A/N;

I apologise in advance if anyone is really out of character. Please tell me if they are. This is all based on the anime, which I watched in French, so if any of the names are wrong tell me! Remember this is my first 'Ranma' fic, so please be gentle!

The Perfect Partner?

Chapter 1; New kid in Town

He stumbled, holding on to a nearby wall for support, trying not to slip on the recently fallen rain. He was soaked but he didn't care that wasn't what was bothering him, that was an entirely different matter...

He wasn't too badly wounded, a few quite deep scratches that were bleeding, and a really bad headache from the wound on his head, which was also bleeding, were making him feel dizzy, but his main cause of pain, was his stomach, where he had been severely kicked...

He noticed something happening up ahead, there were four girls and boy a fighting. The 'boy' was very tall, with dark hair, and he was brandishing a rather long sword.

All of the girls were extremely beautiful, in their own separate ways; one had long lavender hair with small buns on either side of her head, and had a very nice figure, which she was not wasting as she was wearing as little as possible.

Another had long chocolate coloured hair and was wearing rather masculine clothes.

The girl next to her had long, but not quite as long, black hair in a pony-tail, she was wearing a small green leotard and was waving some sort of ribbon in the air, cackling madly, she bared an uncanny resemblance to the boy.

The last girl had short, cerulean hair, and seemed to be the most 'normal' looking one.

The 'young man' somehow managed to make all the girls fall into a trap; which a rather short little boy in a very strange outfit had been setting up while they were fighting. The young man had probably only succeeded because no one had been paying any attention to him.

All of the girls were suspended in the air in a large net, and all of them were struggling to get free.

"Ha, ha, ha! Now you are mine Akane! I apologise for any inconvenience for the rest of you, I only require Akane, but you are all quite attractive, and I know that you probably all wish to be my fiancée, therefore I will allow each one of you to love me-"

"Oh shut up!" He was cut off by the black-haired girl.

All of the others were looking at him with disgust, which he didn't seem to have noticed.

"You know full well that I was not addressing you, sister." He paused. "This has nothing to do with you! This is between me and my true love!" He said dreamily.

"I am not your true love!" The blue-haired girl, protested through gritted teeth. She was extremely angry now.

But he did not seem to care.

"Fear not my love; you need not hide your true emotions anymore. Everyone will know how much we love each other!" He exclaimed.

"Those are my true emotions! I don't love you!" She screamed.

"Oh! You break my heart with these unnecessary lies, why do you pretend when you don't have to?!"

"ENOUGH!" The brunette yelled. "The rest of us have nothing to do with this, so let us go!"

"Thanks a lot Ukyo!" The blue-haired girl scowled.

"Oh no, I cannot release you, not now that I am so close to achieving my goal!"

"RANMA!" The purple-haired girl began to scream. "RANMA! RANMA! RAANMAA!"

"Yeah right, like he's gonna come," The blue-haired girl said sarcastically. "Anyway your voice will probably scare him away more than anything else!" She continued.

"How dare you!"

"Now, now girls, don't start fighting, not when everything is going so perfectly well! Fear not, for I will protect you from that mindless brute!"

All the girls glared at him.

He smiled, and turned to the little boy next to him.

"Satsuke, bring them to the mansion at once!"

"Yeth thir," He replied.

Now all the girls were screaming.

No, he could not stand by and let this horrible man kidnap these girls.

He strode forward, now hiding any pain he felt, a new energy rising in him.

"Let them go," He said in a calm, deep voice.

"What?" The man turned around, raising an eyebrow when he saw him.

"And why would I do that, stranger?" He asked looking him up and down.

"Because they obviously aren't going on their own accord," He said, still calm.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, silly me I mistook you for a well-educated boy,"

"Mistook! How dare you, I am well-educated!"

"Could have fooled me," He said, his hands in his pockets, a slight smile appearing on his face. "I was merely stating the fact that none of the girls seem to want to go with you," He continued, smiling even more.

Kuno glared at him. "You can't have her! She is mine!" He shouted, pouncing on him.

He dodged, and stood completely still.

Kuno was now standing on the opposite side of him, still staring at him.

He charged once again.

This time the boy jumped over Kuno, and on his way over he tapped him on the head.

Kuno froze, the boy landed safely behind him, and then Kuno fell to the ground with a thud, completely unconscious.

"Huh!" The servant boy exclaimed. "How dare you lay a thinger on my mathter?"

He squealed, and then he too charged, coming up from behind.

When he reached him, he collided with his outstretched fist, and he fell to the ground too.

He lowered his fist. Then turned to the girls, to find them all staring at him in awe.

He was after all very good-looking; he looked about seventeen, he had dark, wavy hair tied in a pony-tail, with wavy bangs covering his eyes. His eyes were like puddles of rain after a storm, grey, dark and light shades of grey, his eyes were so deep and pensive, almost hypnotising, they only enhanced his beauty. So he being strong and smart just added to the points he was scoring with the girls.

