Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Ranma ½ , apart from the DVDs, but that's all, unfortunately!
Re-claimer (or whatever it's called): 'The Three' are solely my own characters, just to add a bit of life to my idea.
Chapter One: A Usual Day? (NANI?) (Part Two)
Ranma was suddenly awoken by a bucket of cold water being splashed in his err, now her face.
"Happy New Year, Son!" Genma stood over him, with a wide grin on his face, which soon changed to a grimace, when Ranma-Chan landed a foot in it. Thus began the usual early morning exercise of the Saotome family.
"Hmph, Honestly!" said Akane, indignantly. Ranma-Chan could not help feeling, as he dodged the furious blows from his father, this was all too familiar.
"Say, Pop," Ranma-Chan grinned, as he dodged yet another punch, "you're getting sloppy, this is the same stuff you pulled on me yesterday!" as Ranma-Chan, a thought suddenly occurred to him. Had his father said what he thought he said? he must have imagined it.
Genma threw a mid-air kick, which Ranma-Chan easily jumped, but the punch from the side glanced off her nose landing her on the floor. As her father came flying past, Ranma-Chan landed a kick in the small of his back which flung him towards the door.
Which opened as a maid came in holding a glass jug of ice water.
Genma's head shattering it as he rolled past, the maid ran shrieking from the room, as the soggy panda sat up and shook the tiny glass shards from its fur. Ranma-Chan's former father turned, holding up a sign.
{That hurt, boy!}
"That's what you get for waking me up early." Said Ranma-Chan, stalking off to the bathroom to change.
"Hmph!" said Akane, again, kicking out the panda to get changed herself.
The Tendos and Saotomes had breakfast in the king-sized bedroom, Ranma sat in his usual place on the floor, between his father and Akane, who gave him a sour look, before turning back to her meal.
What's wrong with her? Thought Ranma, dumbly. It could be a million things, last night she had seemed almost friendly even by Akane standards. Now it was all back to square one again.
He would never in a million or even in a billion years figure her out.
"What's up today, 'Kane?" he asked, he kept his tone light, trying to strain any and all humour out of it.
"I don't want to talk about it, if you don't remember, baka." Said Akane, simply.
Like Ranma, Akane knew how to push buttons. With slightly bent chopsticks Ranma went back to his meal, mentally force feeding a strapped down Akane her various home cooked disasters.
Over Soun's sudden, but not unexpected, bawling, Genma sighed at his son's idiocy and said, "Well, let's go to down town and do some shopping."
"Shopping?" said Ranma, dumbfounded, "didn't we do that yesterday?"
"Yesterday?" said Akane, finishing her meal and geting up, "what do you mean? We only got here yesterday."
"Huh?" said Ranma, with all the intelligence he could muster, got here yesterday? He thought, was I having a weird dream, or did I just wake up from one?
He followed Akane to their room, well not their room, but the room they shared, Ranma quickly thought. Even thinking these kinds of things were liable to get him malletted.
P-Chan was asleep on Akane's bed in a patch of sun, as Ranma moved toward his bedside table, to where had had stored one or two of his items from yesterday. He opened the small cupboard to find it bare!
He went to his wardrobe, which was bare except for the few shirts and items he owned previously, there was not a sign of any of the other stuff he had brought.
Finally he checked his backpack and pulled out his father's old wallet, which had been given to him on his tenth birthday after they had stowed away on a ship to Russia.
The wad of cash was all there, as though he had not spent a single yen of it.
OK, this is officially weird, thought Ranma, he turned to Akane.
"Er, Akane," he said, knowing what he was about to say would be the stupidest thing in the world. "What's the day is today?"
Akane frowned, "You know what day it is, Ranma," said Akane, picking up her pig, who was still in la-la land, "it's the Chinese New Year."
She looked at him for a second, Ranma squirmed slightly, "Are you OK?" she asked, concern in her voice.
"I'm fine," said Ranma, sounding off hand, "just had a strange dream is all. It's nothing."
As the two families went shopping in the slightly expensive areas of Tokyo City, Ranma took only mild interest in the shopping, picking up a few items that he remembered getting in his possible dream from yesterday.
"Nabiki," said Ranma, turning to the middle eldest Tendo, as they went on to another shop, Ranma avoiding making comments on Akane's choice of shopping. "You ever get déjà vu?"
"300 yen," said Nabiki, absent mindedly, flicking through a magazine on modern accounting.
"I said déjà vu, not the usual stuff." Said Ranma, with a sigh.
