Love Remix
Ranma½ - Sailor Moon Crossover AU
By: Kiikun
03/26/2006

Disclaimer: Ranma and Sailor Moon are not mine. If they were mine then I wouldn't need to be writing this as FANfiction. Also, if they were mine, I'd have the skill to start another franchise about a girl torn between two worlds. But they are not mine and I don't have the skill to start the franchise, so here I sit, starving… --gnaws on corner of laptop screen--

03 – The Other Half


The final bell of the day rang and Nabiki headed quickly out into the schoolyard to catch a certain redhead before she left the premises. She was fairly sure that she would make it out before the boy-turned-girl, since his class was on the floor above her own. She just had to beat the flood of humanity to the staircase.

She was glad to be one of the first students off her floor, and thus out of the building well before the first-years could make it out. She took up a position at the gate, eyeing the crowd for the red hair or abnormal attire. She was frowning when the crowd thinned with the last batch of students, one of which was her sister.

"Akane!" she called out and started to walk over.

Akane looked up to see her sister and waved weakly.

"Where's Ranma?" the Ice Queen asked when she was closer.

"He… She… was gone the moment the bell rang," she said, while looking around. "I'm not sure if he used that technique or just ran out."

Nabiki frowned. She had hoped to get this over with quickly, not have to keep trying to hunt him down. "Ranma!" she called out. "If you're hiding somewhere, get out here!" She looked around for a few moments, not seeing the redhead appear from anywhere. Finally deciding that her target was truly gone, she turned and headed home with a sigh. Akane followed close behind.

"Why did you want to see… her?" the long haired Akane asked.

Nabiki thought that this was as good a time as any and pulled the letter out of her bag and handed it to her sister. "Kuno-baby wanted me to give her a letter and I was hoping to catch her before she left. Guess you'll just have to give it to her tomorrow," she said with a smirk since the responsibility was off her now and Akane had a better chance anyway.

Akane looked at it without opening it and frowned. "'The Scarlet-Haired Angel'?" she asked before turning on her sister. "Nabiki! What have you been telling that baka!"

The shorter haired girl just raised her hands defensively. "Hey! I didn't tell him anything he didn't pay me for," she said with a smirk. "Just her name and that she's living with her 'brother'."

Akane glared at her sister for a moment, then sighed. It was up to her to give the letter now. Nabiki wouldn't take it back even if she tried to give it back. They walked home in silence after she put the letter into her bag so she wouldn't lose it.

----------

When the bell rang, Ranma opted for the quickest exit possible, and jumped straight out the open window. Once she hit ground, she shot off into the streets before the first student even exited the front of the building.

'I ain't got time for any of Oyaji's idiocy today and if what I saw of the Tendo's yesterday and today, they ain't much better. Hell, that Nabiki girl seems almost normal when she isn't trying to grope me. But NOOO, they engage me to the brat!' she grumbled.

She shot around two more corners before she was on the street of the clinic. She slowed down when the clinic came into sight and sighed. 'Gotta tell the doc about the curse and then probably set up camp again when he kicks me out for not being the 'easy score' he was hopin' for,' she thought sickly. 'I don't care if I turn 100 percent girl, never EVER will I do THAT with a guy! I'd rather disembowel myself and dice my intestines up for stew before THAT!'

Shaking the images of small-intestine stew from her mind, she stopped in front of the clinic to collect herself. 'Time to get this over with. Heh, maybe I'm wrong about the guy and it won't matter,' she thought with a small smile as she opened the door.

"Tadaima," she called out, belatedly noticing the elderly patients in the waiting room. 'Crap, patients here already? Guess I'll just have to do what I know,' she thought and put on a smile and greeted the waiting patients. "Hello, I'm Ranma, Doctor Tofu's new aide. I don't know much yet, but would you like some tea while you wait?"

One of the old ladies smiled back and replied. "You sure are a pretty young one, Ranma-chan. I've never seen you around before. How did the sweet doctor get you here?"

The redhead forced a slight blush at being called pretty. 'Modesty, modesty,' she chanted quickly in her mind while still listening. "He's sort of helping me with something. I don't know how long I'll be around," she said before looking them over again. "Shall I assume that is a yes for the tea?" 'I sure can use some myself…'

With a nod from the elderly, she disappeared into the mini-kitchen to make the tea.

----------

Dinner time was approaching and Doctor Tofu was still busy with patients. Ranma hadn't had a chance to talk to him yet either. She glanced around the waiting area, noting that the few people left were talking amongst themselves and that the tea she had out now would last. With a sigh, she silently excused herself to the examination room to have a word with the doctor.

