Hell Hath No Fury
A Ranma/Sailormoon Crossover
By: Bob Lobster
Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma. I don't own Sailormoon. Don't you have
someone with money to bug?
Chapter 2: Memories and Revelations
Genma Saotome was scared. Unlike his son, Genma had no trouble
admitting this.....to himself at least. He'd never even consider
admitting any fear to the Boy, but he knew when he was scared. Very
few people could truly scare him either. The Master was one of them,
as was The Old Ghoul, as his son called her. His wife's katana had the
ability to scare him quite easily actually, but that was more the idea
of what she carried it around for. The girl in front of him right now
scared him. She scared him badly. He wouldn't admit that one to
anyone, he even had trouble admitting it to himself, but he knew it
was true. Just about everything about her scared him. Her speed,
almost on par with his son, scared him. Her strength, which last time
they met was better than Ranma's, scared him. Her strange powers
terrified him. Most of all though, that look she was giving him, the
one that said, "I've found you and you are so dead", that look scared
him like no other. So it was no particular surprise that rather than
face her down, Genma did what he does best.
"Run for it Tendo!" Genma ran. Genma ran hard and fast, as fast as
his legs would take him, straight back the way he'd come from and out
of the park entrance. Not even once did he look back to see if his
friend was following him, after all, she had no reason to attack Soun,
it was only Genma she seemed hell-bent on killing. If only his good
for nothing son were here to fight her off, like he always did before.
Hell, the Boy even seemed to enjoy it, wandering around with that
goofy grin on his face after every encounter of theirs.
Diving around the corner the first thing Genma did was call upon
the Umi-Sen-Ken. Sure, he had sealed the techniques, but that was
really only to keep the more dangerous aspects of the Forbidden
Techniques for being used. A simple invisibility technique wasn't
dangerous in the least, so he saw no real reason not to use it.
Besides, if it got him away from that damned Sailor V, than it was
completely worth the effort.
After making sure the cloaking technique was in place Genma was
about to peek into the park to make sure that Tendo had gotten away
alright when the Sailor V tore out of the entrance, stopping no more
that ten feet away from him. Genma held his breath and started tip-
toeing away from her, keeping as silent as possible in order to avoid
detection. It wasn't until he saw her scream in frustration and walk
back into the park that he let out a sigh of relief and ran down the
street, jumping to the nearest roof top in order to make it home
quicker. He didn't drop the technique until he was safely across the
boarder into the Nerima ward.
"Soun, old friend, I sure hope you made it out alright." He said
to himself as he headed home, suddenly no longer in the mood for the
bar.
*********************************************************
Usagi had just finished off the enemy and was about to suggest
they head back to class when suddenly she heard Minako shout. Quickly
scanning around to see what had caused her to scream like that Usagi
silently prayed to her mother that it wasn't another enemy. She was
still tired from dealing with the last one after all. She was
understandably surprised then, when rather than a big, stupid looking
monster(she just couldn't think of those things as scary, they were
far too ridiculous) she saw a big, stupid looking man. The fact that
he looked absolutely terrified wouldn't have surprised her if it
weren't for the fact that she had already beaten the monster. What
else was there to be scared of? That question was answered quite
quickly when he shouted out for his friend, some tall older guy with
long hair and a mustache *I think he called him Tendo.*, to run for
it. He then turned around and ran from the park as fast as he could,
with Minako right on his tail and his friend staring stupidly at his
back.
Sweatdropping, Usagi glanced over at her friends only to see them
staring at the retreating Venus just as confusedly as the mustached
man. Shaking her head to remove the quickly forming headache, she
walked rapidly over to the remaining man, who still had a wide-eyed
expression, and tried to get some answers from him.
"Umm, excuse me?" Usagi began. Then tried again as that seemed to
get no effect. It actually wasn't until the third, and subsequently
loudest "excuse me" that he began to snap out of his trance. At that
point a loud shriek came from just outside the park and they all
looked to the entrance just in time to see Sailor Venus running back
in, looking madder than Rei had been when Usagi accidentally tore one
of her manga, and heading straight for the man she had been attempting
to speak with.
When she reached the mustached man, she didn't stop her forward
motion but rather grabbed him by the front of his brown dogi and
hauled him off of his feet. This in itself was quite an impressive
site, considering he was about a foot taller than she was, and it
managed to completely snap him out of his state of confusion.
*********************************************************
Minako was not having a good day. First she dreamed of Him, making
certain that she got very little sleep all night. Than, just when she
was about to fall into a nice, comfortable nap some stupid daemon came
along and she had to waste her entire lunch hour fighting the damned
thing. To top it all off, she spotted that bastard Genma and was about
to reign some divine retribution down upon him, and that fat coward
managed to escape from her. So utterly pissed off was she that she
barely noticed the fear and confusion in the other man's eyes as she
lifted him off the ground by his collar. All she knew for sure was
that Genma had called this man by name, so he must know something
about him. If he knew about Genma then chances were he might know
about his son as well. And if he knew where they happen to live then
maybe she could finally have her revenge. Staring him straight in the
eyes, Minako gave him her best glare, the one she usually saved for
Him, and began with a simple question.
"Are you going to answer all my questions promptly, or do I have
to kill you, slowly and painfully?" At least it was a simple question
for Soun to answer anyway. His eyes widening in fear, not only at the
threat but that fact that she was holding him well off of his feet.
Not trusting his voice, reluctant as he was to have his voice crack
from fear of a child, he just nodded quickly instead. The fierce look
in her eyes told him that she was definitely capable of following
through with her threat, and he silently wondered what his friend had
done to her to make one of the cities premiere heroes that angry at
him.
"Good boy." Minako said easily. Her glare eased off some and Soun
slumped slightly in relief, seeing that she no longer seemed quite so
intent on eviscerating him. In fact, now that he had agreed to answer
her questions, she seemed downright pleased with herself. This turn of
events allowed Soun to regain some small amount of his confidence,
though he was still nervous in front of someone his friend, and
admittedly better in the Art, would run from in terror.
"That......man, that just ran from here, Genma was his name, but
I'm a little curious as to his clan name. You know it, correct?" Once
more Soun nodded, a little happier to see her questioning didn't seem
to involve torture in any way. When he remained silent however,
Venus's face began dropping into a frown once more, before she finally
lost her patience with him completely. "Well, what the hell is it?"
"Sa-Saotome." Soun stuttered out, embarrassed that his voice
cracked as it did, but unable to maintain the level tone he would
prefer. He noticed that her ire washed out quite a bit at his answer,
seeming mollified at getting real answers. Soun just hoped to himself
that she didn't ask anything that he may not know the answer to.
*********************************************************
Ami was getting rather concerned for her friend. It was true that
Minako had been acting different all day. She had seemed tired and
moody, but never did Ami believe that Minako would react to anyone the
way she had to the man in the dirty white dogi. Ami had not believed
it possible for Minako to act that act that way towards anyone who
wasn't a marauding, energy-draining monster or some equally dangerous
fiend. It made her wonder just what the large man had done to deserve
such rage directed at him from her normally calm, if somewhat flighty
friend. And then to have her terrorizing the man's friend, as was
evident by the look on his face, no matter how much he attempted to
hide it. All in all, the shock left her in such a frame of mind that
she actually missed some of the conversation happening. She brought
herself back to reality in time to hear her friend muttering the man's
name to herself(She'd have to remember to research this "Genma
Saotome" herself later to see what she could find out about him)
before turning back to the man to continue her "interrogation".
"Genma Saotome." Minako strung the word out, as if tasting it to
see if it was right, yet still managed to make it sound as if it were
the foulest insult imaginable. "This Genma Saotome, he has a son, a
son about sixteen years old with rather long black hair, pulled back
into a pony-tail. You know of him, correct?"
By now, the lack of any more hostility on Venus's part had given
Soun a good deal of his courage back and allowed him to look at the
scene before him in his usual manner, skewed perceptions and all. At
this point several things ran through his mind as it tried valiantly
to come to some sort of logical reason he was being hoisted off of his
feet by one of the city's premier defenders. The first thought was
that Genma had upset the girl in some way; not surprising really,
Genma upset a lot of people, it was one of the few talents he had
completely passed on to his son. The second was that Genma ran in fear
quite quickly from said girl, something that usually occurred only
when he was faced with a situation of his own making in which he had
made certain obligations he had no intention of living up to. The
third observation he made, and the one that brought it all together,
was that the girl seemed rather interested in Genma's son. All these
thought led to a single conclusion which, in his twisted way of
thinking, made perfect sense and led him to burst out with one of his
usual lines.
"You can't have Ranma," He shouted at her so suddenly that
Minako's grip on him almost faltered. "He will marry my Akane!"
"Ranma...........So, his name is Ranma" This was not quite the
results he had expected when he had formulated the argument in his
mind. She wasn't reacting in any way as he had planned for. Don't
Ranma's fiancees normally argue and yell and hit people when someone
contested their right to marry Ranma. While he could have done without
the hitting part, the rest would have at least been somewhat
reassuring in that he'd know he was on the right track with his
assumptions, now he wasn't quite so sure. She didn't even seem to
notice anything after he had stated the boy's name, and the way she
had repeated it sent shivers down his spine. Her voice had been so
cold, not dead but like a cold fire burning in hatred. Again he
wondered what had happened to cause animosity such as this.
Again Ami worried for her friend. She had never heard a tone like
that come from the blonde's mouth. Normally she was very emotional
about all subjects, but the way she said the boy's name, it sent
chills up her back and made her very sorry for this "Ranma" whenever
Minako caught up with him. The girl in question seemed to shake
herself out of the daze she had entered upon hearing her target's name
and focussed back upon the man in front of(and slightly above) her.
"This.......Ranma, would you happen to know where he lives?"
Minako asked in a sweet tone, the one that all daughters know turns
their fathers to mush. Soun was a bit sentimental for a moment as the
look brought back memories of when his daughters had used such looks
on his. These days Kasumi never really asked for anything, Akane just
got angry if he didn't do something and Nabiki.......well, you just
didn't cross Nabiki. For a moment the sheer cuteness of the look
almost got to him faster than the fear he held for her had. His
family always came first however and his protectiveness of his family
was enough to shake him from his stupor.
