Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
|At the Tendo Dojo|
With steam rising from the freshly poured hot water on his head and shoulders, Genma Saotome sat before a blankly staring Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane. Next to him, a grim-faced Soun stood, holding the kettle that had just been poured upon Genma. Next to Genma, a wooden sign on the floor read "I will explain the whole situation as soon as you pour some hot water on me."
"Two weeks ago," he began solemnly, "My son and I, tired, weakened, and hungry, had left the ancient training grounds of Jusenkyo in search of food, water, and a warm bed. We traveled for hours, until we came across the curious town called Nyucheizu."
"A village of women heroes?" Soun asked.
"Indeed. Though warmly invited to their company, it turned out that they were a treacherous and conniving lot. They housed and fed us, but when the night came, they attempted to carry off Ranma… as he was–by their description–a virile and strong specimen worthy of adding to the village's proud bloodline."
Actually, they had stumbled into the village during a martial arts tournament. Unnoticed, while everyone else was preoccupied with the incredible prowess of a young woman who would become the tournament's champion, they ate the feast that was meant for said champion.
"How despicable!" Soun said.
"Yes, however they sorely underestimated my boy's strength. In minutes, twenty of their finest warriors were defeated by his hands, and another thirty were repulsed in fear of his power. We made a hasty retreat then."
Soun rose from his seat, shocked by the story. "Incredible, an entire village of Chinese Martial Arts Masters, out for revenge. Ranma must be an impressive young man to garner such a hatred!"
"He defeated their village champion like it was child's play!" Genma boasted. "All it took was a single kick to send her flying."
Actually, Ranma only fought and beat up one of their warriors–the above-mentioned champion–after she rightfully called him and Genma out for eating what would've been her victory feast.
"Yes, they howled and roared in anger, shouting vows of revenge at our backs. When we made it back to civilization, we thought we'd escaped them… but that turned out to be further from the truth. Their warriors had pursued us all the way down from those mist-shrouded mountains, attacking us at random and without warning. For days we fled, escaping their ambushes and traps… until finally we escaped to Japan–or so we thought."
Actually, upon beating the warrior girl, said warrior girl gave Ranma a kiss vowing that she would pursue her better to the ends of the Earth and kill her in order to restore her village's damaged pride.
Genma gussied up the story because he was extremely eager to sell Ranma to a prospective fiancée. Going by their still stunned looks, it appeared he knocked it out of the park.
"They followed you… and then they attacked you to make off with Ranma!" A horrified Soun said. "We must hurry and rescue Ranma, the future of our schools depends on it!"
He looked to his daughters, though specifically Akane. "This will require your help, Akane!"
Akane was still staring at Genma. All three of the girls were. When she finally noticed that her father was speaking to her, she looked up at him. "I'm sorry, but are we not going to address the fact that a panda bear turned into a human being when we poured hot water on its head?"
"A trivial matter," Genma dismissed.
"You were a panda," Kasumi said.
"Yes, but that is not the point-"
"A big, stupid looking black and white bear that feasts on bamboo, and has no ecological value because its dietary needs and low breeding drive are literally pushing it to its own extinction more than any human intervention against it," Nabiki droned.
Genma grimaced in disgust. That part about low breeding drive in the wild actually wasn't true, and his time as a panda unfortunately gave him a terrifying insight on that. "Let's focus please! Now, about rescuing Ranma-"
Akane and Nabiki then jumped onto their feet, Akane holding blue pompoms while Nabiki held red.
"P-A-N-D-A-W-T-F?!" They spelled out together while doing a well-choreographed, yet improvised Cheerleader drill. While they did this, Kasumi wandered behind them with a piece of cardboard that had a panda drawn on it underneath the words "What is even happening?" written on it in cursive English.
On the edge of his patience, Genma looked over at Soun. "Your daughters are very energetic, Tendo! You've given them some good training, I'm sure they'll be quite capable of helping save Ranma, once we actually focus and get past this panda issue-"
"Hey, does Ranma turn into something, too?" Nabiki then asked, now that it reminded her.
