Chapter 21: The Rogue Doctor and the Firefly.
Mr. Tenoh sat in his office, looking over a bunch of official looking documents. Several were police reports, one was the Saotome clan roll and another was a summary he had had made up detailing what he could learn of the life of one Ranma Meiou. That last fact had been quite a surprise. Apparently, the boy had managed to get himself adopted into the Meiou clan without knowing it, as he thought he was still a Ronin.
The man frowned. He really didn't know what Setsuna was playing at, adopting the boy, but it was yet another indication in his favor. Legend in the business world had it that her predecessors had managed to predict almost every disaster or breakthrough, and even their most unpredictable and seemingly random actions eventually revealed themselves to have a legitimate and quite ingenious reason.
Even without this somewhat nebulous endorsement of the boy, Mr. Tenoh was inclined to like him. He had the tact of a rock, but was honest and honorable. Perhaps most importantly, he seemed to make Haruka happy. The man had to blush at that thought. Given what the boy's other form looked like, his daughter was probably very happy indeed. Ranma was perhaps the only person who could satisfy Haruka's needs AND was still acceptable in society.
Even so, He had wished to check into the boy's story, and that had been one of the reasons he'd left the Meiou home so quickly. The other was that his wife was getting a look in her eye that made him think she was getting ideas. Judging from the fact that she'd been talking to Nodoka-san, who he had learned was Ranma's mother, he had decided that he should get her out of there quickly.
Sighing as he decided to get back to work, the brown haired man riffled through the police reports.
A lot of them had the name Genma Saotome written in them, and a few had Ranma's own name. Some of the crimes were obviously committed by the boy, mostly minor food thefts, but those seemed to taper off as he'd gotten older. Some of the ones that were written under his name quite obviously couldn't have been caused by him, especially since one had involved running up a 30,000 Yen bar tab, when the boy had only been six years old.
What was worse, the boy apparently had over twelve engagements that he could find, all of which were arranged by Genma. Several of them were to people Mr. Tenoh knew, and therefore could probably be negated. He would have to do research on the others. Precisely why was he doing this? Admittedly, he would have been a lot happier if Haruka had never found interest in anyone and had kept to her racing. It was much safer, in his opinion.
Then again, she liked Ranma and the boy was, quite frankly, better than the alternatives. His wife had tried a few times to search for a husband for their daughter, and one of those boys still gave him nightmares. True, he was from a noble and old house, but he, and his father and sister, were all a bunch of lunatics. True, there had been a tragedy in the family, but it still didn't explain such utter madness.
He shuddered. Yes, far better Ranma than that. His decision re-affirmed, he reached for a phone and began dialing. After it stopped ringing and someone picked up, he spoke. "Hello, Kuonji-san?"
-CM-
Ranma walked along the street next to Haruka, in a thoughtful silence. It'd been over a day since his inadvertent proposal to Haruka, and though things were definitely different, he hadn't ended up being driven back into the Fiancee rat race his life had been in Nerima. He knew that there was little chance of that, but the fear was there. He'd never have thought that he would have submitted to an engagement willingly, but he had, and the world hadn't ended.
In fact, he and Haruka had gone out for dinner yesterday with the last of his pay from the metro center.
He frowned at that. His basic needs were taken care of by living at Setsuna's, even though he felt a little like he was freeloading back at the Tendos, but he didn't have much extra cash. Heck, he hadn't even given Haruka a ring. Well, perhaps that was more of a good thing. After all, she couldn't really wear the engagement ring while dressed as a guy without getting some odd looks and Ranma sucked at picking out jewelry anyways.
No, that wasn't what was bothering him. What was bothering him was the fact that strange things had started happening again, even if the last one hadn't been bad. Was his life going to start getting as strange as it had been in Nerima? Truthfully, for him, the weirdness of Nerima had been fun. The only problem had been the multiple engagements, and the fact that he'd been hurting people just by being there.
