Copyright Viz Communications © 2007, copyright Kitty Films © 2007, copyright Rumiko Takahashi © 2007. All Rights Reserved. Written for fan appreciation only.
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Inspired by Adrian D. Moten's "Kasumi 1/2"
A N E W D I R E C T I O N T A K E N
by Michael "TheZorch" Haney
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Forewords
Ok, here's the new revised chapter with Genma removed from the scene in the dining room. I also made a decision about the sequel to this story. You can read all about at the end of this chapter.
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Chapter 7
Ranma woke the next morning to find Tendo-ke in total mayhem. Not the kind that usually blows holes in the walls, or the roof, or the floor, but finely controlled chaos. At the center of the maelstrom was his mom, Kasumi and his cousin's beautiful wife Mizuho. Young women in aprons race around in the kitchen, an army of workmen labored to repair the damage done by Kodachi yesterday, and outside Nabiki and her new boyfriend Pantyhose Taro were filling up balloons. Even Akane was helping out putting streamers up in the dojo with Sayuri and Yuka helping out. The only one not doing anything, as usual, was Tendo Soun. Affectionately known as the crying man, he was swimming in sake as usual and praising himself for having finally gotten the schools to be joined.
Ranma rolled his eyes at the two baka and headed for what was left of the furo. The workmen had repaired a section of the toilet room so the people in the house could use the facilities when needed. The furo itself was still in shambled so they'd need to use the public bath house down the street. He knew his mom ordered the work crew. They were running around fast getting shattered walls put back up. He didn't know it but his mother had offered a substantial bonus to them if they completed the repairs by the end of the day. Nabiki had nearly had a heart attack when she learned exactly how much that bonus was. He took care of his business and went to find Kasumi.
The future Ms. Saotome was in the kitchen. She wasn't allowed to do much by his mom and Mizuho. After all this was her wedding they were preparing for. They did put her in charge of selecting and taste testing everything being prepared. The smells coming out of there were making Ranma's mouth water. He passed under the noren and stopped to take in the chaotic frenzy. Kasumi appeared next to him in a flash and handed him a plate of items she selected from the menu being prepare for tomorrow's reception. The girls took glances in his direction, most wore expressions of deep envy. He recognized a few of them from school.
"Oh, Ranma-sama," she blushed as she handed him the plate.
"What's all this?" he asked looking over the dish and what he saw made his stomach growl with anticipation.
"Its a sampling of the food for tomorrow's reception," Kasumi smiled as her future husband took a pair of chopsticks she handed to him and tried one of the items.
"Hmmm ... good," he munched.
Yes, all was going so well, so very well. No explosions, no attacks, no "Ranma prepare to die" or anything like that. Which was why the young martial artist suddenly became very nervous. He kissed Kasumi, making the girls whoop and holler, and went out into the dinning room. The fathers were well on their way to being oblivious to the world. There was activity outside to setup for the small wedding and invitation only reception. Kodachi wasn't around and likely wouldn't be for a long time, Cologne and Shampoo weren't a problem, Ryoga was off somewhere on the other side of the planet, Ukyo wouldn't be an issue and if she did start something he'd be the one to finish it. So, why was he feeling nervous? Who was he forgetting?
"I don't get it, maybe its just cold feet." he told himself and sat down with his plate.
"Hey, yuu not tinking bout waaking out ooon my liiitle gurl's weeding ah you, sun?" Soun drawled out in Drunkese. The man gave him what was supposed to be a withering stare but in their condition they looked like they were about to fall over face first.
He scowled at them. "I'd never do that!" he growled and rapidly gobbled up the rest of the plate so he could get away from the two meddling baka. Last thing he needed was for him to think he was having second thoughts about this whole wedding business. Marrying Kasumi was his idea, not theirs. Yet, he still had that lingering feeling of dread in the back of his mind.
"How was it?" he nearly jumped out of skin. Embarrassed, he turned to Kasumi who was at the kitchen door and showed her the empty plate.
She flashed him that beautiful smile that fill him with a warm and fuzzy feeling and said, "That good was it? I asked the girls to put together a bento for you for school today, it'll be done in a few minutes."
He went over and returned the plate to her. "Ok, thanks," he scratched the back of his head nervously. Again, anyone who thought Kasumi was dense and unobservant did not know Tendo Kasumi very well. She could see something was bothering him. She surprised him by grabbing his hand and rushing with him to the wash room just before the toilet and furo. She locked the door behind her and wrapped her arms around him. She was shaking.
"I'm so nervous I don't know what to do with myself," she admitted to him softly. She smiled when she felt him put his arms around her lovingly.
"Everything's going to be alright," he reassured her sensing just how nervous she was as well though his nervousness wasn't over the wedding but something else.