Genma rolled his eyes. "We can discuss that later. Ranma's life could be in jeopardy-"
"Hey, this is important" Nabiki insisted. "He could turn into a cat, or a duck, or a pig…"
Akane hummed. "That actually would be kind of cute. Like something out of Dr. Slump."
Kasumi then proposed as she stashed away her sign, "Or he could turn into a flying minotaur with tentacles, or some insane rage monster that destroys everything around it in a rampage."
Akane grimaced. "Not as cute."
"That first one sounds like every monster in an H-doujin ever," Nabiki said with a shudder.
"Does it really matter what my son transforms into?!" Genma asked, exasperated.
"So he does transform into something," Kasumi observed.
"For goodness sake, yes!" Genma finally admitted in frustration. "NOW ARE WE GOING TO RESCUE HIM OR NOT?!"
"Fantastic, a would-be significant other with an ancient–possibly Chinese–curse, and a mark of death from an entire village of women warriors who care not for borders or collateral damage, because that is really attractive," "Nabiki said. Then, fake coughing into her fist, she said "Notthefiancée!"
"What?" Akane began-
"Not the fiancée," Kasumi clarified for Akane, while calling it herself.
When she realized, Akane looked downright betrayed. "Et tu, Kasumi? Then fall, Akane."
Soun had called it, like a boss. "Now's not the time to be overly dramatic. We must begin the search for Ranma, post-haste."
Akane rose up to her feet and looked between her father and Genma. "Before we go out looking for him, let me call up my friend. She can help us look for him."
Genma looked a tad nervous. "We don't really need to pull in people outside of the family for this-"
Soun disagreed. "It's all right, Saotome. Akane has a rather reliable friend, who's quite a talented martial artist herself."
|A regular one-hitter quitter|
Katie pulled the bong away from her lips, and held in her breath. Leaning back, she parted her lips and breathed out a rolling cloud of white smoke that joined the misty clouds that were being drawn off into a ventilation grate on the ceiling. Lowering her head, she huffed a bit, a few more clouds of smoke rolling out from her mouth and nose as she passed the bong and lighter back to Misao.
"Nope, I'm high as fuck and it's still making no sense," she declared.
Misao was kind of in agreement. "I literally just watched it happen twice and I'm like what the fuck."
Ranma, who was a girl again after demonstrating the curse during her explanation, sighed. "Believe me, I don't want it to be real either, but it's true. In China there are these cursed springs that if you fall into one, you become whatever fell in first. Thanks to my old man knocking me into the girl spring, I'm like this now."
"It's still fucking absurd," Misao said.
"I can literally kick a car in half and I call bullshit," Katie added.
Ranma considered that for a second. "One, we are sparring when you're not high, two I know and I'm living it."
"We can spar now, I'm good," Katie insisted.
"Fuck that, not in my house," Misao warned before she took a hit from the water pipe.
Katie shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. But we can still talk shop, right? What sorta training you had?"
"I've trained from when I was way little," Ranma revealed. "My Dad took me out on a training trip as soon as I could walk."
Katie stared at Ranma. "… My Uncle started training me when I was four."
At that, Ranma brightened. "Wait, you've been on training journeys, too?"
"Yeah!" Katie quickly said. "Every summer when I wasn't in school, I'd be in a different country learning to fight non-stop!"
At that moment, everything changed. All of her life, in all of her training Ranma had never met another kid under her circumstances, forever on the road to martial arts to the point where socializing was minimal. Sure, she met other kids who were pretty talented at the art, but even then he easily clobbered them. She was always the odd man out–an ironic phrasing yes–there was no one she could ever really relate to, someone who understood the struggle.
But that was over.
"Did… did we just become best friends?" Ranma asked.
Katie nodded. "I think so."
Misao, smoke drifting from her mouth as she spoke, deadpanned. "Oh my God, there's two of them."