He turned and came upon Akane's raised eyebrow, as she walked behind them. Insults formed in his mind, he swallowed them hard, and managed to say, calmly. "Yeah?"
"Nothing." She breezed passed him, her arm briefly touching his. Sending a slight pleasant thrill up his spine.
"What's you're problem, 'Kane?" he asked turning towards her, she stopped. Ranma looked over at the Tendos and his father, who were engrossed in their shopping spree, so would not intrude on them.
"It's been two years Ranma," she said, almost too quietly for him to hear, she turned on her heel, "I sorry to sound harsh, but - but you have to decide, I know you don't want to hurt peoples feelings. By trying to do that though, you're hurting even more people." Ranma looked at his honour-bound fiancée, feeling the déjà vu again, her brown eyes were shimmering with unwept tears, he hated it this.
I had dreaming, that's it, that's all it could be, I had just this is the situation, He thought to himself.
He knew what this speech was about, but he was damned if he was going to let this ruin his day, if earlier had been a dream, just for today, he hoped, he would not to have to think about this fiancée stuff, tomorrow would be the day.
He sighed, "Akane, I can't just de -"
"Isn't that just like the Cat Café back home?" said Kasumi, exclaimed, from ahead of them.
Ranma jumped at the word 'cat', but crashed to the ground when a bicycle landed on his head.
"Ni ho!" said a purple haired Chinese girl, brightly.
"Shampoo." Ranma said, with a slightly annoyed overtone, rubbing his head, Shampoo was dressed in a short micro-skirt and plunging top, glomped onto him with a small giggle, as Ranma froze, completely like his dream. Also like his dream, Akane growled loudly, cracking her knuckles.
"Airen!" shampoo purred, which upped Ranma's fear level. The yowls of cats and whooshing of mallets-o-Akane, taking over his mind, all thoughts of déjà vu dropped out.
"I'll just leave you to it then, shall I?" said Akane, walking away, nose up turned.
"Akane, wait!" Ranma tried to protest, stuck in a vice like hug.
"'Bye, 'bye, violent girl!" Said Shampoo, cheerfully. Ranma was
"Shampoo, I love you!" said a voice from behind them, there was a crash then an "EEEK!" from Akane.
"Shampoo's behind you, you PERVERT!" WHAM! Mousse appeared in front of Ranma and Shampoo.
"Hey, Mousse." Said Ranma, lightly.
"Saotome, you thief of the heart," spat Mousse, finding a new pair of glasses, "unhand my fair Sham-" BLAM!
Mousse shot up in the air, Ranma had ducked out of Shampoo's grip and thrust an upper cut into the boy's face, anger taking him over in a rush.
"Stupid Mousse!" Shampoo called after the figure that sailed over the high rise buildings. She turned to Ranma, getting on her bike, and showing a little too much of what was under her short skirt. "Shampoo make something special for Airen later! Be back soon!" with the ring of the bell, she cycled off.
"Making 'something special for Airen,' eh, Saotome?" said Nabiki, imitating Shampoo's voice and grinning. "Better not let Akane hear about that." Ranma twitched.
"How much?" he said reaching into his pocket with a sigh.
"Why, Saotome," said Nabiki, grinning further, "it's as if you care about what my little sister thinks of you."
"Ah, shuddup, Nab -" said Ranma sourly.
"Are you coming, or are you going to hang around the street all day?" said Akane, cutting into his words, from out of no where.
"Yeah, alright, alright," Ranma grumbled, he followed Akane like a sheep, as she turned on her heel, annoyed once again.
After a moment, as Akane was checking through her backpack, as the two caught up with the rest, she said "Where's P-Chan, he was here a minute ago."
"Couldn't care less, Akane." Ranma said, sounding bored, he turned away missing her hurt expression and hurried up to the others, wanting to get away not just the obvious building argument that was to follow that harsh statement, but also everything else, it was all to familiar, the déjà vu was getting stronger.
They spent the rest of the day wandering around the shops, with usual break out of arguments, when it came to a clothes centre.
Ranma didn't comment when Akane choose a frilly dress to wear to the tonight's party. When she tried it on, however she looked straight at him, as though she was looking for his approval.
"Er, it looks nice on yer," said Ranma, lamely,
"Yeah," said Nabiki, with a broad smirk, "Bet he thinks it'll look nicer on him!"
"Hey, I never said anything like th -"
BLAM! The distraction was enough and Akane's mallet landed on him again.