"I'm sorry, young lady, but I can't tell you that." Soun stated
with a firmness that surprised most of the Senshi. They had watched
the man turn into a quivering mass, willing to answer any question
with just a look from Venus, and now the man had a look of fierce
determination that would not be denied. Minako started a bit at the
sudden change in the man's attitude, but quickly regained her
composure and brought her glare to bare on the man once more. He
gulped a bit under the look but held his ground, something difficult
to do in his position six inches above it. Finally Venus relented
slightly, impressed despite herself that Soun had stood up to her thus
when his friend would have been groveling at this point(and had
several times in the past before He.......Ranma bailed him out.). In
respect for his new found courage, she lowered him back down so that
his feet once more rested completely on the ground, but didn't release
her hold on his dogi top.
"Why, exactly, can't you tell me where he lives?" She asked in her
sweet voice once more, though it was strained slightly by the
frustration of being so close to her target, yet being held up by this
man's refusal to provide a location. She was sure that she could find
Ranma's location on her own(with a little help from Ami anyway) now
that she had a full name for him, but that would take time and having
him so close had made her somewhat impatient to finish what they had
begun so long ago.
"I'm sorry, but Ranma is staying with me at the moment, and I
can't allow any more people to start barging in, looking for revenge
against him." Soun said, proud of himself for sticking up for his
family and putting his foot down to someone who frightened him so
much. It wasn't easy to admit that he was afraid of a girl who was
only the age of his youngest daughter, but the level of power he could
sense from her and the girls with her was rather significant. Even to
his admittedly weakened senses(lack of recent training tends to do
that) they glowed like virtual bonfires, putting even heavy hitters
like Ranma to shame in shear power. However, he knew that his family
couldn't afford any more people tearing their home apart, so he did
what he had to do. "We have enough people disturbing the peace of our
home as it is. If you wish to challenge Ranma, please do it elsewhere
besides my house."
Minako looked at him with a bit of shock, actually releasing her
hold on him. Not at the thought of there being so many people out to
get Ranma, someone as mean-spirited as he was would attract plenty of
people carrying grudges, no she was shocked that someone who could act
so forceful and seem so honourable could have a place for scoundrels
such as Ranma and his pig of a father. He seemed sincere in not
minding her attacking Ranma though, so she respected his wishes and
didn't press further for information of Soun's home. Instead she
turned her attention back to how she could find her wayward target.
Soun was happy enough to tell her that Ranma attended Furinkan High
School(he was feeling a lot better about the girl now that she wasn't
choking him for not answering) and wish her luck in her pursuit of
him, so long as she was only looking to challenge him. Seeing that she
no longer seemed intent on him, Soun decided that that was his time to
make a discreet exit, turning and hastily, though not quickly enough
to seem like he was fleeing, heading toward the exit. As soon as he
rounded the exited the park gate and rounded the corner, he allowed
himself to fall to his knees and do what his pride, meager as it was,
had refused to let him do in front of the Senshi: he wept like a
little girl.
Minako let him go, having already obtained all the information she
needed from him, and was already lost in thoughts of revenge on a
certain pony-tailed boy. Images of her standing over him while he
begged her for mercy flashed through her head and she began laughing
maniacally to herself. Behind her, the rest of the Senshi watched
uncomfortably as one of their number appeared to fall into madness and
wondered what had just occurred. Well, they stood there until Ami
noticed that they only had five minutes to get back to class, at which
point they were forced to shake Minako out of her rather demented day
dreams (Makoto was elected to approach her as they were all still
slightly freaked out by her behaviour). As they ran back towards to
school, Rei breaking off part way, as her school was in another
direction, Makoto finally decided to break the ice and ask the
question on all of their minds.
"What the hell was that all about, Mina?" Makoto all but shouted
as she raced beside Minako towards the school gates. She really didn't
like not knowing what was going on, especially when her friends were
involved. Makoto had grown up alone, her parents having died when she
was very young, and as such she valued her friends very highly. She
was thus very protective of them. Right now, something was seriously
wrong with Minako, that much was easy to determine from her reaction
to the first man and her subsequent treatment of the other, and she
hated not knowing the cause. So, if she was a little short with
Minako, that was just her worry and frustration coming to the surface.
"Huh?" Minako elegantly replied. She then noticed that her three
friends were staring at her rather hard and realized that they were
probably wondering about her behaviour. She had to admit that Ranma
and his father seemed to bring out the worst in her, though she
attributed this to them both being low-lives that the world would be
better off without. Looking around at her friends, she really didn't
want to have this conversation right now so, with a heavy sigh, she
promised that she would tell them all about it after school, on their
way to Nerima. This caught them all by surprise, but they let it go
seeing as she had promised to fill them in. They would just have to
wait a little while.
Makoto hated waiting. It was going to be a long day.
*********************************************************
*It's been a long day. * Was the thought running through Ranma's
head as the bell rang signaling the end of school for another
afternoon. He was truly looking forward to getting out of class and
away from some of the people in his life, particularly Akane and
Nabiki. Nabiki hadn't been so bad, since she had a different classroom
than Ranma, but he knew that would change as soon as she was able to
corner him. He had only barely escaped her at lunch. Akane on the
other hand sat in the desk right next to his and had been insufferable
all day. Not only was she still angry at him for putting down her
idols, the Sailor Senshi, she was also upset that he seemed to have a
relationship of some sort with yet another girl. All in all, it led to
a day of her either glaring at him hatefully or ignoring him all
together and he wasn't looking forward to whatever conversation they
would have when she finally managed to get ahold of him for a moment.
Quickly getting up from his desk, Ranma headed for the window
(Akane being between him and the door) and leapt for it, hoping he'd
be able to lose any pursuers that way. Just as he believed he was in
luck, however, he landed and, turning to face the gate for a quick
getaway, had to stop short to avoid running Nabiki over. Sighing to
himself, he decided there was no point in avoiding the conversation
any more and got to the point quickly.
"Alright Nabiki, whada ya wanna know?" He asked, knowing that
attempting to match wits with Nabiki would be futile. He only hoped he
could convince her to leave Akane out of their little soiree since he
really didn't feel like dealing with any strange conclusions she could
draw right now.
"You've been avoiding me all afternoon, Ranma, I should be upset
over that. However, as you seem to have finally come to your senses,
and I can tell that this is going to be an interesting story, I'll let
you get away with it this time." Nabiki smirked at his look of relief.
Knowing that Big, Bad, All-Powerful Ranma worried about her reactions
to things always gave her a rather substantial ego boast and this time
was no different. However she put off thoughts like those for the more
immediate concern of getting then away from her volatile little sister
so that she could get the whole story out of him. "Well, we'd better
hurry if we want to get out of here before Akane arrives. I don't know
about you, but I'm pretty sure that you won't have much time to talk
if she's around."
Ranma smiled a bit, realizing that Nabiki wanted to talk to him
alone, rather than forcing him to deal with Akane, and silently
thanked her for the reprieve she was offering. Even if it meant
telling her what was going on, at least he didn't have to deal with
any jealous fiancees.
"Alright, where to then?" He asked, wondering where they could
have this conversation in peace.
"I'm feeling a bit hungry, how about that new Indian restaurant in
town? Your treat of course."
"Of course." Ranma drooled out, not really having expected
anything else, despite her vastly superior funds. They turned and
quickly exited the school grounds then, making it around the corner
just as Akane burst out of the front doors and consequently managing
to lose her as she incorrectly guessed their destination to be the
Dojo.
*********************************************************
Four girls gathered around their friend as she began to head in
the direction of the bus to Nerima. They had waited the entire
afternoon, some more patiently then others, for an explanation and
were eager to hear what Minako had to say. They held their collective
tongues however, as she seemed to be deep in thought, and waited for
her to begin. It was, afterall, Minako's story and they couldn't
verywell force it out of her. No matter how much Makoto wanted to.
After a few minutes of walking in silence, meeting up with Rei
shortly, Makoto finally reached the end of her patience. Waiting
through class was unavoidable, but now, with Minako right there, she
really wanted to know what was going on. From the way she had reacted
to the man in the park, Makoto half expected this to be some sort of
enemy that Minako had met during her Sailor V days that was coming
back to haunt her now and if it was she wanted to be ready for it.
Sailor Senshi stuck together afterall. Before she had a chance to
voice her thoughts, however, Rei managed to beat her to the punch.
"So," Rei began, trying to keep her impatience from showing up in
her voice. This looked something that really bothered Minako and she
wanted to know what it was so that she could help. "Are you gonna tell
us what's going on, or what?"
Makoto sighed to herself as Rei's futile attempt to control her
temper failed due to her rather limited patience. Though Makoto was
sure she was trying to ask Minako in a kind and understanding voice,
Rei managed to make the question into a demand for answers none the
less. At least, if nothing else, it did seem to get Minako's attention
away from whatever internal brooding that she was experiencing.
Minako looked around at her friends as they reached the bus stop
and awaited its arrival. Looking around to make sure that they were
alone Minako sighed before glancing at her friends once more and
beginning her tale.
"I guess you all want to know about what happened today. I
probably freaked some of you out a bit." At several vigorously nodding
heads, most noticeably that of Usagi, Minako chuckled lightly before
continuing. "It all comes down to something that happened when I lived
in England, while I was still Sailor V. I'd only been at it for about
a month when I first met Him."
The rest of the Senshi could almost feel the capitol letter at the
start of 'Him' and wondered what that meant. The way Minako said the
word, you could practically feel the hatred and resentment in the
word, but at the same time a certain amount of respect had to be
present in order for her to speak of this person with the sort of
reverence implied by the use of such a formal 'Him', even if it was
only the grudging respect awarded to a particularly strong opponent.
Most of them thought that this 'Him' was probably the man who had
originally set off Minako's wraith, this Genma fellow, although at
least Ami thought back to the way all of Minako's questions seemed
rather to revolve around the man's son, rather than the man himself.
"He was around my age and seemed to be staying in the London
area." Minako continued, but was quickly interrupted by Makoto.
"Was he cute?" She asked. Now Makoto knew that her friend
obviously didn't like whoever this boy way, but she figured that it
might help lighten the mood a bit if they discussed to boy's looks a
bit. Then perhaps Minako would be a bit less moody for the rest of the
story. Discussing cute guys was, afterall, one of Minako's favorite
hobbies.
