That night, Ranma and Naruto went running as foxes. When they stopped for a breather, Ranma asked, "What was with that melancholy look at the Nekohanten about?"
Naruto sighed. "I've told you about my friend Sakura, right?"
Ranma nodded. "Yep."
"I have a bit of a crush on her," Naruto admitted, "but she only has eyes for our teammate Sasuke, who in turn ignores or insults her. If I'm honest about it, Sakura treats me about the same as Shaanpuu treats Muusu. My ninja creed is to never give up, so I've kept asking her out, even though she rejects me harshly. After what happened with Shaanpuu and Muusu today, I'm not sure that's the right idea."
Ranma looked at his sister. "Does your ninja creed mean you can never change your mind?"
"Not exactly," Naruto said. "It's just that everyone has always told me I'll never succeed. I want to be able to prove them wrong!"
"It seems to me," Ranma said, "that you should do what you want to do, not what other people don't want you to do. See the difference?"
"Maybe," she responded.
"Listen," Ranma said, "the way you're talking the surest way I can make sure you do something is to tell you that you can't do it. If Nabiki ever figured out your ninja creed, you would be sunk."
Naruto's tail started whipping around agitatedly. "You're right!"
"The way I figure," Ranma said, "you should think about why you like this Sakura periodically. If the reasons are still there, go for it. If not, don't. You shouldn't keep chasing her simply because you always have."
"That sounds like good advice, Neechan," she said.
"I think you also should look at Muusu. Do you think he's ever going to get Shaanpuu, if he keeps doing what he's doing?" Ranma said.
"Never in a million years," Naruto said with a yip of laughter.
"One thing I know from martial arts that I think applies to life in general is this," Ranma said, "don't keep doing something that doesn't work and expect it to suddenly work. If what you're doing with the girl isn't working, try something else."
"I kind of already knew that," Naruto said, "but the problem is that I don't know what else to do, so I keep trying the same thing."
Ranma barked with laughter. "I can't help you there. I don't know anything about dating girls, either. Ask your mom or dad?"
"Neechan!" Naruto squealed. "How desperate would I have to be to ask my parents about dating!?"
"Aren't you that desperate?" Ranma teased.
"Not quite," Naruto muttered.
Too late! Kushina's voice sounded in their minds with a cackle.
The tails of both foxes dropped. Hopefully Naruto's mom could be diverted. No way did Ranma want to experience the awkwardness that that conversation promised.
Both foxes' musings on the embarrassment to come was interrupted by a young woman's scream. After sharing a look, they charged toward the scream.
"Jiraiya told me to keep a low profile," Naruto said as they ran on all fours.
"If they can't trace it back to us, does it matter?" Ranma asked. He shifted to his tiger-sized, three-tailed form.
They found three muggers threatening a woman a few years older than they were. The woman was on the ground with one of the three looming over her.
"Just relax and enjoy it," the thug said with a leer.
Hearing this anger burned in both foxes and foxfire coated their heads, feet, and tails.
The thugs turned at the growling emanating from their throats. They backed off some. One of them pulled out a switchblade.
"How cliché," Ranma sneered.
"Woah!" one of the hench thugs said. "It talks!"
Ranma leaped at the knife-wielding thug and caught his wrist in his mouth. He shook it until the knife dropped. In the meantime, Naruto had pounced the head thug. The third had run off.
"You should feel lucky I don't want to get your blood in my fur," Ranma growled. "But if I ever see you doing this type of thing again, I'll emasculate you and then deal with taking a bath, understand?"
The two remaining thugs quickly ran off.
"Thank you, Ladies Kitsune," the woman said.
"No problem," Ranma said. "We hate bullies."
"If you don't mind being discrete about this?" Naruto asked. "We'd like to keep a low profile."
"Who would believe me?" the woman asked.
"Take care of yourself," Ranma said.
The two ran off and then changed into their smaller forms when they were out of sight. They headed back toward the Tendou Dojo.
The next evening was the first of Ranma's three dates. Kasumi had recommended that they dress in nice casual clothes, so he was wearing a variation of his usual outfit that had dragons embroidered on the sleeves and legs in gold-colored thread that had been a gift from Jeiru.
Kasumi came downstairs a few minutes after he did. She wore a nice-looking floral dress. It was similar to her normal outfit except that it was missing the apron she normally wore.
