length resting over a shoulder, but these days she had taken to wearing those horseshoe-shaped headbands to hold her hair back instead. It had the effect of making her seem a bit younger, not to mention — much to his embarrassment — a little cuter as well.

Kasumi responded with an easy smile. "Your mother asked me to tell you that you should join everyone in the living room." A pensive looked crossed her face. "I think it's something serious."

"Ah..." Ranma voiced, as he wondered what it could be about, and fearing that it wouldn't be anything good — not in regard to himself, at any rate.

He followed Kasumi to their mutual destination, where the Tendo and Saotome families were gathered around the table that was routinely used when they ate their meals, among a variety of other things. While Kasumi found her place between her father and Nabiki, he found his between Akane and his own father. The Tendo patriarch sat across from him while his parents shared a side to his right. Kasumi and Nabiki sat on the side to the left of him, which left the fourth side of the table to Akane and himself.

He didn't much like the look of things. For one, Soun looked a bit agitated as he smoked a cigarette, which meant that whatever the gathering was for was placing a fair amount of stress on him. His father looked disgruntled, as if he'd rather argue or be somewhere else, but that wasn't all that peculiar. By contrast, his mother was calm and collected, stoic. She had acknowledged his arrival with a simple glance and a nod of her head. What really had him worried was Akane. She had yet to look at him, and the expression on her face was something between a scowl and a look of determination.

"Now that everyone's here," Soun began, after taking a drag from his cigarette and exhaling a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, "we can begin, since what we have to say will affect all of you."

"Let me guess," Nabiki spoke up in a sarcastic tone, as she watched her father take yet another drag from his cigarette, "you're smoking two packs a day now, and you wanted to tell us how much that will raise our risk of getting lung cancer due to the increased amount of second-hand smoke that you'll be exposing us to."

That sent her father into an eye-watering coughing fit, so Nodoka cleared her throat and picked up where he'd left off, so as to prevent the discussion from getting derailed. "No, dear. This concerns your engagement to my son."

Nabiki blinked her eyes at that. "'My?'"

"Your sisters, as well," Nodoka clarified.

"Oh, my," Kasumi voiced, as she raised a hand to her cheek in concern. "You're not saying that we'll have to... share, are you?"

Had anyone at the table been imbibing a beverage at the time, they probably would have spit it out. Instead, they settled on giving Kasumi a mix of odd and speculative looks. The only exception was Nodoka, who looked more disappointed than anything else.

"No," the Saotome matriarch replied with a sigh, "and that's the problem." Seeing the looks that she got from her son and the two elder Tendo daughters, she went on to elaborate. "You see, no one wants to share Ranma, and that hasn't exactly created a healthy environment to start a family in." She turned her attention to her son, with a bit of pride shining in her eyes. "I'm sure that's why my manly son has been reluctant to choose one and marry them."

While his mother's assumption wasn't true, Ranma decided to go with it as he looked up and modestly said, "Oh, was that what I was doing?"

That earned him a menacing glare from Akane, while the look that he received from Nabiki said, "Smooth."

Soun would have coughed into his fist to interject himself into the conversation, but since he had coughed enough he opted to just speak up instead. "Be that as it may, we — and by that I mean the heads of each family involved — have decided that we don't want anyone killed over this matter, much less a blood feud."

His complicity in the matter was due to his concern for his youngest daughter's life, though nobody who knew or guessed called him on it. Ranma figured that said complicity was the reason for his father's foul mood. His father wanted him to marry a Tendo, after all, but he couldn't contradict his mother in such a way as to make her think that he wasn't being manly enough, since the consequence of doing so would also fall upon his own head. That was probably why he had restricted himself to a bit of grumbling when his mother had made her assumption about his indecisiveness.

"We've already gotten written agreements from most of the girls who have been entitled to — or have been actively pursuing — my son," Nodoka added, "stating that they will consider this matter settled with a contest, and that none shall seek any hostile action toward the winner or their family."

"Hold on," Ranma interrupted, who was clearly vexed by what he had just learned. "Are you saying that I'm going to be some kinda prize?"

"More like a booby prize," Nabiki quipped, which only served to aggravate Ranma all the more. Went unseen was Kasumi's reaction, who had perked up upon hearing what Nabiki had said, as if to say, "I like booby prizes!"

Nodoka ignored Nabiki's less than serious comment and leveled a piercing stare upon her son. "It's the only solution that I could think of to settle this dispute peaceably. While I'm filled with pride to have a son that's so manly as to attract so many pretty and... interesting girls, who are willing to take drastic measures to be your one-and-only, frankly I was beginning to wish that your cursed form had been the one that you had been born with at one point."

Seeing that her son had been suitably cowed, her gaze then fell upon the two girls that sat across from her. "Now, the only ones who haven't signed the agreement are you two, Nabiki-chan, Kasumi-chan."

