A Kuno's Madness
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction
By Tuxedo_Knight
Edited by Meissa Frost
Ranma 1/2 is (C) Rumiko Takahashi
This story is intended only to entertain. No infringement is intended, and this is only my interpretation of the characters. I make no claim that I understand them completely, and do not intend to offend anyone.
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Prologue: A madness to my method?
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"Sasuke!" Kuno shouted as he walked into the stately Kuno Manor. "Burn these." A thick stack of photos flew out of his hand towards the corner of the room. There was a flash of Ranma-chan as the pack flipped in midair then suddenly a blur intercepted them and they were gone.
Kuno sighed as he set his bokken in the corner and began stripping off his uniform. "More comfortable then school uniforms for sure, but..." he muttered to himself. Passing by a mirror, he stopped to pose a bit, but slumped and waved his hand. "Whatever." He stepped into the bathroom, muttering. "The things I do for love..." Kuno sighed as he washed himself down. "Cold!" Kuno exclaimed as he dumped a bucket of water over his head.
Kuno began to talk to himself as he washed up. "If only she'd ask! I could do so much more. Instead of just buying those silly pictures, both from her and all the other boys, so they had to replace their stock, buying back information I'd had slipped to her informants..." Kuno sighed again. "Maybe this whole 'Blue Thunder' deal was a bad idea," He thought back to how it had begun.
She'd agreed to go out on a "date" with him, eating like a vacuum, demanding to be taken to only the best places, almost as if she'd never have these things again. Kuno pondered this. He was young and stupid then, and had wanted to do anything to help. When she'd flashed those photos of her sister, he'd leapt on a chance to help her. He'd seen a bit of light die in her eyes that day, thought he hadn't realized it at the time, and another spark, a hungry feral spark had risen instead.
That was only the beginning. Students wandered away from the dojo, no matter how much he threatened them to stay. She sold more and more photos of her sister, soon enough branching out to the other boys. "What do those idiots see in Akane anyway? Sure she s cute, but she could break most of those boys like sticks." Kuno grew thoughtful and quiet again. "I should be thankful for her, however. Without her, my own training wouldn't have gone so well." First place in Kendo, every tournament on this side of Tokyo, bah! He'd give every single trophy to the darkest elder Gods, his soul included, if he could get Nabiki out of this pit her father had dug them all into. At least getting him onto the city council had generated some income for the dojo.
Nabiki was smart enough to get that meager cash flow away from her father and use it to keep the family solvent. They certainly needed all the help they could get with the Saotomes around. Kuno frowned. He'd really stepped in it when that boy had showed up. He'd gotten so far into his "Akane-mania" role that he'd overreacted to her houseguest. Hearing that the moron was engaged to her, he'd blown up at that fact that anyone would force that onto his "little sister" . The young man could easily stretch their meager resources to the breaking point without even knowing it and could put the whole family out on the street with his thoughtlessness. Kuno calmed as he realized that he was ranting internally.
"Maybe I should take a break from the 'blue thunder' bit for a while. It's starting to bleed into reality." Kuno turned on the tap, letting a little more hot water fill the tub. "Saotome. What a mess. Lord, I'm glad that my father's insanity never went that far." Kuno shuddered "Turning into a girl with just a little touch of cold water. How horrible." Bit of a close call there. He had no idea who the other girl in the picture was when Nabiki had offered them, and the price! Still, he would have declared his love to a swamp monster if she'd been selling its picture to help fix the dojo again. He'd walked a tightrope for a few days as she fished around trying to discern his motives, until she was finally convinced that he would gladly obsess on them both. All the better that the second girl was actually a guy. The Kuno fortune was vast, and was quite likely to sway the weak-minded. With no danger of that happing, he could keep buying pictures for years.
He realized after the fact that a little more of the light had died in her eyes. Kuno cursed himself, not for the first time since he had started this act, and got out of the bathtub. Mentally preparing himself to go challenge the "foul sorcerer" for the "fair maiden" again, he found a clean pair of black hakama and another indigo gi. He only hoped that one day, Ranma and Akane would forgive him for the things he felt he must do.
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A/N: This is my first fanfiction that I ve gotten finished and put onto the web, so I hope I didn t scare y'all too much. I m not sure how to really explain it, I d been watching/reading too much Ranma (is there such a thing?) and it struck me, that there was no way Kuno could be as dense as he seemed. (I know he s fictional so it IS possible for him to be that dense) I started thinking about Nabiki s character. While, I ll admit that she seems to be willing to take anything that s not nailed down AND on fire (especially in fanfics, she seems more teasing in the anime), she doesn t seem to be the kind that responds well to charity.
Comments, Criticism, and Flames are welcome.