"Here, let me help you," He said. He jumped up onto the net, and climbed the rope, which was tied around a thick tree branch above them. He untied it, but didn't let go of it, lowering them as slowly and gently as he could. He placed them lightly on the ground, and then jumped down to untie them, as he did so he clutched his stomach, pausing for a moment.

"Are you alright?" The blue-haired girl asked. "Kuno didn't hurt you did he?"

"Uh, no, it's from a previous battle," He said staring at the ground. Then he proceeded to free them by cutting the net with a pen knife he produced from his pocket, it had blood on it.

"Huh! Whose blood is that?! You didn't..."

"No, it's my blood,"

"Oh!" She gasped only just noticing his cuts. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," He said, helping them out one by one. Each of the girls stared at him intensely, as he held their hands to help them out.

"Thank you," The purple-haired girl said, blushing profusely.

"No problem," he said letting out a shaky sigh, which unsteadied him, as he was already feeling faint, all this had definitely not helped his condition.

The brunette steadied him. "That wound on your head is probably why you're feeling faint," She said soothingly, in a voice that seemed strange for such a masculine girl.

He nodded, but immediately regretted doing so, as it made him feel even dizzier.

He swayed on the spot, and all the girls rushed forward to help steady him, which caused them all to fall on the ground. The girls landed on top of him, and they didn't seem to want to get off any time soon. The pain in his stomach was too great for him to bare this much longer.

"Uh,"

"Oh, sorry!" They all said, getting up slowly. Until he was the only one left on the ground.

He tried to get up, but was stopped by an immediate pain in his abdomen, which was probably not helped by all those girls landing on top of him; they weren't exactly light.

He groaned in pain, clutching his stomach.

"What's wrong?"

The blue-haired girl and the brunette knelt down beside him.

"Can I..." The blue-haired girl paused; her hand lay motionless above his chest.

"Oh, yeah, like you haven't seen a guy's chest a hundred times before!" The brunette sitting opposite her sighed, and reached out to do it herself.

"I do it if you like!" The purple-haired girl squealed.

The blue-haired girl glared daggers at her.

"What?" The purple-haired girl protested.

The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes in annoyance and turned back to the boy. Then she and the brunette began to roll his shirt up slowly, but gently, so as not to hurt him.

His shirt was a powdery-grey, which brought out the colour of his eyes. He was wearing black trousers and slippers, his pack, which contained the rest of his clothes and belongings was near by.

All the other girls were peering over their shoulders, trying to get a good look at his chest. But all they saw was a very bruised stomach.

"Huh!" They all gasped.

"Who did this to you?" Asked the brunette, in a mix of a gentle and an angry voice.

"It... doesn't matter... it's... not your problem," He breathed, covering his stomach, obviously in pain. He tried to get up again, but the fall and all that weight on him definitely affected him more than he realised, because he fell back, yet again, only this time the brunette and the blue-haired girl caught him before he hit the ground.

"Here we'll help you," The brunette and the blue-haired girl put their arms under his, and slowly helped him up.

"Where do you live? We can help you get home if you like,"

"Uh, I don't actually have a place to stay... not yet anyway," He looked up at them, and when he saw their worried expressions he added, "Don't worry I'll find somewhere,"

"You can stay at my place!" All of the girls said simultaneously, and then they all glared at each other.

"No seriously I'll find somewhere. Anyway I'm trying to find someone-"

"Oh! Who you lookin' for? We help you!" The purple-haired girl beamed.

He sighed, and then said "I'm looking for a boy... I don't know his first name, but I know that his surname is Saotome,"

"Saotome?!" They all looked surprised.

"Yes, that was his name. Do you know him?"

"Uh, maybe, would did he look like?" The blue-haired girl asked cautiously, not wanting to lead another possible rival straight to Ranma.

"Well, I think he had brown hair," He said slowly.

"You think?"

He paused, he had never actually seen the boy in his 'boy form' properly before.

"It's complicated. When I saw him he wasn't his 'usual' self,"

"What's that supposed to mean?" The black-haired girl asked, not surprising seeing as she's the only one who doesn't know Ranma's 'secret'.

"Uh... shouldn't you help your brother and your servant get home?" The blue-haired girl asked, in an innocent voice.

The black-haired girl looked at her suspiciously, figuring that the blue-haired girl was just trying to steal this boy, like she did with Ranma. But then again maybe she actually liked Kuno, highly unlikely, so she settled with her first reason.

"Yeah, and Shampoo will help you, wont you Shampoo?" The brunette agreed, turning to Shampoo, with a meaningful look in her eyes.

Shampoo was confused for a moment, and then she remembered Ranma's secret. She nodded her head rather reluctantly, she did not want to leave them alone with the boy, but decided that she would do this for Ranma.

This made Kodachi think that maybe they weren't trying to steal him, after all Shampoo seemed to like him just as much as she did, and Shampoo was very aggressive when it came to the opposite-sex. So she rose and walked over to her brother, Shampoo following her. She wrapped her ribbon around him and began to drag him away, laughing freakishly, leaving a small trail of black rose petals behind her. Shampoo was following her, lugging the small servant-boy by the leg.