If anything, however, her mood seemed to darken a bit as she got a
far away look in her eyes. "Oh yeah, he was cute alright. Long black
hair, deep blues eyes, a great build and enough grace to make a dancer
cry," Now she had all the girls' deepest attention. Afterall, Minako
had just described a guy that would normally have her head in the
clouds and she seemed to be projecting even more malice instead. "But
he was also rude, mean-spirited, and cruel-hearted. He made a game of
making my life miserable at every turn."
"Surely it couldn't been that bad, Minako-chan?" Ami asked
hesitantly. She knew that her friend had a tendency to be overly
dramatic, but not usually in such a dark, spiteful way. She tended to
be more high-spirited and flighty than that.
"You have no idea." Minako answered. "Let me tell you about the
first time I met Him. It was late and I was just finishing my rounds
are Sailor V when I saw someone sneaking out the window of a local
church....."
*********************************************************
"Alright Ranma, start spillin' and leave nothing out." Nabiki
requested in a voice that assured Ranma that it wasn't a request. They
were sitting in a small booth in a fairly well decorated restaurant
whose decor obviously was meant to convey the message that you were in
India and surprisingly conveyed it rather well. The waiter had just
left with their orders, which, Ranma was thankful, were less costly
then he believed they would be. It seemed Nabiki did have some
appreciation for his financial situation afterall. Well, either that
or she knew that he'd just have to borrow money from her to pay if
they ordered anything more expensive. Reflecting, Ranma decided that
the later was far more likely than the former seeing as, as much as
Nabiki was not the money-grubbing mercenary that most made her out to
be, she was still pretty quick to spend other people's money if they
offered.
"Well," Ranma began, figuring it would be better to just get to
the point since not only would Nabiki get the whole story from him one
way or another, he really felt he had nothing to hide. Afterall, he
was only talking about a friend of his from when he was younger. "What
exactly would you like to know?"
"I'd say that's fairly obvious, Ranma-kun." Nabiki said with a
smirk. "But we'll start with the basics, shall we. Do you actually
know Sailor V personally? Not just seen her on TV, or watched one of
her fights, but actually know her to the point where she would
recognize you."
"Of course I know her, Nabiki." Ranma replied, somewhat offended
that Nabiki seemed to put him in the 'obsessive fan-boy' category.
"You should know me well enough to know that I don't give people nick-
names often. The only ones I have are friends from when I was younger:
U-chan, V-chan, and Ka-chan."
"How very original, Ranma-kun." Responded Nabiki drolly, before
she got a slightly confused look on her face. "Wait, Ka-chan? Then
again, nevermind. One problem at a time." Ranma shrugged slightly at
this and waited for Nabiki to continue. "Alright then, how did you
meet?"
"That's kind of a long story, but I guess I'll start at the
beginning. Pop and I had traveled to England in order to train with an
old master Pop had before he trained under Happosai."
"You went all the way to England to train under someone?" Nabiki
interrupted confusedly. She had always been under the impression that
China was as far as the two had ever gone.
"Myazaki-Sensei made a really big impression on Pop and he really
wanted me to learn under him as well. I guess when Pop learned from
him he lived in Osaka, but he had moved since. It was one of the few
times Pop actually sprung for plane tickets somewhere. I guess the
idea of walking to England appealed to him about as much as it did
me." Ranma stopped for a moment as the waiter brought their drinks.
Thanking him and then taking a sip, Ranma waited until he had left
again before continuing his story. "Anyway, so we were in London to
see Myazaki-Sensei, but we arrived kinda late the first night and
decided to camp out in a local park. While I was setting up the camp,
Pop said he was going to pick up supplies. Frankly that should have
tipped me off a bit since I knew we had everything we'd need for a
while, but it was late and it took me a bit longer than usual to
become suspicious of where he was. The first places I checked, of
course were the places he had paid closer attention to on our way in
since he always does that to look for possible hits."
"Wait, hits? I know your dad's a bit of a con man, but you make
him sound like a professional thief or something. He wasn't really
that bad, was he?" By now, Nabiki was starting to wonder if she was
really so off about Genma. She had always known he was a degenerate,
but she'd never believed he was a real thief. Ranma's laugh brought
her back from her contemplation.
"Are you kidding, Nabiki? How did you think he kept us supplied
all those years? Do you really think he would have stopped my training
long enough to get a job? I never liked how he did things, but I don't
really hold it against him. He was just keeping us fed afterall."
Ranma stated before chuckling a bit and continuing. "And he was a hell
of a thief. He could steal the cash out of a man's hand without him
noticing if he wanted. Unfortunately he'd usually do something stupid,
or someone would get lucky and see him and we'd have to move.
"Well, it turned out someone got lucky a lot earlier than usual
and it wasn't someone he would have expected. He had just finished
robbing a local church when..."
"A church?!" Nabiki practically screamed out the word, though she
was actually more surprised at Ranma's casual attitude towards Genma's
actions than the actions themselves.
"Yeah, respect for religion was never a big thing for Pop. You get
used to it after a while. This time, when he was just climbing out the
window into an alley he ran into Sailor V. I guess he didn't take her
seriously, because she managed to catch him off guard with one of her
magic blasts and take him down. That's how I found them, so I, of
course, jumped to his rescue."
"You attacked a *girl* to save your father?" Nabiki looked
thunderstruck at this one. Not only did it blow the whole 'Ranma never
fights girls' thing out of the water, he also did it to help his dad,
someone he barely respects. She was going to need to totally rethink
her opinion of Ranma after this.
Ranma didn't even think before answering. "Well, yeah, did you
think I was gonna let my only way home get chucked in jail? Besides,
why would I want to give up prime gloating material like that?" Ranma
smirked a bit and Nabiki chuckled at the thought of Genma getting beat
up by a tiny slip of a girl. "Anyway, I jumped in to rescue his fat
ass, and got in a fight with Sailor V. Of course, I had her outclassed
right off, but she fought really well and though she didn't seem to
have much training, she had enough speed, strength and experience to
make up for it. It was impressive to see how long she managed to keep
her cool no matter what taunts I threw at her."
"Wait, you taunted her? Like you do with Akane?"
Ranma seemed confused for a moment, but answered her none-the-
less. "Of course. I always do, you know that. It's part of Anything
Goes, to make the enemy to angry to think straight and fight
properly." He shook away his momentary disbelief that Nabiki didn't
know one of the prime tenets of the Anything Goes and continued his
story. "Anyway, once she lost her cool, I finished it pretty quickly
and took off with Pop, but we meet up quite a few times after that.
She always seemed pretty eager to fight me, but I guess that you don't
come across challenges like me very often. I always fought her to the
best of my ability of course, though I would make sure the fights kept
going until I managed to get her to lose her cool. It was always fun
to see how long she would last."
"Let me get this straight, Ranma-kun. You would meet up with her
every once in a while, throw insults at her until she got sloppy with
rage and then beat her up? And you wonder why she kept attacking you?"
Nabiki was staring at Ranma rather incredulously at this point. *Even
he couldn't be that dense. * She thought to herself, before realizing
this was the same person that who had though Ryoga was his best buddy
after all the times he'd taunted him. Now that she thought about it,
this was actually a remarkably similar situation to what had happened
between him and Ryoga. In fact, if Sailor V had any qualities in
common with Ryoga, Ranma would be lucky if she didn't still hold a
grudge against him.
"Oh come on, I didn't exactly beat her up, it was just friendly
sparing like Ryoga and I do. Besides, she knew it was all in good
fun." Ranma said, once more reassuring Nabiki that, yes, he was that
dense.
"Sure thing, Ranma-kun." She replied while wondering to herself
what the discussed Magical Girl thought of their so-called 'friendly
sparring'.
*********************************************************
The other scouts all stared at Minako with looks of shock on their
faces as she finished up the story of her and Ranma's first meeting.
They had stopped only briefly to get on the bus, moving quickly to the
back and making sure that no one else was in hearing range before
continuing.
"He...he left you disabled and laying in a pile of garbage?"
Makoto barely managed to get the words out as she wondered what that
would be like for someone as young and inexperienced as Minako was at
the time. She had held up well during the entire story, barely showing
any emotion as she told them about the things he had said and done,
but they could easily see the emotions in Minako's eyes as she drudged
up her memories from that time.
"Yup," Minako said, smiling weakly at them, "You can imagine it
didn't do well for my self-esteem."
Ami remained the most collected during the whole story (Usagi had
actually gone to tears near the end, but they calmed her down quickly
enough) and was the first to ask the most logical question. "Surely
just that one instance wasn't enough to keep you angry for this long
though. I'll admit it sounds pretty traumatizing, but it was over two
and a half years ago."
Minako chuckled a bit at that, but the sound held very little
mirth in it. "Oh, no, that wasn't the only time. As I said, that was
just the first time I met him. We fought quite regularly after that. I
did have to bring his father to justice afterall, it's not like he
quit stealing, and...Ranma...always seemed there to defend him." She
seemed to hesitate at the mention of the name, as if she was still
adjusting to having a name for her own personal nemesis. "It got to
the point where I would just attack him on sight, not even bothering
with his father, since I knew I would have to fight him anyway."
"They....they didn't all end like that, did they?" Usagi asked in
a weak voice. "I mean, that was the worst of them, right?"
Minako seemed to go deep in thought for a moment before answering.
"Well, I didn't end up in the trash very often, if that helps, but I
never did get the better of him." She then frowned, recalling some of
their fights. "He always managed to find ways to humiliate me though.
There was the time..."
*********************************************************
Ranma was fighting Sailor V on the roof of a factory, trading
blows at a pace fast enough that it would be hard to follow by anyone
watching. If there was one thing he had always admired about her it
was her speed, which was only slightly less than his own. She put that
speed to good use now as she fought him for possession of his father,
who had been robbing the factory next door when she showed up. Ranma
thought it was kind of funny that he always seemed to find his Pop
just before she could manage to drag him off to the slammer, but he
didn't complain about his strange luck as he really enjoyed the fights
he had with her and didn't really know any other way to find her. She
seemed to get better with every match, absorbing any advise he offered
(though often getting angrier as he criticized her) and managing to
hold her temper a great deal longer through his taunting. Speaking of
which...
