It would also net several additional not inconsequential benefits, such as getting Akane some decent training, giving her something real to be proud in to counteract her insecurities, and get the three of them used to obeying my decisions regarding the school.
But this would require an initial investment of time and effort I could ill afford to spend at the moment. It would wait until the Nabiki-Cologne feud had been resolved.
Meanwhile, the Tendos left to celebrate their emancipation from Happosai, and bemoan my manumission from them. Cologne's warnings were of sufficient magnitude to guarantee my immunity from direct attack from that quarter. With Nabiki somewhat reliant on me for negotiating a Dane geld from Cologne, and with her situation being so uncertain she couldn't afford more enemies, I could forget about the Tendos for now.
With one successful date having occurred, and another one planned for the near future, the Amazons were unlikely to cause trouble, even with Cologne's bruised pride.
With Happosai's disappearance and Mousse's absence, the only people left who regularly attacked me were Ryouga, the Kunos, and the school's faculty.
And as Happosai's heir, I could rename Pantyhose Taro; either whatever name he'd prefer or "Okama," his favorite insult he used on me. I hadn't decided which to do. I guess it depends on how he behaved when he returned.
But now it was time to face my unbeatable opponent. When we got home, momma wanted to discuss my dating plans. I opened by playing to my strengths, "I'm not dating any of my ex-fiancees until they admit I have the right to make my own decisions about who I can date, and ask me out, like Shampoo has!"
My mother dodged, and took advantage of my overextension to counter-attack. "That makes sense, but you pointed out that your relationship with Shampoo isn't progressing, and the other girls might not ever acquiesce. Besides, they might not be the girl for you. So what are your plans towards asking other girls out?"
Unable to dodge, I tried to block, taking the minimum amount of damage. "Well, I don't know any other girls."
Seeing me off balance, momma pressed her advantage. "I can understand that, but that wont change on its own. What will you do to change that?"
My defenses breached, I capitulated. "I have no idea."
"Well, so long as you think about it. If you still have no idea after you've thought it over, I'll offer you some suggestions. But I'm sure you'll find it more enjoyable and less embarrassing if you come up with a method on your own. Seeing as you and Kasumi are in somewhat the same position from opposite genders, perhaps you can offer suggestions to each other."
The message was clear to me. Fix this problem, or momma would help, which would be much more embarrassing than asking Kasumi. I'd be too embarrassed to discuss how to pick up girls with Kasumi, but if the alternative is momma, then I'm going to have to suffer the embarrassment if I can't do this on my own.
It would help if I had a better idea what I wanted in a girlfriend. Perhaps it was an overreaction to the arguments I've just recently had with the others, but I was thinking about either someone as smart as I without an interest in the martial arts, or someone who shared my interest in martial arts but lacked the intelligence to discover my secrets.
While I wouldn't mind if she were cute, I've had enough experience with gorgeous nudes coupled with violence to be somewhat jaded with physical beauty. The real problem is that I have no way to get to know girls naturally. What I really need is a high school gay, lesbian, and bi club. While I have no interest in men, it would be nice to find a kind girl that liked both my forms. And it would simplify things enormously if I could get to know girls in my female form without having to disguise my interest.
All this speculation was, of course, useless. Such groups didn't have official clubs in high school. Perhaps in college. I can just imagine the introduction. "Hello, I'm Ranma Saotome, and I'm a man trapped in a woman's body," at least for the next hour.
I don't know; according to Hiroshi and Daisuke, being a man in a woman's body is supposed to be quite pleasurable, but most of the enjoyment seems to hinge on the entering and leaving, preferably in rapid succession.
What I really need is a chance to get to know people without alot of preconceived notions and rumors about myself. Something Nabiki effectively scuttled on my first day at Furinkan.
I suppose I'll have to start spending time doing something social outside of school. I wonder if I can find some clubs unassociated with a school, and preferably in a nearby district.
But that would require I develop an interest in something else besides martial arts and the more esoteric realms of theoretical physics. Well, as long as the subject is neither abhorrent nor mind-numbingly boring, I can try and endeavor to generate an interest. I'll see if I can find any non-juku classes or crafts being taught in the vicinity. Perhaps I'll learn an instrument of music. I've never had the opportunity to learn to express myself through performing arts.
And if pressed, I can try one of the less masculine of the performing arts. My martial arts ought to translate well to learning to dance, and either modern or ballet should have a high female to male ratio. I wonder what Kuno would say if I clobbered him in the schoolyard while performing "Death of a Faun."
As well as the reformation of the Anything Goes School, the war between Cologne and Shampoo, and the search for a non-ex-fiancee to date, there was one other major problem. Either over my return to China or my knowledge of the esoteric; I would eventually come into conflict with Cologne. And depending on the level of relationship that I'd forge with Shampoo at that time, she might be for or against me.
For the moment, she would not likely try anything overt, as I had just revealed that she had massively underestimated me again, and had a hand in the death of Happosai. But with time, it would be inevitable that she would assume that I was incapable of directed violence on the level which had killed Happosai. She would mistake my self-imposed desire to avoid killing as an admission of inability.
If I couldn't find some method through less violent means to get her to acknowledge my right to direct my own life, then she will inevitably get bored of waiting, and try some new method to compel me to her wishes. And while there will inevitably be some methods of avoiding some of her traps, she would keep trying until she selects one where I'd have to capitulate or someone would have to die.
So it behooved me to find a method to deal with Cologne before it had reached that point. Unfortunately I had been trying for months to come up with such a plan, and have so far failed.
Hopefully something would come up before then which I could direct to achieve my objectives without death. Shampoo might accept my opinions of her grandmother, and with the pressure of Nabiki's campaign against Cologne, she might be forced to retreat. Or some other disaster might arise where I'd be forced to kill, will I nill I, and convince Cologne once and for all that I was too dangerous to bully. And maybe the horse would learn to sing; I can't use lethal force to solve the problems Nabiki and I have with Cologne, because there's a chance it can be resolved without death, even if I can not see how to achieve that yet.
Still, time will tell. In the mean time, I have to deal with a more difficult, more complicated, and thornier problem; dating.
.oO0Oo.
I would have posted this story a year ago, but I was stuck. How can Cologne and Nabiki's differences be resolved without all out war? They've reached a Detente; neither of them has to do anything. They could maintain the status quo as long as they wish, so the crisis has ended.
Likewise, while I had no intention of taking this story to the conclusion of Ranma's romantic life, this story has reached a new plateau. His fiancees have once again equal chances to win him; only the rules have changed. While Shampoo doesn't yet fully appreciate the new rules, she was the first to adapt. But that hardly means she would win; violence against whoever makes the next attempt to date Ranma could lose her most of the ground she had achieved.
The destruction of Happosai I considered inevitable, the revising of the school was unplanned; and again beyond the scope of the story.
Barring the lack of a definitive resolution of Cologne and Nabiki's differences, the story is finished. So I will end the story here.
If I come up with a believable way of handling Cologne and Nabiki I will write a sequel. If that happens, I will definitely go into Ranma and Kasumi's romantic entanglements (not with each other, Kasumi is the only girl with no further chance at Ranma for a husband). I will also definitely handle the revisions of the school, dealing with Akane and the Tendo Brothers.