Soun began sobbing, Genma yelled at Ranma to nicer to his fiancée, Nabiki smirked, Kasumi "Oh, my!"ed and Akane shook with anger, while Ranma had a dazed expression on his face, as all of them were politely but firmly asked to leave.
Yes, it was not just déjà vu now, something was definitely up.
Ranma and Genma were landed with everyone's various bits of shopping, went back to the hotel.
Ranma ending up carrying Akane's various clothing items.
As they walked up the corridor and the two were arguing again, Ranma just saw a grey blur out of the corner of his eye, as it passed right under him, causing him to loose his footing and send the bags flying up into the air, the contents littering the corridor.
Whups! Thought Ranma.
"HENTAI!" said Akane, landing a mallet on the back of his head, and pulling a pair of panties from her head.
Getting back to their room, Ranma apologised, cutting the tension between them and then walked to the door.
"Ranma," He turned on his heel to look at his fiancée, she was smiling slightly, the weight eased a little. "Thanks."
Ranma smiled in returned and then left the room. He needed to think.
Ranma ended up on the roof of the hotel, where he could spy over the entire area of Tokyo, even though he had seen this scene before it was still a wonderful sight.
He had been so sure this was a dream, but the continual mallettings he was getting were proving it otherwise. Question was, why was he repeating the day, why this day of all days?
He could think of better days to repeat, days when and Akane had gotten along, or at least he had been malletted so much.
If the day's were truly repeating then -
"RANMA SAOTOME, PREPARE TO DIE!" yelled the bandana clad boy, umbrella held out in front of him, ready to impale the bane of his existence.
- Right on cue!
Ranma gritted his teeth, "Hey P-Chan, what took ya?" he said, as he caught the point of the umbrella and spun Ryouga 'The Lost Boy' Hibiki onto his head.
"You've insulted Akane for the last time, Ranma," he threw a punch, Ranma easily dodged. "now you die."
"You can do a better insult that that surely." Said Ranma, shortly.
"Cowardly bastard!" he roared, ax kicking to Ranma's head which suddenly was not there anymore, "fight me properly. 'Fraid you'll lose Akane to me, if you fight for real."
Ranma's eyes narrowed to slits, as he grabbed Ryouga's incoming gut punch, "LEAVE - ME - ALONE!" he shouted.
Throwing a punch that sent Ryouga into a wall, imbedding him there. Ranma glared at him for a moment then left muttering, "Jeez, stupid pig-boy!" Ryouga passed out on the ground with a THUMP!
A few hours later, as everyone got ready the party, for the New Year had begun.
"Well, I'm going to enjoy myself," said Ranma, with a firm expression as the two families headed into the streets. "I still cannot believe I didn't beat Nabiki at that game!" he groused.
"Oh, come on Ranma," Nabiki chided, "no one likes a sore looser."
"Nabiki's been playing Monopoly a lot longer than you Ranma," said Akane, with a small smile, "Maybe you'll beat her next time. Still, it could be worse right?"
The hateful déjà vu reared its head, as suddenly there was a commotion half way down the street.
"Thanks a bundle, 'Kane," said Ranma with a sigh, grabbing the bokken was thrust in his face. "Hey there, Kuno."
"Saotome, you cur," said Kuno, "How dare you flaunt you're degenerate ways in front of the noble Akane Tendo."
"What did he just say?" said Akane, to Nabiki.
Nabiki just shrugged getting out her camera.
"I really don't want anything to do with you right now, Kuno," grunted Ranma, knocking the bokken off course from his head again. "Can't we continue this tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow is merely another day, wretch," yelled Kuno, "but today I shall see the noble Akane and the sweet pigtailed girl set free from your vile clutches."
"Jeez," said Ranma, jumping over a vicious thrust to his stomach, "what is it with you people? -" Ranma backed off down an alleyway, to avoid any of the crowd being hit by the stick wielding maniac, "I never forced anything on anyone, ever, got it!"
"HOHOHOHOHO!"
"Oh, great!" sighed Ranma, as a black ribbon wrapped around his legs, as he tried to jump over it and pulled him backwards away from Kuno and into the waiting arms of Kodachi Kuno.
"Ranma-sama!" she declared, brightly squeezing the life out of him, "you have come into my waiting arms once again!"
"Not willingly!" Ranma almost shrieked at the loony gymnast.
"SAOTOME!" yelled Kuno. "Unhand my sister!"
"I ain't touching her, moron!" said Ranma, stopping the bokken from calving him in two with his hands.
"Clever catch, my darling." Grinned Kodachi, as Kuno was shocked at his thrust being stopped so easily.