She waited for him to finish the acupressure he was performing before speaking. "Doctor, Tofu," she said, keeping her voice and speaking patterns schooled into professionalism, "It is almost dinner time and I was wondering what we were going to do."

Tofu thought as he helped his patient up from the bed. "I usually order takeout on days like this," he said while pondering over where and what to get.

"Would it be alright if I made dinner instead?" she asked, preferring to have something good if she was going to be kicked out afterwards.

The doctor blinked at the sudden offer. He figured that since she was a martial artist who was used to traveling, she didn't get much time to learn how to cook on anything besides a campfire. Taking the chance, he looked back over at her after the elderly woman left the room. "Are you sure it'll be alright?"

Ranma-chan smirked cockily as she raised her hand in a thumbs up. "Dun worry! I was taught by the best!" she proclaimed proudly as she darted off to see what the doctor even had stocked.

----------

Doctor Tofu closed his clinic for the night and smiled as he smelled that dinner was most likely ready. 'Maybe I should pay her a bit more than I had planned. Everyone seems to love her and she seems more professional than I expected,' he thought to himself as he walked up the stairs to the apartment section of his clinic.

Tofu reach the top of the stairs and turned into the kitchen to find the redhead sitting in a chair meditating while wearing the same outfit he had met her in. He watched her for a few moments while wondering how deep she was and how long it had been. After a minute, he coughed, hoping she hadn't decided to meditate to a level where she couldn't be revived easily. He was glad when her eyes snapped open.

The doctor smiled as he looked over the modest dinner spread across the table. "It looks good. Thank you for making dinner, Ranma-chan. Honestly, I order take out too much," he said with a laugh as he took a seat.

She smiled slightly in understanding. Genma had been doing the same thing for the past two years… when he wasn't flat out stealing the food or when he couldn't stop her from cooking. "It's ok. You have a reason for it, unlike a lazy panda I know."

Tofu looked at her questioningly. "A panda that orders takeout?" he laughed.

She shrugged. "You'll understand soon enough," she said before sighing. 'Gotta do this now. Just glad I thought to eat before, instead of just waiting,' she thought.

He looked at her questioningly about the cryptic statement.

"Remember that I said I had to talk to you 'bout somethin', but didn't have the time before school?" she asked, and Tofu nodded. "Well, a little over two years ago Oyaji and me were trainin' in China when the idiot decided to take us to some 'legendary training grounds'. He couldn't even read Chinese, so we really didn't expect anything more than what was obvious. A valley filled with springs and bamboo poles. We leapt up to fight on them and, at the time, it was probably the stupidest thing we could have done," she said morosely.

Tofu thought for a moment about the description, because it sounded familiar to him. Deciding to push her along and maybe get a better grasp on what she's talking about. "And why was that?"

Shaking her head, she decided to get it over with. "The springs were cursed. Anyone who falls in a spring takes the body of whatever drown-"

"You went to JUSENKYOU?" Tofu nearly screamed. "I always thought that place a myth, but its real?"

Ranma blinked repeatedly at the outburst. "Y-you know about Jusenkyou?"

Tofu nodded. "Yes, there were some entries referring to it in one of my older books."

Ranma laughed at that. "Then that makes this easier to explain since you already know about the curses," she said with a smile.

"Ah," the doctor said, realizing the point his new assistant was trying to make. "I take it that you acquired a curse there? Your father as well?"

The redhead snorted a laugh at the mention of her father. "Yeah, both of us are. Doubt you'll miss Oyaji, even in as big a place as Tokyo, if you manage to catch him uncloaked in cursed form."

Tofu thought for a second about what springs his book had listed. "He didn't fall into that yeti-riding-bull one, did he?"

Ranma stared at him blankly for a second, trying to picture what that would look like before shaking her head. "Nah, the idiot got himself cursed twice. Spring of Drowned Panda, which I knocked him into, and Spring of Drowned Man, which he leapt into before finding out the curses mix," she said with a smirk, remembering how he nearly feinted when he surfaced from the second spring.

"You knocked him into a spring?" Tofu asked, slightly shocked.

"Remember, Doc. We didn't know the springs were cursed. Plus he knocked me into a spring after leaping back to the poles as a panda."

"So, what spring did you fall into?" he asked, knowing this was the whole point of the conversation.