They made small talk as they walked to the Nekohanten. Banners announced "Grand Opening." They entered and Naruto showed them to a table with a smile. The dining area was moderately full. Shaanpuu bounced her way to them.
"Hi, Shaanpuu," Ranma said.
Shaanpuu started and then looked at him more closely. "Oh, Sister Ran. Looking good. Makes this one regret making you sister."
Ranma chuckled and rubbed the back of his head.
"This is Tendou Kasumi," Ranma said, introducing his date. "She's Akane's sister."
"Hello, Tendou Kasumi," Shaanpuu chirped.
"This is Shaanpuu, my Amazon sister," he said, finishing the introduction.
Ranma and Kasumi ordered. They were both surprised to see bowls of ramen flying through the air, only to be caught by Shaanpuu without spilling a drop. Ranma smiled. Maybe working here would not be so bad after all. The food was as excellent as Ranma remembered from the Amazon village.
After the meal they walked to the park. The band had already started playing when they arrived. The music was a very weird alternative style with emphasis on dissonance. Ranma did not care for it. He did not picture this being Kasumi's style.
After two songs, he said to her, "Do you like this type of music?"
Kasumi, who had been smiling demurely, said, "It's not my favorite, but. . ."
Ranma chuckled. "You're just trying to be polite, aren't you? How about we go find a place to talk where it isn't so loud?"
Kasumi's demure smile did not falter while she nodded her assent, but he could see a twinkle in her eye that intrigued him. They moved to another part of the park.
"Thank you, Ranma," Kasumi said as they found a bench to sit on. "Music in the park is kind of hit or miss. It's been a while since I've come, but the quality varies widely. Unfortunately, I think this evening's is near the bottom of the scale."
"It's fine," Ranma said. "To be honest I don't really have a favorite type of music. The Old Man thought music was a distraction from the Art. Most of what I know is anime theme songs, to be honest."
Kasumi laughed with a clear joyous sound which was different from her normal demure giggle. He smiled in response. He vowed to make her laugh like that again.
"Do you have any life goals, Kasumi?" he asked.
"At one point I thought about going into nursing, since I like helping people," she said, "but I've never gotten the opportunity to go to college."
"Why not?" he asked.
"My family needs the help," she said. "The others are really quite helpless in the kitchen and they're all so busy. . ."
Ranma noticed the faint trace of weariness in her eyes.
"What about you, Ranma?" she asked.
"I love the Art. I'm going to be the best!" he said.
"Are you going to teach then?" she asked.
"Huh," he said, "I haven't really thought about it."
"Do you want a family?" she asked.
"I guess," he said. "Not right away, but yeah."
"You'll need to have some sort of career to support your family. There isn't really any call for wandering martial artists anymore."
"Pop and I have done just fine as that," Ranma said.
"Do you really want to subject a son or daughter to the life you've led," she asked. "Some of your stories imply it isn't a very nice life."
Ranma was thoughtful. "Yeah, you're right. No way am I turning into my pop."
Kasumi smiled at him. "You have a few years to figure out what you want to do."
They talked for a while longer, before Ranma's "boy time" got low and they headed back. Before long they stood in front of the house.
Ranma saw a hint of pride in Kasumi's eyes as she looked at the house.
"I had a pleasant time, Ranma," Kasumi said.
"Me too," Ranma said. "It was nice to get to know you a little better, Kasumi."
They both entered the house. Nabiki quickly cornered Kasumi, while Naruto grabbed Ranma's hand with a smile and dragged him up to their room.
The next evening had Ranma waiting for Nabiki. Since tonight's date required money, he had raided his pop's money stash. He figured the Old Man owed him since the engagement was his idea anyway. He was dressed in a similar outfit to what he had worn the previous evening, but this one was decorated with phoenixes. It was also a gift from Jeiru.
Nabiki came down wearing shorts and a tank top. This was similar to her normal outfits, except that she was wearing makeup and a few items of jewelry.
Nabiki had a similar reaction to the Nekohanten that Kasumi had. "This is quite the show, Saotome," she said. Ranma had worked there earlier in the day. It was not easy to do, even with Ranma's natural athleticism.
