Disclaimer: I do not claim Ranma ½ or any of its characters as my own. They belong to Takahashi-sama. However, the character Sabriel is MINE, ALL MINE!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!! *Ahem* Enjoy! ^_^;;
A/N: Italics for thoughts, foreign words, or book titles, ALL CAPS for shouting, bold for emphasis in speech.
The Sabriel Series, Part I: Enter SabrielChapter One
It was a beautiful morning in Nermia, Tokyo, Japan. Birds were singing, cha, or green tea, was brewing, and a gentle breeze whispered its way through the city. The citizens of Nermia were waking up and getting ready for their day. Unfortunately, so were the occupants of the Tendo Dojo.
"RANMA NO BAKA!! OMAE O KOROSU!!"
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!! NO, AKANE!! NOOOOOOO!!"
Akane and Ranma-chan suddenly burst out of the house and into the backyard, where they started to race around and around a small koi pond. Somehow, Akane had discovered a way to pull out not only large mallets out of hammerspace, but small hammer-sized ones as well, and was now doing so rapidly, using them like throwing knives and aiming them directly at Ranma-chan, who, unfortunately, was clad in only a towel.
"Damn it, Akane! It was only the last bit of conditioner! You can get more!" yells Ranma-chan as she dodges, dives, and jumps out of the path of the flying hammers while trying to stay modestly covered at the same time, and only once getting hit on the ankle, and then yowling in pain.
"So what?!" Akane started to throw her hammers with even more gusto now. "That was my favorite type and brand of conditioner! AND YOU PURPOSELY USED THE LAST OF IT!!"
Genma and Soun were sitting on the wooden walkway while sipping cha and watching Ranma-chan and Akane fight. Genma smiled.
"Ah. Soun, my friend, look. Our children. They are fighting like the married couple they soon will be."
Soun, once again, begins to weep dramatically.
"Ah, this is wonderful!! Now I can rest, knowing that our children will marry and the Tendo Dojo will go on! The Tendo and Saotome legacy shall continue forevermore!!" he cried as he started to sob into his arm.
Genma looks at his friend and raises an eyebrow.
"Soun-san, forgive me for asking, but…"
"But what, friend?"
Genma sighed as he hesitantly went on with his query.
"Must you always be so dramatic? I am sorry, but now it is starting to get old."
As suddenly as they had started, Soun's flowing and rather waterfall-like tears stopped, as if he had mentally turned off a switch in his mind. Soun then turned and smiled serenely at Genma.
"Why, Genma-san. I thought you knew."
Genma's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he eyed Soun with caution.
"Knew…what?"
"That it is all only for show. Also, for my daughters, of course. It is important they know that emotions are a good thing to show."
Genma took a sip of cha and sighed. A huge sweatdrop formed on the left corner of his forehead. He closed his eyes, sipped his cha again, and shook his head.
"As you say, Soun-san. As you say…"
Akane's now very shrill voice is now heard from the background.
"And another thing! You know that I have homework and house work!! And you suggest that I just GO OUT AND GET SOME MORE?!"
"Well, why the hell not?! Besides, if you have all that other time to visit your darling Dr. Tofu, then just why can't you go get some conditioner while you're at it?!"
Akane's eyes narrowed. She throws a hammer extra hard at Ranma-chan's head, but only ends up missing her completely.
"You… you… you leave Dr. Tofu out of this! He has absolutely NOTHING to do with this!"
Ranma-chan smirks as she dodges Akane's hammer and lands on the fence.
"Oooh… I guess I hit a nerve there, eh? I don't know why you're so mad about all this. You're a kawaiikune tomboy, and you're gonna stay that way. That conditioner isn't gonna help you any."
Both Soun and Genma cringe.
"Ooooooh… That was the wrong thing to say… "
Soun nods. "Yes, especially to my daughter."
Akane's eyes have now narrowed down to slits. She growls and whips out her gigantic trademark mallet. A vein on her temple begins to throb.
"Ranma…!!" she snarls through clenched teeth. Ranma-chan's face quickly loses all color.
"Uh oh…" she says in a tiny voice.
"You're damn right 'Uh oh,' Ranma." Akane's voice was dangerously low. Quickly Ranma-chan vainly tries to calm Akane down, but to no avail.
"Now, Akane, really. Please calm down. I mean, you know I didn't really mean-"
"SHUT UP!!!"
Akane swung with all her might and sent poor Ranma-chan flying with only a towel for clothing. And, as luck would have it, she landed in the back courtyard of the Kuno Estate. It was also the time that Tatewaki Kunou, the self proclaimed "Blue Thunder of Furinkan High" chose to look out his bedroom window.
