Chapter 4

Ranma looked up at the towering buildings in the distance as they continued walking through the smaller, more residential district she and her father were currently located in.

"Pop, why didja have "ta drag us to Tokyo anyways, thought we were gonna go get those Gosunkugi guys, I don't exactly wanna stay a girl ya know!" She asked annoyed.

"Boy, how far do you think we'll get by just blindly running around Japan?" Her father said, making what she grudgingly could admit was a good point, still… "Besides, Tokyo is a big place, probably the best place to start looking." Genma continued, causing his son-turned-daughter to stare.

It was rare to see her father thinking things through this much, perhaps she was being a bit tough on the old man…

"Alright, where exactly ya think we should start then?' Ranma asked impatiently.

"Stop worrying so much boy, just trust in your father, we just need to stop at Tendo's place first."

Ranma rolled her eyes, her father had mentioned stopping at his friend's place before they did anything, but the Saotome child didn't get how that would help. Still she supposed it would be better than camping out, she didn't particularly like it though.

"You jus wanna get drunk…" She said annoyed.

"If that's the way you treat your poor old father who slaves away to ensure you are cured I won't force you to come." Genma said. In reality it would probably be better if Ranma didn't come after all, it would be best if Soun and Ranma met after the curse was at least unlocked.

The last thing he wanted was more complications, besides Ranma didn't really NEED to know about the engagement yet.

"Yeah whatever Ol' man, ain't like I wanna watch ya sit around'n play shogi er somethin' anyway." Ranma said, figures the old man wasn't really taking this seriously, baka-panda.

"Oh what a shameful son I have raised, to distrust his old man in such serious times!" Genma lamented dramatically.

"Oh shut it old man!" Ranma said, sweeping up a bucket from the side of a house and splashing her father. "If ya ain't gonna take lookin' fer a cure seriously ya can be a panda for all i care."

Genma watched his annoyed offspring walk off in a different direction. He wasn't too worried, Ranma knew he was going to the Tendo dojo, and his son could take care of herself if she somehow failed to find the dojo.

Ranma meanwhile wasn't sure what to think of her father's behavior.

The baka had no reason to be goofing off and going to get drunk with his friend right now, She had even thought her father had been serious for a few minutes. The jackass had always been rambling on about manliness and NOW he decided not to take things serious, you'd think her father would be the first person trying to get her manhood back.

Of course it occurred to the Saotome girl that Tokyo wasn't exactly a small place, and she really had no clue what to look for. While she had experience with weird stuff, usually her and her pop just ended up stumbling into these things, much like they did with Jusenkyo.

She'd never actually went LOOKING for strange things, and even then they didn't really find these types of things that often.

She decided to take to the rooftops, at the very least wanting to get the lay of the land before doing anything, then she'd find these Gos-guys and get her manhood back!

The district of Nerima itself was rather unusual from what Ranma could tell. She had been learning to hone her ability to sense Ki in the time between meeting the Amazon elder Cologne and the several weeks of travel that occurred afterwards.

It was actually surprisingly easy to hone after Ranma managed to get past the meditative part, something the teenager had always had problems with. She'd normally have not put so much focus on something that overall she'd never had a use for, however Cologne had brought up the technique mentioning it could be helpful in their journey.

Ranma had been skeptical, though her father did mention such a skill could be useful as well and allowed Ranma to learn a few training techniques to help strengthen this sense.

Despite the initial difficulty Ranma's Ki senses became far sharper than before, and she could sense several rather high ki presences throughout the district surprisingly. The skill still wasn't sharp enough to be really useful in combat, given she needed to focus unless one had an absurd amount of energy, but at the very least she was able to utilize it actively, as opposed to subconsciously, as her father had trained her to do with killing intent, especially when asleep.

Despite that, it looked like a rather unassuming ward, in fact it looked downright normal on the outside. Ranma didn't really know what to look for, she'd assumed she'd be able to tell these magic people from-what the heck!

Whatever it was she was sensing it definitely wasn't Ki, and it was HUGE. Not in a physical sense of course, but she could definitely sense whatever it was, there was someone with a lot of it, or at least several people with this weird not-ki nearby.

Ranma couldn't really explain it, and the weird Not-ki seemed to disappear just as quickly as it had appeared it seemed.

She turned to the direction she'd sensed the strange burst of not-Ki, deciding this was the best lead she had.

So with nothing to lose, Ranma started her journey to the location of the strange energy via the rooftops.

Gosunkugi Hikaru had felt his life had changed after the revelation of being engaged. On the surface one wouldn't notice any real changes if they were to look at most of his life. His daily Routine had stayed mostly the same, as well as his relations with his classmates.

Few people noticed him still, apparently a strange aspect of his aura according to his uncle, he went to school, continued having crushing on Tendo Akane, and was ignored with the exception of the occasional delinquent.