The redhead smirked. "Yer lookin' at it, Doc," she said while grabbing the glass of hot water she had placed nearby. She waited for realization to dawn on his face before pouring the liquid over her head, turning her into a him for the first time today. "Remember when I said I ain't a normal girl?" he asked, not waiting for a nod. "That's because I was born a boy," he said, and then waited for whatever fallout was to come.

Tofu blinked repeatedly as he stared at his now male assistant. After a few moments he coughed slightly and adjusted his glasses to get a better look at the Jusenkyou victim. "This is very… interesting, Ranma-kun. I've never seen anyone with any sort of shape shifting ability, much less that of a Jusenkyou curse. Would you allow me to examine you? Both your forms I mean, so I can compare the difference in your Ki flows," he asked in a professional tone.

Ranma had watched the doctor's reaction closely and thought for a few moments before coming to a decision about him. He still wasn't sure if the doctor was just a nice guy, or a really good actor, but would give him the benefit of the doubt… within reason. "Sorry doc. You seem like a nice guy and all, but I don't trust ya enough yet to be naked as a girl around you," he said seriously.

Tofu thought for a few seconds before nodding. "I understand. Your situation is unique. You have to deal with the problems both genders face on top of trying to appear normal, correct?"

The aquatransexual martial artist nodded. "You got it, doc. I sorta leave behind the image of overprotective siblings, so I use that to keep too many questions from being raised," he said, relaxing a bit.

The doctor admired the simplicity of the cover, yet how firm it would stand under normal circumstances. Then a thought crossed his mind. "Why are you telling me?"

Ranma knew he couldn't tell the whole truth, so he shrugged. "You'd have found out on your own sooner or later since you're lettin' me live here. Also, to use the 'overprotective siblings' bit, there's gotta be a sibling to be overprotective about," he said with a small laugh. "I can't be doing that while trying to keep this a secret from you. Would just complicate things."

"Indeed," Tofu said with a nod. He then took a few moments to actually see what his new assistant had cooked for dinner. It wasn't anything overly fancy, but it was more than he expected of a martial artist who had apparently been used to the wilds. He had expected simpler foods or something more towards what he heard Kasumi's youngest sister cooked. All in all, it looked delicious. "It looks good. I hope it tastes as good as well," he said while starting to fill his plate.

Ranma scratched the base of his pigtail nervously. Thanks to Oyaji's idiocy he didn't have as much a chance to practice what his old friend had taught him as he would have liked. He did remember everything she had taught him though, and knew the food would be good at the very least. "Heh. Like I said doc, I was taught by one of the best," he said before getting some food himself and eating at a leisurely pace, and not the pace he had scarfed down the first part of his meal.

Dinner ended with a thanks from Tofu and the two of them cleaned up the dishes before Ranma retreated to his room to finally unpack and do his homework.

----------

The next morning, Ranma was only half surprised to find out Dr. Tofu was as early a riser as he was. After their abbreviated morning routines (a few focusing katas for Ranma, and a quick walk for Tofu), they ate breakfast and the doctor gave his assistant an abbreviated tour of the office and a bit of training on what needed to be done when a patient came in. Tofu also mentioned that it might be best if his assistant remained female while working. The brother-sister switching might work in a school, but would cause too many questions if it was done here, especially if it became known that 'they' were living here. After a few moments of thought, Ranma had agreed and then headed off to his first day at Furinkan as a male.

Since there was no need to be extremely early today like he had been the day before, when Ranma approached the school gates he saw a large crowd of boys in various athletic uniforms. Curious, he walked up and got the attention of one of them. "Hey man, what's with the crowd?"

The boy, clad fully as a hockey goalie, looked at him questioningly. "And who are you?" he asked.

"Saotome Ranma. I'm Ranma-chan's brother," he said with a smile. "So, what's with the sports show?"

The hockey boy thought for a few moments about why brother and sister had the same names, but dismissed it as just another Neriman Oddity. He decided to get in on the brother's good side in hopes of getting a chance to go out with the sister. "We're here every morning to try and defeat Tendo Akane so we can go on a date with her," he said, fighting the urge to use Kuno's wording.

Ranma's eye twitched. 'Defeat her… to date her… Great. A bunch of guys who think they're Joketsuzoku,' he thought. He would have asked them whose idea this was, but a more important question came up first. "And just why would you want to date that brat?"

"Hey! Don't insult Akane like that!" at least six boys within earshot snapped back at him, including hockey boy. "She's cute, kind, and a skilled martial artist," hockey boy finished as the rest glared at the one who had insulted their love.