"You can call me Ranma, Nabiki," he said. "Calling me by my family name makes me think you're talking to my pop, and I'd rather not be identified with him."
She smirked. "Fine, I can't say that I blame you."
"Besides," he said with a smirk, "calling you Tendou would be too confusing."
Ranma and Nabiki continued verbally fencing throughout dinner as small talk. Ranma admitted to himself that she had a sharp, predatory cunning to her that resonated with something within himself.
He also admitted that he would not be as adept with the verbal sparring if it were not for seal training with Naruto's parents. Seals were complicated and both Ranma and Naruto had had to sharpen their mental processes in order to make sense of them. Talks with Minato and Kushina had also interested Ranma in other things not strictly related to martial arts, such as physics. You could do martial arts without knowing any formal physics, but physics explained things that he had noticed. But to really do anything with physics, you needed math. He wondered why his pop had always downplayed academics, especially math.
After dinner, they walked to the dance club. As they walked, Ranma asked, "What do you want to do after High School?"
"I'd like to get into a good university," Nabiki said.
"I'm sensing a 'but' here," Ranma said.
Nabiki sighed. "Furinkan has a very lousy reputation. I'm probably going to be able to get into a top tier one and there's also the fact that we can't really afford to go to a private one."
"Yeah, I wondered about a High School without entrance exams and how good that would actually look," he said.
"Technically, Furinkan has them, they're just ridiculously easy to get waived," she said, "and most universities know that."
"What do you want to study?" he asked.
"Finance, or maybe business," she answered. "How about you?"
"Pop never let me think about what would be next," Ranma admitted. "He always talked like we'd be wandering martial artists forever. I think I'd like to settle down. Being a martial arts sensei seems like a no-brainer, but I need to think on it."
"You know," Nabiki said, "you're a little bit different than I thought at first. When we first met, you seemed like a dumb jock."
"I will admit that I'm pretty ignorant, but I'm not stupid," Ranma said. "The ignorance is not really by choice. Pop wants me ignorant for one or more of his schemes. If I were you and your sisters, I would make sure that if I do marry one of you, he can't steal your inheritance."
"We probably should make a pact between the four of us that we don't follow through with the marriage pact until we're 20," she said. "I think that getting married automatically emancipates you, but there might be a loophole. I'll look into it, but I think we should agree to not marry underage regardless."
Ranma nodded. "The Old Man is too anxious for this "joining of the schools" for there not to be some scheme."
"It may be as simple as him thinking you'll let him run the finances of the dojo," Nabiki suggested, "since he's tried to keep you stupid about math."
Ranma snorted. "He'd be in for a rude surprise, since I don't trust him at all to handle money. Do you know why your dad is so into it?"
Nabiki sighed. "I think he wants to see the School continue, but he doesn't think he can manage it himself anymore."
"So he wants to co-opt Pop's heir?" Ranma asked.
Nabiki nodded. "Yeah, Akane's really not happy about that. She's way into marital arts, but Dad hasn't trained her seriously for a while, if ever. She pictures herself as the heir to the School, but it looks like Dad has just discarded her out of hand."
"That stinks," he replied.
Nabiki grimaced. "It's way too common. There's a certain mindset that girls are only good for arranging alliances and not for actually inheriting."
"Pop certainly thinks that way," Ranma said. "He hasn't stopped harping on me since he got me cursed about how I'm weak now that I'm a girl most of the time. The fact that I can beat him as a girl is immaterial to him."
"What a moron," Nabiki said.
"No argument from me," Ranma said.
The club was full of teenagers. Ranma found that he liked dancing, even though this was his first time. He was a quick learner, since a lot of the moves were like a short segment of a kata. He and Nabiki danced with others besides each other. Ranma found that a few of the girls he danced with slipped him phone numbers, but he discarded them. He did not need any complications on top of the Tendou marriage agreement.
By the end of the date, he had used up most of the money that he had swiped from his pop. The date had been expensive, even with dinner provided for by the Amazons. Nabiki seemed to have an innate sense of how to get the most out of the date, between snacks and a "memento" or two. Regardless, he had had fun and he thought Nabiki had too.
"You're not so bad, Saotome," she said as they walked up to the Tendou home, "for a dumb jock."
"You're not so bad either, Tendou," he replied, "for a heartless mercenary."
They both laughed.