She kissed him gently, just one tiny kiss. This was preceded by a second and soon they were sitting on the floor groping and kissing each other furiously. They finally stopped to take a break, Ranma leaning against the wall and Kasumi sitting between his legs with her back against his chest. He lovingly wrapped his arms around her and held her close. How he wanted to take her right now, how he wanted to feel her soft skin against his, to hear her voice uttering gasp of pleasure, but there would be plenty of time to do that after the wedding and reception tomorrow.
"You're nervous too?" she asked him.
"Yeah, I'm nervous," he admitted. "But not because of that, I wanna marry you Kasumi-chan. I want us to be together forever, but ..."
She felt a chill run down her spine. "But what?" she looked up at him.
He shook his head. "I dunno, I feel like I'm forgetting something or whatever," he wished he could figure this feeling out. He recognized it as his sixth sense or "Warriors' Sense" telling him something wasn't right. All of the major threats to their wedding have been dealt with so why was he feeling so worried. Perhaps it was the thought that he was actually forgetting something that was bothering him.
"You will remember in time and it will probably be nothing more than pre-wedding day jitters." she nuzzled against his chest and wished they could stay like this all day. She was feeling butterflies in her stomach too, but this was something they both wanted. Kasumi searched back in her memories to that day they first made love. They were in a cold, damp cave yet she could remember feeling so warm in his arms. Ranma had been so gentle with her, her arm was still not fully mended. She had long hoped that her first time would be a wonderful experience and it was.
"Maybe," he hoped.
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A lone figure bounded from roof top to roof top unnoticed by the people below who were now used to seeing roof hopping martial artists. He looked around, it felt good to be home again after so long. The figure stopped when he reach a wide street, he could have easily cleared it, but his keen eyes noticed something interesting. Very interesting, a pair of young girls in mini-skirts walking down the street. A smirk came to his face and with a speed that was inhuman he raced down to where they were. The girls both screamed as a diminutive, wrinkled old man flipped up their skirts and latched onto their chests.
"Hey ladies, lets go on a date!" the creature shouted as they tried to avoid and pummel him at the same time but he was way to swift for them. Eventually they both ran off screaming and clutching their chests. Happosai watched as they ran off, the breeze picking up the back ends of their tiny skirts to reveal the white panties underneath.
"Ah, its good to be home!" he cheered and continued on his journey back to Tendo-ke. He had some business to attend to. First off, pay Ranma back for what he did earlier in the week and then its onto Akane. The old hentai laughed to himself as he jump from roof top to roof top.
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With bento in hand Ranma made his way to school. He tried not to think to hard about why he felt so apprehensive today. It kind of irked him that he wasn't able to figure out why, but there was no use dwelling on it right now while he had lots of other things to think about. One of those things was the cold, hard fact that he was going to be married tomorrow and not long after he was going to be a father at the age of seventeen. The baby would be coming possibly a few months before his eighteenth birthday. He wasn't so much worried about being a father, Ranma has already made a promise to himself to be a better father than oyagi, but he wondered if the baby was going to be a boy or girl?
Random thoughts, his father often said, were a distraction from possible dangers that surround you. Sometimes the old man did give good advice ... sometimes ... rarely. It was the one lesson that Ranma had taken to heart after being waylaid by enemies and rivals left and right while he was deep in though. Because of this, Ranma was able to the powerful battle aura that was approaching him at incredible speed. At the last second he dodged to the side, leaping off the fence he'd been walking on and alighting to the sidewalk. The object slammed into the fence bending it out of shape and got stuck there. The thing wiggled and struggled to free itself for a few seconds before breaking free and landing on the ground in front of him.
"I knew I was forgetting something," Ranma sighed when he saw whom his attack was.
Happosai stood there rubbing the marks on his face left by the chain link fence and then looked at his target and growled menacingly. Or, at least as menacingly as the little hentai could muster.
"I found you, you little puke!" he roared.
Ranma rolled his eyes at him and asked, "What'd I do this time, you old freak?"
"For too long have I allowed you to get in my way," Happosai growled deep in his throat. "For too long have I allowed you to defeat me at every turn, but no longer, you hear me you little turd, no longer!"
"Yeah, yeah, lets get this over with," Ranma waved dismissively and reverted to a basic fighting stance.
"AT LAST YOU'RE GOING TO FACE DIVINE RETRIBUTION!" the ancient hentai shouted as he launched himself. He would have hit Ranma had he not face faltered right then. Since when did Happosai talk like that blow hard Kuno, he thought to himself.
"HAPPO FIRE BURST!" the lit bomb came flying towards Ranma's face at blinding speed. The young martial artist did what he usually did in a situation like this. He batted it right back at the old man.