"You call that a kick? Put those huge hips of yours into it, or
you'll never manage anything." He yelled, and was satisfied to see her
slightly correct her kick while at the same time coming a little
closer to losing her cool completely. She seemed to be visibly
trembling now, though she was still keeping it under control. A bit
more though, and she'd be gone. This, of course, meant that Ranma had
to add a bit more. "There ya go, now if you could just get that Jell-O
mold you call a butt into it a bit more, you'd have a beautiful kick."
Ranma was rewarded for his comment by a scream of fury and a sight
that he always cherished: an opponent in a blind rage. V tore towards
Ranma with new speed, almost surprising him at the shear velocity, but
with none of the skill that had previously made up her form. She was
swinging with strong but unfocused blows now, her anger making her
predictable, allowing Ranma to easily avoid all her blows while
getting her in position to finish the fight.
He dodged around her wild punches for a time, giving ground until
he was exactly where he wanted to be and then jumping back slightly,
getting out of her reach and forcing her to rush at him to catch up.
As she rushed forward, Ranma leapt straight up, pushing off of her
head and propelling her forward while not allowing her the chance to
halt her momentum. This action caused her to fall straight throw the
skylight, broken by one of her earlier attacks (she always used her
magic attacks first, before really getting into the fight, on the off
chance she managed to tag him.) and plunge into the large vat situated
directly below it.
Ranma stood there for a few moments admiring his handy-work as
Sailor V struggled to right herself in the large vat of fish leftovers
from the processing plant they had been fighting over. When he was
sure that she wasn't going to drown in fish guts (if she had breath
and energy to throw a string of profanities at him, she could easily
make it to the edge) he gave her an exaggerated bow and a jaunty wave
before running off to join his father, hoping that the fat bastard
hadn't already started on his dinner.
Meanwhile, Sailor V made her way to the edge of the vat, tears of
fury running down her face, screaming words that would make a drunken
sailor blush and swearing bloody vengeance on him.
*********************************************************
The sailor's were staring incredulously at her now. Thinking that
he humiliated her not once, but twice in such a fashion, they were
beginning to understand why she was still so upset about it.
Unfortunately, Minako wasn't quite done yet.
"And then there was the time..."
*********************************************************
Ranma chuckled to himself as he stared up at the incapacitated
Sailor V who was screaming bloody vengeance at him from her rather
unusual position. She was hanging upside down from a fire escape where
the metal was wrapped around her feet in such a way to have them
spread out somewhat, making reaching them difficult. Had she not been
as angry as she was, Ranma had no doubt that someone of her
flexibility would have no trouble getting out of such a position but
then, had she not been as angry, he never could have got her in such a
position in the first place.
Staying a little longer than usual to admire his handy work (one
couldn't blame him for staying as her skirt was flipped up giving him
a nice view and he was an adolescent boy afterall) he was able to hear
a great deal more of her vast vocabulary of curses as she swore
vengeance on him next time she saw him. Ranma merely saluted her once,
declaring a merry "Until next time then, V-chan." And then he was on
his way, leaving Sailor V to her latest humiliation.
*********************************************************
"Although, one of the worst was probably...."
*********************************************************
Ranma stood back and admired his handy work. He hadn't really
planned on anything like what he'd done, but after insulting his
mother, she deserved something a little special. You don't insult a
man's mother, it just isn't done. So, while he knew he'd gone a bit
overboard that time, he couldn't help but laugh at the shocked and
angry look on V's face as she laid on the ground in front of him.
*Although, I'm sure I'd be shocked too if I'd been hog-tied with
my own outfit. * Ranma thought to himself as he grinned down at the
struggling girl in front of him. *Bet she didn't even know those
ribbons came off. *
He whistled to himself while he walked away, a satisfied grin on
his face as he listened to the incoherent mumbling of the bound and
gagged Senshi. He'd really outdone himself that time.
*********************************************************
"I didn't even know the ribbons came off." Usagi commented in
astonishment as Minako finished up her story. They were walking away
from the bus stop, having arrived in Nerima, and heading in the
direction of the school hoping that Ranma would still be in the area.
"Well, trust me, they do." Minako replied with a grimace of
distaste. "And the cloth is a bitch to break."
"Well, it is magically enhanced afterall." Ami said almost
mechanically, a look of bewilderment on her face. "I somehow doubt the
creators ever thought they'd be used against us like that. How did you
get out of that, by the way?"
"I said they were hard to break, not impossible." Minako said,
smiling slightly. "I eventually managed to get my arms free, and the
rest was easy."
Makoto was thinking over all that Minako had told them and she had
to agree that the boy in question did sound like he needed to be beat
into the ground. Surely, though, they were only getting one side of
the story here. He couldn't be anywhere near as bad as Minako was
claiming. "Are you sure he's that bad a guy, Minako-chan. I mean, it
has been a long time, maybe he regrets what he did to you."
*********************************************************
Ranma laughed at a memory of one of his fights with V-chan. He'd
been telling Nabiki about a few of his encounters with her and he
couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of the look on her face when
he had hog-tied her like that. Wiping a tear from his eye, Ranma
looked up to see Nabiki staring at him in shock.
"You....you hog-tied her with her own ribbon?!" She shouted at him
in disbelief.
"Yeah, that was a particularly proud moment for me." Ranma said
with a sigh. "You should have seen the look on her face." He then
broke out in giggles again (though he would deny ever giggling as a
guy if asked later).
"But....but you hog-tied her! With her own Ribbons!!" Ranma
frowned a bit; Nabiki seemed to be stuck on that point for some
reason. It wasn't like he hurt her or anything; he just tied her up.
"It's not like it hurt her. I knew that once she calmed down she'd
be able to get out fairly easily, she was easily strong enough to
break the ribbons." Ranma took another bite of his dinner, a mild
buttered chicken which he decided he'd have to get again sometime,
before continuing. "Besides, she should never have brought my mother
into it. You can make fun of Pop all you want, cause he deserves
anything you throw at him, but you just don't insult a guy's mother.
It's not done."
Nabiki just sighed and began eating her food again. After a few
moments of eating in silence, Nabiki urged Ranma to continue his tale.
"Well, there wasn't really much else. We fought a lot over the
three months I was there, but eventually I finished my lessons under
Myazaki-Sensei and it was time to leave." Ranma seemed to consider
something for a few moments before adding, "That and the police
finally got together a decent sketch of Pop from all the jobs he was
pulling, so it was time to leave anyway."
"So that's it? You just up and left, never seeing her again?"
Somehow it seemed a little too anti-climatic for Ranma's life.
"Pretty much, yeah. Pop decided it was time for us to leave, so I
didn't really have much choice but to follow him. I went out the nigh
before we left, hoping to at least say goodbye, but I never saw her. I
haven't seen her since." Ranma's mood seemed to drop at this, but
Nabiki figured that he missed having a friend around. She ideally
wondered if Sailor V realized what Ranma thought of her or if she
rejoiced when she never saw him again.
Realizing that they were done dinner, the two of them got up and
headed for the counter where Ranma paid for their meals. They then
headed out into the street and began walking in the direction of the
Dojo before Nabiki turned to him.
"Well, thanks for the story, Ranma. It's been rather enlightening,
if somewhat unexpected. I'm going to leave you here though, I have
some business to take care of." Nabiki turned and headed off down
another street, leaving Ranma to head back to the Dojo alone.
*********************************************************
"We're not gonna find him, Minako-chan. Why don't we just come
back another day and try his school again. Maybe over lunch or
something." Rei was beginning to tire of walking around in circles as
they had been for the last half-hour. Not that she didn't appreciate
her friend's desire for vengeance against someone who had wronged her
so, but she had homework to do and wanted to be able to get to bed
before midnight.
"I guess you're right." Minako agreed with a sigh, her eyes
scanning the crowd on the street again. "I'll just have to come back
tomor......It's Him!!"
Her friends' heads all whipped around to see the boy in question
and assumed correctly that it was the rather handsome one walking
along the fence top. He was wearing a red Chinese shirt and black
pants and had his long hair pulled back in a pigtail. Makoto couldn't
help thinking bitterly about how unfair it was that the cute ones were
always the bad guys.
Suddenly, hearing Minako's transformation phase behind them, the
rest of the Scouts all turned quickly, catching the end of her
transformation into Sailor Venus. Usagi was quick to jump in front of
her however, restraining her from going after Ranma. The other three
quickly helped in restraining the errant Scout.
"What are you doing?" Venus practically screamed at them. "He's
right there!"
"You can't just run out there and attack someone Minako-chan."
Usagi said while keeping herself between Venus and her target, knowing
Minako would never use force against her. "Even if you are enemies,
he's not doing anything wrong right now."
"Usagi's right Minako-chan. Besides, you're not thinking straight
right now." Ami added in, trying to convince her friend not to rush
out and attack someone for no apparent reason in front of dozens of
witnesses. That's the last thing their reputation needed. Since no one
else would know her reason, they would all just assume she was at
fault. "You're tired and angry right now. Why don't you go home and
get some rest and we can come back when you're thinking more clearly."
Minako looked at the faces of her friends, concern and caring
shining in there eyes, and then at the form of her hated enemy, making
his way down the street behind her. She visibly sagged before
answering. "You're right, Ami-chan. We'll just come back tomorrow,
after I get a good night's sleep. I'll be feeling better the...Oh My
God, What The Hell is THAT?!?"
Minako's eyes shot wide, surprise and horror etched on her face as
she stared into the street behind the scouts, causing them all to jerk
in the direction of her stare to see what had surprised her so.
Even as her head was still turning, Ami groaned, seeing exactly
what she expected. The street was empty of anything except a few
people walking by them. Turning back towards her friend, she wasn't
surprised to see Venus running quickly towards the boy on the fence
while yelling out a line that the people of Nerima were very used to
hearing.
"Ranma Saotome, Prepare to Die!!"
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: Wow, for those of you who didn't think I could finish
a chapter two.......frankly, neither did I. But I surprised myself and
managed to pull this off. Now, on to chapter three, which should be
out.......someday!!
As always, I'm open to suggestions on how to fix this up and make it
better. C&C is not only welcomed, but heavily encouraged. Hell, I'll
even accept flames, cause they're fun to read.^_^
Send any comments to ranikkoku@hotmail.com and check out my site at
www.geocities.com/ranikkoku
Thanks for reading.