The youngest of the two had a put upon expression on her face. "Pardon me, obasan, but do I have to get involved?" Seeing an opportunity to mock Ranma, she closed her eyes, leaned back, and raised her hand until the back of it was placed against her forehead in a melodramatic fashion. "You see, I'm afraid that your son is simply too manly for my tastes."

While Ranma rolled his eyes at the display, Akane abandoned her previous expression to tease him with a humored look.

"That's truly a shame," Nodoka replied, having not caught the "hidden" message behind Nabiki's words. "However, it was decided that it wouldn't be fair to leave out anyone entitled to Ranma's hand, in order to honor the pledge between your father and my husband to the letter. Partly, it's because we have to include the only girl whose stake in this isn't recognized by our ways, in order to hold everyone involved to the agreement."

"Which is the one good thing about this," Genma griped to himself mentally, who didn't think that Akane had what it would take to win. He had concluded that Kasumi's chance of succeeding would be much higher.

"Only one?" Ranma asked, who looked confused. "Shouldn't that be two?"

"Kodachi," Akane muttered, the scowl returning to her face.

Nodoka closed her eyes for a moment and released a somewhat undignified sigh upon hearing the name, before addressing her son's question. "Yes... As it turned out, Kuno-san managed to procure a signed and sealed agreement from your father, to recognize her as one of your fiancées. Apparently he had been inebriated at the time, but the fact remains. And..." She paused, and anyone looking closely could see her brow tick. "Money had been exchanged in the deal." Her brow ticked some more. "Money that your father has already spent."

Ranma gaped at her, hoping that she was kidding, until he remembered exactly what kind of person his father was. So he rounded upon the older man, ready to give him the punishment he so "richly" deserved, but was met instead with a panda playing with a beach ball.

"Don't think you're going to get out of it that easily!" He yelled angrily, as his battle aura blazed around him. "What in the world were you thinking!?"

Genma sweated at the sight and had the nerve to raise a sign that said, "It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

Ranma leapt at his father and proceeded to give him the beating of a lifetime. Soun, with tears streaming down his face, couldn't bear to watch, knowing that it would be a great folly to intervene. He could still hear what was happening, however, and anything sounding even remotely painful made him wince in sympathy.

Nodoka, whose patience and tolerance had declined during the time that she had lived alone, regarding her husband's antics, simply ignored what was happening as she calmly sipped at her tea. And while she could forgive her son for most of the invectives used against her husband, quite a few of them surprised her, and she made a mental note to speak to her son later, about using such colorful language in the future.

Nabiki looked on with mild amusement, while Akane couldn't help a slight, smug smile of satisfaction. Kasumi frowned, though those who noticed would have been mostly wrong had they assumed her expression to mean disapproval for what Ranma was doing. While disapproval of Ranma's behavior was certainly a part of that frown, by far the largest portion of her frown was reserved for the one on the receiving end of the beating, not the one giving it. Like Nabiki, there were some cards that she played close to her chest; especially in regard to Ranma, as doing otherwise would have — in all likelihood — made their lives much more complicated.

When Ranma finished his business with his father and returned to his place at the table, Nodoka picked up where she had left off, as if there hadn't been an interruption of any kind. "Now," she said, as she refocused her attention on Nabiki and Kasumi, "while you're obligated to participate, if you really aren't interested in marrying my son then it will be acceptable to forfeit any given challenge."

"I guess I can live with that," Nabiki acceded.

Nodoka smiled pleasantly. "Good. As soon as you two sign the agreement before the head of each family, the contest will be held in a week. If you decide to take the contest seriously, you should spend that time preparing for both the martial and marital arts that you will be tested in."

Upon hearing that, Akane clenched her hands into fists and stared ahead with determination, as she made plans for the things that she wanted to work on. She wasn't under any illusion regarding the challenges that awaited her, but she was — first and foremost — an optimist when it came to her own abilities, and she was sure that a week was more than enough time to become good at things that she'd failed to make any significant progress in for many, many years.

Nabiki, who could care less about the whole thing, lazily glanced to the side, and out of the corner of her eye something about Kasumi's visage caught her attention. When she looked at her directly, she saw that her older sister had an unreadable expression on her face, aside from the fact that her eyes were looking into a distance that didn't exist within the confines of the room. It was unexpected and baffling, making her wonder if she were actually considering the contest seriously.

Ranma stared down into his lap, unaware that his mother was observing him. He had mixed feelings about the whole thing. While it sucked that he would essentially be treated as an object, with his choice being taken away from him, no one would have to die, and — hopefully — there wouldn't be any blood feuds when all was said and done. That was a good thing, right? That's what he wanted... right?

He began to dread the day of the contest.