He was a martial artist, and needed challenges to survive. He'd figured that he could go on a training trip when he became restless, find a dojo where the master was good enough to fight against, or even have the occasional spar with Mousse, but it seemed that the chaotic nature of his life would not be denied and a week ago it had almost gotten Haruka killed. He didn't know why these thoughts had come to him now, though. Maybe it was because the proposal two days before had made him think of his and Haruka's relationship again.
"You're pretty quiet today," Haruka observed suddenly, trying to break the silence. "Are you alright?"
"Oh yeah, I'm fine," Ranma waved it off, shaking his head to dismiss his thoughts.
Haruka sighed as Ranma lapsed back into his former silent state after this statement. She knew there was something wrong, and wondered why he was brooding about it now. Nothing had happened yesterday to cause such a reaction and she sincerely hoped that it wasn't the events of the day before that disturbed him so much. She doubted that Ranma would tell her what was wrong if she asked him again, so about all she could do was try and distract him and cheer him up. Thinking of how to do that, she got an idea.
Ranma looked up, startled, as Haruka broke into a slow jog, gradually building up to a run. "Hey, what're ya doin?" he asked as he matched her pace.
"Outrunning you!" she retorted, casually, as she abruptly sped up.
"No ya ain't!" he shot back, getting into the competition.
Unlike in her fighting, Haruka actually was on par with Ranma when it came to sprinting speed. Running seemed to be one of her talents and she had an almost scary ability to skirt obstacles tightly in order to cut corners. His worries about the chaos of his former life began to fade as he enjoyed the exhilaration of trying to chase down Haruka, and they were almost completely gone by the time he got to the school.
-CM-
Later that day, Ranma sat in a classroom staring at a chalkboard. Since this was not Furinkan and he wasn't particularly tired, he did his best not to fall asleep. He'd been told that this was a basic wood shop class, though they had spent most of this class in a classroom next to the shop.
Since all the school's shops were near the ground level, where the younger children were usually placed, the room he was in was actually a borrowed Junior high homeroom with brightly colored posters on the walls.
Casually, he glanced out one of the windows that showed the corridor outside, shuddering at a picture of a cat that was taped there. What little kids saw in those monsters he didn't know. His eyes widened as he saw what looked like a brown haired man in glasses and a lab coat skipping down the hall. Wait, he recognized that man.
"Sir?" he asked, drawing the teacher's attention.
"Yes, Mr. Meiou?" the teacher asked, causing Ranma to wince. He'd forgotten to ask Setsuna why she'd given her last name on his application form before, but this reminded him.
"I need to leave for a few minutes to," he trailed off, trying to think up an excuse. "do something." He finally said, knowing that he couldn't think of a lie in this short a time.
The teacher sighed. "Well, go and do 'something' then," he said, gesturing towards the door.
Ranma nodded, and quickly ran from the room. Proceeding in the direction where Tofu had run off, he saw several children looking on in astonishment and giggling. He thought that was a sign that he was probably close.
Rounding a corner, the young martial artist saw the form of the skipping doctor near the end of the hallway. Sprinting down, making sure to avoid the students in the way, he caught up and grabbed Tofu by the shoulder.
"Oh, Ryoga! How nice to see you here!" Tofu said, cheerfully, as he reached to shake Ranma's hand.
Ranma jerked his hand away. The last time he'd let a Kasumified Tofu shake his hand, he hadn't been able to feel it for a week. The man was pretty far gone, as if he'd been in the same room with the oldest Tendo for a few minutes before skipping out. That was impossible, though. Wasn't Kasumi back in Nerima? Was it possible that there was another girl that could cause the same reaction in the doctor?
"What's the matter, Ryoga?" Tofu asked, reaching for Ranma's arm. Sighing, the pigtailed martial artist decided to use the method he'd found to snap Tofu out of his daze, a few weeks before he'd left Nerima. Grabbing the older man's arm, he threw him over his shoulder and landed him on his back with a loud thump.