Bob Lobster
A Ranma/Sailormoon Crossover
By: Bob Lobster
Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma. I don't own Sailormoon. Don't you have
someone with money to bug?
Chapter 2: Memories and Revelations
Genma Saotome was scared. Unlike his son, Genma had no trouble
admitting this.....to himself at least. He'd never even consider
admitting any fear to the Boy, but he knew when he was scared. Very
few people could truly scare him either. The Master was one of them,
as was The Old Ghoul, as his son called her. His wife's katana had the
ability to scare him quite easily actually, but that was more the idea
of what she carried it around for. The girl in front of him right now
scared him. She scared him badly. He wouldn't admit that one to
anyone, he even had trouble admitting it to himself, but he knew it
was true. Just about everything about her scared him. Her speed,
almost on par with his son, scared him. Her strength, which last time
they met was better than Ranma's, scared him. Her strange powers
terrified him. Most of all though, that look she was giving him, the
one that said, "I've found you and you are so dead", that look scared
him like no other. So it was no particular surprise that rather than
face her down, Genma did what he does best.
"Run for it Tendo!" Genma ran. Genma ran hard and fast, as fast as
his legs would take him, straight back the way he'd come from and out
of the park entrance. Not even once did he look back to see if his
friend was following him, after all, she had no reason to attack Soun,
it was only Genma she seemed hell-bent on killing. If only his good
for nothing son were here to fight her off, like he always did before.
Hell, the Boy even seemed to enjoy it, wandering around with that
goofy grin on his face after every encounter of theirs.
Diving around the corner the first thing Genma did was call upon
the Umi-Sen-Ken. Sure, he had sealed the techniques, but that was
really only to keep the more dangerous aspects of the Forbidden
Techniques for being used. A simple invisibility technique wasn't
dangerous in the least, so he saw no real reason not to use it.
Besides, if it got him away from that damned Sailor V, than it was
completely worth the effort.
After making sure the cloaking technique was in place Genma was
about to peek into the park to make sure that Tendo had gotten away
alright when the Sailor V tore out of the entrance, stopping no more
that ten feet away from him. Genma held his breath and started tip-
toeing away from her, keeping as silent as possible in order to avoid
detection. It wasn't until he saw her scream in frustration and walk
back into the park that he let out a sigh of relief and ran down the
street, jumping to the nearest roof top in order to make it home
quicker. He didn't drop the technique until he was safely across the
boarder into the Nerima ward.
"Soun, old friend, I sure hope you made it out alright." He said
to himself as he headed home, suddenly no longer in the mood for the
bar.
*********************************************************
Usagi had just finished off the enemy and was about to suggest
they head back to class when suddenly she heard Minako shout. Quickly
scanning around to see what had caused her to scream like that Usagi
silently prayed to her mother that it wasn't another enemy. She was
still tired from dealing with the last one after all. She was
understandably surprised then, when rather than a big, stupid looking
monster(she just couldn't think of those things as scary, they were
far too ridiculous) she saw a big, stupid looking man. The fact that
he looked absolutely terrified wouldn't have surprised her if it
weren't for the fact that she had already beaten the monster. What
else was there to be scared of? That question was answered quite
quickly when he shouted out for his friend, some tall older guy with
long hair and a mustache *I think he called him Tendo.*, to run for
it. He then turned around and ran from the park as fast as he could,
with Minako right on his tail and his friend staring stupidly at his
back.
Sweatdropping, Usagi glanced over at her friends only to see them
staring at the retreating Venus just as confusedly as the mustached
man. Shaking her head to remove the quickly forming headache, she
walked rapidly over to the remaining man, who still had a wide-eyed
expression, and tried to get some answers from him.
"Umm, excuse me?" Usagi began. Then tried again as that seemed to
get no effect. It actually wasn't until the third, and subsequently
loudest "excuse me" that he began to snap out of his trance. At that
point a loud shriek came from just outside the park and they all
looked to the entrance just in time to see Sailor Venus running back
in, looking madder than Rei had been when Usagi accidentally tore one
of her manga, and heading straight for the man she had been attempting
to speak with.
When she reached the mustached man, she didn't stop her forward
motion but rather grabbed him by the front of his brown dogi and
hauled him off of his feet. This in itself was quite an impressive
site, considering he was about a foot taller than she was, and it
managed to completely snap him out of his state of confusion.
*********************************************************
Minako was not having a good day. First she dreamed of Him, making
certain that she got very little sleep all night. Than, just when she
was about to fall into a nice, comfortable nap some stupid daemon came
along and she had to waste her entire lunch hour fighting the damned
thing. To top it all off, she spotted that bastard Genma and was about
to reign some divine retribution down upon him, and that fat coward
managed to escape from her. So utterly pissed off was she that she
barely noticed the fear and confusion in the other man's eyes as she
lifted him off the ground by his collar. All she knew for sure was
that Genma had called this man by name, so he must know something
about him. If he knew about Genma then chances were he might know
about his son as well. And if he knew where they happen to live then
maybe she could finally have her revenge. Staring him straight in the
eyes, Minako gave him her best glare, the one she usually saved for
Him, and began with a simple question.
"Are you going to answer all my questions promptly, or do I have
to kill you, slowly and painfully?" At least it was a simple question
for Soun to answer anyway. His eyes widening in fear, not only at the
threat but that fact that she was holding him well off of his feet.
Not trusting his voice, reluctant as he was to have his voice crack
from fear of a child, he just nodded quickly instead. The fierce look
in her eyes told him that she was definitely capable of following
through with her threat, and he silently wondered what his friend had
done to her to make one of the cities premiere heroes that angry at
him.
"Good boy." Minako said easily. Her glare eased off some and Soun
slumped slightly in relief, seeing that she no longer seemed quite so
intent on eviscerating him. In fact, now that he had agreed to answer
her questions, she seemed downright pleased with herself. This turn of
events allowed Soun to regain some small amount of his confidence,
though he was still nervous in front of someone his friend, and
admittedly better in the Art, would run from in terror.
"That......man, that just ran from here, Genma was his name, but
I'm a little curious as to his clan name. You know it, correct?" Once
more Soun nodded, a little happier to see her questioning didn't seem
to involve torture in any way. When he remained silent however,
Venus's face began dropping into a frown once more, before she finally
lost her patience with him completely. "Well, what the hell is it?"
"Sa-Saotome." Soun stuttered out, embarrassed that his voice
cracked as it did, but unable to maintain the level tone he would
prefer. He noticed that her ire washed out quite a bit at his answer,
seeming mollified at getting real answers. Soun just hoped to himself
that she didn't ask anything that he may not know the answer to.
*********************************************************
Ami was getting rather concerned for her friend. It was true that
Minako had been acting different all day. She had seemed tired and
moody, but never did Ami believe that Minako would react to anyone the
way she had to the man in the dirty white dogi. Ami had not believed
it possible for Minako to act that act that way towards anyone who
wasn't a marauding, energy-draining monster or some equally dangerous
fiend. It made her wonder just what the large man had done to deserve
such rage directed at him from her normally calm, if somewhat flighty
friend. And then to have her terrorizing the man's friend, as was
evident by the look on his face, no matter how much he attempted to
hide it. All in all, the shock left her in such a frame of mind that
she actually missed some of the conversation happening. She brought
herself back to reality in time to hear her friend muttering the man's
name to herself(She'd have to remember to research this "Genma
Saotome" herself later to see what she could find out about him)
before turning back to the man to continue her "interrogation".
"Genma Saotome." Minako strung the word out, as if tasting it to
see if it was right, yet still managed to make it sound as if it were
the foulest insult imaginable. "This Genma Saotome, he has a son, a
son about sixteen years old with rather long black hair, pulled back
into a pony-tail. You know of him, correct?"
By now, the lack of any more hostility on Venus's part had given
Soun a good deal of his courage back and allowed him to look at the
scene before him in his usual manner, skewed perceptions and all. At
this point several things ran through his mind as it tried valiantly
to come to some sort of logical reason he was being hoisted off of his
feet by one of the city's premier defenders. The first thought was
that Genma had upset the girl in some way; not surprising really,
Genma upset a lot of people, it was one of the few talents he had
completely passed on to his son. The second was that Genma ran in fear
quite quickly from said girl, something that usually occurred only
when he was faced with a situation of his own making in which he had
made certain obligations he had no intention of living up to. The
third observation he made, and the one that brought it all together,
was that the girl seemed rather interested in Genma's son. All these
thought led to a single conclusion which, in his twisted way of
thinking, made perfect sense and led him to burst out with one of his
usual lines.
"You can't have Ranma," He shouted at her so suddenly that
Minako's grip on him almost faltered. "He will marry my Akane!"
"Ranma...........So, his name is Ranma" This was not quite the
results he had expected when he had formulated the argument in his
mind. She wasn't reacting in any way as he had planned for. Don't
Ranma's fiancees normally argue and yell and hit people when someone
contested their right to marry Ranma. While he could have done without
the hitting part, the rest would have at least been somewhat
reassuring in that he'd know he was on the right track with his
assumptions, now he wasn't quite so sure. She didn't even seem to
notice anything after he had stated the boy's name, and the way she
had repeated it sent shivers down his spine. Her voice had been so
cold, not dead but like a cold fire burning in hatred. Again he
wondered what had happened to cause animosity such as this.
Again Ami worried for her friend. She had never heard a tone like
that come from the blonde's mouth. Normally she was very emotional
about all subjects, but the way she said the boy's name, it sent
chills up her back and made her very sorry for this "Ranma" whenever
Minako caught up with him. The girl in question seemed to shake
herself out of the daze she had entered upon hearing her target's name
and focussed back upon the man in front of(and slightly above) her.
"This.......Ranma, would you happen to know where he lives?"
Minako asked in a sweet tone, the one that all daughters know turns
their fathers to mush. Soun was a bit sentimental for a moment as the
look brought back memories of when his daughters had used such looks
on his. These days Kasumi never really asked for anything, Akane just
got angry if he didn't do something and Nabiki.......well, you just
didn't cross Nabiki. For a moment the sheer cuteness of the look
almost got to him faster than the fear he held for her had. His
family always came first however and his protectiveness of his family
was enough to shake him from his stupor.