Kuno dropped his bokken with a growl and started to straggle Ranma.
"GACK!"
"Look when you're watering the plants, will you!"
SPLASH!
"Oh, pigtailed girl, I love you!" said Kuno, his arms suddenly around her waist, as Kodachi switched from her death-grip hug to a death-grip straggle hold.
"Die, vile witch!" screamed Kodachi.
"GACK!" was all Ranma-Chan could say to the Kuno siblings' stupidity.
It took Ranma-Chan, almost half an hour to escape the Kunos clutches, her neck was raw from the straggling at Kodachi had dealt out. If it hadn't been for the loosening of the ribbon as Ranma-Chan changed, she would never have slipped out of it and tied Kuno's hands and brought him over her head as she fell, slamming him into Kodachi. She didn't hit girls if he could help it, but sometimes the rules had to be bent a bit.
She joined the Tendos, getting a reproofing look from Akane and a smirk from Nabiki.
Ranma-Chan glared at both of them, giving a longer glare to Nabiki.
"You set that up, didn't you, Nabiki." It wasn't a question, she glared at the middle Tendo sister, who just smirked again.
"Set what up, Saotome?" said Nabiki, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The Kunos," said Ranma-Chan, simply, "how else could they know where I was, hmm?"
"Yeah, sis," said Akane, reproachfully of her sister, "why bring the Kuno's here, they're only a nuisance."
"So," said Nabiki, with a wide smirk, "looks like the trip is going a little smoother."
"What's that suppose to mean?" said Akane, glaring.
"You sticking up for you're fiancé," smirked Nabiki again, "quiet a change, been up to something we don't know about?"
"Nabiki!" said Akane, hotly. She looked over Ranma-Chan's face she added, with a mallet of course, "YOU PERVERT!" as Ranma-Chan went flying she felt something against her leg. "Oh, there you are P-Chan, I've been so worried!" the pig sniggered.
Ranma-Chan managed somehow to land head first into a pot of boiling water, with a shriek that turned to a guttural yell of "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!" Ranma jumped up and ran out the door of the soup kitchen, his head steaming all the way.
The festival was on its way. Party streamers were in the air and the dragons danced their way down the street with the various floats following on behind them. the procession lasted a whole three hours, as it became dark and the crowd moved in waves, with a push and shove of several people and the cry of "PERVERT!" or "HENTAI!" and "FLAT-CHESTED!" or "TOMBOY!", followed by the usual BAM! or WAP!, the fireworks started and all that could be heard was the small explosions of light and the delight of the crowd.
Night took the city of Tokyo.
Chinese lights lined the streets, as the two families walked silently through the streets. Even though this was meant to be a dangerous city to live in, or even to breathe in, Ranma could not help but feel secure here. He did not know where the feeling came from, it was just there.
Ranma was totally sure of it now, it was exactly the same, this was no dream, it was a bad nightmare -
"Hey, Ranchan! Over here!" Yup, a nightmare!
"Hey, Ucchan." He answered, despondently.
Ukyou put on her cutest looking smile, despite his attitude.
Ranma grimaced, he was going to get Nabiki for this, whether tomorrow turned out to be tomorrow or not.
"Hungry, hon?" she asked, slopping batter expertly onto the hotplate in front of her.
"Nah, I -" his stomach growled, betraying him, heard even over the noise of the partying crowd.
"One Ranma special coming up," grinned Ukyou.
Ranma groaned as he felt a weight on his arm.
"Spatula Girl! What you do here?" chirped Shampoo, latching onto Ranma, the okonomiyaki half stuck in his mouth where it was flung by Ukyou.
"Hey! Leggo of my Ranchan will ya!" yelled Ukyou, tray on the floor and giant spatula in hand.
"He not your Ranchan!" Shampoo screamed, hurting Ranma's ears. "He my Airen!"
"He outta here." Ranma supplied, slipping from Shampoo's distracted grip, as the two girls square off.
Ranma tumbled into the crowd, as the screaming match continued behind him, he wanted a way out of this situation.
No that was wrong, he needed a way out of this situation.
Avoiding being seen by both of the Kunos' as Kuno was hacking at a straw donkey with shouts of "DIE, SAOTOME! DIE!" and Kodachi throwing out black rose petals and whirling her ribbon like a lasso at various people with "HOHOHOHOH! RANMA-SAMA, WHERE ARE YOU? OHOHOHOHOHOH!"
While walking straight past Mousse who was hugging a complete stranger and confessing his unconditional love to them.