Ranma-chan landed on the bottom branch of a tree. And, since Akane had hit her with such force, that branch broke and Ranma-chan landed in the bushes below with a loud THUMP!
"Ow…" said Ranma-chan after a while. "It's a good thing I was holding onto my towel. Otherwise I would be in very big trouble."
*~*~*
After hearing Ranma-chan's crash, Tatewaki quickly rushes to his window to see what it was.
"What's this?" he muses. "Is it a meteor, flaming like my heart is with love and desire? Or a heavenly angel, sent by the very gods to help me decide which would I choose for my love?"
He looks closer on the area that Ranma-chan crashed in and almost cried out in his delight. "No! 'Tis much greater than either! It is my beloved pig-tailed goddess!!"
He rushes to his closet and hurriedly dresses into his kendo robe, complete with wooden bokken. He rushes out of his room and on down the stairs to greet his beloved "pig-tailed goddess," all the while thanking the gods that he had regained enough sense in his love-racked frenzy to have remembered to have gotten dressed, as he was only in his boxers at the time, and to have met her in such wear would have most disgraceful, indeed. He smiles.
"O, joy!" he says to himself. "My beloved has come! Surely this is a sign from the gods! This is what I was praying for! O, utter rapture I am in! Now I know whom they intend for my wife!" He stops suddenly.
"But that means… that means that they do not intend the fair Akane…" He holds his chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Hmm… what shall I do?"
He stays where he is and thinks to himself for a while.
"How shall the lovely Akane fit in this…?"
A rare thing suddenly happened. Tatewaki actually had an idea. His eyes lit up and he grinned. He pulled out his bokken and pointed it up into the air.
"EUREKA!! I HAVE IT!! I know what I shall do now! I shall continue to protect dear Akane from that evil sorcerer Saotome, but I will stop pursuing her! It will be challenging, but surely I can manage to summon the willpower to do it."
Tatewaki was obviously happy with his idea. He tried to contain his excitement, but almost failed. He was about to dance about the room, when suddenly he remembered something. Something very important.
"The pig-tailed girl! In my brilliance, I had nearly forgotten her!" And with that, he rushed on and out of the mansion, all the while shouting, "Worry not, my beloved! I am here, and will protect you!"
*~*~*
Ranma-chan had just gotten up, brushed the leaves and dirt off, and had re-wrapped her towel around her, and much tighter this time.
"Oh, man… do I feel lousy. I hope I'll go unnoticed when I try to go back to the Dojo. Hopefully, Akane calmed down a bit, too… no, wait, that'd be asking too much."
Suddenly, an unknown person tightly embraced Ranma-chan from behind.
"What the…?!" Ranma-chan cried, and looked up. Her eyes almost popped out of her head when she saw Tatewaki. "ACK!! KUNOU!!"
"My darling pig-tailed girl! I am here, o goddess, and- !" Poor Tatewaki never got to finish his long-winded "devotion of my love" speech, because Ranma-chan promptly gave him a chop to the back of the neck to make him loosen his embrace, then proceeded to kick him in the chest to make him go flying as far away from her as possible. When she saw the he was somewhat lodged in the trunk of a tree, she was satisfied. With her arms akimbo, she walked over to where Tatewaki was stuck and slightly dazed. She smirked as she saw him struggle to get out.
"Maybe that will teach you not to sneak up on girls. Especially me. And Akane, I guess." She added as an afterthought.
"But goddess! You do not have to be jealous any longer of Akane, although you have good reason to be."
Ranma-chan glared at Tatewaki and spoke with a snarl and a slight hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"Oh really? And just what is that supposed to mean? And I advise you to choose your words carefully this time, Kunou."
"I… uh… I meant to say, O glorious and most beautiful goddess…" Tatewaki was broken off by another glare from Ranma-chan.
"Just get to the point, Kunou. I gotta get back home, and I don't have all day." said Ranma-chan. "And stop with the flowery 'Shakespearian' talk. It's getting annoying. Got it?"
Tatewaki nodded. Somehow, he had gotten himself out of the tree. He bowed formally and said, "I am sorry I have become so tiresome to you, my lady. It is only because your radiant beauty has taken over my mind, and I cannot keep control of myself. I can only hope that you can forgive me." Tatewaki bowed low again.
Ranma-chan sighed. Honestly... she thinks. How do I get myself in these messes? Now I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the guy.
To be Continued…