"I'm sorry, young lady, but I can't tell you that." Soun stated
with a firmness that surprised most of the Senshi. They had watched
the man turn into a quivering mass, willing to answer any question
with just a look from Venus, and now the man had a look of fierce
determination that would not be denied. Minako started a bit at the
sudden change in the man's attitude, but quickly regained her
composure and brought her glare to bare on the man once more. He
gulped a bit under the look but held his ground, something difficult
to do in his position six inches above it. Finally Venus relented
slightly, impressed despite herself that Soun had stood up to her thus
when his friend would have been groveling at this point(and had
several times in the past before He.......Ranma bailed him out.). In
respect for his new found courage, she lowered him back down so that
his feet once more rested completely on the ground, but didn't release
her hold on his dogi top.
"Why, exactly, can't you tell me where he lives?" She asked in her
sweet voice once more, though it was strained slightly by the
frustration of being so close to her target, yet being held up by this
man's refusal to provide a location. She was sure that she could find
Ranma's location on her own(with a little help from Ami anyway) now
that she had a full name for him, but that would take time and having
him so close had made her somewhat impatient to finish what they had
begun so long ago.
"I'm sorry, but Ranma is staying with me at the moment, and I
can't allow any more people to start barging in, looking for revenge
against him." Soun said, proud of himself for sticking up for his
family and putting his foot down to someone who frightened him so
much. It wasn't easy to admit that he was afraid of a girl who was
only the age of his youngest daughter, but the level of power he could
sense from her and the girls with her was rather significant. Even to
his admittedly weakened senses(lack of recent training tends to do
that) they glowed like virtual bonfires, putting even heavy hitters
like Ranma to shame in shear power. However, he knew that his family
couldn't afford any more people tearing their home apart, so he did
what he had to do. "We have enough people disturbing the peace of our
home as it is. If you wish to challenge Ranma, please do it elsewhere
besides my house."
Minako looked at him with a bit of shock, actually releasing her
hold on him. Not at the thought of there being so many people out to
get Ranma, someone as mean-spirited as he was would attract plenty of
people carrying grudges, no she was shocked that someone who could act
so forceful and seem so honourable could have a place for scoundrels
such as Ranma and his pig of a father. He seemed sincere in not
minding her attacking Ranma though, so she respected his wishes and
didn't press further for information of Soun's home. Instead she
turned her attention back to how she could find her wayward target.
Soun was happy enough to tell her that Ranma attended Furinkan High
School(he was feeling a lot better about the girl now that she wasn't
choking him for not answering) and wish her luck in her pursuit of
him, so long as she was only looking to challenge him. Seeing that she
no longer seemed intent on him, Soun decided that that was his time to
make a discreet exit, turning and hastily, though not quickly enough
to seem like he was fleeing, heading toward the exit. As soon as he
rounded the exited the park gate and rounded the corner, he allowed
himself to fall to his knees and do what his pride, meager as it was,
had refused to let him do in front of the Senshi: he wept like a
little girl.
Minako let him go, having already obtained all the information she
needed from him, and was already lost in thoughts of revenge on a
certain pony-tailed boy. Images of her standing over him while he
begged her for mercy flashed through her head and she began laughing
maniacally to herself. Behind her, the rest of the Senshi watched
uncomfortably as one of their number appeared to fall into madness and
wondered what had just occurred. Well, they stood there until Ami
noticed that they only had five minutes to get back to class, at which
point they were forced to shake Minako out of her rather demented day
dreams (Makoto was elected to approach her as they were all still
slightly freaked out by her behaviour). As they ran back towards to
school, Rei breaking off part way, as her school was in another
direction, Makoto finally decided to break the ice and ask the
question on all of their minds.
"What the hell was that all about, Mina?" Makoto all but shouted
as she raced beside Minako towards the school gates. She really didn't
like not knowing what was going on, especially when her friends were
involved. Makoto had grown up alone, her parents having died when she
was very young, and as such she valued her friends very highly. She
was thus very protective of them. Right now, something was seriously
wrong with Minako, that much was easy to determine from her reaction
to the first man and her subsequent treatment of the other, and she
hated not knowing the cause. So, if she was a little short with
Minako, that was just her worry and frustration coming to the surface.
"Huh?" Minako elegantly replied. She then noticed that her three
friends were staring at her rather hard and realized that they were
probably wondering about her behaviour. She had to admit that Ranma
and his father seemed to bring out the worst in her, though she
attributed this to them both being low-lives that the world would be
better off without. Looking around at her friends, she really didn't
want to have this conversation right now so, with a heavy sigh, she
promised that she would tell them all about it after school, on their
way to Nerima. This caught them all by surprise, but they let it go
seeing as she had promised to fill them in. They would just have to
wait a little while.
Makoto hated waiting. It was going to be a long day.
*********************************************************
*It's been a long day. * Was the thought running through Ranma's
head as the bell rang signaling the end of school for another
afternoon. He was truly looking forward to getting out of class and
away from some of the people in his life, particularly Akane and
Nabiki. Nabiki hadn't been so bad, since she had a different classroom
than Ranma, but he knew that would change as soon as she was able to
corner him. He had only barely escaped her at lunch. Akane on the
other hand sat in the desk right next to his and had been insufferable
all day. Not only was she still angry at him for putting down her
idols, the Sailor Senshi, she was also upset that he seemed to have a
relationship of some sort with yet another girl. All in all, it led to
a day of her either glaring at him hatefully or ignoring him all
together and he wasn't looking forward to whatever conversation they
would have when she finally managed to get ahold of him for a moment.
Quickly getting up from his desk, Ranma headed for the window
(Akane being between him and the door) and leapt for it, hoping he'd
be able to lose any pursuers that way. Just as he believed he was in
luck, however, he landed and, turning to face the gate for a quick
getaway, had to stop short to avoid running Nabiki over. Sighing to
himself, he decided there was no point in avoiding the conversation
any more and got to the point quickly.
"Alright Nabiki, whada ya wanna know?" He asked, knowing that
attempting to match wits with Nabiki would be futile. He only hoped he
could convince her to leave Akane out of their little soiree since he
really didn't feel like dealing with any strange conclusions she could
draw right now.
"You've been avoiding me all afternoon, Ranma, I should be upset
over that. However, as you seem to have finally come to your senses,
and I can tell that this is going to be an interesting story, I'll let
you get away with it this time." Nabiki smirked at his look of relief.
Knowing that Big, Bad, All-Powerful Ranma worried about her reactions
to things always gave her a rather substantial ego boast and this time
was no different. However she put off thoughts like those for the more
immediate concern of getting then away from her volatile little sister
so that she could get the whole story out of him. "Well, we'd better
hurry if we want to get out of here before Akane arrives. I don't know
about you, but I'm pretty sure that you won't have much time to talk
if she's around."
Ranma smiled a bit, realizing that Nabiki wanted to talk to him
alone, rather than forcing him to deal with Akane, and silently
thanked her for the reprieve she was offering. Even if it meant
telling her what was going on, at least he didn't have to deal with
any jealous fiancees.
"Alright, where to then?" He asked, wondering where they could
have this conversation in peace.
"I'm feeling a bit hungry, how about that new Indian restaurant in
town? Your treat of course."
"Of course." Ranma drooled out, not really having expected
anything else, despite her vastly superior funds. They turned and
quickly exited the school grounds then, making it around the corner
just as Akane burst out of the front doors and consequently managing
to lose her as she incorrectly guessed their destination to be the
Dojo.
*********************************************************
Four girls gathered around their friend as she began to head in
the direction of the bus to Nerima. They had waited the entire
afternoon, some more patiently then others, for an explanation and
were eager to hear what Minako had to say. They held their collective
tongues however, as she seemed to be deep in thought, and waited for
her to begin. It was, afterall, Minako's story and they couldn't
verywell force it out of her. No matter how much Makoto wanted to.
After a few minutes of walking in silence, meeting up with Rei
shortly, Makoto finally reached the end of her patience. Waiting
through class was unavoidable, but now, with Minako right there, she
really wanted to know what was going on. From the way she had reacted
to the man in the park, Makoto half expected this to be some sort of
enemy that Minako had met during her Sailor V days that was coming
back to haunt her now and if it was she wanted to be ready for it.
Sailor Senshi stuck together afterall. Before she had a chance to
voice her thoughts, however, Rei managed to beat her to the punch.
"So," Rei began, trying to keep her impatience from showing up in
her voice. This looked something that really bothered Minako and she
wanted to know what it was so that she could help. "Are you gonna tell
us what's going on, or what?"
Makoto sighed to herself as Rei's futile attempt to control her
temper failed due to her rather limited patience. Though Makoto was
sure she was trying to ask Minako in a kind and understanding voice,
Rei managed to make the question into a demand for answers none the
less. At least, if nothing else, it did seem to get Minako's attention
away from whatever internal brooding that she was experiencing.
Minako looked around at her friends as they reached the bus stop
and awaited its arrival. Looking around to make sure that they were
alone Minako sighed before glancing at her friends once more and
beginning her tale.
"I guess you all want to know about what happened today. I
probably freaked some of you out a bit." At several vigorously nodding
heads, most noticeably that of Usagi, Minako chuckled lightly before
continuing. "It all comes down to something that happened when I lived
in England, while I was still Sailor V. I'd only been at it for about
a month when I first met Him."
The rest of the Senshi could almost feel the capitol letter at the
start of 'Him' and wondered what that meant. The way Minako said the
word, you could practically feel the hatred and resentment in the
word, but at the same time a certain amount of respect had to be
present in order for her to speak of this person with the sort of
reverence implied by the use of such a formal 'Him', even if it was
only the grudging respect awarded to a particularly strong opponent.
Most of them thought that this 'Him' was probably the man who had
originally set off Minako's wraith, this Genma fellow, although at
least Ami thought back to the way all of Minako's questions seemed
rather to revolve around the man's son, rather than the man himself.
"He was around my age and seemed to be staying in the London
area." Minako continued, but was quickly interrupted by Makoto.
"Was he cute?" She asked. Now Makoto knew that her friend
obviously didn't like whoever this boy way, but she figured that it
might help lighten the mood a bit if they discussed to boy's looks a
bit. Then perhaps Minako would be a bit less moody for the rest of the
story. Discussing cute guys was, afterall, one of Minako's favorite
hobbies.