A few things had changed during the last several weeks however, two specific changes had largely taken place, for one he'd started his own magical training under his uncle. Apparently his uncle felt he was worth training, despite the fact he'd failed every spell so far for some reason. According to his uncle this was normal for beginning magic users but the fact he'd already left three craters in the small backyard area of his home was still concerning.

There was one other change in his life, mostly being that he'd backed off on his more stalkerish tendencies when it came to his crush. It wasn't that he had completely gotten over Tendo Akane, however now a different girl took precedence in his fantasies.

He had spent many hours trying to figure out what this Ranma girl would be like?

He'd imagined her having a variety of different features and personalities but really. Overall the young Gosunkugi was more anxious when it came to his apparent future bride. From what he'd been told she had been on a martial arts training trip for most of her life with her father, would they even be found? Did he want to get married?

Hikaru didn't have an answer, while he found himself fixated on the mystery girl, he also had his worries. What if she was expecting some kind of jock type? Would she really settle for a guy like him? Did she even have any interest in the marriage?

Gosunkugi had no idea how to even act if he did end up meeting her, He'd never really even been able to muster the courage to TALK to any of the girls in his class, how would he be able to deal with a fiancee! It had been several weeks and still nobody had any clue about this Ranma girl, while the boy wasn't really eager to be married he still was curious about the girl he was apparently engaged to.

Of course none of this mattered to Gosunkugi right now, not with the situation he'd found himself in while walking home. It was an altogether familiar situation to the scrawny boy,. A group of delinquents had apparently decided he looked like an easy target, and had now cornered him.

There were five of them overall, all with their faces covered. The one that evidently was the leader of this gang of thugs stepped forward. "Come on buddy. Jus hand over whatcha got an' we won't hurt you too bad." He said, walking up to Hikaru while maintaining a rather threatening demeanor.

Hikaru wasn't sure what to do, after all they still had indicated they would hurt him,. He remembered he'd had one of the shinto seals his uncle had been making him practice making in his bag, of course but he'd have to get it out.

Easy enough, the fact the seals hadn't worked correctly during any of his training sessions not even crossing the mind of the teen.

"Alright, alright, let's lose our heads here, nobody needs to hurt anyone" He placated, reaching into his bag as if to be complying with the demands of the thugs.

He managed to grab the seal just before the bag was yanked out of his hand, by the lead delinquent.

"I don't think ya heard me right, I said hand over what ya got, that means everything see." The thug casually shoved the smaller, scrawnier boy, easily knocking him off his feet and causing him to hit the wall. "Ya see, now I gotta hurt ya, see we got a reputation, an' lettin' ya get away with not listenin' ain't exactly good for that rep." The delinquent threw a punch at Hikaru's face to emphasize his point.

However, That was the moment that the Gosunkugi decided to make his move, holding the seal out in front of him as a shield.

In any normal situation, the ofuda paper would have been a poor defense against the attack, however Hikaru's magic, was the deciding factor in this particular event.

The kanji that marked the Ofuda seal began to glow a dim green, the fist stopped mid-strike as though the paper seal had instead been a solid wall.

Then a rush of pure force slammed into the delinquent, sending him flying back several meters.

The seal meanwhile fell to the ground, before slowly burning away into nothing more than ash.

There was a long tense silence as everyone tried to process what had just happened

"The hell? This guy some kinda demon or somethin?" One of the other members of the group shouted in surprise before their leader began to stand up, though obviously having trouble with the task.

"Don't just stand there idiots, get'im already!"

Gosunkugi looked at the rather angry looking delinquents before gulping. This was not good.

Ranma stopped at on-top of the perimeter wall of a random home before looking around.

She supposed it'd be too much for one of these Go-guys to be waiting for her when she arrived. Still she'd been hoping she'd be able to find something!

Unfortunately the Saotome girl had no clue where exactly the not-ki came from, and she'd more or less lost the trail. She'd went in the same direction she'd sensed it in, but it didn't look like anything had come of that since there was nobody even vaguely magically looking.

She hopped over to the roof of a nearby building, hoping to get a better vantage point only to sigh in frustration upon not seeing any signs saying "Magical guys here!"

A sound caught the redhead's attention, and she traced said sound to it's source quickly only to see what looked like a fight.

Or more accurately a beating given one side of the fight seemed content to cower in the fetal position.

Ranma did at least note they were smart enough to protect their head and vital organs, though it was still a rather pitiful display. Really she was more annoyed with the group of toughs obviously roughing up a noncombatant.

.Well at least she'd found a good outlet for her annoyance with the curse, as well as her failings at finding any clue as to the cure of the curse.

She sprang into action landing a jump kick on one of the thugs closer to their victim before knocking down two of the remaining four with a low sweeping kick.

"You guys gotta lotta nerve beatin' on someone who can't fight back." Ranma said, glaring at the two guys still standing. She noted one already seemed a bit roughed up, perhaps they'd been fighting someone else earlier.