On the bright side, this one was also a hottie, as a girl and even hotter as a guy. So, win-win?
"So, going back to your Panda Dad, what are you gonna do about all of that?" She asked.
Ranma folded her arms. "Well I'm not getting engaged, that's for sure. Knowing my pop it's probably going to be the kind of chick that makes me wish Xian Pu would catch up to me."
Misao grunted. "Ugh, I know this scrublord from China who goes by Shampoo, and when she isn't feeding because she absolutely refuses to team play, she's focusing down on whichever player kills her until she actually gets a kill herself–which is usually never since she doesn't farm and just hard lanes loud and stupid every time."
Ranma stared mystified at her. "I didn't even understand half of what you just said."
"Don't play League, and hopefully you never will." She passed the bong back to Katie and got up. "Well I am now starving, so it's time for me to cook dinner. Do we still have any hamburger in the fridge?"
Katie nodded. "Yeah."
She looked to Ranma. "You look like a big-eater. Six or seven good for you?"
"Uh, yeah," Ranma replied, surprised that Misao would peg her as one who ate quite a bit.
Katie chuckled. "You're definitely a martial artist. My calorie load is huge, too."
Misao nodded. "Swear to God, a hundred grand a week goes into feeding this monster."
Katie brought the bong to her lips. "I don't eat that much, besides like half of it goes to your tits and ass."
Misao flipped Katie off as she walked into the kitchen, before she called to Ranma. "Yo, you can play some video games while you wait. If you want."
That just reminded her. "Aw fuck, my stream. Oh well, maybe I can make a thing out of this?" She then called to Ranma. "Are you okay with being on webcam for a bit?"
"Since nobody knows who I am? Sure." Ranma replied.
At that moment, Katie's phone rang, and she slipped a hand into her pocket to fish it out. It was Akane, probably hoping to see if they were still on for Karaoke. She quickly answered it. "Sup, Akaneko?"
"Hey, are you busy right now?" Akane asked. "Because something weird is going on."
"Tell me about it," Katie said, "On my way home I saw the craziest shit."
Akane looked at Genma and Soun, who were actually politely waiting for Akane to finish before they went on with their mission to save Ranma. "Was it a strange Chinese warrior woman?"
"What? No." It was funny that she would mention that, though.
Akane looked at Genma and Soun again, with emphasis on the former. "… Was it a panda?"
At that, Genma went stiff.
On her end of the line, Katie's eyebrows quirked. Across from her Ranma had picked up a controller and was playing a fighting game off Misao's computer. "… Yes."
Akane now looked directly at Genma, and spoke into the phone. "… Go on?"
"Well, the panda was fighting this redheaded girl in the street because she didn't want to go get engaged, and I thought it was pretty weird and stuff. But then the panda turned around and clobbered her with a road sign, so I figured there was something wrong with that and I clobbered the panda."
Akane nodded, while her gaze narrowed at Genma. "Let me guess, that girl's at your place and turns into a guy when you pour hot water on him?"
"Uh… yeah… she does…" Katie murmured before she turned and called at Misao, before indicating the bong. "Who's your guy now? Because this shit is amazing."
"Wait, who are you talking to?" Ranma, who looked over from his pummeling of his opponent, asked.
"A friend of mine," Katie told him. "Misao, answer the damn question!"
"It's nothing new," Misao said as she beat her meat into patties for frying. "Why?"
"Because Akane apparently knows all about this already and isn't freaking out?"
Oh, she was freaking out about it, because she had just thrown her phone at Genma hard, pegging him right between the eyes. "YOU LYING ASSHOLE!"
"He turns into a girl?!" Nabiki asked, sounding as incredulous as she could muster.
"Oh, my…" Kasumi suddenly had second thoughts about dumping the engagement on Akane.
"Akane, what's gotten into you?!" Soun demanded.