"Hey, what are you doing?" someone, one of the Jr. high school teachers, yelled as she marched up to Ranma. "How could you do that?"
Fortunately, Tofu was recovering, and standing from his position flat on the floor. "Sarah, I'm all right, and I actually thank Ranma here for bringing me back to my senses," he said, as he dusted his white coat off.
"You thank him for throwing you onto your back?" the teacher asked, blinking. At Tofu's nod, she shook her head slowly and walked down the hall.
As Tofu straightened himself out, Ranma looked him over. He wasn't wearing his usual brown gi, but a blue dress shirt and black pants with a lab coat over them. On the right side of the coat, he wore a nametag that identified him as faculty. His glasses were half off his face, but not broken.
"Sorry if I threw ya too hard, doc," Ranma said, sheepishly.
"It's all right, Ranma," Tofu said, starting to walk towards a set of stairs. He sighed.
"So what happened, there another girl who's like Kasumi here?" Ranma asked, shaking the Doctor's shoulder as his glasses began to fog up again.
Tofu sighed. "Actually, it is Kasumi," he said..
"Kasumi, here?" Ranma responded, surprised. "How?"
"Apparently she's taking the school's medical courses," Tofu explained, despondently.
Ranma knew the reason for this. The doctor had left Nerima a few months after he'd come, specifically because of Kasumi. While he loved her, and his reaction to her proved it, that reaction was also causing him no end of trouble. Even in Nerima, a doctor who caused his patients pain wasn't something to be tolerated and he'd been losing patients for years. It'd finally gotten to the point that he couldn't keep his business open and he'd left to found a new practice elsewhere. Evidently, Kasumi had accidentally found him.
"Well, class is almost over. You've been dancin around for a while. Kasumi probably won't be in your classroom now," Ranma offered, lamely.
"But what if I meet her in the hallway?" Tofu asked, looking thoroughly miserable.
"Look, I got a break after this class, so I guess I could go with ya and make sure ya don't run into her," Ranma responded, feeling the absurdity of the situation. Here he was, offering to guard a guy from the girl he loved, not to mention a girl who would never dream of hurting anyone. Unfortunately, for Tofu, it was a fact of life.
-CM-
About five minutes later, and ten floors up, Ranma opened the door to Dr. Tofu's classroom, seeing that the teacher's desk had been overturned. Fortunately it seemed that all the students had left, including Kasumi. Tofu sighed as he bent down and started picking up the papers from the floor. Ranma helped out by flipping the desk back to its former position.
Tofu looked down at the papers, one of which was a list of names, obviously the class attendance list. "What am I going to do?" he muttered.
"Ya could ask for another teacher to take yer class," Ranma suggested, uncertainly.
Tofu shook his head. "None of the other doctors here use alternative medicine," he growled, as he shuffled the papers and placed them back on the desk. "And now I'm going to lose another job because I can't control myself around Kasumi." His glasses began to fog up once again and Ranma reached out again to shake him out of it. "I can barely say her name!" he cried, slumping down into his chair.
"Well," Ranma said, uncomfortably. Tofu had helped him out by treating his injuries while he was in Nerima, and he felt uncomfortable seeing him so frustrated and upset now. "I wish I could help, but I got no idea of anything ta do."
"It's all right," Tofu said, shaking his head and raising one hand to his temple. "I'll talk to Suichi and see if I can get my classes switched."
"Suichi?" Ranma asked, uncomprehending.
"Professor Tomoe. He's the one who founded the school. I knew him in medical school… though He's been acting a little strange lately," Tofu said, muttering the last part just loudly enough for Ranma to hear it. "Now you should probably get going to lunch, considering the amount of food you usually need to eat," he continued, attempting a grin.
"Yeah, I guess," Ranma said, looking up at the clock. It was half way through his lunch hour. Shrugging, he left the room, only looking back for a moment, to see that Tofu was continuing the rather large task of cleaning up his room after his Kasumi induced rampage.