If anything, however, her mood seemed to darken a bit as she got a
far away look in her eyes. "Oh yeah, he was cute alright. Long black
hair, deep blues eyes, a great build and enough grace to make a dancer
cry," Now she had all the girls' deepest attention. Afterall, Minako
had just described a guy that would normally have her head in the
clouds and she seemed to be projecting even more malice instead. "But
he was also rude, mean-spirited, and cruel-hearted. He made a game of
making my life miserable at every turn."
"Surely it couldn't been that bad, Minako-chan?" Ami asked
hesitantly. She knew that her friend had a tendency to be overly
dramatic, but not usually in such a dark, spiteful way. She tended to
be more high-spirited and flighty than that.
"You have no idea." Minako answered. "Let me tell you about the
first time I met Him. It was late and I was just finishing my rounds
are Sailor V when I saw someone sneaking out the window of a local
church....."
*********************************************************
"Alright Ranma, start spillin' and leave nothing out." Nabiki
requested in a voice that assured Ranma that it wasn't a request. They
were sitting in a small booth in a fairly well decorated restaurant
whose decor obviously was meant to convey the message that you were in
India and surprisingly conveyed it rather well. The waiter had just
left with their orders, which, Ranma was thankful, were less costly
then he believed they would be. It seemed Nabiki did have some
appreciation for his financial situation afterall. Well, either that
or she knew that he'd just have to borrow money from her to pay if
they ordered anything more expensive. Reflecting, Ranma decided that
the later was far more likely than the former seeing as, as much as
Nabiki was not the money-grubbing mercenary that most made her out to
be, she was still pretty quick to spend other people's money if they
offered.
"Well," Ranma began, figuring it would be better to just get to
the point since not only would Nabiki get the whole story from him one
way or another, he really felt he had nothing to hide. Afterall, he
was only talking about a friend of his from when he was younger. "What
exactly would you like to know?"
"I'd say that's fairly obvious, Ranma-kun." Nabiki said with a
smirk. "But we'll start with the basics, shall we. Do you actually
know Sailor V personally? Not just seen her on TV, or watched one of
her fights, but actually know her to the point where she would
recognize you."
"Of course I know her, Nabiki." Ranma replied, somewhat offended
that Nabiki seemed to put him in the 'obsessive fan-boy' category.
"You should know me well enough to know that I don't give people nick-
names often. The only ones I have are friends from when I was younger:
U-chan, V-chan, and Ka-chan."
"How very original, Ranma-kun." Responded Nabiki drolly, before
she got a slightly confused look on her face. "Wait, Ka-chan? Then
again, nevermind. One problem at a time." Ranma shrugged slightly at
this and waited for Nabiki to continue. "Alright then, how did you
meet?"
"That's kind of a long story, but I guess I'll start at the
beginning. Pop and I had traveled to England in order to train with an
old master Pop had before he trained under Happosai."
"You went all the way to England to train under someone?" Nabiki
interrupted confusedly. She had always been under the impression that
China was as far as the two had ever gone.
"Myazaki-Sensei made a really big impression on Pop and he really
wanted me to learn under him as well. I guess when Pop learned from
him he lived in Osaka, but he had moved since. It was one of the few
times Pop actually sprung for plane tickets somewhere. I guess the
idea of walking to England appealed to him about as much as it did
me." Ranma stopped for a moment as the waiter brought their drinks.
Thanking him and then taking a sip, Ranma waited until he had left
again before continuing his story. "Anyway, so we were in London to
see Myazaki-Sensei, but we arrived kinda late the first night and
decided to camp out in a local park. While I was setting up the camp,
Pop said he was going to pick up supplies. Frankly that should have
tipped me off a bit since I knew we had everything we'd need for a
while, but it was late and it took me a bit longer than usual to
become suspicious of where he was. The first places I checked, of
course were the places he had paid closer attention to on our way in
since he always does that to look for possible hits."
"Wait, hits? I know your dad's a bit of a con man, but you make
him sound like a professional thief or something. He wasn't really
that bad, was he?" By now, Nabiki was starting to wonder if she was
really so off about Genma. She had always known he was a degenerate,
but she'd never believed he was a real thief. Ranma's laugh brought
her back from her contemplation.
"Are you kidding, Nabiki? How did you think he kept us supplied
all those years? Do you really think he would have stopped my training
long enough to get a job? I never liked how he did things, but I don't
really hold it against him. He was just keeping us fed afterall."
Ranma stated before chuckling a bit and continuing. "And he was a hell
of a thief. He could steal the cash out of a man's hand without him
noticing if he wanted. Unfortunately he'd usually do something stupid,
or someone would get lucky and see him and we'd have to move.
"Well, it turned out someone got lucky a lot earlier than usual
and it wasn't someone he would have expected. He had just finished
robbing a local church when..."
"A church?!" Nabiki practically screamed out the word, though she
was actually more surprised at Ranma's casual attitude towards Genma's
actions than the actions themselves.
"Yeah, respect for religion was never a big thing for Pop. You get
used to it after a while. This time, when he was just climbing out the
window into an alley he ran into Sailor V. I guess he didn't take her
seriously, because she managed to catch him off guard with one of her
magic blasts and take him down. That's how I found them, so I, of
course, jumped to his rescue."
"You attacked a *girl* to save your father?" Nabiki looked
thunderstruck at this one. Not only did it blow the whole 'Ranma never
fights girls' thing out of the water, he also did it to help his dad,
someone he barely respects. She was going to need to totally rethink
her opinion of Ranma after this.
Ranma didn't even think before answering. "Well, yeah, did you
think I was gonna let my only way home get chucked in jail? Besides,
why would I want to give up prime gloating material like that?" Ranma
smirked a bit and Nabiki chuckled at the thought of Genma getting beat
up by a tiny slip of a girl. "Anyway, I jumped in to rescue his fat
ass, and got in a fight with Sailor V. Of course, I had her outclassed
right off, but she fought really well and though she didn't seem to
have much training, she had enough speed, strength and experience to
make up for it. It was impressive to see how long she managed to keep
her cool no matter what taunts I threw at her."
"Wait, you taunted her? Like you do with Akane?"
Ranma seemed confused for a moment, but answered her none-the-
less. "Of course. I always do, you know that. It's part of Anything
Goes, to make the enemy to angry to think straight and fight
properly." He shook away his momentary disbelief that Nabiki didn't
know one of the prime tenets of the Anything Goes and continued his
story. "Anyway, once she lost her cool, I finished it pretty quickly
and took off with Pop, but we meet up quite a few times after that.
She always seemed pretty eager to fight me, but I guess that you don't
come across challenges like me very often. I always fought her to the
best of my ability of course, though I would make sure the fights kept
going until I managed to get her to lose her cool. It was always fun
to see how long she would last."
"Let me get this straight, Ranma-kun. You would meet up with her
every once in a while, throw insults at her until she got sloppy with
rage and then beat her up? And you wonder why she kept attacking you?"
Nabiki was staring at Ranma rather incredulously at this point. *Even
he couldn't be that dense. * She thought to herself, before realizing
this was the same person that who had though Ryoga was his best buddy
after all the times he'd taunted him. Now that she thought about it,
this was actually a remarkably similar situation to what had happened
between him and Ryoga. In fact, if Sailor V had any qualities in
common with Ryoga, Ranma would be lucky if she didn't still hold a
grudge against him.
"Oh come on, I didn't exactly beat her up, it was just friendly
sparing like Ryoga and I do. Besides, she knew it was all in good
fun." Ranma said, once more reassuring Nabiki that, yes, he was that
dense.
"Sure thing, Ranma-kun." She replied while wondering to herself
what the discussed Magical Girl thought of their so-called 'friendly
sparring'.
*********************************************************
The other scouts all stared at Minako with looks of shock on their
faces as she finished up the story of her and Ranma's first meeting.
They had stopped only briefly to get on the bus, moving quickly to the
back and making sure that no one else was in hearing range before
continuing.
"He...he left you disabled and laying in a pile of garbage?"
Makoto barely managed to get the words out as she wondered what that
would be like for someone as young and inexperienced as Minako was at
the time. She had held up well during the entire story, barely showing
any emotion as she told them about the things he had said and done,
but they could easily see the emotions in Minako's eyes as she drudged
up her memories from that time.
"Yup," Minako said, smiling weakly at them, "You can imagine it
didn't do well for my self-esteem."
Ami remained the most collected during the whole story (Usagi had
actually gone to tears near the end, but they calmed her down quickly
enough) and was the first to ask the most logical question. "Surely
just that one instance wasn't enough to keep you angry for this long
though. I'll admit it sounds pretty traumatizing, but it was over two
and a half years ago."
Minako chuckled a bit at that, but the sound held very little
mirth in it. "Oh, no, that wasn't the only time. As I said, that was
just the first time I met him. We fought quite regularly after that. I
did have to bring his father to justice afterall, it's not like he
quit stealing, and...Ranma...always seemed there to defend him." She
seemed to hesitate at the mention of the name, as if she was still
adjusting to having a name for her own personal nemesis. "It got to
the point where I would just attack him on sight, not even bothering
with his father, since I knew I would have to fight him anyway."
"They....they didn't all end like that, did they?" Usagi asked in
a weak voice. "I mean, that was the worst of them, right?"
Minako seemed to go deep in thought for a moment before answering.
"Well, I didn't end up in the trash very often, if that helps, but I
never did get the better of him." She then frowned, recalling some of
their fights. "He always managed to find ways to humiliate me though.
There was the time..."
*********************************************************
Ranma was fighting Sailor V on the roof of a factory, trading
blows at a pace fast enough that it would be hard to follow by anyone
watching. If there was one thing he had always admired about her it
was her speed, which was only slightly less than his own. She put that
speed to good use now as she fought him for possession of his father,
who had been robbing the factory next door when she showed up. Ranma
thought it was kind of funny that he always seemed to find his Pop
just before she could manage to drag him off to the slammer, but he
didn't complain about his strange luck as he really enjoyed the fights
he had with her and didn't really know any other way to find her. She
seemed to get better with every match, absorbing any advise he offered
(though often getting angrier as he criticized her) and managing to
hold her temper a great deal longer through his taunting. Speaking of
which...