"He wasn't kidnapped by Chinese Warriors! He didn't want to get engaged! You literally tried to knock him out so you could drag him here!" Akane yelled, pointing accusingly at Genma.
Genma, rubbing his face, then shouted back at Akane. "It had to have been! What the hell hit me?!"
"My friend! She thought you were kidnapping him!" Akane roared in reply.
She picked up her phone, whose famous Finnish furnish allowed it to survive the impact with ease. "Senpai. Turn your speaker on."
Looking at her phone, after hearing all of that shouting in the background, Katie gave a questioning look to Ranma before she set the phone down and turned on the speakerphone option. On her end, Akane did the same thing and set the phone down in front of her.
"Hello, Katie-chan," Kasumi said extra pleasantly to the phone when she saw that this was now a conference call.
"Hello, Kasumi-senpai," Katie replied with a bit of shy warmth.
Ranma paused the game and looked over. That one girl sounded cute.
"Ranma, right?" Akane asked. "I'm really sorry about this. Our Dad sprang this whole engagement thing on us, too."
And she sounded even nicer.
"Yeah, imagine our surprise when we came home to us being engaged to some guy we never met," Nabiki chimed in.
Ranma wasn't keen on that one, her tone was kind of bitchy. In a hot way, though. "Uh hey, this is Ranma Saotome, I'm kind of glad you're not in on it too."
"Your voice, are you a girl right now?" Akane asked.
"Yeah," Ranma said.
"I can confirm," Katie said.
"She's really fuckin' cute!" Misao called in. "And her guy form is super hot!"
"How hot, are we talking an eight? Eight-point-nine…?" Nabiki then cut in.
"Ten all around!" Misao called back.
"Could you not?" Katie snapped at her.
Now Nabiki was having second thoughts.
"I was kind of worried that this was my old man trying to pull off a scam or something."
All three sisters turned in unison and glared at Genma.
"Imagine that," Akane said icily before she warmed up a little more for Ranma. "Anyway, I'm Akane."
"I'm Nabiki," Nabiki introduced.
"And I'm Kasumi, it's a pleasure to meet you, Ranma-kun."
Soun then barged in. "Ah yes, hello there Ranma my boy! This is Soun Tendo, the father the girls–and I assure you this is no scam. Your father and I have been friends for decades, and the promise to bring our school together through uniting our families is a very real one. So what do you say you come on over to the dojo and pick one of my girls out, hm?"
"Hey, I thought we were going to have a say in this," Nabiki spoke up.
"Ranma certainly didn't, what chance do we have?" Akane asked.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to put a rain check on that? I'm not interested in marrying anyone until I get a cure for this curse," Ranma said sternly.
"Why?" Katie suddenly asked.
"Yes, why?" Kasumi asked as well, prompting a strange look from Nabiki.
"I turn into a girl?" Ranma asked, wondering if they had really just gone over that or if she was getting a contact high. "I mean, I'm a really cute girl, but still a girl."
"Oh sweet summer child," Misao called from the kitchen. "You have no idea what kind of goldmine you are sitting on."
Ranma looked back. "What do you mean?"
Katie looked over as well, she didn't like the sound of that. In fact… it sounded like Misao had happened upon an idea.
Making sure her burgers didn't burn, Misao turned and began sauntering off from the kitchen for the living room, her brief ensemble made somehow more inappropriate with the apron she wore over it. Standing before Ranma and Katie, she rested one hand on her hip and gave them both a smile.
"I have a little proposition for you myself, Ranma-chan," she said. "One that can make you a very rich person."
Ranma's gaze darted to Katie, before she turned to face Misao entirely. "… What?"
"I'll pay you six hundred thousand yen per month to do let's plays with me. You just have to keep the curse and do them as a girl, someone as cute as you will pull in crazy viewers."
Six hundred thousand yen a month? Just for people watching her play video games as a girl? Misao was right… she was sitting on a goldmine that she didn't realize.
On the other end of the line, Genma found himself torn on something. On one hand, his son suddenly had a job. On the other, his daughter had a job.