-CM-
Ranma muttered curses as she walked down the hallway to the room where her class had been. She'd accidentally run into a cleaning lady's bucket in the middle of the floor. She still didn't know how she ended up running into things like that, given her martial arts honed reflexes, but she'd given up on figuring it out soon after getting the curse.
Entering the room, she saw that it's normal students had reclaimed it, and it was full of little kids. Fortunately, her pack was still leaning against her desk and looked to be untouched. Picking it up, she slung it over her shoulder. It was at about this point that she noticed the disturbance on the other side of the room. There was a black haired girl being backed against a desk by a circle of larger boys.
She quickly moved towards the group, and caught a bit of their conversation.
"That was for Asuka's arm!" one of the boys said, having apparently just done something to the girl.
"B… But all I did was try to help!" she said, sounding scared.
"No you weren't! You cut her arm, and then tried that glowing hand thing on it!" the boy objected, approaching the girl again.
"But I didn't cut it!" she objected, desperately. "At least… I don't remember…"
"You don't remember? Well too bad!" the boy yelled, whipping out a leg to kick the girl. Ranma immediately moved, catching the foot in one hand.
"Hey, what'cha doin gangin up on a girl like that?" she asked, glaring around at the boys.
"But she…" The leader stuttered, his one foot still held in mid-air.
"I don't really care what she did, at least ya coulda faced her without yer friends." Ranma said, before dropping the leg. "You okay?" she continued, turning to the girl.
"Yes, I'm fine." The girl said, quietly. Ranma noticed that her eyes were a strange, but still nice looking light purple color. For a second, she thought she saw something in them, but it vanished when she blinked. The girl was quite obviously holding an arm over her front.
"Did they already hit you?" Ranma pressed, putting a hand over the arm that was resting across the girl's stomach. "C'mon, I'll take ya to the nurse's office."
"Thank you," the girl murmured, following Ranma as she walked out of the room.
In the hallway, the girl's teacher approached, apparently coming from her lunch break. "Excuse me, where are you taking Hotaru?" she asked, blocking Ranma's way.
"I'm just takin her down to the nurse's office." Ranma responded, pulling her empty wallet out of her pocket and shifting through it to find her girl form's ID card. "Some of the kids were givin her a hard time, and I think she's hurt."
The teacher frowned, and Ranma heard her mumble "Not again," under her breath. Then, she looked over the ID card. "All right then, Ranko-san. Thank you for helping Hotaru."
"No problem," Ranma responded, before leading the quiet girl down the hall.
"Why did you help me?" Hotaru asked, as the two were nearing the nurse's office.
"Huh?" Ranma asked, confused.
"I asked why you helped me," the girl repeated. "Most people don't like me."
Ranma shrugged. "I don't see why anyone wouldn't like ya, you seem like a pretty nice kid," she said, not noticing that the girl was blushing. "Anyways, havin five people against one ain't a fair fight, so I really couldn't just let 'em beat you up. Well, I probably couldn't have let it happen if it'd just been that guy, but…" she admitted, before the two entered the nurse's office.
The on-duty nurse seemed to recognize Hotaru, as when she saw her she frowned. "Oh, Hotaru-san. What happened this time?" she asked, concerned.
"I think someone kicked her in the gut," Ranma responded, letting go of the girl's hand.
The nurse knelt down and felt the young girl's stomach, causing a small wince. Her frown became deeper, but she stood up and looked back to Ranma anyways. "Thank you for bringing Hotaru in. I can take care of her now."
"All right, see ya Hotaru-chan," Ranma said, leaving the room.
"Goodbye Ranko-san," Hotaru said, waving. As the nurse guided her to a bed, she thought of the redhead she'd just met. She was such a nice person. She couldn't help but think, however, that she would change her opinion of Hotaru if she ever found out how much of a freak she was.
END.
Beta-read by Tribun.