For the last date, Ranma wore an outfit with foxes embroidered on it. The outfit made him nervous, being a little too close for comfort, but it had been a gift from Jeiru, like the other two. They were his only "good" outfits. Akane was dressed like she usually was out of school in a simple blue sleeveless dress over a white blouse. It was actually pretty close to the school uniform.
Ranma had swiped more money from his father's stash to pay for the arcade. Luckily, it had a flat entrance fee, with unlimited plays once you got in.
Akane seemed to enjoy the dinner show put on by the Amazons, but she appeared to be out of sorts. Ranma left it alone while they were at the restaurant, but once they left he asked her, "Is something wrong? You don't seem your usual happy self."
Akane looked at him startled. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ranma. It's nothing against you—not really. It's just that the whole marriage arrangement makes me uneasy. It's like Dad doesn't trust me to carry on the Tendou School."
"I don't think it's personal, Akane," Ranma said. "I think he's just caught up in tradition."
"I know," Akane said. "It's still stupid. I could be just as good as you, if he trained me."
Ranma grimaced. "I don't know that you would want to go through what I have to be as good as I am."
Akane stared ahead pensively. "Maybe, but I could still be good enough."
Ranma nodded. "You have good instinct and strength. With some decent instruction, you could be quite good."
They walked in silence for a good bit, before Akane blurted, "This whole date makes me uncomfortable. You're one of my best girl friends. Going on a date with you seems perverted."
"You know I'm really a man, right?" Ranma said.
"I know it in my head, but I guess I block it off most of the time so that I don't have to think about the stupid engagement."
"Would you rather I changed so that we could make it a girls' night, instead?" he asked.
"Would you?" she said hopefully.
Ranma nodded and changed into his girl form with the age adjusted to what it was when they were at school.
"Thanks, Ranma," she said. "I know you'd rather be a guy, but it weirds me out."
After that the "date" went more smoothly as Akane cheered up. They spent most of their time at the playing fighting games with racing games thrown in once in a while for variety. They had fun discussing whether the moves the fighters in the games made would be possible in real life. Akane tended to be more skeptical than Ranma, but Ranma knew that some amazing things were possible with ki and that magic was real.
When they got near to the Tendou home, Akane said, "Can you change back so that our fathers don't know that we chickened out?"
Ranma nodded. "What about your sisters?" he asked.
She scowled. "They'll drag it out of me. They always seem to know when I'm hiding something."
He laughed. "Well, at least since you know they will, you won't stress over it as much."
When he got inside, Naruto grabbed him and pulled him up to their room again. Instead of asking him how it went, she said, "Head to bed. Mom wants to debrief you."
"Debrief me? What was this? A mission?"
"Wasn't it?" she returned.
Naruto quickly changed as he entered the mindscape. He bounced around as he waited for Ranma. Finally, Ranma appeared and changed. While he had been waiting for Ranma, his parents made their way over.
"Now that you've been out with all three sisters, what's the verdict?" Kushina asked.
Ranma sighed. "The verdict is that I'm more confused than ever. Nabiki managed to put herself in the running. Kasumi is more interesting than she appears on the surface. Akane, the one I identify with the most, would rather I just be a girl friend than a fiancé."
Naruto burst into laughter. "So what happened tonight?"
Ranma described the date.
Naruto shook his head. "I can't say that I blame her, really."
"Me either," Ranma admitted. "The ironic thing is that the easiest way to get what she wants is for her to marry me, but she seems to be against it out of pride. I feel kind of bad for her, if I marry one of her sisters since that means she won't inherit the dojo. It's kind of the same with Kasumi. She really loves the house and she's put so much into it. If I marry one of her sisters she gets turned out eventually. At least with Akane, I could hire her to work at the dojo. With Kasumi, it would be really insulting to hire her as a housekeeper."
"And Nabiki?" Naruto's mom asked.
"She doesn't strike me as the sentimental type. She might be upset that someone else inherited, just because of the monetary value, but not the property itself."
"If you had to rank them," Kushina asked, "how would they fall?"
Ranma sighed. "Kasumi, then Akane, then Nabiki, but I'm a long way from making a final choice."
"So, no change?" Naruto said.
"Nope, no change in preference after the dates," Ranma admitted, "but at least I think I know them better now."