It was a very odd sight to say the least, but considering the fact that Kodachi was 'odd' anyway it was pretty normal for her.

Once they were out of sight, and earshot they turned back to the boy.

"So when you say that he wasn't his 'usual' self, do you mean that his hair was...?"

"Yes, his hair was red,"

"So you know about how he..."

"Yes, I know that he changes into a girl at contact with cold water, and that he changes back at contact with hot water," He said knowledgeably.

"Oh... So... why are you looking for him?"

"I need to ask him something,"

"Is that all?"

"Yes,"

Well he wasn't like all the other rivals that Ranma had, unless he was coming to fight for another fiancée that they didn't know about yet. But he seemed genuine, anyway he wasn't really up for a match at the moment.

The blue-haired girl and the brunette nodded a silent agreement.

"We can take you to him,"

"Yeah, he lives at my house,"

"Are you siblings?" The boy asked curiously.

"No... it's more of an arranged marriage type thing, that neither I nor Ranma had any say in," She said casually.

"Oh,"

This seemed to make the boy very sad, which made the blue-haired girl wonder if he liked her.

"But you know... we don't like each other or anything... and when one of us finds someone else that we actually like; we'll probably break it off,"

"Oh," The boy nodded, this seemed to cheer him up a little bit.

"Anyway, so shall we take you to him? Or should we just tell you where the place is or something?" The brunette asked.

"Oh yeah, we'll tell him where my house is, then just leave him to find somewhere to stay. In his condition, you're kidding right?"

"It's not that bad-" The boy tried to say, but the girls weren't really listening.

"I never said we would leave him to find somewhere to stay... he can stay with me," The brunette replied defiantly.

"Uh hello! The person he's looking for lives with me!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Good, let's go," and they started walking, still half carrying the boy.

"Uh, my pack,"

"Oh yeah,"

They had been walking for about ten minutes now, in complete silence.

"Uh, what are your names?"

"Oh, I completely forgot, how rude. My name is Akane Tendo," The blue-haired girl said, smiling down at him.

"And I'm Ukyo Kuonji,"

"Pretty,"

Akane and Ukyo blushed.

"What's your name?" Ukyo asked.

"Uh... it's Kei-ichi, Keiichi Mori"

"Keiichi huh? That's a nice name," Ukyo said brightly.

Keiichi really didn't want to talk anymore, just moving his legs was painful, but now talking as well was making the pain in his abdomen even worse. So they walked the rest of the way in silence.

When they finally reached the Tendo house they were greeted by Kasumi.

"Oh my, who is this?" She asked, looking at him in a sympathetic sort of way.

"Oh hi Kasumi, this is Keiichi Mori, he saved us from that Kuno idiot," Akane told her sister.

"Oh my,"

"Keiichi this is my sister, Kasumi,"

"Pleased to meet you," He bowed his head slightly, leaning on the two girls for support.

"It is nice to meet you too," Kasumi replied, smiling cheerfully. "Are you staying for dinner?" She inquired politely.

Akane nodded, so she smiled and then returned to the kitchen.

"I have one other sister, her name is Nabiki. You better watch your wallet while you're around her; she always manages to find something you can pay her for,"

"Let's get you up stairs... I suppose you can share a room with Ranma, and Uncle Genma can share with my dad," She seemed to have decided that that was what was going to happen, as she proceeded to the stairs.

She paused. "Do you mind sharing a room with Ranma?"

"Uh, no I don't mind. Will Ranma mind?"

The two girls exchanged a slightly apprehensive look.

"Of course not," Ukyo smiled.

"Ok then,"

They helped him up the stairs, and took him to Ranma's bedroom.

Then they got out a futon for him, and got busy arranging the sheets.

"There," Ukyo sighed, and got up.

"Ok, you should probably get some rest and all that. Ranma won't be back for a while so you don't have to worry about him just yet. I'll just go and get something for your wounds,"

"Thanks,"

"Your welcome," Akane smiled.

"See you round," Ukyo said before she left.

"Bye,"

The doors closed behind them.

He fell back on the bed as slowly as possible, but it was still painful.

A/N;

Amazing how I managed to write so much without Ranma appearing even once huh?

Yes this is a lot of writing to me, in fact this is the longest thing I've written so far.

The character Satsuke has a lisp in the French version which is why I gave him one here, does he have a lisp in the English version?

Oh yeah, I chose to make them say their first names first, even though I'm pretty sure they do it the other way round, this just fit more with what I'm doing.

Trust me there will be loads more developements in the plot, and the mysterious stranger has a few 'problems' of his own!

Oh and don't worry, Ranma will appear in the next chapter! Don't get me wrong I love Ranma!hehe -, there just wasn't a part for him in this chapter, he wasn't 'needed' yet.

Oh and do tell me whether I should continue or not.

Please review, it would make me insanely happy!!!! -

By Aqua