After all the guy they had been beating up definitely couldn't have done it, while one learned not to judge by appearances when it comes to fighting ability, the boy's Ki seemed low even for non-martial artists and he obviously wasn't much of a fighter given the display earlier.

She filed that away for later while the jerks got back to their feet. Standing in one of the trademark "unprepared" stances of the Anything Goes style. Hands behind her back and looking for all the world like she wasn't surrounded by jerks who probably were looking to beat the crap out of her right now.

The leader of the delinquents meanwhile was a bit worried, the strange magic trick that the geeky looking guy had seemed to be a one-off, but this girl had just knocked three of them down rather easily.

His buddies had seen the girl move too, definitely one of those martial arts types. "Ey why dontcha jus' mind yer business" He said, while thinking about what to do. Of course he did realize that at the very least, there was no way this girl could be as good as a Neriman, and she definitely wasn't local.

Yeah maybe they wouldn't be able to take her one on one, her display earlier had shown revealed that much, but he doubted she'd be able to take all of them on.

"But I guess if you wanna join in on the fun!" He shouted moving to throw a haymaker while his friends, having caught onto the plan moved on the weird redhead as well.

Ranma meanwhile was unimpressed, the boy had telegraphed the attack so clearly she could probably have seen it from China.

"Ya need ta try better than that!" She yelled, dodging the Haymaker before using the boy's own momentum to transition her dodge into a throw, effortlessly tossing the head punk into one of his pals before immediately transitioning to a reverse hook kick, striking an opponent in the side of the head with the heel of her foot.

The last two thugs tried to rush her, obviously thinking to rush her before she could get into position to defend herself.

What they hadn't expected her to jump above the two of them avoiding the attacks before gracefully landing with a spinning kick that knocked one of the two down and striking the last with an a palm strike to the chest.
The thugs, those that were still conscious ran off after that, obviously realizing they were outmatched, even with their greater numbers.

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Ya coulda at least made this interesting, Jerks." She yelled after them, before turning her attention to the guy that had been previously mistaken for a punching bag.

"Hey pal, ya alright?"

Hikaru meanwhile was in shock, the last thing he'd expected was for somebody to actually help him, the only one who'd done that had been Tendo Akane in a similar way as well, and even then she hadn't really thought to talk to him afterwards, as she'd been more angry at those who'd been picking a fight on someone weaker than them.

The fact that the person in question was a cute girl didn't help to ease the Gosunkugi's shock.

"Hey ya alright? Ya ain't been hit in the head er nothin right?"

The boy blinked before realizing he was staring at the redhead. "Er, sorry, t-thanks, im fine.."

"No problem, too bad they were such wimps though, was hopin' ta blow off some steam." The girl said in apparent disappointment.

Hikaru wasn't sure what to say, he didn't have much social experience and the fact that he was now alone with an attractive female did nothing to help that issue.

"Great, now I'm lost, an' of course pop took the map." The girl muttered to herself, having turned to walk off.

"I-I can h-help you…" Gosunkugi stuttered out.

Ranma meanwhile had been trying to look for her father's Ki signature, before giving up upon realizing he was likely out of her range. She also couldn't find any sort of sign of magic, or that strange 'd sensed before.

The boy volunteering surprised her, mostly because she wasn't really used to people going out of their way to help her or her pop on the road, and she'd figured the guy would have run off by now.

"Don't 'spose, ya know tha way ta the Tendo Dojo?" The redhead asked.

Hikaru nodded, deciding it would be better not to be left stuttering in front of the strange girl.

"Thanks, buddy, er what was yer name again?"

"Eh? Oh Gosunkugi Hikaru."

Ranma's eyes widened, there was no way it could really be that easy could it? She supposed the guy. She gave the guy, Hikaru apparently, a second look.

He was rather scrawny, heck he didn't really look like he had much muscle in his body at all really. He also had strange dark circles under his eyes, as though he didn't get much sleep.

Other than those two characteristics there wasn't really anything that made this Hikaru guy stick out, he looked mostly like any other japanese teenager for the most part.

"The name's Saotome Ranma, an' we gotta talk…"

Author's Note

Alright well not completely sure how I feel about this chapter, most of it has just been me setting up circumstances to get the two protagonists to meet. I'm trying to avoid the typical Ranma arrives in Nerima chapter. That said the fight scene gave me problems, though I think it's safe to say Ranma could easily curb stomp a group of random delinquents.

As for Genma seeming more logical, while he's not typically the type to think about common sense stuff like safety, he DID plan out the training trip, and managed to keep both himself and Ranma healthy enough to continue practicing martial arts at the high level they typically do. Figured I'd justify the way im having him acting the way he does, though I am working on keeping him in character as well.

Gosunkugi is possibly both the easiest and hardest to write for, since he doesn't have much of a character to begin with as he doesn't appear with the frequency, or make as much of an impact as other characters.

Hope you've all enjoyed and I'd appreciate some feedback. so if you think I've botched up somewhere go ahead and point out how.