Akane was entirely neutral on the position. "It couldn't hurt."
Nabiki was extremely tense because now she really wanted in on this fiancée shindig if Ranma was going to cash in that well on his cursed form.
Kasumi was curious about trying this playing video games for money thing herself, it sounded fun.
With Akane's mild encouragement, and the promise of getting paid well, Ranma shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, why not? It doesn't sound too bad."
Misao beamed. "Awesome! I'm going to get some paperwork going after dinner and we'll set this up!"
Katie smirked wryly. "Ah yes, the prodigal child gets what she wants again."
Ranma looked to her. "Well, at least I don't have to trudge back to China."
"That's the spirit," Katie said, "China sucks."
"You had a bad experience there, too?"
"Like you wouldn't believe, the stories I could tell you," Katie said before she looked back to the phone. "So, what's going to happen now?"
"Well, what's going to happen now is that my son is going to come to the Tendo Dojo and pick his fiancée," Genma said.
"You know what? That sounds nice and all, but I'm still gonna pass on that," Ranma then said. "I'm not going to date anybody until I get to know 'em first, much less marry!"
"Well that's why you're going to come here to the dojo!" Genma ordered.
"Meeting someone for an hour isn't going to determine who I'm going to marry, you jackass!" Ranma argued back.
It was Akane who stepped up to be the mediator. "All right, calm down everybody!" She glared at Genma. "Especially you."
Kasumi agreed. "If Ranma doesn't want to get engaged to us that's fine. In fact, I would prefer it if he met each one of us… and got to know us…"
Nabiki too agreed. "You know what? I'm down with that."
Akane gave both her older sisters distasteful looks. A steady high paying job doing nothing sure changed their tune. She'd have expected that from Nabiki, but Kasumi too? For shame!
Genma wanted to protest this, but Soun seemed even more ecstatic about the proposition. "Well then! I see no harm in that, it's nice to see that all three of you are eager to meet Ranma now."
"I'm not eager, but…" Akane stopped and just shook her head. "Yeah, actually sitting down and talking this out wouldn't hurt."
Genma grumbled. Oh well, at least the engagement wasn't completely off the table. "Fine, but you're still coming over ASAP, boy."
"Gonna have to say no to that, too. I'm about to have dinner, and my hosts have been nice enough to wash my clothes for me," Ranma said. "Oh, and they haven't even tried knocking me out or anything. So courteous!"
"Yeah, it's fine if Ranma stays the night here," Katie said.
"Be careful, they could be a treacherous and conniving lot," Akane said while leveling a harsh glare at Genma.
Genma quietly looked away, but he would actually have the last laugh on that one… sort of.
"Well, dinner's ready and my phone's dyin'," Katie said. "We'll continue this tomorrow, eh Akaneko?"
Akane smiled big. "Sure!"
Genma then remembered. "Hey, Ranma! You're enrolled in the local high school. You'd better head over there tomorrow morning, and come right here after!"
Ranma grimaced. "Sure old man, whatever."
"All right, bye senpai!" Akane said, before she ended the call.
Nabiki was quite pleased to hear this. A chance to meet Ranma in person was an opportunity she wasn't going to start on the wrong foot. With a quick look to Akane, she was already plotting how to remove her from any competition. Kasumi wore her own blithe smile, hiding her own intent to win the affections of Ranma.
Soun, as perceptive as a father could be, couldn't feel like more a winner. Not only were all three of his daughters interested in Saotome's son, but the fires of jolly competition could be seen burning in their eyes. Whoever married him, he was quite confident that the Tendo Dojo would be in good hands.
Genma, however, wanted to be happy but he couldn't help but sense that something was deadly off. He had himself a bad feeling about this, like this was just the tip of a very big iceberg, and he was pretty sure that those external factors–those two strange girls–were responsible for what would lie beneath.
He was right, of course, but this berg went so deep.
A/N: Deeper than your fists.
