Lunocracy Side Story 1

I decided that since Sakura Ranma's other fiancée was a character that I made up it would be prudent to include some background on her. Hence this short little back story.

Side Story 1: Would you like Tea with that?

It had been about a year since Ranma and Luna were brought together and everything was going fine. Well as long as Ranma didn't get Luna confused with another cat. Both Ranma and Luna were progressing in the art at a phenomenal pace and Genma was patting himself on the back for his good job in training the two of them. Of course he never put it together that a cat would not have the intelligence to master even one move let alone scores of kata from different schools. Nobody ever said that Genma Saotome was an intelligent man. Usually the words Genma and intelligent tried to stay as far away from each other as possible as decreed by the court settlement and restraining order.

Two weeks ago they had encountered a father and his daughter along the road selling okonomiyaki.

Ukyo had been manning the grill prepping a couple of meals for her and her father for practice when she looked up to see a young boy about her age. He was very dirty like he hadn't had a bath in quite some time. His gi was quite dirty as well and had some unidentifiable stains on it. He had a black scarf tied over his head in a classical thief motif. She averted her eyes and pretended to not have noticed him and went back to work. She was of course keeping him in her peripheral vision just in case he tried something.

Sure enough when he'd reached optimal striking distance he waited for her to have her back turned and then he pounced. Unknown to him she'd turned around to give him the opportunity. In midair his face met with high carbon steel in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics that left him embedded upside down in a tree trunk with one of the two okonomiyaki that she was making hanging from his mouth. She quickly looked at the grill and confirmed that both of her okonomiyaki were gone. In the bushes Luna said a silent prayer for her diversion while she finished off her food.

"All right you jackass you're going to pay for stealing my food!" Little Ukyo roared as she attempted to 'fix' the little problem that had popped up in her life.

Ranma of course swallowed the last bit of the okonomiyaki he was eating and then using the tree as a lever flipped over the strike. Ukyo was of course livid and started chasing the boy all over the place. Ranma not wanting to hurt his new friend just decided to dodge and put in a comment here and there about hitting the broad side of Bhudda. Luna of course saw all of this and decided to take the initiative.

Both Genma and Ukyo's father Kentaro were watching off to the side as Ranma without hitting his daughter once won the fight. Kentaro was quite impressed with the boy's agility and speed which seemed almost unnatural for some reason he couldn't put his finger on. Well that and he was now sitting on top of his daughter who didn't have the strength to push him off.

"I do admit your boy is quite impressive but..." He was interrupted by a huge sneeze coming from Ukyo.

"Hey what's wrong?" Ranma asked as he looked down at the person under him.

"Achoo!" "There's got to be a cat around here somewhere! I'm Achoo allergic to cats." Ukyo said as her eyes started watering.

"Cats!" Ranma screamed as he jumped up and started looking around for the evil little buggers.

"My daughter is severely allergic to cats. You don't have one with you do you?" Kentaro said in a serious voice while glaring at Genma.

"Well there might be this flea bag that the boys kinda taken to." Genma hedged as he tried to figure out another angle to get his hands on the okonomiyaki cart but more specifically the food inside.

Ukyo took a sniff of Ranma and then sneezed.

"It's you!" She said then backed off. "Keep away from me."

"But I'm not! You take that back!" Ranma said just before he took a step forward.

He was cut off by his father appearing.

"Come on boy we're going."

"What? Why?" Ranma asked looking confused.

"Just get your stuff we're leaving."

"But..." He said dejectedly as his tail wagged back and forth in a sad manner.

"No buts just get going." Genma said as he shoved his son forward in an effort to get him to move faster.

"All right I'm going. Jeeze." Ranma muttered as he trudged forward.

Genma was trudging along behind Ranma. He was dejected for a completely different reason than his son. It had been his plan to auction off his son again and ransack the yattai for the food. It would have been enough to feed himself for a few days at least. He would have just told the boy it was a gift from his new friend. It was too bad the girl was allergic to that stupid cat of his sons.

When they arrived back at their camp Ranma noticed that his pack looked quite a bit bigger than before and had extra bags hanging off it. He looked over at Luna who had her halo out and wings on her back. The halo had some tarnish on it and the wings said "Made in Outer Bolivia".

"Ok Luna what's up?" Ranma questioned.

"Nothing let's just go." She hissed back jumping on top of his head.

"But what's with...?" Ranma said indicating his now much heavier pack.

"Training, training. Let's go come on chop-chop." She urged nervously looking behind her.

"Well if it's training..." Ranma said as he took her off his head and put her back on the ground.

Soon they were off with Luna and Ranma struggling to keep up. Ranma had tied several of the bags to her yet the shear mass of whatever was in the bags was impeding them.

Back at the Kuonji's camp Kentaro was swearing up a storm at the theft of almost all of the ingredients in their yattai. The thief whoever they were was good enough to cover all their tracks as only his daughters and a small animal's tracks were visible in the soft earth around the yattai.