BOOM! THUD!
Ranma shook his head at the small mound of blackened hentai laying on the ground emitting gray smoke. "Some divine retribution," he muttered as he picked up his bento and continued onto school. Akane came running up from down the street, saw the "thing" on the ground and smirked with satisfaction.
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"Damn that little brat!" Happosai sat upon the roof of a house not far from where he'd finally regained consciousness. When he woke he found himself being buried alive by some big dog. It took him some time to get the drool off of him and he smelled like wet dog. To say Happosai was made was the same thing as saying the sky was blue.
"I can't let that him keep doing this to me," he said to himself out loud. "I gotta get that punk brat back somehow, but ever since he came back from China he's gotten insanely powerful."
"I've got to find out what happened in China," he slapped his fist into his palm and raced off towards Tendo-ke. "Someone's got to know. Ah, yeah, Nabiki'll know for sure. Ha ha!"
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Saotome Genma often said women were a distraction from the art. Little did anyone know, he learned that lesson from watching his sensei. It was because of his torture, I mean training, under his sensei that he realized women were bad news for a martial artists. Sure enough, when Happosai reached Tendo-ke he found the place crowded with beautiful, young women. Screams peeled throughout the house as Happi gleefully went from one girl to the next copping a feel here and squeezing a breast there. Ah, my prayers have been answered, he thought to himself in pure rapture.
"Marie, teleport that creature away from this place! This is a priority one!"
The little hentai didn't know what that meant when he raced towards one of the most beautiful women he'd ever laid his eyes upon. The red head stood in the doorway to the kitchen and held a tiny thing in her hand that resembled a Teletubie from that BBC kids show. Before he could reach that wonderful prize, Happosai felt suddenly weightless and saw bright light surrounding him. He yelped in alarm but it was too late, the scene of the Tendo home around him dissolved away. With a loud plunk he fell straight down and landed in a stinking garbage bin several blocks away.
"What ... the ... hell," he groused after extracting himself from the filth.
"That's my line," came a voice from below and outside of the dumpster. Happosai climbed to the rim and looked down to see a familiar, old wrinkled face starring back up at him.
"How did I get here?" he asked. Cologne shrugged her shoulders and resisted an urge to plug her nose.
Cologne smirked up at him. "If you're looking for underwear you won't find any in that trash bin," she told him. "This is where we throw out leftovers from the Nekohauten." She laughed inwardly, this just had to be the work of Ranma. He probably punted the ancient hentai half way across the city. She wished she could have been there to see that.
Happosai growled, "This is Ranma's doing, I just know it!" He leapt out of the dumpster and landed in front of the ancient Amazon matriarch. Now Cologne plugged her nose, even she wasn't able to handled certain smells and Happosai right now reeked something fierce.
"He gibbing you tubble, Happi?" she asked, her voice was skewed because she was holding her nose tightly closed.
"Go ahead and laugh, you reject from a horror movie," Happosai grumbled.
"At lees I non smell lik yesderday's lunch," she tried not to laugh but it was way too tempting.
Happi stamped his feet in frustration like a child throwing a temper tantrum and cried, "Dammit, dammit, dammit, how did that little puke get so dammed powerful all of a sudden!?"
Cologne let go of her nose, the wind started blowing in the other direction. "You mean you don't know what happened in China?" she asked and really wasn't all that surprised. The ancient hentai master made himself pretty much scarce after the failed wedding of Ranma and Akane. Both young martial artists has the old man on their shit list for a while afterwards. Shampoo herself couldn't get Ranma to say a single word to her for a few weeks until his anger finally calmed down.
"Nobody would tell me," Happosai pouted.
Poor baby, Cologne laughed inwardly. She was loving this, it was about time he ancient hentai finally got what was coming to him. He was discovering that Ranma was not the same young man he was when he left for China little over a year ago. One does not face a GOD, utterly destroy it, and then walk away unchanged. No, Ranma grew in ways even the young martial artist still doesn't understand yet but he soon will. Defeating a foe of such power changes you in many ways, not only just physically or mentally, but in a metaphysical manner. Ranma walked away from that battle in Josendo a changed man in more ways than one. He now had far more in common with Saffron than he'd ever possibly suspect.
I do believe it is time to let Happi know what he's ultimately going up against, Cologne thought to herself.
"Ranma went to China, and fought Prince Saffron of the Phoenix tribe." she explained.
That got his attention. Happosai looked at her with one eyebrow doing a Spock maneuver. "Say what?" he inquired now quite sure he heard her right. Ranma fought Saffron, a godling?
"Saffron had Akane, so Ranma fought him," Cologne went on further in her explanation. "Saffron was in his adult form at the time."