Ranma thought for a second. Admittedly, she was kind and cute when she wasn't being a raving lunatic, but that hadn't even lasted an hour. "I'll agree she's skilled in the Art, but not great. She leaves herself way too open. If she treats you like she treated me, then I don't see why you think she's kind or cute. Nabiki's been nicer to me than the brat has."

The boys who had been listening paled at the mention of Nabiki being nice to someone. They felt sorry from him, but didn't warn him of the dangers of dealing with the middle Tendo because of his insults. "Good luck, man. You'll need it," hockey boy said while patting him on the shoulder. He then turned back to the rest of the group hoping to overhear any plans to finally get a date with the girl.

Confused slightly by the group's sudden change in attitude, Ranma shrugged and continued his way past them. As he was looking around, he noticed the pervert attempting to hide lazily behind a tree that he would pass on his way to the front doors. His eye started twitching, and became worse as he neared the kendoist. It was 'his' first day and he didn't want to leave a bad impression on everyone else… even if he wanted to leave a permanent impression of his foot on Kuno's face. Pushing the thought aside, he picked up his pace into the school, en route to the teacher's office.

----------

Ranma was sitting in the teacher's office, having just 'explained' the reason he was there instead of his sister to the teacher. The teacher had then called the principal to get confirmation that the Saotome siblings' situation was already excused. He decided to get a jump on the headache he knew was coming and took some pills. Of course the assistant principal would send the worst of the school's oddities to his class. He had the displeasure of having had Kuno last year.

Ranma watched the teacher down the meds worriedly. So far, he had tried to put as little stress on the man as possible. He had noticed how stressed the man was and wouldn't be surprised if he snapped before the end of the year. "Are you o-," he started to say but was interrupted by a strange battle cry from outside. He looked out the window facing the front gate to see the sportsmen charging towards the gate, obscuring it. "Um, sensei…?"

The teacher took a moment to finish his tea before responding. "It's nothing to worry about, just Tendo Akane fighting her way to class," he said, sparing a glance at the clock. "Right on time. We have a few minutes left until the actual bell rings."

Ranma blinked at how none of the teachers seemed phased by the pummeling happening outside. "You're not going to try and stop it?" he asked incredulously.

The teacher shook his head. "There's nothing we can do. Most of them follow the Kuno boy, and we can't do anything to get him to stop this."

Ranma's eye twitched at the mention of Kuno. 'That pervert has something over the faculty?' he thought. "Can't you just expel him or something?"

The teacher sighed and shook his head. "I wish we could, but he's the principal's son and we don't want to do anything that would bring him back."

'Oh great,' Ranma thought as his day seemed to have already taken a turn for the worse. 'The pervert is the principal's son… and the faculty won't go against him in fear of the headmaster himself returning. This place might just be as bad as Komattane…,' he thought morosely.

----------

The late bell rang and Akane was, thankfully, already taking her seat. After getting comfortable, she realized the teacher was running late again today. She started to look around to see who was there when she spotted the empty seat of the one person who she couldn't easily classify as friend or foe.

She had done a lot of thinking after recovering from the shock of Ranma's unexpected admission at lunch yesterday and still couldn't figure out how to classify the aquatransexual. At first, she had thought the curse simply made him look like a girl, but after hearing that admission she couldn't push aside the fact that he was a girl at times anymore. She had learned early on that it was much safer to hang around girls, because all boys thought with something besides their brains.

Now, once she tried to start thinking of Ranma as a girl, the fact he was born and raised a boy exerted itself. But when she tried to apply what she knew of boys, little of it fit him. All boys were perverts, yet when she was standing in the furo doorway he only glanced at her and said something she had missed. She had expected to be attacked or worse, but he didn't even leer at her. In fact, he didn't even seem phased by her presence. That she knew was completely wrong for a boy. She had heard stories of boys sneaking into the girl's locker room and peeping on them while they changed.

Was he a boy, and thus a pervert to be avoided? Or was he a girl, and thus would have been her friend? Those questions were switching back and forth in her mind, causing her to be completely confused about him… her… whatever.

While the youngest Tendo was pondering that, the teacher had made it to class. "Good morning, class. We have another new student to the school today and he will be joining our class. Apparently he has a bit of a story that his sister declined to inform us of. You may come in now, Saotome-san."