Ranma took a second look as he thought he saw Dr. Tofu, but he was moving to fast in a different direction.
He was so distracted looking for Nerima's chiropractor that he bumped into two men.
"Watch where your going, young man!" said one of them, they were dressed in robes of dark crimson, both in their late fifties, with greying brown hair. One wore glasses with a moustache, the other had a rather ragged beard, he was sure he had seen them before.
"Watch were I'm going?" said Ranma, his annoyance building with every word, who did these old guys think they were?
"As I recall, boy," said the spectacled one, "you ran into the back of us."
"Oh, yeah," said Ranma, his hands in fists, "you wanna fight about it."
"Whoa! Little hot-head, eh?" grinned the bearded one.
"Reminds me of someone," the other grinned at his friend, "wonder who?"
"Very funny, Charlie," he growled back, knuckles cracking. He turned back to Ranma, "anyway, we forgive you for that, seeing as you're only young and all."
"Just don't do it again. Oh, this Harry by the way." Said Charlie, gesturing to his friend.
"You're English?" asked Ranma, noting their features and their accents.
"Great observation there, kid," said Harry, smiling, "say, you look a little down, anything we can help you with?"
"You help me?" said Ranma, incredulously.
"Yeah." Said the two men together.
"Who are you guys?"
"Us?" they said together, grinning and then striking a pose.
"We are the Priests of the Given Light, Guardians of the Sacred Pipe, Defenders of the Unfallen Wall and Moppers of the Floor of Pain," they flourished, "We are the Three, er - The Two!!"
Ranma gaped at two middle aged men, then rolled on the floor in fits of laugher.
"Well, OK, OK," sighed Harry, "maybe the delivery is a little off."
"Oh, come on," said Charlie, a little disgruntled, "we worked all summer on that! You could be at least be little entertained."
Ranma's laugher died down enough from him to sit up and wiped the tears from his eyes, "I was entertained," he said, honestly, suppressing any more giggles. "really entertained."
"Ah, it's no good without Gary," said Charlie, grumpily, "if only he hadn't had that accident."
"What accident?" asked Ranma, curious.
"Oh, just some kid," said Harry, "waving an umbrella and screaming about revenge or something or other. Hit Gary on the head, when we weren't looking, he tripped and tumbled down some steps, broke both this legs."
"Yeah," said Charlie, scowling, "if I ever catch that little punk, I'll stew him into chops!"
Ranma almost choked to stop himself from laughing again, he looked at the time, it was very late.
"Look I gotta go," said Ranma, getting and up and turning to leave.
"OK, kid," said Harry, "Any time you wanna talk, we'll be around." He called after the retreating boy.
Once again avoiding all those people, he found Akane looking over the street vendor's offerings.
"Hey, Akane," said Ranma, trying to sound light.
"Hello," she said, without turning or looking up.
"Are you - are you going to the party later?" he asked.
"Maybe," said Akane, looking at him, "are you?"
"Er, no," his confidence failing him, under her stare, "I just thought you would like to know, that I wasn't just in case anyone else asked, is all."
"Are sure you don't want to come?" asked Akane, as Ranma turned from her.
"Nah," said Ranma, not turning around, "I'd only run into someone I don't want to talk too or do something stupid, I'll see you tomorrow, Akane." If tomorrow even comes, he added to himself.
"All right." Said Akane, sadly watching him go.
"Good night, Akane," he said, and left.
"Good night, Ranma." Said Akane, after him.
Ranma lay on his bed, thinking what could happen tomorrow, if it ever came of course.
Then, as he drifted to sleep, he wondered what he would do if tomorrow never came...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma was suddenly awoken by a of bucket cold water being splashed in his err, now her face.
"Happy Ne -"
"Not today, Pops," grinned Ranma-Chan...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next Chapter: It's Repeating for Pete sake!
Author's Note: Nani? Didn't this day happen before. I'll have the next chapter up soon, ... hang on, didn't I say that before!?! ^_^ Thanks for the reviews, keep them coming, I still can not figure out what to call this!
PS. (TerraEpon) I read the 'Right moments' fic, it was good, but it was basically Ranma learning new moves, this fic however is slightly different and just for fun, as long as no one has a problem with my humour. ^_^
Author's New Note (28/6/03): I've revised only small parts of this, changing one or two pieces as I went, so there are no big changes. I am still in the process of writing the next chapters of this and also revising chapter two of Pull Yourself Together! so keep reviewing and tell me how I'm doing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------