Happosai looked at her like she was lying. "And he walked away alive?" he said incredulously.
"Saffron didn't walk away alive," Cologne tightened the noose she around Happosai's neck with her words. "Ranma didn't just defeat him, he killed him." She wasn't disappointed by the old man's reaction. Happosai looked like he was about to fall over he was in such shock.
"Does ... does he understand what that's done to him?" he asked her. Cologne shook her head no. This certainly explained the boy's sudden massive increase in power.
"Not yet, but someday soon he will learn what happened to him that day and when that day comes may the kami have mercy on any who number themselves among his enemies." she said in a tone that was gravely serious.
"Holy shit," the ancient sensei said with astonishment.
"When one kills a god, you create an imbalance in the universe," Cologne told him in the voice she often used when lecturing Shampoo about something important.
"The universe tries to correct that balance," she want on. "It has not fully yet manifested in Ranma but I sense it within him slowly growing, like a flower just before it blooms."
"And when he blooms ... he'll be a god." said Happosai.
"A godling, technically," she corrected him.
"Same difference!" Happi spat back at her.
Cologne laughed and said, "We will likely all be long dead and buried by the time he finally realizes how much he's changed."
"He'll outlive the both of us a thousand times over," Happosai pouted in realization that his dreams of getting back at the boy were now pretty much impossible.
Cologne looked away with a sad expression. This was something she hadn't thought of before until now. He was going to out live them, but they weren't the only ones he was going to leave behind.
"Immortality demands a hefty price that some might not be willing to pay," she said. Happosai looked up at her questioningly. So he doesn't know about that either? Where has he been this past week?
"He weds tomorrow," she told him. Happosai's eyes suddenly go wide.
"Ranma and Akane are getting hitched!?" he cried in dismay. His hopes of being able to once again grope that beautiful, athletic body of Akane's were suddenly slipping through his fingers. The thought nearly made him fall to the ground sobbing.
"No, Ranma and Kasumi are," she corrected him. The ancient sensei looked at her in wide eyed surprise at this news. He knew about them being lost on a island in the South Pacific together for a while but he didn't think anything would come of it. The idea almost blew him away. Ranma and Kasumi, a married couple?
"She's pregnant and Ranma is the father," Cologne added.
Happosai looked like he was about to faint but steadied himself and then laughed. "Well, he is my disciple," he said proudly. "Looks like a little bit of me actually did rub off onto him after all." He laughed heartily and decided that instead of beating the boy into a quivering mass of jelly he was going step up the young man's training.
"I doubt he'd share that sentiment," Cologne replied knowing Ranma would never admit to being the ancient hentai's student.
Happosai's eyes when wide and he asked, "You said he's getting married when!?"
"Tomorrow at an invitation only ceremony," Cologne explained to him. She had already gotten her invitation, Shampoo's and Mousse's as well. Somehow she didn't think them leaving out Happosai wasn't a legitimate mistake. Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut.
"This won't do," he shouted. "A young man like him can't get married without a bachelor party!" Before Cologne could say anything the old sensei sprinted off and took to the rooftops. The ancient Amazon swore to herself and realized she'd just made a huge mistake. Quickly she ran into the Nekohauten and grabbed the phone. She had to call the Tendo clan right now and let them know what Happosai had planned.
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To be continued in the 8th and final chapter!
"The Little Dragon of Nerima" is not the sequel, but will be a side story about Ranma and Kasumi's son.
The sequel to ANDT will be:
"Another New Direction Taken"
Konatsu was never allowed to explore his manhood. Raised as a Kunoichi, Konatsu was treated like a girl and forced to dress as a girl. That all changed when Ranma and Ukyo freed him from his step sisters and he came to work in Ukyo's Okonomiyaki. Free from their influence, the male Kunoichi began to explore his manhood and what it is like to be a man. This included an exploration of his feelings, especially towards the cross dressing, spatula toting martial artist who was both his friend and employer. One day he finally worked up the courage to admit his feelings to Ukyo, but she misunderstood what he was trying to say.
"I love you too, Konatsu," she replied to him. "You're like a little sister to me."
Heartbroken and discouraged, Konatsu realizes that he doesn't really know anything about how to be a man at all otherwise Ukyo would feel differently about him. Perhaps, he decides, I shouldn't try to be a man at all. Thus begins a journey into Konatsu's heart, Ukyo's confused feelings, and the love of two newlyweds who rush to chase a dear friend all the way to the cursed springs in China in the hopes of averting what they see as a terrible mistake. Intermingled with the main storyline will be glimpses into the growing relationship between Nabiki and Taro, Kei and Mizuho's marriage, Akane's discovery of love after Ranma, and more.