Ranma walked in scratching at the base of his pigtail slightly nervous. "Uh, yeah. Sis can be forgetful at times," he said as an indirect apology for forgetting about this yesterday. He turned to the class and immediately noticed Akane staring blankly at him. 'She's not gonna bite my head off again?' he thought before addressing the class. "Hi, I'm Saotome Ranma, heir to the Saotome school of Anything Goes martial arts," he said with a bow. "Due to private family matters, only one of us can attend school at a time."

One of the students raised their hand and the teacher sighed before calling out the student's name. "Why do you and your sister have the same name? Isn't that just stupid?" the student asked.

Ranma smiled a bit. "Yeah, I know. It's really stupid, but you haven't met our father. I think he just didn't wanna have to remember more than one name," he said shaking his head slightly.

Another student raised his hand and was called on. "But how can you both be heirs to your school?" he asked.

Ranma shrugged, haven gotten these questions before and still running on script. "Oyaji's an idiot. He'll probably decide sooner or later, if we don't beat it out of him. But for now, we're both heirs."

One of the girls raised her hand this time. "What about your mother? Surely she didn't agree to give you both the same name," asked Akane's friend, Sayuri.

Ranma sighed. "We never met Mom. Oyaji's had us on a martial arts training trip since we were five. Any time we tried to ask him about her, he just avoided the question."

Sayuri, along with a number of other girls, bristled at hearing that. "What kind of father would refuse to tell his children about their mother!" she nearly screamed. The other girls nodded in agreement.

"Like I said, Oyaji's an idiot. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out not to be our father. Some of his training methods weren't exactly fatherly," he said with a hint of anger towards Genma.

"Like what?" one of the students blurted out.

Ranma started counting off some of the milder things. "Stealing food off our plates with training as an excuse. Tossing us out third story windows to teach us how to fall properly. Oh, and more recently he's completely dropped our training trip and is hunting for something that doesn't exist… and he's told that by every single person he asks," he said, exasperatedly.

"And just what is that?" Yuka asked, not liking the image the boy painted of his father.

Ranma shook his head to give himself a moment to calm down before he said something he would regret later. "Sorry. That's part of the private family matters," he said.

After a few moments of no one else blurting out a question or raising their hand, the teacher decided to speak. "Very… informative, Saotome-san. Now, I believe there's and empty seat for you-"

"Actually, sensei," Ranma interrupted, "I think it would be best for me and my sister to share a seat, since we won't be in class at the same time anyway." 'And that way I won't sit in the wrong seat by accident,' he thought, remembering the few times that happened.

The teacher thought for a second before making a dismissive gesture to his newest student. "Go ahead and take your sister's seat. I hope there won't be any problems caused by this."

The pigtailed boy smiled and bowed to the teacher. "I promise there won't be," he said before walking to his seat.

Yuka and Sayuri watched as Ranma took his seat. They were surprised to notice Akane wasn't slowly simmering in anger, but had an expression of confusion on her face as the boy approached. They both expected her to treat the boy as bad as she had his sister. They decided to interrogate their boy-hating friend, and maybe the new boy too, during lunch.

Ranma took his seat while avoiding looking at the Tendo girl. He too expected her to start acting like she had yesterday and was trying his best to not give her a reason to start again.

Class went on quietly for the first period. As they were waiting for their second period teacher to come in, Akane spoke up. "Um… Ranma?" she asked sounding unsure of herself. "Why are you here today… like that?"

Ranma, only acknowledging her question because she didn't sound like she was going to start yelling again, glanced at her. "I had time this morning because I didn't have to register me and my sister and we didn't have someone bugging us about camping in the park."

Akane blinked. "You camped in the park?" 'Why'd he do that?' she thought. 'I mean, it's not like we kicked him out… right?'

The pigtailed boy shrugged. "It's not like I… erm, we haven't done it before. This guy was out there really early and saw us and started bothering us," he said, then laughed a bit. "He offered us a place to stay and a job. Actually, he knew about that place in China so I bet he's the real reason Oyaji decided to come here."

The second period teacher came in the moment he finished speaking and Akane was left to think about what she had heard.


Author's Notes: Hello again! Finally have the chapter done and corrected after a few problems and changes. I'm thinking of writing in a switch-pattern now. Meaning that I'll write a chapter of Love Remix, then write Storms of Change, then back to Love Remix.

Next Chapter: Akane remembers to give Ranma the letter. And I probably will have the 'challenge' in as well. Unless something else eats up the space.

Special Thanks to:
MGSaintz (for the usual…)
The people of Shinji's forum
the FukuFics crew (website was killed by lightning...)
Raleigh (or Rei-chan if wet :3)