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A few weeks later (well a few weeks of Luna hoarding her presssioussss) they arrived at a tea house in Ise. It was a very old building that had been used as a tea house for over 300 years to serve tea and snacks to weary travelers. Unfortunately Genma Saotome was not the first rogue that had passed through its doors nor would he be the last. Unfortunately he would be the most devastating, well at least to the youngest girl at the tea shop.

"Yashaimasen!" Little Sakura called out before she got a look at the two newest customers.

The older of the two was a dirty old man with a handkerchief on his head and a bad air around him. Sakura started waving her fan at him to try and push the stench back at him. Her impression of the old man was that he was a worthless thing that they were going to have to show the power of the Kuranai tea house martial arts on when he failed to pay for whatever he was going to order. Her eyes then caught the young boy that was trailing behind the older man. Her eyes lit up with joy. He was beautiful. Sure he was just as grubby as his supposed father and he had the same kind of handkerchief on his head but he had an air around him that spoke of an everlasting love between the two of them. Well that and he had the most adorable little black cat perched on his head like a hat.

Ranma who'd been walking behind his old man and not really paying any attention to what was around him suddenly felt a chill go up his spine. He quickly looked around but all he could see was a little girl in a kimono. He shrugged and ignored the feeling. His stomach gave a little growl as it hadn't been fed in over a day and a half. From the top of his head Luna's stomach also growled. Hers of course had been well fed over the last couple of weeks from the spoils of the yattai. She had shared some of the loot with Ranma as he'd played an excellent decoy.

"We'd just like some tea and manju buns." Genma said gruffly.

"That'll be 800 yen." Sakura said as she held out her hand expecting payment up front.

"Here you can hold the cat as a down payment." Genma said as he plucked Luna off Ranma's head by the back of her neck and plopped her down on Sakura. He then shuffled over to one of the sitting areas and plopped down causing some of the road dust to billow up from him spreading his stench a few tables downwind.

"Kitty!" Sakura gushed as she forgot all about the smelly old man in favor of the cute cat now in her arms.

"Where!" Ranma shouted as he started whipping his head around every which way trying to find the evil Cthulu sithspawn.

"Right here," Sakura said as she held up Luna.

"Whew." Ranma said obviously relieved. "That's just Luna. I can't understand why everybody keeps calling her a cat, she's a miniature Schrödinger's whale." Ranma shook his head at the stupidity of the girl. After all it was so obvious.

"Well she's still cute," she said as she put Luna on her shoulder and went to get the tea and buns. She also decided to get something for the theoretical quantum physics being purring up a storm on her shoulder. She guessed that both multidimensional whales and cats would both like fish so she went and got some.

After dropping the food off for the fat man she went over and started petting her collateral. Luna let out a yelp. Yes there is a wrong way to pet a cat and then there was the way Sakura was petting. She was going the opposite direction of the fur and adding little twists here and there for variety. This was pulling up Luna's fur and she was getting more and more ready to let blood flow.

Ranma had been watching this and noticed Luna's subtle (fiery red aura) signs that she was not enjoying the little girl's attention. He got up, forfeiting his tea and food. Genma had been waiting for just this opportunity. He knew that his weak son would go and try to save his cat. Honestly it was a weakness that he'd hoped he could cure his son of, although the thing was useful as a training aid. He contemplated this next set of training exercises while eating his son's manju bun.

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The Saotome's and Luna stayed in Ise for 3 weeks. During which time Ranma had to work to buy back Luna a sum total of 13 times when Genma used her as a bargaining chip. Unknown to Ranma Genma also engaged her to Sakura for money as the dowry. It all ended one day when Ranma came back to their camp to find Luna admiring herself in an old mirror.

"Uhh Luna whatcha doing?" He asked.

"Being vain," she replied as she struck a pose that made her look exceptionally good.

"Not to ask really but where'd you get the mirror?"

"I found it in a box in some shack just over there somewhere." She waved her paw in the direction of the main temple.

"Right. Umm I'm just going to ignore this now." Ranma said as he lay down on his sleeping bag and tried to ignore the goddess that was glaring down at Luna.

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They left soon after that. Sakura found out she was engaged to Ranma only after she'd told her parents that they'd left. Her parents didn't hold her to account for their foolishness and as such she never had to pretend to be a boy until she found vengeance or married Ranma. She eventually tracked him down when he settled in Nerima and took up where they left off. Ranma of course didn't confuse her gender so he likes her more than Ukyo who he would have confused for a male friend. However whenever she touches him she just seems to rub him the wrong way.

Authors Notes:

This is just a bit of quick interlude. Nothing special. I just figured that before I introduced Sakura in the story I should do a bit of back story to show how he met her and the situation. Remember this story is (was) just something to help me get going on my other stories. Unfortunately it's become too popular for me to just blow off as a junk story. Expect the next chapter of this soon. (Really)

As usual send feedback to go to melt cheese for poutine.