"You call that a kick? Put those huge hips of yours into it, or
you'll never manage anything." He yelled, and was satisfied to see her
slightly correct her kick while at the same time coming a little
closer to losing her cool completely. She seemed to be visibly
trembling now, though she was still keeping it under control. A bit
more though, and she'd be gone. This, of course, meant that Ranma had
to add a bit more. "There ya go, now if you could just get that Jell-O
mold you call a butt into it a bit more, you'd have a beautiful kick."
Ranma was rewarded for his comment by a scream of fury and a sight
that he always cherished: an opponent in a blind rage. V tore towards
Ranma with new speed, almost surprising him at the shear velocity, but
with none of the skill that had previously made up her form. She was
swinging with strong but unfocused blows now, her anger making her
predictable, allowing Ranma to easily avoid all her blows while
getting her in position to finish the fight.
He dodged around her wild punches for a time, giving ground until
he was exactly where he wanted to be and then jumping back slightly,
getting out of her reach and forcing her to rush at him to catch up.
As she rushed forward, Ranma leapt straight up, pushing off of her
head and propelling her forward while not allowing her the chance to
halt her momentum. This action caused her to fall straight throw the
skylight, broken by one of her earlier attacks (she always used her
magic attacks first, before really getting into the fight, on the off
chance she managed to tag him.) and plunge into the large vat situated
directly below it.
Ranma stood there for a few moments admiring his handy-work as
Sailor V struggled to right herself in the large vat of fish leftovers
from the processing plant they had been fighting over. When he was
sure that she wasn't going to drown in fish guts (if she had breath
and energy to throw a string of profanities at him, she could easily
make it to the edge) he gave her an exaggerated bow and a jaunty wave
before running off to join his father, hoping that the fat bastard
hadn't already started on his dinner.
Meanwhile, Sailor V made her way to the edge of the vat, tears of
fury running down her face, screaming words that would make a drunken
sailor blush and swearing bloody vengeance on him.
*********************************************************
The sailor's were staring incredulously at her now. Thinking that
he humiliated her not once, but twice in such a fashion, they were
beginning to understand why she was still so upset about it.
Unfortunately, Minako wasn't quite done yet.
"And then there was the time..."
*********************************************************
Ranma chuckled to himself as he stared up at the incapacitated
Sailor V who was screaming bloody vengeance at him from her rather
unusual position. She was hanging upside down from a fire escape where
the metal was wrapped around her feet in such a way to have them
spread out somewhat, making reaching them difficult. Had she not been
as angry as she was, Ranma had no doubt that someone of her
flexibility would have no trouble getting out of such a position but
then, had she not been as angry, he never could have got her in such a
position in the first place.
Staying a little longer than usual to admire his handy work (one
couldn't blame him for staying as her skirt was flipped up giving him
a nice view and he was an adolescent boy afterall) he was able to hear
a great deal more of her vast vocabulary of curses as she swore
vengeance on him next time she saw him. Ranma merely saluted her once,
declaring a merry "Until next time then, V-chan." And then he was on
his way, leaving Sailor V to her latest humiliation.
*********************************************************
"Although, one of the worst was probably...."
*********************************************************
Ranma stood back and admired his handy work. He hadn't really
planned on anything like what he'd done, but after insulting his
mother, she deserved something a little special. You don't insult a
man's mother, it just isn't done. So, while he knew he'd gone a bit
overboard that time, he couldn't help but laugh at the shocked and
angry look on V's face as she laid on the ground in front of him.
*Although, I'm sure I'd be shocked too if I'd been hog-tied with
my own outfit. * Ranma thought to himself as he grinned down at the
struggling girl in front of him. *Bet she didn't even know those
ribbons came off. *
He whistled to himself while he walked away, a satisfied grin on
his face as he listened to the incoherent mumbling of the bound and
gagged Senshi. He'd really outdone himself that time.
*********************************************************
"I didn't even know the ribbons came off." Usagi commented in
astonishment as Minako finished up her story. They were walking away
from the bus stop, having arrived in Nerima, and heading in the
direction of the school hoping that Ranma would still be in the area.
"Well, trust me, they do." Minako replied with a grimace of
distaste. "And the cloth is a bitch to break."
"Well, it is magically enhanced afterall." Ami said almost
mechanically, a look of bewilderment on her face. "I somehow doubt the
creators ever thought they'd be used against us like that. How did you
get out of that, by the way?"
"I said they were hard to break, not impossible." Minako said,
smiling slightly. "I eventually managed to get my arms free, and the
rest was easy."
Makoto was thinking over all that Minako had told them and she had
to agree that the boy in question did sound like he needed to be beat
into the ground. Surely, though, they were only getting one side of
the story here. He couldn't be anywhere near as bad as Minako was
claiming. "Are you sure he's that bad a guy, Minako-chan. I mean, it
has been a long time, maybe he regrets what he did to you."
*********************************************************
Ranma laughed at a memory of one of his fights with V-chan. He'd
been telling Nabiki about a few of his encounters with her and he
couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of the look on her face when
he had hog-tied her like that. Wiping a tear from his eye, Ranma
looked up to see Nabiki staring at him in shock.
"You....you hog-tied her with her own ribbon?!" She shouted at him
in disbelief.
"Yeah, that was a particularly proud moment for me." Ranma said
with a sigh. "You should have seen the look on her face." He then
broke out in giggles again (though he would deny ever giggling as a
guy if asked later).
"But....but you hog-tied her! With her own Ribbons!!" Ranma
frowned a bit; Nabiki seemed to be stuck on that point for some
reason. It wasn't like he hurt her or anything; he just tied her up.
"It's not like it hurt her. I knew that once she calmed down she'd
be able to get out fairly easily, she was easily strong enough to
break the ribbons." Ranma took another bite of his dinner, a mild
buttered chicken which he decided he'd have to get again sometime,
before continuing. "Besides, she should never have brought my mother
into it. You can make fun of Pop all you want, cause he deserves
anything you throw at him, but you just don't insult a guy's mother.
It's not done."
Nabiki just sighed and began eating her food again. After a few
moments of eating in silence, Nabiki urged Ranma to continue his tale.
"Well, there wasn't really much else. We fought a lot over the
three months I was there, but eventually I finished my lessons under
Myazaki-Sensei and it was time to leave." Ranma seemed to consider
something for a few moments before adding, "That and the police
finally got together a decent sketch of Pop from all the jobs he was
pulling, so it was time to leave anyway."
"So that's it? You just up and left, never seeing her again?"
Somehow it seemed a little too anti-climatic for Ranma's life.
"Pretty much, yeah. Pop decided it was time for us to leave, so I
didn't really have much choice but to follow him. I went out the nigh
before we left, hoping to at least say goodbye, but I never saw her. I
haven't seen her since." Ranma's mood seemed to drop at this, but
Nabiki figured that he missed having a friend around. She ideally
wondered if Sailor V realized what Ranma thought of her or if she
rejoiced when she never saw him again.
Realizing that they were done dinner, the two of them got up and
headed for the counter where Ranma paid for their meals. They then
headed out into the street and began walking in the direction of the
Dojo before Nabiki turned to him.
"Well, thanks for the story, Ranma. It's been rather enlightening,
if somewhat unexpected. I'm going to leave you here though, I have
some business to take care of." Nabiki turned and headed off down
another street, leaving Ranma to head back to the Dojo alone.
*********************************************************
"We're not gonna find him, Minako-chan. Why don't we just come
back another day and try his school again. Maybe over lunch or
something." Rei was beginning to tire of walking around in circles as
they had been for the last half-hour. Not that she didn't appreciate
her friend's desire for vengeance against someone who had wronged her
so, but she had homework to do and wanted to be able to get to bed
before midnight.
"I guess you're right." Minako agreed with a sigh, her eyes
scanning the crowd on the street again. "I'll just have to come back
tomor......It's Him!!"
Her friends' heads all whipped around to see the boy in question
and assumed correctly that it was the rather handsome one walking
along the fence top. He was wearing a red Chinese shirt and black
pants and had his long hair pulled back in a pigtail. Makoto couldn't
help thinking bitterly about how unfair it was that the cute ones were
always the bad guys.
Suddenly, hearing Minako's transformation phase behind them, the
rest of the Scouts all turned quickly, catching the end of her
transformation into Sailor Venus. Usagi was quick to jump in front of
her however, restraining her from going after Ranma. The other three
quickly helped in restraining the errant Scout.
"What are you doing?" Venus practically screamed at them. "He's
right there!"
"You can't just run out there and attack someone Minako-chan."
Usagi said while keeping herself between Venus and her target, knowing
Minako would never use force against her. "Even if you are enemies,
he's not doing anything wrong right now."
"Usagi's right Minako-chan. Besides, you're not thinking straight
right now." Ami added in, trying to convince her friend not to rush
out and attack someone for no apparent reason in front of dozens of
witnesses. That's the last thing their reputation needed. Since no one
else would know her reason, they would all just assume she was at
fault. "You're tired and angry right now. Why don't you go home and
get some rest and we can come back when you're thinking more clearly."
Minako looked at the faces of her friends, concern and caring
shining in there eyes, and then at the form of her hated enemy, making
his way down the street behind her. She visibly sagged before
answering. "You're right, Ami-chan. We'll just come back tomorrow,
after I get a good night's sleep. I'll be feeling better the...Oh My
God, What The Hell is THAT?!?"
Minako's eyes shot wide, surprise and horror etched on her face as
she stared into the street behind the scouts, causing them all to jerk
in the direction of her stare to see what had surprised her so.
Even as her head was still turning, Ami groaned, seeing exactly
what she expected. The street was empty of anything except a few
people walking by them. Turning back towards her friend, she wasn't
surprised to see Venus running quickly towards the boy on the fence
while yelling out a line that the people of Nerima were very used to
hearing.
"Ranma Saotome, Prepare to Die!!"
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: Wow, for those of you who didn't think I could finish
a chapter two.......frankly, neither did I. But I surprised myself and
managed to pull this off. Now, on to chapter three, which should be
out.......someday!!
As always, I'm open to suggestions on how to fix this up and make it
better. C&C is not only welcomed, but heavily encouraged. Hell, I'll
even accept flames, cause they're fun to read.^_^
Send any comments to ranikkoku@hotmail.com and check out my site at
www.geocities.com/ranikkoku
Thanks for reading.
Bob Lobster